This is the video I quoted a few days ago in “Retirement pensions within the system can no longer be increased like this“:
The blogger said: His neighbor retired from the Tobacco Bureau, with a retirement pension of 14,200 yuan, a living allowance of more than 1,000 yuan, an annuity of more than 2,000 yuan, and a year-end bonus, receiving nearly 19,000 yuan. He also calculated: Such a person needs 30 young people to pay social security to support, he can live to 90 years old without much problem, can receive for 30 years, a total of 6.84 million. Finally, he raised a question: This old man’s peers have 29 million, this year’s newborn babies 9 million, only less than one-third of the year, 22 years later, these newborns, they will have to pay social security, what do you think the future will be like?
Peng Yuanwen, public account: Past and Thoughts Retirement pensions within the system can no longer be increased like this
Click here to read the original text and watch the original video
Because of the limitations of the topic, it was briefly mentioned at the time, but in fact, these words are rich in meaning, and almost every sentence is worth taking out and elaborating on, so I wrote a separate article.
1. Tobacco and State-owned Enterprises
When discussing the pension issue, many people will say that the reason why they are high is because of high profits and great contributions. As far as the tobacco industry is concerned, it does make a great contribution. In 2022, the total tax and profit of China’s tobacco industry exceeded 1.4 trillion yuan, accounting for more than half of the global tobacco tax. In tobacco-rich provinces like Yunnan, it accounts for nearly half of the local fiscal revenue, and many provinces also account for 10 to 20 percent. Even in Shanghai, the most developed commercial city in China, tobacco accounts for 40 percent of the tax revenue of industrial enterprises above a certain scale.
Where does the profit of tobacco come from? Of course, it comes from monopoly, which belongs to the industry of sitting and counting money. Therefore, the so-called state-owned enterprise profits are actually a way of taxation, or can be called “state-owned enterprise tax”. The better state-owned enterprises, such as telecommunications, still provide normal services; the worse ones, such as banks, although they provide services, they also take advantage of you; the worst is tobacco, there is no one, this is the worst way of taxation in the world, only to collect money regardless of life or death.
Therefore, when they say “high profits and great contributions”, you have to ask two questions: Where do the profits come from? What is the contribution to? As far as the tobacco industry is concerned, the profits come from government authorization, and the contribution is to the government. For the country and the people, the contribution is negative, and it is not an exaggeration to say “harming the country and the people”. The interests of these three are inconsistent, you have to carefully distinguish, so as not to be misled.
So, the question is: They poison the people and still have such good treatment, what is the nature of this?
2. Living allowances and year-end bonuses
The blogger mentioned that in addition to the normal retirement pension, there are also living allowances and year-end bonuses. The wording here may not be accurate, for example, it should not be called “year-end bonus”, this statement is taboo, but it is not uncommon to find a name to issue a sum of money at the end of the year – a friend of mine said that some people around him have retired for more than 20 years and still have “performance wages”.
There are many hidden benefits within the system, not only for those in service and retired, but also for a considerable amount of funeral expenses after death (40 months of retirement pension for government agencies, hundreds of thousands of yuan, this item alone is 10 times the pension of farmers for a lifetime), from the cradle to the grave are the responsibility of the state, and also benefit descendants. I am not familiar with this aspect. I only knew before that the canteens of government agencies are cheap and good, not at the level of Shanghai Lujie. Please tell me more – if you don’t know, please ask more, don’t deny its existence because you haven’t seen it. This video has more than 7,000 comments on Douyin, and a lot of people say how good the retirement benefits of tobacco and electricity are, it’s simply a new gatekeeper family.
Of course, the so-called state responsibility is actually borne by taxpayers; at the same time, it also shows that the so-called state-owned is essentially an agent’s ownership. As long as there is the right to manage, it will inevitably transfer the benefits into its own pockets in various names, as for the person who nominally owns it, it is only lip service and not practical, but instead has to bear the cost.
3. Annuity system
It also mentions “annuity of more than 2,000”, annuities are generally only available within the system (occupational annuity) and state-owned enterprises with good benefits (enterprise annuity). I have repeatedly said before that the more they pay, the heavier the burden on taxpayers/consumers, the so-called “more pay, more gain”, is not more payment, but more advantage. China’s current annuity system, on the surface, is to follow the foreign establishment of the three pillars of the pension system (and there is a personal pension account), but in fact, it is a privileged system.
Why is the annuity system rapidly spreading within the system and state-owned enterprises, but it is difficult to move forward in private enterprises? The reason is simple, it is two different things to spend your own money and spend other people’s money, of course, the more names you spend other people’s money, the better, the higher the proportion, the private enterprises pay a total of 24% of the pension insurance is already unbearable, where is the spare capacity to pay this?
4. Life expectancy differences
Zhao Benshan said, “The most painful thing in life is that people are still alive and the money is gone.” The essence of the pension insurance system is that people with different lifespans share the risks (similar to medical insurance, healthy people and patients share the risks), so the longer you live, the more you benefit.
The original blogger said that his neighbor “can live to 90 years old without much problem, can receive for 30 years, a total of 6.84 million”, his algorithm may be debatable, for example, he may not be able to live to 90 years old, but the problem is a real problem, behind this is the difference in the average life expectancy of different groups in China and the pension distribution problem.
The average life expectancy of Chinese farmers is lower than that of urban people, according to official statistics, roughly between 2-4 years. Although there are no statistics on the gap in average life expectancy between enterprise employees and those within the system, according to common sense, those within the system with better welfare benefits will definitely live longer than enterprise employees. Note here that the calculation method of pension is the same, for example, retirement at 60 is the personal account divided by 139 months, and not to mention the huge difference in subsidies, only talking about the length of receipt, farmers have become the unlucky ones, and those within the system have become the winners.
I wrote an article before, talking about how the design of China’s pension system always leads to “beneficial to those within the system and unfavorable to those outside the system”, and at that time I did not consider the factor of life expectancy. I can’t say that this is also a deliberate design of the system, but back to reality, isn’t the difference in life expectancy between different groups precisely because of the inequality of pension benefits?
And speaking of this, this is what I saw in this video of less than a minute, this is by no means because I have a sharp eye or am being picky, but because the problem is there: it will be seen by everyone if it is not solved for a day, and as long as they are not fools, they will definitely be able to see the essence through the phenomenon. Don’t be too extreme when doing things, you all have thousands of yuan, and there are various benefits, increase the pension of farmers to a few hundred or a thousand, this is only the minimum requirement.
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