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Comment by foxyv | Hacker News Reader

This isn't something the government gives you. It is something they have confiscated and held on to.

> Your duty as a citizen is to work and build your nation

What about the duty of the trust fund babies and idle wealthy? What about the duty of the capital owners? Why is the retirement age going up instead of down as productivity increases?

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Not for the majority of retirement savings in the US, where Social Security makes up only about 25%.

In the case of 401(k)s/DC plans and private pensions/DB plans, the government allowed savings without "confiscation," i.e. immediate taxation. They gave us the benefit of deferred taxation if you wait until retirement age.

What about the people who do not make enough to save and all their money goes to inflated living expenses? When do they get to retire?

They get Social Security and Medicare, which while insufficient for many these days is a lot more than they would have gotten 100 years ago.

No one is going to argue that the system is perfect or can't be improved. Good people get screwed over all the time and always will, the most we can try to do is minimize that population.

We could socialize the necessities of survival like all the other civilized countries in the world.

Easy. We don't. Work until we die.

because lifespans are increasing much more, people are outliving what they used to and are using a lot more money in retirement than they used to. Old people used to sit in houses and watch grandkids, now they're flying to foreign countries for fun.

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