Western social setup is good for local economy?

TLK · April 20, 2010, 6:39pm

whether or not they utilize their time for gathering up retirement savings is not the issue. the problem exists, possibly one of the largest expenditures of modern states in the healthcare sector is taking care of the elderly. in america you have medicare etc (which as you know is going bankrupt), in the UK you have similar problems. Everywhere they are worried about the cost curve. And so you have the state investing in solutions such as robots/sensors that look after the elderly in their homes, alert medical folks when they fall down (because there have been cases when people remained unable to get up for days). This is all very expensive research, but its a drop in the bucket compared to the projections they see for elderly care in the near future.

there is therefore a significant economic cost in the fact that families do not stay in the same house for generations.

I agree with your analysis but I dont see that how ‘our’ social setup can help taking care of these issues. See, I am not mixing capitalism with social setup here. Most of things that you discussed are the result of the way health industry operates and has nothing to do with not having kids living with them. You still need a robot sensor when Kids go to job and grand kids are in school. Also, the way USA job market is, there is no gurantee that you will get a job in the same city where your parents live. Then what we gonna do? Drag the parents with us from city to city?

Its good to know that the family is there when you need them but the independent lifestyle aspect is always a priority, just like MO3 mentioned.

Nice perspective