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Which is worse? Taking money from the young (who already have bad prospects) and giving it to the elderly? Or "taking" money from the elderly and "giving" it

Which is worse? Taking money from the young (who already have bad prospects) and giving it to the elderly? Or "taking" money from the elderly and "giving" it to the young? I say "taking" in quotes because a pension is a contractual obligation, not a god-given right. Ultimately neither solution is a good one. This is class warfare at its finest. Personally I think the social contract of the US is starting to break down, as is societal cohesion. We're all super civilized when we all have good prospects and everyone's life is improving. As the prospects deteriorate so do people's willingness to participate.

gohrt 13y ago
Generally speaking, life gets massively better from one generation to the next. There are exceptions, of course, for nations collapsing in war, and there's pollution and whatnot posing a lurking threat, but overall: If you had the choice, and had to pay for your decision, how much would you pay to live in the 2000s instead living in the 1900s? The elderly deserve their pensions. The young get Modern Progress.
- christkv 13y ago
  The problem with pensions is that they need a pyramid age distributions. That's to say lots of young people to pay the taxes to fund the top of the pyramid. That scheme is broken in the west so the whole system will creak on until the younger generations cuts the funds. The excessive entitlements granted over the last 2 generations is unsustainable. In Spain many baby-boomers have 2X-3X the pension income of a full-time employee. How is that sustainable ??
  - gohrt 13y ago
    > The problem with pensions is that they need a pyramid age distributions No, they don't, necessarily. There is a balance to be struck with regard to magnitude and length of pension payments. 2-3x the pension income of a full-timer seems excessive at a glance. That doesn't disprove the existence of a reasonable pension scheme.
  - adventured 13y ago
    None of it is sustainable, not even remotely. Falling populations alone force a requirement for ever higher taxes due to a downward spiral equation on taxes / people / savings / standard of living. The next generation always has to pay more for the last (greater population in the past each cycle), while having less savings and a lower standard of living.
    - christkv 13y ago
      Actually for this generations the squeeze are two way. One is higher pensions the other is higher housing costs. A growth in house equity value is a transfer between generations as the older generations came into the property value at the bottom. Norway right now is an extreme example of this as the high prices of property squeeze out the young from the market and transfers money to the older generations.
- revelation 13y ago
  It's not exactly a tradeoff. You can get Modern Progress and not pay some old dudes lush pension.
- adventured 13y ago
  It's also worth noting that the premise of life getting massively better one generation to the next, is a freak occurrence - and as it applies to the broad planet it's a recent one - over the course of human history. It has been the extremely rare event, for there to be a big leap one generation to the next, if you're tracking the total span of the species. Why do I point that out? Because there's no rule that human life has to get massively better. There is no guarantee. It does not have to happen at all, and I would argue entropy + certain aspects of human nature are constantly acting to undermine the potential for progress to occur. It's not just that there have been exceptions. Life getting massively better one gen to the next is the extraordinarily rare exception. We definitely shouldn't take it for granted.
  - msandford 13y ago
    Oh I agree completely. The problem is that life got massively better for a while. That's stopped as the industrial revolution has slowed down. I don't mean that the world is getting worse, just that it's getting awesome at a much slower rate. BUT the pensions and social security and whatever are premised on the world getting more bitchin' at a high rate. That high rate is gone, but the programs put into place while it was around are still around, and they haven't been adjusted. I don't mind that we've returned to slow growth instead of rapid, so long as it happens to everyone. That does not seem to be the case re: social security, the housing market, etc and those are largely dictated by government. The Fed (a quasi-government agency) sets the interest rate and thus has a lot of control over housing prices. The Federal Government enacted Social Security and refuses to reform it in any meaningful way. As a result I'm not optimistic that social cohesion will continue. We're graduating people who can't buy houses or cars or start families at a substantial rate. Loss aversion is a REALLY strong emotionally motivating force for humans as we're wired to avoid losses much more aggressively than pursue gains. But if you don't have much to lose any possibility of gain appealing and that's how you have a revolution.
    - gohrt 13y ago
      > That's stopped as the industrial revolution has slowed down. It's just not true: http://gapminder.org http://gapminder.org , http://www.gapminder.org/world/ http://www.gapminder.org/world/

gohrt 13y ago

Generally speaking, life gets massively better from one generation to the next. There are exceptions, of course, for nations collapsing in war, and there's pollution and whatnot posing a lurking threat, but overall: If you had the choice, and had to pay for your decision, how much would you pay to live in the 2000s instead living in the 1900s? The elderly deserve their pensions. The young get Modern Progress.

christkv 13y ago
The problem with pensions is that they need a pyramid age distributions. That's to say lots of young people to pay the taxes to fund the top of the pyramid. That scheme is broken in the west so the whole system will creak on until the younger generations cuts the funds. The excessive entitlements granted over the last 2 generations is unsustainable. In Spain many baby-boomers have 2X-3X the pension income of a full-time employee. How is that sustainable ??
- gohrt 13y ago
  > The problem with pensions is that they need a pyramid age distributions No, they don't, necessarily. There is a balance to be struck with regard to magnitude and length of pension payments. 2-3x the pension income of a full-timer seems excessive at a glance. That doesn't disprove the existence of a reasonable pension scheme.
- adventured 13y ago
  None of it is sustainable, not even remotely. Falling populations alone force a requirement for ever higher taxes due to a downward spiral equation on taxes / people / savings / standard of living. The next generation always has to pay more for the last (greater population in the past each cycle), while having less savings and a lower standard of living.
  - christkv 13y ago
    Actually for this generations the squeeze are two way. One is higher pensions the other is higher housing costs. A growth in house equity value is a transfer between generations as the older generations came into the property value at the bottom. Norway right now is an extreme example of this as the high prices of property squeeze out the young from the market and transfers money to the older generations.
revelation 13y ago
It's not exactly a tradeoff. You can get Modern Progress and not pay some old dudes lush pension.
adventured 13y ago
It's also worth noting that the premise of life getting massively better one generation to the next, is a freak occurrence - and as it applies to the broad planet it's a recent one - over the course of human history. It has been the extremely rare event, for there to be a big leap one generation to the next, if you're tracking the total span of the species. Why do I point that out? Because there's no rule that human life has to get massively better. There is no guarantee. It does not have to happen at all, and I would argue entropy + certain aspects of human nature are constantly acting to undermine the potential for progress to occur. It's not just that there have been exceptions. Life getting massively better one gen to the next is the extraordinarily rare exception. We definitely shouldn't take it for granted.
- msandford 13y ago
  Oh I agree completely. The problem is that life got massively better for a while. That's stopped as the industrial revolution has slowed down. I don't mean that the world is getting worse, just that it's getting awesome at a much slower rate. BUT the pensions and social security and whatever are premised on the world getting more bitchin' at a high rate. That high rate is gone, but the programs put into place while it was around are still around, and they haven't been adjusted. I don't mind that we've returned to slow growth instead of rapid, so long as it happens to everyone. That does not seem to be the case re: social security, the housing market, etc and those are largely dictated by government. The Fed (a quasi-government agency) sets the interest rate and thus has a lot of control over housing prices. The Federal Government enacted Social Security and refuses to reform it in any meaningful way. As a result I'm not optimistic that social cohesion will continue. We're graduating people who can't buy houses or cars or start families at a substantial rate. Loss aversion is a REALLY strong emotionally motivating force for humans as we're wired to avoid losses much more aggressively than pursue gains. But if you don't have much to lose any possibility of gain appealing and that's how you have a revolution.
  - gohrt 13y ago
    > That's stopped as the industrial revolution has slowed down. It's just not true: http://gapminder.org http://gapminder.org , http://www.gapminder.org/world/ http://www.gapminder.org/world/