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It doesn't make sense to say "pinched". Much like the debt isn't being "left to their children" - the children will likely choose not to pay it, it isn't writte

• willcipriano 3y ago
  Leaving debt for your children but don't want the shame? I have a solution, leave so much debt that nobody could even imagine your children paying it all off, that way you can say condescending stuff like "will likely choose not to pay it, it isn't written in stone" while writing that they will service that debt forever in stone.
  • ta1243 3y ago
    If you don't pay, who doesn't get what they are due? Who specifically is reliant on that repayment in the future? How will their life be worse if they don't get repaid? Does anyone actually know? What most Americans want is a solid job, a house in a quiet area with a couple of kids and a dog, room to swing a cat, being able to get home for dinner at 6, the ability to get around and do a few things. Basically the Homer Simpson style life (without the wacky adventures) That used to be achievable for most people. It's not now.
    • peteradio 3y ago
      In the case of USA, the debt is Govt debt so it means Govt shutdowns cutbacks etc. Every other board in the house was burned for extra warmth. Now our economy is "service" based, I guess that is some sort of inter-generational joke where we are now expected to go "service" ourselves.
      • rsynnott 3y ago
        Huh? In general when people die with net debts, it's not to the government; it's mortgages and other consumer debt.
        • peteradio 3y ago
          I'm not saying Govt is inheriting personal debts. I'm saying the bigger issue is the Govt debt as a percentage of a largely bullshit economy.
      • roenxi 3y ago
        Imagine the government prints the money and closes the debt that way. Nobody in the present has lost anything they can point to. They lost a promise which isn't worth much. The person who lent the capital could have bought something nice ... however many years ago. Today, they just have to recognise that they made a mistake many years ago. They gave a gift and mis-recorded it as an asset in their accounts. At this point, there isn't really a plausible path where the US debt gets paid down. The plausible path where they pay interest on the debt is also vanishing, 5% interest rates are overwhelming the ability of the US to pay. They are well on the path where even rolling over the principle will be infeasible. Anyone who believes it is a safe bet that they get paid back in real terms is rather optimistic, they're gambling. And in that environment, why should the inheritors of the debt play along in this silly game? They'll print and be done with it. Personal debt is also a non-issue, where I imagine it gets extinguished on death. There isn't really a path here where future generations get saddled with debt. The problem is they'll have a future where their parents didn't build enough infrastructure. I suppose the video might be about the UK, but the situation there would be largely similar to in the US, on a smaller scale. The problem is the lack of investment in the past, not the debt in the present.
  • rsynnott 3y ago
    > while writing that they will service that debt forever in stone. Eh? In general, in most jurisdictions, debt essentially dies with the debtor; if it can't be paid from the proceeds of the estate, then that's the end of it.
• Y_Y 3y ago
  I don't mean to offend the parent poster, but this post gives me strong Shaney[0] vibes. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_V._Shaney https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_V._Shaney
  • roenxi 3y ago
    Is there an aspect of the comment you think is illogical, a non-sequitur or otherwise mildly objectionable?
    • klodolph 3y ago
      I found the original comment unclear and hard to follow. It has some garden-path elements… like “partially fossilized”, which most people will parse as an adjective, but here is used as a transitive verb (unusual / surprising usage). The sentence has lots of clauses in it. The key idea in the next sentence is shoved into a clause behind “it is inarguable that”, which readers will stumble over like a pile of children’s toys sitting in front of the door. The multiple ideas in the paragraph are presented without connecting phrases. There are some phrases which seem nonsensical, like “fast-growing stasis”. It’s not like such a phrase is wrong, but it’s nonsensical at a surface level, which forces readers to stop and think about alternative readings. It is just a comment on HN. I don’t think it’s fair to ask authors to edit or carefully craft HN comments. However, there are some problems with the way that comment is written.
      • roenxi 3y ago
        Thanks for the helpful feedback; it is hard to get that on the internet. Although... > There are some phrases which seem nonsensical, like “fast-growing stasis”. It’s not like such a phrase is wrong, but it’s nonsensical at a surface level, which forces readers to stop and think about alternative readings. That was intentional, and catches what I meant. The English speaking world is improving everything with unprecedented speed. Simultaneously, there seems to be an extreme amount of political tension that is linked to stagnation of a few key measures like wages and per capita energy use. It is a weird situation of stasis (really more decline these days) and change for the better. Without observing both, the political situation wouldn't make sense.
• michaelt 3y ago
  > Much like the debt isn't being "left to their children" - the children will likely choose not to pay it, it isn't written in stone. What form do you think this debt takes, that the children can choose not to pay it? A big part of this debt is a bunch of elderly people who feel they have paid into "the system" their whole working lives, and now they need their cancer treated, their hip replaced, their cataracts treated, their heart problems treated, their slips trips and falls treated, their strokes treated, their dementia treated, and so on. And it turns out the system wasn't building up a balance all those years they were "paying in" - actually, the money was spent as soon as it came in. Every one of these elderly people has a vote. And every single young person has elderly people as their parents. To me it seems unlikely any politician would get elected with a policy of 'choosing not to pay' for healthcare for the elderly.
  • roenxi 3y ago
    If the elderly take on the entire productive economy, they will lose. The reserves aren't there to do that. There isn't an English speaking economy that can afford that level of debt, and the old can try to compel the young but they don't have the number of healthy bodies that would be needed to win. We're dealing with law vs. reality on this one. Reality has a big edge. A broke millennial living in their rental apartment with a lousy job cannot cure their parents of cancer and doesn't have the time to look after them. It does not, physically, work. The boomers should have spent their efforts setting up a good medical system instead of trusting it all to their feelings and not investing anything. Maybe it will all work out. That'd be nice. I assume a lot of people will have pretty miserable retirements and in hindsight they should have been a bit more fiscally responsible in their politics.
  • hirako2000 3y ago
    Not sure what health care costs represent in a budget of elderlies, surely a lot. But not even a quarter of all this dept is to cover health care provided to retired contributors. Just look at the ratio the entire health sector represents. Yes the system hasn't been balanced, but all that "money"- went into so many other things old generations have accumulated. Stock (at a decently valued purchased price, not the hyper bubbled dollar per share the stock markets trend at these days). Real Estate, and real estate and real estate. A few % of the elderly sit on wealth worthy hundreds of millions, billions of dollars worth of property. Taking rents while workers indirectly pay that rent in everything they consume, not just to live somewhere. Not paying the debt while still catering to eldery's health is an option. It would just deprive some of them from wealth they wouldn't even have time to spend in 100 life times in medical bills plus everything else. The debt problem will likely be solved along with the property valuation non sense. Health care is, almost, a non issue in comparison.
• sirsinsalot 3y ago
  Debt might not be passed to children, but when the parent's assets are liquidated and sold on death to settle high taxes on inheritance, it is clear that they effectively are even at a local scale. Assets that would've been inherited by the children, as a form of generational wealth transfer, are cut off. High government debt means high taxes. Those assets are liquidated and heavily taxed. Rent seeking behaviour then limits that generation's ability to grow their own asset base. A mortgage for a home, a person's main store of wealth, is now more about how much lifetime debt you can sustain rather than a reasonable price for a reasonable asset backed loan. The whole thing is insane. Welcome to a world where you own nothing, die with nothing and pass nothing on. This prevents the accumulation of wealth (power) over generations, keeping the poor poor and helping the rich become richer.
  • candiddevmike 3y ago
    End of life care is going to obliterate generational wealth long before taxes, it doesn't even get taxed until you're over 13 million in the US. IMO, generational wealth should be taxed more as it's a huge source of sustaining inequality and trivial to avoid/plan around if you're rich.
    • HenryBemis 3y ago
      This could be fair (?) if you are a billionaire. If I've been saving and investing most of my life, and I end up leaving €2-3m to my children, why would the taxman take 20-30-40% of it? (since you don't mention a percentage I came up with it). Why should I be punished for 'not giving money back to the economy' (spending - ~25% VAT)? Saving money gives the bank the ability to loan it to someone else (or even me), thus growing the economy. Investing money gives the company (assuming stocks/etc.) funds to grow. Am I being punished for not paying a VAT or ~25% (spending) but instead of paying 'only' the 15%-19% for capital gains tax (when my children close those positions)? Heads I lose, Tails I lose?
      • ttyprintk 3y ago
        Since you’re talking about fairness, Mossack Fonseca had 214,000 accounts. Many rich people are taking an option you don’t mention.