There’s been little protest about lifting Australians’ retirement age. But it hits some harder more others: Indigenous men and women, and the growing number of older people pushed onto JobSeeker.
The world population has also exploded over the last 50 years, which is something nobody takes into account.
1973 - 3.92 billion people
2023 - 8 billion people
For 1968, so 65 years ago, when people at retirement age today were born, the population was 2.9 billion people. So from birth to retirement, a freshly retired person today has seen 5 billion more people get added to the world.
With increasing population you need more resources to fund social platforms. We have been producing more and more but we have also consumed more and more. Not just food, but planned obsolesence for things like phones and washing machines and whatever else has guaranteed that there will always be a need to consume, therefore a need to produce - hence the working hours staying the same while productivity increases.
But, with increased production and consumption you stimulate the economy, so you get growth. In theory. The fact that that growth gets hoarded by the dragons you also mentioned is an unfortunate phenomenon.
But I digress. My point was that increased productivity is not the only variable at play here.
I still don’t agree with the increased pension age, though.
The world population has also exploded over the last 50 years, which is something nobody takes into account.
1973 - 3.92 billion people 2023 - 8 billion people
For 1968, so 65 years ago, when people at retirement age today were born, the population was 2.9 billion people. So from birth to retirement, a freshly retired person today has seen 5 billion more people get added to the world.
With increasing population you need more resources to fund social platforms. We have been producing more and more but we have also consumed more and more. Not just food, but planned obsolesence for things like phones and washing machines and whatever else has guaranteed that there will always be a need to consume, therefore a need to produce - hence the working hours staying the same while productivity increases.
But, with increased production and consumption you stimulate the economy, so you get growth. In theory. The fact that that growth gets hoarded by the dragons you also mentioned is an unfortunate phenomenon.
But I digress. My point was that increased productivity is not the only variable at play here.
I still don’t agree with the increased pension age, though.