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33 sats \ 2 replies \ @SimpleStacker 6h \ on: The Baby Gap: Why Governments Can’t Pay Their Way to Higher Birth Rates (FT) econ
Can I reorient our thinking here a bit?
Why does everyone talk about this like it is some problem to be fixed?
The only extent to which it's a problem is governments pretending that anyone is entitled to some quality of life when they're old, without having to work, usually promised off the backs of the future generations. (Retirement at age 65 seems like an artificial concept to me!!)
I say let the pension funds collapse. If you want to retire when you're old, have kids and raise them well so they can take care of you in your elderly years, as is natural!
That’s what we advocated in Singapore. Asian values and filial piety and all that, conveniently ignoring the fact that Westerners are perfectly willing to take care of their parents.
But some children absolutely refused to care for their parents. To the extent that we now have a Maintenance of Parents Act,
in which parents can sue their children in court for not looking after them. It’s embarrassing
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I agree with you on that, in principle, but a completely free market approach to it doesn't change the problem.
As my friend says, at the end of the day you're still handing over Apple stocks in exchange for apples; if there are too many people with stored up Apples and not enough people making enough apples, relative prices crash and retirees live shitty lives anyway
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