Backwards money transfers

Backwards money transfers: aka investments in the past instead of the future.

The big problem with our aging society is that the way our economy and society are set up, money flows from the young up the ladder to the old. Money ends up being more conservative, fearful, and essentially less useful. Instead of our society spending money on education for the young, for example, we spend far more on tax savings for the elderly, who actually need the money less than the rest of our society.

What needs to happen, but is politically so incorrect as to become lethal to any politician who dares suggest it, is this. Money has to be taken from the affluent seniors and redirected to young people who still have the capacity to learn the most. Instead of providing more and more tax relief for the old and rich, we need to invest in our children for this country to survive and prosper

And yet, we do the opposite.

For example, instead of investing in renewable energy resources within our borders we spend trillions trying to secure the world's most expensive and least efficient of energy producing resources. It seems insane to me that our biggest export is the nation’s treasure to our politically polar opposites. We invest in antiquated, inefficient and globally destructive crap like coal and oil. Old people and big money are the reason; young people are powerless to change our country's politics in any meaningful way. The old adage, “control a man's money and his heart and mind will follow”, has never been truer.

Here is what happens. In 2008 the youth in this country supported Obama and put him in office expecting an end to fruitless wars and the endless looting of the U.S. Treasury by the biggest international gangsters on the planet, the military-industrial consortium. What we got is more war, bigger military and offense (as opposed to defence) budgets, and more intrusion into our lives. We did get a dollop of cash proposed for jobs and infrastructure improvements, most of which were never funded because there were no job ready programs to funnel the money into.

This is not a party issue – Democrats versus Republicans. Money transcends politics. Democrats seem to favor spending in all directions and to heck with the future. That will be somebody else's bill; Republicans, in rhetoric at least, are against increased spending except where that spending is in their direction. The net result is our elected officials are more focused on themselves and their donor’s interests than on the country's welfare.


Our nations rich and elderly are the reason for a lack of change in politics and policies. Our country is in deep stagnation since our population is growing older while our birthrate remains level or declines. Thank God for lax immigration policies because these newcomers are the people who will keep our country young and growing. We need to direct our investment in the future to our youth for one simple reason; it is our young people who are learning the most. The elderly are lucky if they can still learn at all.