From what I have heard it works very well, is much more dignified because elderly people can take care of themselves, keeps people active and is significantly cheaper.
Lots of the crisis around the retired population seems to come from the degree with which it has been commodified. People isolated from their family or community, taken care of by strangers, no social life, no stimulation, just horrible.
In the US in particular it seems to be amplified by the dominance of the nuclear family.
If one of those two providers gets sick or leaves, the system collapses. Either a maid or a pension (or both) is needed, and those are entirely outside the reach of the vast majority of Americans.
A more robust, anti-fragile system would involve support from either an extended family to help when things get hard, or a meaningfully robust set of public programs. The nuclear family has no support from extended family by default, and the public programs have been largely removed (as the article states).
The idea that nuclear families work is a lie. They don’t scale due to fragility.
Humans naturally live in extended families three or more generations deep.
- had cheap housing for years
- lived through a strong American economy
- had relatively cheap access to education
- had a cheaper tax burden
- many of them have pensions that are paid for by today’s workers
- spent most of their lives polluting the earth and not putting money aside for the cleanup
Not sure what other advantages this generation wants?
One of the reasons contributions made in to pensions in the UK are 100% tax free is because nobody trusts a future government not to double dip.
I used to sell RVs. I would say less than 20% of our clients could actually afford their purchase. By that I mean, people all ready in debt, but trying to max out their spending because having something leftover after bills and debts would be a waste.
So vegetable life in a suburban house it is for them
