5 ms·

The way things are going in the US are unsustainable and I'm not even talking about the impending climate problems. What is going to give out first and how long

• shantly 7y ago
  If we don't fix healthcare costs it'll be that in 5-15 years, just looking at the increases in costs year over year. It's strangling the economy. After that we very likely have a (lack of) retirement crisis coming in, I reckon, 15-30 years. I'd guess there'll be a concurrent falling off of generational passing-on of wealth (inheritance) that'll compound the issue and ensure it lasts much of the rest of the century. This'll be way worse if all we've managed to do with health care costs is hold them at their already-too-high levels, rather than lower them. The worst risk is that crises aren't always blamed on the right people/issues, and sometimes end up causing scary shifts in the politics of a state (watch as I carefully avoid Godwinning the thread)—I suspect the mobility of wealth and how much money is in the hands of effectively stateless corporations will make any such occurrence rather more interesting than it has been in the past in the US, e.g. the Great Depression, as incentives for various actors may not be aligned the same ways they have been. One hopes the phrase "feeding frenzy" won't apply, but it seems possible.
• frockington1 7y ago
  Wouldn't less people reduce our carbon footprint? Thinning the herd (particularly the obese) may be what the world needs to combat climate change