I was wondering… We have (private) pension funds for children. Could / should we make it more widespread (maybe even mandatory)? Could we have government-sponsored funds? Parents (with government’s help) would save resources in a fund that could only be used by their offspring when they came of age; plus, unlike current pension funds I know, they could be able to use it as collateral, or to pay tuition, or open a business, or maybe even transfer it to another pension fund... For a longtermist, the pros are: it would increase overall savings (does it? or people will just divert resources from other funds?), transfer wealth to new generations (inequality of wealth between generations concerns me almost as much as possible inequalities of political power), improve intergenerational cooperation… Of course, this can be said for sovereign funds, too, but I see there might be some advantage in having individual accounts (so sidestepping things like tragedy of commons). I’m not very confident, though.
I was wondering… We have (private) pension funds for children. Could / should we make it more widespread (maybe even mandatory)? Could we have government-sponsored funds? Parents (with government’s help) would save resources in a fund that could only be used by their offspring when they came of age; plus, unlike current pension funds I know, they could be able to use it as collateral, or to pay tuition, or open a business, or maybe even transfer it to another pension fund...
For a longtermist, the pros are: it would increase overall savings (does it? or people will just divert resources from other funds?), transfer wealth to new generations (inequality of wealth between generations concerns me almost as much as possible inequalities of political power), improve intergenerational cooperation… Of course, this can be said for sovereign funds, too, but I see there might be some advantage in having individual accounts (so sidestepping things like tragedy of commons). I’m not very confident, though.