It seems like government funded retirement is based on a pyramid scheme which is bound to implode sooner or later. What do you make of this?

It's ok, capitalism itself is a pyramid scheme.

It seems like government funded retirement is based on a pyramid scheme which is bound to implode sooner or later. What do you make of this?

Where would the government get the money????

Baron Max

Is it practical to have government manage retirement funded by taxpayers?
No. Who ever said the government is practical?

Why do we put up with it if everyone knows its a bunch of nonsense?

The government owns the police and the army. Does that answer your question?

The government owns the police and the army. Does that answer your question?

Theoretically we can vote people into office who will do our bidding despite the police and army being there.

I don't know of any government managed retirement pyramid scheme.

There's Social Security, but that's just welfare for old folks.

Why do we put up with it if everyone knows its a bunch of nonsense?

because the government keeps us from organising and conspiring against them through anti-sedition laws. at best we could take out a few cops with us, but without anyone to continue the fight our actions would do nothing but increase public sympathy for the police.

government is the enemy of democracy and must be destroyed.

It seems like government funded retirement is based on a pyramid scheme which is bound to implode sooner or later. What do you make of this?

A "pyramid scheme" is more aptly used to describe a system in which Person A makes money because he gets B and C to pay him, Then B and C each have to find two (or more) people (D, E, F and G) who each have to find two more...and so on. The money only flows so long as there are more people being added to the system than were admitted in the previous level. Since you will eventually run out of people to add...the pyramid falls apart.

Social insurance, on the other hand, does not necessarily have to rely on the next generation being larger than the prior one. In fact you could have one, two or more retirees per payor...it would mean that either the taxes on the single payor would be pretty high (or the benefits to the tetirees small, or a bit of both), but it can be done.

It is more properly described as "robbing Peter to pay Paul," but the only way the system really falls apart is if the income of the next generation insufficient to pay the retirement benefits of the retired generation (i.e. you rob Peter, and find that he only has about half of what you owe Paul), but mere "sufficiency" is a different standard than the steady cash flow growth required to maintain a pyramid scheme. Since the income needs of retirees is usually a good bit less than total income of working people from ages 18-60ish, it seems unlikely that the (present) growth in the income needs of retirees is likely to exceed that sort of mere sufficiency threshold (though the rapidly rising cost of medical care for the elderly makes me less sanguine about that than I once was). The income needs of retirees is definitely growing, but a lot of that is a baby boom effect, that will pass...and then the income requires will fall to more manageable levels.

Solution: Encourage baby boomers to live dangerously.

Solution: Encourage baby boomers to live dangerously. I like that. That could work.

Maybe we should start drafting retirees for service in Iraq.

Theoretically we can vote people into office who will do our bidding despite the police and army being there.
EXACtly! Theoretically! :D