[Info-vax] HP stopping VMS paper documentation ?

[Kenneth Fairfield]

On Friday, December 16, 2011 8:01:17 PM UTC-8, AEF wrote:
> On Dec 16, 11:40 am, Kenneth Fairfield <ken.fa... at gmail.com>
> wrote:

[big trim]

> > I think we are quite in agreement.  The only reason I started to follow-up is because of the suggestions (in the media, and reflected in your post) that either raising the retirement age or doing means testing are reasonable policy solutions to the non-problem of SSI solvency.
> 
> So you're saying the retirement age is just perfect as it is? I'm just
> asking for clarity.

Not at all.  I'm saying *raising* the retirement age would be a huge mistake.  

If you look at the current state of unemployment, you could make a rational argument for *lowering* the retirement age, thus opening positions for the younger demographic, particularly those just graduating from college that currently have a very high unemployment rate (plus the burden of huge student loans...which are not dismissible in bankruptcy).

By the same logic, you can see that raising the retirement age forces the older demographic to (attempt to) stay employed longer, blocking slots that would otherwise open for the younger people.

It's all complicated, economically, because were you to lower the retirement age now, you would need to somehow pay for those additional retirees.  I'm not advocating that (I'm not an economist!).  And raising the age means older folks who lose their jobs (really, due to no fault of their own, but rather due to the larger economy being in a depression)
and are unable to find other work (just try finding a new job when you're in your fifties, let alone sixties!), are at very real risk of being forced into poverty (the main reason SSI was invented in the first place).

Let me just add here that the ability of (US) companies to wipe away their pension liabilities through bankruptcy is outrageous: the pensions were supposed to have been funded all along; that they weren't is robbery, plain and simple!

   Regards, Ken