18% civil servant pension rate is out

Only those who entered the civil service before 1995 get the 18% interest rate. Hence the people who benefit from this today are those who had - compared to the private sector at that time - meager salaries.

Still not relevant .

How is that not relevant? At a time when private sector jobs were substantially better paid than civil service jobs, benefits (including the 18% preferential interest rate) were an important factor for people to make career choices. The government is breaking a promise it made to people 30 years ago for nothing but populist reasons.

How about this, Brianjones: how would you feel if substantial parts of the pension package you and the government (or your pension provider) agreed on are axed because people in 2040 feel like doing so.

It’s fiscal reality .Those people already had decades of living on the hog so no tears for em.

Your grammar is a good match for the depth of your arguments. We might as well decide that your existence is a waste of air and resources and execute you - that would be as respectful to the rule of law and accountable government as what you propose. Have a good evening.

There’s no money to pay them the 18%, that is the reality !
We certainly shouldn’t be paying retired workers MORE than what they earned when they were working .

http://m.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/2015/09/05/445084/Govt-pension.htm

Eh problem is not all of them lived high on the hog. As said, the more localized the gummit became, the less privileges. The perks were not there to attract the best and brightest, but pedigree.

Animal farm was directed at totalitarianism and Stalin, Orwell himself was a socialist if anything.

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Yes but every socialist/communist country has developed along Animal Farm lines. If he thought socialism was exempt from his own model then he was wrong.

You mean like Sweden? The point I take from animal farm myself is that putting a small minority in power leads to unfairness. Can be true of colonialism, capitalism or communism. The point being that a group of one percents - the pigs - screw everyone else.

True, the pigs are always going to look out for themselves.

Re: Sweden, has the government seized the means of production?

No. But you seem to imply that socialism is defined by governments seizing the means of production. That is not how I would understand it myself. I’d understand socialism more like the means of production not being totally controlled by one small segment of society - the pigs.

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Right but the means of production being owned by the community as a whole only works on a village level. Anything bigger and “the community” means the government. Which is where communism/socialism inevitably always fails.

The Nordic countries are socialist democracies; they have some socialistic programs, but they also know how to balance their books, are small countries, and until recently had largely homogeneous societies with high levels of trust. Social democracy can only work under such circumstances. Taiwan has most of those ingredients, but it doesn’t have enough money. Which is why cushy government jobs won’t last forever.

If every country that has pensions for public servants is a socialist country, how many non-socialist countries does that leave in the world? :ponder:

Never said Taiwan is a socialist country, try again.

Socialist policies work as long as there’s other people’s money to use. When the well goes dry, it goes dry.

If you’re not characterizing public service pensions as socialist and saying the reason for this controversy’s existence is basically socialism, what are you saying about Taiwan’s public service pensions?

so if everything isn’t controlled by the pigs (the government) then the only alternative is for everything to be controlled by the pigs (the capitalists)?

I would be more inclined to think that things in general would be more stable with a more fair society, not with disappearing middle ground between the haves and the have nots.

I am characterizing the service as socialist, just not the entire government, check it again.

I did check it and still don’t quite follow you. It’s socialist to have a public service at all? Or just to offer pensions through employment in the public sector?

It wasn’t that the civil servants were not paid any pension. They could take the their pension and invest elsewhere and get 5% return, 10% return, 100% return, depending on how good they were at investing, when they started investing, and how urgently they needed their money.

The 18% interest was on a biannual basis subject to change.

That the government decided to change the rates are totally reasonable.

Again, it’s not that the retirees did not get paid. It’s just that the government decided that the government did not need to borrow money from the retirees at that high of an interest anymore. The retirees can very well take the money and invest anywhere else.