John Carney agrees with me that supporting our elderly is not an “affordability” problem, but he claims that I fail to see the “real” burden—the dependency ratios and all that. Actually I’ve been writing about that since the early 1990s. The “real” burden is the only thing that matters.
Read the rest at New Economic Perspectives
MMT FOR AUSTRIANS 3: How Do YOU Propose We Deal with the Elderly, Disabled and their Depts?
By L. Randall Wray
BTW, explain to me why economists focus on workers relative to productivity instead of investment in scaling up technological innovation, which is the actually source of increased productivity. Rising productivity increases output per unit of work, and "work" is increasing equatable with energy rather than either brawn or even brains. This makes more human workers expendable, thereby increasing either unemployment or the opportunity for greater leisure, depending on how gains from productivity increases are distributed.
So iIt seems to me that issue of availability of real resources now and in the future is a function of productive investment, innovation, ability to scale up, and sustainability. Wouldn't this be encouraged by creating incentives for productive investment and discouraging what inhibits productivity, like negative externality, waste, and economic rent. This is an issue that can be addressed through regulation, fiscal policy that targets public investment, and tax policy that encourages positive behavior and discourages negative behavior.
In some Native American tribes of hunter-gathers, where productivity was extremely low in comparison with modern society, the retirement age was about 36. Granted the life span was shorter, but the young hunter-warriors where capable of supporting the rest of society with their level of productivity. We can't do better than them?
