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Notes -
People are irrational about it (mostly in the sense of being unaware that a mass-affluent elderly upper-middle class is very much a new thing) and old people are going to be the beneficiaries of a ton of idiotic slopulism as the median age marches ever higher, but boomer (and soon to be Gen X) luxury communism is an indirect subsidy to the working age who would otherwise be expected to care for/house their elderly/infirm relatives, an especially acute problem in an era of inverted population pyramids and increased lifespans. Imagine being an only child to parents who had you fairly old and both wind up dying of drawn out illnesses (This gets really fun if they're divorced and don't live near each other.) It would be hard to be a net loser in such a scenario as a Joe or Jane 30 to 40-something average taxpayer if the government is picking up the tab. Worse, while the old are collectively wealthy, that wealth is very unevenly distributed. For the under through lower-middle class Social Security/Medicare/Disability are the only reason most get to retire and maintain the polite fiction of being financially independent. For the upper-middle class, boomer luxury communism is a direct subsidy to expected inheritances.
Unfortunately, the expectation should be ever greater political pressure to increase welfare directed at the old.
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