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Covid was a wealth transfer from the youth to the elderly
by bushbaba 5y ago
Covid was a wealth transfer from the youth to the elderly
- KiranRao0 5y agoCollective behavior in response to COVID was a life transfer from the youth to the elderly.
- cryptonector 5y agoVery succint. Precise, correct, pithy.
- scop 5y agoI’ve pondered this on occasion. In this era of people in their 80s holding many of the major positions in government and business in the US, I wonder whether this was their final attempt to prevent transferring power onto the newer generations. I’m not saying this was a conscious strategy, but it certainly was a very interesting phenomenon especially after listening to Eric Weinstein decry the lack of generational transfer in the US.
- throwawayboise 5y agoThere should be a mandatory retirement age for government. 65 sounds about right.
- ralph84 5y agoAbsolutely. Airline pilots are forced to retire at 65 and their decisions only affect a few hundred people. Politicians' decisions affect millions.
- laurent92 5y agoI’d rather be governed by people who have 65 years of experience with life, than by people who snort coke at 40 to be the shark they’ve always wanted. Politicians never seem to take correct decisions anyway.
- dclowd9901 5y agoReally? I feel exactly the opposite. I wouldn’t trust someone over 65 to drive me to the store.
- laurent92 5y agoIn our world, we often assume old people have wrong opinions. The core, though, is that they were betrayed more often than us, so they are less prone to fall into the next rhetoric trap.
- giantg2 5y agoIt's seems they get set in their ways and don't take action to make positive changes either. Never mind the next rhetoric trap, they're still in the first rhetoric trap... Maybe all of this is a little bit of ageism, but we see that on the opposite end if the age spectrum too and I guess moving to a competency based test isn't practical.
- sumedh 5y ago> Politicians' decisions affect millions. Dont forget the US Supreme court where you literally cling to your job till you die. Those judges are one of the most selfish and egoistic people on earth.
- paganel 5y agoThey kind of have that in China for public officials, if I'm not mistaken, and it's a big thing that Xi is the first of their leaders in a long time who seems to ignore it. On further research it's a rule imposed back in 2002 [1]: > In 2002, then-President Jiang Zemin tried to clear the ranks at the top of the party by instituting retirement age limits: 68 for top leaders and 65 for senior level officials. That rule has been followed with varying degrees of success. Mr Jiang himself delayed his own retirement. He stayed on as the chairman of China's military for two years until 2004 after relinquishing his other positions to his successor, Hu Jintao. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-21783353 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-21783353
- dirtyid 5y agoBBC article has some mistakes. NOMINATION age between is 58-67. Lower for deputy / provincial levels. Provincial leaders has to retire by 60-65. National leaders have no formal retirement age, but are expected to retire at 70-75. There's also other norms like "seven up, eight down" for standing committee. Xi hasn't broken any age limit rules / norms so far, despite heavy speculation (Qang Qishan in 2017). I would say age limit is treated also sacricant vs term limits, which doesn't even apply to the most important positions for ruling PRC in case of Xi - general secretary, chairman of PLA. There's no good reason for west to throw conniptions over Xi being a dictator for life for another 5-7 years.
- basisword 5y agoOr maybe a deadly virus swept the world and they tried to prevent as many deaths as possible, regardless of the consequences.
- fny 5y agoBoth are true. Fiscal and monetary stimulus drove financial assets owned mostly by 40+ and retirees to the moon. House prices have become more unaffordable just as millennials (already saddled with college debt) are getting ready to buy their first homes. Inflation has eaten into real wages even with increases. We also locked up an entire generation of zoomers in a house for two years. I was all for lockdowns in early COVID since we didn't know what we were dealing with, but we kept schools closed for far, far too long.
- dclowd9901 5y agoHonestly, blame the far left. This was their totem and they’ve been staunch about it. I consider myself a democratic socialist, but planting the flag of progressives into the dirt at the line of perpetual lockdowns was a _huge_ and likely catastrophic misstep, both politically and (more importantly) societally.
- watwut 5y agoApparently, majority of world is ruled by far left. Otherwise we can't explain lockdowna in other countries.
- ErikVandeWater 5y agoIt's not so much far left as it is authoritarian.
- simplestats 5y agoAssets going up in value isn't really a wealth transfer by itself. The buyer is just exchanging a lot more cash for an asset worth a lot more. Their wealth doesn't change overall. Rents are a different story perhaps. The unfair property taxes in California and similar states is certainly wealth transfer though, which got vastly more unfair.
- fny 5y agoIt is an indirect transfer. Central bank balance sheet coupled with debt monetization debases fiat. That means if I worked for an hour and made $10 and your house goes up by 30%, I can buy less house while you can borrow against your house at low interest rates to buy more financial assets or even my time.
- oh_sigh 5y agoWhat do the elderly do with their money when they die?
- Breazy 5y ago
- throwawayboise 5y agoA lot of them give it to assisted living facilites jsut before that happens. There is a huge industry around siphoning off assets from the elderly before they die.
- joering2 5y agoworth watching Netflix "I Do Care". Sadly its very much like in the movie. At least here in USA (source: friend of family works in a assisted living facility and sees very bad stuff daily!)
- gadflyinyoureye 5y agoDepends. A neighbor hated his family that he purposely caused his home to go into probate just to slow them down. Most of the time the money is passed onto the next generation. But here's the current problem: the boomers, as a generation, have a lot of assets, specifically housing, locked up as rentals. This has caused house to shoot up (though it is not the only factor). If the boomers die, I suspect that a large number of homes would become available at reasonable prices within the year of the death. For example, my parents own multiple rental homes (only of one of which they constructed for the express purpose of renting on a plot of land that the city thought was undevelop-able). When they die, my sister and I will sell the properties. While she lives near them, she doesn't want to manage them, and I don't since I live far away. By allowing the boomers to live longer, these assets remain locked up. They can continue to rent seek at the expense of the generations that came after them. This means that multiple generations, particularly millennials and zoomers are screwed.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
- xyzzy_plugh 5y agoThis is a bad take. At most, Covid was a wealth transfer from governments and middle-class to many lucky corporations and wealthy investors. But in reality, everyone is suffering. Let's say the opposite reaction happened and we prioritized heathy youths over vulnerable seniors. There would have been orders of magnitude more deaths by now, society would have collapsed in some places temporarily or permanently as healthcare systems break down entirely. The wealth transfer from the youth to the elderly is nothing new, it's been pretty continuous and generally correlates with elderly population. Covid just put pressure on the whole system.
- tootahe45 5y agoIs it really a bad take? my parents & aunt had 28,34% gains respectively on the value of their main properties in just 1 year. I'm going to have to pay for that (or settle for a lot less living space) if i want to own anything here in the future. Definitely feels like a wealth transfer.
- usrusr 5y agoYeah, inflation tends do that. The pandemic has been good fuel for inflation and continues to do so, but the fire would have burnt anyways. The fire is monetary policy trying to force growth no matter what. And why is growth forced? Because it's the only way to allow the poor to slightly improve without questioning the endless accumulation of the wealthy.
- janeroe 5y ago> The pandemic has been good fuel for inflation and continues to do so Not just some abstract "pandemic" but specific policies adopted by specific people. Don't turn it into a Hegelian providence as if no one is responsible and it's a self propagating process that would happen regardless.
- astrange 5y agoIt's because - people couldn't go on vacation so they all switched to buying durable goods at the same time. (that's why supply chains don't hold up, it's a crisis of abundance not deprivation.) - workers in some industries died (like meatpacking) or quit (like restaurants). - we haven't built enough houses since 1970 and everyone decided to buy a house at once. It's not because of stimulus though; making people poorer so they can't buy cars is not a good solution to cars being too expensive.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- slibhb 5y agoThis seems unlikely given how many elderly people died of covid. Presumably their wealth was inherited by their children.
- superkuh 5y agoNo, covid is the common name for covid-19, the disease pathology that happens when you are infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus and your body fails to control it.
- version_five 5y agoI'd say a wealth transfer from the poor to the wealthy. Inflation + restrictions has dramatically exacerbated inequality, as have the expectations we put on the working poor - leave home to deliver my food etc but don't you dare enjoy yourself. It's a coincidence that this also corresponds to transferring from young to old people. Overall, if you have a big house, country cottages, and lots of investments, you got a lot richer in the last couple years. If you live in a small apartment and work a low skill job, you have to keep doing that, for way less pay after inflation, have to find a way to look after your kids at home, and can't go outside except to work, because "we're all in this together" The whole episode has been a serious step back in human equality
- cma 5y agoStimulus and unemployment increases raised overall take-home pay during the year for many lower middle class and poor. For the very poor, increases in SNAP benefits as part of the stimulus outpaced food price inflation, but almost no articles about food inflation mention it. Unemployment is as low as it has been since 1999. There are legit shortages driving inflation in big categories, but wages are up too. Average wages in non-supervisory roles are up over 10% compared to two years ago, restaurant roles nearly 14%. Inflation directly hurts people with lots of savings in low yield accounts, not the working poor. That's not to say they did well compared to the rich in the pandemic, just that inflation taken as a single factor doesn't single them out.
- Bolkan 5y agoCovid kills only old people. All the billionairs and politicians are old. (Think "don't look up")
- forgotmypw17 5y agoAre we talking about the elderly who were locked up and isolated from any contact with people they depend on for basic survival needs?
- ErikVandeWater 5y agoWhere were they locking up the elderly? In fully staffed assisted living facilities?
- ya_throw 5y agoBy your same description, prison is a "fully staffed assisted living facility".
- ErikVandeWater 5y agoNo, it isn't.
- ya_throw 5y agoYour implication is that the "full staffing" makes up for the fact that inmates can't leave nor have anyone visit. In which case, there is little difference between a care facility under lockdown, and a prison. A friend's grandmother died alone, without having seen friends or family for months, shut in her room in a care facility during 2020. I suppose you are one of the people who would also tell us that house arrest is "not hard".
- ErikVandeWater 5y agoReconsidering, it is fair to say prison is a fully staffed assisted living facility (excepting when prison is assisting with the dying). My implication though was that elderly were not "isolated from any contact with people they depend on for basic survival needs" in cases where they were put in assisted living facilities, because they provide for basic survival needs. > I suppose you are one of the people who would also tell us that house arrest is "not hard". Never implied that.
- halfmatthalfcat 5y agoThis assumes there’s ever been “youth wealth”. Boomers have been systematically disenfranchising millennials on down since they’ve gotten into power. They’re probably one of the most selfish and entitled generations that have ever existed.
- hogrider 5y agoAll societies are heavily gerontocratic, democracies or not. Of course for any crisis this always happens, see climate change, 2008, etc.