Long term, I predict a violent revolution of the young overthrowing the tyranny of the old.
Aging societies tend to divert resources from the young to the old. People vote for their own interests. When retirees outnumber parents, more money goes to retirees and less to kids. This lowers the birth rate even more and continues the spiral. In increasingly aging societies, young people face the prospect of having to pay a lifetime of ruinously high taxes (far higher than their elders did) to pay for the retirements of the old that outnumber them. And they’ll do this knowing that they themselves will never have a retirement of anywhere near the quality of the retirements they’re being taxed to death to fund.
Long term, we’re entering a very dangerous situation in developed countries. We have a trifecta of three dangerous conditions:
The young will be ruinously taxed to fund retirements of existing elderly, a retirement far more generous than they will ever receive.
The young will be completely shut out of political power due to being outnumbered by the old.
The young are the only ones actually capable of fighting in a war.
These are the conditions that historically brew revolutions. People take up arms typically when they see no hope for the future or feel they have nothing to lose. The young may not be able to outvote the old. But they certainly can outshoot the old.
As someone on the downswing of this seesaw, I welcome a rebalancing.
I think a big issue for working class folks who can even afford to prep for retirement is we don’t know how much we’ll need. And basically the fewer rights and social safety nets you have, the more money you need to attempt to insulate yourself from the ravages of capitalism.
If we had more socialist policies to keep everyone relatively comfortable even the poor, then working people wouldn’t have to be so mercenary about building their nest egg (which will never be big enough to be totally safe anyway).
Long term, I predict a violent revolution of the young overthrowing the tyranny of the old.
Aging societies tend to divert resources from the young to the old. People vote for their own interests. When retirees outnumber parents, more money goes to retirees and less to kids. This lowers the birth rate even more and continues the spiral. In increasingly aging societies, young people face the prospect of having to pay a lifetime of ruinously high taxes (far higher than their elders did) to pay for the retirements of the old that outnumber them. And they’ll do this knowing that they themselves will never have a retirement of anywhere near the quality of the retirements they’re being taxed to death to fund.
Long term, we’re entering a very dangerous situation in developed countries. We have a trifecta of three dangerous conditions:
These are the conditions that historically brew revolutions. People take up arms typically when they see no hope for the future or feel they have nothing to lose. The young may not be able to outvote the old. But they certainly can outshoot the old.
As someone on the downswing of this seesaw, I welcome a rebalancing.
I think a big issue for working class folks who can even afford to prep for retirement is we don’t know how much we’ll need. And basically the fewer rights and social safety nets you have, the more money you need to attempt to insulate yourself from the ravages of capitalism.
If we had more socialist policies to keep everyone relatively comfortable even the poor, then working people wouldn’t have to be so mercenary about building their nest egg (which will never be big enough to be totally safe anyway).