It's not like the government takes all taxes and piles them up to have leverage. Pension system is built like shit, and its handled as it's own thing, just like any company would handle it's own investment money separately, it's invested just the same and will crash the same.

The only leverage a government has against crashing money value, is if they have their own currency and availability to print more to regulate.

Like I said, I live in Finland, which probably has one of the best social safety net systems built and I've been trying to tell you it doesn't work that way, it's built in a way that will crash just the same, wont sustain growing population and abuse. I worked in KELA for 2 years, which literally is short for national pension institute. (KansanEläkeLAitos)

I'm just guessing since you don't have this system you have no idea how it works and have imagined up a working better system, but it's not like that in reality.

Best of luck with your pension though I'm done talking about this.

You think the money the government took to do the same thing is somehow immune to that? It's value will crash just the same. A dollar is a dollar.

Why couldn't they?

What you're obviously not wanting to understand or take in to account is that you've PAID for the safety net yourself, it doesn't just exist for free. And the payments have gone with negative investment rate because the safety net is not built to account for population growth or abuse. Literally the same as investing with negative rate.

If you invest like a moron, you will lose your investment like a moron. If you invest stupid but enough to cover inflation, you're already better off than losing forcefully deducted negative capita. If you invest smart enough to gain profit on top of inflation, you're good enough to retire earlier than planned.

Yeah.. And even a normal savings account that hardly caters for inflation will be better than forced safety net that is negative and abused.

Damn thats awful. You should totally move to Finland, no one has ever died or worked here!

Or you can give it to your government for safekeeping, and receive 50% of what you've invested because most of it was used to pay other peoples pension and now the government cant afford yours.

Or just keep it at a normal bank account that caters inflation keeping your money somewhat 1:1.

Or invest and lose it all.

Or invest and ten-fold it all.

The difference is that in one of the countries the first choise is FORCED, and in one of the countries you can choose.

The joys of capitalism and freedom of choice.

Yeah I mean.. that's literally investing.. There aren't many things you can invest in that are guaranteed profit... its a risk you take when investing. You can also put that money in to your normal savings account which will maybe keep up with the inflation %.

Yeah.. I invest some money monthly as well to diversified funds, so I guess that could be comparable to 401k, but investment is.. voluntary investment... it's not forced tax deductible.

Pension as set up here would be if you paid x% more taxes in to a shared saving account run by government, with government stating when and how much you can have it, and paying off other peoples benefits as well from it..

Current age diversifying is punishing for younger people, as so many old people reclaim pension but younger peoples solvency is not high enough, which means the young folks will be working more and longer to be eligible for the same pension earlier generations had with less work.. so in that sense, personal investment based pension would at least be "fair to all", allthough leaving people who didn't invest hanging for dry..

Real estate is a bitch here atm for investing 😅

Well... Personally I'd make better saving and investing the deducted amount, but I do like the safety net as well in case something goes wrong.. It just allows a lot of unemployment and abuse, and is not sustainable with growing population. Which means I'm probably paying for pension that I'll never receive, whereas investing it, it would stay mine..

Thought it's easy to pick the easy and good things, there are a lot of things in the US that are better as well :-) Grass is greener where it's watered and taken care of.. good and bad things both ways.

Well.. I live in Finland, probably one of the most advanced countries in this regard looking at the support from our government.... But the money for any of those doesn't just appear, we pay for everything about it in taxes and other deductibles.

The pension system here is also incredibly badly built structure, which doesnt support rising population. I probably won't be receiving the pension I pay for, and also the age to be eligible for it has gone up in leaps. (My parents are eligible at 62-65, currently mine says I'll be eligible at 67-69, with the age going up every year, and being even higher for younger population)

Granted, none of our senior citizens, or most citizens in general are forced to work to make ends meet, but most people who have had full career in below-average salaries don't live comfortably either.