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…you get paid out from your investments or the government pays you a pension. Your investments and the government pension are financed by the active work of so

…you get paid out from your investments or the government pays you a pension. Your investments and the government pension are financed by the active work of someone’s children. If there won’t be enough of them around your retirement will not be as comfortable as you planned. Retirement is still dependent on children. Before it was your children. Now it’s a collective mass of children.

bluecalm 1y ago
>>Retirement is still dependent on children. Before it was your children. Now it’s a collective mass of children. Which messes up the incentive structure. People with many children are subsidizing those with fewer/none.
- morepedantic 1y ago
  Perhaps there should be a social security deduction for every dependent child you had that tax year? For example, each dependent child that year could be a refund of 3.1% of income up to the social security maximum, such that at 4 children all 12.4% is returned to you?
  - bluecalm 1y ago
    You want incentives for both having children and raising them well. That's why imo your retirement should depend on % of your children's taxes not yours.
    - lores 1y ago
      Then you're double-whamming childless people who did not take any public resources for their children and likely paid more taxes throughout their life, declaring infertile people a disposable class, incentivising child abuse and a glut of poor doctors/engineers/MBAs, and not least incentivising financial benefit and self-interest in one of the last places that's still largely about love, truly a capitalism end goal.
      - morepedantic 1y ago
        I'm not sure what the double whammy is here. I proposed a deduction for raising children, and he countered with a payment premium for adult children, but it sounded exclusive. Only one whammy applies. Raising your child will run you ~300,000 USD, in addition to the massive opportunity cost from time investment. Given that social security is funded entirely through taxes in that tax year, it's a bit much to expect the children of 53% of the population to care for 100% of the elderly when the willfully childless 47% of the population did not put in more upfront in some other way. As birth rates drop, the ratio of workers to retirees will skew worse and worse, and the entire safety net will collapse progressively. Alternatively, we can encourage and incentivize child rearing. Yes, that means that the willfully childfree will need to pony up resources for those who want children. What would you prefer: pay now for the continuity of the safety net, or the collapse of the safety net?
        seanmcdirmid 1y ago
        > Given that social security is funded entirely through taxes in that tax year, This isn't true, or wasn't true for a long time. SS long had a surplus that it lent to the federal government (a lot of the US debt is debt that is owed to SS). It stopped booking a surplus a few years ago, which means that it is dependent on the government paying back what it is owed, and eventually that will be gone, at which point SS will basically be, as you say, living paycheck to paycheck (or probably be insolvent requiring a cut in benefits or an injection from the general fund). The rise of AI and automation messes everything up. We don't technically need to have more children, we could even shed a few billion people to a new stable smaller population point. The problem is equitable distributions from AI and automation so that unneeded labor isn't just left to die.
        morepedantic 1y ago
        By law, Social Security invests surpluses in US Treasury securities. So the US government "lends" money to itself, where it is spent that year on government programs for the taxpayers in that year. The securities are backed by taxpayers in the future. For example, in 2005 Social Security had a 172B surplus, but the US government had a deficit of 318B. Social Security's 172B surplus was spent by the US government in the same year for government services on the people of 2005. The money was spent on voters, taxpayers, and citizens in 2005, but the liability was recorded against people who hadn't been born yet. You've referred to a fiction, but reality is as I've stated. The US government loves creating fictions, but that doesn't mean we visit the Vietnam Police Action Memorial.
- mym1990 1y ago
  This just isn't true. How many children my neighbor has impacts my social security payments or other retirement disbursements in no tangible way. It certainly doesn't impact my 401k or other retirement savings unless you are linking population growth to the growth of the asset markets and the structural integrity of the social security system(I can see the point of view here, but I wouldn't call this a "subsidy").
  - mordae 1y ago
    By saving you are in fact betting on your ability to threaten young people with material deprivation to force them to take care of you. You could make a different bet, e.g. invest into whatever infrastructure they'll need to take care of aging population. But your savings fund likely invests in luxuries for aging big spenders, so... I am rather curious how this plays out long-term, since there is no investment instrument for "please build train / underground closer to my house".
    - mym1990 1y ago
      The whole comment is a bit non-sensical, so I am not sure how to respond. If you are not from the US, you should know that social security is not an option, it is a mandatory program. Things like 401k plans are tax incentivized, and as we know, humans love incentives. Most 401k plans are in index funds, which track a large number of companies, so I am not sure what "luxuries for aging big spenders" means but it sounds like you have it figured out.
      - alexey-salmin 1y ago
        > Most 401k plans are in index funds, which track a large number of companies Who will work in these companies? Who will buy their products and fuel their revenues?
        mym1990 1y ago
        People of all shapes, sizes, and economic levels…not sure what your point is?
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  We say people, but broadly speaking, the global population ballooned because women were not educated and empowered. Now that they are, witness the rapid global total fertility rate decline (educated, empowered women delay childbirth, have less children, or no children). Socioeconomic systems have been freeloading off of uncompensated labor of women in the aggregate. How will they change? That remains to be seen.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - drentost 1y ago
    >Socioeconomic systems have been freeloading off of uncompensated labor of women What an extraordinarily perverse view of recent history. Who do you think built and maintained the socioeconomic systems that allowed women to focus on creating and raising children? You could even more easily twist your perceptions such that men have been forced to work hard and short lives serving the whims of women who have enjoyed the luxury of sitting around making babies, singing nursery rhymes, and gossiping over afternoon tea with their friends. Women have stopped making babies. So men have stopped wanting to make civilisation. We are indeed seeing the consequences of the collapse of this social contract.
    - owebmaster 1y ago
      Do you see yourself as a civilisation maker?
      - nathanaldensr 1y ago
        [flagged]
        ethbr1 1y ago
        > the facts are that men, not women, build civilization Could you or someone enumerate them? Because I'm having a hard time thinking of anything that wasn't supported or enabled with women.
CaptArmchair 1y ago
If a pension system is purely based on repartition: yes. But that's not the case in most countries. Pension plans mostly involve pension funds which are rooted in the financial markets. It's the individuals responsibility to max out their pension plan, and fiscal policies are used to incentivize this. Ownership of assets, like home ownership, also contributes towards the totality of a pension. In that sense, not owning a home, having to pay rent in old age, is a form of impoverishment. If that rent isn't offset by other sources of income like financial investments.
- bot403 1y ago
  Financial markets are fueled by growth. Growth in real terms (not merely inflation) requires increases in GDP which requires real output by people at it's core. I'd be worried about expected financial growth of any retirement fund over the long term if population is flat or declining.
  - tremon 1y ago
    Financial markets are fueled by growth Infinite productivity growth is just as detrimental to society as cancer is to the body. We need more sustainable economic models.
- alexey-salmin 1y ago
  Who will work in these companies that you own? Who will consume the goods they produce and fuel revenues? The home ownership is real, but you can't feed of that. You can live in your home yourself if you'd like, but if you plan to rent it out for profit you'll need young people to work and pay the rent.
- koliber 1y ago
  True. And financial market growth depends in a large part on consumption growth. And consumption growth depends in a large part on population growth (at least in a given market). There are two ways to get a population to grow. One is have babies at above the replacement rate. The other is immigration.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 1y ago
Cool, then give pension only to people with children! (mostly joking, I have kids so this works great for me)

bluecalm 1y ago

>>Retirement is still dependent on children. Before it was your children. Now it’s a collective mass of children. Which messes up the incentive structure. People with many children are subsidizing those with fewer/none.

morepedantic 1y ago
Perhaps there should be a social security deduction for every dependent child you had that tax year? For example, each dependent child that year could be a refund of 3.1% of income up to the social security maximum, such that at 4 children all 12.4% is returned to you?
- bluecalm 1y ago
  You want incentives for both having children and raising them well. That's why imo your retirement should depend on % of your children's taxes not yours.
  - lores 1y ago
    Then you're double-whamming childless people who did not take any public resources for their children and likely paid more taxes throughout their life, declaring infertile people a disposable class, incentivising child abuse and a glut of poor doctors/engineers/MBAs, and not least incentivising financial benefit and self-interest in one of the last places that's still largely about love, truly a capitalism end goal.
    - morepedantic 1y ago
      I'm not sure what the double whammy is here. I proposed a deduction for raising children, and he countered with a payment premium for adult children, but it sounded exclusive. Only one whammy applies. Raising your child will run you ~300,000 USD, in addition to the massive opportunity cost from time investment. Given that social security is funded entirely through taxes in that tax year, it's a bit much to expect the children of 53% of the population to care for 100% of the elderly when the willfully childless 47% of the population did not put in more upfront in some other way. As birth rates drop, the ratio of workers to retirees will skew worse and worse, and the entire safety net will collapse progressively. Alternatively, we can encourage and incentivize child rearing. Yes, that means that the willfully childfree will need to pony up resources for those who want children. What would you prefer: pay now for the continuity of the safety net, or the collapse of the safety net?
      - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
        > Given that social security is funded entirely through taxes in that tax year, This isn't true, or wasn't true for a long time. SS long had a surplus that it lent to the federal government (a lot of the US debt is debt that is owed to SS). It stopped booking a surplus a few years ago, which means that it is dependent on the government paying back what it is owed, and eventually that will be gone, at which point SS will basically be, as you say, living paycheck to paycheck (or probably be insolvent requiring a cut in benefits or an injection from the general fund). The rise of AI and automation messes everything up. We don't technically need to have more children, we could even shed a few billion people to a new stable smaller population point. The problem is equitable distributions from AI and automation so that unneeded labor isn't just left to die.
        morepedantic 1y ago
        By law, Social Security invests surpluses in US Treasury securities. So the US government "lends" money to itself, where it is spent that year on government programs for the taxpayers in that year. The securities are backed by taxpayers in the future. For example, in 2005 Social Security had a 172B surplus, but the US government had a deficit of 318B. Social Security's 172B surplus was spent by the US government in the same year for government services on the people of 2005. The money was spent on voters, taxpayers, and citizens in 2005, but the liability was recorded against people who hadn't been born yet. You've referred to a fiction, but reality is as I've stated. The US government loves creating fictions, but that doesn't mean we visit the Vietnam Police Action Memorial.
mym1990 1y ago
This just isn't true. How many children my neighbor has impacts my social security payments or other retirement disbursements in no tangible way. It certainly doesn't impact my 401k or other retirement savings unless you are linking population growth to the growth of the asset markets and the structural integrity of the social security system(I can see the point of view here, but I wouldn't call this a "subsidy").
- mordae 1y ago
  By saving you are in fact betting on your ability to threaten young people with material deprivation to force them to take care of you. You could make a different bet, e.g. invest into whatever infrastructure they'll need to take care of aging population. But your savings fund likely invests in luxuries for aging big spenders, so... I am rather curious how this plays out long-term, since there is no investment instrument for "please build train / underground closer to my house".
  - mym1990 1y ago
    The whole comment is a bit non-sensical, so I am not sure how to respond. If you are not from the US, you should know that social security is not an option, it is a mandatory program. Things like 401k plans are tax incentivized, and as we know, humans love incentives. Most 401k plans are in index funds, which track a large number of companies, so I am not sure what "luxuries for aging big spenders" means but it sounds like you have it figured out.
    - alexey-salmin 1y ago
      > Most 401k plans are in index funds, which track a large number of companies Who will work in these companies? Who will buy their products and fuel their revenues?
      - mym1990 1y ago
        People of all shapes, sizes, and economic levels…not sure what your point is?
toomuchtodo 1y ago
We say people, but broadly speaking, the global population ballooned because women were not educated and empowered. Now that they are, witness the rapid global total fertility rate decline (educated, empowered women delay childbirth, have less children, or no children). Socioeconomic systems have been freeloading off of uncompensated labor of women in the aggregate. How will they change? That remains to be seen.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- drentost 1y ago
  >Socioeconomic systems have been freeloading off of uncompensated labor of women What an extraordinarily perverse view of recent history. Who do you think built and maintained the socioeconomic systems that allowed women to focus on creating and raising children? You could even more easily twist your perceptions such that men have been forced to work hard and short lives serving the whims of women who have enjoyed the luxury of sitting around making babies, singing nursery rhymes, and gossiping over afternoon tea with their friends. Women have stopped making babies. So men have stopped wanting to make civilisation. We are indeed seeing the consequences of the collapse of this social contract.
  - owebmaster 1y ago
    Do you see yourself as a civilisation maker?
    - nathanaldensr 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - ethbr1 1y ago
        > the facts are that men, not women, build civilization Could you or someone enumerate them? Because I'm having a hard time thinking of anything that wasn't supported or enabled with women.

CaptArmchair 1y ago

If a pension system is purely based on repartition: yes. But that's not the case in most countries. Pension plans mostly involve pension funds which are rooted in the financial markets. It's the individuals responsibility to max out their pension plan, and fiscal policies are used to incentivize this. Ownership of assets, like home ownership, also contributes towards the totality of a pension. In that sense, not owning a home, having to pay rent in old age, is a form of impoverishment. If that rent isn't offset by other sources of income like financial investments.

bot403 1y ago
Financial markets are fueled by growth. Growth in real terms (not merely inflation) requires increases in GDP which requires real output by people at it's core. I'd be worried about expected financial growth of any retirement fund over the long term if population is flat or declining.
- tremon 1y ago
  Financial markets are fueled by growth Infinite productivity growth is just as detrimental to society as cancer is to the body. We need more sustainable economic models.
alexey-salmin 1y ago
Who will work in these companies that you own? Who will consume the goods they produce and fuel revenues? The home ownership is real, but you can't feed of that. You can live in your home yourself if you'd like, but if you plan to rent it out for profit you'll need young people to work and pay the rent.
koliber 1y ago
True. And financial market growth depends in a large part on consumption growth. And consumption growth depends in a large part on population growth (at least in a given market). There are two ways to get a population to grow. One is have babies at above the replacement rate. The other is immigration.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 1y ago

Cool, then give pension only to people with children! (mostly joking, I have kids so this works great for me)