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Druckenmiller Blasts Obama: "Show Me When You Initiated Budget Discussions Without A Gun At Your Head"
One of the great ironies of the Obama presidency is that it has been a disaster for the young people who form the core of his political coalition. High unemployment is paired with exploding debt that they will have to finance whenever they eventually find jobs, and as Stan Druckenmiller explains in his WSJ interview, the "rat through the python theory," (that fiscal disaster will only be temporary while the baby-boom generation moves through the benefit pipeline and then entitlement costs will become bearable) is simply wrong; since, by then Druck exclaims, "you have so much debt on the books that it's too late." Unfortunately for taxpayers, "the debt accumulates while the rat's going through the python." The hedge fund billionaire adds that he "did not think it would be nutty to tie entitlements to the debt ceiling because there's a massive long-term problem. And this president, despite what he says, has shown time and time again that he needs a gun at his head to negotiate in good faith." The interview goes much, much further...
On The Thieving Generation...
While many seniors believe they are simply drawing out the "savings" they were forced to deposit into Social Security and Medicare, they are actually drawing out much more, especially relative to later generations. That's because politicians have voted to award the seniors ever more generous benefits. As a result, while today's 65-year-olds will receive on average net lifetime benefits of $327,400, children born now will suffer net lifetime losses of $420,600 as they struggle to pay the bills of aging Americans.
"Oh, so you've paid 18.5% for your 40 years and now you want the next generation of workers to pay 30% to finance your largess?" He added that if 18.5% was "so immoral, why don't you give back some of your ill-gotten gains of the last 40 years?"
But the "kids" still don't get it...
One of the great ironies of the Obama presidency is that it has been a disaster for the young people who form the core of his political coalition. High unemployment is paired with exploding debt that they will have to finance whenever they eventually find jobs.
Are the kids finally figuring out that the Obama economy is a lousy deal for them? "No, I don't sense that,"
On Entitlements...
...for those on the left who say entitlements can be fixed with an eventual increase in payroll taxes. "Oh, I see," he says. "So I get to pay a 12% payroll tax now until I'm 65 and then I don't pay. But the next generation—instead of me paying 15% or having my benefits slightly reduced—they're going to pay 17% in 2033. That's why we're waiting—so we can shift even more to the future than to now?"
and it's not going to get any better... despite the left's claims...
He also rejects the "rat through the python theory," which holds that the fiscal disaster will only be temporary while the baby-boom generation moves through the benefit pipeline and then entitlement costs will become bearable. By then, he says, "you have so much debt on the books that it's too late."
Unfortunately for taxpayers, "the debt accumulates while the rat's going through the python," so by the 2040s the debt itself and its gargantuan interest payments become bigger problems than entitlements.
On a disingenuous President Obama...
"I did not think it would be nutty to tie entitlements to the debt ceiling because there's a massive long-term problem. And this president, despite what he says, has shown time and time again that he needs a gun at his head to negotiate in good faith. All this talk about, 'I won't negotiate with a gun at my head.' OK, you've been president for five years."
His voice rising now, Mr. Druckenmiller pounds his fist on the conference table. "Show me, President Obama, when the period was when you initiated budget discussions without a gun at your head."
On changing the tax code...
Druckenmiller wants to raise taxes now on capital gains and dividends, bringing both up to ordinary income rates. He says the current tax code represents "another intergenerational transfer, because 60-year-olds are worth five times what 30-year-olds are."
And 65-year-olds are "much wealthier than the working-age population. So the guy who's out there working—the plumber, the stockbroker, whatever he is—he's paying the 40% rate and the coupon clippers who are not working anymore are paying a 20% rate."
Ah, but what about the destructive double taxation on corporate income? The Druckenmiller plan is to raise tax rates on investors while at the same time cutting the corporate tax rate to zero.
"Who owns corporations? Shareholders. But who makes the decisions at corporations? The guys running the companies. So if you tax the shareholder at ordinary income [rates] but you tax the economic actors at zero," he explains, "you get the actual economic actors incented to hire people, to do capital spending. It's not the coupon clippers that are making those decisions. It's the people at the operating level."
As an added bonus, wiping out the corporate tax eliminates myriad opportunities for crony capitalism and corporate welfare. "How do the lobbying groups and the special interests work in Washington? Through the tax code. There's no more building plants in Puerto Rico or Ireland and double-leasebacks and all this stuff. If you take corporate tax rates to zero, that's gone. But in terms of the fairness argument, you are taxing the shareholder. So you eliminate double taxation. To me it could be very, very good for growth, which is a huge part of the solution to the debt problem long-term. You can't do it without growth."
What the Republicans should do...
Republicans should demand entitlement reform in exchange for the next debt-limit vote this winter or spring. "Maybe they need a break," he says. "I think a much more effective strategy would be for them to publicly shine a light on something so obvious as means-testing and take their case to the American people rather than go through the actual debt limit."
If Mr. Obama rejects the idea, "then we will really know where he is on entitlement reform." For this reason, Mr. Druckenmiller views means-testing as "really the perfect start—and it should only be a start—to find out who's telling the truth here and who's not."
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...Drunkenmiller is in trooouuubble.
Drukmiller just defined the Republican ideal.
Loose lips sink ships.
O has unilateral ability to raise the debt ceiling now when Congress can't agree. And only the progressives agree
How about we talk about eliminating the payroll cap on everyone's income no matter where it comes from.
Probably not something even Druckenmiller wants to talk about.
But, then again, exactly how many LLCs do you need to hide your income?
As many as it takes.
For this reason, Mr. Druckenmiller views means-testing as "really the perfect start—and it should only be a start—to find out who's telling the truth here and who's not.
Answer: ALL OF THEM ARE LYING!
Outlaw Usary Globally, problem solved.
IRS audit and DOJ investigation starting in 3...2...1...
I have a serious question for Tyler or anyone out their with a logical response:
If the fed is diluting the dollar making everything we need more expensive, and 70% of the economy is driven by the consmer, why do companies like KO, Pep, WMT, tgt, aapl etc etc who rely on the consumer just sit by doing nothing about what the banking cartel is doing to their business? They are going to hit a point where they can no longer pass on the inflation in thier goods hiting their revenue and margins hard. Tyler?
Artificially Low Interest rates. That's keeping JCP, and others, alive. Jefferson had a quote that went something like, When you have a central bank, you're children will wake up in a country owned by the banks and corporations. That's where we are today. They are supported by the FED. W/O that 'free' money, many would starve to death far faster than by lower sales to 'captive' customers.
False on the jefferson quote:
http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/private-banks-quotation
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/jefferson/banks.asp
I will try to respond.
- first, KO and others are international companies. Coca-cola has almost 60% from its revenues coming from outside US: http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/10/15/cocacola-results-idINDEE99E06W2.... If the $ is weak against other currencies, the bottom line is positively impacted. Then, in international markets the Coca Cola is more like a symbol, so even if the price increases, the people will continue to buy it.
- The structure of production costs for a bottle of Coke is composed from salaries, taxes and energy costs. The energy prices are kept in check by US through the fundamental status of USD and through its military. The bombing of Irak and the liberation of its oil fields by US companies secured important quantities of oil just in time for the crisis. The salaries of its workers are kept in equilibrium until there is enough room to increase first the prices and then the salaries. The most efficient corporations will be able to beat the inflation in this regard too. They want the status quo preserved.
The losers are the unemployed, the people that don't have the voting power and the less adaptable. As long as the state is able to preserve the social equilibrium, the situation will go on. To preserve it there are many means to be applied: a lot of pork, free stuff, soft repression of dissenters and hard repression. Only some big shocks can be catalists of a revolution that very few want.
What a load of crap. How about letting me, ostensibly a free man, opt out of Social Security altogether? I don't care about reforming a system that steals from me, I want out of it. Period. You can't reform a system that uses theft by way of direct taxation to fund benefits. Let me take responsibility for my latter years. I'll even indemnify the US (meaning the taxpayer) from supporting me in any way, shape or form. Same with Medicare by the way.
Because social security is just a tax, not a retirement plan...
Absolutely not. You are merely a cog. They want your tax money. You WILL pay it into the system
Go on staff at a church. Pastoral staff can opt out of SS.
Love when Billionaires complain about the rigged system that made them rich!
"has shown time and time again that he needs a gun at his head to negotiate in good faith. All this talk about, 'I won't negotiate with a gun at my head."...jeez, wtf?........would someone just pull the trigger already??????????????
Is that a drone I hear taking off?
Was that cyptic comment refering to me? Just wondering... Well if it was I am sure the hackers and what not will be in some as well. Illegally accessing someone's system harassing them for 2months posting some illegal stuff about them has to count for something. though I'd rather not pursue it and just be left alone. If your comment wasn't refering to me then I apologize. Being harassed by hackers for over 2 months I'm assuming they are hackers and I'm not quite sure what their agenda is to be honest. Since so many people know so much about me on this site I'm guessing at one point from many peoples post there was a central source this was all being posted on. Really don't understand why they continue this. I'm tired of worrying about these people and what they are trying to do. Really spiteful people all things considering going this far. For anyone who is in on this crusade against me after 2 months of this can you just leave me alone already? Also how did you have access to some of that data and the data I am sure you edited I know none of you work for the government obviously due to the tactics you used against me. I'm trying real hard to just ignore this not pursue it and move on but by many of these cryptic comments it seems like you( you meaning the hackers and their trolls mainly) refuse to let this go. I'm sure if I wanted to I could pursue this and get some of you legally, but I really don't want to at this point, really just wish to be left alone. I'd appreciate some of your responses those of you in this crusade against me, I'm just wondering what your deal is. Once again if your cryptic comment wasn't related to me sorry, but as you all know I do drink heavily so I assumed the drunken miller was referring to me. I know it was none of the normal zerohedge people behind this nor do I blame this site, this all orignated from somewhere different, I guess these people used your site since I frequent it a lot. A lot of those troll posters all started posting around mid August and it got worse, many of them were part of whatever group of people are behind this crusade against me. Just wondering after two months why continue this? For someone who hasn't done a single thing to any of you, you all seem to be taking this kind of far. Not sure if you are affiliated with the hackers and their trolls or not, it sounds like something they would say. To the hacker and troll army out there doing this I'd like to chat and ask you a few questions is all. I know the people who know what I'm talking about don't care much at this point since after 2 months of this I am sure even you are bored of it by now. I am just wondering what these people's intentions are. I'm not even that interested in getting even and I could to some degree but it's just not worth the hassle just don't understand what axe those of you doing this have to grind against me. Sorry for the big wall of text if it was all one big troll well done you deserve a medal for epic trolls.
Paging Drone Command Center
Arrest Druckenmiller and redistribute his ill-gotten wealth. No good teet sucken Druckenmiller M'Fer.
I love how these "Rich Entitled MotherFuckers" constantly pound the divisive boomer entitlement drain. Never a mention of the deluge of money upward while the rest of us get pissed on and repeatedly told it's raining.
I hope the cock crowing drowns in his own deceit.
Did he earn his money illegally? I hadn't heard that.
Well, define illegal. Like Corzine, Blankfien, Fuld, Prince, Paulson, Mozillo, Cohen, Buffet? Need I name more?
Explain to me what is illegal when you craft the laws & only enforce them on the unwashed masses.
"Need I name more?"
Yes, you missed the fist & second most important ones. Bush Sr. & his minion Bill Clinton & Co.
Earning money in America in the year 2013 and staying within the law? Do you realize what you have said? Do you realize the scope of legal fraud, the non-enforcement of regulations, the blind eye turned to any white collar crimes? America has no law enforcement for wall-street. Yes, he could have earned billions by fraud and abuse, many others have and they are our elites. Please, I beg you, think about that questions in light of American financial behavior since well before the 2008 crash. Whose money bailed out all the Hedge Funds? Yes, very likley some old guy on Social Security. That entire trust fund was robbed to hand out to corporate America as part of military spending.
:)
Hedge funds didn't get bailed out you tard. Banks did.
Hedge funds are not banks, stop looking like a fool.
And lest we forget what was the cause of the 2008 crash in the first place, let me remind you. HOME OWNERS DEFAULTING ON LOANS.
Greedy Americans, taking up huge loans they couldn't afford, together with government policies encouraging banks to take on these risky loans and banks not screening their loan applicants properly.
Don't forget. Bawney Fwank telling banks how to assess risk when the sum total of Barney's bank experience was being in the lobby of one.
FORWARD SOVIET!
You are wrong. Read David Stockman's book the Great Deformation and get an education. It starts with the Fed, not defaulting homeowners.
Required reading for ZHers.
Don't kid yourself. They bailed out all of the counterparties to prevent a derivatives collapse. If they hadn't have bailed out AIG and the other insurance companies, along with the money market, Drucky and his ilk all would have been smoked.
Silver For The People
LTCM? Hedge Fund? Bailed out?
That was essentially the canary in the coal mine for what later transpired in 2008-2009...
Quote from a 2009 ZH article.
-double post-
No need to say anything more. You were corrected on your errors above.
Druckenmiller and Jim Rogers worked for the devil aka Soros.
As far as young people - the majority voted for Hope & Change. As long as their Facebook page is updated and they have a new iPhone ap - the youngsters could be in chains and would be happy. Sheep.
Perhaps a review of the tactics the lucies use is in order.12 RULES FOR RADICALS
"WillyGroper" 1,000,000,000,000,000 Up Votes from Me! It's just that ZH will only record ONE!
If the rulers couldn't get rich off the productive through government, government wouldn't exist.
It isn't there for any other reason except to redistribute - mainly upwards - other people's wealth.
Wtf are you talking about?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-19/druckenmiller-blasts-biggest-re...
There seems to be a huge bunch of progressive turds swarming into ZH these days.
What a success hating turd.
Wonder how many of these early adopters of the cash-out policy are furious because equities keep surging.
Duquesne Capital suicided 08/2010. Ouch.
Oh, touchy, touchy. Didn't mean to hit that nerve.
I've always said corporate taxes MUST be lower than personal tax. Or what stops the management from draining the Company? "For tax purposes of course."
For the cheap seats....If I own a company why on earth leave money in it when I pay more tax if I do?
Close.
We shouldn't have corporate tax below personal tax.
We shouldn't have either of those taxes. Would have to axe spending but we would be growing so fast it wouldn't matter.
But that's because it's only the ADVERTISED tax rate. They can retain earnings in a company's (more specifically it's subsidiaries or related entities) INDEFINITELY tax-free, and in doing so they then are faced with the conundrum of inefficiently paying out dividends (which are not treated as ordinary income since the double taxation argument is legitimate) or they can even more (tax) efficiently buy back shares (given the perverse incentives in the tax code). But the domestic company is certainly hollowed out for tax purposes - there is a piss ant strip mall shop in Nevada that's worth more than industrial giant Apple (since the parent has off-shored its cash, intellectual rights, and manufacturing- leaving a bit of "trendy over-priced real estate" to be bid up by muppets) ...
Americans suffer from a perverse predilection for installing leaders whose legislative work directly leads to their own impoverishment, and when the bald eagle's carcass has been picked clean by the vultures they'll just market their products to someone else (EU, BRICs, since they're agnostic as long as the dough rolls in).
If I owned an American company, why on earth would I do anything PRODUCTIVE with its balance sheet, when there are so many American (.gov) incentives to do dirty things and fuck over Americans with said balance sheet? (Where's AnAnonymous when you need him?)
If I owned an American company, why on earth would I do anything PRODUCTIVE with its balance sheet, when there are so many American (.gov) incentives to do dirty things and fuck over Americans with said balance sheet?
Why? Because what was once Criminal is now out in the open & legal. It doesn't hurt to have the masses desensitized to Criminal business practices like murder, espionage & drug trade as normal. Throw in the Criminal Politcians, Agencies & Justice System & you have a recipe for a AuthoritarianTotalitarian Fascist Police State Tyranny.
Which is exactly what we have today.
corp tax = 5%, income tax = 5%, cap gains = 5%; gov 80% smaller = 80% problems solved.
what ur beef with WBanzai7?
Why dont you and the ADL go fuk urselves
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-10-19/jammin-banksys#comment-4...
Is this Herman Cain's secret zerohedge account?
deleted
95% government reduction would be even better, which is not suggested by drunk miller and which makes him a status quo hack, but good post VD, with one more caveat: capital gains should be net of inflation over the holding term. This caveat will become moot when their phony fiat money printing machine crashes and we get on an honest money (ie. gold) standard.
im more of a fan of ron paul's plan. 0% income tax, 0% capital gains, 0% corporate tax, government the same size as the end of washington's second term. what'd we have then, a few hundred people total in government at most? god damn that sounds nice. levy some taxes on deez nuts, bitchez.
but then again, we might as well be talking about the best way to colonize mars. shit aint gonna happen.
If the Creator of the Universe can get by on 10%, don't see why government needs more.
I think a wealth tax might be in order too. Say starting at 0.5% at $100 million in net worth and going to 2% at one billion. This would force capital out of art collections, private islands and $100 million penthouses into more productive uses unless someone was willing to pay $100,000 plus per year to keep a picture on their wall or some vintage cars in their garage
Man, am I tired of hearing this one. If you have 100MM in assets you just LEAVE in the face of asset confiscation. And then the bar gets set lower and lower until it hits, who else?, the MIDDLE CLASS. Again.
There is one and only one way out of this. You make it better worth their time to invest in something productive (and something that, God forbid, might employ people at living wages) than to stash their money in asset rat holes all around the globe.
That's it. There is no other way. All other paths lead to asset taxation/confiscation and redistribution of an ever-shrinking pie, overseen by an increasingly concentrated oligarchy.
He's right sangell.
Relying on government to redistribute wealth (taxes) is relying on those who have a vested interest in only themselves as well...their pensions, their salaries, their perks, their power.
Certainly you see that?
Governments (and its people & branches) are NOT altruistic.
Cut off THEIR checks & pensions and you'll find out ;-)
I believe Druckenmiller was addressing Social Security and Medicare funding. I don't like taxing income. It hits productive people and productive endeavor ( sans much government work so I agree with you here). However, since these programs are in place and many people were led to believe they could count on them you can't change the rules on them at the end of their lives so they have to be funded. In lieu of higher payroll taxes on income I think Bill Gates and Warren Buffett should be willing to pitch in a bit more. They are supposedly either smarter or shrewder than the average guy so, just as in golf game or horse race, make them play with a handicap. Two percent for a guy as shrewd as Buffett should be no problem. Gates might have to concentrate a bit more on his business instead of saving the world. Maybe John Kerry would want to help Teresa manage her fortune instead of having her sell his yacht to pay her wealth tax while he pretended he was an expert in foreign affairs.
You.... completely missed it. I'm truly sorry, but a mind is a terrible thing to waste and you've wasted yours. You're trying to be "reaonable" about this but your thinking is completely zero-sum in nature.
If you really want one world government, then just be honest and say so. If there was one guy or one group in charge then you can simply appeal to them to take from the rich and give to the poor. Short of that, you have nothing to play with but INDIRECT means to incent certain behavoirs and discourage others- anything too onerous will just financially arbiitrage to another place/jurisdiction.
And if such a singlular control utopia is ever brought into existence to affect what you ask for, it will not be the paradise you imagine. It will be hell on earth. A tiny few will control all. And you won't be one of them, despite your support that allows them to achieve such position (ask the unions' about-face on Obamacare about this).
It's A TRAP. What you are espousing is A TRAP. And you'll be caught in it along with everyone else. You're working against your own self interest, whether you realize it or not. If you don't care about your own self-interest, then you're all set, however.
That a tiny few might control many is nothing new in history. It may even be ineluctable. It's possible there may one day be your so-called 'one world government', but that is so distant that talking about it has a Marvel Comic Book quality. TIP: forget the 'truly sorry shit' and just say what you mean.
Nodebt, Progressives refuse or are unable to follow your line of thinking to its logical conclusions. They are damaged in terms of thinking through the consequences of economic policy making or they are evil and do not care. Either way this will all come to a head in this country. Ideas as juxtoposed as these must "sort" themselves out. So either Sangell gets his "Ant" world where we conform to our masters or free enterprise once again takes center stage. Whichever it is there will be messy times getting there.
Actually, I believe it should be like this...ten percent across the board, on consumption, no income tax at all...rich & poor.
Everyone has skin in the game that way, no carve outs, its progressive bullshit otherwise.
For spenders, a dollar is a dime, a million is 100,000, a billion is a million and so on. Savers and the frugal accrue wealth at their own pace instead of someone elses pace.
Usually, governments pace.
So you are saying it's a sin to be born smart and that we should penalize the smart?
No wonder you are an aboslute saint that will rise to the realms of heaven.
The proof is in the Obamacare.
Who is screwed? The middle class.
Who makes out like bandidts: Insurance Companies, Phrama, Hospitals, etc. in otherwords the HIC.
Businesses are removed from the Mandate. (Do you really believe that their "temporary" status will really be lifted?)
In 2015 when the business mandates are "scheduled" to kick in, the economy will still be in the shitter and they will be granted a year-to-year, kick-the-can, politicized (aka lobbyist-corrupted) reprieve).
Puhleeze. Government as Usual.
If you can't protect stored wealth, who will bother storing weath, or growing wealth? The 'capital' isn't driven to other uses, it basically disappears as the price drops for penthouses, islands and so on.
This was tried before, with the luxury taxes on yachts. It collapsed the whole industry, throwing a lot of folks out of work.
A wealth tax on net worth doesn't do what you want it to anyway, it taxes ownership of productive and non-productive assets alike.
There's a reason envy is considered a sin. See your chaplain or shrink, please.
Actually by your standards I probably am what you would consider wealthy. By Druckenmiller's or Larry Ellison's not so much. Look a 0.05% tax on 100 million is $500,000 per year. Its not crippling by any means and if it means some guy wanted to donate a $10 million painting by a long dead artist ( must we protect the dead painter industry) to a museum he'd have paid his wealth tax for years. I just want to chase money out of buying old Bugattis ( protect dead auto workers? ) and into investments that actually help the average guy. Larry Ellison is not going to invite you or me to vacation on his island but if he wants to not have his wealth eaten away he'd better find some investment above and beyond America's Cup racing.
Sangell,
Your basic premise is wrong. I know you won't consider that a possibility (leftists never do), but you are wrong. You start with the premise that being rich is bad, a moral or social injustice, and that being poor or middle class is some kind of virtue. Not true. There is nothing inherently wrong with inequality.
You said that you think Bill Gates and Warren Buffet should be WILLING to give up more of their money. YOU DON'T THINK THAT. You want them to be FORCED to give it up. And by the way, both men have given vast fortunes away willingly. What the hell is enough for you? 50%? 75%? 100%? Liberals NEVER answer this question, because enough is never enough for them.
Equality is the religion of the Left. But people are not equal. Outcomes are not equal. Not everybody gets to be an astronaut. Get that through your head.
Oh, and you should see Larry Ellison's yacht. (Not the America's Cup boat.) It would make you puke with envy, since you're into that. You would look at it and see an "asset" to be taxed. I'm a boater....I look at it (as I've sailed past it many times) and see a gorgeous boat. I wave to the many crew members who are EMPLOYED on said boat. I've hung out and eaten meals with these people. I'm not jealous of the boat or its owner. I see a beautiful boat and it makes me want to make my own boat prettier, shinier, more polished, and more ship-shape.
It doesn't matter if my boat is a mega-yacht or a 10-foot dinghy. What matters is that my instinct is to take what is MINE and make it better....not to take what belongs to someone else. This is where we fundamentally disagree. I'm sure the point will be lost on you.
Instead of higher taxes, how about a slight cut in govenment spending? Say a total Federal government cut of about ~75%? Not all at once, of course. Just spread out over five or six days. Hmm?
sangell
In the end you will destroy all liberty as you ruthlessly seek out this 'wealth' to tax.
Will you come to my house and decide some old photos are really 'art' and 'could' be worth something?
The wealthy buy art for just this reason. They understand that wealth can be kept in art.
With your plan they just buy gold and remain very quite.
Or is your plan to monitor every aspect of life so the hungry collective can squeeze every drop out of the productive? Lenin would love you! All hail the state.
You are an overwrought idiot but I'll address you anyway. Druckenmiller was discussing how do we fund social security and medicare. He suggested 'means testing' or a payroll tax increase as the most likely policy choices and favored means testing. Problem is means testing is going to go way down the food chain and probably end up hitting people with private incomes as low as $50,000 per year ( median income). Even if its kept above $100,000 per year I can assure you a couple with an income of $120,000 per year losing their social security and or medicare benefits is going to feel the pain a lot more than a guy with $100 million and above having to sell ( or donate) a painting on his mansion wall or get rid of the 2nd home in Sun Valley.
If you want a wealth tax, just stop paying your time payments. If one person does it they are a deadbeat and they get stuffed. If 10, or if 100, or if 1000 people do the same, they get the same fate. But if you get a million or more (hey this the social movement TPTB fear the most - the proles stop paying en mass) well the bonds aint worth bupkiss and so they get marked down. Voila! Wealth tax. Why do you gotta make it so complicated and regualatory. Just do it. Or in this case, just don't do it. Don't make your house payment. Don't make your car payment. Don't make your time payments. Instaed of mailing a check with your coupon, send some coordinated note instead.
Dear Banker,
This is the peolple's shut down motherfucker. No more rentier payments until shit changes. I have taken the cash earmarked for this payment and purchased some PHYSICAL from the LCS. And promptly lost it in a boating accident. Tisk.
Resprectfully,
The (Bitch) Prole at 1122 Boogey Woogey Ave.
Herding Cats.
Contact me after you assemble your tribe. I will be glad to join in.
Right now it's back to Football, Honey Boo Boo and the MSM.
The growing disparity between the haves and the havenots is not peculiar to the USA, but one aspect of the despairity (sic) could be resolved by realizing that the growth of the Leviathan Entitlement State has been tolerated largely due to the jobs deficit which is strongly correlated with the trade deficit.
The USA's last trade surplus was in 1975. Since then its deficits have totalled 8.5 Trillion dollars, and that 8.5 figure does not factor in the the time value month-to-month or yr to yr. They are simply the summation of the US Govt's EOM figures for balance of trade. In today's dollars, what's that? $17 trillion? Where I have I heard that number before?
Until 1913 the country grew and thrived on the basis of duties and tarriffs. The we got the Federal Reserve and the Federal Income Tax.
If I had a teenaged son to whom I paid an allowance in exchange for, among other chores, cutting the grass, I would not pay the neighbor's kid to cut my grass simply because he underbid my kid. The allowance is a way to instill a work ethic and to "give" him the spending money that I would otherwise give him anyways. By selling out to the lowest bidder I still have an allowance to pay AND I pay the neighbor's kid for the "cheaper" labor. IT'S FUCKING INSANE FOR JOE CITIZEN and that's not a coincidence.
If I had no son to cut the grass and instead employed my neighbor's son, then I would not toss him aside because a kid from a nearby neighborhood offered to do it for less. (and continue that analogy using the next city and the next state).
None of those 'partners' ever had stuff that we couldn't provide for ourselves. Their stuff was just "cheaper". None of that shit was ever cheaper. But we financed their re-tooling and their education systems and their economies, and now?
The neighbor's kid got your money because he offered cheapest labor. In exchange, he then loaned the money to you to finance your drunken brawling with the guy next street. With more loans you could even entitle your lazy, non-performing kid to free shit. I call that a fair trade.
What is the benefit of giving more money to the government by having these taxes? Now, seizure of the assets from bankers and other wall street fraudsters, or others, who gave accumulated their wealth through corruption would be a good thing. Dispose of the assets and give the proceeds to private charities.
Obama thinks Solvency and Liquidity are the same thing.
Not hard to fathom why...his bankster puppeteers do too.
What's the familiar ZH refrain? It's the flow, not the stock, that matters.
Until, of course, it does.
Obama only believe in privilege for OBama!
And people wonder why the economy cant reach escape velocity? Them that gots (boomers) get more, the kids dont stand a chance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN1TolrbwLk
A lot of these kids actually think an economy where people do not have to work to survive is a good thing. They actually want an economy that appears to be based on slave labor from what they tell me.
Fuck you George Soros. You’re right, you don’t have all the answers to solve the world problem’s. However, making the same UK mistakes in opening the borders to fill illegal aliens to sign-up on another ACA healthcare Ponzi fraud is a big mistake. Being a billionaire of a currency created out of thin air doesn’t give you the right to impose failed business models. If you really care about helping, we can just give the poor people your home address. You can write checks all day long. /LOL
These are your words, not mine.
http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/people/george-soros
I've always had great faith in our youth. Once they get lied to & screwed over multiple times they become just like me ;-)
Or even worse, they might become like me.
lol...I was much worse in my late 20's early 30's when it dawned on me that they have a whole setup to keep the young people down.
Things haven't changed much since then.
Very few young people (and plenty of older ones) seem to grasp that Obama is a charismatic figure, but isn't on their side. He's on NOBODY'S side but his own. The level of hero worship for this maniac president borders on Jim Jonesian (the guy who made famous the phrase "drinking the cool-aid").
THERE ARE NO POLITICIANS ON YOUR SIDE. A sceptical eye must be cast on ALL of them. (I consider it a social duty, but I digress) Only the deluded exempt certain politicians from that scrutiny. And we have plenty of deluded, apparently.
At a certain level I can't blame them- they've been abused, cheated and ripped off for a long time by a corrupt system. They want their payback and feel like there is nowhere else to turn. In steps Obama and promises them just that- "Social Justice at last!". Only problem is, he's lying. He ain't giving them shit. Not now, not ever. He plays on nobody's team but his own. By the time the idiot happy-clappy supporters realize (through all of Obama's deflections blaming evil Republicans) it'll be too late. Taken again. This time by their own government. Only problem with having government rip you off is THEY NEVER STOP. There is no recourse once they take over.
To the contrary. Interstate corporations are the only ones who should pay any federal income tax at all. The feds should not have any idea what an individual makes, the states should shield them. The present economic and political system is so tilted in favor of corporations over real persons right now that they practically own the place. They have more influence over "my" congressmen than I and my friends do. Management is already looting companies, and if there is no reason for an owner to leave money in a company, if he is not plowing it back, then why should he leave it in there? Let him deposit it and get it loaned to someone who will use it to make an investment. One of the "Seven Lessons of History" in Localism a Philosophy of Government is that Corporate Persons must be kept in check or government will never be limited. http://www.amazon.com/Localism-A-Philosophy-Government-ebook/dp/B00B0GACAQ/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_t_2_GB3H
Republicans versus democrats, same game. Who gets all this money the government borrows? Not the Social Security crowd, they paid high taxes for their entire lives to draw a $1,200 a month pension. And this hedge fund guy thinks that $1,200 should be on the table. In order to keep spending up for bank bail outs, the spy complex, the military complex, the empire and other worthwhile things the government does. Do you mean to tell me that Hedge Funds don't know how to feed off of government spending, or off of Fed policies?
Negotiate what? More cuts for the old folks living on $1,200. Or am I taken too be so stupid I can't see where all the wealth is flowing and whose incomes are in free fall? You know, when I read his logic, I see the WSJ oligarcy and the 1% 'ers doing the same old blame to bottom 50% thing. Corporate profits at all time hights under Obama, the Fed feeding trillions of zirp money to the financial and wall-street gang under Obama, military spending at record levels under Obama, the bank bailouts kept in place under Obama, the distribution of wealth in a massive unchecked flow to the top under Obama.
This reads like another billionare signing "Oh poor me, the old guys are stealing me blind by drawing a $1,200 a month check, and the old guy only paid in for 4--50 years at a very high with holding rate, while Hedge Fund guy stopped paying SS at a low level of his income.
Can people really read this WSJ and buy into it? Obama is the devil, Nope. Bush was Satan and Obama is his clone. Did I see any mention of Republicans being the same or worse than Democrats? Just spare me the hedge fund whiners.
they sould call it the 'Jew st Journal'...............
I wonder what stanley thinks of aid/wars for Israel~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He'd be getting a tad more than the $1200 a month if his SS withholding went into the S&P 500 all those years instead of letting the politcos spend it!
But if there was a real market, the S&P would be 300 and he would be getting much less than $1200. It was a conservative, guaranteed retirement supplement. It works exactly as planned and if thieving politicians hadn't stolen from the fund, it would be solvent for a 100 years.
I highly doubt that "optimator". I really do. I can imagine Wall-Street holding the SS Trust fund. Do you seriously believe the money would be there in the S&P to fund ALL America's Social Security elderly? Had this trust fund not been stolen and spent on wars, there would be over a trillion just sitting there, over and above the pay as you go.
I agree, politicians stole that money. In the end, since it was spent on the Military, most of it ended up in the S&P through corporate profits boosting equity share prices. And as someone else just said. Were the S&P are real market, a real capitalist non manipulated market, the fucker would be at 200 tops! Trillions of dollars have been printed and handed to Wall-Street to boost these share prices.
Think more about it. I think you know Wall-Street would never have returned those trillions to the retired people. I am one who has paid since I was 17, and I am now nearing an age where I might get a small pension from SS. Should I hand that over because a hedge funder thinks I am lazy and greedy? I wonder. Where would the S&P be in a real market. SS was sound as a pound till criminal stole it to make war. Vietnam started it, all funded with SS trust fund money,
Sure it was sound, sound as committing future unborn generations to endless debt and supporting others is soundly immoral. Then again it's always easy to point the finger and claim that it was the fault of the mythical criminal you were not able to steal from future generations.
I'd give your comment 1000 green arrows if I could.
The bankers' spin masters are at work - they have to create a villain to deflect the people from seeing who the real social welfare queens are.
Rational argument requires intelligent participants. Arguing with Obama or using logic with the government educated young is like arguing with a parrot that only squawks, "I want more."
The free market would save us ... but the demonic alliance of DC and Wall Street precludes free markets.
Free if you mean soveriegn states.
Remove the Federal/Corporate, large government and "Corporations are People" mindset and we might have a chance.
(If Corporations are People, why can't People be Corporations? I would love to have a 2014 exemption from Obamacare.)
Search for "Subchapter-S corporations"
Let’s get this straight. Since FDR, Americans have had a gun at their head to turn over an increasing portion of their labors so that the financial oligarchs could use that increasing windfall for their investment leverages. And now, Druckenmiller, who says Obama doesn’t negotiate except with a gun at his head, wants to put that gun in Paul Ryan’s hand to aim at baby boomers just as they begin to retire.
This incredibly rich man has the audacity to use government force; first, to take the money from Americans they wouldn‘t have given and then when the promises begin, he wants to use government force to stop them from getting it.
No doubt he’s a big fan of zero interest rates, depriving the baby boomers of their pensions and savings and insurance benefits and forcing many of them to switch from hamburger to dog food.
You know Druckenmiller’s figures are a lie when Ron Paul tells us SS would have been solvent way into the future, but Congress stole the money. And never mind that Bush and Obama added most all their Medicaid recipients to the Medicare rolls so that they could bust that, too.
"No doubt he’s a big fan of zero interest rates"
Actually, he's not. I've seen interviews with him on CNBC (posted here on ZeroHedge) where he bashes the fact that savers aren't being given their rightful rates of return.
Druckenmiller correctly points out that the baby boomers voted themselves a ton of free goodies and wars, jacking up the national debt to stratospheric levels. I sympathize with you if you're a baby boomer who voted libertarian (even though you're probably 5x richer than me, according to the stats). But I have zero sympathy for baby boomers who voted Republican/Democrat over the years.
Actually the first boomers are just beginning to draw Soc Sec now, this year.
Up to this point we have been bitching about increass in the FICA and then the addition of the Medicare tax.
Few actually thought, hey, it willl be me on the receiving end someday.
Now that we are on the getting side of things it still ain't great because our other investments pay shit and our kids are unable to get good work and we are helping them (if we are able).
It is a mess and it does not end while the government can print free money.
Does it take a baby boomer to sympathize with a baby boomer in this new age of group derision? What about just reporting the plain old truth?
The statistics are everywhere; the elderly have a lower household income when they have retired. Yet inflation keeps soaring.
On data collected in the long-running Health and Retirement Study, administered by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, the 50-plus working population in the HRS survey had a median annual income of $53,548 (in 2010 dollars). Among the retired population, the median income was $30,480. – Janet Novack, Forbes staff, 2/14/2012.
As for “60-year-olds are worth five times what 30-year-olds are,” that’s after a lifetime of saving and paying off the mortgage. If Druckenmiller is going to report on a financial site, he should refrain from cherry picking statistics with the intent of painting a fallacious picture.
Emily Brandon in US News wrote a year ago in Retiree Net Worth Declines that “while the typical household headed by someone age 65 or older had a net worth of $170,128 in 2010, most of that wealth is in the form of home equity,” declining from $195,890 from its peak in 2005 at the top of the Fed housing bubble.
“In contrast, people under age 35 watched their net worth decline from $8,528 to $5,402, a loss of $3,126.” (Perhaps the TBTFs foreclosed on their newly purchased, bubble-blown mortgages when the Fed pricked its Fed-created housing bubble.) Is that what Druck's talking about? 5 X $5000? Good grief.
If home equity is excluded from the calculation, Brandon writes, “the median senior-citizen household had a net worth of just $28,518 in 2010, down from $31,575 in 2005.
“Families headed by someone between age 35 and 44 suffered the greatest losses over the five-year period of 59 percent of their wealth.”
I don't understand that either JR. Blaming "boomers" helps nobody. In fact, it takes the focus off who is actually to blame for this whole fucking mess.
Why embrace more divide and conquer tactics when most everyone here is a victim of this corrupt debt based system?
For the record, the rents Druckenmiller and his hedgie buddies have extracted from the economy at the expense of the middle class over the past three or so decades is about equal to the "unfunded" portion of future Social Security benefit payments. What a self-delusional asshole.
hard to believe ZH would even run this story..............
What's with this statement:
Polls show young people are not supporters of Democrats or Republicans. They think these old corrupt parties are the ones who will send them off to war. Young people tend to be much more in the Libertarian camp.
It was the youth vote, along with the hyphenated-voters, who elected Barack Obama.
Among 18- to 29-year-olds, Obama was able to win Hispanics, Asians, blacks and women by double-digit margins, similar to his margin of victory in those groups for all ages. The only sub-demographic group of 18- to 29-year-olds that Romney won was whites, with 51 percent, Pew found. That group went for Obama 54 to 44 percent in 2008…
Young voters favored activist government and gay marriage, with 65% saying “illegal aliens should be given a chance for legal status.”
In 2008, according to CIRCLE, a non-partisan organization that promotes research on the political engagement of Americans between ages 15 and 25, young voters preferred Obama over John McCain by 68 percent to 30 percent — the highest share of the youth vote obtained by any candidate since exit polls began reporting results by age in 1976.
Why would one think otherwise. They have been trained the 'Liberal-Way' from 1st grade through college. A clean environment and a big government and we're good.
Double post.
Young people are not supportive of Democrats or Republicans, they are worshipping Obama. That's what the problem is. They follow whoever Hollywood worships.
The inter-generational transfer of wealth is profoundly unfair and unravels the social fabric. For one generation to bind succeeding generations to the repayment of debts contracted by the former is not only monstrously undemocratic but is a form of involuntary servitude.
The essential unfairness of such transfers is why Jefferson lobbied for a Constitutional provision requiring periodic repudiation of federal debts once every 17 years (or about the length of a generation in his time). He failed, of course. Too bad too. But no matter: we shall have a repudiation one way or another, mark my words.
Notice all the seething hatred in ZeroHedge comments for the Millenials. The baby boomers know their generation fucked up. They think they deserve all the free shit they voted themselves over the years. They were probably voting Republican the whole time, thinking the Republican party was for "smaller government" (even though a cursory glance at the record shows Republicans grew the government just as fast as Democrats).
And now it's coming home to roost sooner than they expected. The baby boomers were hoping this economic collapse wouldn't happen until they were long dead and their grandchildren would have to pay for it. Well guess what? It's happening now. Right as they're starting to retire. Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch.
The seething hatred is for misrepresentation of facts for nefarious purposes. Here are the real facts:
Pew Research, in data dated August 2013, reports that there is a rising share of young adults living in their parents’ home. Many of those parents are baby boomers. Add grandma and grandpa to the boomers' household by depriving them of their retirement savings and that about wipes out the traditional way of life here in America.
“In 2012, 36% of the nation’s young adults ages 18 to 31—the so-called Millennial generation—were living in their parents’ home, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. This is the highest share in at least four decades and represents a slow but steady increase over the 32% of their same-aged counterparts who were living at home prior to the Great Recession in 2007 and the 34% doing so when it officially ended in 2009.
“A record total of 21.6 million Millennials lived in their parents’ home in 2012, up from 18.5 million of their same aged counterparts in 2007.”
Pew also finds that the share who were married and living with a spouse fell from 56% in 1968 to 27% in 2007. And the share who were living with a roommate or child or were cohabiting with a partner increased nearly fivefold (from 5.5% to 26%).”
Add the fact that in a now service-oriented America, according to Politico, “almost one in five men between the ages of 25 to 34 are living with their parents, according to a Census Bureau report,” and you are viewing the Wreck of Made-in-America.
“Globalism,” says the site The American Dream, “is slowly destroying the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen and most Americans don't even realize it. The United States has also entered into a whole host of very damaging "free trade agreements" such as NAFTA that are costing our economy huge numbers of jobs.”
The US is losing an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.In addition, over 40,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been closed permanently during the first decade of this century. Over the same 10 year period, 46,000 factories were transferred from the US to Asia, according to Gordon T. Long of the GordonTLong.com. market research site for Global Macro analysis.
Maybe "Druck" should target this Leviathan governement, it's public union pensions and their early retirement schemes, and it's trillion dollar war machine before he attacks the average American working man.
Thanks JR ... yours is an excellent analysis of the current state of affairs ... greed (globalization, public unions, free trade agreements) and then lust for power (Leviathan .gov, illegal immigration) will strangle us all. I will plagiarizer your thoughts and use them wherever I go.
What you mean to say is that one sided unbalanced interventionism in international trade is causing the US to collapse...
Speed
let all the hate flow out
I'm sure there are boomers as you envision but then there are the real ones who help their kids through school and with rent. They worry about their grandkids and the country.
Boomers had as much control over politicians as the rest of us do now.
Once the US government realized that there was no upper limit to what it could promise and spend (deficits don't matter) the die was cast. The US government will continue to grow until the rest of the world tells us our time is up. As long as China continues to buy our debt rather than spend our dollars we will not suffer inflation and the printing and spending and promising will continue.
I don't think the baby boomers or the millennials have a clue about any collapse ... Generational attacks are pointless, when the real culprits are those of all ages who vote for people who's interests are not for the people of the US.
The banks are leeching America and everyone sits around blaming everyone but themselves for the problems we are having.
We are a country of morons who have elected ruthless and calculating shysters of both parties who have guaranteed our demise through their avarice and power lust.
And if you defend our community intelligence, try watching any of a hundred man-on-the-streets interviews ... appalling!
Who voted in Johnson again?
Naw, dude. It ain't like that. The boomers (I am one) think that everything they see on teevee is true, that their gov't would never lie to them, and obviously (to you and me) unsustainable benefits programs will exist forever- just because.
They refuse to understand fractional reserve, re-hypothecation and 9/11. They love their .gov bennies and jobs, and will declare personal war on you if you dare point out the absurdity of it all
They think the economy is in the shitter because of gay marriage, abortion, the filthy Mexicans, the theiving Chinese and most of all, those Goddamned raghead terrists!
They'll go to the 4th of July parade, pledge their allegiance (to a made in China flag), chant USA! USA! USA! while being invaded by their own, and tell folks like us we're un-American. They'd like to see us locked up, truth be known.
I might add, your generation is not free of its delusions. It's really not a "generational" thing, per se. It's a rational vs emotional thing. Thomas Sowell says we're a nation of adolescents. That pretty much sums it up.
Drunkenmiller is full of shit..
I agree! It's the fat cats like Crapenmiller who NEVER call for cuts in defense... suggesting an an end to useless war profiteering by the military-prison-pharma complex.... sucking the treasury, and respect for the USA dry.
Crapenmiller... is an elitist dog. Makes me ill seeing the likes of him get any cred. Period.
So sayeth, The Fox
Why is it considered "ironic" that young people who so stupidly supported Present Øbama are getting hurt the most?
Blacks voted 97% for King Putt and they have suffered the most of any part of our society over the last five years.
The Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers knows that they won't turn their backs on him now.
What difference does it make. Hillary is warming up in the bullpen.
Lets take a minute to reflect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUcGcGFCcqk
The GOP gave its' right up debt and set to the debt ceiling. This artcle is bullshit. We will be over 20 trillion before the Jan 15 date.
Maybe 18T ... the GOP didn't do anything, the POTUS said he would veto anything that what he didn't want. There is no negotiating with someone who says they will not negotiate.
The GOP lost the last election and America lost any chance of fiscal sanity ... because Obama does not want to stop spending and borrowing and the FED can't.
Plain and simple ... we are screwed
Progressive on the left and Progressives on the right do not want to cut spending.
Yes we are done...
This guy makes way too much sense ... overlook him completely
Why all the typing, Yo?
The math is inescapable! Imagine the screaming on the Titanic? That is 70% here at the 'hedge; the results are baked in! Gravity has TAKEN HOLD! We are going to deorbit without anything but a paper suit made of Ben's lies!
Get rid of your cable, your TV and concentrate on the real.
No need to get worked up about idiots fighting over what will be. We know what will be. Get over it, get on, and get busy gettin' ready.
Is there audio of this?
I was there in 1984 when Bob Dole, of Kansas, fixed Social Security!
FICA taxes were doubled.
BOHICA (use Google, I avoid profanities)
I've written this before about Druck and the SS thing. It's not a generational transfer. Social Security is a ponzi scheme. But it's the most popular program ever created by the govt not because you're taking care of old people per se. But because you're allowing people to save less and consume more when they're young. It's always going to be just as popular with young people as old. Even people who say "social security won't be there when I'm old", have done the math in their heads. And unless you're saving more, you're playing the ponzi and you're going to want what they promised you later on.
Repeats the inter-generational fallacy. It dishonestly/stupidly assumes debt will be repaid by younger generations. It never will be. The US government will default on all its debt either overtly or surreptiously via inflation.
The funding for current SS payments and all other benefits, to beneficiaries of all ages, comes from taxes on today's producers and from deferred consumption of current savers. Given the combination of interest rate suppression by the Fed, inflation and ultimate refusal to honor bonds, those current savers are being ripped off to pay for everyone else.
Since the natural life cycle of savers means they have most funds in savings at around the end of their working lives, baby boomer savers are being most heavily ripped off to pay for baby boomer deadbeats and for the FSA in general.
Bring it on:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/polls/2013/oct/18/will-us-debt-hit-20-trillion-president-obama-leave/results/
I agreed with many of the comments above, such as this from lasvegasperson:
"Boomers had as much control over politicians as the rest of us do now."
Government IS organized crime controlled by the best organized gang of criminals. That has not changed for thousands of years. However, it HAS gotten worse at an exponentially accelerating rate. The younger you are, the more you are being lied to, cheated and robbed by the system you were born into. Political puppets like Obama are who they are precisely because they were the best professional liars in the puppet shows put on by the mass media.
Inter-generational transfers of wealth are almost nothing compared to the trans-generational destruction of natural capital, which has been turning natural resources into garbage and pollution as fast as possible. There were never any political miracles that were actually possible to stop human civilization going down its own path of least action, or least resistance, manifesting the least morality: everything is happening the way that it HAD to happen, and that will continue ... Human beings, THEORETICALLY, should make a series of quantum leaps in their politics, to match the series of quantum leaps made in physics and biology, etc.! However, at present, it rather looks like they will stumble and fall, and be generally steamrolled over, and turned into road-kill, by the political systems of force backed frauds, that have been able to develop through the series of one expediency after another, as the only things that could actually happen in those real circumstances.
Since the real world is run by layer after layer of the best professional liars and immaculate hypocrites, which act as the false fronts for the systems of organized lies, backed by organized violence, which have been triumphantly able to become entrenched legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, and since the longer those frauds backed by force continue to control everything, the worse their longer term consequences become, therefore, NECESSARILY, the younger you are, the worse that is!
I used to think that we were probably still only in the middle of a longer, multi-generational decline and fall. My normalcy biases under-estimated the degree to which the forced backed fraud systems were on exponential paths, although, abstractly, or intellectually, I sort of understood that.
Here is a link to a 2003 article on the topic of Overshoot in a nutshell:
http://davidmdelaney.com/overshoot-in-a-nutshell.html
"Because of the exponential nature of population growth in the presence of abundant resources, a single generation of the population--the most numerous generation-- experiences abundance in its youth, starvation in maturity, and premature death for most of its members."
I used to believe that would take several more generations, but these days, I think it is already here now. The established systems are the runaway triumph of financial frauds, backed by force, controlling every economic decision made, in order to enable turning natural resources into garbage and pollution as fast as possible, while somehow still thinking that was a good thing. Meanwhile, the ruling classes have not prepared for any other way to cope with that exponential growth overshooting situation than to prepare for more genocidal wars, along with imposing democidal martial law.
Unfortunately, I feel that guys like Druckenmiller grossly underestimate how bad things really are, and therefore, continue to propose a bunch of superficial solutions, which are not going to be implemented anyway. The ONLY possible theoretical solutions to the basic exponential growth overshooting problems are some new systems of death controls, which are almost surely going to actually become the most evil ones possible, done by the ruling classes, who have been selected by history to be psycho-pathically and socio-pathically insane.
Right now it looks like the "baby boomers" may well be the last real boom, before the big bust. I WISH that I did not believe that. I wish that I still believed we had a few more generations to prepare for the transitions towards some kind of Translithic Civilization, to replace the Neolithic Civilization style. However, these days, the more I learn, the worse it gets. For several decades I have spent most of my time learning about these problems, and attempting to work towards some possible theoretical solutions. However, gradually, I have been forced more and more to accept the social facts that people like President Obama are the figureheads for the kind of evil deliberate ignorance and deceits that control everything that Neolithic Civilization does!
Given the ways that the biggest banksters were able to ratchet up their frauds to capture almost total control over all of the social and political institutions, so that the school systems and mass media do nothing but cajole people into watching absurd political puppet shows, where everything is based on huge lies, covertly backed by lots of violence, I CAN NO LONGER SEE ANY REASONABLE HOPE FOR THE FUTURE. Instead, it is quite appropriate in that perverse Bizarro Mirror World that President Obama was such an excellent liar in the ways that he appropriated the desire for hope and change, and was able to sell that back to enough Americans ... so that he could then betray them, although we probably have not come remotely close to seeing the worst of that yet!
It is almost impossible in our current civilization to sanely discuss the end of its exponential growth. Since everything it is doing is based on the triumph of runaway financial frauds, creating exponentially more "money" out of nothing, as debts, to pay for more exponential growth, in a world where there is no longer a fresh planet to rape, and more natural resources to discover and produce, the limits to growth are almost practically guaranteed to become more insane genocidal wars, along with democidal martial law. Furthermore, the ONLY theoretical solutions to those problems which have intellectual integrity MUST still be some new kinds of death control systems, because such death controls are the necessary way that exponential growth gets arrested, and the more it overshoots, then the more drastic the death control insanities will become.
Our political systems are currently operated by the best professional liars, acting as puppets up on the stage that the mass media present. The people watching those shows are the victims of a lifetime of being brainwashed by those mass media, as well as their school systems. That professional lying and immaculate hypocrisy has been perfected, more scientifically, and therefore, the younger you are, the more you tend to be a victim of that, as illustrated by the social facts that the younger you are, the more deeply you are born into debt. The most important of the well-established huge lies was the way that the international banksters were able to create a global system of privatizing the public money supply, where that "money" more and more became based on nothing, and was created as debts!
E.g., see:
http://thecommonsenseshow.com/2013/10/19/the-financial-pyramid-of-power/
The Financial Pyramid of PowerBy Dave Hodges, October 19, 2013.
That was the utterly insane, triumphantly fraudulent, financial accounting system, which has controlled everything that our civilization has been doing. Everything we have been doing has been based on the triumphs of applying the methods of organized crime, in order to organize almost all economic activities to be based on huge lies, backed up by lots of violence. There was never any other longer term rationality, except for the bullshit justifications of the short-term profits obtained by those methods. Since everything is controlled by frauds, backed by force, but the force can never make those frauds become true, and therefore, can never make the behavior based upon those frauds become sane, the younger you are within that system, the worse that must necessarily get for you.
Like I said, I WISH I did not already believe that things are getting later than I previously thought ... However, everything I now know indicates to me that things are getting worse at an exponentially accelerating rate, and we have already seriously overshot. Therefore, we may well be near the peak, and are about to tumble down and down, over the next few decades, instead of the next few Centuries. It is possible that the baby boomer generation are going to the one that witness "abundance in its youth, starvation in maturity, and premature death for most of its members."
As long as civilization continues on the path it is on now, then, even if that generation is not the baby boomers, then it is going to be the next, or the next ... Without a series of political miracles, which enabled more and deeper radical truth to emerge into the public spaces, to enable saner policies, which are utterly outside of everything that anyone who was successful within the established systems ever did, or maybe even thought about, then we are surely still on the path of exponential growth, headed towards overshooting, and then collapsing into chaos.
“75% of Americans nearing retirement in 2010 had less than $30,000 in their retirement accounts.”
Facts like these in a powerful review of how the assault on Social Security may be an economic and social blunder of historical magnitude has been put together by Ted Siedle on Forbes. Here’s the story:
Edward "Ted" Siedle, Contributor
I cover pension, money management and securities industry practices.
The Greatest Retirement Crisis In American History| Forbes |3/20/2013
We are on the precipice of the greatest retirement crisis in the history of the world. In the decades to come, we will witness millions of elderly Americans, the Baby Boomers and others, slipping into poverty. Too frail to work, too poor to retire will become the “new normal” for many elderly Americans.
That dire prediction, which I wrote two years ago, is already coming true. Our national demographics, coupled with indisputable glaringly insufficient retirement savings and human physiology, suggest that a catastrophic outcome for at least a significant percentage of our elderly population is inevitable. With the average 401(k) balance for 65 year olds estimated at $25,000 by independent experts – $100,000 if you believe the retirement planning industry - the decades many elders will spend in forced or elected “retirement” will be grim. (Update: In response to readers’ questions about the lower number, Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor of economics at the New School for Social Research, estimates that 75% of Americans nearing retirement in 2010 had less than $30,000 in their retirement accounts.)
Corporate America and the financial wizards behind the past three decades of so-called retirement innovations, most notably titans of the pension benefits consulting and mutual fund 401(k) industries, are down-playing just how bad things are already and how much worse they are going to get.
Americans today are aware that corporate pensions have been virtually eliminated and that the few remaining private, as well as the nation’s public pensions, are in jeopardy. Even if you are among the lucky few that have a pension, you cannot rest assured that it will be there for all the years you’ll need it. Whether you know it or not, someone is busy trying to figure how to screw you out of your pension.
Americans also know the great 401k experiment of the past 30 years has been a disaster. It is now apparent that 401ks will not provide the retirement security promised to workers. As a former mutual fund legal counsel, when I recall some of the outrageous sales materials the industry came up with to peddle funds to workers, particularly in the 1980s, it’s almost laughable—if the results weren’t so tragic.
There was the “Dial Your Own Return” cardboard wheel of fortune that showed investors which mutual funds they should select for any given level of return. Looking for 12%? Load up on our government plus or option income funds! It was that easy to get the level of income needed in retirement, investors were told.
The signs of the coming retirement crisis are all around you. Who’s bagging your groceries: a young high school kid or an older “retiree” who had to go back to work to supplement his income or qualify for health insurance?
The impending crisis will come in what I call “waves,” as opposed to a tsunami hitting all at once. With each successive wave, more elderly will be drowned. The older you are, the harder it is to recover from a set-back.
Wave 1: Retirees Come Back To Work
Workers who retired post-2000 realize they cannot possibly live on their meager retirement savings, virtually no interest and limited health benefits and conclude they must go back to work full-time. For example, one of my clients, a sheriff’s office, has already seen retirees coming back to work largely for health insurance coverage. While these retirees do have pensions, the cost of health insurance, when not subsidized by an employer, is far greater than they had anticipated. For those who are physically and mentally capable of going back to work and are welcomed by their former employers or other employers, this is a plausible survival strategy.
Wave 2: Workers Delay Full Retirement
Many current workers realize they have not saved enough to retire and postpone retirement for a certain number of years. They still believe, however, that someday they will be able to retire and live off their savings. This strategy makes sense for workers who can hang onto their jobs at the same (or better) pay and are healthy enough to keep working. On the other hand, older workers who are forced by employers to agree to demotions, pay cuts or part-time status to stay on, may feel demoralized.
Wave 3: Full Retirement Is Unachievable
Many current workers and retirees at some point realize that they can never fully retire, i.e., stop working altogether, and commit to working part-time for as many of their golden years as possible.
The problem is, of course, that each year more elderly people become too frail to work and fewer employers are interested in hiring them, even on a part-time basis. Remember those ads that said, “It’s hell to be forty and out of work?” Try looking for work at 70 or 80.
Wave 4: Drowning
At some point, lack of savings, lack of employment possibilities and failing health will catch up with the overwhelming majority of the nation’s elders. Let me emphasize that we’re talking about the overwhelming majority, not a small percentage who arguably made bad decisions throughout their working lives.
Given the certainty that a retirement crisis is headed toward our shores, you’d think that our elected officials would be hard at work preparing a response. Of course, that’s not happening. To the contrary, conservatives are trying to pare back so-called entitlements that will mushroom in the near future and liberals have failed to acknowledge the crisis or propose any solutions.
Eventually the pain will be so widespread that the crisis will be impossible to ignore. For many, the challenge is to hang in there until help arrives
http://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsiedle/2013/03/20/the-greatest-retirement-crisis-in-american-history/print/
Well, JR, while that article is interesting enough, on its own level, my response to the conclusion that "the challenge is to hang in there until help arrives" is that the "help" that is coming is most probably going to be democidal martial law, to mass murder off those people who are most vulnerable.
Thanks, I needed that
I'm seeing more and more over 70 women working retail cash registers, I guess ZIRP has really done a job on reirement income.
Remember that movie Logans Run. We can simply take care of this issue by having a drone visit you on your 62 birthday. See, problem solved.
We Empires always die the same way.
After thousands of years, it becomes monotonous.
If you are interested in saving a quality of life and preserving your expectations,
you will be disappointed and are wasting your energy.
If you are interested in protecting the soveriegnty of this place, in order to reset your expectations in a context of freedom,
you are on the right track.
I guess this all means we will end up going back to digging in the dirt for our survival and people will die at a earlier age because of lack of health care. The survivors will depend on family and tribal ties for their daily existence. It's the natural ups and downs of the human experiance here on planet earch. It's time to Cowboy up to the next wave.
The deer or fish harvested for meat are infinitely more satisfying than those hung on the wall. The effort and peril involved with seasonal procurement definitely helps out with the health care angle. Ie: I'll either be fit from dragging deer and hauling gear or I could be dead in the woods or lost at sea. Either way I won't be rotting at a bingo hall....
Why is ZH covering this story? Druckenmiller is a crony socialist advocating a different wealth redistribution program from one demographic to another. By targeting "coupon clippers" he hopes the government will steal from that group, lessening the impact on his ass. Instead he ought to be fighting against socialism and wealth redistribution, and focusing on reducing government spending and entitlement programs dramatically. The WSJ is a smarmy rag for portraying this guy as credible, and interested in anything other than PR.
Who the heck is "Druckenmiller"? I've never heard of him.
Just another financial terrorist, telling us we are to blame for his theft.
Political observations from a hedge fund manager who fed at the Fed trough and profited richly from the ridiculous tax disparity between ordinary and capital gains tax rates, the latter a huge boon to enable the hedge fund managers to retain most of their carried interest profits. He should slink back under the rock to which he retired when he announced he was closing his fund because he saw no more opportunities to exploit in the Fed-distorted market.
Tone deaf dickhead.