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from the does-the-pensioner-want-to-repay-his-benefits-and-go-back-to-work,-too? dept.
In the quixotic battle against old age, some people use skin care and spin class.
That’s not enough for Emile Ratelband, a 69-year-old who feels like he’s in his 40s. The Dutch pensioner is asking a court in his hometown of Arnhem, southeast of Amsterdam, to change his birth certificate so that it says he took his first breath on March 11, 1969, rather than on March 11, 1949. The judges heard his case Monday and promised they would render a verdict in the next several weeks.
Ratelband sees his request as no different from a petition to change his name or the gender he was assigned at birth — and isn’t bothered that this comparison might offend transgender people, whose medical needs have been recognized by the American Medical Association. It comes down to free will, he maintains.
I want to be recognized as an alien trapped in an Earthling's body.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 09 2018, @03:09PM (2 children)
Another indication to me that those programs probably shouldn't exist.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday November 09 2018, @04:17PM (1 child)
Why not? Retirement programs are generally profitable for everyone involved, so long as you're not allowed to game the formulas in your favor. Professional investors controlling a large pool of money can reliably get a much better return than private "investment hobbyists", and skim off some of the excess for their own profit.
Even social security wouldn't have a funding problem if congress hadn't "borrowed" almost 3 trillion dollars from its dedicated fund over the years. Repay that with interest and it would be in the clear.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 10 2018, @01:40PM
Except, of course, for the youth who get to pay for more services than they receive (due to demographic changes that increase the relative number of old pensioners and/or pensions promising more for decades than they can sustainably deliver).
Depends on the size of the pool and how well the conflicts of interest are addressed. Too big a pool and they aren't going to get a better return. This is a serious problem for the largest funds like PIMCO [wikipedia.org] or CalPERS [wikipedia.org]. But worse is the conflicts of interest between the professional investors and their customers. For example, CalPERS above is virtue [ai-cio.com] signaling [citylimits.org] at the expense of theirs. From the second link:
That's a really fine sentiment, but done with other peoples' money.