I didn't put it in the original, but it feels the reverse to me. Younger people have more taste buds, more tactile pleasure, more reason to signal to others, more uncertainty, more mobility. All of those seem to increase the amount of utilons one gets in a youth age as opposed to an old one.
So for example. Say I give, out of the blue, no strings attached, 500 Euros to a 70 year old man, and 500 to a 22 year old man.
Who do you think will make the most out of the money given?
The guy may go to a paintball, a theme park, begin a startup, buy a star wars clothing article, buy some narcotics and give a party, travel to the beach, pay 6 months of a course he always wanted to do. The older man has fewer good uses for it, and probably would just save it to keep it safe. He may give a party, but he can't stand in the party for long, or drink as much, probably he wouldn't begin a startup, or fulfill a childhood dream. He could, it is true, buy painkillers if he has chronic pain. A better TV-set, maybe.
But it still seems to me that the marginal utility of money is higher by a large factor when one is younger.
And this is in addition to all the other reasons I mentioned. Even if this is false, the other reasons stand on solid ground.
With the 500E, an old person could indeed get better pain meds that would allow them to basically function instead of living in hell.
A 70-year old is fully capable of doing the last four of the seven items you named (though he would be more likely to do the last three than the middle one). My grandfather finally gave up body-surfing when he was 85. It seems like you've imported 'be boring' into your definition of 'old person'. Plus, drug-fuelled party? Now THAT's a really high efficiency use of money. Really utilitarian.
I know I said I'd be gone... but this was just a comment originally, and I noticed it may actually be relevant.
Elharo said in Munchkin Ideas:
I'm interested in the following:
Why should people invest in retirement? Or, instead, why should someone invest as much as most do in retirement.
Few facts that make it a boggling question for me:
You are 10% to 20% likely to die before you enjoy even your first retirement year.
People adjust much more to harsh economical conditions than they believe they would. They remain happy, as many studies by Seligman and others show.
People who retire are only happier as retirees if they retired by choice (I lost the paper, sorry).
Most people here live in rich countries - darn, hate to be the exception! - , and their state would happily provide them with at least the maximal retirement plan legal in my country (aprox 2000 dollars/month). And surely would provide them with double the minimal (about 200/month) if they needed.
If you have descendants, they may support you in case you are still alive, and if you are not rich enough to keep a house, you have a good excuse to be in company of loved ones (you have nowhere else to go).
Last, but not least: That person is not even you that much anyway.
Given all that, I have no clue what the whole fuss about retirement plans, and being 60% of a rich old person with a crappy body is all about, specially if you are in the grave.
I mean, in the cryopreservation chamber, of course.
Edit: A related question not worth its own post, but maybe worth discussing, is Should inheritance "jump" a generation. Everyone inheriting from grandparents, instead of parents? Just the abstract ethical question. Regardless of implementation procedure.