Quote:
Originally Posted by mountainmiester
That was the most alarming thing I've seen in days and in fact, hadn't even thought of this. We have mushroomed our government much like the baby boomers mushroomed social security. We all know that the government isn't putting funds aside for latter for this so what happens in 20 year or more when these new hires retire? Holy fuck, this just keeps getting worse.
I'm so getting drunk now.
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Well, the whole concept of retirement is a relatively recent invention. But, a mechanized industrial society needs somnething like it, because it has to break up the extended family into the nuclear family in order to be able to efficiently move workers around to the changing industrial centers.
With the shutting down of the agricultural extended family lifestyle, something like retirement had to be invented.
But, retirement is based on a ponzi model - you HAVE to keep expanding population and energy use in order to pay for your last 2-3 generations of seniors.
So, it's a complex problem to solve.
Right now both republicans and democrats are advocating a type of retirement default, so they can cut out that last few generations from teh ponzi scheme.
And then what - start a new ponzi?