The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

[vt]

This does not come from a right wing group; it comes from the Third Way, a centrist group. Bill Clinton is a supporter.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-left-needs-to-get-real-on-medicare-social-security-and-the-deficit/2013/06/27/f697fdea-dde9-11e2-b797-cbd4cb13f9c6_story.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way

[doom&gloom]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

People on the left, at least the better educated and successful ones, are not stupid. yet somehow they have a suspension of belief when it comes to the issues above, and that the money is simply not there any way you work the numbers.

[vinoveri]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

People on the left, at least the better educated and successful ones, are not stupid. yet somehow they have a suspension of belief when it comes to the issues above, and that the money is simply not there any way you work the numbers.

perhaps the confusion comes down to the fact that "it's been working up till now .... this free lunch and all ... so why can't it continue" and the confusion between money/credit and wealth; the money is in fact there (CB printing press and bank credit),but the wealth is not, however until CONfidence is lost in the monetary unit, think this can go on for a good while.

[dcarrigg]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

People on the left, at least the better educated and successful ones, are not stupid. yet somehow they have a suspension of belief when it comes to the issues above, and that the money is simply not there any way you work the numbers.

If Obama didn't run the payroll tax holiday and if he lifted the FICA wage base (which, like saying "no healthcare mandate," was part of his platform when he ran against Hillary in 2008) we would have no problem with Social Security at all.

In fact, I and more than a few of my left-leaning friends were angry at Obama for the payroll tax holiday because it weakened these programs.

And I said as much here. I'm not scared to criticize him. He has made lots of poor fiscal moves in my view. Extending the Bush tax cuts did nothing good for the budget gap. And maybe bringing part D into question would have been wise for Medicare when it was still fresh and people weren't so used to it. Pharma would hate it, but it might have been worth talking about in 2008.

Plus, if the Fed didn't keep the damn rates so low for so long, the Social Security fund would be in fine shape too.

We are not dumb.

But we also have been paying in for a long time.

And we don't want to see them pull the rug out from under us.

Plus, all empirical data shows 401(k)s are absolutely not working as retirement funds for average Joe and Jane.

So without SS, what would they do?

I consider myself one of those lefties.

And I'm not backing down to let them cut Social Security.

I just won't do it.

I'd rather tack payroll taxes onto capital gains first.

I'd rather send the Marines into the Caymans to pull the secret banking data on all the offshore accounts and put them on the books before I stuck it to America's elderly.

That's just how I feel about it.

Medicare's another story. As is Medicaid. Those ones are going to be tough nuts to crack. But I think the whole damn health system is screwed. And now the cat's out of the bag. I'm not at all sure how it will get fixed. I think you'll see states in the Northeast start going single-payer on their own toward the end of this decade optimistically, or in the 2020s realistically. But that's another story.

Look. The point is that I think a lot of "centrists" like to look at the US like a business that needs to just keep every law as it is today and cut programs by percentages on a spreadsheet just to get back in line.

But I think a lot of liberals, and conservatives too, with ideas realize that we can change the law and the fundamental landscape to get things in line too. It doesn't just have to be taking a blind axe to 15% of grandma's fixed income.

[vt]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

Raising taxes with an output gap got us the Great Depression. You solve entitlements by raising the age of eligibility starting immediately. You also reform government pensions at all levels of government.

For those between 50 and 60 raise the age to 69

40 and 50 to age 70

30 and 40 to age 71

20 and 30 to age 72

Below 20 to age 73

All government pensions have the same ages of eligibility.


Children born today will live to a hundred. No pension system will ever be able to cover 33 years in retirement. The left is bankrupt, just like the banksters.

[BK]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

Its fair to say that all politicians know that the People (the Voters) like free stuff! How could any politician be elected and keep their party in power without delivering to goods to the People. I'd love to blame the current President or my current Governor - but, they just want to get elected to get their free stuff.

It won't end until the Cash drawer is completely empty!

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

All the food eaten last year was grown last year.
We can grow it again next year.

All the dwellings lived in last year still stand.
We can live in them again next year.

[flintlock]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

Its totally unrealistic to expect a majority of citizens to be able to work until age 70+. At least at any kind of wage they can live on AND continue to save for retirement. Hard to live on Walmart Greeter pay. If they aren't simply being pushed out for some younger buck, they will probably see more health problems and other "distractions" that make them less employable. Not everyone has some sedentary profession that only requires the ability to talk or push around a computer mouse. Continue to raise retirement ages and we will continue to see an increasing shortage of competent people in occupations that require some higher level of mobility, as those jobs will become dead end jobs with no long term future. Sure, some will work their way up to management levels, and some may retrain and switch careers. Of course everyone cant be the boss. In some fields raising retirement to 70 will simply push otherwise qualified people into something else, or more likely leave us with a massive poverty wave of people in their 60s.

Why not some phased in approach? Even better, stop with the goofy govt policies that conspire with businesses to keep wages depressed and actually pay people enough to save for their own retirement.

The current US immigration policy is a Ponzi scheme. Import massive amounts of cheap labor, pushing down wages and profits up on Wall Street. Then use taxpayer money to subsidize their paltry wages through entitlements. Then, when Jose cant cut it anymore, dump his broke ass in some ghetto with nothing to live on and bring in his grandson and repeat cycle. And people wonder why the country is broke!

[kescwi]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

... Even better, stop with the goofy govt policies that conspire with businesses to keep wages depressed and actually pay people enough to save for their own retirement.

The current US immigration policy is a Ponzi scheme. Import massive amounts of cheap labor, pushing down wages and profits up on Wall Street. Then use taxpayer money to subsidize their paltry wages through entitlements. Then, when Jose cant cut it anymore, dump his broke ass in some ghetto with nothing to live on and bring in his grandson and repeat cycle. And people wonder why the country is broke!

I gather you are in construction as I am. From my vantage point it is easy to see the deterioration of wages and with it the work force. While in college the company i worked for employed guys in their 50's down through high school kids in the summer, the older guys made enough to own homes, put their kids through college, take vacations... and most importantly they KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING. No drug problems, however they did drink, but we needed very little supervision on jobs, the owner spent the majority of his time selling.

Before I started this reply I went on craigslist for the town I was working in back then to see what ads there were and how much they paid. They wages that I saw listed are what I made as a 19 year old college student in 1987 and 20% less than I was making by 1990 when I went on my own. Adjust that for inflation and its no wonder quality employees have moved to greener pastures or simply just given up.

What has happened to construction in the past generation is now, it seems, moving into more "professional" jobs and it's funny, I listen today to some of my friends who are becoming subcontractors talking about how great it is and I think, "get ready because here it comes."

I also question how people don't see why this country is broke after an almost 40 year belief that cutting wages in the working class will lead to a robust economy for everyone. To me it's kind of like arguing that it's the roots of the tree that are holding it back and if the tree was just cut away from those roots it would grow to infinity. But as we know cut away the roots and the tree dies.

[Penguin]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

Raising taxes with an output gap got us the Great Depression. You solve entitlements by raising the age of eligibility starting immediately. You also reform government pensions at all levels of government.

For those between 50 and 60 raise the age to 69

40 and 50 to age 70

30 and 40 to age 71

20 and 30 to age 72

Below 20 to age 73

All government pensions have the same ages of eligibility.


Children born today will live to a hundred. No pension system will ever be able to cover 33 years in retirement. The left is bankrupt, just like the banksters.

No offense meant to you in the slightest vt, we all have our preferences on how to fix these types of problems.

But as far as I am concerned to hell with this type of exclusions. The generation getting ready to retire has absolutely swamped this country with problems as far as the eye can see. They inherited an industrial behemoth with one of most sound financial underpinnings of any nation on earth... and thanks to decades of idiotic, self aggrandizing policies have wrecked it.

And now that the bill is coming due? Privatize medicare and raise the age limit on SS... but only on the rest of society not on them personally or generationally. Let the next bunch pay up for their sins. To hell with that. Anything they want to propose to fix these problems goes across the board or not at all. I've had it up to here with all these gray hairs telling us about fiscal responsibility while trying to avoid even an scintilla of the costs of doing so.

Will

[jiimbergin]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

No offense meant to you in the slightest vt, we all have our preferences on how to fix these types of problems.

But as far as I am concerned to hell with this type of exclusions. The generation getting ready to retire has absolutely swamped this country with problems as far as the eye can see. They inherited an industrial behemoth with one of most sound financial underpinnings of any nation on earth... and thanks to decades of idiotic, self aggrandizing policies have wrecked it.

And now that the bill is coming due? Privatize medicare and raise the age limit on SS... but only on the rest of society not on them personally or generationally. Let the next bunch pay up for their sins. To hell with that. Anything they want to propose to fix these problems goes across the board or not at all. I've had it up to here with all these gray hairs telling us about fiscal responsibility while trying to avoid even an scintilla of the costs of doing so.

Will

Although I am almost 70 and both my wife and I get a fairly large SS payment, I tend to agree, even if it reduces our payments. We have know about this problem since the 70s and really have done nothing about it. All should bear the burden, however, I think that is a pipe dream. Nothing is going to get done until we truly have a crisis.

[dcarrigg]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

Children born today will live to a hundred. No pension system will ever be able to cover 33 years in retirement. The left is bankrupt, just like the banksters.

Maybe 1% of children born today will live to 100. Maybe. But that's very optimistic.

The US Census predicts that for children born in 2020, the expectations for life expectancy at birth for US males will be 77.1 years. That's a far cry from 100. And if you want to push people out past 70 years to collect, there will be a lot of broken, sick, hurt people begging for work.

I've been over this before here.

The phrase "people are living longer" absolutely does not mean that "people are living past the far end of the curve of the life expectancy of human beings." Nobody is ever going to live to 150.

All it means is that there is less infant mortality, fewer accidental deaths, and that we can give you one more shot after a heart attack more often now. That's about it.

People who escaped heart attack and infant disease lived until their 70s or 80s 6,000 years ago, and so they do today.

There was never a time when everybody dropped dead at 25, or 30, or 50. Hell, if "life expectancy" was 25 in the 1890s, then why is Besse Cooper still kicking today at 116?

Plato? 84
Newton? 84
Ramesses II? 91
Galileo? 77
Franklin? 84
Augustus Caesar? 78
Charlemagne? 72
Justinian I? 82
LouisXIV? 77
Marco Polo? 70

Even daring and drunk horse warrior, sleep outside Ghengis Kahn himself, made it to 65.

I hate the myth that we're living decades longer now.

And read flintlock's post here too.

Because I think it's all too easy for folks who are proud members of the "Excel Army" to look down their nose at folks who need to bend and lift and build things for a living and simply say, "Do it until you're 90!"

So if I'm bankrupt as the banksters, as you say there VT, then why can I source my data about life expectancy while you just throw around blind numbers about everyone living to 100? It seems like more a blind belief you have than reality.

Because I think the real fantasy here is the fantasy that every or even most kids born today will live to 100.

There are only two types of folks who I have seen make that argument.

Blind believers of Kurtzweil's Singularity and folks that want to eliminate retirement and make everyone work until they drop.

It's alright if you really don't like the New Deal. That's fine. There are plenty of folks here who don't.

But to call those of us who do bankrupt and full of fantasy is a bit of a stretch. And it's even worse when the argument is based on the faulty assumption that in a couple of years everyone will be a centenarian

[Raz]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

no offense meant to you in the slightest vt, we all have our preferences on how to fix these types of problems.

But as far as i am concerned to hell with this type of exclusions. the generation getting ready to retire has absolutely swamped this country with problems as far as the eye can see. they inherited an industrial behemoth with one of most sound financial underpinnings of any nation on earth... And thanks to decades of idiotic, self aggrandizing policies have wrecked it.

And now that the bill is coming due? Privatize medicare and raise the age limit on ss... But only on the rest of society not on them personally or generationally. let the next bunch pay up for their sins. to hell with that. Anything they want to propose to fix these problems goes across the board or not at all. i've had it up to here with all these gray hairs telling us about fiscal responsibility while trying to avoid even an scintilla of the costs of doing so.

Will

+1. ;_tu

[jiimbergin]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

Maybe 1% of children born today will live to 100. Maybe. But that's very optimistic.

The US Census predicts that for children born in 2020, the expectations for life expectancy at birth for US males will be 77.1 years. That's a far cry from 100. And if you want to push people out past 70 years to collect, there will be a lot of broken, sick, hurt people begging for work.

I've been over this before here.

The phrase "people are living longer" absolutely does not mean that "people are living past the far end of the curve of the life expectancy of human beings." Nobody is ever going to live to 150.

All it means is that there is less infant mortality, fewer accidental deaths, and that we can give you one more shot after a heart attack more often now. That's about it.

People who escaped heart attack and infant disease lived until their 70s or 80s 6,000 years ago, and so they do today.

There was never a time when everybody dropped dead at 25, or 30, or 50. Hell, if "life expectancy" was 25 in the 1890s, then why is Besse Cooper still kicking today at 116?

Plato? 84
Newton? 84
Ramesses II? 91
Galileo? 77
Franklin? 84
Augustus Caesar? 78
Charlemagne? 72
Justinian I? 82
LouisXIV? 77
Marco Polo? 70

Even daring and drunk horse warrior, sleep outside Ghengis Kahn himself, made it to 65.

I hate the myth that we're living decades longer now.

And read flintlock's post here too.

Because I think it's all too easy for folks who are proud members of the "Excel Army" to look down their nose at folks who need to bend and lift and build things for a living and simply say, "Do it until you're 90!"

So if I'm bankrupt as the banksters, as you say there VT, then why can I source my data about life expectancy while you just throw around blind numbers about everyone living to 100? It seems like more a blind belief you have than reality.

Because I think the real fantasy here is the fantasy that every or even most kids born today will live to 100.

There are only two types of folks who I have seen make that argument.

Blind believers of Kurtzweil's Singularity and folks that want to eliminate retirement and make everyone work until they drop.

It's alright if you really don't like the New Deal. That's fine. There are plenty of folks here who don't.

But to call those of us who do bankrupt and full of fantasy is a bit of a stretch. And it's even worse when the argument is based on the faulty assumption that in a couple of years everyone will be a centenarian

You are absolutely right about mortality! Actuaries call it "squaring the Curve".

[DSpencer]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

If Obama didn't run the payroll tax holiday and if he lifted the FICA wage base (which, like saying "no healthcare mandate," was part of his platform when he ran against Hillary in 2008) we would have no problem with Social Security at all.

In fact, I and more than a few of my left-leaning friends were angry at Obama for the payroll tax holiday because it weakened these programs.

And I said as much here. I'm not scared to criticize him. He has made lots of poor fiscal moves in my view. Extending the Bush tax cuts did nothing good for the budget gap. And maybe bringing part D into question would have been wise for Medicare when it was still fresh and people weren't so used to it. Pharma would hate it, but it might have been worth talking about in 2008.

Plus, if the Fed didn't keep the damn rates so low for so long, the Social Security fund would be in fine shape too.

We are not dumb.

But we also have been paying in for a long time.

And we don't want to see them pull the rug out from under us.

Plus, all empirical data shows 401(k)s are absolutely not working as retirement funds for average Joe and Jane.

So without SS, what would they do?

I consider myself one of those lefties.

And I'm not backing down to let them cut Social Security.

I just won't do it.

I'd rather tack payroll taxes onto capital gains first.

I'd rather send the Marines into the Caymans to pull the secret banking data on all the offshore accounts and put them on the books before I stuck it to America's elderly.

That's just how I feel about it.

Medicare's another story. As is Medicaid. Those ones are going to be tough nuts to crack. But I think the whole damn health system is screwed. And now the cat's out of the bag. I'm not at all sure how it will get fixed. I think you'll see states in the Northeast start going single-payer on their own toward the end of this decade optimistically, or in the 2020s realistically. But that's another story.

Look. The point is that I think a lot of "centrists" like to look at the US like a business that needs to just keep every law as it is today and cut programs by percentages on a spreadsheet just to get back in line.

But I think a lot of liberals, and conservatives too, with ideas realize that we can change the law and the fundamental landscape to get things in line too. It doesn't just have to be taking a blind axe to 15% of grandma's fixed income.

dcarrig,

I understand that you feel like you'll be cheated if they cut SS benefits now/soon. I have a very long way to go until retirement. Even by current estimates, which are typically overly optimistic and have to be continually revised closer for the worse, all these programs will be insolvent by the time I retire.

Please explain how it is fair to take the money that I need to save for retirement and give to to retiring people now, knowing full well that there won't be enough left to pay me in full when I retire?

On an individual basis you can always make the case that "I didn't vote for this so it's not fair". On a group basis THE PEOPLE voted for politicians that took the money from SS and used it for other purposes. The "fund" is simply trillions of dollars in IOU's from other parts of the same government. Essentially, the voters already spent the money on themselves. The solution is take more from the people working now because who gives a rip about what happens to them when they retire.

Or apparently it's to send our military onto foreign lands and raid their banks. I suppose that's the American Way now. Other countries' laws be damned.