Research on life expectancy and birth rates shows that ill health makes status quo unsustainable

The way I see it there are three realistic choices a country can make.

  1. Raise the pension age. Not very popular with the public as illustrated by protests everywhere this has been mentioned.

  2. Increased migration. Not very popular with the public as seen by the rise of far right parties in both Europe and outside.

  3. Lowered living standards. Not very popular because who wants to pay the same taxes but get less out of it?

This isn’t a UK problem. It’s the entire western world. And no, the populist idea of “just have more kids” doesn’t solve it.

Any ideas?

  • @UmmdustryEnglish
    0•5 months ago

    Ok, then what do you call a professional wage-labourer (“working class”, in the marxist definition) who is nonetheless a millionaire? A high-paid professional on 100k can quite easily become a millionaire in their lifetime. If they are mere workers, same as the rest of us, that just strengthens my argument because a socialist regime would have to tax them less.

    On the Panama Papres: double it, triple it. Doesn’t stop eating the rich from not being a panacea, that’s all I’m saying. At the risk of “englightend centrism” there’s a middle-ground between rothbardian economics and utopian thinking.

    That is… not how money works. In order to tax the Billionaire wealth (which primarily is the companies they own) you are either forcing them to sell (by taxing them x% of wealth, leaving them without liquid assets to pay the tax) or seizing assets and re-selling. You can’t tax the rich and expect them to stay rich forever by virtue of taxing them.