Monday, October 10, 2005

Inter-generational war

Today the ceo of Delphi was talking about some of the deeper causes and ramifications of Delphi's bankruptcy, and one statement caught my attention. He had been expaining about the heavy financial burden of the pension plans, and the reality that current wages must be much lower than we were used to. Below is from a news article...
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Miller said Delphi's case was a "flash point, a test case" for a wider global conflict between the interests of current workers and retired employees.

"I fear something like inter-generational warfare, as young people increasingly resent having their wages reduced and taxed away to support social programs for their grandparents' income and health care concerns," he said.
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This concept has been on my mind for about a year now.
Simply the fact that there are a lot of baby boomers and relatively few to support them when they get old will be a burden about 4 times greater than we were used to. Now we add in a newly global economy where our wages are truly competeing with all other countries, meaning our wages are going down. Add to that the economic effects of global warming (big hurricanes, etc.), and our increasing dependence on fossil fuels that are rapidly dissapearing. All of this spells economic trouble on the horizon.

A while ago I realized that the younger generations are going to be resentful that old people got them into this, and those same old people are now draining the federal budget with health care issues. A little anarchy could easily give rise to a movement to wipe out old people.

1 comment:

Round Belly said...

As a younger working generation I believe the answer lies in each child taking care of thier old people. And the old people in turn helping them run their house and help with thier children.

That would help with day care care and cleaning issues and also would help the old/retired people stay busy and produtive. IT might also help immpating wisdom and respect for old poeople unon the generations they are helping to raise.