The Economist magazine pension issue

I like this blog (other entries of which have been posted here before), but I find it a bit misleading that it shows up on HN as coming from "harvard.edu" -- which I assume to be Harvard's official web portal. (Clicking through reveals it to be a posting on blogs.law.harvard.edu, which provides free blog webspace to anyone with a Harvard-affiliated email address.)<p>Am I just being too picky?

I think the article may be attempting to show how dire the situation is. Or that the fix may lie in some form of equality of pensions throughout the work force, still a hard thing to fix.<p>With unemployment at such a high level today, increasing the retirement age would keep all of the baby boomers employed, rather than leaving the work force. It does not look good any way you look at it.

I wonder if at some point some sections of society will voluntarily move to less efficient methods of production to generate employment - aka resurrecting the self sufficient village.

This is the usual demographic problem. However, the problem is bigger on the military end - you can't defend your interests if 1) you don't have the money 2) if you don't have the manpower.<p>However, the back to the problem with taxing jobs out of existence: fortune is on youths side. As bad as the problem may sound, once the problem hits criticality, you get a sudden societal upheaval and things right itself immediately. No one should count on their pensions as being forever.

The first paragraph describes a common structure of the articles in The Economist, which goes a long way towards explaining why it is so satisfying to read.

The missing solution? Immigration.

If economic growth averages 2% for the next 35 years America will be twice as rich as it is now. We can provide for old folks now, just like we did 35 years ago, and we can definitely do it 35 years from now. This is just another rich dude complaining about the proles.