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America: The "Nursing Home" Economy
Submitted by Bill Bonner via Acting-Man blog,
Victims of Demography
The key feature of age is that it happens no matter what you think. What does this mean? It means the “old countries” – their assets and their institutions, at least the ones that depend on population, income and credit growth – are “fastened to a dying animal” and are not likely to survive in their present form.
Today, these countries, including the US, are victims of demography. Older people get more money from the government. And they pay less in taxes. Old people also slow the rate of GDP, for obvious reasons: They are not adding to output; they are living on it.
As people age, the whole society – its institutions, its laws, its customs, its economy and its markets – ages, too. They all become as familiar, comfortable and shabby as a well-worn shoe. An economy is not independent of the people in it. The economy ages with them. And when they reach retirement age, the economy gets arthritis.

Alexis de Tocqueville: not convinced of democracy’s longevity
Painting by
Age distribution of Japan’s population, past and future – click to enlarge.
A Nursing Home Economy
Even the Congressional Budget Office has noticed how government debt slows growth:
Increased borrowing by the federal government generally draws money away from (that is, crowds out) private investment in productive capital in the long term because the portion of people’s savings used to buy government securities is not available to finance private investment. The result is a smaller stock of capital and lower output in the long term than would otherwise be the case all else held equal (CBO, July 2014, p. 72).
Why does the federal government need to borrow so much? Before the invention of the welfare state, almost all large borrowing was done for war. Since the end of World War II, however, most developed countries – with the exception of the US – have borrowed heavily only to pay for social programs.
But neither debt nor spending contributes to a dynamic, innovative and growth-oriented economy. Instead, they produce an economy that looks like the people in it – old, creaky and in need of around-the-clock care.
As people age, they begin fewer new businesses. “The Other Aging of America: The Increasing Dominance of Older Firms” is the title of a major study from the Brookings Institution. Done by Robert Litan and Ian Hathaway, it showed that American business was becoming “old and fat.”
Taken together, the data presented here clearly show a private sector where economic activity is sharply concentrating in older firms – a trend that is occurring in a nearly universal fashion across sectors, firm sizes and geographies…
An economy that is saturated with older firms is one that is likely to be less flexible, and potentially less productive and less innovative, than an economy with a higher percentage of new and young firms. Young people try to create new wealth. Old people try to hold on to the wealth they believe they have in the bag. They are less entrepreneurial. They are also, perhaps, more eager to protect their businesses and professions from competition.
Part of the reason for fewer business start-ups is that it has gotten a lot harder to launch a new company in America. That was the conclusion of a study by John W. Dawson and John J. Seater (“Federal Regulation and Aggregate Economic Growth”). What they found was that there has been a huge increase in economic regulation and restrictions in the US since World War II.
They point out that these regulations have an economic cost. Like debt and demography, regulations reduce output. In fact, they estimate that had the level of regulation remained unchanged since the year I was born – 1948 – today’s GDP would provide every man, woman and child in America with about $125,000 more in income per year.
Annual cost of US regulations, from CEI.org’s “10,000 commandments” report – click to enlarge.
A Glorified Ponzi Scheme
It was Alexis de Tocqueville who observed that democracy was doomed. He said it would soon degrade into tyranny. As soon as politicians realized that they could win elections by promising the voters more of other people’s money, it was just a matter of time until they overdid it.
Had he imagined how old people would get, he wouldn’t have been so optimistic. As things developed, politicians noticed two important things: that young people (especially those who hadn’t been born yet) didn’t vote… and old people’s votes could be bought fairly cheaply, at least so it appeared at first.

When the US Social Security program was first put in place, for example, the typical American male could expect nothing from it. He was expected to live to 61. He’d be dead before benefits kicked in. But as the 20th century led to the 21st, his life expectancy increased, and so did the burden of old people.
Early Social Security participants paid in trivial amounts and got a very good return on their money. My mother, for example, only worked a few years at a low-paying job, from which she retired in 1986. She has been collecting Social Security ever since.
“Don’t you feel guilty about getting so much more than you put in?” I teased her.
“Not at all. That’s just the way the system works.”
The way the system works would be illegal for a private annuity plan. It would be labeled a Ponzi scheme. Its promoters would be fined or put in prison. The money that goes into the system is not locked away in wealth-producing investments so that the cash will be available to finance the retiree’s pension. Instead, the contributions of new participants are used to pay benefits to old ones.
This has the obvious and fatal flaw of all Ponzi schemes – eventually, there is not enough new money coming into the system to meet its obligations. This point was reached in the US system in 2010. Since then, the system has been running an annual deficit. You’ll see why in the chart showing the retirement-age population.
Everybody knows Social Security, the Affordable Care Act, veterans’ pensions and other support programs are dangerously underfunded. What is not appreciated is the effect that this has on GDP growth and stock market prices.
The crankshaft of age leads to the universal joint of social spending, which then goes to the axles of debt. Finally, where the rubber meets the road, the wheels turn more slowly.
This is not just a problem for government finance. Companies make money by putting out products and selling them. But when people grow old or population growth declines, so do both supply and demand.
Then, companies earn less money. Their shares are worth less. Personal incomes go down. Capital gains retreat. And tax revenues fall, too. When this happens in an economy that is already deeply in debt, it triggers a crisis.
Projected future social security deficits – if tax revenues were to remain constant, entitlement spending and interest costs would consume all revenues by 2031 – click to enlarge.
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SEnior Housing? $SNH
Must watch "Logan's Run" tonight...
Carousel Luciferians!
Except for JENNY AGUTTER
"Juicy Ferian"
"They are not adding to output; they are living on it."
As is all of those in the largest sector of the economy the B/F.I.R.E. econonmy.
The Ponzi scheme known as the fiat fractional Federal Reserve System that we are saddled with would bring about a spiraling downfall regardless of social programs and other giveaway obligations. These only help speed the way to the inevitable. If you borrow a dollar and have to pay that back along with ten cents, that borrow/interest/borrow/interest cycle will eventually drown you. Never lose sight of the fact that it is this corrupt monetary system that is the root of our woes.
They are not adding to output; they are living on it.
Gee...Isn't that what they are supposed to be doing?
If our Currency is a PROMISSORY NOTE for delivery of FUTURE GOODS AND SERVICES (AS Federal Reserve Notes ARE NOTES!!!) and these people SAVED THEIR CURRENCY, then are they just not supposed to make the rightful claim on future goods and services? Isn't that what the NOTE promises?
Why take the Currency if cannot be redeemed for future goods and services? How many Limited Edition Serial Numbered portraits of DEAD US Presidents and Statesmen do I want, just for the honor of owning them?
Yeah. The artwork is okay and all of that. but there are just far too many of those. I cannot eat currency and live for long.
But you may say that many Seniors did not save and are reliant upon Government?
That may be true for some.
But for the vast majority the ZIRP policies of the last seven years has depleted the savings of many seniors as it failed to garner them INTEREST INCOME.
Their savings, their NET INVESTMENT CORE, was stolen from them, first by a Housing and Stock Market Collapse, and afterwards because of the ZIRP policies set by the psychopathic oligarchs who are running the Federal Reserve system along with a Government which is COMPLICIT in encouraging these bankers to do just that.
What?!? Shall they now be placed on the Death Panel lists and allowed to die off? Is that the plan and the reason for the institution of the un-Afforadable Care Act?
And the author of this article is supposedly cheerleading a position that the SENIORS are the problem, rather than a parasitical Government in cahoots with a Central Bank ripe with fraud and corruption, enabling Wall Street Oligarchs to steal the last remaining scraps? (That is not true. Bill Bonner is probably as pissed at this as the rest of us. But he is reporting. I do not think that he agrees with the policies.)
Yeah. Let's throw Grandma off of a cliff. That will solve the problem. Right.
Before the government got in the act being being cared for and dying in your twilight years were relatively inexpensive propositions. You could sit on your porch and wait for the that final heart attack. Now government has priced rest homes and medical care out of reach of everyone. In California the corrupt legislature (at the beck and call of big corporates) passed a series of laws to put all the little care facilities out of business. Average care jumped from $800/month to $6000/month. The elderly were moved out of their wonderful little rest homes and were moved into huge uncaring, stainless steel behemoths that they hate with a passion.
This is a system of human farming. We are to produce the wealth for our owners throughout our careers being paid pennies on the dollar. Much of that is taken by government through taxes. What we save throughout our lives is supposed to be extracted out of us through medical care. What might escape being taken through medical care is to be taken by the government in the form of taxation. The low low interest rates are just so they can use our saved capital for no cost before they take it from us outright.
That's the system that makes us livestock. Serfs in the company town. Most people will never figure it out.
This is Refuse-Resist, reporting live from The Villages Florida. America's fastest growing metropolitan area (pop has tripled since 2005). Bunch of retired people, many on pensions from the cold northern Peoples Republiks.
A city which produces nothing, but consumes much. It's a living breathing model of what this article is attempting to illustrate.
This is your intrepid reporter signing off while dodging the geezer driven golf carts.
30 years old, and you die.
Is the author surreptiously suggesting that all the old people must die?
Hmmm...how's THAT going to work out?
Yes he is. Except for the old rich.
THAT's not going to work out at all for the author if he comes within 700 Meters of my Social Security or my position.
That inverted pyramid is a real stinker. You have to really tax the dead. Its easy, take the wealth pyramid and the 0.01% get taxed the inverse.Say someone like Buffet @ 99.9% (just to claw back what was claimed as deductions over the years)
So someone like me is at the bottom 95% so I pay 1/95 of fuck all assets cause the above mutherfucker stole it through my taxes.
I used to think the empty big-box stores were eyesores, but they have all become senior housing complexes in the last few years. Huge 1000-unit complexes, 3 of them one stretch of road. They are built on the expectation that seniors will spend their last remaining money on them, then the government takes over the tab or offs them, one of the two. My guess is that they will be Section 8 housing within a decade, and with limited parking, become such a huge clusterfvck until they are torn down due to shoddy construction.
I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... www.nettrader2.com
Similiar but a different take...
http://econimica.blogspot.com/2015/02/fundamentally-flawed-chapter-4.html
and some more background info...
http://econimica.blogspot.com/2015/02/fundamentally-flawed-chapter-1-advanced.html
oh...and this..
http://econimica.blogspot.com/2015/02/fundamentally-flawed-chapter-33-total.html
You know, letting everyone over 65 off cold-turkey is a lot easier, and more productive for future generations that world war.
So your plan is that everyone who has paid in their whole life, with caps on medicare completely removed should be dumped just when they reach the age where they might draw some part of it? Sure, the real winners were those who were paying in 1-3% and then retired when inflation peaked and then lived another thirty years. Baby boomers have yet to really draw anything close to what they have put in and you want to cut them off cold? Most of us even half way aware understand that it will not last long as currently structured, but if you insist on ending it, or means testing it, then you MUST stop calling it insurance and stop taking it a special "payroll tax" and call it what it is...welfare, and take it from general revenues. You have the power to fuck us good, but you do not have the right to lie to us while you are doing it. Most payed into to a substantial tune. I personally have contributed almost $200k in my lifetime as a self employed person, and it generally pisses me off when it is suggested somehow I'm getting a free ride....especially while arguing over free houses for squatters, deferred loans for students, endless disability for anyone who doesn't qualify for unemployment and all the rest.
The system is broke and we all know it. The other thing we know for sure is that anyone who has a pot to piss in will get squat and likely be forced to share it with those less fortunate.
I hear ya...but how about this: I've paid in for 31 years. I am not going to hit my FRA (full retirement age) for 20 more. How about ya'll just keep all the tens of thousands i have paid in over the last 30+ years and let me opt out now. I no longer have to pay but i can't have any of my money back either. Let's just go our separate ways. I'll figure out how to get by without the govt check. Cool?
What SHOULD happen is that we have an honest assessment of the true financial plan and come up with some compromise that focuses on some sense of fairness, for everyone who has contributed....and then end it. Lets let retirement plans go back to private only, a continuation of IRA or 401k plans and put a welfare plan in place that will only subsidize the very poorest. I say fuck sensibilities. Let the poor be poor. Let there be some consequence that actually creates fear of failure, fear of poverty. Life on this planet is hard and to try and pretend it is anything else puts us all at risk. Making promises doomed to failure does no one a favor. Reality is our only security.
Absolutely. Social Security ain't supposed to be a retirement plan. It is "OASDI" on your paystub because it is Old Age Supplemental Disability Insurance. It is simply a net to make sure that if, say, you lived well past life expectancy that you wouldn't end up outliving your savings and ending up in the gutter OR... if you are disabled that you aren't out in the gutter. I know we can't just fix it by adjusting it to its original intention [which would mean making the payout age begin at 90 for example] but we do need to start making some hard fuckin HONEST assessments of the situation. This thing is broke and in need of a fix or it will do nothing but harm in the {near} future...
Be sure to throw the multimillion dollar equivalent government pensions into the mix. Government slugs, who's jobs in general are to harm the economy, retire after 20 to 30 years of harassing tax payers just to force the tax payers to pay them HUGE amounts of money for not working for 40 more years. Clean it out. Start it over. Give them the same deal as everyone else.
How to cancel your Social Security Corporation
1) print out IRS form 966: corporate dissolution
2) under the corporation name put MR/MS/MRS/etc as appropriate and then your full name IN ALL CAPS.
3) under EIN put your SSN.
4) under return type, check Other and write in "1040."
5) the rest of the info you can figure out.
6) above your signature write "Without Prejudice UCC 1-308"
7) make a copy for your records
8) send it into the IRS
This next year, Instead of filing taxes, Cancel them!
Why does this work? Your Social Security Number is actually a corporation and a second you. This stems from the idea of "corporate personhood." The idea of giving corporations the rights of natural humans may seem utterly disgusting, but under Black’s legal dictionary the definition of "person" is a natural human or corporation. This is because they are trying to fool people into self identifying as their SSN corporation! Hence the need to give your Statutory person the rights of a natural human.
Another reason why this works is because of UCC 1-308. Please look it up. This is the code that reserves natural human rights and opts out of the UCC that you don’t know about. This is critical to understand because if a judge were to ever ask you what that means, it is only valid if you know. That is to say, presenting this paperwork to a statutory court, and understanding it, means they don’t have jurisdiction...
Not only that but you also then have the Constitutional right to have any and all cases seen by a court of common law. Or have the case dismissed and compensation dispensed for your troubles. You can tell the difference between a statutory court and a common court because statutory courts use American Flags with a gold fringed borders.
What Without Prejudice UCC 1-308 Means:
The use of 'Without prejudice' UCC 1-308,' in connection with my signature indicates that I have reserved my Common Law right not to be compelled to perform under any contract that I did not enter into knowingly, voluntarily, and intentionally. And furthermore, I do not accept the liability associated with the compelled benefit of any un-revealed contract or commercial agreement.
Implications:
-Congratulations, you are a sovereign citizen that has reclaimed your constitutional rights!
-Using or claiming to be your invalid SSN is fraud.
-You have the right to have all debts be denominated in Constitutional Money: ounces of gold and silver.
-You have the right to work without a SSN.
-You have the right to be paid in ounces of gold or silver.
-You have the right to be treated as a corporation without a SSN but only with discrete opt-in consent.
-Filing taxes would be considered fraud due to need to fill in your invalid SSN. They also only collect unconstitutional Fed Notes which is most certainly not constitutional legal tender: gold or silver.
Enjoy your time in jail with Irwin Schiff. Let us know how it turns out.
.
This would be a boon to the working poor who pay more in FICA than income tax. They might have a shot at saving for their own retirement.
I do think there is merit in just going to a standardized dole, aka minimum income.
If your income from work is less than the amount of the dole then work out some kind of formula to make working worthwhile.
A lot less administration needed so many government workers would either have to find a place in the private sector, or go on the dole themselves with a much reduced income. Saving money all around.
The key is to be able to help people without enabling them to become state dependents.
Not easy to do.
Why do they post signs to not feed the bears? Because we hate bears and want to see them starve? I don't think so.
Claiming to have paid in their whole lives is amusing, particularly in the United States, since that same demographic was voting for spending increases. It's a bit like being entirely upside down on a beachside mansion when you could have afforded a smaller house in the city such that foreclosure is a possibility, but saying to the bank, "But I've paid in my whole life, this house should be mine."
It's particularly galling for baby boomers to use that line, considering their children have also paid in their whole lives, and they'll get jack shit.
Here's some base facts for you.... Someone is going to be left holding the bag at the end.
If it's young people, with lots of energy, no jobs, and a lifetime of debt, that means war and another generation fucked over from the horrors of that.
If it's old people, well, they were closer to death already anyway, and they're not reproducing.
Yep, it sucks, but it's easier on society if old people die off or have a harder time of it than young people.
Bullshit Tyler.
Is that all you've got? No screaming caps? No large font? Bit weak, really.
I do not believe Tyler necessarily agrees with all that he reports.
At times, I believe, Tyler publishes articles to let us what is going on outside of our enclosed walls our little circle, here at ZH.
You need to be thanking Tyler for exposing this bullshit.
Those that produce will produce all that is consumed by those that consume. It is only a matter of how one cuts the pie.
when does Mcdonald's add Soylent Green to their menu?
Soylent green is probably more healthy for you. And, it's GREEN! What's not to like about it?
ah, yes .... i do remember all those years of producing & working hard, day after day, sun up to sun down & more...... paying those taxes, raising those three kids, paying paying paying & more paying for their school fees, dental, medical & summer time fun. yes, i really worked like a dog for over 35 years straight & now? now i'm looked upon as useless dead weight (a lot of dead weight, l.o.l.)
We are THE liability. If they could only figure out how to securitize us. Once we are dead and gone and they figure out that the only people who knew how to actually work are all dead and gone....then, the real crisis will take hold. Eaters in deed.
35 years you say....I don't think I will be able to get away with less than 45 years of full employment just to claim whatever is left of SS to supplement what savings I can scrape together over my work life. I get the sneaking suspicion they will raise the SS retirement age on me at least one more time before I get there. Its amazing how far the money does not go these days after you get done paying for all those things you cite.
Luckily for all you young ones, you have Obamacare to ensure a long and productive (debt slave) life.
If you wll still be able to pull a trigger, you're never useless.
a little nuke war could solve that problem
no wonder we are poking the bear in the face
Unfortunately, most of the deleterious radioisotopes tend to have an affinity for developing bones and muscle tissue.
Sucks to be a child caught in the fallout cloud of a thermonuclear detonation.
This bear is tongless and clawless, you are giving to much credit to them. Consumer credit rate - 25%, thats what families in russia are dorced to pay taking out a house load, when we, in EU, pay 1.7%
The system actually sucks. If you work, you pay all your life. You get no return on your taxes taken by the government. What my mother gets out of the system now at the age of 90 is about 545.00 per month. She worked all her life and yes it is a ponzi system, you will get no argument from me. the problem is SS is now a welfare program for those that do not work or are on disability with really nothing wrong with them. Yet our politicians will do nothing about it as it is a 2 billion plus income stream for lawyers.
Disability fraud is rampant because states are allocated money and if not spent they lose it next year. Hell I know children in the hood on Disability because they have an ailment and the mother cannot collect child support so they go the disability route. We discard the elderly and it is so wrong for us to do that. Especially when we have women who are having children and never intend to work a day in their life. They never contribute anything to the federal or state government except taxes on what they buy. All bought to you by your taxpaying dollars.
How about no tax refund if you have never contributed one dime to it. How about no welfare unless the mother of the child declares who the father is. Yes you can get all the goodies without ever declaring who the father of your child is. How about stopping corporate welfare. Bring our young daughters and sons home from conflicts around the world that have nothing to do with the USA.
How about getting medical care and nursing homes costs under control! A reasonable nursing home costs around 4500 per month. Most cannot afford it so the government pays for it.
Everyone wants their part of the government coffers and it will be the USA's undoing. You cannot continue to go down this road but taking care of elderly people that indeed paid into the system all their lives is not the issue in my small mind. The issue is handouts for everyone else.
Pretty much right on there. The argument(s) should be why things cost as much as they do... not who's going to pick up the tab. My folks had no problem paying my $26 doctor visit out of their pocket when I was pre-teen.
Moral hazard.
Pay people to not work and what could possibly go wrong?
Pay people to have children and what could possibly go wrong?
Pay people to work in jobs that they can never be fired from and what could go wrong?
Loan people money that they can never repay and what could go wrong?
Tax people for working harder and longer than those who will not, and what could go wrong?
Elect people who promise to GIVE everything away...
AND WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO FUCKING WRONG????
Well they fucked the only woman God, so we still have to pay the consequences for that one.
Well, for one, some old guy may lose it and start a fad of using politicians for.target practice....
Have you been talking to my therapist?
lmao...mine too
Please tell me----a nursing home for $4,500 a month ! Where ?? In my neck of the woods it costs $8,000 to $10,000 a month. There is still a lot of wealth owned by retired people with pensions, savings, social security and medicare. Healthcare industry knows where the money is and goes after it with a vengence. Problem is younger generation will not posess much wealth in retirement because US economy is not growing except for the top 1%. However that is not the fault of the old generation that lved in years of growyh. The problem is with the new breed of Bankers , Wall St., Fed fiat bailouts and the global economy which favors emerging markets at the expense of real growyh in developed economies.
I think he is confusing a nursing home with assisted living. No way you get skilled nursing care for under $200 a day in Ohio.
$200 a day - that is cheap as fuck. You want halfway decent skilled nursing care - try min $300/day to avoid the shit nurses who are there to collect a paycheck and could give two shits about your grammy.
How about you stupid Yanks stop blowing eveyrbody up, Then you might have more money. Just more dump fuckin Yanks. Your Big Gov and yr Black gay presidante have yr back.
If you're a Dual Citizen (US plus ANY other country), you can enjoy your Elder Care in another country.
It's bound to be as good or better than in the US -- for FAR LESS money. And that's a fact, Jack. I speak of 1st hand knowledge, seeing that my own parents had the benefit of this.
The US... NOT what it used to be, not "your parents' USA".
What other country, besides the US, are you permitted to be a "dual citizen"?
Well I live in another country. I have permanent residency. Life is great.
Many. Most Commonwealth countries (former British colones), including Australia, NZ, Canada. Most EU countries. Probably most Latin countries.
I happen to have triple citizenship: 2 due to parents, 1 due to choice. I wanted to make my own choice, but will take the benefit of my "birthright".
BTW, the US allows "Dual Citizenship", which amounts to Multiple Citizenship. Not that "multiple" is needed.
BTW, it DOES NOT. You are simply to much of a clown to know that - when you swear an oath to receive a USA citizenship you clearly state that you cannot enter any others countries military force in time of a war
Supreme Court changed that a long time ago. Regardless of some recital during citizenship rituals.
The White House is going to start "a war on old people".
Good.
Old people are likely the only ones willing to fight back.
It's time for grandma to move to a farm...like rover.
edited
You need to look at the aveage age of farmers in North America. Grandma is on the farm and doing all the work.
Somebody on face book sent me a public service union ad this morning...telling me that a society with lots of very well endowed public sevice pensions is great for the economy.
I'll send him this ZH article. I hope he spills hot coffee down his pants.
Stimulus!!!!
Obama says ALL spending is stimulus.
You know that is all we have been lacking and it's the Republican congress's fault because they stopped Obama from spending moar.
If not for our do nothing congress we would be in tall cotton...or at least green shoots...knee high!!
Ask anyone on MSNBC
When the system re-sets and freebies are brought into line with taxes, the oldies are going to get hammered by benefits cuts AND by confiscation of their life savings. Don't get old.
You may be right.
The "confiscation" part might get a little messy, however.
Imagine a bunch of young, jack-booted government thugs trying to forcibily confiscate Grandpa's farm that he's lived in all his life.
That might not go according to plan.
You are imagining the wrong thing.
Imagine a bombardment of layers upon layers upon layers of red-tape bureaucracy and regulation slowly consficating Grandpa's wealth/income until Grandpa sells everything so that he may retire in a card-board box. Heck, you do not need to imagine anything ---- just look closely around. I see it happening where I live.
If it is slow enough, Grandpa will do the thugs' work himself. That is the plan.
This is another divide and conquer by age propaganda attack on Social Security by demon spawn Libertarians. Hey Look! Look at those old people sucking up all the money so there won't be any left for you young people!
Wait! Wait don't look at that Military Industrial Security Terror complex, they protect us from...uh, the Shadow Military Industrial Security Terror complex. Wait! Don't look at all that massive financial corruption that is the economy! Hey don't look at that pension stealing, and monetary sodomy allowed by the captured regulators, that’s free enterprise!
But hey, look at those old people over there mooching off the dole and partying down on that cat food like there’s no tomorrow. Hey Gramps! Get a job, ya bum!
I'm 55 now and paying out the ass for taxes in all its ugly forms. I'm owed some return for decades of being robbed.
When I'm 65, if I get told tough luck old timer, I'll dust off my secret revenge plan and put it into action.
Ive thought about this scenario a lot lately.
There will be re-education camps for the likes of you (and all us ZH'ers) when they decide to pull the plug on SS and the bail-ins begin...
After reading ZH comments for a couple of years ...I'm amazed they haven't already taken everyone to the camps.
Did everyone get vaccinated with sarcasm vaccine in the 70's? Why do contributors even send their stuff to Tyler? Are they masochists?
ZH is Peoria
I am 65. My mother is 91. She has been an invalid for forty years. At 90, she became bedridden with a hole in her spine. She was in incredible pain. She went through back surgery and was in a nursing home for six months. She contracted pneumonia and was on the brink of death. The hospital put forth a herculean effort and brought her back. She is now doing very well for which I am grateful. Medicare and United picked up the lion’s share of the tab. She paid the remaining many thousands.
She asked me one day why God brought her back. She said she felt that then was her time to go. I told her God must still have a purpose for her. I did not have the heart to tell her the real reason she has to sit in a wheel chair all day is because she is a milk cow for the medical industry.
It is my hope and prayer that God takes me with a good swift heart attack. There comes a point my friends when all of us will need an easy out and this current medical industrial complex will not give it to us.
It's called a DNR.
Not quite the same as do not treat.
"The system actually sucks. If you work, you pay all your life. You get no return on your taxes taken by the government. "
^^^^^ THAT is the problem right there! ^^^^^
SSI = Social Security INSURANCE.
It was supposed to be INSURANCE. -Not a fucking annuity for eveyone to leech off for decades!
It was basically designed to keep a small number of under/unskilled elderly women ( mostly women ) from becoming completely destitute when the male breadwinner died.
The fact that it has been transformed by pandering asshole politicians and serially raided by greedy fucks who don't need it is HOW it was distorted into an 'entitlement' ponzi for people who want to retire but haven't actually saved the resources to do so.
Old people that can still work basically want a refund with interest of the INSURANCE they paid into that was only supposed to be there if they were so decrepit that they were unable to work and they were actually DESTITUTE.
WTF do you think would happen to any INSURANCE fund or company if the day you finally sold your home you also demanded a refund with interest of all the payments you made to your home owner's insurance over the years?
Why? Because you paid in all those years?!
-WTF??
It would go broke. Just like Social Security INSURANCE is going broke.
ALL I hear are loathsome cries akin to:
"Why should I be the 'loser' just becaue my house never burned down?!
I paid in all those years!!! -WHAT ABOUT ME?!"
ASSHOLES.
It never was design as a retirement fund or annuity. It is INSURANCE.
INSURANCE YOU GREEDY FUCKS!
YOU FUCKING PEOPLE ARE STEALING FROM THE INSURANCE.
STOP STEALING FROM THE INSURANCE.
STOP STEALING FROM THE INSURANCE.
Insurance is a scam - without it we would have saved the money to retire years ago.
Ever look out over a city. Look at the neon signs on the tall buildings - Thats where the real theft is
Well said, it bears repeating over and over again.
All insurance is a scam.
People in this thread keep asking why costs of care have gone up- insurance is one of the major culprits.
Other reasons for excessive costs of medical care:
-Big Pharma pushing questionable, even harmful "medicines."
-Hospitals run as a profit center, rather than a care provder, with emphasis on Administrators sucking up the majority of profits.
-A majority of people who buy hook, line and sinker "modern "healthcare", as if that is what it is. It's mostly sickcare, brought on by not eating right, not exercising, and abusing drugs, tobacco and alcohol.
The solution is simple: unplug from the sytem as much as possible. See it for what it is. You only need Doctors for trauma care, that's what they are good at. Instead of paying into insurance, save that money in case you ever need care.
And all this whining over nursing homes, SS, etc is just that- whining. The gubmint lied to you? They lied to me too. Get used to it, pass it along to your children. Prepare for system collapse. Learn to hunt, fish, trap, forage, garden, live of the land. Attain survival skills. Plan to work, at least part time, hopefully self-employed, until your death.
Most importantly, put your faith in God.
This system is going down- even Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder could see that.
Absolutely. Insurance is but another wealth redistribution ponzi scheme. It completely relies on people paying yet getting NO benefits, to pay for those who receive benefits. It always starts out as a basic, simple AND affordable plan. Once we become accustomed to it, we start depending on it rather than actually working to save to cover the risk or actually modifying our behavior to minimize the risk. The risks actually increase due to the illusionary elimination of risk, driving costs up, creating even more demand for the insurance as the service fees become unaffordable. The solution is to let the system advance to the point that it fails as no one can afford the insurance or else FORCE everyone to participate (Obamacare/SSI). It still fails and because it is under government control, the costs can be hidden and deferred and eventually covered by debt unavailable to individuals. In a real world we would eventually opt out of SSI realizing its costs outstrip its rewards, but we are not given that choice, not because it is a bad choice but because they can't afford us to bail. Those standing there waiting for their promised benefits are staring into the depraved and electorally desperate eyes of a resource starved government. There is no solution because those solutions will destroy the careers of many a politician and government employee.
Unless of course it is just insurance. You pay in and if you NEED it you receive. Otherwise, that's it. What is wrong with that basic concept? The problem is that politicians made promises they could never keep (as usual). No surpise. Now it needs to be fixed by reverting to what it was. SS taxes should be reduced accordingly to reflect the fact it is again insurance and not a retirement plan.
Demonstrate your ignorance in smaller doses.
Just because it is called "insurance" has nothing to do with how it was structured or what was promised. It has NEVER been means tested. And on top of that, WE ARE FORCED TO BUY IT!!!
But make shit up to fit your perceptions!
What can I say? The boomers who squandered their children's inheritance---those children they let escape the womb alive anyway---are soon to discover that their few children have better things to do with what little remains than pay for dear old Mom and Dad to take 30 years to die.
Honestly? If Obamacare had really involved "death panels" it would have been the smartest thing DC had come up with in generations. There's a reason cats and dogs get better health care than humans. Nobody thinks badly of you for putting an old mutt that's had its day out of its misery. The kids get over it.
Pity I'd still get in trouble in my home state for taking my drunken, spendthrift bitch of a mother out back and shooting her. My wife wouldn't be the only one who'd cheer.
I'm sorry for your life.
I'm sorry for life itself.
Fixed it 4 U.
Not me. I have had a great life, worked hard, played hard and saved hard. I just feel bad for those who feel as you do. You obviously missed a lot.
I had a great life too. (Should we compare the size of our greatness?)
I started early. I was a senior in high school for three out those four years, when the University of Chicago High School converted from a two year program to a four year one with me one of the top dogs. There were 55 kids in my class, so it wasn't like I got special attention or anything.
Before I semi-retired in 1977, I was living in a loft building across 2nd St. from CBGB with the punk rock band, The Ramones. (A friend of mine was their manager). Most evenings as I climbed up to my 3rd floor loft, I would stop in to schmooze with the band and kibitz about their recent performances across the street.
But enough about me.
Instead of feeling bad for those who feel as I do, may I respectfully suggest you muster your pity for most every one alive under the age of 50. The younger they are, the worse it will be. The more time they will have to spend in this Brave New Orwellington that, as you must have noticed, the world is inescapably slouching toward.
Life is an opportunity. I only feel sorry for those who fail to see that. Those who will only be satisfied when the world only exists as THEY imagine it should, will always be disappointed. We are humans and this is the world as we have made it. We could change it but it would require a full acceptance of reality first, but delusion, being the comfortable warm blanket that it is, will probably never be rejected.
So we vote for Obama, for hope and change, only to find it is the same ruse as always, only worse. There is still an opportunity for those who can still change. It is sad when we find ourselves unable, and more importantly, unwilling to change.
Is there ever a moment in your life when you imagine yourself chained by your ankles and wrists to a stone wall of a cell in the Chateau d'If that you begin to concede to yourself that the days of change for the better are over?
I didn't fully realize it then, but the Kennedy Assassination, and the war it sanctioned, was the beginning of the 'terrible' change for me and America. And the diminishment of the meagre hope that we were left with.
I am not bought off by all the conveniences that technology has given a portion of mankind, as the power the same technology has bestowed on TPTB is immeasurable.
For what it's worth, it got better.
My in-laws I'll be happy to take in if it comes to that and I can still afford to care for them myself. Changing the diapers of my own dear old Mom will be the problem of my useless sister, who will assuredly never get married and whose busy-work job at a third-rate college will be one of the first to go after the Great Reset. One of the many nice things about having escaped from Uncle Sugar's clutches is I don't even have to pay for dear old Mom's Medicare or little sister's food stamps.
The only realistic pension plan after the Great Reset will be children brought up well enough to stay out of jail and gainfully employed, and not hate their parents' guts. But I think all here know that.
Businesses are getting to the point where they owe so much in taxes, that there is no longer any incentive to actually paying any future taxes.
Thats what it looks like on the ground when you are looking for sub-contractos . . . no one can get approved for small side jobs because of bullshit tax debts.
How sustainable is that?
Lets say you are a construction company, hundreds of years worth of experience among you and your staff/family who operate the business.... lets say you owe 200,000$ in taxes under the company, and lets say the business nets 300,000$ a year before taxes.
Is it worth it for you to pay your taxes? or to just let the business sink and start a new business under someone elses name?
Then you have to question.
At what point do people just wake up and stop paying taxes from the get-go?
At what point does everyone "quit" taxes? as if it was some kind of bad habit like smoking cigarettes?
From my experience, taxes do not help me at all. . . I receive no net benefit from the government, and to boot the government actually costs me money ontop of the taxes by putting in place bullshit laws that make other markets I have to bid into (like insurance) non-competitive monopolies that bloat my costs.
Its like donating money to a criminal who will use that money to buy guns to point at you so that they can come back later and extort MORE money out of you... from a business stand point it makes no sense at all.
For the money paid to govt in the form of taxes these bitches should be wiping my ass and cleaning my car, people who pay the taxes should recieve all the benefits. . . if you are not a contributor you should not be a beneficiarry. . . and that should be a CHOICE , you should have the RIGHT NOT TO CONTRIBUTE AND NOT TO BENEFIT.
This is why America needs single-payer health care: So that when you're retired and develop your first non-trivial health problem, the single payer decides that the most cost-effective treatment is to let you die.
http://blog.jim.com/economics/29-of-british-hospital-deaths-murder-by-th...
"cost effective" as in they will not let you die until they have extracted all of your wealth. Like inheritance taxes are anything to worry over. They will skim that shit before it ever gets to probate.
Time to fire up the showers and ovens again. Old people are just a drag on everyone elses happniess and prosperity. Kill everyone over 60. Problem solved.
I always thought it was a trust fund. But while we bash the elerly and the rest of workers even thinking about living too long may I ask what would be in the trust fund if all those IOUs left for various noble purposes like war and what not had never taken place?
Just curious
Dude. Don't stop here.
Let it all hang out.
Here at ZH, we appreciate alliteration, whenever possible.
(the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.)
Insurance??? Please. If it were insurance, your premiums would skyrocket when you turned 65 and you would never receive a claim payment.
Heres what I see..premiums increasing..debt for seniors increasing as they take on their kids student loans and use the equity in their homes. They buy things and use the credit card and equity of their homes..again..who is realy feeding off the seniors..The insurance comapnies and banks . the new fairer reverse mortgages and crap..same as it ever was..Theyhave property and they buy cars and have all kinds of hobbbies..some even go for education to learn and contribute o the GDP..wtf do those below 65 have ..debt and not a pot to piss on..what the seniors have left is all there is left..and when thats gone..thats when the game is over. Its cheaper to keep them..while you have them..dont fall for class warfare.
excerpt......
Moreover, a greater share of seniors' total expenditures are for mortgage or home equity loan interest. Consider:3
In 2012, interest payments were 4.3 percent of overall expenditures for 65 to 74 year olds, up from 2.7 percent of expenditures in 1990.
For those 75 years old and older, the increase was greater, from less than 0.7 percent of expenditures in 1990 to 2 percent in 2012.
This expenditure represents a small but troubling share, considering that mortgage interest rates have been at an all-time low. Clearly, seniors are taking on more principal mortgage debt for longer periods of time.
Overall housing expenses (including maintenance, property taxes, insurance and mortgage interest) are the largest category of expenditures for seniors, comprising 32.8 percent of expenditures for 54 to 74 year olds, and 36.7 percent for 75+ year olds.
Health care expenditures are substantial, but not one of the fastest-growing expenditure shares. Indeed, health care is the fourth largest category of spending for 65 to 74 year olds (11.4 percent of expenditures) and the second largest category for those age 75 and older (14.7 percent of expenditures). These expenditures include out-of-pocket costs for physician visits, treatments and lab tests, medical equipment, prescription and over-the-counter drugs and supplemental insurance premiums, but exclude Medicare Part B premiums. However, the growth in health care expenditures is mixed depending on age and category. For 65 to 74 year olds:
Total health care expenditures slightly increased from 10.5 percent in 1990 to 11.4 percent of expenditures in 2012.
Supplemental insurance premiums have almost doubled since 1990 and account for almost two-thirds of health care expenditures.
But out-of-pocket expenditures associated with medical services (physician fees, lab tests, and so forth) have fallen slightly.
For seniors 75 years old and older:
Total health care expenditures increased slightly, from 14.4 percent of expenditures in 1990 to 14.7 percent of expenditures in 2012.
Supplemental insurance premiums have increased by about one-third since 1990 and now account for almost two-thirds of their health care expenditures.
However, costs fell for prescription and over-the-counter drugs, as well as medical services and medical equipment.
The slight drop in drug expenditures for 75+ year olds is not surprising. Since Congress passed legislation in 1984 making it easier for generic drugs to enter the marketplace, generic drugs have proliferated, bringing lower prices.4 Furthermore, the Medicare Part D drug program, enacted under the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, has been surprisingly competitive, keeping drug costs for seniors lower than expected.5
Seniors expenditures increasingly reflect their hobbies. Reflecting on how seniors spend their money might conjure up a picture of a wealthy couple traveling around the world or a low-income couple having to choose between medicine and groceries. But the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Seniors are spending more on hobbies and non-essentials than they did in 1990. For 65 to 74 year olds, for instance, two of the top five fastest-growing expenditure categories are [see Table I]:
Miscellaneous entertainment, which has grown an average of 9.8 percent annually since 1990. This category includes exercise equipment, photography equipment, campers, boats and other motorized recreational vehicles, and electronic video games.
Pets and hobbies, which has averaged 5.2 percent growth annually since 1990. This category not only includes expenses for pets and pet supplies, but also toys, games, tricycles and playground equipment.
Conclusion. Today's seniors have a mixed bag of spending habits. Although discretionary and recreational purchases have increased, today's seniors are taking on debt in the form of mortgages and credit cards. Moreover, with abysmally low interest rates on savings and a tax policy that subsidizes consumption over saving, seniors do not have much incentive to save. Those who are early into retirement should rethink conventional wisdom about saving by considering a variety of investments besides just bonds. Also, they should avoid incurring debt through a home equity loan or any type or mortgage.
Pamela Villarreal is a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis.
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ib135
My knee-jerk reaction to this article was to tell BB to shove it. But, I won't do that yet. I will tell this story:
My dad was a "chemical operator" (of vacuum stills that manufactured slightly explosive 96%-pure hydrogen peroxide) for 46 years in a plant on the Niagara River in Buffalo NY. He retired around 1975. The highest W-2 he ever received was $17,000 and change. His retirement annuity was $165/month.
He died in 2003 at age 94. At the time of his death, he was receiving an $1,100 monthly check from Social Security. A couple of years before he died, I said to him one day: Dad, you never put much money into the SS system - is it right for you to get $1,100 per month. His response: "I never asked for it. That's what they give me. I never asked them to take anything out of my paycheck. But they took money out anyway."
Now take me: I have paid into SS since 1964. Except when I was in the military and in school working part-time (say a total of 10 years), I have paid the maximum amount into SS every year. I am 71. I am still working and tax six figures. My business and I collectively pay about $18,000 per year into the system - money I will never see. I get, pre-tax, $26,000/year in SS after deducting Medicare premiums (about $4,000 per year). I tax 80% of that.
Hey Bill, I never asked for nothing. Go shove it. You SOB - you are addressing to the wrong audience. Why not march up and down the halls of Congress, handing out leaflets to abolish SS. Or, how about visiting the Pentagon and lobby them to cut back like 25%.
Hey Bill - stop writing this drivel - get a real job.
Woe is us! Our 1st world problems!
People who expect to get money back from the government are living in dream-land. I respect folks who "paid into it" all of their lives but sorry, they have misguided faith. They need to accept the fact that they were conned.
Where I live, a lot is doled out to the FSA in many different forms. We have a similar SS ponzi sham. Our statesmen call it something else --- I forget what. After my own father died before he had a chance to retire, the thought of looking forward to my own retirement vanished.
My retirement plan is simple: I will move into my own basement, give my house to my kids and pray they throw me scraps down the stairs at least once a day if I am too feeble to pick dandelions myself. That is my paradise on Earth. If that is too much to ask/expect from my own flesh and blood, then I am fucked and I have only myself to blame. If my kids can not find jobs, then it is my current responsibility to set them up to be self-sufficent, grow tomatoes and learn to catch fish. No prayers to The Almighty Government will save us -- not now, not ever.
You can't vote against wealth transfer. No matter who you vote for, the government always wins and skims.
Kill all the old people, except me. /s for the humor impaired. The kids are (historically) supposed to take care of aged parents but frankly, I'd consider euthanasia before living with my kids.
I don't have a huge problem with old people getting a check.
My problem is with the legions of useless leeches sitting in their government buildings and doing nothing for an even fatter paycheck.
I agree..to the tune of 2.7 trillion dollars in IOUS and even the interest is bogus. Congress is responsible for breaking the system not the seniors who paid a hefty increase in 1983 accumulated a massive surplus squandered away. Solutions proposed delay collecting evn longer reduce benefits but nothing...nada about repaying what was stolen.
http://www.fedsmith.com/2013/05/23/government-owes-2-7-trillion-to-socia...
The government IOUs in the trust fund are not like the marketable U.S. Treasury bonds held by China and America’s other creditors. Those marketable bonds can be converted into cash at any time by selling them in the open market. The IOUs in the trust fund are like a handwritten note that a bank robber might leave behind in the empty vault, stating how much money he has stolen. The note tells the bank how much money is missing, but it won’t help the bank get the money back. Similarly, the IOUs in the trust fund are a record of how much Social Security money was taken and spent on other programs. But the IOUs are not marketable, and they cannot be converted into cash. And the interest income, that the SSA claims the government is paying, is not cash interest. It is in the form of more of the same worthless IOUs that the trust fund already holds.
The harsh fact is that Social Security does not have any cash reserves. That is why President Obama said that he couldn’t guarantee that Social Security checks would go out on time without a budget agreement, because “There might not be enough money in the coffers to cover them.” The government owes Social Security $2.7 trillion, but the government is both unable and unwilling to repay the stolen money, at least in the short run.
The good news is that the Social Security System is not broken. It works well and has done so for the past 78 years. The problem is that the United States federal government is badly broken, and no “fix” is upon the horizon. The only problem is that, Social Security does not have enough revenue to pay full benefits, and the government has stolen the cash reserves it is supposed to have in the trust fund. If the government would enact legislation requiring the repayment of the stolen money, perhaps in installments over the next 30 years, Social Security’s short-term problems would be fixed.
Forget about that old propaganda statement the enemies of Social Security have been repeating, over and over, since Social Security was first created. It goes like this: Social Security, in its present form, is unsustainable over the long run. That is just a big lie that the enemies use as a weapon in their war against Social Security. There is nothing basically wrong with the Social Security System, and it would not even be in the news today if crooked politicians hadn’t stolen $2.7 trillion of its money.
- See more at: http://www.fedsmith.com/2013/05/23/government-owes-2-7-trillion-to-socia...
I have the solution ...forget death panels...just give us guns, skip the physicals, and aim us at somebody.
Something like a paint ball gun weekend, with real bullets.
Sign me up for the Wall Street Weekend.,,,If I survive that one, I always wanted a Boko Harem rug for my rec room.
An aging population - taking all the wealth.
So where are our young - our grandchildren - our babies - our next generation?
In the incinerators.
Because the present breeding generation is more interested in sheer greed and materialism than having children - which take care and commitment.
And our politicians prefer to import workers ready made than find the costs of raising children within society?
We have limited future white generations because in Britain and the USA and other western nations we have killed them.
I stopped paying into the system in 1999. I was 46. Seriously, I hated the system then, and it got worse after that (9/11, Iraq, Bush, Oblamo, etc.).
Own my business, work from home. Helped out my aging parents until they died. Left me little in the way of money, but plenty in terms of smarts and self-reliance (and I grew from there).
Desperately trying to GTFO completely. A month from now I may be able to claim to be 90% "free." Own land, some flat to farm, some woods, nice stream running through it. Already told the local utility that I have no need of their services.
I was in a bank yesterday, about to open a new account and make a hefty deposit (cash) for my upcoming closing, when, after sitting, waiting for 20 minutes while the four women "working" did whatever they were doing - there were no customers, none - I was told that holds would be 7 days and they'd have to look at my credit report before opening an account. I was told that if there was $1000 or more in collections on my account they could not open an account.
I said, "good day" and walked out. when I got outside the bank with my $5000 in my pocket, I thought I must be crazy to even consider having these nitwits handle my money. I'll go to the closing with cash.
Fuck banks, and the government. Roots of all problems.
Interesting that these articles about the demise of social security never go into the real "why," effectively the lie of omission. One would think it's only because there are a growing number of elderly who are living longer, so they sort of deserve it. In truth, our economy is gone, the jobs are gone, the money has been stolen, it was improperly invested in government bonds which pay a minimal/no return, and much of the program is now a welfare program, where benefits are awarded to many people who did not contribute. The people making high salaries today are government employees - who I believe are exempt in most cases - from social security, in favor of far more lucrative retirement programs. I'm sure there are other problems I'm not even aware of. All of this is borne by those making payroll contributions - who are then blamed for the faults of the system. Sounds familiar.