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Have We Reached Peak Entitlements?
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
Have We Reached Peak Entitlements?
There is no way an economy that grows by 75% every 25 years can fund entitlement programs expanding by 500% or more over the same time period.
One aspect of Peak Government is Peak Entitlements: the ability of the government to fund its social program promises out of current tax revenues. Recall that Federal entitlement programs--Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, to mention the largest--are all "pay as you go," meaning they are funded out of current tax revenues.
The Social Security and Medicare "trust funds" are politically useful illusions: as the securities within the so-called trust funds are non-marketable, the government funds shortfalls in these programs the same way it funds all its other deficit spending, by selling Treasury bonds.
As the charts in Have We Reached Peak Government? show, government spending has soared to levels that no longer reflect the growth of the real economy. Government spending has risen by 300% or more since 1990, while the economy has grown by 75% in that time.
GDP:
Federal spending:
Let's zero in on entitlement program spending. Personal Current Transfer Receipts (PCTR) include all transfer payments to individuals, a category that includes all social welfare programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Social Security:
Medicaid:
Medicare:
Since Social Security and Medicare are funded by payroll taxes (15.3% of all earnings paid by employers and employees, up to $113,700, and another .9% on earned income above $200,000 annually) and the majority of individual income taxes are also derived from earned income, the key metrics behind entitlement tax revenues are full-time employment and productivity: the number of people who are paying substantial payroll taxes and the productivity of the economy, i.e. the ability of the economy to support more workers and higher wages.
Full-time employment and the number of Social Security beneficiaries:
Output per person:
Clearly, full-time employment is stagnating while the number of entitlement beneficiaries is climbing steadily as the baby Boomers retire en masse. At the same time productivity since 1990 has advanced 58%, a pace that cannot support program costs rising by 500% over the same time frame.
If we are not yet at Peak Entitlements, we are getting close. Short of the Federal Reserve printing $1 trillion a year and distributing it to entitlement beneficiaries directly (with all the unintended consequences of such blatant money-printing), there is no way an economy with stagnant employment and modest productivity growth (roughly 60% in 25 years) can fund entitlement programs expanding by 500% or more over the same time period.
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Simple physics:
Too many people in the wagon; too few pushing it. More and more of those pushing are getting tired of pushing and climbing into the wagon themselves.
Result: Wagon stops.
Watch out fit producers, the wagon might roll back.
Peak entitlement is in the rear-view mirror. The entire game is being sustained with fiat money. When that cracks, it's game over, and fast.
And with all the fat assed Merxicans jumping on board, the axels of those wagons are at maximum load limit.
Well, to take the analogy a step further, I reckon one could hope that the axles do break, and that the elect are then free to walk along their merry way.
Are you kidding me?
Its the Scooter Store to the rescue!!!
Why should fat assed Merxicans have to walk when Uncle Sugar will pay for a free Lil' Rascal.
Now I just need someone to haul my fat ass to the Grand Canyon.
When I said "elect," I meant the people who were pushing the wagon. My vision is that all those in the wagon are stuck there, unable to move due to their complete lack of fitness as "human beings." Imagine them being eaten alive by insects, rodents, and birds as the producers stroll off into the sunset of the brave new world they are about to create.
Everyone is gaming the system. We shouldn't be looking at the ethnicity of our immigrants, we should concentrate on not flooding our labor pool with too many applicants.
The size of labor pool is immaterial (and the smaller the labor pool the less the purchasing power of its participants). The messier problem is the incontinent members of the Gov family (Uncle Sam, Uncle Ben, Aunt Katherine, et. al.) who are incessantly dropping turds into the pool and acting like it isn't them or it doesn't need to be cleaned up...
Whatever size the labor pool is, appropriate capital needs to be married to productive opportunities at a reasonable cost in order to create jobs.
That's unfair to Mexicans. The ones that i see, have an exemplary work ethic.
That's unfair to Mexicans. The ones that i see, have an exemplary work ethic.
Quite right, but these guys don't actually care, they just need someone to blame, and "the other" is always an easy target.
I'm not sure if my part time minimum wage job is pushing anything. Most of the people that come into my store are those on SS, welfare, or government employees.
I'm just getting run over by the wagon.
Neither Mrs. Bearing nor I are even eligible for any of them: Social Security, Mediacre or Medicaid. We didn't work enough hours (= pay enough tax into the system) in the private sector, sending that money away for good.
Let 'em all burn. I didn't pay, I don't want or expect anything.
if we went to war over oil why do we now have more oil than we know what to do with? and now that we have more oil than we know what do with...why are we fighting amongst ourselves again? I mean "Dow 20,000 on this news"?
I'm the guy sitting in a lawn chair on the side of the road eating an omelette, laughing and yelling faster bitchez. 50 years of scrimping and saving, driving used cars and paying no interest to fucking jew bankers has paid off. Yea, I know, they are going to steal it in the end, but the Sheriff of Nottingham is going to be short a few when he finally collects.
Keep the faith amigo's, they had a great plan until you hit em in the fucking mouth.
Agreed. Live well below your means (aka not spending money) for the first 20+ years of your career and you can make it.
Thanks for taking care of yourself and not being a burden on others. If only everyone would do so.....
Others stopped pushing wagons and started building teleportation devices instead.
But those simple physics can be trumped by a population ponzi. As long as your population is doubling every 25 years, etitlements for the old aren't such a trouble. That always worked before.
By the way, Mr. Charles Hugh should call his blog 0.5 minds until he learns to stop comparing real and nominal time series.
Thanks for pointing that out, I was wondering why the numbers didn't add up ... he uses inflation corrected GDP, but non inflation corrected expenditures.
He's quite an idiot.
I beg to differ. 0.5 mind = halfwit.
No problem, King Obama will get his goons to tell everyone still working to produce more.
Soylent Green mmm good!
"Too many people in the wagon; too few pushing it." Is a factual BS, considering the exponential growth in productivity. As a matter of fact we don’t have jobs for all the people already.
Are you one of the "useless eaters" crowd?
Simple math:
When corporate America spend billions lobbying to legally cut employee wages and benefits to the point where it makes no point to work, people jump into the wagon. The restaurant industry is a perfect example. How'd you like to work for $2.13 an hour? The customer is expected to pay the restaurant worker wage.
Result: No one has money to spend and the wagon stops.
So corporations and/or government are suppose to take care of you even if your only skill set is one that the market really does not value. It is important to get a marketable skill set that pays more than $2 per hour. Unless that is someone elses responsibility too.
But you are absoutely correct that the customer pays the restaurant workers' wage. As well as the cost of food, rent, etc and most notably all the taxes that corporation pays. Those damn customers will not pay you what you want.
You might try starting your own restaurant and pay the staff $25+ per hour and stick it to those pesky customers. That will show them.
Mrs. Horseman and I do not receive any entitlements, so we have not reached the peak.
What type of entitlements are you looking for?
Child Care/Child Support
Counsel/Counseling
Disability Assistance
Disaster Relief
Education/Training
Employment/Career Development Assistance
Energy Assistance
Environmental Sustainability/Conservation
Food/Nutrition
Grants/Scholarships/Fellowships
HIV/AIDS
Healthcare
Housing
Insurance
Living Assistance
Loan/Loan Repayment
Medicaid/Medicare
Military: Active Duty and Veterans
Social Security/Retirement
Tax Assistance
Volunteer Opportunities
All of the Benefit Categories
excellent list - don't forget foreign aid to our enemies
and massive illegal immigration for 20 years.... with amnesty for all being pushed by DEMs and RINOs right now....
But, of course!
Demicans want guaranteed left-wing voters, and Republicrats want cheap labor for their corporate overlords.
Win/Win!
Mortgage interest deduction
Being able to keep your own money is an entitlement?
Yep, I fear that education could be the next one (a-la obamacare). You can pretty much predict their sales pitch.. "It's not fair that young people are saddled with over $50k of debt just to get a college education. The entire country benefits from higher education, so it's only fair that everyone pitch in to pay for it."
No. No. No. No. No.
"I'll take Education for $1000, Alex."
"And the answer is: Private school."
(Where will we go to get a decent education?)
Not Catholic schools (wife is a teacher). Our Bishop is taking his orders from the Washington State Department of Education and Bill Gates. Our Catholic school is going to look just like the public schools except it will have a religion class.
Really, I should say public/private partnership schools.
Problem is most public schools are too dangerous...kids are afraid even to go to the toilets there for fear of being asaulted. Think twice before sending your kids to any school where they have three policemen at the door and metal detectors every ten feet.
That's why many folks send their kids to those Catholic Schools. At least they have some discipline and your daughter wont get raped in the bathroom.
[But the little Boys should avoid Father O'Mallory....never know about him]
My 13 year old daughter attends a minority-majority public school and she hasn't been raped, yet. My wife's Catholic school has declining enrollment (and my daughter refuses to attend).
Please do not take this as an endorsement of my daughter's shitty public school, or shitty public schools in general. I know a thing or two about shitty public schools.
Khan academy = tuition-free, no reported violence to-date, and you get to work at your own pace. They don't serve meals, though.
Public/private McSchools
I'm sure their educational product will be just as profitable, tasty, and nutritious as Big Macs.
Mclearnin' - I'm lovin' it!
Jesus Christ On A Popsicle Stick! Where the hell do you live? I think it's time to relocate the bunker to a safer school district!
I live in a school district that meets this description. On the other hand I moved here after my children were gone. Actually this area is improving, well improving is about all you can do when things have become really bad and it was really bad.
"where will we go to get a decent education?"
History.......wikipedia
English.......wikipedia
Math/Science....khanacademy.org
Even Private schools are biased by the state requirements. The only thing you get is a better teacher/student ratio with better technolongy in some schools.
But above all...PARENTS. Parents teach using the tools available and teacher's plug in the missing pieces. I've done this with my children and they are years ahead of all the kids in thier class.
Good to know where to sign up for free HIV/AIDS.
HH I don't see bankster bailouts and corporate subsidies on that list.
Have those peaked yet?
look at this way if the GDP shrinks by 10%, Entitlements will shrink by 300%.
Now that is what the Oligarchs want.
But what will they get?
Only the market can decide that if the FED goes belly up!
nothing can shrink more than 100%,
100 - 102 = -2
if you have an 85 IQ and i take 90 points from you, are you negative stupid, therefore smart?
No, that would just be Maxine Waters.
With Obama as the scarecrow still waiting in the wings to get his Certificate of Achievement from The Wizard of OZ.
Welcome to the Monkey House
or, my friend had a supply of 5 (five) AR-15s until the government came and took all 6 (six) away from him. he now only has -1 (negative one) left.
but if i stretch your logic, we could have negative entitlements by having past recipients pay them back.
You're taking my comment awfully seriously.
forgive me - i mistakenly thought you were.
Still, something like net worth can go negative, and if you use leverage with investments (or especially speculation/gambling) the value can go down more than 100%. Suppose you sell $50 strike calls on a software company that has been trading under $40 for a year for $25, and the next day Microsoft buys them out at $70. You now owe $2000 for each of those contracts you sold for $25, so +$25 changed to -$1975, or your profit on the deal went down by $-2000/25 x 100 = -8000%
I think I now deserve the award for taking a comment awfully seriously
Real numbers have consequences. Imaginary numbers are usefull but still only an illusion.
They Keep Saying Social Security is running out of Money...
they Never Say Welfare is Running out of Money..
Funny thing is Social Security People Worked for Their Part
Social Security People Worked for Their Part
Yes, but the money was immediately spent. Our money was stolen.
But, but -- I thought it was being held in trust for us and conservatively invested by the gov't to grow the principal?
Al Gore said it was in a "lockbox".......yep, a LOCKBOX.
(Also where he stores all the Global Warming!)
Someone needs to put his refrigerator in a "lock," "box." (Al pronounces it with a pause between lock and box)
Just so you know ... social security was pay as you go from the start, the trust is just there to absorb bumps.
What I'm wondering is how social security recipients could grow by 50% while social security expenditure grew by 360% ... what the hell happened there?
They consider investing in government debt to be risk free so exactly how bright do you think they are. The biggest disadvantage to buying government debt is that exactly when your world has gone to hell your investments tank.
Wait till most people run out of purchasing power combined with reduced freebies....you ain't seen nothing yet
When it happens slowly they won't notice until it's to late.
"tax the rich, feed the poor, 'til there are no, rich no more" - Ten Years After's simple minded stupidity applied to social welfare seems to have taken a generation b y storm.
If only the 1% were better at PR and marketing, we might not find ourselves in this mess.
I always thought that line was sarcasm. Maybe I was projecting. :)
yes but Alvin Lee could really play that guitar!
Has anyone else noticed that the more entitlements grow the more the wealth of the 1% grows along with it?
Makes sense if you consider who benefits most from automation and outsourcing: entrepreneurs, investors, business owners, etc. Low-skill workers take the biggest hit and need more assistance.
So I guess the real question is who is primarily responsible for being a low-skill worker so they are not a burden on others??
Sshhh! Not so loud.
makes me wonder why they would just pull the plug and let chaos ensue. Seems like this scenario works better for them.
seems?
...seems that Waldomart might be a good short on rumblings of any cut in, say, EBT?
Re-distribution. It's what's for dinner.
Welfare programs to help people pay rent when they land on parkplace. Food subsudies to feed the poor ultimatley help conagra and its shareholders more than the poor. I'm still baffled how people claim this is socialism, where the means are production are publicly pooled, the only thing being pooled is debt and profits are being privatized by a global investor class.
Some people are just stupid though.
You've hit the nail on the head.
If you think of welfare programs as nothing more than economic stimulus, it all makes sense.
Welfare recipients have to spend their benefits; (if they acquire more than $2,000 in assets, they become inelligible for further aid.)
What better way to stimulate the economy, then to give money directly to people who must spend it immediately?
They convert their excess money into stuff. Mostly they convert it into junk.
You have a poor grasp on socialism then as it is nothing more than any other ism; a means to control the populace by an oligarchy. Whether the State owns the means of production and favors an oligarch with operating it or simply grants permission to operate to an owner-crony it matters little in the end to the rest of us.
Funny how they can still get us to turn on each other, aint it? Ok, maybe its not so funny...
These benefits are one of the reasons the revolution hasn't started yet. TPTB know this, and that is why nothing can be done about it.
One or more of the following conditions will need to be met before Walmart Americans "revolt:"
Walmart Americans are too hot.
Walmart Americans are too cold.
Walmart Americans can't get a Big Mac when they feel like it.
Walmart Americans can't watch their favorite shows or sports on their giant TVs.
Walmart Americans can't afford the fuel to drive their pickups and SUVs to Walmart.
Most of those Walmart americans only show up around the first of every month.
Around here the government has taken to distributing the checks(crediting EBT cards) throughout the month. I'm not sure why unless it's the government getting a one time gain during the shift.
I haven't been keeping up on the latest free shit distribution dates. Around here Walmart cashiers were telling me don't come to Walmart around the first of the month it's crowded.
US unfunded liabilities for Medicare (including Prescription Drug) and Social Security are at least $126 trillion and growing at $7.1 trillion a year. Kotlikoff claims that these unfunded liabilities exceed $200 trillion.
Since they are growing at over $7 trillion a year, we are nowhere close to hitting a peak.
We will have reached peak entitlements when we have completed the process of becoming one more European/EU country. We've got the bottled water; we've got the wine and the unemployment; we just don't have the Euro and all the entitlements yet.
There is no "productivity growth".
Try measuring it in OUTPUT OF GOODS (not in "dollars"), and try measuring it PER PERSON, not "per worker" and you'll see what I mean.
And how can an economy in which fixing an umbrella or toaster oven is unaffordable be "productive"? One in which the portion actually working is shrinking and overpaid? One in which some idiot government employee pulling grass from between cracks in sidewalks can get paid $10-20/hour?
North America "productive"? Don't make me laugh...
Great observation.
We're dicking around with constantly redefining terms to suit our agendas. All of us, I think.
I guess it is easy to measure the productivity of those not working. Just not sure the workers want the measurement of their effort diluted with those not working.
This post is for Tax-Paying, Rule Playing American white men only:
Be prepared to break bad. To suss out what needs to be done now, have a look at your brethren's stories from commie Russia, or during the societal breakdown of Argentina a number of times in the last few decades. The country you knew is gone forever, sold out from under you. Yes it's true. You are within a different set of rules. You now condition yourself to reject the so-called ethical mores inculcated in you in your white-bread 1950's - 1960's upbringing. Your govt. is your enemy. Your govt. is a semantic drone and a fascist nexus which will take, by force if necessary, everything from its productive members and give to its non-productive members in order to pacify and geld all the animals in its menagerie. I guarantee you, to .gov you are nothing more than an egg-laying chicken in a locked room under 24/7 flourescent lights. The first step on the way out is to realize the situation. Since you found yourself to this site you have the brains to do the rest.
My work here is done. Hongcha out.
i think he means - "stock up on bic lighters, whiskey, potash and k-y jelly, bitchez!"
He said "men only."
Ohhhhhh......
I don't see what in all this requires me to give up my "white bread" ethics. Since when do ethics change with political fashion or economic cirmcumstance?
There is a value to soup lines. Today, we have no visual cues, no feedback loop to motivate us beyond what the state provides.
We, as a nation, are weaker and more vulnerable because the hardening process has been replaced by an heuristics approach that simply searches for applications where a weaker raw material can be used. After fulfilling lower standards, we report this as growth and add it to the win column.
and there is a value to food stamps vs. EBT cards. it's called a sense of shame (all but disappeared) for those with a conscience who don't really require SNAP. one school decided to give all students free meals so those who could not afford lunch would not feel shame. shame of poverty was one of my great motivators in life.
... And millions in aid to BRAZIL for cotton farmers
But, but what will all the free-loaders do? How will they survive? Think of their 8 children!
Is that eight children with just one mom or spread out amongst multiple wives/girlfriends. Wouldn't doubt a lot of these guys have twenty kids or more from ten or more wives/girlfriends.
"Is that eight children with just one mom or spread out amongst multiple wives/girlfriends. Wouldn't doubt a lot of these guys have twenty kids or more from ten or more wives/girlfriends."
Have you been watching Maury Povich as well? ;)
Seriously, having been watching shows like this as a sort of sociological experiment for a while now, I'm always surprised there isn't more overt racial tensions out there...I'm pretty certain that these shows are simple social engineering, aimed at making sure that Blacks keep debasing themselves to a point where a) there is no coming back for them from their turpitude, and b) there is no coming back for us from the (partly fabricated) contempt they inspire.
And this is all created in boardrooms by our handlers.
Here's one thing you'll never hear Springer or Povich say:
- Please welcome Rhonda Feigenbaum (applause)...now Rhonda has 8 months old twins (awwwwww!) and has asked us to run paternity tests on not 1, not 2, but three different gentlemen (hoooo!)...now let us meet all three of them, Seth, Aaron and Samuel...Lieberman!..Yes, they are brothers! (general hilarity ensues)...etc.,etc.,........
(This post could use a little more refinement, but I think the gist of it is true)
What will all the free-loaders do? When their EBT cards stop working, they will ultimately still look to you for their next meal. But, instead of the government being the intermediary in the theft of the product of your labor to support them, they will take more direct action. First, they will loot the stores, since that is where they have been conditioned to go for food. After the stores are looted, they will try to steal it directly from you and do whatever else gives them instant gratification.
Forward (over the cliff)!
Who the fuck cares about the 100 billion dollar entitlements?
The banks fucking print up a fresh 100 billion every month and hand it to themselves debt free.
If anything is going to crash the world.... its that......not grandma getting 50$ worth of food-stamps in the mail.
Get your priorities and enemies strait.
When you focus on entitlements without even mentioning banksters free-loading.... its like trying to swat a fly when there is an elephant standing on your foot....
thanks for the rule set. from now on when we criticize leeches, we must specify that we don't mean your grandmother, and we will be sure to always mention the bankers. every time. just for you.
"No, it’s not utopian to demand that in a world with this kind of technology, that as a moral demand, a society feed, cloth, and house its people. A society that doesn’t do it with the kind of technology and the wealth we have is beneath contempt and makes a mockery of all the previous history of civilization. And to the extent that we are silent and among such brigands, we’re brigands too. It’s despicable. It’s disgusting. And we’ve lived with it, and it seems like it’s getting more support every day."
— Rick Roderick, Lecture series ‘Philosophy and Human Values’, The Teaching Company, 1990
in place of "feed, clothe and house its people," substitute "pay every citizens 2,800 Swiss francs a month."
If the machines do all the work
and the owners of the machines get all the earnings from this work,
then I guess I'll ask one of the machine owners,
if there be some task left which i can perform ... for a pittance.
Everything will be fine we just have to work until we are 75 years old. And we need to let more migrant workers into Europe. Why they will find w ork when 15%-20% of southern europeans cant nobody cares to explain. /sarc off
If entitlements can shrink, are they really entitlements? Time to start calling them what they are, "you'reluckytobegettingfreeshitlements".
Maggie's Farm will be teaming up with Farmville in order to create more jobs for the next phase of growth.......
How about you pay me back my peak contributions, and then and only then may you call it peak "entitlements".
I am starting to see people complain that EBT is down in Ohio so I guess that's one way to reduce entitlement spending. Not sure if it's all of Ohio but at least the Akron area seems affected and the website and phone system apparently is also down.
Shotgun Joe: "We've shut down patriotic shrines, had parties for illegals, and all we got were some pissed off truckers!"
Bath House: "Shut down the EBT system. That'll get some results. These EOs are ready and so is my Dicktastership!"
Shotgun Joe: "Aye, aye, sir!"
EBT SYSTEM DOWN NATIONWIDE:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Food stamp recipients in Georgia and many other states were forced to walk away from their grocery carts Saturday when the electronic payment system connected to their benefits failed during a routine test.
Link:
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/ebt-benefits-system-...
Bath House Barry: Dammit, I need public disorder. The ink on these EOs is starting to fade.
While I often like Mr. Smith's posts, he needs to refigure his "percent increase" figures. You don't go from 100 to 317 and call it a 317% increase; it's a 217% increase.
This is the case with the first two charts; he's right about GDP increasing 75 percent, but he's mistaken in the "current expenditures" chart. It's not a 317% increase it's only 217%.
And he is off by comparing inflation adjusted numbers with thoes that are not. And using % change here is not best. The "analysis" is fairly sophmoric.
The internet - good source of information, excellent source of mis-information.
Here's the thing about SS that's not talked about by this guy and the minions on Mainstream media trying to pin all the problems on the working classes:
You pay into SS all your life.....with no annual compounding interest. So when this guy and the other minions bitch like old hens about some elderly man collecting social security that is way way way more than the guy put in....remember that (he got NO interest, particularly the compounding kind).
Not all Elderly people live until they are in their late 70's, 80's, or more. Many die before they even collect and many die shortly after. Those numbers will increase as new studies show that younger people are less healthy than the older generations.
Medicare is so expensive because of the HEALTH INDUSTRY and Pharmaceutical companies which are practicing some kind of Racketeering and Cartel policies.
And the big one: They don't tell you how much money elderly people are putting into the communities and how many jobs are created, which is enormous and growing.
We now have young people treating elderly worse than ever. They are being told the elderly are the ones causing all the problems for them. This is utter nonsense and a way for the real perpetrators of the crisis to stick the blame on vulnerable groups and scapegoats.
I voted you up, but the story is more complex than many of us think. For someone who worked at minimum wage jobs for a lifetime Social Security pays off very well netting them 90% of what they made during their working years for the rest of their life. The rest of us; we are getting ripped off.
Hello Bubba; that's right out of the SSA web site.
Many of the poorer ones will die early...if they make it to retirement at all. Up until now, very few would make minimum wage all their life. Today that might be changing as there are growing numbers of low wage jobs....we're going the China route it looks like
Agreed. And the vast majority of those collecting SS benefits never contributed enough to cover their own benefits over their life expectancy (even if they maxed out their SS "contributions" over the years).
I will never get back my SS/Medicaid taxes paid - never. SS will be more means tested than it already is which makes it welfare for the elderly. (means tested government benefits = welfare).
I am past peak fuckn' taxes !
Peak entitlements? Are you fucking crazy? The party is just getting started. As long as the central planners can buy 75% of the sovereign debt issued with absolutely no repercussions, the party will indeed continue.
I'd like to see this article on the front page of every newspaper in the US. Actually, in the world, but that isn't going to happen either. Found this article by Cal Thomas http://www.rightwingnews.com/column-2/no-entitlements/ which is an interesting contrast.
All that says is that some countries practice and tolerate slavery, such as Singapore.
Entitlements are the socializing the
cost part of privatizing the profits
and socializing the cost, except for
a deliberate measure also of safety
net, fully earned and kept for
safekeeping.
They're called entitlements cause
they're earned.
Their curtailments are getting
Simpson-Bowles'd, Paul Ryan'd,
etc., and is the cost containment
part of
privatizing the profits and
socializing the cost, applying
monopoly and maximizing the take
from monopoly, using the concomitant
adversity as a profit center, and
then blame gaming one's way into
privatizing, which provides profit
boxes and programs centric to the
nefarious, not to any identifiable
group representing the rightful
central purpose, such as society
at large.
Ripping off entitlements is
analogous to ripping off pensions.
Michigan's emergency managers
are analogous.
Both major parties follow the above
formula, but with the DP usually
advertising a little more trickle.
Trickle down economics, thus, really
so far applies to both, and Hubert
Humphrey, with his coining of
"trickle down economics" and
"where's the beef" today would've
been telling a half-truth as to comparisons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug75diEyiA0
positions the post so you catch where's the beef
This part is bullshit "They're called entitlements cause they're earned". They are called entitlements because the government has promised them and people count on them. Earned implies worked for in some way shape or form.
The Re-Do:
Simply...
They're called entitlements cause
they're earned.
Their curtailments are getting
Simpson-Bowles'd, Paul Ryan'd,
etc., and are thus the cost containment
part of privatizing the profits and
socializing the cost, applying
monopoly and maximizing the take
from monopoly, using the concomitant
adversity as a profit center, and
then blame gaming one's way into
privatizing, which provides profit
boxes and programs centric to the
nefarious, not to any identifiable
group representing the rightful
central purpose, such as society
at large.
Ripping off entitlements is
analogous to ripping off pensions.
Michigan's emergency managers
are analogous.
Both major parties follow the above
formula, but with the DP usually
advertising a little more trickle.
Trickle down economics, thus, really
so far applies to both, and Hubert
Humphrey today would've been telling a
half-truth as to comparisons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug75diEyiA0
Peaking entitlement charts demonstrating exponential growth were always practically guaranteed to overshoot and then collapse, as was everything else. The deeper problem is that after fraud (of legalizing private banks creating "money" out of nothing as debts) becomes entrenched as the foundation of the financial system, from then on it is NOT possible for any kind of sane market to operate as investments which are genuinely productive. Instead, the profit from frauds get reinvested as more frauds.
Since all the pension funds and other supposed savings for any other future entitlements were being channeled through a fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting system, none of those made real sense. While there was awesome increases in productivity due to advancing science and technology, none of that kind of scientific appreciation of the social systems was being applied to the political realms, since those political realms were based on triumphant frauds being able to dominate everything else.
The majority of the increase in productivity due to advancing science and technology was employed to become better at being deceitful and destructive. After the financial accounting systems became fundamentally fraudulent, then everything, everywhere, which was subject to being done through decisions made within those accounting systems became fraudulent. The basic blind spot is that AFTER bribery, intimidation and assassination within the political processes were able to legalize frauds, and back those frauds up with legalized violence, there was no way to publicly look any more directly or deeper at what was really happening.
It was always necessarily a combined money/murder system, which was taken over by those who were the best at lying and backing their lies up with violence. The supreme paradox continues to be that the debt controls are backed by the death controls, so that all different kinds of "entitlements" do not actually mean anything without the ability to enforce them. However, the enforcement of frauds drives everything to automatically get more and more insane, and unsustainable, since the force that backs up those frauds never makes those frauds become true.
There are blind spots within the blind spots. The most important thing throughout all of the evolving human, industrial, and natural ecologies are their death control systems (assuming there is some life in those systems to begin with.) The actual human ecology was primarily directed by the history of warfare, to become based on success through deceits backed by destruction. The same application of the methods of organized crime resulted in the currently biggest and best organized gangsters, the international banksters, being able to take control over the government of the USA, by instituting a fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting system, and then forcing everyone else to operate within that, primarily through the combined 1913 Federal Reserve Board and the Income Tax Act. Those were the primary ways that fraud became triumphant and enforced throughout all American systems, which automatically expanded at an exponential rate, as the profit from force backed frauds was reinvested in more frauds.
The triple blind spot is that there IS and MUST BE some death control system, in order that there is any kind of debt controls, such as manifested through the legion of entitlements, and pensions, and so forth. However, since those actual systems were built on the foundation of the maximum possible deceits and frauds, and everyone who was relatively successful within those established systems were the better professional liars and immaculate hypocrites, there is practically no discussion in the public spaces of any of the points of more radical truth through the layer after layer of those runaway, triumphantly fraudulent, financial accounting systems.
We are faced with the supreme paradox that all of the advances in science and technology, which were driving real productivity to become awesomely amplified by orders of magnitude, were still being primarily channeled through the established social pyramid systems, which were based on the few keeping the many under control, so that the many could be exploited by the few, by deliberately making and maintaining social situations based on ignorance and fear.
The supreme paradox behind the peak entitlements collapsing into chaos, along with almost everything also peaking, as built on top of the peak financial fraud accounting systems, is that all of the advances in science and technology were channeled through social pyramid systems based on ignorance and fear. Therefore, the vast majority of Americans were successfully brainwashed and indoctrinated to not understand how the monetary and taxation systems really worked, and moreover, to not want to understand.
Of course, IF enough Americans did understand how the monetary and taxation systems really worked, then it would be impossible to maintain those systems in the form that they were made. However, the established systems can apparently continue to count on very few Americans trying to understand, especially since almost all of the controlled opposition to those systems will provide correct analysis, up to a point, but then typically collapse back to bullshit "solutions," which continue to operate within the same false frame of reference that the established systems operate within.
I regard it as fairly obvious that money is measurement backed by murder, and that the debt controls are backed by the death controls. However, that is clearly a fringe cubed position. Meanwhile, most the comments posted by the readers of Zero Hedge I regard as being a range of fringe squared positions. The mainstream is the result of taking for granted, and justifying with its bullshit, the triumphant financial frauds which are at the foundation of the currently established systems. The first fringe of that somewhat wants to fix that, by a range of possible reforms within those systems. The second fringe of that represents the reactionary revolutions. The third fringe represents more real, radical, revolutions.
Paradoxically, my fringe cubed view appears as the blind spot, within the blind spot, within the blind spot, and, as such, returns to being most similar to what actually exists, as far as solutions go. Human realities still exist, even thought they are currently buried under layer after layer after layer of deceits and frauds, and therefore, the full social reality becomes practically infinite tunnels of those deceits and frauds. But nevertheless, there are still real flows of energy, which are not being created out of nothing, nor sent to nothing, but rather, are being operated through fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems, which are therefore building up bigger and bigger ERRORS, at exponential rates.
All of the charts in this article above, as have most of the other charts in many previous similar articles, demonstrate the runaway tragic trajectory of financial frauds operating America, while paradoxically applying science and technology in increasingly insane, and self-destructive ways. There is no way out of these deeper and deeper levels of dilemmas, due to triumphant frauds, than to plunge on through them. We are in the middle of evolutionary ecologies, which are not going to stop, and can not be stopped as long as any life survives.
The great challenge for the human experiment is whether or not, and if so, how, will our political processes embrace their own understanding as energy systems, which are developing evolutionary ecologies. All of the genuine solutions to current problems would have to be basically human and industrial ecologies, within natural ecologies, which accepted and addressed their central death controls. However, at the present time, we are watching the triumphant deceits and frauds through those systems winding themselves up, and winding around and around themselves, while building up greater and greater stresses and tensions, between realities which are based upon more relatively objective facts, which are directly related to the natural world and natural laws, while the human realms are being operated through convoluted tangles of triumphant deceits and frauds.
Since the current financial accounting systems are fundamentally force backed frauds, all the financial numbers are becoming more and more NUTS! Therefore, whenever we look at any of the charts of those numbers developing, we see similar patterns as to what was portrayed in the charts in this article above, namely exponential growth of ABSURDITIES, which, the more they grow, the more absurd they become. Both Peak Government, and its promises of Peak Entitlement, have the same basic cause, which is that the financial system is reaching PEAK FRAUD, since the foundation of that system has been runaway, triumphantly fraudulent accounting systems, which were enforced by governments for more than a Century.
No, since businesses still think that they're entitled to having nothing but perfect people or pliant people (guest workers/illegals) in the workforce.
Take that entitlement away first so that they have to make do with the people that exist - by doing things that bring back warranted loyalty to an employer.
Silly Tyler. The Fed will just increase magic unicorn QE by 500%, then all will be wel,l right? But is has worked up until now...
No, but we've reached the highest level of stupidity in almost a century. Keep listening to your corporate leaders sheeple.