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Fair enough, although I'd like to see if I can sell you on the idea that if we ended Social Security, the 40 years olds who currently grumble about payroll taxes, would instead grumble about having to support their now-penniless retired parents. We'd still have to pay to support those old people somehow, so it's not 'free' money...
Of course, it could be that they'd just mostly move in with their kids, or we'd find some other solution that's less expensive than the current model, so in that sense maybe we are spending more on them now than we would without SS (but getting whatever benefit we get from old people being more independent... social engineering stuff, as you say).
If we're calling SS-style 'tax people then send out checks' government spending, then I'm a big proponent of a universal generous UBI (handled in the same way, tax everyone using progressive taxation then send out the same amount in checks, so it's effectively downward redistribution). I think we're kind of stuck in a sub-optimal Nashe equilibrium that produces a lot of unnecessary unproductive labor, because the universal 40 hour workweek is expected and people don't have the financial leverage to negotiate any changes to it.
I think we may as well make some big infrastructure improvements, including clean energy (counting nuclear) and massively increasing the supply of housing to drive down costs. Also the types of internet and community infrastructure projects needed to help people capable of doing remote work move out of cities, I feel like the population could be a lot less centralized at this point in our economic development.
I'd sort of like to see a massive effort to gather the type of data it would take to actually understand and map how modern technology (screens all the time, social media, engagement algorithms, etc) are affecting people and society, and test better options at large scales. Lots of individual researchers are studying those things but generally in small ways in small labs, I think a really big unified effort would be needed to do the type of data collection and analysis necessary to really learn much. I'm not sure the government is competent to do that, but they could at least provide enough resources to gather the data that other researchers could analyze.
I'd argue that this is not because of demanding the 40 hour workweek, but because most productive labor is illegal. If mining things, growing things, and building things were less stringently controlled, then we could have more people actually producing instead of sitting in desks pushing pointless papers for 40 hours per week.
The alternative of cutting the workweek is fine if we just want to rest on our laurels I guess, but I'd rather let people advance.
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It seems like most of them would sell their houses to fund their retirements.
Oh, the dream!!!!! Don't tempt me more with these beautiful visions of Paradise, I don't know if my poor heart can take it....
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