The Economist magazine pension issue

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

by samh • 15 years ago

31 21 15 years ago

blogs.law.harvard.edu

high5ths• 15 years ago

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?

ajays• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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.

alanh• 15 years ago

Not at all, it’s a known problem here on HN; while this case is relatively untroubling, other domains can be much more problematic (e.g. google.com entries are not always written by Googlers at all).

strayer• 15 years ago

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.

dman• 15 years ago

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.

bluedanieru3• 15 years ago

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.

jacques_chester2• 15 years ago

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.

wladimir• 15 years ago

Yes, this might happen eventually, as more and more jobs are automated. Automation pushes down the value of things. So people might start to prefer "genuine" hand crafted items to mass produced stuff, and this will spawn an economy of itself.

jshort• 15 years ago

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.

chrismealy2• 15 years ago

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.

rglullis2• 15 years ago

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.

bluedanieru3• 15 years ago

We might be forced to stop spending such absurd amounts of money on the military, and we may also be forced to restructure our healthcare system to something resembling sane and efficient, but the parent's got a point.

chrismealy2• 15 years ago

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.

teyc• 15 years ago

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.

guelo• 15 years ago

The missing solution? Immigration.

The Economist magazine pension issue

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