Yes it's a Ponzi scheme and a never ending cycle as under the current model we will always need more younger people to support the elderly that are simply refusing to die.
My take on it is that everyone should be made responsible for their own existence. You want to get to 65 and not work? Tell me, how much taxes have you paid and how much have you contributed? Not a great deal? Well on the conveyor belt you go and start packing those biscuits - we can't afford to pay for you. In a nutshell that is what's needed but it's not sociably acceptable so we take the other option and bring out more ethnics of different cultures, religions, social standards and temperament and then expect there to be no integration problems!
Let's fix this ageing garbage. All elderly people should live at home with their kids and grand kids. The grandmother helps mum cope with the young babies, gives mum some free time to recharge her batteries, she shows the little girls how to cook and sew, etc. The grandfather does some maintenance around the house, shows the little boys how to repair a puncture on his bike, show him how to fish and fly a kite. Grandma sometimes does the cooking to help mum out to a relaxing dinner.
When the kids get older the grandparents keep a sharp eye to make sure the parent don't drop the ball. They step in when the stupid parents give their 15y/o kids alcohol to take to parties - in fact the stupid parents wouldn't dare do such a thing in front of the grandparents so there's one element removed from society. The list of benefits just goes on.
Look at any household that has the grandparents living there and you will see loving kids that have a respect for adults and society.
But I forgot we are in the selfish world and expect to be paid when we actually don't work. How does that work without causing stress to the economy?
The model is flawed and is doomed to failure. If our mining boom busts and our dollar sinks then unemployment will rise - hard! Then there would then be a backlash against immigration, which will be halted to enable the high unemployment figures to go down. They may even encourage the elderly to become self sustaining in having them do say 10 hours a week doing packaging, processing, whatever. It's not a crime.
We are clinging with all claws to makes this defective model to work. Had we believed we needed to be totally self sufficient when 65 then we have ensured we had enough children to support us. Now the time has come and we realise the idea was great at the time, but 80 years later when people die at 95 instead of 61 we now realise the idea is totally flawed and full of defects. Most families have deliberately had one or two less kids as a preference for a better lifestyle. You had your lifestyle - your lifestyle was better than any other in history. And now you want your cake and eat it too!
