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Wild thought here: how does changing demographics influence this? Retiring people in many cases literally can't be productive anymore, but demand capital returns. But because they, in aggregate, didn't have enough kids, there isn't enough productivity to service that demand.

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There's definitely some very big problems with people demanding fixed interest returns when demographics aren't good: https://realinvestmentadvice.com/the-unavoidable-pension-cri...

I’ve wondered this myself. Boomers are 25+% of the population. That large of a percentage dropping out of the workforce is going to leave huge areas for younger people to move up and fill in, leaving tons of the bottommost jobs (most service jobs) unfilled. At some point the Republicans will have to come to grips with their xenophobia, since immigration seems like the only solution.

Japan never came to terms with their xenophobia and opened up to immigration, so I would be careful about assuming it’s a foregone conclusion.

> bottom most jobs (most service jobs) unfilled

which would encourage even more automation - filling those jobs with immigrants aren't the only option. I would garner that using immigrants for cheap labour is a form of exploitation which should be discouraged too (tho i dont think it's likely).

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