Europeans won't really have their pensions too. The same is about broken American SS system. But it is just so much easier to notice problems somewhere else. At least Chinese werent promised any pension so they save. Do Americans think what will happen if their politicians break the promise? Or pay them wii heavly inflated dollars for their benefits? Have they saved? Oh, no they trust the Government. You see how Americans are stupid and Chinese wise? How can you not save trusting that the Government will pay you pension in an old society?
Pensions made sense in young societies. They are temperorily phenomenon. Have existed for 60 years. Like communism. Gone!
Social insurance in Germany has been around since the 1880s. Social Security has been around since 1935, or nearly 80 years.
Social insurance may change in the future, but so long as the elderly still have a vote, they will vote very heavily in favor of maintaining a social insurance program.
And if the elderly don't have a vote, the socioeconomic system will have changed so much that merely having "saved" won't fix anything. Likewise, if the dollar has experienced hyperinflation and benefits are worthless, any private savings will be as well.
Social insurance in Germany was Bismarck's invention. Everybody paid. One in ten lived long enough to collect any benefits. Now you will have 30% of the society to cover living cost of the other 70%. They can vote for financial pyramids in their beloved democracy as much as they want. Guess what, the ponzie schemes will still not work.
Unless you're going to send elderly people back to work, if 70% of the population is elderly then the other 30% is still going to have to work to support them--that or let them starve. It doesn't really matter how you do the accounting.
Yeah, I'd much rather have the 12.4% a year of salary that the US government takes from my paycheck (and from my employer on my behalf). We are already getting cheated on our returns, and the Social Security program is still going off the rails in the next decade. It is going to get much much worse.
The majority have no fucking idea how to invest their money for retirement, or not to take out 100k of student loans for some no-name private university. Credit card debt is $14.5k/head, student loans will be screwing gen x/y for many years to come. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Pensions made sense in young societies. They are temperorily phenomenon. Have existed for 60 years. Like communism. Gone!