alt Hacker News> As you’ve just said, the decline isn’t the problem, it’s the global financial system. We should be looking to reform that...
What organizational 'reform' is going to address the issue that the young and the old survive by consuming the resources of the working age population?
No matter how productive you are, you aren't going to be producing enough tomato's between years 18 and 65 to be still consuming tomato's at 95. They don't last 30 years. If you want a smaller population to support a larger retired population you need to either:
1. Lower the expectations of the larger population set regarding their quality of life. 2. Reduce the size of the larger population, probably by raising retirement age. 3. Utilize capital improvements and investments to increase the productivity of the smaller population
This isn't some issue with the 'global financial system', it's simply a side-effect of people needing to consume some perishable goods and so are dependent on the continual production of those perishable goods even after these people have stopped supporting that production.
Good points. Consumption of older people is weighted toward services more than perishable goods like tomatoes, though. So there's a related #4 mitigation option: technological improvements allow older people to be more self-sufficient. One current change in progress is self driving car services like Waymo. My uncle drove my grandmother around for the last 10 years of her life because she wasn't fit to drive anymore. I hope that no human will need to drive me around by the time I can't safely drive myself.