Posted on 03/10/2010 1:10:21 PM PST by rabscuttle385
If Millennials realize they're going to have to pay the fiscal price for baby boomers' sins, they might choose to leave the US for more financially friendly locations.
BY TIM KANE
What if they had a fiscal crisis, and nobody came? What if the chump generation figures out the Ponzi scheme? Bob Samuelson thinks the fallout will be political:
... As baby boomers retire, higher federal spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid may boost Millennials' taxes and squeeze other government programs. It will be harder to start and raise families.
Millennials [ages 30 and younger] could become the chump generation. They could suffer for their elders' economic sins, particularly the failure to confront the predictable costs of baby boomers' retirement.
Samuelson asks the question in a political context, and that's how most analysts interpret the looming fiscal crisis, as if young voters will punish fiscally irresponsible representatives in Washington. My alternative theory focuses on the context of immigration. Already you may have heard about the millions of illegals who departed the U.S. when the Great Recession dried up job opportunities. A lot of crass nativists might think "Good Riddance!" but I wonder what they'll say when their own children seek greener pastures abroad in 10 or 20 years?
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
I disagree.
ANY program which depends on a large influx of new blood was poorly designed to begin with, or wrong at its core.
The ones who leave will be the bright and energetic - and probably home schooled. The ones who stay will be clueless graduates of government schools who were easily convinced that Zero was their savior.
I agree with you 100%. Having said that, it’s hard to make the case that having a below-replacement birth rate is good for the long-term prospects of a nation.
I know, but the boomers could have moderated the amount that got doled out. Or prevented the whole ‘slavery reparations’ movement or not butchered an entire generation and then only regretted it because of the lack of people paying into the SS system.
Those programs were fatally flawed at creation. When the Social Security retirement benefits were created, average age at death was right around the average age at retirement. Creating a system that assumed this would always be so was insane.
Trouble is, we boomers haven’t had any choices truly brave enough to go after the obviously coming insolvency of SS, etc. Anyone who made a show of attacking the problem met a cowardly imperial congress head on.
And if the expats refuse to pay, and the government of their new home thumbs their noses at the IRS as US influence declines, then what?
Where is that road?
LOL! The BS in this article is overwhelming. Robert Jacob Samuelson (born December 23, 1945) is a contributing editor of Newsweek and The Washington Post and the CSM is a lefty rag of biblical proportions.
The “Millennials” won’t go anywhere where there are no flush toilets, internet or American Idol re-runs. They’ll sit around on mom’s coach and whine about soda pop taxes.
“the government of their new home thumbs their noses at the IRS as US influence declines, then what?”
Oh, hey—please name those countries. I’m looking for a place like that.
1. Don’t you have to pay U.S. income taxes even if living abroad?
2. The best and brightest will leave, probably to countries like New Zealand and become citizens there. New Zealand is not interested in older people or the uneducated/unskilled as immigrants.
That may be true, but Boomers were instrumental in keeping these systems alive and growing them.
As a Boomer who followed all the rules, I'm getting a little tired of this.
We keep forgetting which generation gave us Social Security and Medicare, the "Greatest Generation."
1. They used to call it "Hypothetical Income Tax" when I lived overseas, but yes, you still paid.
2. Good luck immigrating to New Zealand.
Boomers may not have instigated SS and Medicare, but the were/are instrumental in keeping these systems alive and growing them.
The young will not be kind to Boomers ... and I can’t say I blame them.
That is unreasonable, once done some things are next to impossible to stop or eliminate, that is why generation after generation lives under social security and the 1965 Immigration Act, boomers did not create them and they will not end them and who will? The elderly that created them will not end them and the 18-29 year olds that voted 66% for Obama will not end them, why single out boomers?
LOL! I spent most of my adult life as an Expat. If you want to live in China, Egypt, UAE, Bahrain, Venezuela or some other emerging socialist/communist country, you will be tolerated.....for a while. Once the USA is gone, kiss freedom goodbye, because no other country really gives a crap about your...."rights".
This is something we may see if we don’t get back the WH in 2013. The US could be the magnet by lowering taxes and attracting UK and EU talent. In 20 years, Europe may have Sharia law, not so good for business.
On the contrary, the road to socialism could be set in stone in the US with passage of 0bamacare. Many boomers will be looking to populate emigrate enclaves as they transition to retirement. The weather and the health care will be better. Maybe I’ll go Costa Rica and bump into Rush getting a medical procedure. I have also been helping my high school girls with foreign languages.
Since the boomers are more conservative than the young and becoming even more conservative, then I do not expect the strongest Democrat voting blocks to suddenly sweep out liberal Democrat politicians and their agendas, so the only way that they could hurt boomers in the sense that you mean, would be for them to suddenly embrace conservatism, which is unlikely.
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