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Comment by throwaway6734 | Hacker News Reader

the biggest drag on the west right now is the excessive amount of resources that we allocate to the elderly. We funnel capital from young people to old to pay for drastically increasing healthcare costs while putting forward minimal effort to ensure young people can start families.

Anecdotally, my family's health insurance (early 30s, 1 child; mostly paid for by my employer; 2k a month) costs more monthly than our mortgage (1600 a month). Not to mention the money that we pay into social security and Medicare.

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Hmm... seems to me that the solution to that would be for you to just pay the elderly back all the money they spent on your support, infrastructure, and schooling.

Would you be willing to do that?

I suspect that would come out cheaper, actually. The fact that the government will fund all old age care means that old age care is where the market is. Hence the famous Alzheimer’s drug with the amyloid plaque business. So you end up with spiraling costs. And I believe if we just buy back their other stuff we could easily come out ahead.

Don't forget the interest for x years, where x is your current age. You probably think student loans are bad. Student loans aren't in it. It now costs around $300,000 to raise a child to age 18, and that's just out-of-pocket expenses by the parents. That doesn't count all the schools and societal infrastructure that are paid for either by taxes on the parents (and non-parents!) or by direct payments.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/cos...

Also don't forget that you, too, will be old. A lot sooner than you probably think.

What country to you think has figured out how to care for their aging population? Most of Europe has incredibly low birthrates, an aging populaton, and low growth. The US is looking at massive social security and medicare shortfalls in a decade.

My parents, doctors in their 60s treated people through the pandemic and wrote to prioritize the lives of the young over the old.

I hope to be like they are and make room for our coming generation when my I am their age. My parents prioritized me and my generation. I will do so as well.

Other cultures will vampirically parasitize their children but mine will not.

Yes of course

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