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But tons of people are unemployed and we are not suffering any shortage of goods or services, so I don't understand how structural issues are applicable to this

But tons of people are unemployed and we are not suffering any shortage of goods or services, so I don't understand how structural issues are applicable to this problem. Are you saying that if everyone magically got their social security checks regardless of government insolvency that the economy would not be able to support that additional purchasing power?

jerf 14y ago
What I'm saying is, money doesn't matter if we make promises to retirees that require three workers per retiree to fulfill and only two workers per retiree physically exist. No matter how much money you throw at the problem, retirees can not draw on more resources than physically exist. And you have to leave enough left over for the rest of the economy, too; those two workers can't be 100% allocated to retirees, because they also need to eat, provide shelter for themselves, ideally provide for some sort of family so there's someone there to pay for their retirement, also pay taxes so there's still a government, etc, etc. Money can only choose from the possible set of economic allocations, not the impossible ones. And the higher-level point is just that when it comes to this sort of big "how shall we structure society?" questions, thinking in terms of money affords bad logic. In particular, people can't resist straight-line interpolations based on current prices, as if prices don't change and we have an infinite pool of resources to draw on at unchanging prices, so it's just a matter of scaring up enough money. That works in your day-to-day life, it's not how it works at a societal scale.
- Evbn 14y ago
  With 9% unemployment and 15% of the population retired, it seems we have a good amount of labor available for servicing and goodsing retirees.
- dasil003 14y ago
  You're just rephrasing your original post, but you're not offering any evidence of why you think the burden of retirees is going to be so overwhelming. Why are retirees going to require an "impossible allocation"? Seems to me if demand increases then prices go up. Sure it starts to break down at extreme cases, but why would a marginally increased body of retired people be such an event? We do not have a shortage of workers at all, and the trend is to produce more stuff with ever fewer workers.

jerf 14y ago

What I'm saying is, money doesn't matter if we make promises to retirees that require three workers per retiree to fulfill and only two workers per retiree physically exist. No matter how much money you throw at the problem, retirees can not draw on more resources than physically exist. And you have to leave enough left over for the rest of the economy, too; those two workers can't be 100% allocated to retirees, because they also need to eat, provide shelter for themselves, ideally provide for some sort of family so there's someone there to pay for their retirement, also pay taxes so there's still a government, etc, etc. Money can only choose from the possible set of economic allocations, not the impossible ones. And the higher-level point is just that when it comes to this sort of big "how shall we structure society?" questions, thinking in terms of money affords bad logic. In particular, people can't resist straight-line interpolations based on current prices, as if prices don't change and we have an infinite pool of resources to draw on at unchanging prices, so it's just a matter of scaring up enough money. That works in your day-to-day life, it's not how it works at a societal scale.

Evbn 14y ago
With 9% unemployment and 15% of the population retired, it seems we have a good amount of labor available for servicing and goodsing retirees.
dasil003 14y ago
You're just rephrasing your original post, but you're not offering any evidence of why you think the burden of retirees is going to be so overwhelming. Why are retirees going to require an "impossible allocation"? Seems to me if demand increases then prices go up. Sure it starts to break down at extreme cases, but why would a marginally increased body of retired people be such an event? We do not have a shortage of workers at all, and the trend is to produce more stuff with ever fewer workers.