Retire Later

Unions teach their supporters that they must never retreat. Yell, shout, threaten, roll on the floor in simulated agony, denounce and declaim -- but never give back any concession you have previously won. The hall mark of such positions about givebacks, is they are non-negotiable.

Raising average retirement ages to 75 would quickly cure the financial problem.

By having some personal contact with union officials, who are generally decent enough fellows when they are not in negotiating stance, I have learned that retirement age is absolutely not negotiable, unless someone wants to negotiate an earlier age of retirement. Some of this intransigence is fake, having to do with traditional negotiating techniques, and some of it has to do with the pretense that work is a dreadful thing which has been inflicted on the working man by unfeeling employers, or management, or the rich aristocracy or somebody. Reflex belligerence is triggered immediately by suggesting that people are going to have to retire later in life than they expected to. Much as I hate to offend people in their deeply held religious beliefs, I bring the news that retiring later would solve the problem of affording to retire, and that no other proposal under the sun has the slightest chance of solving the problem. When you are dealing with demographics, to declare that something is off the table, or unacceptable, or a giveback -- is just bombast. With present data, we are going to have to set the retirement age to 70. If medical and demographic trends are unexpectedly extreme, we may have to go to 75. If you think someone has promised you can retire at 55, you had better be in an iron lung, drinking your meals through a straw.

It's easy to see that later retirement cuts lifetime costs in two ways: it increases the duration of earning and saving. And it shortens the years of retirement payout. The later you retire, the better it is. So the less you save, and the more lavish your lifestyle, the older you will be when you can afford to retire.

A lot of things can be debated, and a lot of clever ideas can be worked with. But it is going to take an atomic attack or something similar to alter this particular prediction about the future. And even doomsday predictions just make the future look worse, not better.

(1676)