[cookiecaper]

Here's the thing: old people don't vote for that kind of thing, at least not if they have children and grandchildren. They've invested decades of heavy personal sacrifice into building a future for their posterity. They're not going to counteract that lifelong goal and knowingly vote for something that will inflict real pain or hindrance on the generations they've parented.

Personally I believe the elderly make much better decisions when voting precisely because they have something that gives their votes far-reaching meaning. Young voters care primarily about getting what they want in the moment; any other interest may be considered out of goodwill, but it is intanigble, whereas people with children and grandchildren truly care about the long-term well-being of the nation, because they know their posterity is going to be living in it, most likely for hundreds of years.

[Malician]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-wh...

Even recently, 30% of older people support laws prohibiting black and white people from marrying each other. Only 4% of young people do. Twenty years ago, the vast majority of older people held those opinions(!) I think you'll find the same trends for many similar social issues.

[cookiecaper]

I really don't see what this has to do with what I said. You disagree with 30% of older people on a social topic, and therefore, they don't care about the future of the country that their children and grandchildren will most likely inhabit for many generations? What?

[thomasahle]

> elderly make much better decisions when voting precisely because they have something that gives their votes far-reaching meaning. Young voters care primarily about getting what they want in the moment.

I'd be more positive about of future if this were the case. Do you have any examples of where this has happened?

I always had the impression older people voted more conservatively, because they were tired of things changing, and mostly happy with their wealth and position in life.

[makomk]

Here's the thing: if you look at how the UK welfare system treats (say) the younger people who lose their jobs or suffer accidents or illness that stops them from working compared with how it treats the elderly, and pay attention to the politics behind it, or if you think about the emphasis on ensuring house price growth and who benefits, or... the comment you're replying to is an exaggeration of what already happens.

[cookiecaper]

The difference with state pensions, welfare, etc., is that it's getting back money that has been taken out of their earnings and promised to them for decades. I think that's an important distinction. In America, we do base the amount of Social Security you receive on the amount you paid in; it's supposed to be like a forced savings account.

When the youth pay in, it's not seen as "the youth are paying for my retirement", it's seen as "the youth are paying for their retirements; I already paid for mine over the last 50 years, and now I'm going to start using it."

That's all well and good but the problem now is that politicians have pillaged the welfare funds and the programs are insolvent. The welfare and pensions need to be phased out. Those who've paid in for 50 years should get what we have left. Those who've paid in for 5-10 years are probably going to have to be SOL. That's a matter of simple fairness; the funds have been robbed, and it makes sense that those with the least to lose should bear the brunt.

If the case be convincingly made that the younger generations are going to be grievously harmed by the continuation of welfare programs, I believe the parents of those generations would do what parents do and take it on the chin for the benefit of their posterity. But I don't believe that's necessary in this instance; we should be able to give a very respectable portion of the population the amount of money we've promised them.

One of the other benefits of age is that you eventually come to understand that even a significant monetary loss can be made up over time, and that setbacks aren't the end of the world. As such, it's much more logical to solve the insolvency issues by asking how much time the person has left to make up the loss. Those who've spent decades paying in should get their promised quantities since they have very little or no time available to make up the monetary hit, those who have the most time to make up the difference and have also spent the least time paying in should get nothing, and those in between should get in between. Then the unsustainable system that caused this mess in the first place has to be dismantled.

We shouldn't confuse an interest in the reasonable fulfillment of the state's decades-long promises with disregard for the children's interests at large.