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- Hacker News
- by eranation
- A little late no?by kpmcc
- Economist has a global audience. The report about locally specific things are outdated as they are other countries to report about.by lava_pidgeon
- Biden, Trump, Schumer, Feinstein, McConnel say: "What's that, sonny? Ask me again after my afternoon nap."
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Anyway, the article's author seems to be quite the hard-line capitalist:
> "The only plausible way to keep public pensions solvent... is for retirement ages to rise as life expectancy does."
So, even though society's productive capacity is incredibly high, having risen and risen over two centuries of industrialization and mechanization - supposedly the problem is that older people are slacking off. This is (mostly) false. Most of the basic material wants we face today are artificial. That is, people don't starve because there's not enough food, they aren't homeless because there are not enough houses and apartments, they are not left untreated for medical conditions for lack of doctors and nurses etc. That's not to say that there are never shortages of materials or of trained professionals; but what the author is essentially saying is that working people need to shed blood, sweat, and tears more so that the insufficient share of the fruit of their labor, that actually goes back to them (= us), becomes sufficient.
This is not dissimilar from a feudal lord, who takes most produce as tax, telling his tenant farmer that if he wants to have enough to feed his children, he should get some of them to also work the fields so that there's enough to go around.
by einpoklum - It's The Economist promoting the party line, as usual.
"The economy is precarious and someone has to pay for that. This is a you problem. Don't look at us. Nothing to do with decades of neoliberal piracy."
- > That is, people don't starve because there's not enough food, they aren't homeless because there are not enough houses and apartments, they are not left untreated for medical conditions for lack of doctors and nurses etc.
People don't actually starve today, because food scarcity is now a problem humanity has almost-entirely solved (the exceptions are war-torn parts of sub-Saharan Africa, not anywhere in a developed country). But there are many people who are homeless who would be if housing costs were somewhat cheaper because the housing supply was bigger; and there are many people who don't get enough medical attention because the time of doctors and nurses is scarce and therefore expensive - this is why there's so much interest in using AI for medical questions and examinations.
by JuniperMesos - I'm not sure how I feel about this article, looking at the government, yes, it does resemble a gerontocracy given who the most powerful are. But I don't think that translates to the rest of society.by Simulacra
- how about: the funding cuts imminent to SS affecting younger participants; howard jarvis, prop 13, and the '70s tax decrease in CA; homeowner resistance to upzoning and building housing; muted action on climate change due to limited personal impact?
- The average age of Congressmen has increased, but much of that can be attributed to modern medicine and gerrymandering and the incumbent effect letting existing Congressmen stay in office for longer periods of time.
As far as the presidency goes, it's hard to draw any strong conclusions due to the small sample size and flawed two-party system. Our last two presidents have been very old, but neither was particularly popular with the voter base as a whole. Plus, Bill Clinton and Obama were very young and were elected just a decade or two prior and enjoyed a higher margin of victory and approval rating.
by Pikamander2 - America may be become a gerontocracy but it’s far more likely to be a plutocracy first and that will cause more long term harm. Old people die eventually, but the ultra rich keep it in the family.by adrithmetiqa
- It already is a plutocracyby ChiperSoft
- Welcome to the honorable club with with Italy and Germany. What's very specific is that the old pull up the ladder. They don't pass the knowledge, nor experience, not a single cent trickles down, no power is delegated. Even the opposite, with help of immediate family they vacuum up the money and power even further.
What's quite mindblowing for an outside observer is that the birth year of American president has been almost constant since 2001. I know that millennials are irresponsible and unreliable brats, but c'mon... they're over 40 now.
- Would you look at that. Clinton born in 46, Bush Jr 46, Obama 61, Trump 46 and Biden 42.
And this why immortality is bad and death is not to be cured.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_Unit...
by gherkinnn - Bush Jr was born '46. Obama (literally the next president) was born in '61. Not much of a pattern thereby laszlojamf
- i see lower voting rates for young people as a nihilistic reaction to gerontocracy. i.e. if they are blocked from upward mobility, they see power protects assets and have no clear path to this, isn't it a natural reaction? let's say they all organized and had higher voter turnout - they'd still lose on the wealth front, which is what counts. the aged would defend their power vociferously and probably win through PACs, lobbying, etc.
- I don't think that old people today are systematically willing or unwilling to pass down their knowledge and experience. But an underrated phenomenon of the modern world is that human society is now changing quickly enough that the knowledge and experience that old people have gained over their lifetimes is very likely to be out-of-date, irrelevant, or even actively-counterproductive with respect to the conditions of younger people.
This is a massive change from the situation of most of human history, where your life was extremely likely to be substantially similar to that of your grandparents, so anything useful they had learned and could pass on to you was likely to continue being useful. The rate of change in human life really started to accelerate with the industrial revolution, now some three centuries old; but humanity is now in a state where massive changes are happening much faster than the passage of human generations.
by JuniperMesos - Most countries are facing similar problems. In the US, it's the millennial problem. In France, it's HENRY (High Earner, Not Rich Yet). In Korea, it's the '20-something male' issue. In Japan, it's the 'geneki sedai' (working generation). In China, it's 'neijuan' (involution).
The common thread is that these are generations that climbed the class ladder early on, when infrastructure was lacking and there were opportunities. They had many children, jobs were plentiful, and medical advances delayed death, which meant that upper-level positions never opened up and the older generation just stayed put.
The Boomer generation naturally worked hard when infrastructure was scarce, and they succeeded under harsh physical conditions, so they find it hard to understand the generations below them. Meanwhile, the younger generations are despairing over the fact that the class ladder has been pulled up. Success is a universal desire, after all.
The older generation was in a harsh environment, but they were seated in the front row of a growing pie. The subsequent generations have better consumer goods and education, but the entry price for core assets and status has gone up, making success much harder to achieve
At the core, the real issue is the need for wealth redistribution. But in that process, the people who failed to climb the Boomers' class ladder are left behind. And crucially, as societies modernize, people tend to have fewer children, which shifts voting power away from the younger generations, making the problem even worse. In other words, everyone knows the future needs to support the youth, but doing so would cut into their own pensions and make their old age harder. And since most people are unwilling to give up their vested interests, the situation becomes even more difficult.
by jdw64 - you're right to mention the Boomer generation: gerontocracy == boomers hanging on to power. as they've always done, I might add.by childintime
- Boomers may have had harsh conditions growing up, depending where they were. But once into adulthood they had a fairly easy time of it. Jobs were plentiful, costs of essentials like housing and further education were relatively low, and they had significant disposable income.
The fact many of them assume the modern economy works the same way when in fact it's a much harsher environment is a curious phenomenon.
- Denmark does not have a problem with age. It has gone the other way: members are younger today than in the old days. Graph: https://www.ft.dk/-/media/sites/ft/billeder/infografikker/ta...
Average age is 44 years !!!
The oldest is 72. Youngest is 23. Majority is 30-54. https://www.ft.dk/-/media/sites/ft/billeder/infografikker/ta...
source: https://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/danmark/det-nye-folketing-...
by silvestrov - Not entirely, you can see the mayor of NYC who is very young, thats entirely dependent on voters, for instance, my country's PM and most of the ministers this time are at the age of around 35-40.by niraj898
- > entirely dependent on voters
A phenomenon otherwise known as democracy...
by johnea - by breppp
- > Wealth Accumulation: Older Americans hold a massive share of the nation's assets, often choosing to retain their wealth rather than pass it down early, largely due to the terrifyingly high costs of late-life healthcare.
So having good social security helps everyone. Unfortunately my country ( IN) does not prioritise that part.
by jayanmn - Most of the civilised world is becoming a gerontocracy.
With birth rates in free fall for last twenty years, what did we expect?
by znpy - > With birth rates in free fall for last twenty years, what did we expect?
Millennials received kick in their teeth when entering adulthood and around the time when was the moment for a last (or the first, finally) child. Real estate market had never been cheap either. Exactly overlaps with falling birthrates over the last twenty years.
Looking at other countries, "interestingly" Russian invasion of Ukraine basically wiped out childless millennials on both sides. Putin noticed that's the last chance to monetize the demographic opportunity and hopefully that was his last fart.
- The word becoming implies it isn't one as of now.
The median age of the population in the US is 39. The median age of the Senate is 65. In other countries 65 is retirement age. So you could say, yes "America" (the US) is a gerontocracy.
by atoav - The Latin word "senate" originally mean "council of elders", and is transparently related to "senex", meaning "old man". It's pretty ordinary in human society for the decision-makers to be primarily comprised of old people who have lived a long time and seen a lot.by JuniperMesos