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Ah yes, if line doesn't up and to the right then it must be bad. For whom is a declining population a nightmare exactly? I understand why from the state's posi
by kypro 3y ago
Ah yes, if line doesn't up and to the right then it must be bad.
For whom is a declining population a nightmare exactly? I understand why from the state's position of wanting to maximising political and economic influence in the world it might be bad to have a lower population relative to other nations, but I think describing this a "nightmare" is a bit extreme. I doubt anyone in Russia really cares that much if the population is declining or growing in any given year.
Russia is perhaps in a slightly different situation, but my controversial take here would be that in general the policies which are implemented by governments to increase population almost always come with their own negatives. That's not to say there aren't policies which could work, but I think general when leaders become focused on making population line go up they start making decisions which are bad for the average citizen.
- CatWChainsaw 3y agoThere's a couple of topics on HN where there seems to be a very unified Opinion on things. One is that population growth is always good, even though it's cooking the planet alive. Another is that extending life expectancy into centuries-long timespans is also always good, even though again, we're cooking the planet alive. Edit: got a downvote within seconds of writing this comment, which proves my point. Happy World Oceans Day everyone, please ignore the existential fact that we're boiling the oxygen and life right out of them, crippling our weather systems and food chains. The future is bright! :)
- Arie 3y ago> Ah yes, if line doesn't up and to the right then it must be bad. For life expectancy, yes.
- meltedcapacitor 3y agoQuality-adjusted maybe?
- macintux 3y agoAs long as retirement is at least partially funded by taxes, population growth matters a great deal.
- meltedcapacitor 3y agoNothing a tweak to the parameters (retirement age, pension value net of taxes on pensions) can't fix. Pension "rights" are not immutable physical constants. Counter-intuitively, in democratic systems, lot of young people means pensioners become a smaller proportion of the electorate: so the cake is notionally bigger but the slice pensioners can claim might end up proportionally smaller due to weakened bargaining power.
- kaba0 3y ago> Nothing a tweak to the parameters (retirement age, pension value net of taxes on pensions) can't fix. Pension "rights" are not immutable physical constants. So what exactly happens to people who reach that age and have no other kind of income and can no longer work?
- meltedcapacitor 3y agoSame as people who also "can no longer work" under that age? There is no need to give blanket age-based pension rights to fit people to coincidentally help the disabled, who can be supported directly based on actual impairments.
- HPsquared 3y agoHow much does it matter?
- alangibson 3y agoIf you don't want old people starving to death, you need enough young people producing enough excess wealth to feed them.
- CrampusDestrus 3y agoI sincerely hope you don't find yourself out of a medical appointment because of a lack of new young men and women learning the discipline
- HPsquared 3y agoJapan is the test case.
- kaba0 3y agopopulation * a ^ n Guess where it moves if `a` is less than 1.