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I feel like a Jew in Weimar Germany


mrpleasant

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HOLA441
12 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

I'm happy with your housing and immigration plans, but I don't think we need to get fertility up to 2.1 any time soon.  There are 60 million people in the UK, and I'm sure we would be fine with 30 million.  We could let it run at 1.87 for centuries, really.  The last thing the planet needs is more people.

I understand the advantages of having a smaller population of, say, 30 million in the UK instead of 60 million. 

The problem is that during the years of population decline (the "deceleration" phase), the demographic pyramid is inverted (as Japan is experiencing at the moment, as they lose around a million a year from their net population). 

An inverted demographic pyramid is not a pleasant thing (although it is the inverse of a Ponzi scheme). So many old people who need looking after. Who is going to look after them? Where will the money come from? The only saving factor for the young (brutally speaking) is that the frail elderly need the youth, but the youth don't need the frail elderly. 

Edited by Odakyu-sen
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HOLA442
22 minutes ago, Odakyu-sen said:

 

An inverted demographic pyramid is not a pleasant thing (although it is the inverse of a Ponzi scheme). So many old people who need looking after. Who is going to look after them? Where will the money come from? The only saving factor for the young (brutally speaking) is that the frail elderly need the youth, but the youth don't need the frail elderly. 

Robots and automation could do that.  

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HOLA443

How do we measure how well we are doing, we measure it against how we think others are doing including older others.....those growing up in the 50s and 60s must have looked back at the past and the difficulties their parents and grandparents went through....no pensions, no NHS, war, ration books and few material possessions......so they must have thought themselves very fortunate to have missed all that, then times got better, houses were built, money invested, jobs created......today the young might judge their prosperity relative to what has gone before and their realistic hopes for the future, and feel the past had better times not worse and the future doesn't seem to be getting any better either......so different times different perspectives.?

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HOLA444
45 minutes ago, Odakyu-sen said:

I understand the advantages of having a smaller population of, say, 30 million in the UK instead of 60 million. 

The problem is that during the years of population decline (the "deceleration" phase), the demographic pyramid is inverted (as Japan is experiencing at the moment, as they lose around a million a year from their net population). 

An inverted demographic pyramid is not a pleasant thing (although it is the inverse of a Ponzi scheme). So many old people who need looking after. Who is going to look after them? Where will the money come from? The only saving factor for the young (brutally speaking) is that the frail elderly need the youth, but the youth don't need the frail elderly. 

When the elderly own all the houses, and the wealth, and the votes, then the youth definitely do need the elderly.

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HOLA445
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HOLA446
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HOLA447
6 hours ago, Odakyu-sen said:

I understand the advantages of having a smaller population of, say, 30 million in the UK instead of 60 million. 

The problem is that during the years of population decline (the "deceleration" phase), the demographic pyramid is inverted (as Japan is experiencing at the moment, as they lose around a million a year from their net population). 

An inverted demographic pyramid is not a pleasant thing (although it is the inverse of a Ponzi scheme). So many old people who need looking after. Who is going to look after them? Where will the money come from? The only saving factor for the young (brutally speaking) is that the frail elderly need the youth, but the youth don't need the frail elderly. 

If you can handle a stable population you can handle a slowly declining one. If you can't handle a stable one then you're screwed anyway and need to figure out how to.

We're supposedly way more productive and wealthier than just a few decades ago, supporting a declining population should be perfectly possible. It's not a lack of money or people to be replaced by robots (hideous thought) that's the issue, it's the drive for maximum economic gain that prioritises committing resources (which includes people) to economic growth above anything else, such as looking after the elderly. Therefore that's the problem that needs addressing, because permanent population growth is simply unsustainable and currently other factors dominate that prevent doing anything about it.

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HOLA448
7 hours ago, Odakyu-sen said:

An inverted demographic pyramid is not a pleasant thing (although it is the inverse of a Ponzi scheme). So many old people who need looking after. Who is going to look after them? Where will the money come from? The only saving factor for the young (brutally speaking) is that the frail elderly need the youth, but the youth don't need the frail elderly. 

The young need money. For many youngsters their best option to earn will be to provide services to the old.

Many elderly people have accumulated assets. Those who haven't might rely on the young working and paying taxes. But those who have enough wealth to retire don't need to worry about this. Wherever they go, they have the wealth to provide an incentive for poorer people to provide them the goods and services they need in retirement. We could manage a declining population in the UK by allowing guest workers.

Edited by Kosmin
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HOLA449
4 minutes ago, Kosmin said:

The young need money. For many youngsters their best option to earn will be to provide services to the old.

Many elderly people have accumulated assets. Those who haven't might rely on the young working and paying taxes. But those who have enough wealth to retire don't need to worry about this. Wherever they go, they have the wealth to provide an incentive for poorer people to provide them the goods and services they need in retirement. We could manage a declining population in the UK by allowing guest workers.

Money can be made from anyone with needs or wants for that matter....older people have different needs to younger people....most people are needy, some more needy than others.;)

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HOLA4410

 

7 hours ago, Odakyu-sen said:

I understand the advantages of having a smaller population of, say, 30 million in the UK instead of 60 million. 

The problem is that during the years of population decline (the "deceleration" phase), the demographic pyramid is inverted (as Japan is experiencing at the moment, as they lose around a million a year from their net population). 

An inverted demographic pyramid is not a pleasant thing (although it is the inverse of a Ponzi scheme). So many old people who need looking after. Who is going to look after them? Where will the money come from?

The population can't grow forever, so you will have to face this one day - why not now?  We don't want to wait until the population is 100 million and every field in England is built upon.

As long as the decline is gradual not a sudden drop off it's not only do-able but desirable, even if it obviously entials more resources being devoted to looking after older people than today (and with a declining population, houses would be dirt cheap, leaving much more money for the young to spend on other things, including tax to pay for this). 

1 hour ago, Riedquat said:

If you can handle a stable population you can handle a slowly declining one. If you can't handle a stable one then you're screwed anyway and need to figure out how to.

Quite.

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HOLA4411
36 minutes ago, Kosmin said:

 

Many elderly people have accumulated assets. Those who haven't might rely on the young working and paying taxes. But those who have enough wealth to retire don't need to worry about this. 

Ok so an oldie has accumulated assets, be they property, shares or govt or company bonds. Who does the work that pays the income off these assets then? Fairies?

Edited by Si1
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HOLA4412
11 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

As long as the decline is gradual not a sudden drop off it's not only do-able but desirable, even if it obviously entials more resources being devoted to looking after older people than today (and with a declining population, houses would be dirt cheap, leaving much more money for the young to spend on other things, including tax to pay for this).

A vision of a country with a significantly smaller population is a good vision of the future, and there aren't many of those! Cheap houses as you say, less traffic, it's hard to see what the downsides are - maybe a bit less wealth but that's certainly a price worth paying. It does unfortunately have to be gradual though, there are no ethical fast solutions, and probably no fast solutions ethical or otherwise that wouldn't cause a lot of short to medium term upheaval. The barrier is simply that that change is does not generate as much short term economic growth as increasing the population, so stands no chance of competing. That's the issue that needs to be addressed. Alas I don't have any solutions that'll overcome the appeal of economic growth and thus stand a chance of succeeding.

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HOLA4413
16 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

 

The population can't grow forever, so you will have to face this one day - why not now?  We don't want to wait until the population is 100 million and every field in England is built upon.

As long as the decline is gradual not a sudden drop off it's not only do-able but desirable, even if it obviously entials more resources being devoted to looking after older people than today (and with a declining population, houses would be dirt cheap, leaving much more money for the young to spend on other things, including tax to pay for this). 

Quite.

You and I don't want to wait until then.  Sadly a lot of others do :(

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HOLA4414
4 minutes ago, Si1 said:

Ok so an oldie has accumulated assets, be they property, shares or govt or company bonds. Who does the work that pays the income off these assets then? Fairies?

No. The same people who do the work now.

People who need money today will need money tomorrow and so they will continue to work tomorrow. A significant proportion of these people are much more desperate for work than the wealthy are for their labour. So even if a wealthy person worries about the question you pose in the future, he is currently OK. He is currently receiving income from his property, shares and bonds and he spends that in ways which provide incomes for young people. The much more pressing question is for young people: How do we get an income? How do we provide services to the wealthy, so that we can get the goods and services we require?

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HOLA4415
2 minutes ago, Kosmin said:

No. The same people who do the work now.

People who need money today will need money tomorrow and so they will continue to work tomorrow. A significant proportion of these people are much more desperate for work than the wealthy are for their labour. So even if a wealthy person worries about the question you pose in the future, he is currently OK. He is currently receiving income from his property, shares and bonds and he spends that in ways which provide incomes for young people. The much more pressing question is for young people: How do we get an income? How do we provide services to the wealthy, so that we can get the goods and services we require?

Leave the country and go to one where they get a better deal?

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HOLA4416
7 minutes ago, Si1 said:

Leave the country and go to one where they get a better deal?

Are you suggesting the young workers might do that, so there would be no workers here? If so, just think through the consequences:

As more young workers leave, the wages of those who stay behind would increase and their living costs would fall. It's pretty much impossible for wealthy people to simply be abandoned. Consider what happens in places like Qatar. The locals don't work. They import guest workers from poor countries for the menial jobs and Westerners come to do the skilled jobs (e.g. engineering). They are able to do this because they have oil wealth and they have diversified some of their wealth to foreign assets and investments. They don't need to work and they don't need children either. They have billions or perhaps trillions of dollars of assets. Most of the rest of the world has a desperate need for these assets, so there will always be a lot of people who are prepared to travel to work for them.

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HOLA4417
24 minutes ago, Kosmin said:

Are you suggesting the young workers might do that, so there would be no workers here? If so, just think through the consequences:

As more young workers leave, the wages of those who stay behind would increase and their living costs would fall. 

Any increase would be sucked up by paying the incomes of the oldiwonks. Assets would tank and the economy would collapse. It's what happens when a parasite overwhelms its host.

Edited by Si1
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HOLA4418
6 minutes ago, Si1 said:

Any increase would be sucked up by paying the incomes of the oldiwonks. Assets would tank and the economy would collapse.

No. If there was an extreme shortage of labour, it would be incredibly important to increase the number of workers, so incomes would be much higher and landlords would be incredibly badly burned the voids, so rents would collapse. But before it got to such extremes, people would realise that they would be better off staying in the UK.

 

But I don't think it's plausible that people would desert the UK overnight to create this collapse anyway. That sort of thing only happens if there is a genocide or famine or some similar disaster.

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HOLA4419
5 minutes ago, Kosmin said:

No. If there was an extreme shortage of labour, it would be incredibly important to increase the number of workers, so incomes would be much higher and landlords would be incredibly badly burned the voids, so rents would collapse. But before it got to such extremes, people would realise that they would be better off staying in the UK.

 

But I don't think it's plausible that people would desert the UK overnight to create this collapse anyway. That sort of thing only happens if there is a genocide or famine or some similar disaster.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

 

But I don't think it will go this far, there will be a boiled frog effect on Boomers' assets.

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HOLA4420
38 minutes ago, Si1 said:

But I don't think it will go this far

I've already explained how it's not possible to go that far!

40 minutes ago, Si1 said:

there will be a boiled frog effect on Boomers' assets.

Does this mean they go to zero, but so slowly that they don't notice? Boomers own lots of foreign assets (directly and indirectly, through their pensions and other collective investments). Are you really predicting that the entire world economy collapses?

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HOLA4421
37 minutes ago, Kosmin said:

 

Are you really predicting that the entire world economy collapses?

no. I just think boomers' UK assets will fall (those smart enough to diversify will obviously sidestep it). If they don't then the general quality of life in the UK will stall instead.

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HOLA4422
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HOLA4423
On 28/11/2019 at 22:26, mrpleasant said:

All the while this was going on the EEC was transforming from a bunch of people shaking hands and agreeing on a free trade deal into the EU, a vast, strangely sinister organisation of huge unaudited wealth and power. One that can tell its member states what the minimum percentage of meat they should put in their sausages and which can suffocate entire economies in Southern Europe from the labyrinth of offices it maintains grandly in Brussels. I'd been living in Falmouth in '73 and remembered the men who lost their livelihoods in fishing almost overnight. I didn't much like the slow erosion of control membership entailed and when Cameron came back empty handed from an attempt at negotiating a few months before the referendum my distrust began to turn into anger. I voted, with some reluctance and unease, to leave when the time came. Whether it will turn out to be a good idea in the end I have absolutely no clue, but I guess there'll be winners and losers just like when we joined. I don't think of it, and never have, as a friendly institution that represents the breaking down of borders and the building of trust between nations. I heard about an elderly Greek dentist who took his own life rather than rummage in bins for food in his old age and the thought of the EU impassively turning its face away from that situation and the vast numbers of under 24s without hope of employment in those poorer member states left a bad taste.

You've simply swallowed a load of propaganda.  I don't judge you for that.  Millions of others did the same.

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HOLA4424
20 minutes ago, Si1 said:

no. I just think boomers' UK assets will fall (those smart enough to diversify will obviously sidestep it). If they don't then the general quality of life in the UK will stall instead.

Why wait? Why not bring it about sooner? Just get all the workers in Leeds to leave. Nobody outside of Leeds who is looking for a job will be tempted to move to Leeds for a job or cheaper place to live. They will put be put of by the "collapsed economy" and "boiling frogs." And then when all the workers in Leeds see what a success it was, it'll be easy to persuade all the workers in the UK to leave. 

Edited by Kosmin
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HOLA4425
On 29/11/2019 at 17:43, jiltedjen said:

For many boomers their unearned wealth is their only life achievement. It defines them. 

they cannot accept its unearned, and they got lucky, and were actually very thick and close minded. 

they can’t accept that they actually had it easy. they cannot accept that they pulled the ladders up, and the young actually have the shit end of the stick. 

hence many just can’t comprehend that the young have it harder, in doing so they would lose all self worth. they won’t help the young, as they would have to accept the situation.

being an ignorant ignorant boomer is much easier than losing your self worth.
 

for the generation who had it easy, they are the real snowflakes. Can’t face the truth. rather claim they are treated like Jews just because the beaten down youth rightly resent them and rightfully do not respect them. 
 

when the young get upset at the injustice of it all, it’s easier for boomers to call them weak, than to acknowledge that they themselves have crushed the young. 

That's a bit harsh. Boomers got lucky.  Life was hard. Its still hard. The only difference with today is the the young got ******ed over by the politicians and the bankers, Zirp and QE to infinity. Not the boomers.

And to the OP,  Great post. Thanks.

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