A few weeks ago, we heard on the news that the Greeks were protesting in the streets about social security cuts. The Italians followed. Then, in the last few days, we have seen riots in the streets of Paris protesting the raising of the retirement age from age 60 to age 62. How wonderful to spend your day at the young age of 60, sipping a latte at your favourite sidewalk cafe, living off the government. No wonder there is a protest.
Today we hear of huge cuts to the civil service, and increasing the age of retirement, in Great Britain. Here in Canada, we have had options, and basically a disincentive to retire early. Those disincentives will become stronger in the next little while.
The cause for this, in every country, is the huge cost of funding these pensions. The 'boomers' are about to retire and the work force to fund the pension plans is diminishing. Add to this the huge deficits that every country is running and you have a great necessity to cut back. Too bad these various governments did not think of this before they spent massive amounts of money to stimulate their respective economies over the last three years. Of course, the solution back then was to let the economy correct itself, take the hard lumps, and we would almost be out of the woods by now.
The problems that arise from government stimulus are popping up like mushrooms.
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