Watch out! What seems to be an entirely reasonable proposition will likely be just one more step towards cheating you out of your retirement income. In a variety of ways. There's always more than meets the eye in any of these kind of proposals.

To give you but one example. When it comes to discrimination on the basis of age, if anyone was mean enough to complain that a Seniors Discount was 'age discrimination', which it clearly is, which of the following would be the more likely?

Would all the agencies that offer that benefit stop discriminating and extend their Seniors Discounts to everyone? Or would they just eliminate their Seniors Discount completely?

Where's the incentive to keep a Seniors Discount when the senior is still working at full pay til he drops?

Shouldn't we be looking, not at how many seniors WANT to work past 65, but instead, how many seniors HAVE to work beyond 65? And ask "Why?"

Now are most of those choosing to remain in the workforce past 65 staying because they love to work? Because they'd go nuts from boredom if they retired? Or are their financial circumstances such that even after a lifetime of labour they just can't see how they'd be able to live on their savings, if any, and pension income with the continual ongoing rise in their costs of living?

They want to stay on because our pension plans are so pathetic obviously. And now all the union contracts are going to have to be re-negotiated to maintain benefit levels for life insurance, weekly indemnity and a whole host of other things.

Less stress on the CPP

Why lump everyone together. There are so many situations out there that one cannot deal with them realistically in an aggregated fashion.

There are several types of careers in which one can retire after 20 years, 25 years, 30 years of service. Typically those careers do not require a vast amount of education. So, entered into at age 20, "retirement" comes at 40, 45, 50. Those people then typically enter some other form of career.

My best friend from my high school years became a teacher. After 30 years he retired in his early 50's. He is a ski bum and likely will spend 20+ years of his life in that life style, living off his pension, coming west in the winter and settling himself into one of the southern interior communities, skiing every day. Actually, he is following in his father's footsteps who retired before he was 60.

Before he retired he was caught in the "too many teachers in the system" period in Ontario. People in his age group were given the option of working 2 years and taking a year off and getting 2/3rds pay each year. He did that for two 3 year periods to get ready to retire.

Then there are medical doctors who begin their practice when they are in their late 20’ and even early 30’s. Often they work till they are 65, 70, 75. In fact, that is not uncommon for professionals who have their own business.

Seniors’ discounts are given voluntarily, they are not legislated. Neither are student discounts. They are given at age 55+, 60+, 65+, depending on the location and service. Not everyone gives them.

There are also discounts in some establishments for RCMP. One place in town provides a 25% RCMP discount. We all know the RCMP are underpaid.

;-)

BTW, my father retired at 65 but, even though he had plenty of money, he kept on working under a special contract with the company he worked for spending some 3 to 4 years continuing to work. It had absolutely nothing to do with $. It had to do with his job and the office environment being an integral part of his lifestyle.

For some, the switch does not suddenly go off at 60, 65, 70. It gets put on a dimmer switch with a slow transition. For others, they can hardly wait till they can throw the switch and walk out.

Often, not always, they are the ones who did not enjoy their work.

The danger for most workers, even in a union environment, is the employers are pulling the benefits or reducing them for the people staying around past 65. They are saying that the benefit companies don't provide them so therefore they are not going to honor the union agreements. So watch out for that if you are in the 65 year age group and want to stay around with your company. Will you actually have benefits.

How will this affect those on workers comp. As it is now for those who have been injured {since about 2004} get cut off their monthly pension/wage loss at age 65. Will this not be against human rights now? Since my hubby is one of these people I wonder who to ask this question too.

It's about time the government responded to the needs of it's citizens. Many people want to work or have to work past 65. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Freedom 55? Ya right! Let's face it, you work for only 30 0r 35 years and expect to maintain your lifestyle for another 30 based on what? Your savings? Your pension? CPP? OAS? Add them up and see how much you will be living on.

The reason some pensions are so pathetic is because the employee didn't contribute much to them. Ask all of those folks at the pulp mill how much and when they started contributing into their company pensions? No wonder it's pathetic. Who's fault is that? The discussion came up often enough at the bargaining table over the years. Each time, the younger employees were more concerned about more money, forget about the pension. So, now they are living with the consequences of those decisions. Nobody to blame but themselves. Chester

The idea behind a pension plan is that the contributions from the employee and the employer will be invested, and the earnings will compound by being left in the Plan and re-invested.

It's a wonderful idea, except for one sad little fact. In the overall economy, as technology advances and automation continually displaces labour and labour incomes, total consumer incomes are continually falling in ratio to the total costs of production being impressed into Prices at the point of final retail.

When this occurs, consumer incomes are less and less able to liquidate fully the costs of production at Prices necessary to enable them to do so and still maintain overall business profitability. When the rate of profit falls, how does what's been invested by your Pension Plan ever pay off?
It can't, it's a mathematical impossibility.

Instead of a pension plan, employers could offer a "Get embalmed at work" plan, whereby the cost of disposing of your body after you die at work, is covered.

"The reason some pensions are so pathetic is because the employee didn't contribute much to them. Ask all of those folks at the pulp mill how much and when they started contributing into their company pensions? No wonder it's pathetic. Who's fault is that? The discussion came up often enough at the bargaining table over the years. Each time, the younger employees were more concerned about more money, forget about the pension. So, now they are living with the consequences of those decisions. Nobody to blame but themselves"

Really good point Chester. Sadly, most young folks would rather "invest" $1,000 plus per month into a truck payment (plus insurance and gas) for the rest of their life, instead of splitting that amount between a more reasonable car payment and stocks, bonds, mutual funds, paying off the mortgage early, etc. I guess being cool is more important than being broke and having to work until you are 70 :)

"How will this affect those on workers comp. As it is now for those who have been injured {since about 2004} get cut off their monthly pension/wage loss at age 65."

http://www.worksafebc.com/regulation_and_policy/legislation_and_regulation/new_legislation/bill_49/default.asp

According to the WSBC website the individual receives a lump sum retirement benefit at age 65. Those who are 100% functionally disabled will have their cases reviewed to provide necessary support services for life.

Funny how this comes about at a time when there's a labour shortage and industry needs workers. Government and industry knew of this worker shortage for years ( I remember learning about it 25 yrs ago in school). So, instead of training skilled workers, lets just work them to the grave.

That's the general idea, pulpworker. Beats facing up to the fact that the pension contributions aren't able to generate sufficient returns on investment to keep all us old duffers.

And when they take more in contributions, as they've been doing by raising the CPP take off your paycheque, every dollar taken reduces the rate of profit in all the industries, overall, they've invested those contributions in. By an equivalent amount.

Those industries and the money invested in them can only pay if someone HAS the money to buy their product at a price above what it costs to make it.

If every dollar removed from you and your employer in CPP contributions is invested, that's a dollar less you have to spend.

And a dollar less that can go towards liquidating those costs through buying the product of those investments and producing the profit level necessary for those investments to pay off.

"So, instead of training skilled workers, lets just work them to the grave."

Any kind of worker is required .... just look at all the retailers and restaurants with their huge "hiring" signs. There is a total shortage of workers. We need more babies and/or more immigrants/guest workers and/or people not retiring as early and/or more spouses working and/or more child labour.

"Working to the grave" is an interesting notion. Remember, we are living longer on the average than we did 50 years ago, and the more senior years of our lives are also more fit years of our lives than they were. So, the span between 65 and grave has actually increased a significant amount which is also putting more pressure on pension funds. So, look for those becoming more expensive to buy.

It seems quite reasonable to work longer than 65 for some, not for others. Remember, it is optional at waht time you retire. Some do at 35 .. others at 75, inspite of what legislation may have said about that magic 65 .....

http://longevity.stanford.edu/doc/GlobalAgingTheNewNewThing.pdf

We are starting to catch up to what much of Western Europe has been experiencing for some time. Demographic realities are difficult to overcome with old hat thinking.

Owl is correct. It's not that we aren't training workers, it's that we physically don't have enough people to work. You want to talk about underfunded pension plans, just wait another 10-20 years and see what it's like then. It is going to be an environment where you simply have to look after yourself. We're already in that transition period, as evidenced by many of the comments above.

You're missing the point, NMG, as is Owl. The pension plans are NOT underfunded. And taking MORE off us to put into them, or dragging half the world in here to fill every low wage job, or live under some sub-standard living conditions like many are doing in the 'oilpatch', so you can put more funding into them simply won't solve the problem. It will defer it, at best, but it won't solve it.

In any pension fund, you don't live off its 'capital', what's put into the plan, you live off its 'income'. What the investment of that 'capital' is earning, or is supposed to be earning.

You can't generate an adequate return on investment unless there is sufficient 'effective demand' (desire to buy the product produced backed by the financial ability to pay the price required) present in the economy. And there isn't.

And every time you remove a dollar that would be spent on consumer goods and invest it in a Pensison Plan or anything else, there's one dollar less that's been costed into some existing product and appears in its Price that's no longer available as a dollar in 'money' to consumers (all of us, we are all consumers), to liquidate that cost and provide a return on investment.

If the return on the capital is less than what is required to meet the income needs of the pension fund, then there are really only two options:

1) acquire a higher rate of return for existing capital
2) increase the amount of capital in the fund so that the needs can be met with the lower rate of return

To be honest, I don't see CPP being available to most younger folks by the time they retire anyway. Even if it were, it wouldn't be enough to live on. You can do the math however you like, but there is simply no way imaginable that a contribution of roughly $2,000 per year (over your working life) would earn a high enough return to completely fund a retirement for a person in this day and age. At best, CPP will be an income supplement program for anyone that is still active in the workforce. You'll need some other source whether it's a privately funded pension plan, investments, part-time job, etc.

"The reason some pensions are so pathetic is because the employee didn't contribute much to them. Ask all of those folks at the pulp mill how much and when they started contributing into their company pensions? No wonder it's pathetic. Who's fault is that? The discussion came up often enough at the bargaining table over the years. Each time, the younger employees were more concerned about more money, forget about the pension. So, now they are living with the consequences of those decisions. Nobody to blame but themselves"

Here is your answer...for the first twenty years the company contributed approximately $5000.00 per year into the pulp and paper industry pension plan on my behalf. In the last nine years it has slowly gone up, because we have joint contributions now, to where the total contribution to my pension plan was almost $12,000 this year alone. If I was turning 65...I would be getting a little under $1800 per month pension.

The reason the pension is pathetic isn't because our contributions haven't been high enough but because of this truth:

""In any pension fund, you don't live off its 'capital', what's put into the plan, you live off its 'income'. What the investment of that 'capital' is earning, or is supposed to be earning.""

That's the point that's being missed, Jim13135. Only what most people can't see is that 'capital' CAN'T be earning when you're building it up from the SAME dollar whose spending is necessary for it to earn.

This is an extremely difficult concept to put across to people, because they naturally assume what takes place in the economy at the level they can observe, in the 'micro-economy, in other words, is exactly the same when it's extrapolated into the entire, or 'macro-economy'. It isn't. The accounting is currently done differently.

It's only by looking at the whole 'flow' of funds, in the entire economy, that we'll ever be able to see why pension plans that we contribute to , or our employers contribute to, too, will increasingly be less than adequate to keep us in our golden years.

No matter how much more we put into them, or how many new workers we invite in here to contribute to them. All we can do with either policy is delay the problem, but delaying it makes it grow ever larger.

For Pensions to ever be able to do what they alledged they could do we would have to have an extraneous source of new credit constantly entering the entire economy in such a way that all the things we continually need to buy to live, 'consumer goods', ARE NOT CONSTANTLY RISING IN PRICE.
Those last six words are the key. For inflation is the curse of the pensioner, and really, us all.


We do have, at present, extraneous sources of new credit, when we run a favourable trade balance with other countries. And when we have a continual growth in overall debt to 'grow' our economy. Neither of these sources are either adequate, or sustainable. We cannot always run a favourable trade balance, since every other industrialised country is trying to do exactly the same thing. That's the race to the bottom.

Nor can we continue to add to overall debt, since there really is no way at present all this debt can ever be repaid. And even placing more of it, to give the illusion that everything's fine, and allow what's already been placed to continue to be serviced, is what's precipitated the current 'sub-prime' mortgage, and ABCP meltdown concerns.

The only way we could really 'solve' the problem is to have a proper set of National accounts, set up just the way every business has its accounts, in order that we can properly record the increase in overall wealth in the country as a whole over any decrease in that wealth in any same given time period.

Normally, if we're not under attack and being bombed out of existence, or having to endure one natural disaster after another, there is an ongoing increase in overall wealth far greater than there is a decrease in it.

We are presently charged, in prices of everything we buy, with the decrease. It's called 'capital depreciation', and its allocated into the cost, and price, of all consumables. This is entirely right and proper from an accountancy standpoint.

But what doesn't happen, because we currently lack the National accounting mechanism to make it happen, is that we are NOT CREDITED IN PRICES with the overall INCREASE in our Nation's wealth, the 'capital APPRECIATION', which has taken place over the same time period.

And this capital appreciation is normally much greater in total than capital depreciation in total, or progress of any kind would be impossible.

Prices, of just about everything we buy, should be falling, not rising. This would be a proper financial reflection of the increases that have taken place in manufacturing efficiency as automation displaces labour incomes more and more, and productivity rises.

At present we are not allowed to fully draw on these very real benefits, and the rise in efficiency has only meant we have to do MORE work, instead of less, to try to pay for something that, in total, can NEVER be paid for.

New voicemail message heard at an office:

"Hi, I'm sorry I missed your call. I'm either on the phone, away from my desk, or on a respirator."