[nostrademons]

It wouldn't actually matter. The problem is demographic, not financial.

Ultimately, somebody has to produce the resources, goods, and services that every person on earth needs to survive. If people live an average of 5 years after retirement, work for 50 years, and the population is at a steady-state, then every elder is supported by 10 workers. If the population has doubled in the last generation, then it's 20 workers. If the population is still doubling but people are now living for 10 years after retirement, then it's still 10 workers/elder. If the population returns to a steady-state but people now live for 20 years after retirement, though, we're down to only 2.5 workers/elder. Suddenly everybody feels the pinch.

Pensions, 401ks, stock market growth, and all other forms of retirement savings are just different ways of lying to ourselves. Ultimately, goods have to be produced, services have to be rendered, and money is just a way to track who has done that and reward them appropriately. If you have fewer people doing the work and more people depending upon it, standards of living will fall.

If I had to bet on a (peaceful) solution, it would be automation. Do more with less and a given number of workers can support a much greater number of dependents; the only challenge then becomes redistribution in a way that people find adequately fair. But elder care has proven stubbornly resistant to automation: if you've ever had a family member in their 90s and tried to take care of them at home, you may be doubting that it's even possible for 2.5 workers to take care of one elder, even if their own needs were completely automated away and they had no children.

[RobertoG]

"It wouldn't actually matter. The problem is demographic, not financial."

It's interesting how many people don't understand (or don't want to understand) this.

Money is just a number, is real resource what is important.

Never mind how many savings the people have, if there are not enough people or resources to do the necessary jobs.

And, the other way works too, never mind how many old people there are without savings, if the productivity is enough to take care of them easily.

The obvious conclusion is that, instead of caring about money "saved", we should be caring about getting more productive. That would mean improve technology, increase knowledge and training.

[hedonistbot]

My problem with "getting more productive" is that the gains nowadays are achieved through automation (capital investment in general) which pretty much guarantees that the gains from the increased productivity are captured by the capital owners. So even if we double the productivity of the economy, there is no guarantee that this will improve the lives of most people who depend on salary or pension. There must be some form of redistribution to allow sharing the gains of productivity but this has been a taboo in the US (and many more places) since the 80s and I don't see this changing anytime soon.

[RobertoG]

Even if it were a problem or resources, the solution is invest now in creating more resources, not in "saving money".

I think that part of the reason it's a taboo, is because the officially pushed narrative is designed to hide that, in many instances, is a problem of redistribution more than a problem of resources.

For instance, in USA, the "public debt crisis problem", that it's mainly meaningless, distract from a honest debate of the real issues.

[sddfd]

We are past the point were the problem is resources scarcity, be it products or workforce.

We are discussing about resource allocation. Money is the accepted way of influencing resource allocation.

Telling people they should not save money is effectively telling them to give up their influence on resource allocation.

The consequences of not being able influence resource allocation can be dire: If you have no leverage, you may die of sickness or outright starvation.

[RobertoG]

We are discussing about resource allocation but frequently this is hidden with talk about money.

If we want to solve our problems, better we start to talk of them trying to clarify the problem, instead of obscure it.

This is obvious in countries with government backed pensions schemes, where the narrative is that we will have not "enough money".

[kamaal]

>>If you have fewer people doing the work and more people depending upon it, standards of living will fall.

This is already the case in the US.

Most social security money(Pensions, SS, State Pensions etc etc) comes from existing taxes that are collected.

>>If I had to bet on a (peaceful) solution, it would be automation.

That kind of runaway automation that could pay for this kind of a party isn't close, may not be even in the next few decades.

[sddfd]

> That kind of runaway automation that could pay for this kind of a party isn't close

Automation is already here, and has been for a long time. The whole point of the industrial revolution is about automation: Machines that support or replace human workforce.

The explosion in availability of computing power in the last two decades put automation into overdrive, and I don't see it slowing down.

Meanwhile, the gains of automation do not directly translate in inproved wealth for all members of society.

For example, if a company replaces 50% of its workforce with machines, they might make more money because they save on salaries, but effectively worsen the situation for the pensions of the layed off people.