I do not like to use this space for politics but it happens from time to time that something is so strange or unbelievable a Tweet is not enough space to air the big “?” flying around in my brain. So today and tomorrow it will be politics.
The age of retirement is up for discussion again in Sweden (Also in Macron France, so I guess in all of Europe) and this time the suggestion is retirement when 75 years.
So far no discussion if this is all the population or just within some professions but I guess its all over, tout le monde, cause the suggestion comes from the former Prime Minister in Sweden, Mr Reinfeldt who for sure had a really stressful job but still behind a desk, driven around in a car eating well prepared free meals at conferences and meetings without any thoughts on running from work to try to get the kids out of daycare before they close (in the middle of winter when the commuter trains standing still).
Most likely the stress as Prime Minister is another kind of pressure than years of heavy lifts in the health care business, construction or the industry at a assembly line.
I am lucky to have a desk job, even if my back already start to ache and the eyes get dry from looking at a computer screan all day it’s not even close to the injuries on the body of a care assistant after 45 years in the profession. And when I already feel (I have 10 years at least left to work before retirement) that I start to look forward to that day I can only guess how people with physical labor feel hearing that they need to work 10 more years!
Then there is others who still is healthy and want to work longer, so let them, no one should be forced to retire but let it be from their free will.
And seriously, would you like to hear from a cockpit that “Today our Captain celebrates his 74 birthday” or “Your surgeon just clean up and prepare for the surgery, it is his 74 birthday tomorrow by the way” Is that a professions where 75 is a good age to retire? Or is the 75 only good for the once at the end of the working life food chain?
The same Mr Reinfeldt, when he were in power said that the pension system will be saved by an free immigration to Sweden, open borders and everyone will of course get a job on day 2 from their arrival. So far good, if it was true. Immigrants do not find work as soon as they arrive and when so called “simple jobs” are taken out from the loop of professions (taken over by technology) less find work fast. And now the new liberal movement continue this open border politics and add “Family reunion” so the pension system will be under even more pressure from 65+ not finding a job and work to 75 must be provided for by tax money.
The theory don’t add up in my mind and the open border liberal idea gets more and more extreme and seriously the liberals today look more and more as one of the most extreme movements in the History of the world.
In any case, we will see where we end up but the first step to stop these ideas will be the EU elections in May 2019 and to manage this you can vote on anything from the left ving to the right wing as long as the party you vote for not a part of the Liberal Group in the European Parliament.
Björn
