Imagine that some force, aliens perhaps, was so aggravated by the outcome of the election they managed to kill off everyone on earth who was over the age of 70. Satisfied with the results, they don’t stick around to harm anyone who wasn’t yet 70, so the people who would turn 70 on Friday or later luck out.
How does life change if everyone over the age of 70 suddenly dropped dead? What changes socially? Politically? Economically?
Whole lot of cash hits the economy: probably very stimulating.
Whole lot of real estate opens up: prices fall. Not good for the economy (but damn fine for house-hunters and renters.)
Lot of doctors have a lot less work: not good for their economy (or pharmaceutical companies either.)
Huge boom in the cemetery business.
If there is a specific cause, a lot of lawyers are going to make hay out of it, suing the hell out of whoever let it happen.
This would be my last post.
We’d take back both houses of Congress and the Presidency…?
I’d inherit a lot from my mother…
This is not a GQ. Moved to IMHO
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Piles of bodies stinkin’ up the place.
Medicare and social security funding suddenly no longer a problem.
Auto market flooded with decade-old Buicks.
Early-bird specials dry up.
Kids will traipse merrily across lawns.
Economically, it would be a huge benefit. We’d have drastically lower Medicare and Social Security spending, and those two programs comprise about $1.4 trillion of spending per year. (I believe Medicare is only available to those of age >= 65, but Social Security also pays benefits to the disabled and to the families and survivors of recipients.) My cursory Google search didn’t turn up any hard statistics how much people aged 70+ pay in taxes compared with other groups, but it would be hard to argue that their sudden vanishing would be an net loss economically. Of course, it would be terrible if you have family members or friends past that age; but with that much money, you can buy new friends.
The halls of governments would be MUCH less crowded.
I have the idea that, between Millennials wanting to be in city cores and the great housing booms of the 70’s and 80’s, the die-off of boomers will create vast swaths of suburban towns looking for reasons to exist.
Those clever signs in the 80’s “If you lived Here, you’d be home now” (placed over commute-clogged highways) will become “Welcome to Ghost Town!”. The places further out may be razed and turned into parks.
BS. It *would *be a benefit to the social security & medicare funding process. What do you suppose happens when that 1.4 trillion dollars that gets sent to the seniors, and promptly spent in the economy suddenly disappears?
It would not be “economically a huge benefit.” In addition to SS, those oldsters collectively have a huge pile of money. Which they spend. All that demand dropping out of the economy suddenly might well trigger an instant recession as lots of businesses suddenly see a big chunk of customers disappear.
A year or two later as all the estates settle you’ll see massive amounts of real estate, old cars, and furniture flood the used markets. Which will promptly crash those markets. Yes, at that time there may also be lots of 40-50 year olds suddenly flush with their parents’ money who choose to spend some of it right away.
It would be doubly interesting if the OP’s question was “What if everybody dropped dead on their 70th birthday unless something else got them first? IOW, nobody lives a day over 70. What then?”
Right now death is certain, but the date isn’t. If I knew my latest possible sell-by date I’d be doing my saving and investing very differently. Right now I need to provide for age 100. If my savings only need to last a guaranteed few years that’s a very different scenario: spending principle not just spending returns.
Millions of people who are now facing poor retirements will suddenly have enough. And millions more who’re well-set for retirement will suddenly have way more than they need. Which they’ll choose to spend en masse.
Working to age 65 will be a lot less popular when age 70 is all there is.
nm yourself!
Reported dupe threads for merging.
Reported dupe threads for merging.
Well, no. The $1.4 bn hasn’t disappeared; just the people who used to spend it. But others will be willing to step into the breach in that regard, I imagine.
Basically, what you have is a big improvement in the dependency ratio. The elderly tend to be dependent; they do not brew or bake, but they drink beer and eat bread - necessarily, beer and bread produced by others, and then given to them. Social security, IRAs, private savings, stocks and bonds - these are all simply mechanisms to transfer bread and beer (and fuel and cheese and . . .) from the workers who produce it to the elderly who consume it.
So, when everyone over 79 disappears, it’s disruptive, obviously, but the productive capacity of the economy is not fundamentally affected. We can produce as much bread and beer as we ever did, but there are now fewer mouths to consume it, so those of us who are left can all have more. Or, we can produce less bread and beer, consume as much as we ever did, and have more free time. But history suggests that we would take the former option.
Of course, all this is just temporary, if this is a one-off cull of the crumblies. And when it’s just temporary, it’s possible that the negative effects of the massive disruption involved would approach, or even outweigh, the benefits from the temporarily improved dependency ratio.
But, basically, the idea that pensioners improve the economy by spending money is not sound. They improve the economy by spending money which others have transferred them. If the others didn’t transfer it to them, but spent it themselves, the economy would be just as improved.
It is not a stupid question except if you take it to the extremes. Lots of people, including me, have wondered when those Baby Boomers are going to retire for years now. I work in high-tech manufacturing and it is already started to happen and the pace is speeding up rapidly. People that have worked there for their whole lives are freeing up jobs for “younger” people (I put that in quotes because many of those young people are Gen X’ers like me that are hardly young ourselves by any objective standard).
Retirement isn’t death but that will happen too. There are tens of millions of people in their late 60’s and 70’s that have large houses, land and everything else and they aren’t going to live forever. Statistical curves being what they are almost ensure that very large numbers of people in those demographics will not be around in 10 or 15 years or, at least, not want their 3000+ foot square house and everything that goes with that.
I sense a strong trend coming up where housing suddenly becomes more affordable again as Baby Boomers or their families need to offload properties quickly. That may start the cycle all over again.
I think the sudden inheritance of so many down payments would actually raise property values for a bit. Most of those folks will already have sold their homes won’t they? At what age do most people either trade down or move into retirement care?
The primary result I think would be a democratic government for China.
The large majority of people never move into retirement care. And I’m not sure what proportion “trade down”, either.
What time tomorrow? Can’t I have even one whole day for hookers and blow?
I hope there would be some pretty obvious and understandable cause. Yeah, we’d probably have too many deaders to handle at one time, and I doubt that they’ll leave a nice fragrance for very long. Could be a bit of a public health problem, even.