Around the world over the last year or two, there has been a massive uptick in governments paying companies to hire young people. For example, in Australia, they will pay half the wage or up to 7,000 dollars a quarter to businesses to hire young people, even if the business doesn't require the money to employee them.
While this is to get people into work, I suspect the real reason is that if they don't prop up the bottom of the labor market, not enough money would be going into retirement funds and they will start to fail. So, they are taking future tax money (debt) and injecting it into the economy wherever they can, to keep the game running. What this means though is that not too far down the road, the can is still laying there and there is no energy left to kick it a bit further. This will leave the people who have been working to underpin the funds now, without a retirement to rely on in the future.
Yet, no one cares, as long as they are getting free money. The problem is, we are likely going to live well beyond the time that the free money runs out and there is nothing left for anything else. What then? Many people don't seem to care about this gross mismanagement of user funds because of the timeline being an unknown in the future and people aren't very good at looking long.
I pay a lot of tax and because of my business, generate more. Not only this, as an employee, my employer has to put in retirement contributions and as an entrepreneur, I have to also put in contributions, essentially doubling up on my retirement fund - but I assume that these compulsory payments are going to be write-offs come time to collect, because the debt that is being generated now is going to eat away every bit of it and unless I have another plan, I will be left destitute.
Of course, I have other plans, but they largely rely on crypto, which is going to have its own issues along the way. But, I do think that 15 years from now, it will not only be still going, but thriving in the market conditions where people are working as freelancers, as there will be very few long-term contracts available and, government "initiatives" will be all dried up once the baby boomer generation no longer need supporting. Once they are dead and gone, all the debt they accrued in order to die happy, will come back to haunt the following generations for several more generations to come.
Abundance might be possible, but is it likely when people don't take responsibility for themselves and instead rely on a narrow group of controllers to provide for their future well-being? That is a lot of trust being put in those who have time and time again, been found to untrustworthy. If there is an opportunity for a better world, no one is going to create it for us, so if we want it, it is us who must do it.
What would make it better though? This is an issue as what most people tend to do is either only think of themselves or, wait for someone else to do it for them. Most in this world aren't collaborators in the sense that they actively seek out people with which to build, partly because most people don't possess the necessary skills to contribute to that kind of group.
The good thing about governments is, they support non-contributors. This doesn't sound good of course, but under certain conditions, for example in changing economies and technologies, it should be the case that people caught in the changeover can get support through retraining or retirement if training isn't possible. However, when the non-contributors have never contributed nor will ever, should they be supported?
If it came down to meritocracy for rule and work, many would starve. And, this is going to get worse in the future as AI and automation continue to develop the skills with the most merit. Humans aren't going to be able to compete on average and it is the average that drives the economy, not the exceptional. People like to think they can be the exception, beat the odds, but the fact is, being a pack a day smoker will most likely cut your life short and give you cancer. Eating poorly and not exercising will deteriorate your health and reduce quality of life. And, not preparing for retirement will likely see you live the last quarter of your life in hardship.
Over the years, various studies have demonstrated how our most recent memories are the ones that influence our evaluation of how we feel about our experiences. Just think what that means when the last 20 years have been worrying about how to pay the bills, after working for 40 years straight. Perhaps it is no wonder that Alzheimer's and dementia is increasing so rapidly - a coping mechanism to forget life.
If a new economic framework isn't developed, implemented and supported soon, I think a lot of people are going to wish they could avoid their lives. But for now, it seems that people are happy to take the handout from their own future pocket, buy a new big screen TV and binge watch anything that takes their mind off having to think about what else they could be doing.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]