If we're going to keep it, its clear the age needs to be raised, perhaps to 75. If someone's health deteriorates before then its one thing, but othwise...

Also stop borrowing from it for other stuff.

This is a good piece. Revenues are low right now and spending is very high = deficits are enormous:

http://factcheck.org/2011/07/fiscal-factcheck/

I saw a protest sign this weekend and thought it had a great saying (hopefully I get it right):

do the taxpayee's outnumber the taxpayers?

Does not quite sound correct, but the point is right.

The change in expectations is stark.

In 1935, Social Security was old-age insurance that most people would never get because they wouldn't live long enough. If you wanted to quit your job for the last ten or twenty years of your life, you were expected to save your own money.

Obama's "veiled threat" to withhold Granny's Social Security check if the debt ceiling is not raised is very real. The Baby Boomers are a huge generation that paid a fortune into the Social Security "trust" fund, but the government has borrowed and spent all that money. Obviously, since it's going further into debt by a trillion and a half dollars a year, it is in no position to pay that money back. So yes, as a matter of fact the government has to borrow money to make payments to current beneficiaries, and if it is not allowed to increase its borrowing, given that 10,000 Boomers turn 65 every day, it may very well not be able to make the payments.

The lesson I learn from this is to NEVER put yourself in a position where you must rely on a government check.

I have done the math, and what neither party is willing to admit is this: We need to pull the plug on old people who are past their expiration date.

BTW, Japan spends four percent of its GDP on healthcare; the USA about four times that. They have aging population, even more so than us.

Copy Japan.

how about you move to Japan buttfuck

I wouldn't worry too much about the old folks. They are much more able to take care of themselves than the younger people are to take care of them.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-05-20-cover-generation-wealth_N.htm

I have done the math, and what neither party is willing to admit is this: We need to pull the plug on old people who are past their expiration date.

I dispute your assertion. I've read your posts and there is no evidence in any of them that you can do math.

So, BOTU, gleaning from all your past postings ... in your utopian United States, the government spends no money on defense, no money on agriculture, no money on roads and bridges, no money on any rural projects or people, and no money on old people.

This BOTU-Utopian US is
- criss-crossed with privately-owned, unregulated toll roads with varying degrees of safety and structural integrity; most of which are littered with car accidents since only private fire/rescue is permitted and those who can't pay are left to die
- defended by a militia armed with only shotguns and hunting rifles (a militia that will receive no compensation from the government if injured in battle and unable to work again)
- beset with high food prices (and resulting starvation) in the cities due to the exorbitant cost of shipping goods along expensive toll roads from a woefully underdeveloped rural region to the cities
- unable to communicate freely across the country due to a lack of telephony and/or road development in rural regions (satellite phones are an expensive option since a militarized NASA will be eliminated and only private satellites are launched)
- unnaturally young as old and sick people are abandoned to starve or outright shot so they don't drag down the economy with their expensive healthcare needs
- bereft of civlized (or mature) political discourse as everyone calls anyone who disagrees with them a "catamite" or "festering sore" or "carbunkle"

Gee, sign me up.

BOTU, The Probability Broach was fiction. Even Gallatin would call it an amusing fantasy.

The trust fund is empty.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/were-americas-assets-looted-years-ago

Hey, Conan knows about The Probability Broach!

Me, I'm starting to regret visiting this planet. The people are just nucking futs!

How many government employees can you tax, and at what rate, to pay other government employees?

Someone on NPR this morning said that it was important to raise the debt ceiling so that the government can borrow the money it needs to pay its debts.

That idiot needs to be slapped. Maybe even tied to BOTU and then slapped. Those of you low on recreational drugs can obviously go get them at your public radio station.

Meanwhile, I'll be calling VISA and telling them to raise my credit limit so I can pay my Discover bill!

Conan:

My stance: Much less money on defense; no money on agriculture (now a mature industry); much less money on people who are close to dying; and toll roads would not be a bad idea.

You seem to have deep distrust of free enterprise.

That's fine--but it leads to liberal, spending solutions.

I have not used the word "carbunkle" but I will endeavor to add it to my vocabulary as it has a nice ring to it.

You seem to have deep distrust of free enterprise.

Not so. I am a staunch advocate of free enterprise, a capitalist to the core.

But I'm also a realist. Sometimes civilization requires that we all foot the bill for communal infrastructure and mutual defense since we collectively derive benefits from it.

Toll roads work when there are competing routes. Otherwise the owner of the one road has a monopoly and charges higher prices. Building five or six roads along the same route often makes no sense, so we all collectively build and maintain the road at a reasonable price, freeing the rest of the land for other uses.

On the other hand, that argument was used for telephony (AT&T) in the past and is today used for cable television. Given advances in technology and the break-up of Ma Bell, there is no reason cities can't have multiple competing cable companies. Why should Comcast or Time Warner have a monopoly when multiple companies can use the same infrastructure?

I have not used the word "carbunkle"....

Yes, you have. I'm not going to go searching for examples, but the word has been a regular in your diatribes.

And, by the way, I mis-spelled it. It's "carbuncle."

Only a tiny percentage of government spending is related to common infrastructure.

20% of our spending is on military, and some of that is necessary, but I only want military spending for defense purposes, not getting involved in five different wars and trying to build nations.

60% of spending is on entitlements and ye gods, do we need any further proof that we've devolved into a total welfare state? The safety net has turned into a freaking hammock, already.

10% goes to interest on the debt; not much we can do about that until we pay down existing debt.

10% goes to discretionary spending, and a lot of that could be eliminated.

If we're ever going to live within our means, the entitlement spending has to be completely gutted. Therein lies the problem, because so many voters are getting checks, and almost none of them would ever vote themselves smaller checks.

"20% of our spending is on military"

Really? My research shows current outlays for war-related fun activities make up 36% of our spending, and another 18% goes to outlays for previous war-related fun (vets, interest on the wars, etc).

However we count the beans, I think the important thing to note is that this President is finally doing something about those goddamned old people who built this country.

Those bastards.

Fortunately the next generation won't need Social Security because they're all smart and save their money and nothing bad will happen to America in the interim.

"Someone on NPR this morning said that it was important to raise the debt ceiling so that the government can borrow the money it needs to pay its debts."

PRICELESS!

Here is where I got the 20%:

http://www.businessinsider.com/usa-inc-2010-income-statement

This shows 20% being spent on "defense." If you change the definition to "military" or "wars" you might start pulling from other pieces of the pie.

Hey PJ, got it - yeah the higher percentage is for everything they DON'T want to call 'defense', like paying off the old war debt. It's an outrageous amount of our GNP.

In any case I think it's hilarious that the government is turning on its citizens. It's ok, we can always eat cake, and there will be no repercussions for the ruling class.

No one should worry, though. The Chinese are a caring and thoughtful people and will treat their new minions with respect.

I'm learning how to say "I know where the escaped slaves are hiding, sir" in both Cantonese AND Mandarin!

So, Gog, are you advocating that we default on old debts to reduce our outlays?

Defense spending may be 20-25 percent of the federal budget, but it consumers more than one-half of federal income taxes.

The large entitlement programs--Social Security and Medicare--are funded through payroll taxes.

If you want to know where your federal income taxes go, more than one-half goes to "national security" (read: grifters attached to the federal government).

Conan: Improper spelling of carbunkle? I thought we were talking about a bunkle on a car.

The large entitlement programs--Social Security and Medicare--are funded through payroll taxes.

Amazing. You actually have the ability to create your own little world and live in it.

====================

At one time, Social Security pulled in enough money to pay for itself and build up a nice slush fund to handle demographic shifts in age cohorts.

Or it would have if the excess funds hadn't been channeled into the general fund and spent. Instead, the Social Security Trust Fund (the "lockbox") is full of non-marketable Treasury securities (basically IOUs from the government).

In other words, the government used its VISA card to pay its AMEX card ... and now it's time to pay VISA and the government doesn't have the cash or another credit card.

Meaning the upcoming deluge of Social Security entitlement spending due to the Baby Boom retirement is going to come directly from the general fund ... or from substantially increased payroll taxes on current workers.

In addition, the worker-to-beneficiary ratio for Social Security was 5.1:1 in 1960. It was down to 3.0:1 by 2009. And it's expected to be 2.2:1 in 2030. That's less than 20 years away.

====================

Medicare is even worse. It's funded in three ways: a payroll tax shared by employer and employee, a premium assessed to the users, and from general revenues.

====================

Now add appropriated entitlement programs (welfare, Food Stamps, etc.) to the mix.

====================

In other words, BOTU, entitlement programs don't pay for themselves and are on a course to bankrupt the country.

| We need to pull the plug on old people
| who are past their expiration date.

Can't we just do the younger ones —Kentuckians, I'm thinking here— who get on our nerves? Is there some special new moral authority for frosting the olden ones? What's an "expiration date"?

We know that wisdom does not come necessarily with years; that old men may be foolish, and young men may be wise. —FDR

> how about you move to Japan buttfuck

Or that.


Y'know, I have this informal but essentially infallible character test: People who think there's too much of this-or-that humanity in the world aren't getting the right kind of sex.

Buttplug, do some math. Eliminating 100% of the defense budget STILL WOULD NOT BALANCE THE CURRENT-YEAR SPENDING.

So what do we cut next?

At some point, the boomers are going to take it in the shorts. They are the ones who spent the so-called trust fund. They are going to have to come up with a way out.

At some point, the boomers are going to take it in the shorts. They are the ones who spent the so-called trust fund.

Just think what their income taxes would have been otherwise.

They are going to have to come up with a way out.

Posted by: brian

I've got a way out

Last Day

"President Obama's veiled threat to withhold Grandma's Social Security benefits if Congress"

What nobody wants to admit out loud, is that a portion of Grandma's Social Security benefits are already gone - the government already spent it. Some of her money is gone. It's not coming back. It's too late. Grandma is already going to have lower quality of life in her retirement. We spent a pile of her money. We spent it on houses, cars and HDTVs for the employees of oversized unproductive bureaucracies, and we spent it on wars, and we spent it on 'stimulus programs', and we spent it on 'bailing out' rich banksters. But spent it is.

The primary debate now is essentially, at heart, about whether or not we're going to stop spending what's left of Grandma's money immediately, if we should keep spending it for several years longer, (because you see, the problem now is a lot of people depend on being paid their monthly salaries out of Grandma's retirement funds, and it would be a shock to the economy to put them out of work and therefore we "have to" keep spending Grandma's money on their salaries), and also just how much the taxpayer can be billed for partially covering the shortfall, and how to bill the taxpayer (both raising taxes directly and using money-printing are just different forms of higher tax ... money-printing just tends to be more politically favorable as most the people don't understand the system well enough to realize it's just another tax on ordinary folk). See, it's much easier to pay X dollars when you devalue those X dollars to the point they can only buy you a few tins of cat food each month.

Keeping this system going allows them to keep looting the savings of Americans for a while longer, and is also politically expedient, as they are spending Grandma's savings to engineer Obama's false short-term "recovery" which they need to do if he wants to be re-elected.

The sad thing is that even though in principle the Republicans are right that the debt ceiling should not be raised, it is true that there will be some hard shock if they don't raise it. This is exactly the same as if I have been leeching off my parents until I'm 30 for accommodation/food, and they suddenly kick me out, it will be an economic shock to me, and the retailers my parents were buying my food from are going to get less business. There are no quick and easy ways out of this mess.

My advice, don't rely completely on SS for your own retirement, and don't worry too much about who is going to care for Grandma - because the hard reality is, at the rate we're going, unless we stop this nonsense, just accept that she is going to be eating cat-food.

It's not too late yet for semi-acceptable solutions ... but it will be soon.

What's particularly disgusting to me about Obama talking now about 'having to' withhold Grandma's SS benefits, is that Obama's administration is precisely the one who just blew, what, 4 trillion odd of Grandma's money. The Republicans before him are also guilty of course, but it's highly disingenuous and is pure politics at its filthiest. Obama is actually also the one arguing that we need to keep spending even more of Grandma's money, he just wants to obfuscate this expenditure by hiding it in future inflation by means of the money-printing machine at the Fed, so that his hands look clean.

"Y'know, I have this informal but essentially infallible character test: People who think there's too much of this-or-that humanity in the world aren't getting the right kind of sex."
...
Perhaps this explains his second residency in Thailand... Come for the beaches, stay for the Lady Boys.

Well, meeeee-yowwwwww!