dailyreckoning.com.au / By Nickolai Hubble / November 17th, 2012
The Germans are up to their old tricks again. They’re sending undesirables off to Eastern Europe by the thousands. Only this time, it’s not racially or religiously motivated. Nor is it a matter of Lebensraum. It’s a matter of cost. Old people are expensive, and Eastern Europe is cheap.
All you have to do is give companies like ‘Seniorpalace’ a call and an ambulance comes and takes your aged person off to Hungary, the Czech Republic or Slovakia. Monthly care costs there are about a third as much as in Germany.
God only knows what the locals think about their former invaders returning to retire. Let’s not dwell on that. We’ve been politically incorrect enough for the minute.
All this is very depressing. Our German grandmother is fit and well, by the way. Our biological grandfather was less lucky. He picked the wrong retirement haven and got himself killed by terrorists.
Anyway, if a place as prosperous as Germany can’t afford its retirees, who can?
Perhaps the Germans are just being honest about what they can afford. You can’t say the same for the UK, or the US. There, pension problems are something you shouldn’t talk about.
But the numbers speak for themselves. The problem is, there aren’t any Australian numbers for comparison. We don’t really know how much trouble we’re in down under. Back to that in a moment.
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