Because, Nordic Countries

[Ssnake]

1 hour ago, PaulFormerlyinSaudi said:

Remarkable how little coverage this mass killing has received. 

By what standard, your personal impression? How many other news about Sweden do you routinely follow?

[PaulFormerlyinSaudi]

I routinely follow mass killings. Make sure to read my posts on Reddit.

[Ssnake]

Then maybe those contributing to these threads have an anti-swedish bias?

It certainly made the evening TV news here in Germany. Very little that happens in Sweden usually does, except Nobel prize ceremonies.

[Sinistar]

it would be significant news in sweden and across the local region

 

realistically you are competing for limited time either in a typical 30 minute broadcast program- which is actually less than that with ads and commercials and off topic chit chat in broadcast media

 

or in print media you are competing for the real estate which fits on your screen against the hundreds of daily horrors and tragedies in the united states alone

 

or any number of third world massacres or whatever

 

in china literally there are things that go on which is far more dismissive- an earthquake kills or displaces nearly 100,000 people in a single event in some province

but might barely register in the press

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[glenn239]

14 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Then maybe those contributing to these threads have an anti-swedish bias?

ABBA is way overplayed.  It was bound to happen.

[Ivanhoe]

[urbanoid]

On 2/7/2025 at 2:43 PM, glenn239 said:

ABBA is way overplayed.  It was bound to happen.

Now listen here you little shit...

[Ivanhoe]

American cultural imperialism strikes again;

 

[Murph]

On 2/7/2025 at 7:43 AM, glenn239 said:

ABBA is way overplayed.  It was bound to happen.

I used to like them quite a bit many many many years ago, but I agree, they got tiresome.  And my many years ago, I mean 8 track tape days.... I am THAT old. 

[Tim the Tank Nut]

Rita says Greta is a Doom Goblin.  That is a concise and accurate description.

[JWB]

How unpopular is this?

 

[Soren Ras]

Not really a big issue. First of all, this is not really news. Back in 2006 the government recognized that there were some structural problems in the Danish societal welfare makeup.

There was:  1)  a broad political consensus to maintain the welfare state

                    2)  people were living longer

                    3)  birthrates were dropping

                     4)  raising taxes was not feasible if the country wanted to stay competitive

                     4) immigration was proving to more of a drain than a gain.

Essentially, entitlements (pensions) needed to be managed lest they grew uncontrollable.

So, they passed a law that would automatically peg the retirement age (that is the age, at which the basic state-funded pension kicks in) to the rise in the life expectancy. Since 2006, every four years or so, they have adjusted the retirement age. The idea being that since people are living longer, if they work longer and (presumably) collect pensions for fewer years, this will reduce the entitlement problem. The politicians are not so much deciding on what the new retirement age will be, so much as confirming that the increase mechanism set up back in 2006 would still apply.

This year the retirement age crept up from 69 to 70, thus making it the technically highest retirement age in Europe.

Every time this happens, jourmalists will find someone working in a physically demanding job and get some quotes that they are opposed to having to work longer.

Now, it should be clarified that the retirement pension in question (the "folkepension" which translates into the "people's pension"  is a basic one and for nearly everyone it comprises only a limited part of their total pension. Everyone who works pays into their own pension fund. The basic folkepension is not generous (it is what you get if you haven't worked a day in your life) and most people often arrange to retire earlier, which means they are living off their own retirement pension, and the public pension only kicks in when you reach the mandated age, which is now 70.

So, for someone like me, I pay into my own retirement fund and have done so for 40 years.  The day when I will retire will almost certainly not be determined by the age of the Folkepension. I am 58 and could retire tomorrow. But of course, if I wait until I am say, 65 or 69 or 70 or 73 I will get a higher monthly payout the longer I wait. By far the biggest contributor to my total pension is my own private pension, and the folkepension is something like 15% of the total I would get.

Once I reach the mandatoty retirement age (now 70) I can continue to work, which would mean I would have to notify the authorities and they would then postpone payout of my folkepension by whatever number of years I want to continue working. In that instance I would get an additional amount of money paid out when I do actually retire, as a prize for delaying my sucking on the public teat. 

So, since this is something that has been known and broadly supported for nearly 20 years, and is in fact a very small change, there is not much outcry. But of course, you can find young people who haven't followed the news closely who now suddenly realize they either have to work until they are 70, or they will have to start planning how much to pay into their own pension fund, in order to have the buffer to retire earlier, which is of course a lot less fun than spending it all on hookers, booze and fast cars.

For older people - especially those working strenuous jobs, there is obviously concern about health and being to able to work longer, but again, the change now is from 69 to 70, and for those who are worn down physically, there are several options for early retirement with additional benefits kicking in. But you may need a doctor's note.

I know some immediately start talking about how this is a measure caused by uncontrollable immigration, but that is not the case here. For one thing, Denmark has managed to curb the immigration fairly well, especially the really unproductive kind, and the impetus for the retirement change is mostly a function of Danes wanting to maintain the current welfare state by way of making the welfare a bit less generous. 

Boring, but overall a sensible and necessary adjustment. 

 

 

 

 

[Ivanhoe]

Is no one going to comment on the container ship running aground in Norway?

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/23/europe/norway-container-ship-garden-intl-hnk-scli

 

[JWB]

3 hours ago, Soren Ras said:

Not really a big issue. First of all, this is not really news. Back in 2006 the government recognized that there were some structural problems in the Danish societal welfare makeup.

There was:  1)  a broad political consensus to maintain the welfare state

                    2)  people were living longer

                    3)  birthrates were dropping

                     4)  raising taxes was not feasible if the country wanted to stay competitive

                     4) immigration was proving to more of a drain than a gain.

Essentially, entitlements (pensions) needed to be managed lest they grew uncontrollable.

So, they passed a law that would automatically peg the retirement age (that is the age, at which the basic state-funded pension kicks in) to the rise in the life expectancy. Since 2006, every four years or so, they have adjusted the retirement age. The idea being that since people are living longer, if they work longer and (presumably) collect pensions for fewer years, this will reduce the entitlement problem. The politicians are not so much deciding on what the new retirement age will be, so much as confirming that the increase mechanism set up back in 2006 would still apply.

This year the retirement age crept up from 69 to 70, thus making it the technically highest retirement age in Europe.

Every time this happens, jourmalists will find someone working in a physically demanding job and get some quotes that they are opposed to having to work longer.

Now, it should be clarified that the retirement pension in question (the "folkepension" which translates into the "people's pension"  is a basic one and for nearly everyone it comprises only a limited part of their total pension. Everyone who works pays into their own pension fund. The basic folkepension is not generous (it is what you get if you haven't worked a day in your life) and most people often arrange to retire earlier, which means they are living off their own retirement pension, and the public pension only kicks in when you reach the mandated age, which is now 70.

So, for someone like me, I pay into my own retirement fund and have done so for 40 years.  The day when I will retire will almost certainly not be determined by the age of the Folkepension. I am 58 and could retire tomorrow. But of course, if I wait until I am say, 65 or 69 or 70 or 73 I will get a higher monthly payout the longer I wait. By far the biggest contributor to my total pension is my own private pension, and the folkepension is something like 15% of the total I would get.

Once I reach the mandatoty retirement age (now 70) I can continue to work, which would mean I would have to notify the authorities and they would then postpone payout of my folkepension by whatever number of years I want to continue working. In that instance I would get an additional amount of money paid out when I do actually retire, as a prize for delaying my sucking on the public teat. 

So, since this is something that has been known and broadly supported for nearly 20 years, and is in fact a very small change, there is not much outcry. But of course, you can find young people who haven't followed the news closely who now suddenly realize they either have to work until they are 70, or they will have to start planning how much to pay into their own pension fund, in order to have the buffer to retire earlier, which is of course a lot less fun than spending it all on hookers, booze and fast cars.

For older people - especially those working strenuous jobs, there is obviously concern about health and being to able to work longer, but again, the change now is from 69 to 70, and for those who are worn down physically, there are several options for early retirement with additional benefits kicking in. But you may need a doctor's note.

I know some immediately start talking about how this is a measure caused by uncontrollable immigration, but that is not the case here. For one thing, Denmark has managed to curb the immigration fairly well, especially the really unproductive kind, and the impetus for the retirement change is mostly a function of Danes wanting to maintain the current welfare state by way of making the welfare a bit less generous. 

Boring, but overall a sensible and necessary adjustment. 

 

 

 

 

👍➕

[Tim Sielbeck]

4 hours ago, Soren Ras said:

 

Boring, but overall a sensible and necessary adjustment. 

I wish our system was as well planned out as yours.

[Murph]

5 hours ago, Ivanhoe said:

Is no one going to comment on the container ship running aground in Norway?

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/23/europe/norway-container-ship-garden-intl-hnk-scli

 

Heck of a lawn ornament!

[17thfabn]

12 hours ago, Soren Ras said:

Not really a big issue. First of all, this is not really news. Back in 2006 the government recognized that there were some structural problems in the Danish societal welfare makeup.

Essentially, entitlements (pensions) needed to be managed lest they grew uncontrollable.

This year the retirement age crept up from 69 to 70, thus making it the technically highest retirement age in Europe.

The U.S. raised full social security retirement age from 65 to 67 years ago for people who will be retiring in the next few years.

Should raise the age again for future retirees. Adding a year or two to retirement age would help immensely with the system. 

If you tell 30 and 40 somethings their retirement age is going up by a year or two they won't even think about it. 

Small changes now make a big difference in the future.

[Soren Ras]

6 hours ago, 17thfabn said:

The U.S. raised full social security retirement age from 65 to 67 years ago for people who will be retiring in the next few years.

Should raise the age again for future retirees. Adding a year or two to retirement age would help immensely with the system. 

If you tell 30 and 40 somethings their retirement age is going up by a year or two they won't even think about it. 

Small changes now make a big difference in the future.

Indeed. When I entered the workforce, the retirement age was 65. Through the graduated increase over the years that has changed to 69 for me. When they have raise the age limit, it only applied to those who still have at least 15 years left before retirement to make it easier to plan for. And as you note, for those who have several decades left it is a minor consideration. Since the increases for the future are already laid out everyone can go in and look and what their particular situation will look like, if the projected increases are approved by the parliament. Thus my eldest son can expect that when he gets to that point, the retirement age will be 73, and for my youngest it will be 74.

But since the calculation is based on the projected remaining years for a 60-year old, it assumes that current increases in life expectancy continue. If not, then the increase in retirement age stops as well.

[urbanoid]

Then: we need immigration to pay for your pension

Now: we need your pension to pay for immigration

[Rick]

56 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Then: we need immigration to pay for your pension

Now: we need your pension to pay for immigration

Word.

[Soren Ras]

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

Then: we need immigration to pay for your pension

Now: we need your pension to pay for immigration

Well, except that is not what is going on, at least as far as Denmark is concerned. Here. the open borders people have lost the argument decisively. These days the social democrats and everyone to the right of them have realized that border enforcement is essential. It took a few decades, but ultimately the social democrats realized they had to choose between open borders and a welfare state, and they chose the latter.

Of course, the far left is still in the grips of the whole multiculti nonsense, but they never learn, and politically they are losing strength, not gaining.

There is still a significant issue with assimilating previous immigrants from third world countries, but that will take time. For the moment, the borders have tightened considerably and deportations of convicted criminals are increasing.

The biggest immigrant group in Denmark are the Poles, and those are no problem whatsoever. Second most populous group are the Turks and their descendants - appx 70k people (most of whom came for work in the 60s-80s). There are few issues with them.

Third biggest group are the Ukrainians (appx 50k), and these basically all work or study and cause few issues. Fourth biggest are the Syrians (46k), and here there have been issues, since those are recent immigrants, overwhelmingly male and generally less able or willing to work and assimilate. 
It will be interesting to see if things calm down following the recent US move to lift sanctions, because that could be a basis to return many of the Syrians.

Persians (Iran) tend to be better assimilated than Arabs (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon), Indians nearly all work productively, and the Pakistanis and Palestinians are a mixed bag.

When someone notes that the population of immigrants comprise appx 16.3 % of the Danish population, some seem to imagine a unified mass of islamic fundamentalists trying to take over the country. But 5.8% are immigrants from other Western countries. Another 5.4% are from non-Western countries that mostly are productive, law abiding  and useful members of society (like the Ukrainians, East Asians, and Indians), and the remaining 5.1% from the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Turkey (i.e. mostly Muslims) are split into groupings from many countries with many different interpretations of Islam, who agree on very little, are not organized as a whole, and often seem to dislike each other more than anything (Shiites vs Sunnis, for example). And the biggest group in that 5.1% are the Turks who are now sufficiently assimilated that a politician of Turkish extraction is as likely to be a right winger as a left winger these days.

All told the impending Caliphate is not exactly on track to take over anything, even if social media might impy otherwise.

 

[urbanoid]

1 minute ago, Soren Ras said:

Well, except that is not what is going on, at least as far as Denmark is concerned. Here. the open borders people have lost the argument decisively. These days the social democrats and everyone to the right of them have realized that border enforcement is essential. It took a few decades, but ultimately the social democrats realized they had to choose between open borders and a welfare state, and they chose the latter.

Of course, the far left is still in the grips of the whole multiculti nonsense, but they never learn, and politically they are losing strength, not gaining.

There is still a significant issue with assimilating previous immigrants from third world countries, but that will take time. For the moment, the borders have tightened considerably and deportations of convicted criminals are increasing.

The biggest immigrant group in Denmark are the Poles, and those are no problem whatsoever. Second most populous group are the Turks and their descendants - appx 70k people (most of whom came for work in the 60s-80s). There are few issues with them.

Third biggest group are the Ukrainians (appx 50k), and these basically all work or study and cause few issues. Fourth biggest are the Syrians (46k), and here there have been issues, since those are recent immigrants, overwhelmingly male and generally less able or willing to work and assimilate. 
It will be interesting to see if things calm down following the recent US move to lift sanctions, because that could be a basis to return many of the Syrians.

Persians (Iran) tend to be better assimilated than Arabs (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon), Indians nearly all work productively, and the Pakistanis and Palestinians are a mixed bag.

When someone notes that the population of immigrants comprise appx 16.3 % of the Danish population, some seem to imagine a unified mass of islamic fundamentalists trying to take over the country. But 5.8% are immigrants from other Western countries. Another 5.4% are from non-Western countries that mostly are productive, law abiding  and useful members of society (like the Ukrainians, East Asians, and Indians), and the remaining 5.1% from the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Turkey (i.e. mostly Muslims) are split into groupings from many countries with many different interpretations of Islam, who agree on very little, are not organized as a whole, and often seem to dislike each other more than anything (Shiites vs Sunnis, for example). And the biggest group in that 5.1% are the Turks who are now sufficiently assimilated that a politician of Turkish extraction is as likely to be a right winger as a left winger these days.

All told the impending Caliphate is not exactly on track to take over anything, even if social media might impy otherwise.

 

To start with, I never implied any of the 'caliphate' bullshit, I don't do that even for Western countries with much higher muslim population share than Denmark, like Sweden, UK or France. 

And sure, your 'normal' left seems to have gotten the memo, probably as the first mainstream left in the West, if I'm not mistaken. And yet, I assume that before they did, there were costs associated with... undesirable immigration. Some may apply even today, when it comes to gibs. 

What I suggest is that maybe, just maybe, if it wasn't for those costs already incurred, maybe you wouldn't have to raise the retirement age. 

[Soren Ras]

5 hours ago, urbanoid said:

To start with, I never implied any of the 'caliphate' bullshit, I don't do that even for Western countries with much higher muslim population share than Denmark, like Sweden, UK or France. 

And sure, your 'normal' left seems to have gotten the memo, probably as the first mainstream left in the West, if I'm not mistaken. And yet, I assume that before they did, there were costs associated with... undesirable immigration. Some may apply even today, when it comes to gibs. 

What I suggest is that maybe, just maybe, if it wasn't for those costs already incurred, maybe you wouldn't have to raise the retirement age. 

To be sure. I wasn't thinking of you when I mentioned the caliphate. It just seems a recurring theme for too many people when the subject rolls around to European immigration.

As for our left, you are completely spot on, that there were and are real costs associated with the uncritical immigration stance. Many of them apply today, and will continue to trouble us for decades to come. It could have and should have been nipped in the bud, but it took longer than it should have for normies to recognize that the cries of "racist, fascist, nazi" etc. were false and deliberately so.

Have the costs of immigration contributed to the unsustainability of the Danish welfare state?  Yes, absolutely. But I daresay that the structure is inherently unstable and two critical blows were the declining birthrate and the structural inability of our politicians to keep the expansion of the state under control, leading to ever more bureaucracy and ever more dampening of growth and innovation.   

The biggest issue with immigration is probably the degree to which it has served to partially undermine the high trust society, since that is basically the magic sauce that just about managed to allow the welfare state to keep running fairly well. There is still high trust and low corruption, but it has definitely changed for the worse in my lifetime.

 

[Steven P Allen]

On 5/24/2025 at 7:28 PM, 17thfabn said:

If you tell 30 and 40 somethings their retirement age is going up by a year or two they won't even think about it. 

Small changes now make a big difference in the future.

My experience with folks of that age is that they don't believe they will get any Social Security retirement, anyway.

[urbanoid]

1 hour ago, Steven P Allen said:

My experience with folks of that age is that they don't believe they will get any Social Security retirement, anyway.

I'm in the middle (36) and I'm rather skeptical tbh.

Then again if mass third world immigration meant averting financial collapse (purely theoretically, as in fact it accelerates it), I'd still be against it.