Today I'd like to explain to you Japan's pension program, where you put in ¥14,660 per month in the hopes that later when you retire, you will receive monthly payments of around ¥60,000 until the day you die. Or so the theory goes. Remember the chain letters that say if everyone sends a dollar to Joe, then Joe will become a millionaire and you'll be next? Those are the people who came up with this pension scheme. They'll also sell you swampland in Florida.
For those of us who will not retire for at least another 20 years, there isn't much hope that the pension system will still be belching out such payments. In the meantime, and these really are mean times, our pension payments will rise and so will the retirement age. And never mind that the pension program is run by "government officials," some of whom have been involved in false financial reporting, bid rigging, absconding of funds, and other horrendous misuses of money. Undeterred, we still make those faithful deposits.
The moral question becomes: Should you pay into this system when honestly, you could do something far better with that money, such as party every night for the rest of your life? For the same ¥14,660 per month you could buy 60 cans of Asahi beer, or 97 cans of happoshu. Every month! That should enable almost anyone to forget about saving for retirement.