Comment by neom | Hacker News Reader

Comment by neom | Hacker News Reader

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This is just another version of the same thing we see on the front page a couple times a week at this point because it's a OECD-wide trend...

“Wealth is aging.” in some manner over and over and over again... OECD, academics, ECB etc showing the thing, older cohorts control a seriously disproportionate share of national wealth. Doesn't matter if it's USA, Canada, NZ/AUS, EU etc.. Homeownership is flat for the young, rising for the elderly. Rising mortgage leverage for the young, falling for the elderly. Debt-to-income ratios are very high for younger cohorts, again on the front page it shows up weekly in some flavour of the U.S. and U.K. with student loans + mortgages- in Canada it’s primarily mortgages + consumer debt. Everywhere globally, younger folks are face considerably higher prices (inflated?) relative to income, an environment of tighter lending, and again... much higher student debt in us and uk (I suppose education less so in parts Europe and Canada, yet consumer debt there is rampant).

And young people are not having kids at all.

What's to be done? I really ask: What's to be done about it?

Good reading: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/modigliani-lectur...

> What's to be done? I really ask: What's to be done about it?

There's a document that gets posted every so often here called The Return Rate on Everything. In it, it says that the returns on capital outweigh economic growth, meaning capital gets more concentrated, at all times except during war.

So the answer to your question would seem to be 'war'.

Wow, how have I missed this. Intuitively makes sense since capital still can't fight wars, so "labor" commands a premium.

You weren't kidding: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=The+Return+Rate+on+Everything

I'd not seen it, thank you kindly for sharing. :)

> So the answer to your question would seem to be 'war'.

As the saying goes, it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

So we need the old transfer some wealth to the young. The old mostly have assets like stocks and houses. The young can’t earn enough to accrue assets.

So tax the wealthy / old higher. Increase social safety nets. Increase wages. Give all employees equity. Stop share buy backs. Force CEO to median / lowest employee comp maximums. Break up monopolies. Make school cheap / free. Build more housing. Stop monocropping.

I can go on and on with ideas but I think the political will / capture prevents this so I guess we’ll just topple over instead.

Wealthy people of any age have most of the money…. Check the prices of assisted care to see where home equity will go for the old. And ignore the yowls of the kids looking for the inter generational transfer of wealth.

As far as stocks and bonds go, I thought the HN readership was into that. Can’t penalize somebody who has the advantage of time re equity growth on the basis of age. If you want to be fair, again, tax wealth.

Removing the step-up in cost basis at death and actually taxing estates would help quite a bit. Unfortunately the wealthy write the rules so don’t expect either of those to change.

> What's to be done? I really ask: What's to be done about it?

property/estate taxes which will be directed to safety nets for youth: medical insurance, education, childcare, foodstamp and 1br with public transit to business centers. This will propel access to opportunities for youth by XX times, and also crash housing market and cool down stock market.

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