I in my late 20's and I would be holding the bag so I do have a vested interests in either scrapping the system if people don't want to fund it or fix it if people want it/are willing to pay for it.
If he's right, and I think the numbers bear him out, you can't afford 'the bag' barring an 80% income tax on everyone.
I personally think we should fix it. Medicare was passed in the 60's when retirees were living is poverty and couldn't afford medical care. I don't believe we should have a system where cost is the defining feature on if you get medical care or not. I don't care if someone drives a jag and someone else drives a bicycle. I do care if someone gets heart medication because they can afford it and someone has a heartattack because they can't.
He explained he Could fix SS by just moving the age but not Medicare.
He also explained that Medicare Part D
alone, passed by Bush in 2007, Already is a bigger Unfunded liability than SS. (!)
Never mind the older parts that have huge COLAs yearly and an ever aging demographic that would leave 20-something's like you in no position to pay for ie... me!
No way.
I've known/said for 20 years the only way they're paying me my SS is with 'Monopoly Money'. Feels truer every year.
Of course, diluted dollars are easier to give way than Medical care that really does keep up with inflation.
A agree, you can't raise taxes solely to fix the problem. There are structural problems and they should be focused on as well. Boomers retiring are going to hurt financially this country. People live longer. Medical costs continue to rise. We know the problems therefore they can be fixed.
SS can be fixed as Bass says.
Medicare will probably have to be Gutted to do so. See above.
I agree with the majority of what you say. Yes Chinese living conditions are rising. Yes Americans continually live on debt to fund their lifestyle. I see no problem with scaling back, the issue I have is that after Chinese labor is too expensive they will send more jobs to India. They are already building factories in Vietnam and outher S.E. Countries. How long before Africa is the new cheap labor hotbed? What happens if the Chinese never fix working conditions? There is the fact China is a totalitarian regime with no social safety nets and every incentive to keep their population employed. I wouldn' say protectionism in a strict sense (just to decrease exports arbitrarily) but if Modern Democracies want to apply "fair" working conditions to their populations than a company should not be able to move and just bypass those working conditions.
[Due to irresponsible leadership] We're going into these Huge Unfunded demographic burdens with Huge Deficits already.
It's true we have a few years we need to spend, but we are going to come out the other side, IF we do, with LARGE Structural deficits. Even reversing Bush Tax cuts it's not Near enough.
We're talking IMO, Cutting post-recovery (IF we 'recover'), spending 25% And raising Taxes 25%. Everyone will be squeezed.
And since, as Bass points out, virtually all jobs have come at least semi-subsidized from govt (Healthcare, defense, etc) we'd have not much economy to draw revenues from.
The guy followed up on checking if CDO's were correctly priced! There are others that did the same thing. The difference between someone that made money off of the bubble and those that didn't is to actually do their homework! Don't get me wrong, this guy is obviously a very smart guy but tons of people on Wall Street made tons of money off the bubble so what makes them worthy of million dollar bonuses again?
Thats why I posted THIS guy.. He makes a good case lessons have Not been learned. (Japanese CDO's at less than one basis point)
The US is drastically different from Europe despite the rhetoric here. The EU taxes their population much higher, their government spending makes up a much higher % of their GDP and they are running very high deficits. Now large stable countries like Germany/France/England can probably salvage themselves but Greece, Spain, Ireland, countries that were poor before the bubble are screwed plain and simple. The guy does point out there differences in every chart between those Euro countries and the US. Our government is fine, but our citizens have racked up massive debt. That's the difference between the two.
We're among the worst deficit countries relative to govt revenues. The only 3 worse? Lebanon, Greece, Zimbabwe.
I enjoy debating economics and enjoy our discussions.
I like your posts and your politics.
But we must never confuse reality/math with politics.
We have to change our govt policies and take the opportunity to personally profit (for survival and otherwise) when we see imbalances.