alt Hacker News> retirement funds are built with the assumption of infinite growth
Of workers. Because retirement funds take money from workers to pay for retirees.
Assets and productivity, on the other hand, can grow a lot more than the population. Right now it's considered communism to tax assets. Once we get over that taboo things'll go a lot smoother.
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> Assets and productivity, on the other hand, can grow a lot more than the population.
Source? In a growing market, one can spread their investiments to get safe returns that approach the overall economic growth. In a shrinking market, the same logic should lead to small losses, year over years, making investiment much riskier and unactrative. Markets are made of people.
That would destroy the incentive to save. Why put aside a dollar now, only to have it taxed every year? Better to spend it while it’s whole.
That changes future value calculations, too.
These are things not to mess with lightly.
You can't eat assets. Retirees need goods and services, these should be produced by the workers and handed over to retirees for free.
No wealth redistribution mechanism can solve the fundamental problem of less workers handing over more and more of their produce to the growing population of retirees.