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Retirement savings is irrelevant. No one saves for retirement by stockpiling cans of food. They save for retirement by stockpiling financial assets that can be

Retirement savings is irrelevant. No one saves for retirement by stockpiling cans of food. They save for retirement by stockpiling financial assets that can be exchanged for food when they are retired. They need just as much of a workforce to produce this food if they pay for it through savings as they would if it was provided through a socialist government program. If everyone who retired has "adequate" savings, but their is not a large enough workforce to support them, you will see their buying power fall. Also possible is their buying power would remain, and the buying power of the young workforce would fall as a greater share of goods produced go to retired folks who hoarded financial capital when it was cheaper to do so.

rtkwe 6y ago
You're just talking about food, if we were willing to just let the elderly fall to poverty level subsistence it's much easier but that's poverty level which is not what I want in my old age or for anyone in their old age. We grew beyond that as a society for the most part lets not go back to it. There's medical bills, housing (for those who don't own their homes, which will be an increasing percentage as housing prices climb and people keep renting longer), and recreation. > If everyone who retired has "adequate" savings, but their is not a large enough workforce to support them, you will see their buying power fall. Also possible is their buying power would remain, and the buying power of the young workforce would fall as a greater share of goods produced go to retired folks who hoarded financial capital when it was cheaper to do so. That's another reason where you need either a larger working population or a vast excess that gets redistributed to support retirees.
- gizmo686 6y ago
  I was using food as an example because you could, in principle, stockpile cans of it. I suppose you could argue that some people do stockpile housing for retirement. However, other than that, all they are doing is stockpiling a claim on future productivity. As a matter of policy, we could give every old person such a claim regardless of their savings.
  - rtkwe 6y ago
    We could and unless something drastically changes in the way the economy is structured that's going to come in the form of giving them money (or goods bought with money) from taxes paid by the working population... As the ratio increases that requires more support from each working person.

rtkwe 6y ago

You're just talking about food, if we were willing to just let the elderly fall to poverty level subsistence it's much easier but that's poverty level which is not what I want in my old age or for anyone in their old age. We grew beyond that as a society for the most part lets not go back to it. There's medical bills, housing (for those who don't own their homes, which will be an increasing percentage as housing prices climb and people keep renting longer), and recreation. > If everyone who retired has "adequate" savings, but their is not a large enough workforce to support them, you will see their buying power fall. Also possible is their buying power would remain, and the buying power of the young workforce would fall as a greater share of goods produced go to retired folks who hoarded financial capital when it was cheaper to do so. That's another reason where you need either a larger working population or a vast excess that gets redistributed to support retirees.

gizmo686 6y ago
I was using food as an example because you could, in principle, stockpile cans of it. I suppose you could argue that some people do stockpile housing for retirement. However, other than that, all they are doing is stockpiling a claim on future productivity. As a matter of policy, we could give every old person such a claim regardless of their savings.
- rtkwe 6y ago
  We could and unless something drastically changes in the way the economy is structured that's going to come in the form of giving them money (or goods bought with money) from taxes paid by the working population... As the ratio increases that requires more support from each working person.