I'm wondering if what 2% dies matters. This disease is mostly going to kill people past their prime working years. There are going to be tons of sociological changes. Just speculating here:
- Social security could have it's date of insolvency extended. It's currently predicted to be insolvent by 2037. Most pension programs in the world will be relieved of pressure if many of those over 60 years of age die. Many states with pension crises may delay those crises many years.
- we may see the largest wealth transfer in history in a short period of time as many older folks die and leave their heirs with whatever wealth they have that they were unable to consume in retirement.
- The economy will "lose" the spending power of this older generation, but that spending power will be transferred to a younger generation. Except for what the government steals via a death tax, this should be net zero in terms of money spent in the economy. What will change is what the money is being spent on.
- Many homes may go on the market as these older folks that own much of the housing stock pass away. Those inheriting the homes will sell or rent. In the case of multiple children sharing the inheritance, homes will be put on the market as those children want their liquid share now.
- Those in their prime productive years should carry on, so hopefully productivity as measured by GDP remains more stable than if this disease killed more people in their prime working years.
- What's most worrying is the people this disease kill between 40 and 65 years of age, since their is a lot of accumulated wisdom, knowledge and expertise in that cohort that is still being actively contributed to society through work and other forms of productive engagement.
If this really does take out 2% and that 2% is largely isolated to those over 60 years of age, we're going to be living in very very interesting times.
My biggest concern is losing a lot of that voting block as older voters often serve as a check against naive ideas that younger voters have such as wanting to try socialist policies wholesale at scale at the federal level instead of experimenting with those ideas in the safe confines of state or local municipalities to determine if they are actually workable ideas.
This exactly. Another important point, those who are most likely to succumb to an infection are also those who put the largest strain on public healthcare systems. Please note, I want our older relatives to remain alive and healthy for as long as their quality of life is good. We all benefit, and we all get to enjoy each other. But at the same time, the rhetoric from alarmists is getting non-sensical given the reality.
"Social security could have it's date of insolvency extended. It's currently predicted to be insolvent by 2037."
The US Federal government has both a literal and a figurative money printing press. Congressional appropriations create money. Revenue is an obsolete concept for currency issuers. As a Federal program, it is literally impossible for the program to be "insolvent". Social Security benefits can be paid at full rates for as long as Congress decides to do so.
>Social Security benefits can be paid at full rates for as long as Congress decides to do so.
Not at "real" rates, because a bunch of stuff Americans consume is produced overseas, and if the government starts printing large sums of money then exporters in other countries are going to demand more of it in payment for goods, so the purchasing power of the amount paid to retirees will decrease.
I think it's likely that there'll be second-order consequences that are worrisome, too. For example, war and revolution is extremely likely as the demographic order is remade. Already North Korea is saber-wrattling toward South Korea, the U.S. blames this on China, China (and Iran) blame it on the U.S, and a large portion of the Iranian government may be dead or incapacitated.
If we get war after the plague that'll carry the death rate down into young men, and perhaps spark further plagues.
> losing a lot of that voting block as older voters often serve as a check against naive ideas that younger voters have such as wanting to try socialist policies
That swings both ways; older voters also tend to stand in the way of necessary reforms, like ending the Drug War, or similar "law-and-order" policies that end up being counter-productive.
While I won't pretend there isn't a naive, full-blown socialist contingent amongst some young backers of Warren and Sanders, it's a little frustrating when the signature policy (single-payer healthcare) isn't some kooky "experiment", but a functioning norm in the rest of the industrialized world (usually with statistically better outcomes). Obviously that's not trivial to replicate, America is larger and less homogenous, there are good arguments against single-payer, yada yada yada. But it's a far cry from an "experiment", let alone from "seizing the means of production".
At any rate, I do favor implementing policies at state and local levels, whether socialized medicine, or actual experiments like UBI. But let's a keep a little perspective, and not succumb to naive categorization based on a locally-scoped Overton window.
> Except for what the government steals via a death tax
Good comment overall but this is just unnecessary. I'm guessing you prefer the heirs stealing via birthchance tax? Either way, zero net change in spending (the governments also spend).
> Social security could have it's date of insolvency extended
As others have pointed out, "insolvency" for SS is nothing more than a policy position.
> Many homes may go on the market as these older folks that own much of the housing stock pass away
At worst this would speed up the inevitable (at least as some see it). This coming change has been talked about for years and is known as the "Silver Tsunami" [1].
> My biggest concern is losing a lot of that voting block as older voters often serve as a check against naive ideas that younger voter
Here's where you go off the deep end. The irony in all this is that the demographic hit hardest may well be Fox News and Trump's core constituency. I certainly don't wish anyone ill here but if it's going to happen anyway, it's hard not to see the silver lining.
Older voters are increasingly a huge problem, politically speaking (IMHO). They have no concept of long term consequences. They're just trying to avoid anything upsetting the apple cart in the short time they have left here. They fight change of any sort. They're easy pickings for fear-mongering and, as a group, incredibly easy to manipulate.
Your concern about "socialist" policies at the Federal level I'm afraid puts you in a huge voting bloc in the US of those who see no way to solve certain problems that literally no one else has (eg gun violence).
Reasonable people can disagree about how best to provide health care to people but the current system of being tied to employment is an unmitigated disaster that simply has to change. Doing things at the "state" level isn't necessarily better either as all you end up doing is creating 50 regional monopolies that all need to duplicate the same effort.
Yes, the people who think that universal healthcare might be necessary to beat back this pandemic, as compared to the patchwork cruelty and parasitism of the current American system, are the ones who are naive.
The problem with rugged Capitalism in healthcare is eventually you run out of other people’s immune systems.
- Social security could have it's date of insolvency extended. It's currently predicted to be insolvent by 2037. Most pension programs in the world will be relieved of pressure if many of those over 60 years of age die. Many states with pension crises may delay those crises many years.
- we may see the largest wealth transfer in history in a short period of time as many older folks die and leave their heirs with whatever wealth they have that they were unable to consume in retirement.
- The economy will "lose" the spending power of this older generation, but that spending power will be transferred to a younger generation. Except for what the government steals via a death tax, this should be net zero in terms of money spent in the economy. What will change is what the money is being spent on.
- Many homes may go on the market as these older folks that own much of the housing stock pass away. Those inheriting the homes will sell or rent. In the case of multiple children sharing the inheritance, homes will be put on the market as those children want their liquid share now.
- Those in their prime productive years should carry on, so hopefully productivity as measured by GDP remains more stable than if this disease killed more people in their prime working years.
- What's most worrying is the people this disease kill between 40 and 65 years of age, since their is a lot of accumulated wisdom, knowledge and expertise in that cohort that is still being actively contributed to society through work and other forms of productive engagement.
If this really does take out 2% and that 2% is largely isolated to those over 60 years of age, we're going to be living in very very interesting times.
My biggest concern is losing a lot of that voting block as older voters often serve as a check against naive ideas that younger voters have such as wanting to try socialist policies wholesale at scale at the federal level instead of experimenting with those ideas in the safe confines of state or local municipalities to determine if they are actually workable ideas.