On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Judah McAuley <ju...@wiredotter.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 2:40 PM, Robert Munn <cfmuns...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Tweaks do nothing but delay the inevitable. I like the Iroquois notion of > > considering the effects of our actions on the next seven generations. In > > seven generations, Social Security will have failed because it was > > unsustainable. So you can be proud that we are pushing poverty off onto a > > later generation, just don't pretend that it's not happening. > > Do you have anything even vaugely resembling facts to back this up? > Just look at the demographics of the country, that tells the whole story. If you don't have enough workers, you can't pay for the retirees. > All I've heard is bluster. I've shown, again and again, a variety of > proposals that will extend the Social Security program, as designed, > out past the next 75 years. Personally, I think that trying to > forecast 75 years out is a bit of black magic. If you want to bitch > that we can't forecast for 7 generations, well, that's your right I > suppose but it's really stupid. > The point is that even shorter run projections show structural deficits as far as the eye can see. > > Here's a little simple demographic math for you: > > The reason why there was formerly a larger number of people paying in > for each retiree was that there was the "baby boom". We had an > abnormally large cohort post-WWII. Now we are running into a situation > where that particular cohort is getting to retirement age. > Everyone understand this, but your logic about generations returning to "normal" size does not hold. If anything, the US will face a leveling off of the population like Europe, and that would make the problem even worse, as people live longer and longer. > Medicare, though, is a problem here and now. And its getting worse, > faster, than any other program. And we don't have a good set of ideas > on what to do to fix it. Social Security is a red herring. > Medicare is going to collapse as soon as our credit with China runs out. Tic-toc, tic-toc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:332052 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
