Cameron, Your paper at the RB of Australia archive on the subject is one of my favourite links to forward when I want to slam Kiwisaver as a gov't endorsed savings scheme.
I get NZ age-pension in exactly a week, and will be better-off growing my vege garden, fishing and cooking for my friends and family instead of working for wages, than at any time in the last 20 years.
You have to consider that most of 'your' net wages is actually spent maintaining your 'meat-machine' and 'brain-computer' on behalf of your employer, and breeding replacement 'machines and computers' for when your own is too broken for their purpose. Even recreation is barely disguised downtime to 're-create' the capacity for further work-extraction. IMO rising retirement ages has nothing to do with 'affordability' to the state, but rather that people stay fitter and thus still exploitable 'til older.
'Super' is wasted on the very old- who simply squander it on cruises and holidays, or give it to 'retirement village' facilities who provide terrible value and ensure that there's no capital left in the family to pass down to the young- thus ensuring the never-ending cycle of wage-slavery.
The economic paradigm behind Aus-Super, Kiwisaver etc. is endless economic growth through credit expansion- a paradigm that's been obvious 'walking dead' since 2008 (though clearly doomed since its inception) because of the impossibility of servicing high levels of private debt. All-hail to the dozen economists (Keen, Pettifor etc) that pointed this out prior to the crash. Carrying on along this path post-crash was endorsing a Ponzi, and like all Ponzis this must end in default. There will be huge pressure for governments who mandated these schemes to make good the default to the savers. Jail-time and public disapprobation should be the doom of the politicians who mandated and encouraged these schemes rather than enhancing 'current account' age-pension.
Cameron, Your paper at the RB of Australia archive on the subject is one of my favourite links to forward when I want to slam Kiwisaver as a gov't endorsed savings scheme.
I get NZ age-pension in exactly a week, and will be better-off growing my vege garden, fishing and cooking for my friends and family instead of working for wages, than at any time in the last 20 years.
You have to consider that most of 'your' net wages is actually spent maintaining your 'meat-machine' and 'brain-computer' on behalf of your employer, and breeding replacement 'machines and computers' for when your own is too broken for their purpose. Even recreation is barely disguised downtime to 're-create' the capacity for further work-extraction. IMO rising retirement ages has nothing to do with 'affordability' to the state, but rather that people stay fitter and thus still exploitable 'til older.
'Super' is wasted on the very old- who simply squander it on cruises and holidays, or give it to 'retirement village' facilities who provide terrible value and ensure that there's no capital left in the family to pass down to the young- thus ensuring the never-ending cycle of wage-slavery.
The economic paradigm behind Aus-Super, Kiwisaver etc. is endless economic growth through credit expansion- a paradigm that's been obvious 'walking dead' since 2008 (though clearly doomed since its inception) because of the impossibility of servicing high levels of private debt. All-hail to the dozen economists (Keen, Pettifor etc) that pointed this out prior to the crash. Carrying on along this path post-crash was endorsing a Ponzi, and like all Ponzis this must end in default. There will be huge pressure for governments who mandated these schemes to make good the default to the savers. Jail-time and public disapprobation should be the doom of the politicians who mandated and encouraged these schemes rather than enhancing 'current account' age-pension.