Posted on 05/31/2004 5:13:26 AM PDT by sarcasm
Doom and gloom has been around for a long time, in fact you can find it any time. I tried to think of the all the doom and gloom that was going to happen over the years and I had to stop, I had a stack overflow....one that I keep handy from around last year (my paraphrasing):
"Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley seems to take a very dim view of the future. War, uncertainty and disease all lead Mr. Roach to believe that a "global double dip" with economic disaster just waiting."
Basically (and again from memory) Mr. Roach opined that SARS would wipe out the entire human race. I note the original isn't on Morgan Stanley's web site but the latest is just about as good:
http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/latest-digest.html
"Global Blow Off"? Sheesh.
It's one of many. Not too many years ago the market seemed to think that the price of oil was going to zero. Guess what? It didn't. Now it's going to $100 a barrel? Guess what? I'm betting it won't.
The S&L crisis of the late 80's/early 90's was going to put us in a Japan like situation for at least a decade. Guess what? It didn't. In fact I can make an argument that it was actually _good_ for the economy.
About the worse recent doom and gloom I can remember is the Nixon/Carter years. Wage and price controls, 16% interest rates, no gas, gold at $700 plus.
That's not to say a prediction can't happen, but generally I've found that things are never as bad as they seem nor are they as good as they seem. The market is resilient and no doubt things will change; 30 years ago there were only a handful of biotech companies to invest in. Ditto technology companies but you could sure get great rates on 90-day T-bills (I recall them being as high as 12%). The younger generation, eventually freed from being forced to pour all their money down the social security rat hole will have the experience of the last couple of generations and start investing earlier and more. They will devise technologies and industries I can't even imagine. I hope I'm around to see it, I think it'd going to be amazing.
Guess I'm just a Regan/Kudlow type (though not nearly as smart!) and remain very optimistic. Yes, there will be problems, but none that beat us down for very long.
Arg, don't get me started on Duranty! Here it is 4am and my blood pressure is already breaking the monitor. He was slime.
Thanks again for the additional info but I still have my doubts about FDR's leanings....
I want to think the best of FDR. I think human beings are less than perfect, and we're always having to solve the problems we create ourselves, and that those around us (and who come before us) make. The optimistic view is that our lives are full of challenges. We have fallout from the Great Depression to manage even now. The same goes for the Cold War. People made choices then, and now we have to handle the consequences. We do our best...
Post WW2 the Greatest Generation gave us Abortion, Viet Nam (and the ensuing systemic problems in the military), changed immigration laws (habla espanol?), The Great Society (welfare in case it needs translating) the dissolution of mores in entertainment (remember Norman Lear?), school busing and so much more.
The first national election that any boomer could vote in was 1968, and even then only boomers born in 1945-1947 were old enough. By 1972 only the first wave of those described as boomers could vote.
So you want to say to the guy who's been paying into the social contract for over forty years..."F-you, you're on your own and thanks for 43 years of payments." That's your solution.
For the record, I had enough to retire by 49 and by investment revenues will guarantee that 85% of whatever I get from SS will be taxed.
Give everybody who put in his money back (tax free). Even w/o interest I'd take mine and call it even.
Thanks, but my point wasn't that I believed the "doom and gloom" predictions, but that the possibility of this scenario was based on the fact that boomers do have a large amount of assets in equity investments, meaning that many boomers ARE indeed preparing for retirement outside of the SS system. Sorry I wasn't more clear.
You might want to read some of the economic analysis of the depression as I think it's fair to say that the consensus is that FDR extended the depression and it would have continued had it not been for WWII.
At best he implemented programs that took money from one group and gave it to another group on a scale never seen prior to that in the US. Some use the excuse that the US was on the verge of a revolution but while there are some hardship during the depression it did not reach the level the media feeds us. FDR is the commie medias first love. You will never, ever, see anything critical of him in the mainstream media. That alone speaks volumns.
You can call that a lot of things, but given the means that FDR achieved it I think it's honest to be fairly critical.
A greedy coward? There are seniors, most on fixed incomes, who bought their houses in the early fifties, still live in them and are paying more in taxes annually than the house cost originally. The primary allocation of these taxes is school budgets. These budgets are driven up year after year by mis-management and the teacher's unions political clout. But to you any senior objecting to being taxed out of his home is a "greedy coward". Unbelievable.
Our country has to the point where old folks on fixed incomes who object to being taxed out of their homes are called "greedy cowards"....courtesy of that prince among men Dash Riprock.
Why if it's not their own kids? Once you justify the confiscation of money that someone has earned to give to someone who has not earned it, you're justifying any and everything. When I have to give you your college tuition money --- that education only benefits you. You've got the old being ripped off to pay for the young, the young being ripped off to pay for the old. This is why all Socialism is wrong.
It's ridiculous the spending per student --- $8,000 to $10,000 and more per year --- plus it's often the youth getting food stamps, free lunch, CHIP, and Medicaid --- it's difficult to guess which costs more. Plus there is no guarantee that a kid in high school doesn't start reproducing before they even get a job and the cycle begins again in 16 or so years. Hillary's motto was "for the children" for a reason.
And why not on that? A perfectly good source of health care and other money for seniors would be their homes and any savings they built up --- but who usually has their eyes on that? Do they repay the taxpayers from the estate if the senior used up taxpayer money? Or does all that get grabbed up by just their own kids who may not have contributed a dime toward their care?
I don't mean an estate tax but if an elderly person became ill and began to "need" government money to pay their doctor bills then let them take out a reverse mortgage or something instead. On the other hand let those who have kids support their own kids --- end all the Socialist programs is all I'm saying and that includes ones for the youth.
Too late they have already found a better deal, They get to pay less and you pay even more!!!.
2 ways they are doing/going to do this
1) The states and the feds who get their money mostly from income and sales tax are paying and will continue to pay more and more for education thus relieving the property tax burden on the elderly and older baby boomers.
2) There is a new phenomenon spreading across this country called Age restricted housing. Where you have to be at least 55 or older to buy a house in a community which pretty much guarentees there will be few or no kiddies going to school they have to pay for!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.