Speaker Paul Ryan’s greatest fear is the inverted population cone. It represents the aging of Americans. With the necessary reduction in the birth rate, fewer workers will be paying into social security to support retirees.

When FDR put Social Security through Congress, many workers contributed to support the few who managed to live to 65 and enjoy a few years of retirement. Private and public pensions were designed for those few, too.
The problem is twofold. We are living longer and technology. The auto industry is a great example of the problem. Hundreds of people used to be employed to assemble a car but today robots have replaced most of the workers leaving fewer workers to pay into social security and the auto pension fund. Many of the retirees had been replaced by robots.

Ryan says the new tax reduction plan will encourage corporations to give workers more money and upgrade their facilities with more technology. Immediate expensing of technology means companies are more likely to buy more automation increasing productivity and reducing human workers. The loss of every worker decreases the number paying into pensions.

One possible solution is to have the robots pay into the pensions, including social security, 20% of their original cost each year. We can’t stop robots from taking jobs but we can make them pay the pensions to upend the inverted cone. This will mean more “workers” supporting the retirees.

Speaker Ryan says his plan is make Americans productive in bed. This thought process comes from a 1970s philosophy when robots weren’t yet replacing humans. More humans today will simply mean more unemployed and a drain on physical and natural resources. The only light at the end of the tunnel is the one reflecting back from his huge wall of humanity. We have 340 million now and 500 million will only make America worse off!