Are we calling 40s old now? There are 2 countries where the median age is above 50 [0] and the US is 38.9. I suppose under 18s aren't in the voting pool but if a country has a median age of 50 they probably don't have that many under-18s running around. And old people don't vote as a totally unified a block, it'd be like saying countries are run for women because the median voter is a woman.

I'd suggest the main issue is that the world is so complicated that the younger voters just don't know what to organise and vote for. In the US in particular, they seem to basically be running an experiment every single election to try and figure out who they need to vote for to get some sane economic policy and stop getting involved in stupid wars. No success so far but you have to admire the process. The only people not getting the message are the people paid off to ignore it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_ag...

The majority of people being old is a relatively modern problem. One could even argue that it is a problem specific to cultures that favor low or negative birthrates.

Aside: Do older populations vote for older candidates? Like, pick a house district, what is the average age there, does that correlate? I suppose you can do the same for states and senate candidates too. And I think we have good historical data too, so does it work going backwards?

If it does correlate to some 'strong' degree [0], then i think we could use it as a bit of a prediction going forward.

[0] It's population stuff so really anything above r>0.35 is good enough

The median age in America is about 40, so depending on how you define old the majority could go one way or the other.

Denmark does not have a problem with age. It has gone the other way: members are younger today than in the old days. Graph: https://www.ft.dk/-/media/sites/ft/billeder/infografikker/ta...

Average age is 44 years !!!

The oldest is 72. Youngest is 23. Majority is 30-54. https://www.ft.dk/-/media/sites/ft/billeder/infografikker/ta...

source: https://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/danmark/det-nye-folketing-...

Boomers may have had harsh conditions growing up, depending where they were. But once into adulthood they had a fairly easy time of it. Jobs were plentiful, costs of essentials like housing and further education were relatively low, and they had significant disposable income.

The fact many of them assume the modern economy works the same way when in fact it's a much harsher environment is a curious phenomenon.

you're right to mention the Boomer generation: gerontocracy == boomers hanging on to power. as they've always done, I might add.

The Latin word "senate" originally mean "council of elders", and is transparently related to "senex", meaning "old man". It's pretty ordinary in human society for the decision-makers to be primarily comprised of old people who have lived a long time and seen a lot.

> With birth rates in free fall for last twenty years, what did we expect?

Millennials received kick in their teeth when entering adulthood and around the time when was the moment for a last (or the first, finally) child. Real estate market had never been cheap either. Exactly overlaps with falling birthrates over the last twenty years.

Looking at other countries, "interestingly" Russian invasion of Ukraine basically wiped out childless millennials on both sides. Putin noticed that's the last chance to monetize the demographic opportunity and hopefully that was his last fart.

> Wealth Accumulation: Older Americans hold a massive share of the nation's assets, often choosing to retain their wealth rather than pass it down early, largely due to the terrifyingly high costs of late-life healthcare.

So having good social security helps everyone. Unfortunately my country ( IN) does not prioritise that part.

Economist has a global audience. The report about locally specific things are outdated as they are other countries to report about.

how about: the funding cuts imminent to SS affecting younger participants; howard jarvis, prop 13, and the '70s tax decrease in CA; homeowner resistance to upzoning and building housing; muted action on climate change due to limited personal impact?

Maybe a political conflicts are more complex than a guy 150 years ago thought.

None of those things are classes in the sense of the times the notion of class warfare was first pitched, and many of them cross classes.

There's plenty of poor/impoverished boomers, blues, reds, city and country folk

I don't think that old people today are systematically willing or unwilling to pass down their knowledge and experience. But an underrated phenomenon of the modern world is that human society is now changing quickly enough that the knowledge and experience that old people have gained over their lifetimes is very likely to be out-of-date, irrelevant, or even actively-counterproductive with respect to the conditions of younger people.

This is a massive change from the situation of most of human history, where your life was extremely likely to be substantially similar to that of your grandparents, so anything useful they had learned and could pass on to you was likely to continue being useful. The rate of change in human life really started to accelerate with the industrial revolution, now some three centuries old; but humanity is now in a state where massive changes are happening much faster than the passage of human generations.

i see lower voting rates for young people as a nihilistic reaction to gerontocracy. i.e. if they are blocked from upward mobility, they see power protects assets and have no clear path to this, isn't it a natural reaction? let's say they all organized and had higher voter turnout - they'd still lose on the wealth front, which is what counts. the aged would defend their power vociferously and probably win through PACs, lobbying, etc.

Bush Jr was born '46. Obama (literally the next president) was born in '61. Not much of a pattern there

Would you look at that. Clinton born in 46, Bush Jr 46, Obama 61, Trump 46 and Biden 42.

And this why immortality is bad and death is not to be cured.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_Unit...

What about - the sacrifice of job stability and earning power in service of higher stock prices and profits for asset holders?

> And now that they are old, the only industry that is doing well is the medical industry, keeping them alive.

It's not like healthcare is particularly cheap and available, even in European countries with stereotypically good public universal healthcare. There is significant number of elderly receiving miserable service.

So it's the rich boomers sucking up all resources?

When you've seen social movements fizzle out and understand that wealth outweighs turnout (the aged have both), how can you motivate people in that sort of environment? It feels rigged at that point

> That is, people don't starve because there's not enough food, they aren't homeless because there are not enough houses and apartments, they are not left untreated for medical conditions for lack of doctors and nurses etc.

People don't actually starve today, because food scarcity is now a problem humanity has almost-entirely solved (the exceptions are war-torn parts of sub-Saharan Africa, not anywhere in a developed country). But there are many people who are homeless who would be if housing costs were somewhat cheaper because the housing supply was bigger; and there are many people who don't get enough medical attention because the time of doctors and nurses is scarce and therefore expensive - this is why there's so much interest in using AI for medical questions and examinations.

It's The Economist promoting the party line, as usual.

"The economy is precarious and someone has to pay for that. This is a you problem. Don't look at us. Nothing to do with decades of neoliberal piracy."