This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Bad Choices
If two people are dying from liver disease, one 25, the other 65, and there’s only one liver available for transplant, the old one dies.
There’s one economic variable that’s highly predictable; demographics. In all of the industrial countries the aging population is now weighing on the economic outcome. Japan was the first country to go down the tubes from this phenomenon. Europe is behind Japan, but rapidly catching up.
The US has a huge headache with an aging population. The number of oldsters is big, and rapidly rising. Add to the size of the aging US population the fact that the promises made to these people are enormous. Other countries, like Canada, Russia and even China are struggling with the problem.
The USA is in now in year three of what will prove to be a twenty-year mega-trend of an aging population. These facts have been know for a long time, I’m amazed that the US has been so slow to come to grips with the implications of what is clearly in our future. Thanks to the Fiscal Cliff debate, the financial implications of the graying of America are now being discussed, and Washington is talking about “solutions”.
So what are the solutions that the deciders are zeroing in on? Simple. The proposals (and what we will get) are extensions of the ages that benefits become available. Both sides have suggested that pushing out the age for Medicare and Social Security benefits for an additional two years is appropriate. The Administration has said it would be willing to do this; John Boehner (and other big Republicans) has flat-out insisted that it happen.
At some point in the next year (I don’t think this will be part of the fiscal cliff resolution) the eligibility changes will take place. The changes will be phased in over 10-15 years. When the ink is dry on the new laws, the bean counters in Washington will declare success. The end result will be a 3-4 year extension of the lives of both the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds.
Where does this “fix” take the country? That’s easy to forecast. Older people will be forced to stay in the workforce for years longer. The retirement age will be pushed out, the benefit checks will also be smaller on a relative basis. (There will be cuts to inflation adjustments) Once again, the deep thinkers in D.C. are “okay” with making old folks wait for a few years for benefits; the thinking is that people live longer, so make them work longer.
My fear is that the solution to one problem is going to spill over and aggravate another problem. The fix on retirement benefits will cause a long-term erosion of youth unemployment. That outcome could prove more devastating than the aging problem.
Its not hard to find evidence that these big trends are already moving the needle. Last Friday’s NFP is a case in point. Zero Hedge has the details (Link) and (Link). This chart shows what happened in November. A disaster for those 22-54, the 55-69 group were the winners.
It wasn’t just November. Consider the changes since 2009.
What does a government do when it is faced with high youth unemployment? It sends them to school with borrowed money. This won’t work much longer:
This is the worst kind of whack-a-mole problem solving. Washington will take steps to address the fiscal consequences of the aging population, but those steps will create a multi-decade drag on what is already a serious problem.
We are far from the point where rules on transplants should apply to choices on economic policy, but we’re getting closer. The policy choices that are being made today are running counter to the rules on transplants. They favor old over young. We are a long way from being balanced on this issue; longer still toward policies that actually tip the scales to the next few generations.
If you asked the question, “How do we create opportunities for younger workers?” The answer would be to lower the retirement age. Create the opportunity for upward mobility. We are on a path 180 degrees in the opposite direction.
I don’t see a way around this. Demographic changes are powerful forces. The problem is we are on the third rung of a twenty-foot steep ladder, and we’re already making bad choices.
»
- advertisements -
Geezers vote, youths riot - what's it gonna be!
Geezer riots...now those are the days worth living for.
You don't know what a geezer riot is until you've been beaten senseless with a walker. Then, when you're down, repeatedly run over by a power chair.
When the toothless get ruthless,,,
This geezer is armed and dangeous, I spit on your riot.
God created all men, both young and old. It was Col Colt that made them equal.
Anyone kicking in my front door will be introduced to something made famous many years ago by John C. Garand
Let's see....a Pontiac Garand Am?
John DeLorean's Pontiac GTO?
A Garand is not as good for supression fire.
SS was never intended to support these old bastards to live to be 100 years old. it was set up back when you were lucky to live to be 60. I see these old fuckers in my in-laws' Del Webb shitbox neighborhood and it's like-just die already old man and take your WWII Vet hat and Buick with you-you're driving up the demand for oil with all that plastic used in your Depends.
otto skorzeny
Hey otto you young bastard, screw you and the horse u rode in on.Lucky you are not close to me at the moment.
Here are the stats for the WWII gen, and their kids (I am one), WE paid in 2.9 Trillion Dollars.
CONGRESS STOLE IT.........................any idea just what 2.9 Trillion would pay(timewise) and to how many?,had it been left in the Trust Fund.
So, Screw u, and SCREW the slimy bastards that are trying to end run a mess THEY Created, NOT US.(do u think for a second, that they are going to do without?.)
(To the bloggers, excuse the language I haven't used it in 30+ yrs, I am just sick of these pussies who are clueless the facts on WHO owes WHO).I do not depend on SS for my entire support in retirement , I just want MINE back they stole.
I'll bet you're the life of the party. Bitch, Bitch, Bitch.
Run for office; go public with your shit-box commentary.
Let us know how that goes.
BTW, since you put the onus on preceding generations for not meeting your standards, why hasn't your generation solved everything?
What Brokaw called "the greatest generation" won the war, came home and proceeded to foul the nest by getting on with life. Their children, the baby boomers, protested against Vietnam, social injustice and everything else the GG's stood for. The BB's then grew up and fouled the nest by getting on with life. Their kids (echo boom) and the intervening Xers, Lost Generation, whatever you got, are all protesting or just standing by hopelessly thinking (...WTF?...).
There's no such thing as "solving everything", unfortunately. Every solution has its own unintended consequences and generates new problems requiring new solutions.
Baby boomers need to pay their own bills, but far too many of them never learned to delay gratification, save and prepare for winter. It's not like old age is a black swan ("I'm getting old--who could have seen this coming?").
The Generation Wars are pretty much inevitable here as elsewhere. Central bankers enabled the 'free lunch' mentality, but there's no excuse for not knowing better. Now they're trying to keep the hopeless scam propped up. Stock bubble turns to housing bubble turns to bond bubble, and now they're working hard to reignite the housing bubble without even settling the MERS fiasco. We're governed by criminal idiots, but quite frankly we're culpable too. I think we'll see global chaos before we get through the aftermath of all this folly.
The Greatest Generation is the one who has done the most with the least. As a boomer, its pretty mixed, but not near the top. Lets see how you do. You sound as if there were no wars before WWII and you will never get old. We are lied to from the moment we are born (your're so cute) and live in some form of alternate reality most of our lives. We blunder through our lives so sure we have all the answers yet most times it gets no easier. As many of us reached middle age, we started thinking more about security and how to preserve it and found some comfort in the lies being told about real estate, investing and progressivism. Now the younger generations will have to proccess the lies about their "rights" and how they are entitled to so many things that unfortunately need to be paid for by others, yet to be determined. When you are young and think you can conquer anything, its pretty easy to be smug. But when you find your body starting to fail and your mind not far behind, the reality of your circumstances is in full view in front of you and the years of denial don't count for much. As with most political/social ideologies, the reality of the moment can be very transformative and while many could have lived the most conservative lifestyle, when you are 80 and have no way of paying to stay alive, you may find yourself the most socialistic bastard the planet has ever seen. Afterall, Its always been about ME.
TV Generation. Stalin and Hitler would have loved TV. If you watch it or Hollywood's crap - you supporyt your slavery. We heard how Jamie Fox and Alec Baldwin want whites dead especially old ones. Freudian liberal slip ups.
I'm sure you're right, Freddie. I can't say from experience because I stopped watching TV back in 1974. Burglars (probably kids) broke into my house and took the TV and other stuff.
I never replaced it because my (19 year old) bride said, "You know what? Without the TV, we talk a lot more. Wanna jump me?" Some things you just don't argue with.
Yes and it was only suposed to be 2% of payroll. Promises get bigger and freedoms get smaller and the lies never end.
My Dad informed me that it was also promised that the SS# would never be used for anything but SS purposes. Fast forward to today when your SS# serves as an ID# for just about everything under the sun...
You can make up a fake one for most commercial purposes if you like. You only "have to" provide the real # for the government-administered stuff.
Let me know how well that works out for you. The problem is that they use it to coordinate all the databases. I don't like ithe way it is used, but I've never heard of it working out well unless you're an illegal alien and willing live on the fringes; no mortgage, no new car loan. Since 9/11 it's even looked at by employers differently. That being said the government itself used to run new employees through a SSN lookup and found many duplicate numbers in the process.
very interesting that someone downvoted you for that information. . .
c'mon outta the shadows. . .
People really hate the truth. If you downvote the truth, it will be crushed.
No, they would have had to tax to pay for all the add on BS, a lousy strategy for 30 year Congressional careers. So, they dumped it on the unborn knowing they would be long gone and dead by the time the chumps wised up.
We can only hope you don't make it past 60.
SS was never intended to pay for greens fees for retirees in Palm Springs, but it does. I've heard geezers joke about it.
And if we were allowed to keep more of our earned money then we would be less reliant on SS. Of course that seems to be lost on everyone.
Eliminating FICA is a fine idea, but the average person is never going to be able to set aside enough from a $27,000/job to be able to expect to "retire" for 20 years. It's just not realistic.
Retirement is a fantasy that was briefly available to a lot of folks. A lot of those folks are now bitching that it's getting tougher.
Yeah, well.
It would appear that the lower class, which has never enjoyed 20 year retirements, is showing even less longevity these days:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/us/life-expectancy-for-less-educated-w...
It's not specifically described, but it's easy enough to figure based on that article: more Americans are poor than comfortable, so life-expectancy is declining for the "average American."
Once we get life-expectancies back to '50s levels, the so-called "unfunded liabilities" problem will be solved, anyway.
Most of our present day longevity is attributable to preventing childhood death. The use of vaccines and such has given us our greater average age at death. While some older people have conditions that are treated and they then live a few more years they don't really contribute to the older average age of death very much. The treatment of diabetics with insulin has probably contributed more towards people living longer than replacing hearts.
Exactly. A walk through an old cemetery, noting birth and death dates, reveals a pretty good chance of making it into the 80's, assuming you survived childhood. People should check their facts before making wild pronouncements.
Yeah, well, you're wrong about that.
There were always people who lived into the 80s, but if you do as you just described and actually look at birth/death dates on gravestones, you'll see that in the '50s, MOST folks were dead before 70.
Our ability to treat (and help prevent) all kinds of vascular issues has increased dramatically. Lifestyle choices have had an enormous impact on folks living past 60.
What I suspect you're thinking of (and misinterpreting) is why the "average life expectancy" was in the high-40s at the turn of the 20th century. Before antibiotics, lots of people died very young, and if you take the MEAN, you got an artificially lower number. (Unlike using the median age of death.)
But in practice, for sure, far more people live into their 70s today than did 60 years ago. This isn't in any kind of dispute.
You're absolutely right. It occurred to me recently that the entire idea of retirement is a 20th century construct that is unsustainable. Do something useful or have someone else WILLINGLY pay to keep you comfortable while you wait to do.
Yep. Old folks used to live with their kids or whatever until they died. They could help care for kids or cook or clean, they would eventually become an unmanageable burden and be encouraged to "wander off" or some terrible accident would befall them.
Mean old bastards died drunk in ditches 'cause no one could be bothered to deal with 'em. The helpless and invalid without family ended up in the same situation most of the time.
It sucked, but it was cheap. Given that we don't appear willing (or in most cases, ABLE) to pay for care for old folks, we should expect to get back to that kind of tradition, eventually.
It's not SS that's keeping them alive it's Medicare, that's a 100x bigger problem than SS because it has no limits it's an "All You Can Eat" shop
ss otto my lad was a foot in the door for socialism and fascist at that..now we have a welfare state and more security agency lads than you can shake a stick at..prison america, get your snap card and shut up. of which you are in favor I am sure..commie used to mean something no longer.
Old story: Suppertime In The Hut
Grandfather spilled stew down his beard as he ate. His son grew angry. "Old man, if you're going to eat like a pig, you can eat from a trough." He got up from the table, went outside and returned with a rough wooden tray made from two boards. He dumped the grandfather's food into the tray. "There, now eat from your trough."
After supper, the man went outside to find his young son hammering nails into scrap wood. "What are you doing, boy?" The boy said, "I'm making a trough for you to eat from when you get a little older."
Divide and Conquer is the strategy that fascist governments use to subjugate the mindless population. Setting young against old, and vice versa, is always effective. Let's hope your kids set aside a few bucks for your Depends, instead of just shoving you down the stairs in your wheelchair.
I'm a "boomer". I'm an X-ray tech. I am actually in favor of denying certain medical care/procedures/medicine, in certain circumstances.
Do you know what it costs to stay in CCU/ICU for a month?? 86, basically bedridden and "diminished" capacity for the last 10 years but getting expensive medicines, surgeries and joint replacements from falling down so frequently, livivg in a "home" because your family has nothing to do with you anymore, and you wouldn't recognize them if they did visit......
Being kept alive just because medicare will pay for it.
I don't know exactly what fascist govts do, but any fellow citizen that thinks govt is the answer to any personal situation is defacto and automatically divided from me.
You reap what you sow, maybe the old man didn't bother to teach his kids manners or maybe he wasn't a good caregiver himself,
but the world is fucked up no matter how you shake your stick at it.
That is true, Azannoth. Unfortunately, we will also reap what the people around us have sown. With that in mind, shaking sticks at the world is an exercise in futility. Better to shape that stick into a cudgel, and give Monsanto a jolly good drubbing with it.
These unworthies will be our overlords until we stop working for them, supporting them with our dollars and obeying their diktats.
I reckon you don't plan on getting old.
Pops - with Obam - you should not reckon on getting old or being old much longer.
The old f**ks are the TV generation and Hollywood generation. Keep watching the idiot box which enpowers them. Granny likes AMC with old Gary Cooper movies. Moron sheep who were herded by Cronkite. Keep watching pops. TV is a great totalitarian tool.
Hope & Change. Forward Comrades!
How's yer apps kid? Let's see: TV versus gaming and apps for everything. I don't see much change in the awareness thingy.
I do believe "Freddie" is older than you think. . .
again- yup. exactly. Herded by Cronkite is right. That fucking degenerate warren buffet - like, friendly grandpa bullshit is truly satanic.
If two people are dying from liver disease, one 25, the other 65, and there’s only one liver available for transplant, the old one dies.
This is BS. The poor one dies despite the age.
+1
Look at Mickey Mantle, Pat Summerall, Larry Hagman, and Dick Cheney(heart) just name a few.
I'll bet you they leave the retirement age at 65, but delay Medicare and SS to 67 or 68, meaning that at 65 you are on your own for health care and sustinance for 2-3 years. What a plan! Those that are poor or sick will simply die, leaving a much healthier bunch of 68 year-olds to collect the bennies.
......Let's leave the legal driving age at 16, but not give them licenses until 18......???
WHAT do you think "retirement age" is OTHER than when you can collect SS ??
If the you can't collect SS until you're 68, then THAT (68) will be the "retirement age."
What Joe said.