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Comment by godzillabrennus | Hacker News Reader

Never forget that the Covid relief bill from DC bailed out government pensions more so than small family run restaurants.

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Good. Pensions are more important than small family run restaurants [1] [2]. There was enough PPP money ($800 billion in low-interest uncollateralized loans) to go around.

[1] https://www.gao.gov/financial-security-older-americans

[2] https://www.ncoa.org/article/latest-census-bureau-data-shows...

"Old people are more important than young people." - t. Gerontocracy.

Old people are more important than wealthy/high income people. Top 40% of US taxpayers pay into the general fund (bottom 60% don't have a federal income tax liability), and most young folks don't earn enough income to hit the highest marginal rates, let alone have any material assets to speak of (real estate, securities, businesses). There is enough wealth (not fiat, wealth, they are distinct) for this, just gotta get it. Bezos doesn't need to go to the Moon, and Ellison doesn't need yet another carbon fiber sailing yacht, very roughly speaking.

There is a balance to be found, but pitting all old people against all young people when its really the wealthy who soaked up most of the wealth over the last 40 years (pensions shed for 401ks, globalization, a reduction in labor power) is sort of disingenuous [1] [2] [3] [4].

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/18/the-wealthiest-10percent-of-... (The wealthiest 10% of Americans own a record 89% of all U.S. stocks)

[2] https://www.madisontrust.com/information-center/who-owns-mos... (Who Owns the Most Land in the United States?)

[3] https://slate.com/business/2021/06/blackrock-invitation-hous... (Investment Firms Aren’t Buying All the Houses. But They Are Buying the Most Important Ones.)

[4] https://ustrustaem.fs.ml.com/content/dam/ust/articles/pdf/20... (2022 Bank of America Private Bank Study of Wealthy Americans: The impact of shifting generational attitudes amid an historic wealth transfer) [Only 27% of the ultra wealthy are self made; 70% of Americans who hold more than $3 million are over 56 years old.]

(i am self aware enough, and sufficiently familiar with statistics and survivorship bias, to realize that I am not a temporarily embarrassed ultra wealthy person, ymmv; i don't fault lucky people of course, just don't try to lie to the rest of us that it wasn't luck)

There are many political fault lines simultaneously in play, including old vs young. From the federal government backstopping real estate prices, stock market prices, and spending increasing proportions of the budget on healthcare for old people, all efforts are made to appease them first, and then younger populations.

Which makes sense since without old people's support, you are not winning elections. There is no reason for Medicare to reimburse healthcare providers more than Medicaid, other than to direct more resources to older people than to younger people.

Old people get cash and benefits, young people get debt, which then helps increase the value of assets older people own.

Will be interesting to see this play out with proportionally fewer and fewer young people.

Brilliant plan. I was getting tired of all the local restaurants anyway, not enough copycat chains IMO. Glad we prioritized old people who no longer contribute much to the economy.

> Glad we prioritized old people who no longer contribute much to the economy.

Should have just let them starve and be homeless, hell yeah brother. Maybe even straight to the incinerator once you retire and stop contributing to the economy. After all, the GDP must flourish!

You are being sarcastic, but Texas Lt Governor Dan Patrick was quoted on the record essentially unironically saying this about old people during COVID [1]

1: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1167341

If you want to complain where PPP money went, you should ask the republicans why they removed all oversight from the system.

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