>>>>That's not quite how it works.'
>>>>Those who are contributing now are supplying the cash to pay those who are on social security now.
>>>>Your money is not being saved for your retirement. The younger generation will pay for your
>>>>retirement. If your group out numbers the younger people, your social security cheque will likely be
>>>>smaller or non-existent. Don't you love socialism?
>>>
>>>Actually, during socialism proper, the retirement fund was full, thank you, and the retirements were regular.
>>>
>>Would it be more complete to disclose the size of these regular retirements?
>
>It would be. It would also help to express the cost of living in hours of work required for the consumer basket, hours of work for a car, hours of work to pay for utility bills, hours of work to pay for your health bill etc, and compare all that. If you want into get into comparing all that - in which case I don't have enough data, which I wish I had.

Actually, it is very simple, because the difference is enormous, e.g. one would have to work all life to buy a car, and the latter event would be purely theoretical because of shortage of cars.

>
>What I have are my parents, who have only last year finally received the delayed retirement payments for the Milošević times, when the money was coming in later and later, and was even slower to adjust for inflation. His government ended up owing about three months worth to retirees, and it took the subsequent governments seven years to pay it up. Also, the foreign currency savings were plundered the same way, and finally repaid last year.
>
>Sorry that you had to go through years of bad socialism - I didn't. Ours was almost good; the transition, however, was awful.

Actually, I appreciate my years spent in socialism. Firstly, they were not too long, if counting adult time only, and, secondly, I got valuable experience. One important part of this is that there are no such things as 'bad' and 'good' socialism; it is just one 'socialism'. By the way, I didn't live through bad periods of socialism. My socialism was comparatively mild and quiet, like a retired cannibal.