>>While it's true that tax rates are much too low on the wealthy, hiding salary by taking income in other forms is more difficult now than it once was.

Personnally I know of vast quantities of US wealth tied up in perpetual trusts whose distributions never appear as payroll, only as dividends or other distributions that attract less tax than payroll and zero SS contribution. This is a normal state of affairs for the Martha's Vineyard set.

>>John, I have to say that your basic premise that young people subsidizing older people is somehow evil is way off base.
>>That's how civilization works.

I posted the example of oldsters taking $300K more than they contribute with the predictable result that babies can expect to contribute $400K more than they get back. The word "evil" is yours: I called it generational theft which is the usual term to describe this tactic. Adding insult to injury, some oldsters disparage the young for failing to match the prowess of the oldsters. Consider that the young start life expecting to be more than $700K worse off and ask why the young should tolerate arrogance and taxation without representation- I mean benefit.

>>Because of the way humans learn and adapt, newer generations have generally been smarter and more efficient than prior generations, and therefore have more wealth (wealth being spare resources) at their disposal.
>>That notion has come into question of late, but that's a blip on the curve that will eventually straighten itself out.

Certainly I agree that's the expectation of society- that those who follow will be wealthier and happier because of what we did. Except it's twisted to deliver the opposite: they'll be at least $700K worse off because oldsters preferred inefficient accumulation of personal wealth on the grounds that public funds are evil- the same public funds that oldsters now suck at as they lecture the young about the importance of paying your way and not being a dirty socialist wanting benefits.

>>One of the ways the newer generation uses that additional wealth is help support their progenitors who, because of advancing age and obsolete knowledge are now relatively less efficient.

Aging is a predictable state of affairs so Funds to cover predictable costs ought to be underwritten, simple as that. We've known that for well over two centuries. Failure to underwrite = a Ponzi scheme that eventually fails to the disadvantage of the most recent suckers, not those who set it up to reap more than they sow.

Ask yourself what chance the young have to resolve a $47T Medicare deficit and ask yourself what you'd do if as a 20-year-old you discovered it was engineered by people sitting on asset piles and criticizing you for not being able to buy a home as they had by your age, or for needing to borrow money rather than relying on summer jobs to cover your education, or for having dirty socialist expectations that government might have something for you apart from a bigger tax bill.