jacob wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2019 9:39 am
...
- Increase work span
- Increase taxes
- Decrease payouts
- Decrease lifespan
Only the first is politically viable...
I think option 2 is most politically viable short term solution, as long as it's not a straight increase but rather a change in system of credits and preferences that effectively acts as a tax increase for some but not all (divide and conquer technique). In particular, expect the top 1% to throw the next 9% under the bus in this way. Complicated tax codes are great at protecting politicians from blame. Option 3 is easiest in the long run, but in a backdoor way. In particular, cut medical spending on the elderly, which only affects the sick elderly, so another divide and conquer technique. Inflation manipulations another sneaky way to implement option 3. Reduced medical spending plus a series of flu pandemics could be a way to implement option 4 without risk to politicians. Again, divide and conquer since only some people die from flu, not evenly distributed.
Takeaways from above:
1) Upper middle class (top 9% in wealth right below top 1%) benefits heavily from tax-exempt retirement savings plans, pensions based on lifetime earnings (versus flat minimum subsistence level pension for everyone), tax advantages for homeowning and small scale landlording. Expect all of these programs to be under attack, as elite (top 1%) tries to deflect attention from themselves by placing blame on upper middle class (next 9%) who are typically hated anyway since they are the middle managers whipping everyone below them to work harder and/or landlords exploiting tenants.
2) When the going gets tough, the sick will be thrown under the bus, especially the elderly sick. Don't be old and frail.
3) Be prepared for pandemics.
4) Expect pensions to be less in real terms than you expect. Either inflation numbers will be manipulated, or pension will be more heavily taxed than now, or more of pension than now will be automatically deducted for medical spending (effectively a way of raising taxes on pensions without calling it a tax). Only larger pensions will be affected by higher taxes/deductions, in accordance with divide and conquer principles.
4) As taxes on income rise, a penny saved becomes more and more valuable compared to a penny earned (whether as regular income, pension, or passive dividends and interest and capital gains). So be prepared to convert financial assets that throw off income into real assets that allow reduced expenses: owner occupied real estate, fuel efficient motor vehicle, home garden, toolhome repair shop, etc. I would not expect ownership of businesses, whether as sticks or private equity, to ever be heavily taxed on ownership itself, since that is how the elite hold their wealth. Taxes will be on income, not wealth, since the elite can easily control their own reported income.
Society does not swing like a pendulum from equality to inequality. Rather, the ability of the masses to overthrow the elite varies as technology evolved, and this credible overthrow threat is what generates equality. Overthrow means kill or inflict great bodily harm on the elite and their henchmen without being killed or injured in return: all power boils down to the ability to kill or physically hurt without being killed or badly hurt in return.
From about 1800 to about 1940, power of masses relative to professional military grew, assuming guerrilla warfare with popular suport by the masses, due to cheaper and better lightweight rifle technology. Impact was greatest wherever such rifles were legally available and affordable to the masses (especially North America). Power of women relative to men grew for the same reason, because such rifles are "equalizers", in that they eliminate the male hand to hand fighting advantage of greatly superior upper body strength. Changes in social organization lag technology changes, so women's suffrage and policies to redistribute wealth didn't occur immediately. Since WW2, technology has given the advantage back to professional armies versus guerrillas. (Failures of Russia and USA in places like Afghanistan were failures of political nerve, not the military. Had Russia or the USA wanted, they could easily have exterminated 90% of the Afghan population, which of course would guarantee absolute submission of the survivors. This is how things used to be done, as the Old Testament of the Bible discusses over and over. This is how both the USA and Argentina dealt with native American resistance fighters. Etc, etc.)
There is little on the horizon that suggests the masses will ever again have the ability to overthrow the elite. Overthrow by the professional military, of course, is always possible if the elite shows signs of senility. Thus I would expect inequality to rise everywhere.
5) In the future, top 9% under top 1% in income will increasingly be those who keep the masses under control while being paid enough not to stage a coup: professional military officers and senior enlisted men, internal security forces, top regulators, propaganda experts.
6) Many workers who are highly paid and thus top 9% under top 1% in income today (doctors, lawyers, engineers, programmers, accountants, middle managers, owners of small businesses, etc) will be subjected to forces of competition (surplus of domestic skilled workers, cheap third world labor, robots) and pay will plummet eventually.
"Future has already arrived, it's just not evenly distributed": what I am predicting already exists in Russia, most African countries, etc.