Its all fine so long as your income is high. Once you stop working, you're at the whim of forces beyond your control, irrespective of whether or not you've been a 'good citizen' and fiscally responsible. That's a reason why that sort of power needs to be guarded at the end of a knife blade, rather than meaded out over any trivial circumstance.

Less-restrained capitalism (low taxation, small government) is directly better for high-income people and worse for the poor. The very poor pay little to no taxes, and receive the majority of the benefits of programs like Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, welfare, subsidized housing, urban renewal, etc. If you cut the tax base indiscriminately, the poor suffer.

You can't argue liberarianism on the basis of things like retirement burden-- more libertarian regimes have historically made that worse, not better. In countries like Sweden (>60% tax burden, the lowest income disparity among major nations), they have their economic problems, but poverty or retirement plans aren't among them, relative to other countries.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com