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It seems to me that the segment of the population that is most affected by societal/political policies are the young to middle age adults who are raising kids,

It seems to me that the segment of the population that is most affected by societal/political policies are the young to middle age adults who are raising kids, establishing their careers, building wealth, etc. My understanding is that in the past, due to shorter life expectancies, this was also the generation that was generally in the majority; so each generation got a fair shot at making sure society served their needs during those key years. However, as life expectancy has increased, it now seems like there is a large enough cohort of people who have already established themselves that they can push for society/government not to spend resources on the policies that benefited them during their formative years.

granshaw 8y ago
Aka “How brexit came true”
ThePhysicist 8y ago
This surely is a problem in many western societies and in Germany politicians are currently eager to give such “gifts” to the older generation e.g. in the form of more retirement money. However it’s clear that the whole retirement system will collapse in 20-30 years if we don’t find some radical new approach of financing it, as currently it’s not capital based but financed by the active workforce (actually there is a small capital based supplementary system but it will not suffice to compensate for the changing demographics). When the ratio between old and young people will flip in 20-30 years there won’t be enough active workers to pay for the retired people. Right now the government desperately tries to fix this, recently they e.g. discussed ways to force freelancers and entrepreneurs - which currently don’t pay into the public retirement system - to pay into it as well (which is only a temporary fix at best). Another strategy is fostering massive immigration from both Europe and elsewhere (e.g. we recently took in almost one million people from Syria), which caused a significant uptick of the popularity of right-wing parties though and is also no guarantee for a stable system as many of the immigrants are hard to integrate into the labor market. Difficult times ahead it seems.
rogerkirkness 8y ago
People seem to like asking for and getting things but slamming the door behind them. Can't have it both ways, although which default is better is an open question.

granshaw 8y ago

Aka “How brexit came true”

ThePhysicist 8y ago

This surely is a problem in many western societies and in Germany politicians are currently eager to give such “gifts” to the older generation e.g. in the form of more retirement money. However it’s clear that the whole retirement system will collapse in 20-30 years if we don’t find some radical new approach of financing it, as currently it’s not capital based but financed by the active workforce (actually there is a small capital based supplementary system but it will not suffice to compensate for the changing demographics). When the ratio between old and young people will flip in 20-30 years there won’t be enough active workers to pay for the retired people. Right now the government desperately tries to fix this, recently they e.g. discussed ways to force freelancers and entrepreneurs - which currently don’t pay into the public retirement system - to pay into it as well (which is only a temporary fix at best). Another strategy is fostering massive immigration from both Europe and elsewhere (e.g. we recently took in almost one million people from Syria), which caused a significant uptick of the popularity of right-wing parties though and is also no guarantee for a stable system as many of the immigrants are hard to integrate into the labor market. Difficult times ahead it seems.

rogerkirkness 8y ago

People seem to like asking for and getting things but slamming the door behind them. Can't have it both ways, although which default is better is an open question.