The Clash of Generations: Saving Ourselves, Our Kids, and Our Economy by Laurence J Kotlikoff, Scott Burns
Summary and takeaways from the book.
Keywords:
Informed
Better life
Wealth Transfer
Capitalism
Corruption
Feb 9, 2024
Youthanasia. We stole from our children's future and destroyed their lives.
"we're engaged in child abuse, social, economic, fiscal".
Who stole from our children?
"
ratio of publicly held federal debt to GDP has skyrocketed—from 35 percent to over 70 percent of GDP".
The author calls this "
Youthanasia". Stealing from children creates social and economic problems for the next generation while we continue our wilful ignorance.
ISBN: 978-0262526104
Published: February 14, 2014
Pages: 275
Available on:
amazon
Laurence Kotlikoff is "
Professor of Economics at Boston University, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fellow of the Econometric Society, Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, President of Economic Security Planning, Inc., and Director of the Fiscal Analysis Center.
Professor Kotlikoff has written 19 books and hundreds of professional articles and Op-Eds".
Scott Burns is "
the creator of Couch Potato investing and a personal finance columnist".
Youthanasia
Stealing from children creates social and economic problems for the next generation while we continue our wilful ignorance and stand by idly and comfortably.
The author calls this "
Youthanasia".
Our lifestyle has been sustained "
on the backs of our relatively few children has produced a fundamental dilemma: too many old hands reaching into too few young pockets, taking amounts that are far too high".
"
We could have asked each generation to pay for itself or, at least, limit its fiscal child abuse. But instead our politicians chose to keep raising the standards of living of the elderly but at such a high cost that it has driven the country broke".
"failing income and uncertainty are causing the young to defer marriage, home buying, and child bearing. These are deep social changes".
Who stole our money?
Who stole from our children?
Government did. They have their snouts in the trough.
And we let it happen because of our laziness and "generational selfishness".
Who stole from our children?
"ratio of publicly held federal debt to GDP has skyrocketed—from 35 percent to over 70 percent of GDP".
"We've saddled them with massive government bills to pay for this largess".
"
For decades, states and local governments made massive pension and health care promises—promises they knew couldn’t be met and would land in the lap of those coming behind. They made these promises in exchange for current services from teachers, firefighters, police, and other public servants. They pocketed something real and handed back something fake in exchange".
"
Corporations and labor unions did the same. And like Uncle Sam, they used phony accounting to hide their crime".
"
Wall Street watched this behavior and started copying it—selling claims to securities it knew were toxic in order to make a fast buck".
To quote the fictional British Minister Jim Hacker from the TV Series 'Yes Minister', government and corporations have not only their snouts in the trough, but their two front trotters as well.
"
We've saddled them with massive government bills to pay for this largess. These bills stretch from here to eternity. They are far beyond our childrens’ capacity to pay, just as they are far beyond our own capacity—and will—to pay".
"
'Take the money and run' has become our national pastime".
"Our fiscal problems are now so severe, our economic institutions so poorly structured, our financial system so fragile, our politicians so divided, our foreign competition so intense, and our countrymen so anxious, that major social strife could occur at any time".
The authors talk of the
$211 trillion fiscal gap: "
the value in the present (the present value) of all our future spending obligations (including servicing the official debt), net of all our future tax receipts, is enormous. It is fourteen times our nation’s GDP, its total output. It is twenty-two times the official debt that now has everyone’s attention".
"
these unofficial liabilities have been carefully kept off the government’s books in a system of duplicitous accounting that goes far beyond Enron’s and Bernie Madoff’s wildest dreams. That’s why most people know little or nothing about the true size of our problem".
Tax system
"
Our tax system is well beyond the need for reform.
Today it needs to be reinvented. The existing system is terribly inefficient, highly inequitable, and horribly complex. It also discourages work and saving. Thanks to a virtual encyclopedia of tax loopholes, the system generates remarkably little revenue".
No meaningful reform is possible of this dysfunctional bloated system.
Why did we let this happen?
Why did we let this happen while we continue our wilful ignorance and stand by idly and comfortably?
"
Why did we do this? Why did we spend the postwar era taking from the young and giving to the old? Why did we use fraudulent deficit accounting to hide our generational theft? Why did we shirk our educational responsibilities and let our kids take on so much college debt? Why did we sacrifice our children in losing wars? And why did we leave Wall Street free to prey on them—and everyone else?"
It is "
generational selfishness".
The best we can do is to say meaningless things. "
The fight over meaningless words has led us to stop thinking about what we're saying. This point is well captured by a letter President Obama recently received from a very angry constituent, saying 'Don’t socialize my Medicare'".
Inspite of all we say, we don't care about our children, and we definitely don't care about other people's children or the community/society/world we live in.
"
'Take the money and run' has become our national pastime".
* * *
"
Whatever the explanation, we're engaged in child abuse, social, economic, fiscal, and, when it comes to our ill-conceived adventures overseas, physical. No gloss can cover this up. And this is the moral issue of our times".
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