Comment by lotsofpulp
10 hours ago
Part of it is a hidden tax on the young and workers, by making currency less valuable (what young people and workers have, the ability to earn cash) and transferring that wealth to old people and asset owners (to pay for pensions and healthcare).
That is why mortgages are (future) taxpayer subsidized. Without the subsidies from the future, the real estate prices would not be able to rise so much.
There is also economic agglomeration to exacerbate the issue.
Working class old people (the kinds that need pensions and healthcare) are not accumulating your wealth. Pensions and healthcare are nice in that they're almost immediately consumed. Nobody gets rich from needing financial help for healthcare.
You should not look towards pensions and healthcare, but rather the actually wealthy old men. Those are who the ones stealing your future.
Productivity doesn't materialize out of thin air. If something is being consumed, it has to be produced. And lots of old people, presumably more than you implied via "wealthy old men", plan on being able to consume in combination of selling the assets they have (either directly, or via some defined benefit pension fund manager selling and distributing them cash), and by receiving direct wealth transfers via cash or healthcare services.