Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

To put it another way, yes, when young we can vote for a one of forgiveness of our college debt. But so long as the voting system remains the same, the next generation will just do the same thing!

This is fair but there's a difference between "policies will not be massively pro-young because young people know they will one day be old" and "policies will be massively pro-young but everybody gets to be young sometime"

If each younger generation *does* hand themselves something unsustainably expensive, each subsequent generation that winds up paying for it (in part) may feel increasingly pressed to do the same for themselves, even at the risk of perpetuating the cycle into full-on death spiral

I suspect that somewhat over-considering the elderly may be preferable, if it prevents any initial mass coffer grab post-realization that one's final years will be a simultaneous descent into physical, psychological & financial helplessness unless they grab what they can now

If we were out of the blue thinking about 'if our political system has to transfer resources to 20-30 year olds, or 75-85 year olds which is better', wouldn't the former clearly seem preferable? Three reasons jump out at me: ...

i) the young care much more about overall system sustainability because they'll be paying for the next round of transfers whereas the old will never have to deal with the problems they leave everyone else; ...

ii) it speeds up inter-generational transfers which are currently too low, as the old are living for a long time, meaning people often only inherit familial wealth when they're 45 or older (!), resulting in inefficiently low consumption smoothing for the credit constrained;

iii) transfers to the young more often becomes investments in the future, via education, healthcare and related investments in them as people; buying equities not bonds; more ability to take risks promoting business formation and scientific research, etc.