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Comment by bronkic | Hacker News Reader

Would you prefer taxes go up instead

Yes.

100% yes. My father is 67, and to be honest, he really shouldn't be working anymore. Both physically and mentally. And he is not very sick or disabled in any way. He just doesn't have the same capacity as he had in his 50s so after a 9-5 he was just recovering and going to sleep for the last few years. Terrible.

He retired last year. He didn't have an easy life. Very few jobs would benefit from his work and continuing working would have a great toll on him.

You can raise you personal "taxes" and provide for you father if you so desire.

That’s not even close to the same thing, and you know it.

It's the same if you sum it up across the population: all the benefits that elderly consume without producing are subtracted from what young people produce without consuming.

If you want your parents to retire earlier than the population-averaged system can allow, you're free to do it a non-averaged way.

What if my father didn't have kids?

Then, as a matter of fact, he'll have to rely on someone else's kids to feed him, whether directly or through taxes.

If he voluntarily chose not to raise kids, not even adopted ones, then he placed himself at the mercy of strangers. This may or may not end well, depending on how much spare resources they have.

so this: "You can raise you personal "taxes" and provide for you father if you so desire." was just a non sequitur

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