Posted on 07/15/2006 9:54:37 AM PDT by Babu
The retirement age should by what ever the pay out age was when the government took the first payment out of your earnings. Would one buy an insurance policy and after you paid for it, the insurance company would then decide if they were going to pay or not?
The baby boom starts to retire in 2008.
from the american conservative
"Over the long term, Social Security and Medicare are the true budget busters—accounting for $518 billion and $290 billion in outlays, respectively, in 2005. Together they account for almost one-third of federal spending.
Medicaid is another budget boulder, running $192 billion this year. "
I think you're onto something.
Why don't we hold a massive "Yard Sale"?
Or maybe even a combination yard sale & barbecue.
Everybody in the United States gets out all their old useless stuff (you know you're never agaib gonna' fire up that TRS-80 that's in your closet) and sell it in the yard sale to pay off the deficit.
If you've ever been to a yard/garage sale, it would help you to know that there is nothing too ridiculous/old/trivial to sell. Somebody will buy it.
This article is basically a verbatim copy of the abstract to a paper presented at an economic policy conference in Nov. 2005. Interesting that the UK Telegraph choose now as a appropriate time to reprise it.
The other part of the statement is also incorrect... " and because the bill for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the poor, will increase greatly due to demographics." is a conglomerate of misstatements. Sorting out the various misstatements would take a news article.
As an example, the cost of Medicare to recipients is being raised. Many Federal, State and Local employers, as well as private employers provide medical programs to retirees that diminish the dependence upon Medicare, indeed, many retirees do not acquire parts of the Medicare program benefits as it isn't financially beneficial to them. Federal Employees under Civil Service have their SS decreased by 60% as an offset. The offset is a "special tax" on a group of people that supplement the rest of the recipients. Medicaid should not increase because of the aging demographics, it should remain the same or could be reduced if the welfare recipients are made to take jobs Americans don't want to do, thus reducing the number of "guest workers" and eventually the reduction of SS / Medicare / Medicade benefits for illegals. And the beat goes on...
because reality always triumphs over faulty promises.
we should just lower the retirement age to 22 of course we can't pay, but who cares about reality.
the reality is the current retirment age can not be allowed to stand because the alternative is bankruptcy which sometime happens to insurance cos. too and then you get zip, no matter what the promises.
lol!
We won't go bankrupt.
We are the United States.
>If it comes to bankruptsy of the US and shooting the elderly, we will shoot the elderly<
LOL! Spoken like a true mother hater.
mk, exactly.
We are a nation. Who exactly do we have to answer to with our 'creditors.'
What are they going to do, stop doing business with the UNITED STATES?
loL!!!!!!!!!!!
This article is ridiculous beyond belief.
My prediction is that a) they will greatly cut benefits to SS and Medicare at some point b) they will figure out a way to impose a special tax on IRAs and 401K plans, somehow.
I they cut tax rates in ordr to raise revenue, why do we call it a tax cut?
Americans are living longer and retiring later. Raising the retirement age doesn't change anything. As far as I'm concerned the only promise was to help the elder in retirement, not a guarantee at 55 or 65 or whenever. If most people are living to 80+ now and retiring at 67-70, then the retirement age should also be that.
The looming entitlement crisis is easily fixed. Reneg.
We can expect partisan hit pieces like this from every quarter and on every issue until the fall elections are over. There will be much public hand-wringing, brow-beating, teeth-gnashing and garment-rending about the imminent incineration of the planet Earth by those evil fat cats in American business, the disastrous quagmire in the Middle East, the looming theocratic take-over of our institutions, the impending return of "coat-hangers in back alleys" for American women, etc. ad nauseum.
"how Europe wishes..."
Er, this is a report by one of the Federal Reserve staffers, not by the ECB.
You have to be more specific...not sure how much % wise of the U.S. debt is owned offshore, but I have some T-Bills, and I think billions are invested by U.S. pension funds, are you proposing that myself and those retirees lose their investment? Besides a default would shut down all goverment services above actual U.S. income. That could be a good thing, but you know it wouldn't be social pgms. that were shut down.
And that's the irony. This America-bash from the UK was hatched from a joke from the St. Louis Fed (original thread here) who's point was that the US needs to cut welfare.
Exactly. But why stop there? Demand immediate payment of all foreign debt owed to us and the immediate return of all foreign aid we have generously bestowed on other countries, including the low-interest and no-interest loans, and extending over the entire past century -- at market interest, adjusted for inflation. Then plug the leak by ending all current and future hand-outs, such as the 25% of the UN budget we pony up every year. Surely, even Kotlikoff would agree than when one is deeply in debt, one curtails spending.
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