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Comment by pheug | Hacker News Reader

> 1. our retirement systems is based on a generational contract, not capital

You mean that people pop kids so that those kids would feel obliged to take care of them when they're old? Yeah, that's one legitimate retirement strategy. It's very popular in poor countries e.g. ex-USSR where I'm from.

Personally I'm more of a fan of US-style self-made retirement. It's easily possibly working in tech in the US, a 10 year career basically guarantees you financial independence here barring any major set back (like divorce). But not so in Germany and much of Europe.

> 2. home ownership is very low

Isn't that roughly same as saying people aren't wealthy enough to afford one? So if you "control" for this factor, you're just selecting the richer subset of people.

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> You mean that people pop kids so that those kids would feel obliged to take care of them when they're old?

It's not based on a generational contract within the same family (i.e. my kids pay my retirement) but society wide. Instead of saving up capital I pay the retirement benefits of the current generation and when I retire the then current workforce will pay mine. For the calculation of median wealth this shows up as a big fat 0 (no capital) but it gives me significant financial safety of having a set income from the age of 67 to the end of my life, no matter how old I get. Shit system if you die at 68 (or even earlier), amazing system if you live to be 95.

The existence of this system is largely based on WW2. There was no capital to pay for people at retirement age in the 50s so the current system was developed.

> It's easily possibly working in tech in the US, a 10 year career basically guarantees you financial independence here barring any major set back (like divorce).

The US has always been a very individualistic society and it' s probably the best country in the world to be rich in. For tech workers in FAANG it's a great place to be. If I look at the long tail of workers I shudder. The living condition of the working class is far, far worse than what I see in north/west Europe. Of course there's poverty here too but at a very different level. Personally, I'm happy to pay my taxes and social insurance obligations so I don't have drive past tent cities on my way to work.

> Isn't that roughly same as saying people aren't wealthy enough to afford one?

Well I'd control for it by excluding the value of your residency from the household wealth. Your original post was commenting on median wealth compared to other Western European countries. I'm merely pointing out that this is too simplistic a number to compare without context.

I ran the numbers and I don't think it's as amazing as you describe:

From what I could quickly find online (correct me if I'm wrong), the theoretical maximum pension you can get today is 3034 EUR/month, starting from the age of 67. With current life expectancy you're going to enjoy it for only about 15 years on average. To get it, you need to work for 45 years straight earning at least 82800 EUR each year and paying whopping 18.6% of that (incl. employer part) for the privilege to be part of this amazing system.

Let's look at net present value as of retirement age of both sides of the equation:

  for r in [1.07, 1.05, 1.012]:  # discount factor
    for y in [15, 30]:  # years to live
      print('%.3f %d %.0f %.0f' % (r, y, 
            sum(82800*0.186*r**i for i in range(45)),
            sum(3034*12/r**i for i in range(y))))

  #discount factor, years to live, NPV contributions, NPV payout
  1.070 15 4400768 354813
  1.070 30 4400768 483414
  1.050 15 2459510 396798
  1.050 30 2459510 587664
  1.012 15 911856 503038
  1.012 30 911856 923662

No matter how you slice it, the answer seems to be the same: you pay way more into the system than you get out of it. Only under rather unrealistic assumptions that you can't get more than ca. 1% investment return for 45 years(!) and you're going to live till almost your 100th birthday(!) do you approach a break-even point

I respect the effort you put in to really understand this system, most folks wouldn‘t do this based on our short conversation.

Unfortunately the system is rather convoluted and the math has more unknowns to it.

- the maximum salary on which you pay the retirement insistence is dynamic and rises every year - every year you earn “points” based on the relationship between the current average salary and your own salary. (The average is 1 point)

Now these two above can be ignored to get an estimate how the return compares to a capital based system. The following three can’t:

- the worth of a point changes, both while you’re working but also during your retirement. You’ll receive more money in year 14 of your retirement than in year 1. Today one point is worth 33,23€. 2010 it was just 24,13€. The value changes based on the average net salary of those who pay I to the system. - the insurance will pay out early if you become disabled and unable to work. I just looked up my numbers from last year and while I only earned retirement benefits of less than 300€ so far (based on the current point value) my disability benefits would be over 900€ - if I die my widow and/or unsafe children can get some money for a certain amount of time. E.g. children under 18 or under 25 while in college

I want to stress again that this system is far from perfect and smart folks will save up in a capital based system as well (and there are tax incentives for this, especially for low earners) but it does guarantee a good baseline retirement for folks who worked all their lives that can’t be lost. No divorce, personal bankruptcy or anything else will be able to touch this money.

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