Hacker News Reader

Comment by yesBoot | Hacker News Reader

“Retirement” is a recent invention.

Before the last generation or so, the elderly moved into family support roles.

Given that we’re bending over backwards to inflate the wealth of older investors, deflating the buying power of the younger generation in exchange, is enabling retirement a great idea?

It sounds amazing, right? But why must the youth honor the elder generations contracts at their expense?

Why must we “wait” until we can live a free adult life? Just kidding; it’s to prop up the choices of the past as I said.

There are embedded social norms that need a fundamental rethink.

View on HN

Having an industry take care of our elderly does free younger generations from elder care responsibilities. It’s not a total loss for the younger generations. Elder care is really hard work.

But I do agree we shouldn’t be subsidizing early retirement so the wealthy elders can go on vacations.

Anecdotal, but all my elders who committed to supporting their grand kids; taking them to soccer and such, lived on their own into their 90s.

The ones that died before 80 had turned into hermits, spending their last few months in industrialized care homes.

Being obliged to contribute to communal work may come along with cognitive health benefit.

I don’t have an issue with caretakers being relied on for difficult health reasons. But are we creating health problems through social norms?

Sometimes you don’t want the grandparents around. There’s a reason many people move out, ya know? The amount of shitty parents that don’t deserve a single thing from their children is massive.

And for that reason, we do need an industry built up around elderly care and facilitating independence from elders.

I was shocked to learn recently of the Singaporean legal concept of “parental maintenance” where parents are entitled to financial support from their adult children and can use the court system to enforce payment. Kind of like reverse child support or alimony.

Gross. Is there a way to get out of that legally? That’s a system ripe for abuse from abusive parents. Continue the abuse well past childhood and into adulthood. What a great country.

There simply must be more loving parents than abusive parents?

Parents pay for their kids often well into their 20s. Many of them also help with caring for their grandchildren. Seems just fair to ask for something in return in case of need? There is a similar concept in Germany where you do have to pay part of the nursing home fees if your parents require assistance and can’t live on their own.

Having a child is an informed choice; it's by all objective means a hugely unfair deal yet many people are opting into it for emotional (or hormonal) reasons. Not because they want to materially slave for their kids however, but because they love them and/or want to leave a legacy.

You chose to bring a child into this world. They owe you absolutely nothing for it. They'll help you if they feel love and/or obligation for you, just like I will keep supporting my widowed mother until her death.

But this shouldn't be expected by default -- or legally enforced. It should be a choice. We pay enough taxes as it is, surely the politicians can spare some change to care for our elders.

Point to where I wrote they had to live with the family?

Who is going to let random old people let them take care of their kids then? Who is going to house them? You’d let random abusive parents take care of your kids and live with you?

you’re all over the map talking about grandparents moving out (which implied to me you meant blood relatives), now you’re on about an social wide norm of random old people.

But since you mention it, I DO have a “random old person” watching my kids right now as I live thousands of miles away from my biological parents for now.

There are daycares being busted for neglect and abuse so industrialization is hardly a solution to the problem of finding the right person.

I’m done with the patronizing attitude. Have a good day.

Edit: yes down vote me for not agreeing with you, and having a reasonable rebuttal. Weird flex, but ydy.

Just for reference, you can’t downvote people who reply to you directly. So, it’s not me downvoting you.

Literally were all working to keep the system going while they print money to inflate assets held by old people.

Agreed, but your tone implies that you won't be an old person one day.

Beach real estate only massively inflates in california once, BTC only goes from .1 c to 50k once. These are once in a multigenerational outcomes for asset classes that we will be paying for, for decades. I will spend my 30s and 40s making in the top 1-3%, but still making just enough to afford a nice home in a nice area, with a wife that doesn't work, multiple kids, and nice things. Things people used to take for granted. Not the bare minimum lifestyle, but one would expect more from being so high up on the income totem pole.

It feels to me like I am working to keep the monetary policy afloat.

> Things people used to take for granted.

All of that was possible mostly due to a confluence of a few major things that happened at the right time - WW2 leaving US at a competitive advantage, people having lots of kids ensuring lots of economic growth, and automation and outsourcing multiplying productivity and keeping costs low, but at a slow enough pace that people could transition to better economic opportunities and a lot of the people being left behind were masked by sheer population growth since a lot of younger people were still moving up on the ladder.

And no automation was developed to turn people over in the hospital beds or change their bedpans or clean bathrooms.

You still can if you invest and then move out when you're 40 and a solid multimillionaire. Also, a not working wife isn't an "asset" but a huge liability: an equivalent of an earthquake leveling your house followed by a recession halving your assets and a major health issue that wastes half of your income.

hahah.... well yes there is that as well. A potential 50% loss of basically lifetime savings

Older investors are a modest fraction of the older generation. A world where the young renounce the old is a world where the old renounce the young.

The real problem is the idea that merely being old is a legitimate reason to stop working.

Yes, how dare we be not immortal and not want to work forever. We should be punished.

No, expecting dead people to work would be silly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com