Re:In Aging Singapore, 65-Year-Olds Are Learning How to Code
by rayiner on Sunday September 15, 2019 @05:57PM
(#20979714)
It has nothing to do with inflation. Retirement savings are capital, but production requires labor. The mechanics of retirement are just a proxy for diverting production from working young people to non-working old people, and that’s true whether you have private retirement savings, tax-funded retirement, or traditional family arrangements where children care for elderly parents. In any of those systems, if the older generation is much bigger than the young generation, you have a problem.
With endless inflation as a reality, the only way to support retirement is to basically build a pyramid scheme. For every old person who retires, you need multiple young people to work to support them. Seeing as how Singapore’s fertility rate is only about half of the replacement rate, that’s not possible.
The elderly today have a few people falling through the cracks. The elderly 50 years from now will have nothing to their names and no family to support them. They’re truly fucked.