> And these density limits remain because old people swan around moaning that it's inhumane to build studio apartments when everybody wants a 12 sq acre bathroom, and why are there people in tents on the street?
Also Prop 13 in California that transfers wealth from new buyers to boomers who bought a home when it was cheap, and to wealthy buyers who can afford to buy a teardown and rebuild it around a single remaining wall.
But really, almost all of society’s current problems are pushed onto the public by the political power wielded by elderly boomers and retirees. The rest of us would like to do something about climate change and LGBT issues and cost of education but none of that affects boomers either. The elderly are fundamentally disconnected from the future of society because they will not participate in it, and unfortunate most people are not actually mature enough to demand sacrifices without an expectation they will share in the benefits. The meme about “old men planting trees in whose shade they know they will never sit” is not true, and it’s unfair to punish the living and their future from the hand of the dead. To use the term a bit differently than usual, the constitution is not a suicide pact.
We have a lower age limit on voting and there is perpetual talk about raising it to try and curb the political influence of the younger cohort (much like class war, one side is playing hardball, while the other side doesn’t even know they’re playing). Instead, we should keep it the same and add a cap at the age at which you can first draw early social security benefits.
I have heard all the retorts, what about the good boomers etc. But it’s just not good policy to have what are effectively transient participants (similar to how immigrants don’t get to vote) without a long-term stake in society being the ones in political control, even if some of them are well-intentioned.
Again, boomers keep trying to push exactly this change in reverse by trying to raise the voting age. They know there’s a class battle being fought here, but as usual the other side has talked themselves out of even playing the game, like if you don’t acknowledge it then it goes away.
