By the numbers

[muppet]

From an article in this morning's Dominion....
The retirement tsunami

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/personal-finance/3953491/The-retirement-tsunami

BY THE NUMBERS
1. Deaths will outnumber births in a third of New Zealand regions by 2031.
2. Two-fifths, or 29, of New Zealand's 73 territorial authority areas will have fewer residents in 2031 than they do now.
3. Life expectancy is forecast to increase on average from 78 for men to 82.1 by 2031.
Women will also live longer, although the gap seems to be closing – their life expectancy rises from 82.2 to 85.2.
4. But even that may depend on where you live – expect to knock around five years off that if you live in Kawerau, while living in Queenstown-Lakes gives you an extra five years to squander the kids' inheritance.
5 Sixty per cent of our population growth between 2006 and 2031 will be in the Auckland region.
5. The North Island will grow faster than the South Island, although the Queenstown-Lakes district is expected to have the highest projected population growth between now and 2031.
6.Over-65s will account for more than a third of all residents in Waitaki, Hauraki, south Wairarapa, Horowhenua and Thames-Coromandel. But Wellington will stay young, with just 14 per cent of its population 65 and over.
7. The average kiwi household is expected to number 2.4 people by 2021 because of large rises in the number of "couple without children" families, one-person households and people living in group dwellings.
8. The median age of the labour force is projected to reach 42 by 2012, compared with 36 in 1991. This is because of the number of people aged 65 in the labour force trebling from an estimated 38,000 in 2001 to 118,000 in 2026.
9. By 2060, there will be four people aged 65 and over for every 10 New Zealanders of working age. That compares with two to 10 today.Sources: Statistics NZ and Treasury.
10. The number of 65s and over is projected to double between 2006 and 2031, with the fastest increase happening after next year.
11. About a quarter of the government's operating budget goes to over-65s. That is expected to rise to as much as 40 per cent by 2050.
12. Over-65s are expected to make up more than a quarter of our population from the late 2030s – compared with 12 per cent in 2005.
By the 2050s, 1.33 million of us are likely to be over 65.
13. Government spending on superannuation currently stands at about 4.4 per cent of the national income.
By 2050 that will have nearly doubled to 8 per cent.

[eri]

"11. About a quarter of the government's operating budget goes to over-65s. That is expected to rise to as much as 40 per cent by 2050"

that needs to be capped somehow

old needs to give way to new

[flyernzl]

The majority of New Zealanders, when they retire, are largely dependent on the Government pension for their income. They may have a few thousand dollars invested, but the income from this is not sufficient for them to live on. (To derive a $15,000 income from a bank deposit returning 5% you would need $300,000 in the bank. How many wage earners can pay off their house, bring up their kids and have that much saved in the bank by the time they retire?)

Realistically, in New Zealand, it is not politically possible to have Grandma starving homeless in the gutter. John Campbell and the TV cameras would be there like a shot.

Therefore any NZ Government, regardless of political hue, has no choice but to maintain the old age pension at least at subsistence level. They can huff and puff as much smoke and sparks as they like but that is the reality of the situation.

[watchful]

The majority of New Zealanders, when they retire, are largely dependent on the Government pension for their income.

Fair enough too. Up until the point where recent governments encouraged themselves to gourge on debt, it was the old that paid for the new. A life of blood, sweat and taxes.

A couple of years ago (before our son was born), my wife and I paid close to $100,000 in personal tax. Worked hard for it and contributed as I believe good citizens should. But to suggest that the deal ends when retirement age comes around is pretty damn rough.

[eri]

We have to fix our pension problems before debt overwhelms us

Solutions include a later age to start receiving NZ Superannuation, a lower pension payout, means testing or a surcharge for high earning pensioners.

Strengthening economic growth now is also crucial. Most are long term solutions for a long term problem. We should be debating them now.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10660964

[Jalice888]

"11. About a quarter of the government's operating budget goes to over-65s. That is expected to rise to as much as 40 per cent by 2050"

that needs to be capped somehow

old needs to give way to new

OMG, that is so eri. Only a young fool would say lets cap the old that payed most of the taxes and then had some young mongrel scam them out of their lifes savings!

1, At some stage deaths will catch up and people will die younger on avaerage and not that far away
2, Yes, with kids born in the last 5 years dieing before their parents in real terms there's going to be less people alive in the median age ranges too. Where 15 years ago I knew of a lot dieing in their 50's, now they are dieing in their 40's the same way!
3, The older people lived when natural food was natural food but all you young fools don't even know what that tastes like so what age will you die at? It won't be as high!
4, LOL, Kawerau people will outlive Queenstown fools easily. Who's going out for tea swallowing all that flash toxic supplemented food? Did you hear about the lady in America living to 130, all by avoiding eating out and growing her own garden vegetables? Oh the naievity of the young and ignorant!
5, This growth pattern has happened in the Tauranga area for ages already. Shallow people with too much money go where they think the flashest place to live is and now it's becoming Queenstown. I like that as they are further out of most peoples way then.
6, No surprise, as I said built up areas like Wellington living the high life will die younger just as they do in Malaysia. My partners sister died at 46 there due to travelling all the time for Chinese Performances as a actor/dancer. On the road they were always eating out and this is the general habit of the Chinese people there, Malay & Indian people prefer to eat at home. So here you can understand why 10 times as many Chinese die of cancer compared to Malay & Indian people in the hospitals there.
7, Look at the statistics on fertility, along with the fast lowering immunity fertility has been dropping for ages. In America there are 5 states connected to the 1 large lake for all their water but this lake has no male fish. With the high levels of Estrogen around, this has caused all male fish to vanish and this will eventually happen to humans aswell!
8, Whats the opposite of LMAO, seriously the young working generation are so useless and lazy it's already hard to find the better workers amongst them. Whats that going to be like in 20 years time when so many older workers retire and no new workers bother to do anything?
9, As above, people mid age will die younger
10, Yes mid-age people die earlier
11, The government doesn't have to worry about those dieing before retirement though
12, This problem will accelerate until people wake up when the age average starts to decline and rapidly too. Look at how much natural produce was available 20 years ago for 2/3rds the population and now we only add toxins to a little more for a 50% increase in people, follow that pattern another 20 years and what do you have?
13, So spend 8% of the older peoples tax money on them. That still leaves 92% being spent on the other 75% of all people most of whom avoided paying taxes. Until retired people get 25% of the tax money, being 25% of the population is extremely unfair, actually dam eri !

Take a look for some help here; http://articles.mercola.com/sites/di...g/default.aspx

[flyernzl]

I agree that something 'needs to be done' but given the Kiwi propensity for argument and procrastination I fear that it will be too little to late.

Some of the proposed changes will not actually save the Government money overall.

Raising the age of pension entitlement will be OK for office workers and sedentry employees, but in many manual occupations this will simply mean that they 'retire' on to some other benefit. Builders, for instance, usually have worn out knees and bad backs by the time they get to their sixties. If they are unable to qualify for National Superannuation, they they could well qualify for a sickness or invalids benefit which does not actually save the State any money, just shifts it from one pocket to another.

Similarly, studies have shown that bringing in a means test for National Superannuation does have a (very large and ongoing) cost. To administer the means test you need clerks and forms, offices and vehicles, stamps and telephones. None of that is free, and it is much more cost effective to pay the super to anyone over the qualifying age, make it taxable, and then get a large chunk of it back through the existing income tax system from those who are also high earners. Again, pension payouts go down but the public service payroll goes up.
You may not want to pay the Government super to people who have sizeable other incomes, but that is a political viewpoint unrelated to any cost savings involved.

As a nation we are right now arguing over economic growth. We have Dairy and we have Tourism. What else do we have?
The mining option is a possibility. I have no strong opinion on mining/no mining, but I say to those who vehemently oppose any mining anywhere "OK if we don't do mining, exactly what are we going to do?"
To me it is like someone in a low paying job who needs to increase their income saying "Well I need to earn more, but I refuse to start work before 10am and I must finish before 4pm and I won't work Tuesdays" That's all very well, but precisely what are you going to do that fits those criteria?

[eri]

if the average age for death does start dropping as you say jalice it may "save" the system

however there doesn't seem to be much statistical evidence to support that view

in fact it seems to be supporting the idea that people are living longer due to better medical care and drugs (ie more expensive medical care and drugs)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=atqR1kRGuhyU

the problem is that if a gerontocracy, (democracy run by old people), demands a continually increasing share of gov. spending then it will have to come from somewhere as productivity stubbornly remains low

if we want to stop angry young people from being everyone's enemy we need to keep looking for ways to educate them out of the trap they feel they are in

cutting the budgets for that will poison our future

i'd hate to be in gov. making those decisions

the sooner we start talking about them though the sooner we can hope for consensus on how to tackle the problem

[watchful]

As a nation we are right now arguing over economic growth. We have Dairy and we have Tourism. What else do we have?
The mining option is a possibility. I have no strong opinion on mining/no mining, but I say to those who vehemently oppose any mining anywhere "OK if we don't do mining, exactly what are we going to do?"
To me it is like someone in a low paying job who needs to increase their income saying "Well I need to earn more, but I refuse to start work before 10am and I must finish before 4pm and I won't work Tuesdays" That's all very well, but precisely what are you going to do that fits those criteria?

I fully agree with your logic at the end of this flyernzl, however, I cannot see how we can sit on the fence, wallowing in debt when a part of the solution surely lies in tapping into our mineral resources. I shake my head at the crowd of 15,000 or so hairy legged, armpit smelling louts who left their Labour party Glee conference or Green Party Ouija board hoolah to vote with their feet. Get a life or (at the least) a job.

On one hand they complain about the injustices of the social welfare system and the level of teacher and nursing care pay, yet are happy to skip a day's work to march against a few holes in the ground??..?

[eri]

feeling is easy

thinking is difficult

the rotti that ripped the lip off the pet shop assistant

felt it's territory had been infringed upon

the single ability we have over animals

is the ability to counter our feelings with thought

think people

think!

[watchful]

feeling is easy

thinking is difficult

the rotti that ripped the lip off the pet shop assistant

felt it's territory had been infringed upon

the single ability we have over animals

is the ability to counter our feelings with thought

think people

think!

Thoughts at the expense of feelings? The problem is most cannot see beyond those thoughts and feel the consequences. Sometimes feelings can be disruptive, sometimes they can be our saving.

[McDuck]

feeling is easy

thinking is difficult

the rotti that ripped the lip off the pet shop assistant

felt it's territory had been infringed upon

the single ability we have over animals

is the ability to counter our feelings with thought

think people

think!

I think all of those dogs need to be fixed. and no more allowed to be owned.
More trouble than they are worth.
Get a sheep dog.