German Bundesbank urges retirement age to be raised to 69

By the year 2060, the retirement age in Germany could be raised to 69.

The German Federal Bank, otherwise known as the Bundesbank, suggested in its monthly report on Monday that the German retirement age should be increased from the present 65 to 69 by the year 2060.

Germany already plans to boost the retirement age to 67 by the year 2030.

According to the report, Germans are living longer, birth rates are lower and workers are staying in the workforce longer. These facts mean that there are fewer workers to replace retirees and that people will need to work longer in order to meet the national pension demands.

Bundesbank officials aver that a longer working life should help keep pensions afloat, which means retirees can receive nearly half (44 percent) of their average salary. This would decline to 40 percent should the current system stay intact.

Steffen Seibert, spokesperson for Chancellor Angela Merkel, did not comment on the proposal. Instead, he confirmed that the present administration “stands by retirement at 67.” He added: “There are always discussions and sometimes the Bundesbank is a part of these discussions.”

All over the world, there are movements by governments to raise the retirement age to ensure the system remains fully funded for years to come.

In the United States, Social Security is set to be bankrupt in the next 10 to 15 years because nothing has been done to save it. Although some proposals have been made, like raising the retirement age or performing means testing, politicians have been hesitant at making tough choices, which could ultimately harm their chances at being re-elected.

A new report from the trustees of Social Security suggests that the OASDI will be $73 billion in the red, and the OASDI will have an accumulative cash deficit of $1.6 trillion over the next 11 years.

Here is what David Stockman, former Reagan budget director and bestselling author of “The Great Deformation,” wrote last week:

“Needless to say, this means there will be no general fund surplus to pay the OASDI shortfall. Uncle Sam will finance the entire $1.6 trillion cash deficit by adding to the public debt. That is, Washington plans to make social security ends meet by burying unborn taxpayers even deeper in public debt in order to fund unaffordable entitlements for the current generation of retirees.

“The question thus recurs. How did the “untrustworthies” led by Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, who signed the 2015 report, manage to turn today’s river of red ink into another 20 years of respite for our cowardly beltway politicians?

“They did it, in a word, by redeeming phony assets; booking phony interest income on those non-existent assets; and projecting implausible GDP growth and phantom payroll tax revenues.”

Retirement schemes all over the world are facing shortfalls and the potential to be wiped out in the coming decades, unless something drastic is done. Politicians are too frightened to do something to repair these retirement programs. But they will have no choice in the end when there is no more money.

Indeed, by the time millennials retire the entire concept of retirement will be very foreign. We all expect to work until we die anyway.