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Why does raising the retirement age hurt young people?

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Re: Why does raising the retirement age hurt young people?

#101
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes are on whatever we want to tax. Instead of taxing income or spending, tax wealth. Will the wealthy make themselves less wealthy in order to avoid a wealth tax? I don't think so. Tax the top 1%; even with a wealth tax they'll still be able to afford multiple homes and a yacht--hell, there are people who can afford two homes and a yacht and don't even fall in the top 1%, so people will still be able to have plent…

the stock market returns on average 7%. a 50% tax on on income means the stock market effectively returns 3.5% a wealth tax of 1% reduces the return on the stock market for that year to 6%, but it compounds onto follow-on years; if you "wealth tax" every year, that effectively lowers the return on the market very dramatically. If the returns on the stock market are lowered dramatically, you will see a huge slowdown i…

Most of your arguments are not applicable for the simple reason that 99% of people would not have a wealth tax under my proposal.

I suggested a wealth tax only on the top 1%. (Or on the top 0.1% might work better, the specific number isn't the main point.)

The top 1% didn't get there through average stock returns, so the stock arguments are not applicable. Most stock participants would not have a wealth tax.

One of the major themes of this entire thread is that retirement age will have to be raised, with some even saying that any retirement at all is unusual and unsustainable. So do please tell me more about market economics and their wealth creation. Why are we regressing in our market economy? What does it mean when the things that happen in a successful market economy aren't happening?

As for Elon. Even with my proposed wealth tax, he would still be the world richest man. Especially if he continues to run successful businesses. A wealth tax doesn't immediately erase all the wealth of those it applies to.

Re: Why does raising the retirement age hurt young people?

#102
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes are on whatever we want to tax. Instead of taxing income or spending, tax wealth. Will the wealthy make themselves less wealthy in order to avoid a wealth tax? I don't think so. Tax the top 1%; even with a wealth tax they'll still be able to afford multiple homes and a yacht--hell, there are people who can afford two homes and a yacht and don't even fall in the top 1%, so people will still be able to have plent…

There are some theoretical advantages to a wealth tax but in practice it would be extremely difficult to implement. The issue is that much wealth isn't cash in a bank account or holdings of publicly traded securities but rather equity in illiquid private investments. And some of that is offshore, so would you only tax wealth held in the USA by American citizens or would it apply more broadly? Like one person I know i…

Tracking wealth seems hard. Tracking income seems hard. If we can do one, why not the other? Is tracking wealth harder than tracking income?

Re: Why does raising the retirement age hurt young people?

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

QSBS is only capped for sweat equity. My Series A lead gets a $200m exclusion. With the new $75m asset limit, the Series B lead will probably triple that. Things like QSBS and carried interest are absolutely part of what people mean by "tax cuts for the wealthy".

> Things like QSBS and carried interest are absolutely part of what people mean by "tax cuts for the wealthy". No they aren't. Nobody mentions them on the news/editorials, nobody's heard of them but you and I. What people meant is the marginal tax rate. I am not a tax accountant, and never heard of them before your mention. I spent some time googling it, and it looks like the limits were adjusted for inflation.

Yes, they are.

You're wrong that nobody's heard of these things and that they aren't in the news. Pick up the NYT or Fortune or any moderately substantive source. These issues have been discussed all over for decades, and they came up again repeatedly in the context of the BBB. QSBS and SALT came up because of their expansions, and carried interest came up because Trump promised to eliminate it but didn't. I didn't go digging for this information. It was handed to me.

More importantly you're wrong that people only think of tax cuts in terms of marginal rates, and that they need to know about specific schemes like QSBS and carried interest to include them in the broader idea of tax cuts for the wealthy. People have a general awareness that such schemes (popularly: "loopholes") exist and benefit the wealthy. The names of the schemes and how each one works don't matter. People know they exist and what they amount to.

So: The idea that people don't know about specific tax schemes used by the wealthy, and therefore don't think of these schemes as tax cuts for the wealthy, is wrong, and the idea that people need to know about specific tax schemes used by the wealthy in order to think of those schemes as tax cuts for the wealthy is also wrong. The first is wrong empirically, and the second is wrong logically.

Re: Why does raising the retirement age hurt young people?

#104
post #2

Full Title : Why Does Raising the Retirement Age Hurt Young People? What Would It Take to Start/Restart Their Careers? Turns out trying to get people to retire later is a bad idea

Unless you are having state pensions and taking money from taxable population and giving it to pensioners. This group keeps getting bigger thanks to constantly improving medical care, while taxable population is getting smaller thanks to declining birthrates. Cutting pensions would probably cause massive riots, so raising retirement age is only logical way forward to keep this social pyramid scheme alive a little bit…

This is another reason why market based, self directed, retirement accounts make far more sense than pensions: they scale with production. With pensions you have the option of pissing people off or crushing the people who are working (whether that's the company or the working population of the state.)

Re: Why does raising the retirement age hurt young people?

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we agree that the taxes on the wealthy would be higher if the BBB was not passed? It's not a "cut", it's just that the BBB makes taxes lower for the wealthy than they would have been without the BBB .

The BBB repealed the tax increase, yes. That's not a cut, because the increase didn't happen.

So we agree that Republicans did things that resulted in the rich paying less taxes than they would have otherwise.

Re: Why does raising the retirement age hurt young people?

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Things like QSBS and carried interest are absolutely part of what people mean by "tax cuts for the wealthy". No they aren't. Nobody mentions them on the news/editorials, nobody's heard of them but you and I. What people meant is the marginal tax rate. I am not a tax accountant, and never heard of them before your mention. I spent some time googling it, and it looks like the limits were adjusted for inflation.

Yes, they are. You're wrong that nobody's heard of these things and that they aren't in the news. Pick up the NYT or Fortune or any moderately substantive source. These issues have been discussed all over for decades, and they came up again repeatedly in the context of the BBB. QSBS and SALT came up because of their expansions, and carried interest came up because Trump promised to eliminate it but didn't. I didn't g…

You're confusing what you know with general knowledge. I read the WSJ every day and never saw this mentioned.

> you're wrong that people only think of tax cuts in terms of marginal rates

No evidence for your case, other than a vague notion of "loopholes".

Besides, there is no requirement for wealth in order to invest in a QSBS.

As for SALT, it starts getting phased out at $500,000 and goes to zero at $1m.

Re: Why does raising the retirement age hurt young people?

#107
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this. I know this type of comment is discouraged by Hacker News but I really want to help you emphasize that retirement used to be a guarantee by the US government after paying into social security all your life. Now… I don't know.

Social Security is still guaranteed by the US government.

Will it be in 20-30 years when I'm of retirement age?

Re: Why does raising the retirement age hurt young people?

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So lets raise taxes now and pay it off. Who should we tax? Should we squeeze blood from stones and try to get the poor to pay more taxes, or should we tax the wealthy? Who am I kidding. The current administration showed us--what was it? last week?--that they prefer cutting taxes for the wealthy and increasing the deficit. Republicans ALWAYS increase the deficit. Democrats usually do, but not always. It looks like we'…

Tax cuts for the wealthy were not in the BBB.

[dead]

Re: Why does raising the retirement age hurt young people?

#110
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will it be in 20-30 years when I'm of retirement age?

Yes, as much as anything is ever guaranteed in life.

I know I'm nitpicking, but sure — nothing is guaranteed, but it's also not like everything is the same risk.

From my limited understanding the government hasn't been responsibly saving and investing social security withholdings your whole life in a special account for you that invests in index funds and is sitting there for you when you retire.

Instead it works something kinda like a ponzi scheme meets an insurance company. They keep a float of cash that's enough to pay out, and then put the money to use for all sorts of government costs because they won't need it for 30 years. Which works fine until the 30 years is up and they don't have it…

Probably won't happen I assume, they'd probably just print money to pay it back in an inflationary move but regardless — it's a risk that is not the same as every other risk.

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