DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Plane on November 22, 2014, 03:09:39 PM
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Myth 3: Government spending and hiring alleviates unemployment.
Two economists from the University of Delaware, Burton Abrams and Siyan Wang, used data from 20 developed countries over three decades to examine how government spending as a share of GDP affects the unemployment rate (when accounting for other relevant factors). They found
That increases in government outlays hamper economic growth and raise the unemployment rate. Moreover, different types of government outlays are found to have different effects on growth and unemployment, with transfers and subsidies having a larger effect than government purchases. In addition, Granger causality tests suggest unidirectional causation from government outlays to economic growth and the unemployment rate.
These findings are notable because they don’t just establish a correlation; they use causality tests to find that government spending causes higher unemployment, not the other way around. Research by other economists arrives at similar results.
Moreover, scholars have examined the relationship between public employment and private employment. Using data from a sample of developed countries over the years 1960 to 2000, European researchers found, “On average, [the] creation of 100 public jobs may have eliminated about 150 private sector jobs, slightly decreased labour market participation, and increased by about 33 the number of unemployed workers.”
And recent study by the International Monetary Fund comes to the following conclusions:
High rates of public employment, which incur substantial fiscal costs, have a large negative impact on private employment rates and do not reduce overall unemployment rates … Public-sector hiring: (i) does not reduce unemployment, (ii) increases the fiscal burden, and (iii) inhibits long-term growth through reductions in private-sector employment.
All this evidence suggests that bigger government isn’t the solution to persistent unemployment. In fact, there is reason to believe that bigger government results in undesirable employment outcomes.
http://fee.org/the_freeman/detail/5-more-economic-myths-that-just-wont-die
http://fee.org/the_freeman/detail/5-economic-myths-that-just-wont-die
Myth 1. The idea that economic growth helps the poor is trickle-down economics … it doesn’t actually help them.
In a 2001 paper titled “Growth Is Good for the Poor," economists Art Kraay and David Dollar of the World Bank found that when average incomes rise, the average incomes of the poorest fifth of society rise proportionately. This result held across regions, periods, income levels, and growth rates. In 2013, more than a decade after their original paper, Kraay and Dollar explored the relationship between economic growth and poverty again, using data from 118 countries over four decades. They came to the same conclusion. According to the economists,
This evidence confirms the central importance of economic growth for poverty reduction … institutions and policies that promote economic growth in general will on average raise incomes of the poor equiproportionally, thereby promoting “shared prosperity” … there are almost no cases in which growth is significantly pro-poor or pro-rich.
This means that policies that enhance economic growth through methods such as limiting the size of government and lowering barriers to international trade are key to alleviating poverty. Economic growth, not transfer programs, is in fact the primary driver of poverty reduction, and this empirical truth has been proved for a long time.
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Good articles that have food for thought.
Now do I like them because they match my prejudices or confirm my preconceived notions?
Or does their ring come from real truth?
How exactly can I check?
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http://fee.org/the_freeman/detail/5-economic-myths-that-just-wont-die
Myth 1. The idea that economic growth helps the poor is trickle-down economics … it doesn’t actually help them.
Myth 2. Free trade doesn’t lead to better economic outcomes in the real world.
Myth 3. The government ended child labor. In a free market, child labor would still exist.
Myth 4. Countries like Sweden and Denmark prove that high taxes don’t harm economic growth
Myth 5. Capitalism isn’t economically superior to socialism.
http://fee.org/the_freeman/detail/5-more-economic-myths-that-just-wont-die
Myth 1: Immigrants take American jobs and reduce American wages.
Myth 2: Multinational corporations are shipping our jobs overseas.
Myth 3: Government spending and hiring alleviates unemployment.
Myth 4: “Conservative” economic policies lead to slower employment growth.
Myth 5: Government spending is good for economic growth.
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Look at that second number five, that is like a summation of FDR's first term.
Myth?
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One of the main reason child labor ended was a requirement that all children attend school. Of course, making it illegal for mines to employ tiny children to serparates coal from rocks and slag was also a factor. These clowns make it sound like there was no reason for child labor laws at all.
It is bloody obvious as all Hell that government spending improved=s at least some of the economy. It worked from 1933 through 1936, it worked again during WWII and Korea and it clearly worked from 2008 to the present. Bailing out the bs and GM was very useful and we should all be grateful that there were no Austrian economists in charge at the time or we would still be in a huge mess. Of course, they would be blaming unions, a lack of tort reform and high corporate taxes.
The thing is that economics has many, many factors involved, and these Hayek worshipers oversimplify everything
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It is bloody obvious as all Hell that government spending improved=s at least some of the economy. It worked from 1933 through 1936, it worked again during WWII and Korea and it clearly worked from 2008 to the present. Bailing out the bs and GM was very useful and we should all be grateful that there were no Austrian economists in charge at the time or we would still be in a huge mess. Of course, they would be blaming unions, a lack of tort reform and high corporate taxes.
I don't see this being clear at all, you are not oversimplifying?
The basic problem with using government spending to support the economy is that the government has nothing to give to the economy that it hasn't first taken from the economy.
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Nonetheless, the economy has vastly improved as a result of QE.
Nonetheless, WWII ended the Great Depression.
Theory is nice, but it rarely works in practice.
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What is the greatest length of Depression or recession in our history?
There is really no way to prove that the great Depression was not lengthened by the multiple boondoggles of the FDR administration.
And we helped win the war by being basically pretty strong economically in comparison to the other participants in the war.
That war didn't help the economy of 'England or Germany or Poland very much did it?
There is no way to test the theory that the Great Depression would have run its course just as soon without government action, or that prosperity would have returned eventually even if Germany and the Axis had not gone nuts on everyone else.
But the theory that the alphabet agencies and the war caused the Depression to end is just as non-provable .
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I`ll just focus on child labor laws. from my personal experiences with dealing with people older than me in America. we can`t trust these old farts from not working children to death. all these romantic stories of supporting their families when their ten years old and omitting 3 to five of their sibling died in the mines . makes me weary about our overall ability to judge what`s safe. these laws are made after children were maimed and or killed from these jobs. economicly it`s harsher on the family but through the decades we seem to adjust,but I`m not under the illusion that`s it`s we can be safe to supervise kids to work. it`s a pretty safe bet children will be passing out if we lets them work in a amazon warehouse. adult`s love to say "he/she can handle it"way too much.
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I know for a FACT that what FDR did served to end the Depression for my family. My parents, my Uncle Jay, my Aunt Martha, my grandparents and my Uncle Wyatt all were living in one income (my grandfather's) for most of 1933 AND 1934 in the house my grandfather and his father built in Kansas City. They told me of how they scavenged cardboard to put in the bottoms of their shoes and how they walked downtown to save a nickle trolley fare. They told me that they would pick cigarette butts out of the gutter and bring them home to reroll and smoke. They pooled what money they could to drive out to Kansas and shoot rabbits to eat.
In 1934 my father and my Uncle Jay joined the CCC and went off to a national forest in the Ozarks. My Uncle Jay got a job in the mailroom. My father, who was an accountant, got a job in the quartermaster corps. They were issued clothes, they were fed and they were given a small amount of spending money, which they saved, since there was no where to spend it. The rest was sent home to the families. After a couple of years, my Uncle Jay got a job on the mail train, where he sorted mail in a mail car between KC and Omaha. My father got a job at a paint company. These turned out to be where they both worked until they were 65.
So you can read reactionary crap about how FDR was a great charlatan and how his "alphabet agencies" did not work and believe it if you wish, but it is nothing but crap to me.
France was ravaged by war, but by 1955, ten years after the war's end, it was better off than it had ever been before the War. It took Poland a little longer, because it was ravaged by both the Germans and the Russians, but by 1965 is was also better off. The US had a bull market that went from the end of the Korean War until the mid-70's.
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My Father drove a truck for the CCC and loved FDR with a passion.
But of course so did Ronald Reagan.
FDR had to fight his programs through an un-co-operative congress and compromised a lot and bent the rules a little, but success earns a lot of forgiveness.
But would this success have happened without FDR?
Hard to prove without access to a parallel universe.
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Reagan did not love FDR. Read his book. Reagan was total asshole. The more I hear about Reagan, the more I consider building a private shrine to John Hinckley.
And there was no way that a guy like Hoover, who was certainly more competent and qualified than Wilkie or Landon, would have been willing to try stuff until it worked. The CCC was a great idea, and it worked.
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What FDR tried worked in the course of a decade, what Hoover was trying failed to work in the course of two years.
Well what FDR was doing didn't work in two years either.
Whether Hoover was right and his method might have worked faster is intellectual exercise , but otherwise pointless.
Perhaps the Depression was greater and lasted longer because of FDR , there is no way to tell.
For all I know what FDR did was exactly the best thing, I have no more proofs than you do.
But Hoover definitely gets a bun rap, he was a large scale problem solver and humanitarian with a successful scheme to rescue Europe from famine already accomplished to his credit.
There isn't much reason to think that any of his contemporaries understood economics better than Hoover.
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You read Reagans book?
Which one?
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I have read both of Reagan's "autobiographies": Where's the Rest of Me?. written by Robert Lindsey, and "An American Life", by Peter Robinson. Reagan liked the second one so well, he said he was going to read it someday.
The first one mentions his first wife, June Wyman, with whom he was married for five years or so, in a single sentence.
Hoover did a great job of feeding hungry Belgians. But he did very little for hungry Americans.
The thing about FDR was, he knew what the problem was, and he tried very hard to solve it. Had he not been constrained by Congress, he would almost certainly done even better. Hoover thought that the Depression was some sort of normal phenomena, like an earthquake or a volcano, which it was, but it was not a planetary problem but a regularly occurring flaw in capitalism. Hoover thought that capitalism was like earthquakes and volcanoes: an irremediable system.
What was learned from the Great Depression was examined and analyzed and some remedies were found and applied, and that is why the DJIA is today at an all-time high, after only six years. Obama did better than FDR.
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It is amazing that when the DOW is doing well under a GOP President, it's an indication of how evil the GOP is in trying to make the rich, richer, at the expense of the poor. But when it's a Dem at the wheels, it's a great thing
Does the left realize that under Obama's policies, the "rich have gotten substantially richer", while those who have dropped out of the work force and those collecting food stamps have grown substantially higher? Or are those rather inconvenient facts too hard to rationalize?
So, who exactly is the Oligarchy commanding again?
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It is not a bad thing when the stock market goes up. It does not actually affect those who do not invest.
When real estate prices go up, that benefits the sellers (once) and the speculators (many times) and is an actual disadvantage for the poor and ,middle classes, who cannot afford to buy a home and must pay higher rent, so the landlords can pay off THEIR mortgages. It is the nature of capitalism to reward the investors before the
average person.
The Oligarchy is simply taking every advantage that it can, and fighting such things that would tend to cost them money, like labor unions, raising the minimum wage, consumer protection and taxing capital gains at the same rate as it taxes money people have to work to earn.
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Isn't the availability of investment monies a factor in establishing and expanding business?
This would make investment a factor in employment /unemployment and worthy of encouragement.
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It is not a bad thing when the stock market goes up. It does not actually affect those who do not invest.
Then why does the left consistently criticize & rail on Republican Presidents, when the market goes up??
It is the nature of capitalism to reward the investors before the
average person.
You mean, like the way Obama managed to make sure his Solyndra donators and like investors recouped their losses before the tax payer??
The Oligarchy is simply taking every advantage that it can
So they, whoever "they" are, control no one, unlike your constant harping that they control the GOP. *whew*, glad we got that cleared up
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You got nothing cleared up. Nothing at all.
The Oligarchy contributes greatly to assure that its candidates get the nomination. That is how millionaires like Olebush, Juniorbush, McCain and Romney became candidates rather than guys like Huckabee or Santorum. They have a greater influence on candidates for representatives and senators and state legislators than on presidential candidates, and much of their donations ate untraceable.
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So, .... they were behind Obama getting nominated as well. Well, that explains the worsening income gap, I suppose, under his and the Democrats' policies
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No, it does not, and the fact that you claim this is true proves to me that you do not understand economics nor capitalism. It would be futile to try to explain it to you, so I will not even bother to try.
This is a pretty good time to invest in the market, especially when the market drops at least 3%, because it will continue to rise afterwards. Our President has been quite good for the market, and those who claim he has been bad are incapable of understanding this, and they will pay for their ignorance by failing to take advantage of the situation, as we shall see.
The rising tide no longer raises all boats, but that does not prevent those who have access to a boat from getting in that boat.
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LOL....again making my original point....than when the market goes up while a Republican is President is defacto validation that they're only helping "the rich", but when a Democrat is in charge, that's a good thing despite the ever increasign income gap, more folks dropping out of even looking for a job, and an ever increasing pool of people on food stamps
Again, I thank you
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You have no point, sirs.
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Your deflection & inabililty to refute the point being made, is also duly noted
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When the stock market goes up. those who benefit are those who are invested in the stocks and funds that go up. Most Americans who are not rich do not understand the market and either will jot invest in it, or will stop investing if they lose money even once, thinking that is is like a casino.
I do not resent people making money on their investments. I just think that income on investments should not receive the special treatment that they do with regard to the income tax. The political party that is in power has had no real influence on investments most of the time. Not preventing the 9-11 attack and the last Real Estate bubble were the only events that were directly attributable to government action or inaction. In both cases. those to did not invest on margin and who stayed invested and paid attention to the best places to invest came out ahead, and not all of them were rich. In the same way, not all of Bernie Madoff's victims were wealthy. They had one thing in common: most invested most of their money with Madoff, and did not bother to question why his lack of transparency was a giveaway to Madoff being a ripoff artist.
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Professor Deflection...NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT WHEN THE MARKET GOES UP, THAT'S A GOOD THING FOR THOSE INVESTED. Or that many who are invested, aren't as saavy, as perhaps someone like yourself ::) My point had nothing to do with that.
My point has consistently been the overt double standard employed by the likes of you and your ilk, when it comes to the stock market successes, depending on who's in the White House
And here's a tid bit for later rhetorical consumption.....you mention Bernie Madoff, chief instigator in soaking wealthy folks out of their $$$. What the Government is doing is largely a Ponzi scheme, but instead of targeting only "the rich", the Government targets anyone that pays taxes. More detail to follow in that tangent
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Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme. No Ponzi scheme can last over 70 years.
If Social Security were a Ponzi scheme, I am sure I would have noticed how my checks stopped coming way back in 2009.
I have never said that the market or those who benefit from it are evil. Investing is not really related to politics.
Capitalism is, as I always have said, a tool for developing an economy. It is a TOOL, not something to be worshiped.
An investor simply needs to know how it works, just as a carpenter knows how a hammer or a nail gun works. You don't catch carpenters worshiping hammers and nail guns.
Investing is a collective activity. There would be no stock companies in an economy in which everyone is a lone wolf.
Everything is a deflection for you because you do not understand reality. You constantly think that I an=m commenting on crap you write here, but I make no attempt to do that. Your "points" are generally unrelated to reality.
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Actually, SS is indeed a Ponzi scheme......but that wasn't the scheme I was referring to
And no, I never claimed you said those why make money in the stock market are evil. I claimed that when the Stock Market goes up under a GOP President, the cries from the left are along the lines of "See, look, the Republicans just pushing more policies to help their rich campaign donators". But when a Democrat is in the WH, and the stock market is up, all is just swell......just ignore the increased income gap, the increase in folks dropping out of the job market, and the increased folks on food stamps.
Everything you post sure appears to miss the mark. That's why it might seem to you that everything is a deflection. Here's a hint, focus on the actual point being made, and there won't be any deflection references
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Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme. No Ponzi scheme can last over 70 years.
I do not think that duration should be included in the definition of a Ponzi scheme.
The way that longer lived Ponzi schemes last is that they keep on including in larger numbers of paying contributors.
Social Security has a greater number of contributors than any previous Ponzi scheme.
What should define the Ponzi scheme is a dependence on new contributors to pay the old contributors.
Social Security has worked well as long as there were many more contributors than payees, butr how can that ratio be maintained over time?
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Actually, SS is indeed a Ponzi scheme......but that wasn't the scheme I was referring to
The U.S. Treasury has been forced to issue $1,040,965,000,000 in new debt since fiscal 2015 started just eight weeks ago in order to raise the money to pay off Treasury securities that were maturing and to cover new deficit spending by the government.
During those eight weeks, Treasury took in $341,591,000,000 in revenues. That was a record for the period between Oct. 1 and Nov. 25. But that record $341,591,000,000 in revenues was not enough to finance ongoing government spending let alone pay off old debt that matured.
The Treasury also drew down its cash balance by $45.057 billion during the period, starting with $126,568,000,000 in cash and ending with $81,511,000,000.
The only way the Treasury could handle the $942,103,000,000 in old debt that matured during the period plus finance the new deficit spending the government engaged in was to roll over the old debt into new debt and issue enough additional new debt to cover the new deficit spending.
This mode of financing the federal government resembles what the Securities and Exchange Commission calls a Ponzi scheme. “A Ponzi scheme," says the Securities and Exchange Commission, “is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors,” says the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Ponzi schemes tend to collapse when it becomes difficult to recruit new investors or when a large number of investors ask to cash out.”
The Treasury has taken out what amounts to an adjustable-rate mortgage on our ever-growing national debt.
If the Treasury were forced to convert the $1.4 trillion in short-term bills (on which it now pays an average interest rate of 0.056 percent) into 30-year bonds at the average rate it is now paying on such bonds (4.919 percent) the interest on that $1.4 trillion in debt would increase 88-fold.
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That looks like a good definition for Ponzi scheme.
I don't believe the definition should include "unless done by a government".
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No Ponzi scheme can exist for 70 years or more. In the original Ponzi scheme. people wanting to make a killing are asked to sell more shares to those they knpw, increasing the number of Ponzi suckers exponentially. In Social Security, people have children, and certainly do not have as many as those selling Ponzi membership in a pyramid scheme.
There is no question that if people were allowed to make their own investment decisions, we would have at least as many old folks starving as there were in 1932. Most Americans --most people- are poor judges of how to invest money. They think that lottery tickets are a wise investment, when, in fact they are just voluntary taxes.
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bonds is a funny thing,awhile back I talk to a co-worker who bought several bonds mean to fund the parking in the museum that I worked in and she talked about how good and investment it is. but keep pointing out that since it`s pretty much a loan from you and eventually the city will owe the amount promised and it`s alot cheaper to simply tax you for the money. she kept saying but she`ll make money. just saying pointing out those bonds is not very good for the government but thiers enough people buy those bonds.
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Municipal bonds are usually sold to very rich people who know little about investing and do not wish to lose money. I invest in bond funds., generally not with a large percentage of city,. state or country bonds, because it is a better deal for me to collect the higher interest and then just pay the tax. 9%-1.5% is more than 4% tax free. If I had oodles more money, government bonds would be a better deal, because I would be in a higher tax bracket. But if I used my head and got decent advice, I would still be better off buying mostly non-government bond funds. You can sell a fund at any time. Individual bonds have a more difficult market to access. The management fee on bond funds is usually under 1%, and if you hold them for over 90 days and buy dfrom a discount broker, you will pay no commissions.
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No Ponzi scheme can exist for 70 years or more.
Why not? If the Fed is running it, who's going to take it on? Not to mention that's not the Ponzi scheme currently being employed, with the shell game of moving debt to pay more debt, that is actually the point being made in this tangent. So, put aside the ponzi scheme referred to as Social Security, since that is more of a deflection, and has far more built in talking points to pull from, and focus on the current one being referenced, please. That's the one I've brought up, that Plane is also responding to. Not SS
That is if, you can.
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That looks like a good definition for Ponzi scheme.
I don't believe the definition should include "unless done by a government".
It shouldn't, but since the MSM is more a propaganda tool at this point, vs reporting current news, regardless of who it might effect negatively, don't expect any qualifiers to be recognized
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No Ponzi scheme can exist for 70 years or more. In the original Ponzi scheme. people wanting to make a killing are asked to sell more shares to those they knpw, increasing the number of Ponzi suckers exponentially. In Social Security, people have children, and certainly do not have as many as those selling Ponzi membership in a pyramid scheme.
There is no question that if people were allowed to make their own investment decisions, we would have at least as many old folks starving as there were in 1932. Most Americans --most people- are poor judges of how to invest money. They think that lottery tickets are a wise investment, when, in fact they are just voluntary taxes.
Social Security is a tax.
A regressive tax.
The receipts from Social security are spent with the general fund, if SS were subtracted from consideration, then there was never a surplus of any kind during the Clinton administration.
Social Security is an investment just like the Lottery is an investment , it isn't.
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It is not supposed to be an investment. It is a pension and a retirement insurance policy. And a bloody good idea.
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don`t know about seventy years but I don`t think it collapsed when Madoff was doing it. he was reported on by his own son.
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Madoff knew that he would be unable to sustain the withdrawals that would come with the decline in the market.
He was a thief, but he was very good with numbers. I don't think his scheme lasted as a hedge fund for more than 15 years. He was at one time actually investing his clients' money.
The fact remains that if not for Social Security, a much larger number of elderly people would be left with nothing because of poor investments.
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Social Security is not an investment either.
There is no pool of investments for social security funds anywhere.
If it has a strength that Bernie Madoffs fund didn't have it is that it can rope in everyone as a contributor and need not persuade volunteers.
The era of expansion has ended , it peaked while Clinton was President.
If we do well the decline can be managed , with reductions in service and payouts kept gradual.
If the young learn how bad the deal is for them , we may not do well at all.
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but the thing about social security is that how much does the government owe from it? it has dipped into quite afew times and I don`t recall it`s been paid back
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Social Security is an entitlement.
In theory it must be paid even if Uncle Sam must sell its last Tank.
Much more likely it will be paid with deficit spending until the Young realize what is being done to them.
Then they will demand a rule change.
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No Ponzi scheme can exist for 70 years or more. In the original Ponzi scheme. people wanting to make a killing are asked to sell more shares to those they knpw, increasing the number of Ponzi suckers exponentially. In Social Security, people have children, and certainly do not have as many as those selling Ponzi membership in a pyramid scheme......................
Is the trend to have enough more children that it will not break their backs to carry the old?
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The solution in this country has always been that when Americans have fewer children, we compensate by admitting more immigrants. I don't think that FDR intended Social Security to be funded by the same amount of contributions forever.
No one is going to abolish Social Security.
Juniorbush spent months trying to make minor modifications and no one was interested.
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It had prescious little about lack of interest, and far more about it being that what minor modifications (your words, not mine) that were being floated, were being reported as tantamount to gutting everything, and throwing everyone on the street. Nice to see the truth coming out.....how many years later now?
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Now you are claiming that I was somehow a part of the media propaganda team opposing Juniorbush. What he proposed were rather minor modifications. I didn't think they were in my interest, and I was not in favor of them, but my point is at present that any attempt to change SS to an investment scheme that depends on the random fluctuations of the stock market will surely be defeated.
Most of this country does not think that SS is a Ponzi scheme, and many are totally unaware of what a Ponzi scheme is. A majority of Americans do not like th think abiut anything involving mathematics. They will gladly pay H & R Block $60 just to file a 1040 EZ form.
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LOL....The deflections just keep flying. No, I never claimed or even implied anything in the least. What he proposed WERE minor, but the left, including yourself, portrayed anything and everything that was being considered as some effort to tear down all of SS, with the added goal of throwing everyone in the street. Notice, that has nothing to do with putting you on some staff for the NY Times ::)
Whether most of the people do or don't believe that SS is a Ponzi scheme misses the reality that it, and what the current administration is doing with our current debt shell game, functions just the same as one. Most of the people didn't want Obama to unilaterally circumvent current immigration law, and you seem ok with that. Most of the people didn't want Obamacare in the 1st place, and you're perfectly ok with that one as well.
But you're right in one respect. The less transparent and more tortuous the actions of Obama and the Democrats, as espoused by Gruber, the better, so as to keep the electorate as ignorant as possible to what their true intentions & actions are
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Being as Barak Obama was elected twice by the American people, I question your statement that people don't want him as president.
White people like you may not like him, but you are not actually running the show, are you?
You have at no point demonstrated that you know diddly about economics, either.
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Cite to me ANYWERE, where I claimed or even implied that the people didn't want him as President, when he was elected...twice. YOU just made that accusation, and you'll never be able to back it up. You know why? Because I never made such a claim. But there you are, pathologically deflecting, yet again. Taking policies and actions that the people factually and overwhelmingly DON'T support, and trying to make that about Obama as President himself.
If it weren't so transparent, it'd be laughable the effort. Once again, it has nothing to do with my race or his race. It has nothing to do with me personally or what I can or can't do personally. This latest tangent was highlighting a window of reality, where when Bush was in office, his mere minor modifications being discussed, were vilified by you and your ilk as trying to literally destroy SS. But now, many years removed, the truth of what they really were, mere minor modifications, were all they really were
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well getting rid of social security means that people who are against SS will also not get refunded all those withdrawel from their paychecks also.
ever notice legally speaking the U.S. government has not document stating money taken for SS is owed back. it`s all assumption. meaning by all right the government can keep all that money.
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Yep. Just a "promise".....kind of along the lines that we could keep our Dr. and Insurance, if we liked it
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No one is going to abolish Social Security.
True , I don't think it will be abolished , I think it will crash in a totally predictable , unplanned manner.Juniorbush spent months trying to make minor modifications and no one was interested.
Mores the pity.
Reagan modified the deal, Clinton modified the deal, reducing the amount owed .
The best that can be done is to make the reduction gradual , perhaps every third president.
What Bush failed to do was create a section of SS that would be in the control of the investor , and it would actually be invested. I would have liked that.
The solution in this country has always been that when Americans have fewer children, we compensate by admitting more immigrants. I don't think that FDR intended Social Security to be funded by the same amount of contributions forever.
Isn't this a nasty trick to play on them?
One of the things that FDR did not anticipate was a large increase in longevity, as hygiene and medical care have improved.
This might indeed be the best contribution of Obamacare , if it manages to halt the growth of longevity that has sapped the strength of Social Security , the SS system might last longer. If Obamacare reduces availability of medical care enough to return the ratio of old to young to 1935 levels , the Social Security System might return to viability.
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No one is going to abolish Social Security.
True , I don't think it will be abolished , I think it will crash in a totally predictable , unplanned manner.
BINGO!!
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That will not happen unless the Republithugs make it happen.
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That will not happen unless the Republithugs make it happen.
No.
No one will ever even propose the end of Social Security, but the crash will not be prevented.
Our birth rate is down , our unemployment rate is a little high, we are going to run low on employed children.
What could possibly be done to prevent it?
If the solution is to bring more young into our system, how far can that go?
If it isn't infinite , then it will run down.
Once we have absconded with most of the talented youth of the world , we will owe all of them a retirement also.
Your suggestion is just another way to delay the totally inevitable collapse, putting it off longer by involving more people to eventually be disappointed.
I don't think that the Social Security system will last until we have kidnapped all the youth of the world, a lot sooner than that the youth we have already will learn to make most of their living off the books and a few years of high unemployment will cause a tax revolt , mostly of the young and lowly paid.
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That will not happen unless the Republithugs make it happen.
Republicans have nothing to do with it. It's called unsustainable mathematics. But nice to see how the blame is already in place
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It has been clear since the very beginning that the big money guys who rule the GOP want Social Security to fail. They want it to fail, they could give a damn about the poor and the middle class. They just can't get elected with out pretending that it is all about using "opportunity" as some sort of bait to lure the less bright Americans into theoir trap. Just as the Plantation owners got the po' White trash to fight and die for the Confederacy: there was a lot of cheap land, just get you some slaves and clear the land and plant cotton and you can be just like us. What were the odds? One in thousand.
People make it in this country DESPITE the Oligarchy, not because of it.
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No, it hasn't been clear, in any way, shape or form. If nothing is done to reform it, it will fail....period It wasn't designed to incorporate our growing population of increasing retirees. It was just assumed there'd be enough folks paying into the system. That is simply an enviable truth & basic math, as there won't be enough folks paying into SS to pay out to those who already have
And no amount of trying to blame Republicans, will alter that reality
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They will raise the age at which people can collect SS and they will raise taxes. This is not a poor country. 1% of the people own over 40% of everything. The solution is simple.
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See?....how can you blame Republicans for its imminent failure, when you yourself recognize it needs reformed. Your solution has literally no chance of passing politically, nor is it fair, but without some form of reform, it will fail. And nothing the GOP does will bring that about. It'll happen all on its own
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There will be a fix. Social Security will be saved.
You will have to throw yourself face down on the grass and flaial about, but it will happen.
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Riiiiight. Right up there with we could keep our insurance and Doctor, if we liked them. ::) Well, at least we've finally got you on record as agreeing that without a "fix", SS will fail. And it'll have nothing to do with Republicans, as you erroneously claimed earlier
Oh, here's a hint.....that 1% your so envious of, already pay half the taxes that support this country. There's not enough of that 1% to fix SS. Again, simple unsustainable mathematics
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They will raise the age at which people can collect SS and they will raise taxes.
This has already happened several times .
When the retirement age is high enough that only a few of us can hope to retire the problem will be solved , but don't call that success.
Taxes can be raised until this is no longer a wealthy country , this would cause a crash before it was complete.
People make it in this country DESPITE the Oligarchy, not because of it.
You know that the opposite has been tried.
For years China had an "Iron Rice Bowl" so that everyone had practically a right to eat.
And no wealthy at all.
This worked very poorly , even without wealth there was a ruling class , and even with a national right to eat there were gigantic famines.
Since it became legal to become wealthy the Chinese economy has done a lot better , but their politically powerful are the same class.
I get the impression that you consider wealth a drag on the economy , while it seems to me that wealth is the engine .
Since both styles of running things has been tried , the truth should not be so hard to derive from the evidence.
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Corporate profits are presently at an all-time high, higher than even at the end of the 1920's boom. The problem is not there is not enough money, the problem is that the all gain in incomer in productivity is going to a very few privileged individuals.
There is vastly more money in this country than is needed for ending all hunger and poverty.
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No, there isn't. Not when this country is founded on Freedom. You don't punish success in order to appease your conscience
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Corporate profits are presently at an all-time high, higher than even at the end of the 1920's boom. The problem is not there is not enough money, the problem is that the all gain in incomer in productivity is going to a very few privileged individuals.
There is vastly more money in this country than is needed for ending all hunger and poverty.
This is a moving goal post.
How long has it been since you met someone with Pellagra?
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It is nice we no longer have leprosy as well.
There are countries with far less wealth where no one is poor and everyone has the education that they are able to attain.
Social Security will be rescued, watch and see.
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Modern medicine has reduced leprosy a lot .
Is there any vaccine against going broke?
I will wait and see because there is nothing else to do.
I am very skeptical that magical thinking can save Social Security, demanding resources does not produce resources.
The trends of decades have been steady, the maximum amount ever collected in taxes for Social Security happened during the Clinton administration, now we are on the other side of the bell curve.
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Modern medicine has put Jesus to shame as a healer of lepers.
I recall my mother said that Jesus worked miracles and cured the lepers.
I asked, "What is a leper"?
She showed me in the Book of Knowledge.
I asked, "why have I never seen a leper begging at the gates of Kansas City? Who is working miracles on lepers now?"
I made her think a lot.
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So you think Jesus was a time traveler?