BoatBanter.com - View Single Post

[email protected]

On Mon, 16 May 2011 12:17:14 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 15 May 2011 23:05:20 -0700, wrote:

SS/Medicare would be broke, no matter what happened to the economy.
There simply are not enough workers coming onto the bottom of the
pyramid to support an 83 million person peak.

This is completely untrue. Neither is broke and this is just a right
wing talking point without merit.

That is just denial.
Any program that pays out more than it takes in is doomed to fail

No. You're wrong. Many programs "pay out" more than they take in for
some period of time and they do fine in the long run. You're the one
in denial.

You started out with 35 or 40 payers per retiree in 1935 and people
were only expected to collect for a couple of years if they lived that
long. Now we have 3 workers per retiree and they will collect for 18
years.
It is simply unsustainable. The whole concept of a trust fund is
fantasy, invented in 1939 to fund the build up for WWII.

what's also unsustainable is the massive increase in healthcare costs
we face, again, engineered by the 'free market' fundamentalism of the
right.
Health care cost is part of it but simply having 40 million medicare
recipients is unsustainable and that will double in a decade.

It's only unsustainable if no action is taken. Action is being
proposed and the situation will turn around. More fear mongering isn't
part of the solution.

Do you have a 1.5 trillion dollar idea to fix the deficit. That is
really what we are talking about here and it is not a long term
problem it is a problem today. Medicare/SS are just another part of
the deficit now since both are running in the red.

I suggested several ways to start. We DON'T NEED TO FIX THIS TOMORROW.
We need to get started... subsidies, military, tax rates. I know you
don't like it and would prefer to think all is lost and the sky is
falling. It isn't.

BTW did you see how Geithner is extending the debt ceiling? He is
taking money from the federal pension program. I am surprised nobody
is raising hell about that.

we have no choice but to extend the ceiling. our debt wouldnt be
serviceable if we didnt

The debt will be unserviceable when the interest rate doubles too and
that is far more than likely.

It is not "more likely." There's no credible evidence that interest
rates will be doubling any time soon.

More denial.
At this point we are only paying 0.3% on our short bonds. That is not
likely to continue very long. To think a fraction of a percent rate
hike is impossible it just lunacy. Right now investors are not even
covering the drop in the value of the dollar we pay them back with.

There is NO EVIDENCE of a dramatic increase in interest rates. Total
nonsense.