It’s a Time to Listen, and to Obey the Laws of Arithmetic

New York Times ^ | November 8, 2008 | N. Gregory Mankiw

[LowCountryJoe]

At first blush it sounds really fair

At second blush, it makes you wonder why people will work up to their abilities if the incentive to do so is gone. Socialism/Communism defy human nature and a person's desire to seek utility (satisfaction).

[rbg81]

I should also add that, for the past 100 years, America has always been there to save the world from itself. No longer. Now we will be just another one of the socialist pygmies—albeit a slightly larger one, hopelessly indebted to China.

[petro45acp]

From the new yuk slimes?????

Welcome to eurabia!

[Steamburg]

Nuance means we own the mint. Buy stock in ink and paper!

[Thermalseeker]

Naw. All the TAX THE RICH promises will be kept. The rich will simply be redefined.

Yeah, that will certainly happen. It was happening before the election even took place, i.e., the income tax level originally started at $250k, then dropped to $200k, then to $150K, then to $100K.

All the other stuff "that one" promised ain't gonna happen, either. There is a group of people who are going to come to a broad realization in a few months. These are the folks that think Obammy is going to be the second coming. These are the same folks who tend to burn their own neighborhoods, if you get my drift.....

One political talking head made what I thought was a brilliant point the other day when talking about Obammy and the DemocRat controlled Congress. He said that Obammy would have been far better off if he had a Republican controlled Congress to deal with simply because it would give him a "boogieman" to blame his failures on. As it is, he'll have a nonstop line of left-wing lunatics lining up at his door wanting everything under the Sun. He'll appease some of them, but practicality won't allow all of them to be appeased and then the tide will turn on Obammy. For a while, he'll blame it on GWB, but that will soon ring hollow when GWB is completely gone from the scene. Obammy then has no one to blame but the DemocRat Congress......and watch closely as this next Congress will be, without a doubt, the most scandal ridden in the history of the nation. I'd bet on it.

[Oatka]

. . . the kind of economic success that Mr. Clinton enjoyed in the 1990s.

During Clinton's administration oil fell, through no effort oh his, from $40 to $10 a barrel. THAT is what drove a good part of the "economic success". In fact, Clinton added a 5c a gallon tax on gasoline, not to maintain highways but to add to the Treasury. Up until that time, all gas taxes went into a highway fund.

[Jack Hammer]

“At first blush, it sounds really fair...”

I was quoting Karl Marx, from his 1875 work “Critique of the Gotha Program.” The slogan is a famous one, and is often cited by Marxists and would-be Marxists to define the ideal State. As history has shown, the “ideal State” largely consists of commissars and Party hacks stealing everything that isn’t nailed down, as the increasingly disillusioned proletariat, who were counting on those same commissars and Party hacks to save them from their poverty, look on with dismay. The principle is amply illustrated in Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”

The free market is the only guarantor of wealth, as the history of communism has now proven beyond any doubt.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

Well, it’s going on five days and I still haven’t seen even a little bit of the promised Free Stuff from the Government. Now in the new scheme of things, I’m entitled to live according to my needs and those needs, I don’t mind saying, are very high on the hog indeed.

I’ve been the packhorse of the taxes all my life up until last Tuesday. Now that we have “CHANGE” I expect some wealthy media or entertainment figures to cut me some checks NOW, NOT TOMORROW, BUT NOW while we’re still young bupchicks.

[Travis McGee]

Don't worry, we'll be able to pay for everything forever.

[Jack Hammer]

It was all predicted by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels more than a hundred years ago, while its practical applications were amply illustrated by the Soviet and Chinese experiments, as well as others. The young generation of Americans seem never to have heard of these two, nor to have studied the subsequent expriments in their application; a deliberate omission by the educational establishment, which relies on the socialist super-state for its salaries, benefits, and perks, even as it wastes countless man-hours on lesson plans and teaches nothing of substance.

[Red Dog #1]

I'm shocked sir, absolutely shocked to find out that Obama’s middle class tax cut might not happen now (just like I was shocked about Clinton's promised middle class tax cut).

[pepperdog]

Yep!

[pepperdog]

Hey there! We don’t have to pay China back do we? They are rich and we are now poor and so we don’t have to pay. Isn’t that the way it works?

[count-your-change]

“The fundamental problem is that the federal government has promised the elderly more benefits than the tax system can support. This fiscal imbalance will become acute as more baby boomers retire and start collecting Social Security and Medicare benefits.”

Swill. Undiluted swill.

Hundreds of billions for bailouts but not enough for your parents.

Billions of dollars committed to Africa for AIDS but not enough for Medicare in this country.

Hundreds of billions spent in Iraq yet granny's SS pittance is wrecking the budget.

Shall I mention the couple of billion dollars going to the U.N. each year?

And yet the problems with SS are blamed on the old folks living too long! So the solution must be to raise the retirement age to give more of them a chance to die!

What repugnant swill!

[LowCountryJoe]

Table 27–1. Budget Authority and Outlays by Function, Category, and Program
(In millions of dollars)
Function and Program	2008
050 National defense:	606,546
150 International affairs:	36,149
250 General science, space, and technology:	26,636
270 Energy:	1,405
300 Natural resources and environment:	32,904
350 Agriculture:	19,869
400 Transportation:	79,282
450 Community and regional development:	24,652
500 Education, training, employment, and social services:	82,732
550 Health:	280,620
570 Medicare:	391,646
600 Income security:	380,815
650 Social security:	612,505
700 Veterans benefits and services:	83,361
750 Administration of justice:	46,960
800 General government:	20,739
900 Net interest (debt payments):	261,276
920 Allowances:	2,061

Study this table and take a sobering look at lines 570, 600, and 650. It's nearly 1.4 trillion every single year and it will get worse because of our demographic issues. If you're defending this -- or at least shielding the entitlment crisis from criticism by mentioning other government crap -- at leads me to believe that you're likely on the dole and don't mind the federal government behemoth as it is giving to you at this stage in your life.

One thing that will be bound to happen is that tomorrow's workers are going to be fed up with the arrangement and increase the age at which people go on the dole or they will opt to cut your benefits in some way. Foreign aid -- as cruddy an arrangement as that is -- is just a small drop in the bucket compared to the social saftey nets. Prentending that it isn't a problem (or that somehow other problems are greater) is naive at best.

[count-your-change]

The problems with the Social Security system lie with its fraudulent nature as a pyramid scheme not with the old folks drawing out of it.
And my point is that somehow money is always available for to fund the $100 billion of waste in the budget, billions for bankers, etc. yet seniors just won’t die soon enough so lets cut that munificent monthly check even more.

Social Security has a problem but don’t it on seniors.

[count-your-change]

don’t blame it on seniors.

sometimes fingers don’t work

[LowCountryJoe]

The problems with the Social Security system lie with its fraudulent nature as a pyramid scheme not with the old folks drawing out of it...And my point is that somehow money is always available for to fund the $100 billion of waste in the budget, billions for bankers, etc. yet seniors just won’t die soon enough so lets cut that munificent monthly check even more

You wont read of me defending that stuff. However, the problem with Social Security is not only that it is a sort of pyramid scheme (namely, a transfer of wealth based on a promise and social convention which cannot sustain iteslf into the future), the problem is that it was Nanny-statish from the get go and did not have an opt-out clause for people that didn't want this turd. Social Security assumed that government would take care of you after obtaining the magical age and having paid into it for 40 quarters. It is not a private arrangement and it does not lend itself to personal resposibility. Add the fact that governmet has spent the surplus that was raised from payroll taxes all these years without purchasing any real, non-governmenal assets, and it is doomed to fail. I'd rather see it fail if no one politician seriously is going to push to reform this unsustainble entitlement.

[jusduat]

What’s your plan for the millions of us who had no choice
but to pay and are now old? Shall I work until the day
I die? I don’t want to be a burden to society but my
401K’s shrinking, house value down. I do not have any
hope of help from my kids, so will it be my duty to die?

[LowCountryJoe]

What’s your plan for the millions of us who had no choice but to pay and are now old?

You still get what was promised but you'd no longer get COLA adjustments that are indexed to wage inflation. Instead, you get COLA based on the consumer price index.

As to others; visit the second link from my profile page and see for yourself what my idea would look like.