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All men will be playuhs if they live long enough


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2019 Nov 5, 3:28am   289 views  5 comments

by Al_Sharpton_for_President   ➕follow (5)   💰tip   ignore  

Demographic time-bomb: Finland sends a warning to Europe.

In a new building wedged between the sea and a power station in north-west Helsinki, a closely watched experiment in elderly care is taking place. A group of about 30 people aged over 60 are eating dinner at a housing development called Kotisatama, whose facilities include two saunas, a roof terrace and an exercise room for circuit training and pilates.

But there are no staff. Kotisatama is a community house in which both single elderly people and couples live together and share the chores. “The main purpose of this house is to keep us active,” says Leena Vahtera, a 72-year-old resident and chair of the project. “This is not a nursing home.”

Her husband died in 2007 while her two sons have their own families. “I didn’t want to be a burden to them. I saw how my own mother was so lonely. We are sure that the state can’t provide the services that old people may need one day. We want to make decisions on our own lives,” she says.

The Kotisatama development is attracting a lot of attention because Ms Vahtera is part of one of the most rapidly ageing populations in the world. Among rich, industrialised countries only Japan and South Korea have had larger increases in recent years than Finland. While people over 85 represented just 1.5 per cent of the population in 2000, today they are 2.7 per cent, and by 2070 are expected to be close to 9 per cent.

Finland has been discussing what to do about its demographic problems for almost two decades, pushing reforms of its healthcare, local government, social care and pensions system. “Finland is a rational country. It’s something we have taken very seriously and we have looked decades forward — something not done in most countries,” says Ilkka Kaukoranta, chief economist at SAK, Finland’s trade union confederation.

Yet finding answers has proved nigh on impossible. Finland’s three-party coalition government collapsed last month over its failure to pass landmark healthcare and local government reforms before an election on April 14. The only long-term issue related to demographic trends that has been addressed in two decades of trying has been pension reform.

For Europe, Finland may be a warning about the intractable political problems that lie ahead. Its population is ageing faster than any other European country, although Germany and Italy will have bigger peaks of older people later on this century. The lesson from Finland may be that trying to make health and elderly care costs sustainable involves the types of political choices few governments are willing to make, raising questions about long-term economic growth and the health of public finances for increasingly cash-strapped governments across Europe.

While parts of the rest of Europe face what researchers at the Robert Schuman Foundation have called “demographic suicide”, the lessons from the Finnish experience are complex. Breaking the omertà around ageing — as the foundation argued for — has not particularly helped in Finland. “In European terms we have been preparing early but only a little has been done,” says Marja Vaarama, a professor of social work at the University of Eastern Finland.

The country is a vivid demonstration that demographic change forces hard choices between politically unpalatable reforms and potentially deep belt-tightening. As a senior eurozone official remarked at the height of the 2010-11 sovereign debt crisis involving Greece, Spain, Portugal and others: “If I want to get really depressed, I think about what we’re not talking about at all — the ticking demographic time-bomb.”

“It’s very demanding and very tough to do. There are so many practical problems to be solved. Europe is going to be even messier,” says Timo Soini, the outgoing foreign minister, speaking before the government’s collapse. Another top Finnish policymaker is blunter: “This is a serious blow to our credibility as a reforming nation. But if we can’t do it, what hope have the rest?”

https://www.ft.com/content/8ebb54bc-5528-11e9-91f9-b6515a54c5b1

Comments 1 - 5 of 5        Search these comments

1   Shaman   2019 Nov 5, 4:26am  

So these old fucks didn’t bother to have kids, or save for retirement, but still want to be taken care of when they’re too old to work?
Hope they enjoy the taste of cat food.
2   Y   2019 Nov 5, 6:30am  

Let these Finfaders sleep with a school of chinooks to attain a nordic nirvina..
3   Onvacation   2019 Nov 5, 6:46am  

Is that Bernie?
4   CBOEtrader   2019 Nov 5, 7:07am  

Quigley says
So these old fucks didn’t bother to have kids, or save for retirement, but still want to be taken care of when they’re too old to work?
Hope they enjoy the taste of cat food.


Cat food is more expensive than tuna fish.
5   Ceffer   2019 Nov 5, 11:40am  

Logan's Run. Fling them into the air for skeets practice. Problem solved.

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