Posted on 04/13/2019 11:02:47 PM PDT by Aquamarine
Economic growth won’t last as the U.S. labors under the burden of growing entitlement programs and weakness around the world, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told CNBC.
The long-time central bank chief repeated his warnings about the weight that Social Security, Medicare and other programs are having on what have been otherwise solid gains over the past few years.
“I think the real problem is over the long run, we’ve got this significant continued drain coming from entitlements, which are basically draining capital investment dollar for dollar,” he told CNBC’s Sara Eisen during a “Squawk on the Street ” interview.
“Without any major change in entitlements, entitlements are going to rise. Why? Because the population is aging. There’s no way to reverse that, and the politics of it are awful, as you well know,” Greenspan added.
While he said the economy looks “reasonably good” in the short run, he expects that over the longer term, growth “fades very dramatically.”.......
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
If our enemies are patient, our public debt will their dirty work for them.
Yes, the public debt is a runaway freight train.
There is no one that can stop this thing.
It will just build faster and faster.
Greenspan knows this. He helped build the monster.
Now he pretends to be “alarmed”. Fake, fakey, fakiest.
The government will inflate the currency so it can pay the debt load with inflated (devalued) dollars.
It has been doing that for a century or more.as a way out of the dilemma it created.
A bag of penny candy cost 2¢ or 3¢ in 1950 - now it costs $2.00 or more.
The median home price in 1950 was around $6,000.
The median home price today is around $226,000.
(https://www.zillow.com/home-values/)
A new Chevrolet cost about $1,600 in 1950.
A new full size Chevrolet costs about $30,000 today.
In another 50 or 60 years it will cost $600,000.
Median family income 1950 - $3,300
Median family income 2017 - $74,000
(https://www.deptofnumbers.com/income/us/)
The citizens can reverse it any time they wish, by refusing to buy Chinese products.
Are you suggesting a different solution, involving government men with guns?
Undoing past promises made by Democrat politicians to base constituencies might indeed require such action, at some point. But voluntary actions need to be reversed voluntarily, by offering a better production environment in the USA. This is achievable, but not without stepping all over a different set of Leftist policy imperatives - and the GOPe has shown no more stomach for that than they have for rolling back politically-driven entitlements.
Another name for entitlement programs : COMMUNISM!
While I do agree that as much manufacturing, as possible, should and could be moved back to the US, no matter how much comes back, as long as Congress can get their greedy hands in the cookie jar and we have a never ending caravan of 3rd world, UGLY, coming over the border to get benefits, it won’t matter.
The more jobs that come back, the more money is being made. The stronger our economy the more immigrants are going to come here and leech off of those funds.
I’ve read before that if Congress, set aside the funds like they were supposed to and didn’t steal from it and only those eligible for it, got their money, there’d be no issues with any of it. But, it’s being used and abused and handed out to illegals, like it’s candy.
And the law already allows it. They just flip a switch, and the SS payments start being portioned. It will begin in about 8 years I've read. Look for special interest groups to sneak in exceptions!
What you have always heard is wrong. Social Security has always been a pay as you go program. It is an intergenerational transfer, a welfare program camouflaged as “social insurance.” As a retirement plan, it has a lousy ROI. It is a money losing proposition for many. And any additional tax increases to keep the Ponzi scheme alive will only make those problems worse. Some future generation will cut bait. The Democrats default option will be to means test benefits while applying the Social Security tax to all income.
“over the past few years”
uh, that would over the past TWO years, Alan ... you know, ever since Trump became President ...
Ok. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. However, I’ll go back to my original statement/question.
Who is getting it and why? It isn’t just Social Security. It’s all the ‘entitlement programs’. Section 8, TANF, SNAP, WIC, etc etc.
Right now we have millions of kids, born to illegal parents, in American hospitals and everyone one of them is getting benefits. We have refugees by the millions that get EVERYTHING and they’re never leaving. And they all get to bring their families over, who then go on some type of assistance. Not a single one of them has EVER paid into the system, whether it’s a PONZI scheme or not.
Take care of those problems and then we can talk about the rest.
Entitlements draining capital is the main plan for democrats socialism government Fabians smile.
Medicare is way worse than anything else. It’s projected to be a $2T deficit per year for the next 20+ years. Medicare - the average person has only put in 10-20% of their cost and even the total program only around 25% of coverage and getting worse. Welfare is a drop in the bucket comparatively, although both need to be addressed.
The government will inflate the currency so it can pay the debt load with inflated (devalued) dollars.
****************
Thank you for the illuminating reply. The fact that a government will resort to inflating away their debt is unquestionably true.
I also think that the government finds it politically convenient to understate inflation. As such people don’t grasp or foresee its insidious nature.
Inflation is not a bad thing per se but high inflation can obviously be very damaging and distorting to an economy, and most especially for unprepared individuals. A modest, fixed income can be quickly savaged by rising prices. Its something to bear in mind going forward.
Good point because that is exactly what has been going on
It's slow but relentless and indidious.
.
Abe Abelson wrote in Barron’s that any business man who relies on government statistics when making an investment decision is out of his mind.
Social Security is a Ponzi scheme it isn’t sustainable either!
We could take Alan’s wealth, spread it around and demand he and his nasty ole shrew wife off themselves as a way to save the economy. hah
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