The comment above hit the nail on the head, it's actually pretty simple.
Old people = asset holders (aka holders of financial obligations, bonds and stocks)
Young people = usually in debt (student, auto, credit card, mortgage) and hoping to earn their way out with income.
Aka the young are the very debtors that the old creditors are lending to via their retirement funds of bonds and stocks.
An the Fed, well really their only tool is to print to do what? Buy financial assets.
So in times of stress they buy those assets/liabilities, pushing up their prices first through decreasing long term rates (hence buying government bonds) and then with QE infinity, eventually buying the actual same asset/liabilities that make up the rich people's portfolios.
Hence we response to a drastic income shock by...bailing out rich people.
Ideally the Fed would just monetize government spending directly to those poor people, but as you can see with Pelosi-McConnell 2020, that stuff needs to go through Congress, which is a partisan mess.
"Old people = asset holders (aka holders of financial obligations, bonds and stocks)
Young people = usually in debt (student, auto, credit card, mortgage) and hoping to earn their way out with income."
Rich young people are being financially supported by their rich parents. Poor young people aren't as their parents aren't 'asset holders' either.
The whole 'generational conflict' is a ruse, like so many of the divisive narratives being propped up, especially in the US but also in many other places, to further divide and distract.
The 'trickle down' economic fairy tale is one propagated by both parties, ever since the Regan years imho.
I think the ponzi scheme refers to the amount of money flowing around in financial schemes that isn't actually "money". By creating numerous financial products and valuations that aren't actually based on assets, the banking system has been able to "print" more money than the central bank would ever allow. And that "money" is what's propping up the stock market. That's why the stock market is no longer representative of the economy: "money" has become an economy in itself.
