Australia's Labor Government blames the country's economic woes on the elderly, namely, those who will soon be retiring. It is not their fault that Paul Keating, an earlier Labor government leader, brought in compulsory superannuation far too late for them. Baby boomers have paid hardly any money into retirement funds because the funds have not been common practice for long enough. It is debatable that Australia can continue with a compulsory system when developing countries do not have or intend to have a retirement cost factored into wages.
In the UK wage earners have paid a "stamp" into general revenue for the sole purpose of paying them a retirement income. Retired Australian workers are paid state pensions out of general revenue. It seems that worker for General Motors, for example, in the US have lost their superannuation with the company clean out that has just occurred. These people are expecting the state to support them in their old age now. In "normal" times it is doubtful that super-for-all is on for everyone in any society. With an economic downturn it is definitely not possible.
Apart from government employees, politicians included, and professionals everyone else is struggling to put enough aside for retirement. Just do a quick calculation. People start work at 20 years of age and intend to retire when they reach 50 years. This is accepted by all public servants. Only these lucky people get their super and earn more by continuing to work for state and federal governments as "consultants". Most people in Western countries live into their 80s now, so during 30 years of work they have to put enough aside to support them for 30 years more. To save enough for this it is necessary to take out at least 50 percent of weekly pay, now! Obviously making super payments this high is not possible. The economy would suffer as current spending power is pushed into the future. Can compulsory superannuation be sustained for the long haul? Well, it appears that this cannot be done.
Another thing that retirees rely on is an increasing interest rate. It is what their retirement sum earns that provides an income. When things get bad as they are now, rates are too low to provide an income. Even in good times inflation can overtake interest rate rises, so there will be no income.
Kevin Rudd's intention to increase productivity will fail. This has been tried in the UK decades ago. First output rises, then scrap production increases, boredom sets in, people cut back on labor intensity and production falls. Workers continue in their jobs living off the base rate (remember pieceworkers are the target of productivity "wars" because services are pretty much averse to output improvement). You won't see a "time and motion" guy in the office. A few decades ago people across the world were applauding productivity of Japanese workers. You don't hear anything these days. The nation is losing its place to China. Post-war Japanese workers were motivated by a social value introduced from the US and they adopted it as if they had owned it for centuries. But young Japanese do not share this imported value system. They are surely individuals today and do not give hours of extra labor for free to the company any more. Bang goes your productivity!
A word bandied about is multi-skilling. This is just a way of reducing downtime between jobs when workers can be given different work to do. They soon tire of this and employees are likely to disappear into "where is .....?" wilderness.
Rationing of medical service will also be a problem in the future, as the elderly become first in the queue for services already rendered to the state. The Government will have no answer to this. They can't withhold services to the elderly.
The talk by the Government about what will be the case in 2050 is irrelevant. A significant proportion of the population will be dead by then. There is something that the government will be shocked to discover when it collects its data - most of the national asset base, i.e, property, is owned by the elderly. Will the Government asset test a person's primary residence before allocating retirement funds? It might do this.
The Government does some silly things. Bringing in compulsory parental leave was one of these. Obviously, companies are not now inclined to take on female workers. Perhaps this was a good thing though. A return to the old days of one primary breadwinner would make work for those who really should have it. Note I did not say male workers. A female should be sole breadwinner if she can achieve it.
Older workers are motivated by the same thing as young workers - money. For companies to retain ageing employees they need to get extra money from somewhere - the Government perhaps? The answer to the nation's woes are in the hands of Government. At least that is where people expect the solutions to come from.
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