Smek to the resque!

In Finland there has been wide discussion going on about pensions and the lack of labour in near future. Some people suggest that the retiring age should move up, all the way close to 70 years, while the others say it wouldn't change anything. People can't work that old, if they are not anymore fit to work. Also I have read about proposals according to which only the working years would be counted. Meaning if you start working at 30, you should work until you're 75 or something. Many highly educated people have to study for 10 years after high school graduation before they can start working, like some doctors and architects. It wouldn't sound fair to me, although I don't represent any of these.

But have I got the answer! Not just criticizing other people's ideas - I have some of my own. Go ahead and criticize this!

Ballet dancers have a low retiring age, 44 years. Likewise pilots, depending on airline company, retire under 60. Army officers do it at 55-60. Yes, I'm getting to the point right away. If a ballet dancer is all worn out at 44, she or he might still be very useful in other walks of life. I can't believe a 44-year-old ballet dancer equals to a 67-year-old factory worker when it comes to comparing their physics. What about their life expectancy after retirement?

What we could do, is to keep the 44 years as a maximum age for ballet dancers, 60 for pilots and army officer etc., and then send them back to school or unemployment office. That would give a plenty of new manpower reintroduced. It's another thing, whether anyone would accept any old and cranky army officer shouting in their work environment, LOL! A ballet dancer might easily do book-keeping or any other desk job, if his/her legs are busted. Hell, even some of the handicapped can work quite normally.

For example, I can't dream of doing the job I'm doing right now (apart from blogging obviously) at 60. No way. It feels hard for me to imagine doing this even at 50. Well, who knows what'll happen. I could retire next year, had I chosen to be a ballet dancer. Could I still change my profession? LOL! I have done a dozen or so different jobs during my life; should I have stayed in my first job - as a lawnmowerman in the city of Tampere? Actually, I saw some men close to 60 still doing it. Women too. Man, they owned the world if you asked them, but that's another story...

And yet another thing: men die approximately 7 years younger than men in Finland. It wouldn't harm to let men retire earlier than women. Maybe it's not equal, but dying younger isn't equal either.

Feel free to tip the government off about this. Any government basically...