The problem with old people

I've been complaining about old people a lot. Prague is full of the foagies. They don't have a european version of the Florida/Arizona axis yet, where we can put the oldsters out to pasture. Instead they clog the streets with their dilapidated dogs. They take up all the best real estate, which is rent-controlled, exiling the young and vibrant to the dull communist outskirts. They take up all the best seats at the pubs, since they get there before work gets out, killing any buzz a place might have with their grumbling and inadvertant gaseous emissions. So: old people. I was reading an article on slate today, complaining that old people took up too much money. They live longer, and we pay a bunch of money for their accumulated new hips and botox so the oldsters can feel 40 again. so they should pay us back:

Medicare has done wonders for old people's health, but the government's budget for health care is far outpacing revenue. The financial reward for that investment is that people can work later in life, paying taxes instead of collecting benefits. And they should.

I'm still percolating a scheme to move all the paleoczechs to sicily. You could build some cheap retirement villages in southern italy/northern africa, and charge the goverment the same cost of their monthly pensions for all amenities. You then agree to do all this if you have a 5-10% share of proceeds from privatization of their awesome flats. Or you could agree to take dilapidated ones (which are often in great locations) for a below-market price, and invest in reconstruction. This is a gold mine. But the old people here aren't going to move, so it's all moot. This is the reason all my twenty-something czech friends live with their parents in proletariat housing. So their grandparents can watch Argentinian soap operas in some of the best real estate in the city. bah. Other stuff: A roundup of happenings in my neck of the woods.