An Oligarchy of Old People

Scott Alexander wrote a piece[1] a few months ago which rebutts many of the arguments made in this article.

For instance, the article argues that boomers are NIMBYs:

>Older generations used the levers of government to create this situation. In high-cost cities, the building of new homes and apartment complexes is often derailed in local planning and zoning-board meetings.

However Scott notes:

>It’s not even clear that Boomers are that much more likely to be NIMBYs. From Pew:

>https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wf8x!,w_1456,c_limit...

The article also talks about social security as benefiting boomers, but Scott notes:

>The Social Security Administration’s own website says that its generosity peaked in 1972, when the program primarily served the Greatest Generation; since then, it’s been one contraction after another.

[1] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/against-against-boomers

Once the boomers die off, things will get even worse. Thiel and Musk aren't Boomers, but they're the Gen X's with the power.

We must have an enemy. Both sides of the aisle have chosen particularly stupidly IMO. The left has chosen Boomers and the right have chosen immigrants and refugees.

old vs young (as with so many other social cleavages) is real, to an extent, but nothing compared to the wealth oligarchy vs. the rest of us. These cleavages are pushed intentionally to divide and conquer.

poor (and even moderately wealthy) old people aren't the enemy.

This article simply seems to be stoking an ageist division where there needn't be one... The Greatest Gen and Boomers largely had a better set of opportunities than generations since. There are a lot of reasons for this... you could just as easily argue that feminism destroyed the labor market, or that opening trade to repressive countries that treat their own people like quasi slave labor destroyed the economy.

There are lots of reasons why the young today don't have the same opportunities of old. Hell, even with online advancements, it won't even match the early internet era pre and early after the .com bubble burst.

International free trade often isn't... because the labor and living conditions between nations varies a lot. And you cannot tax your way into a more fair market... you can only encourage more competition and enact some level of domestic protectionism.

Most of the people the article is complaining about simply did the right things... worked, steadily and saved or worked in companies that offered retirement options and pensions. But we want to be consumers first... we wanted cheap DVD players, televisions, appliances and phones. So, that's what we got... all the while markets are colluding, collapsing and expanding to extract every bit of potential value out of every product and market there is.

There's room for improvement, but I vigorously opposed socialism as the answer... I think we just need to adjust incentivization and adapt the limitations of liability offered to non-living entities. At this point, for the US, that will likely require a constitutional amendment.

"Joe Biden, did not want to admit his senescence. "

No, not just Joe. There were a lot of younger people who did not want to confess Joe biden's state because it would reduce their power and a lot of them were under 65.

The Atlantic is filled to the brim with spooks. Age of politicians is a symptom, not the source of our problems.

It’s effectively a decoy to distract people that “know something’s wrong” from looking at the real source of our governance problems: Citizens United. Throw in a little generational resentment for division purposes and now you’re really cooking.