Hacker News Reader

Comment by xur17 | Hacker News Reader

This begs the question - wouldn't it be advantageous (recruiting wise) for governments to stop offering pensions, and instead increase base pay?

View on HN

These are advantages in public sector recruitment. The public sector is never going to be able to compete with the private sector on pay, but for many people the promise of steady and reliable income and benefits combinded with a good retirement plan is very attractive.

> The public sector is never going to be able to compete with the private sector on pay

Why? I’d rather pay government employees in cash rather than with future tax money from my kids as the politicians and government employee unions will undoubtably understated benefit costs and underfund it.

They're also paid with tax money now -- which is much harder to sell, since that's money now instead of later.

> I’d rather pay government employees in cash rather than with future tax money from my kids

well 2 factors..

1. Most people care about TODAY not tomorrow, this is reflective in all kinds of metrics related to personal fiance

2. Many people do not have kids, including myself, so I am not sure if I care they paying with things with YOUR kids tax money instead of my tax money

That's politically tricky -- if the rank and file are paid less than government workers, then it's easy to make ad hominem attacks on the government employees for living a cushy life / excessive spending.

Advantageous to whom? The government can promise money that may or may not be there in the future, and it is up to future generations to deal with it. So current politicians get the best of both worlds - love and sympathy from their constituents who are promised guaranteed income for life, without actually having to figure out how to pay for it.

pensions are a great deal for the government because it doesn't really have to fund them properly. if a private company offers pensions, it has to fund them enough to essentially guarantee that there will be money available for all the pensioners, making pessimistic assumptions for the market and optimistic assumptions about the pensioners' lifetimes. the government usually makes fairly lax requirements for funding its own pensions and relies on the ability to make up any shortfalls in the future from taxes. shifting from something like $40k + pension to a competitive salary-only compensation would cost a lot more money in the short term.

"begging the question" means to assume the truth of the proposition you are arguing for in the process of arguing for it.

You seem to instead mean something like "prompts the question" or "brings to mind the question"

This is a much more thoughtfully constructed article on the topic https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/beg-the-questi....

Language is a lot more nuanced than a freshman philosophy major’s Logic 101 textbook.

"begs the question", like using "literally" to mean "figuratively", is so widespread that is is difficult to call it an incorrect use of language. However, both constitute what I consider a dismal use of language. (But for different reasons.)

"literally"'s conversion to meaning its opposite represents a loss of meaning in the language; expressiveness dulling into useless ambiguity.

"begs the question" isn't a term that expresses the underlying idea effectively, it merely indicates a failing attempt to sound educated.

In either case, I prefer to educate people on how to use language less dismally. This does make me a pedant.

I prefer this discussion of the meaning of the term: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2290

Reply on news.ycombinator.com