The Problem With Haven? Prolong!

A recent post about Haven's seemingly unrealistic recovery reminded me of my own thoughts about the origin of Haven's decline.

I think it was the introduction of prolong.

Consider a society where life span is less than a century, people enter the workforce at 25 years and retire at perhaps 75 years.

Assuming a static population, 1/2 of the population works.

Assuming a static population growth rate, 1/2 of the population works.

Assume that retirement is funded primarily by government rather than private savings.

Everything is fine until someone introduces prolong.

Average life expectancy soars to 200 years.

Nothing else about the economy changes.

After fifty years, population has increased dramatically.

Approximately 1/2 to 2/3s of the population is retired.

1/6 of the population has not entered the workforce.

1/6 to 1/3 of the population now works to support the remainder of the population.

The tax rate for productive people then has to be 66% to 85%.

Suddenly, even the productive become discouraged.

The young growing up become extremely discouraged.

Work force participation rate plummets even more.

The young are not even interested in education to increase future earnings.

I will refrain from making analogy to contemporary politics.

Haven attempts to solve the crisis by going on the warpath.

The productive citizens of conquered citizens support the indolent do lists until the productive citizens die or become dolists themselves.

Rob Pierre comes to power.

Rob Pierre does one simple thing.

Rob Pierre raises the retirement age to properly reflect the economic consequences of the
new demographic realities. (I fondly recall watching Governor Palin attempt to explain the effects of demographics on the liquidity of Social Security. He refused to understand)

Suddenly, all of those educated and once productive people who had retired at 75 with the expectation of remaining in retirement until they were 200 years old returned to the workforce at age 125. Many of them worked as teachers to train the many 25 to 50 year olds who had been too discouraged by the prospect of confiscatory taxes to learn.

The size of Haven's workforce doubles overnight.

The average education of Haven's workforce improves overnight and continues to improve.

Expenditures for BLS decline by perhaps 1/2 to 2/3s.

The people of Haven then contemplate the relative merits of being indolent subjects to a totalitarian government verses productive citizens of a free society.

Not this again...

As I recall, even first generation Prolong had a cut-off well before age 75. It would only be effective for people who either hadn't entered the workforce when it was introduced or were already in the workforce with a good amount of time before retirement.

Sure, it might have taken some time for mindsets on employment to catch up with Prolong, but we aren't talking about retirees reentering the workforce because their lifespans were doubled all the sudden.

For once, Nameless actually has a point, although I doubt if it has anything to do with Haven. Demographics are going to screw fixed age entitlements. If you want government funded retirement, it needs to be set to be a fixed proportion of the labor force, that is, the tax base that's paying for it.

Nameless, it will take a lot longer than 50 years for the effect of Prolong to show up.

Let us say that the average life expectancy is 80. The population is stable, with the number of births, deaths, and retirements at a steady-state. Suddenly, prolong is introduced. But it is only available to people under 25 years old!

After 50 years, the people with prolong are still less than 80. The total population is not significantly larger than before. And the number of people who have retired is still the same, too--the very oldest people with prolong are only just starting to retire.

Redo your analysis, using a longer timeline and taking account of the fact that it takes 50 years for the oldest prolong recipients to reach the old retirement age.

[edit]Of course, there is the problem that prolong was only invented shortly before 1826 P.D. (when Manticore got it), while Haven knew it was headed for economic collapse as early as 1771 P.D. When Rob Pierre took over Haven, prolong had been in existence for less than 80 years, and the population above age 75 had been growing for only 30 years, but economic collapse had been predicted for 134 years.

You're assuming that the retirement age 2000 years in the future is the same as it is today.

You're also attempting to drag modern day politics into this as though they are identical to the politics of Haven.

Both of those things severely limit the validity of your argument and make it challenging for others to be willing to pay attention to statements you make.

namelessfly wrote:Snipped for length

So, let's estimate how much prolong has affected the Havenite workforce.

We will start by assuming that the population is in a steady state. Le's take assume a population of 10 billion. For simplicity, we will assume that no one dies until age 80, and from age 80 to 120 the population bracket declines in a linear fashion. That means that a graph of population versus age will be flat (at a value of 100 million per year bracket) from age 0 to 80, and from 80 to 120 will be a straight slope 100 million to 0 million. [edit]Average life-span is 100 years[/edit]

Now introduce prolong to everyone up to age 25. Assume that birth rate continues steady, i.e. prolong does not change how many children people have or when they choose to have children.

After 80 years, the population is now flat at 100 million from 0 years to 105 years. There is a remaining slope representing the last survivors who do not have prolong, from 105 years (a value of 37.5 million) to 120 years (0 million).

Before prolong, there was a population of 10 billion, with 2.5 billion (25%) above age 75. 80 years after prolong, there is a population of 10.78125 billion, with 3.28125 billion (32%) above age 75.

My conclusion is that prolong and changing the age of retirement does not have nearly as much impact as Namelessfly suggests, as of the time that Rob Pierre took over. It certainly would have a very large impact in another 50 years, but it cannot explain (by itself) how Rob Pierre turned the Havenite economy around.

Hi SWM,

Kudos!

Excellent points!

We have a pearl or post or two from RFC that dealing with prolong's effects on jobs and retirements was the major issue for Manticore's parliament from 1826 until Haven went conquistador in 1846, making sure everyone is responsible for their own retirement, no matter how many careers one has.

RFC has also made a point or two about the 'grey economy' or black market being bigger and more robust than the legislaturists realized, ie employing more, especially nominal dolists; I suspect those who officially worked were encouraged to keep working even in another career because they were all needed.

The economic strait jacket he's now further detailed regarding the captured systems being compelled to trade only with and through the poverty stricken central Haven polity [Haven and her colonies etc] is worse than I'd thought.

The financial reforms Pierre made in IEH IIRC, were evidently near the end of his economic reforms the MWW has now detailed for us, which is very interesting, since they were things that could have been unofficial and the nature of quietly reversing a bureaucratic regulation rather than something requiring congressional approval for the treasury reforms.

Making prolong a BLS only worsened something that had been building for a couple of centuries.

Then again the textev is that prolong postponed babies because the parents know they have so much more time to have them, depressing the actual birthrate, so while fertility is up, actual population increase is less than expected despite the contribution of longer lives.

Just some of the major future benefits of prolong to the Republic of Haven are the now better educated ex-Dolists who besides their jobs and improved educations [ongoing throughout their lives] have the experience of living through these decades of trauma and decline as well as the tremendous improvement since the restoration of the constitution; which will echo down through their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren etc for generations on a first person witness basis that will inoculate Haven against the same kind of welfare excesses for some centuries [at least a couple] more powerfully than any provision of law, NTM for their neighbors as well.

L

SWM wrote:Nameless, it will take a lot longer than 50 years for the effect of Prolong to show up.

Let us say that the average life expectancy is 80. The population is stable, with the number of births, deaths, and retirements at a steady-state. Suddenly, prolong is introduced. But it is only available to people under 25 years old!

After 50 years, the people with prolong are still less than 80. The total population is not significantly larger than before. And the number of people who have retired is still the same, too--the very oldest people with prolong are only just starting to retire.

Redo your analysis, using a longer timeline and taking account of the fact that it takes 50 years for the oldest prolong recipients to reach the old retirement age.

[edit]Of course, there is the problem that prolong was only invented shortly before 1826 P.D. (when Manticore got it), while Haven knew it was headed for economic collapse as early as 1771 P.D. When Rob Pierre took over Haven, prolong had been in existence for less than 80 years, and the population above age 75 had been growing for only 30 years, but economic collapse had been predicted for 134 years.

I think that Lyonheart makes an excellent point about prolong encouraging people to delay having children. After only 25 years this could result in a smaller population with the same number of retirees. The reduced birthrate could also have serious consequences for the educational system. Schools, especially public schools, depend on economies of scale to educate children at reasonable cost. I know that Portland Public Schools which are funded mostly from the State of Oregon based on number of students is imploding because of the declining student enrollment. Thisis aggravated by a reluctance to consolidate and close empty schools. Also, the willingness of voters to fund schools is dependant on the proportion with young children or grandchildren.

I know third generation prolong has a young maximum age. What about first and second generation prolong?

It is also possible that the prolong breakthrough included advanced treatments for people who were already old. These treatments might make them young again, but they would allow them to live and draw public benefits longer. Unhealthy elderly people consume vast wealth eithpublic or private.

SWM wrote:So, let's estimate how much prolong has affected the Havenite workforce.

We will start by assuming that the population is in a steady state. Le's take assume a population of 10 billion. For simplicity, we will assume that no one dies until age 80, and from age 80 to 120 the population bracket declines in a linear fashion. That means that a graph of population versus age will be flat (at a value of 100 million per year bracket) from age 0 to 80, and from 80 to 120 will be a straight slope 100 million to 0 million. [edit]Average life-span is 100 years[/edit]

Now introduce prolong to everyone up to age 25. Assume that birth rate continues steady, i.e. prolong does not change how many children people have or when they choose to have children.

After 80 years, the population is now flat at 100 million from 0 years to 105 years. There is a remaining slope representing the last survivors who do not have prolong, from 105 years (a value of 37.5 million) to 120 years (0 million).

Before prolong, there was a population of 10 billion, with 2.5 billion (25%) above age 75. 80 years after prolong, there is a population of 10.78125 billion, with 3.28125 billion (32%) above age 75.

My conclusion is that prolong and changing the age of retirement does not have nearly as much impact as Namelessfly suggests, as of the time that Rob Pierre took over. It certainly would have a very large impact in another 50 years, but it cannot explain (by itself) how Rob Pierre turned the Havenite economy around.

Donnachaidh wrote:You're assuming that the retirement age 2000 years in the future is the same as it is today.

You're also attempting to drag modern day politics into this as though they are identical to the politics of Haven.

Both of those things severely limit the validity of your argument and make it challenging for others to be willing to pay attention to statements you make.

namelessfly wrote:Snipped for length

I very overtly refrained from dragging contemporary politics into it.

The demographic realities are indisputable. Reducing the percentage of people in a society who are productive strains the economy. It appears that technology and automation are increasing productivity and limiting the utility of unskilled workers so that only s small minority are needed to make the economy function. However; this could change.