This is a counter factual, I think it’d be really hard to prove what would have happened to current people over 55’s savings if wages had kept pace.
Well they’d certainly own less, that’s for sure. Corporate profits would’ve gone down, and corporate profits are where most old people’s wealth comes from (401k, pensions, etc).
Yes yes, make the old’s work again! WTF dude. You know this will happen to you if your lucky right? Personally i want my old age or my parents to not be plagued by want. I see it as part of my duty to support my parents, on account of them supporting me.
The boomers had to support their parents. We have to support our parents and some of their childless friends. Our children will have to support more like 10-15 people each. Unless we raise our retirement ages enough that we aren’t a burden on our children. In general, if you’re under 40 and thinking of retiring one day, you’re selfish as fuck. Personally I at least acknowledge to myself that my desire to retire one day, is extremely selfish, as it requires me to accumulate resources that other people could use.
It seems like you’ve consumed too much zero sum game.
While there are places in economic where zero sum game does not apply (e.g you get more out of education than the money invested into it), resources are largely a zero sum game, as is time (labour). Once an apple has been grown and harvested, only one person can eat it. Once a house is built, only one family can live in it at a time. Etc. When there are fewer people working, less work can get done, unless those people work more hours. To have enough resources for everyone, a big enough share of people has to work. As we have more old people, we need people working longer, unless we figure out a way to replace human labor. As you’re against AI, there’s little real way to do that.
The whole retirement thing is predicated on growth. There’s enough growth that you can tax young people, either via corporations underpaying them (corporations owned by old people), or via direct taxation and a national pension (where the old people benefitting at least benefit a bit more evenly), without it weighing down on them too badly. This worked great for a while because the population kept growing, but that has pretty much stopped in the developed world.
Which is why I keep telling people: If you don’t want retirement ages to rise, you better be making babies and tons of them.
Well they’d certainly own less, that’s for sure. Corporate profits would’ve gone down
There is no way you could say this with certainty. Why would corp profits go down… I could as easily say they’d go up (people have more money because their wages are keeping up so they spend more blah blah. Your taking at least 40 years and suggesting you could predict what would happen if they were fundamentally different.
Once an apple has been grown and harvested, only one person can eat it. Once a house is built, only one family can live in it at a time
Sure, but we don’t have a lack of food problem, or a lack of housing problem. We have distribution problems. It doesn’t take one person to farm all day to feed a family anymore, we can feed thousands with one persons labour now. We have the houses, the ownership is concentrated.
The whole retirement thing is predicated on growth
Right, we don’t have 0.01% holding 10% of total wealth, we couldn’t possibly be spreading that out more evenly. We don’t ask children to go down to the mine, we put them in school. We work together to make more than we need and those growing up and those in old age reap either the benefits of learning and practising, or having earned it through their lifes work resting.
It baffles my mind that you ignore the work retired people did before they retired.
Which is why I keep telling people: If you don’t want retirement ages to rise, you better be making babies and tons of them
Well they’d certainly own less, that’s for sure. Corporate profits would’ve gone down, and corporate profits are where most old people’s wealth comes from (401k, pensions, etc).
The boomers had to support their parents. We have to support our parents and some of their childless friends. Our children will have to support more like 10-15 people each. Unless we raise our retirement ages enough that we aren’t a burden on our children. In general, if you’re under 40 and thinking of retiring one day, you’re selfish as fuck. Personally I at least acknowledge to myself that my desire to retire one day, is extremely selfish, as it requires me to accumulate resources that other people could use.
While there are places in economic where zero sum game does not apply (e.g you get more out of education than the money invested into it), resources are largely a zero sum game, as is time (labour). Once an apple has been grown and harvested, only one person can eat it. Once a house is built, only one family can live in it at a time. Etc. When there are fewer people working, less work can get done, unless those people work more hours. To have enough resources for everyone, a big enough share of people has to work. As we have more old people, we need people working longer, unless we figure out a way to replace human labor. As you’re against AI, there’s little real way to do that.
The whole retirement thing is predicated on growth. There’s enough growth that you can tax young people, either via corporations underpaying them (corporations owned by old people), or via direct taxation and a national pension (where the old people benefitting at least benefit a bit more evenly), without it weighing down on them too badly. This worked great for a while because the population kept growing, but that has pretty much stopped in the developed world.
Which is why I keep telling people: If you don’t want retirement ages to rise, you better be making babies and tons of them.
There is no way you could say this with certainty. Why would corp profits go down… I could as easily say they’d go up (people have more money because their wages are keeping up so they spend more blah blah. Your taking at least 40 years and suggesting you could predict what would happen if they were fundamentally different.
Sure, but we don’t have a lack of food problem, or a lack of housing problem. We have distribution problems. It doesn’t take one person to farm all day to feed a family anymore, we can feed thousands with one persons labour now. We have the houses, the ownership is concentrated.
Right, we don’t have 0.01% holding 10% of total wealth, we couldn’t possibly be spreading that out more evenly. We don’t ask children to go down to the mine, we put them in school. We work together to make more than we need and those growing up and those in old age reap either the benefits of learning and practising, or having earned it through their lifes work resting.
It baffles my mind that you ignore the work retired people did before they retired.
You should stop telling them that.