kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (08/10/86)
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
By the high black teenage unemployment rate I meant that the
teenage fathers didn't have any money to support their kids
anyway. This was obvious when watching a few TV specials on unwed
teenage mothers. These guys may be amazingly irresponsible, but
the only money they have seems to come from dealing drugs.
Your perception is that blacks can only thrive through welfare or
crime?
The Social Security system is not a Ponzi scheme, ...
Yes it is. No money is invested. No wealth is created. The
illusion of growth is created by shifting money from recent
contributors to earlier contributors. No different from a classic
pyramid scheme or a chain letter. Like a chain letter, Social
Security promises wonderful things (a secure retirement) if you send
money now, and threatens dire consequences (jail, fines) if you choose
not to.
It is illegal to start a private pension plan that is run on these
principles, for obvious reasons.
Those who retired in the past got back way more than they would
have by investing their money, unless they investment was
fantastic.
If you are refering to the first group of retirees, this is
certainly true, since they contributed nothing to the system when they
were working (because it didn't exist yet). Great payoffs for the
first generation are characteristic of any pyramid scheme.
My point on future productivity is that over time the average
number of years worked has decreased, through earlier retirement,
and longer schooling. But these trends only consume a factor of 2
or 4 increase in productivity. Beyond that, you have to really
live like the filthy rich, or reduce your work hours, in order to
blow all the money.
I wouldn't mind doing more work of my own choosing. I like to work,
and I work primarily for the enjoyment of it not for the money (though
since I need money, I would work elsewhere if they didn't pay me
enough). What I don't like is the lack of choice of projects. If I
was wealthy enough I could work on whatever struck my fancy.
I don't think that people of the future will live like the rich of
today, any more that the people of today live like the rich of the
past. People today spend a lot of money on things that didn't exist
in the past and wouldn't have been affordable by hardly anyone if it
did. Caeser may have lived in an immense palace, but he never flew on
a plane. The Pharoahs may have had enormous pyramids and tons of
gold, but they had no air conditioning. King Henry VIII was certainly
one of the wealthiest people alive at the time, but he died of
something that people on welfare are easily cured of. Wealth today is
more likely to be spent on fancy cars than on armies of servants.
More likely to be spent on a moderate house in a good location than on
a marble mansion in a random location. The age of outrageous
consumption ended with the Titanic. Did you know that berths on the
Titanic went for over $4000? That was an IMMENSE amount of money for
1912, more than most people's lifetime earnings.
I don't know what I would spend my wealth on, were I an average
person of 100 years from now. Probably not on beachside property or
BMWs. Maybe on interplanetary (or interstellar) travel? Maybe on
truly unimaginable amounts of computer power?
...Keith
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