

The Economist magazine pension issue - samh
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2011/04/19/the-economist-magazine-pension-issue/

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high5ths
I like this blog (other entries of which have been posted here before), but I
find it a bit misleading that it shows up on HN as coming from "harvard.edu"
-- which I assume to be Harvard's official web portal. (Clicking through
reveals it to be a posting on blogs.law.harvard.edu, which provides free blog
webspace to anyone with a Harvard-affiliated email address.)

Am I just being too picky?

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ajays
blogs.law.harvard.edu also belongs to harvard.edu, so what's the problem? Many
universities give blog space (and email accounts) to alumni, as a way to keep
them engaged (and hit them up for donations...).

~~~
lsc
ISPs and other services often give customers customername.isp.net... - I do
this, customers get username.xen.prgmr.com, while prgmr.com is for official
business stuff. most of the stuff on something.xen.prgmr.com has absolutely
nothing to do with prgmr.com, other than paying me eight bucks a month or what
have you, so marking a something.xen.prgmr.com link with 'prgmr.com' would
give people the wrong idea.

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jshort
I think the article may be attempting to show how dire the situation is. Or
that the fix may lie in some form of equality of pensions throughout the work
force, still a hard thing to fix.

With unemployment at such a high level today, increasing the retirement age
would keep all of the baby boomers employed, rather than leaving the work
force. It does not look good any way you look at it.

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dman
I wonder if at some point some sections of society will voluntarily move to
less efficient methods of production to generate employment - aka resurrecting
the self sufficient village.

~~~
bluedanieru
If that does occur I'd take it as a sign of some serious problems with social
order. More efficient production should see gains for everyone, but a look at
the last thirty years suggests otherwise.

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jacques_chester
If you look at industries with an irreducible reliance on labour (eg medicine,
law) then productivity has surged through the accumulation of capital.
Programmers today can achieve in minutes what used to take years, because of
the accumulation of software and faster hardware.

This leads to the paradoxical situation that as a percentage of GDP, those
irreducible-labour sectors begin to loom larger and larger.

~~~
jacques_chester
Correction: industries _without_ an irreducible reliance on labour haven't
seen productivity surges.

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teyc
This is the usual demographic problem. However, the problem is bigger on the
military end - you can't defend your interests if 1) you don't have the money
2) if you don't have the manpower.

However, the back to the problem with taxing jobs out of existence: fortune is
on youths side. As bad as the problem may sound, once the problem hits
criticality, you get a sudden societal upheaval and things right itself
immediately. No one should count on their pensions as being forever.

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strayer
The first paragraph describes a common structure of the articles in The
Economist, which goes a long way towards explaining why it is so satisfying to
read.

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guelo
The missing solution? Immigration.

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chrismealy
If economic growth averages 2% for the next 35 years America will be twice as
rich as it is now. We can provide for old folks now, just like we did 35 years
ago, and we can definitely do it 35 years from now. This is just another rich
dude complaining about the proles.

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rglullis
No account for inflation? No account for the rising costs in healthcare, and
diminishing returns on that "investment"? No account for the fact that 35
years ago the proportion of economic active people to retired ones was
completely different?

If you are going to dismiss a (very middle class, by social standards) dude,
at least you should do a little bit more than hand-waving.

~~~
chrismealy
2% is real. The US has average around 3% for years now. And since I don't
believe in the tendency of the rate of profit to fall I don't think assuming
at least 2% is unreasonable. But let's say zero. Does anyone really think
we'll lose the ability to care for the old?

Here's the simple way to think about pensions/SS: we take about 4% of GDP and
cut checks to old people. They buy food and pay their rent. Nobody starves. It
always works, in 1961, 2011, 2061, whenever. Anybody who says otherwise is
trying to fool you.

~~~
jshen
He mentioned this, "Part of the magic is that they don’t promise unlimited
inflation indexing. If their country gets poorer, the pain will be shared by
the working and non-working alike. "

Will we have the political will to do it any time soon?

