As my readers know, one of my pet peeves is people who argue that demographic changes will lead to catastrophes, be it higher inflation or the implosion of our social safety net.
Gosh, Joachim. I take your point, but this comes across like a pretty blasé acceptance about the social wellbeing gains of the 20th century safety nets being wiped away. Relax, the economy will be fine, so long as everyone dies on their feet. I see this every day in Singapore with 80+ year olds working for poverty wages. The billions in tech tax avoidance and trillions of wealth salted away in tax havens suggests that this perhaps is not a necessary or welcome outcome.
Well, I agree with you in principle. But your comment reminds me of the dinner I had with friends yesterday, where we explained to our friends that the biggest difference in the way my wife thinks about the world and the way I think about the world is the "is" vs. "ought" difference. My wife was a philosophy major at university and she is very much thinking about how the world ought to be. I was a physics and maths major and I think about how the world is. I think if we could close the tax loopholes for corporations and indiviudals around the world it would go a very long way towards financing the gaps in our social safety nets. But this is, in my view, not the world we live in and I don't think we have a realistic chance of seeing this changed anytime soon. Just look at the G7 agreement to increase corproate taxes to min. 15% everywhere. The ink wasn't dry on that one when the British government wanted to have an excemption for financial services companies and some argued it should only be applicable for companies above a certain profit margin. And we haven't even had the G20 summit where countries like Switzerland have to be brought on board...
Gosh, Joachim. I take your point, but this comes across like a pretty blasé acceptance about the social wellbeing gains of the 20th century safety nets being wiped away. Relax, the economy will be fine, so long as everyone dies on their feet. I see this every day in Singapore with 80+ year olds working for poverty wages. The billions in tech tax avoidance and trillions of wealth salted away in tax havens suggests that this perhaps is not a necessary or welcome outcome.
Well, I agree with you in principle. But your comment reminds me of the dinner I had with friends yesterday, where we explained to our friends that the biggest difference in the way my wife thinks about the world and the way I think about the world is the "is" vs. "ought" difference. My wife was a philosophy major at university and she is very much thinking about how the world ought to be. I was a physics and maths major and I think about how the world is. I think if we could close the tax loopholes for corporations and indiviudals around the world it would go a very long way towards financing the gaps in our social safety nets. But this is, in my view, not the world we live in and I don't think we have a realistic chance of seeing this changed anytime soon. Just look at the G7 agreement to increase corproate taxes to min. 15% everywhere. The ink wasn't dry on that one when the British government wanted to have an excemption for financial services companies and some argued it should only be applicable for companies above a certain profit margin. And we haven't even had the G20 summit where countries like Switzerland have to be brought on board...