Thread

1. shoobiedoo · 1789687401 · focus · HN ↗

   This article calls it a "quiet emergency" but even as a foreigner living in Japan there are alarm bells everywhere. And the government buying 150 F35's is just a slap in the face when there's a massive chunk of the population that is, very quickly, going to need extra care.

   I looked into becoming a care aid myself as I'm tired of office culture in Japan and have some experience in that field. I was shocked to see that they start at less than 10USD, and working your way up takes years, decades even.

   Continuing to kick this can down the road is going to be an absolute disaster.

   1. rightnutwingjob · 1789689669 · focus · HN ↗

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      1. PorciiVorbesc · 1789690719 · focus · HN ↗

         >Why do people think The Government™ is able to, should, or can, solve everyone’s problems?

         Where do you see them demanding the government solve $ALL their problems?

         >The Government™ probably can solve defence.

         Agree.

         >It probably can’t solve your lack of desire to do the right thing and look after your aging parents.

         Is there a lack of desire? Or a lack of resources resulting as a consequence of how the modern developed economy works, where youth need to move away from the family to get a college education and skilled jobs, and in return the government taxes you to take care of your parents and your kids so that you can focus on maximizing your skilled productivity at work? Isn't this the modern (faulty) social contract?

         Sure, I can move back with my parents to take care of them, but then I won't have a job to earn money because all the industry in that town was hollowed out and moved abroad (also thanks to government actions of maximizing shareholder value).

         Now , if the government admits it can't solve elderly care and wants us to take care of our parents on our own dime, the it should also stop taxing us for a welfare state it can't provide and just focus on what it can, like defense. IIRC Switzerland works like that.

         Unfortunately, in our modern post-industrial economy we can't all go back to tribal/village lifestyles of our ancestors where we all lived on farms in multi generational households and we all took care of each other and lived only off the land. That would sound nice in theory, but it's not feasible anymore the way nations and economies are set up to work and compete against each other, unless we can somehow agree to fight wars from now on only with bows and arrows like our ancestors, instead of AI drones and cruise missiles needing cutting edge chips and SW made by singles with phds and no kids. We built this faulty societal system and now we're forced to live by it whether we want to or not.

         1. imglorp · 1789695940 · focus · HN ↗

            If the community isn't proactive with safety nets for elders, let's say the childless ones, those elders will become everyone's acute problems. Better to plan for it and better to share the cost to everyone. Some might call that a government.

            1. PorciiVorbesc · 1789861154 · focus · HN ↗

               >Better to plan for it and better to share the cost to everyone.

               And what do you do when your geopolitical rival is not doing that and using that money instead for their economy and military to maybe one day destroy you as they grow big and you grow small?

               Investments in humanity work when everyone is on the same page in good faith, not when you're rivals have imperialistic wishes and no democratic process or care for human rights to stop them.

               The other domestic issue is that if you make care for old people a guarantee for the elderly financed by a mandatory burden over the working population, then people have little incentive to be responsible for the future with their finances during their working age, making sure to not have kids and to spend everything because "why bother, when the government will take care of me?".

               >Some might call that a government.

               Some might call this wreckless planning of an unsustainable welfare state that can bankrupt a country.

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