Journal Bill Dog's Journal: a Leftist economist's maybe good idea 18
I saw this over the weekend. It's short enough to read, at less than a single screenful. Basically, that instead of raising the retirement age (for Social Security), we should lower it.
The piece it is based off is apparently from three months ago, so it's not new, but it's new to me. (It's also new to me because it's on a Left-wing news site, and I generally would only ever visit a couple of known ones of these (Slashdot included).) It's filled with really bad assumptions and reasoning and a lot to disagree with, but it also includes (on page 2) the point of lowering the age for Medicare eligibility, that the brief article didn't include.
The idea is that the lost jobs won't be back for a while, and many not ever. Coming from a collectivist/social engineering point of view, he basically asks who we'd rather have working, the young or the old. Which POV I find invalid and offensive and immoral, as that's a part of life that people should (have the freedom to) work out for themselves, and should not be something that "we" as voters decide (and then impose on everyone).
The argument is that by lowering the age for govt. retirement bennies, say for the next three years, those "nearing retirement" could remove themselves from contention for jobs, and could resume consumption again, thereby increasing demand.
I have a few problems with this:
1) It would mean that one segment of our population would be, unfairly, able to retire and begin living off the rest of the population, earlier than the rest of the population could.
2) It's more of the "deficits don't matter" kind of stuff. (Which we used to get from the neo-cons.)
3) It assumes that a significant number of people in, I guess their late 50's to early 60's, have enough in retirement savings that they could afford to stop working permanently just by virtue of getting full Social Security and Medicare earlier. That is, the notion was put forth that many such people would love to retire, but they'd lose part of their full SS benefit, plus they couldn't afford the private health care, and they need to keep fighting for one of the elusive open jobs out there mostly because they need the health insurance. But I wouldn't be surprised if generally the only people who could afford to retire early even with these benefits are those who would choose to keep on working anyways, and prolly those who would want to stop working can't afford to even under this guy's plan.
But, it's an intriguing out-of-the-box idea in a way, and food for thought. There's something to said for it, from hindsight's 20/20 vision, such as that if we knew we were going to be paying out unemployment bennies for almost two years to so many millions of people, why not offer early retirement instead, to those close enough to it. Either way it's govt. welfare, so what really is the difference. At least then maybe some portion of those jobless would've resumed spending again.
p.s. Too bad this soon-to-be (i.e. this month) 99er, while prolly too old by the IT industry's standards, is still way too young to retire. (Not that I'd want that as my first choice of possibilities -- you miss work when you're still very interested in what you do.)
I challenge the government welfare assumption (Score:3, Informative)
I would suggest then that if the plan allowed people to retire early and "opt-in" to medicare at an earlier age, they could escape the trap and remove themselves from the workforce whenever they want. This trap is exactly the reason why we have so many people of or near retirement age working at grocery stores and wal-mart, because they can't get health care any other way.
Hell, as I've suggested before, if we allowed anyone who wanted it to opt-in to a single payer system, a lot of people who are working full-time but would be comfortable on part-time wages would probably do so. That would of course also create more jobs for the currently unemployed and underemployed...
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You claimed it would be government welfare to allow people to retire - and collect social security and medicare - early. I disagree with this.
Yes, you are well-known to disagree with undeniable facts.
It is impossible to use logic and reason and think that giving people more welfare -- or even if you think those are not welfare because "they paid into it," it's still welfare to give them more than they "paid for" -- isn't an expansion of welfare. But somehow, you pull it off!
Well, not really, of course. You pull off nothing: you argue for it, but do NOT argue that it isn't welfare.
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Yes, you are well-known to disagree with undeniable facts.
You are one who is known for creating his own "undeniable facts".
It is impossible to use logic and reason and think that giving people more welfare -- or even if you think those are not welfare because "they paid into it," it's still welfare to give them more than they "paid for" -- isn't an expansion of welfare.
You seem to have welfare and social security confused. Welfare is a dramatically different program. I very specifically stated that allowing people to cash in on social security early would not be inherently bad. Being as you are - once again - creating your own facts to meet your rather unique bend on reality, you somehow equated the two.
Because indeed with social security it is something that the worker has paid into. If you want to
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Yes, you are well-known to disagree with undeniable facts.
You are one who is known for creating his own "undeniable facts".
You can provide not a single example of this.
It is impossible to use logic and reason and think that giving people more welfare -- or even if you think those are not welfare because "they paid into it," it's still welfare to give them more than they "paid for" -- isn't an expansion of welfare.
You seem to have welfare and social security confused.
You seem to be incapable of reading: I clearly allowed for you to believe that social security is not welfare when I wrote, "or even if you think those are not welfare. ..." No, I have nothing confused: even though I do believe social security is welfare, it is irrelevant to the point, because the expansion of social security is obviously welfare.
Because indeed with social security it is something that the worker has paid into.
Yes, and based on the current benefits system: if we give them more benefits than they paid into it for, then it beco
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Yes, you are well-known to disagree with undeniable facts.
You are one who is known for creating his own "undeniable facts".
You can provide not a single example of this.
You actually provided one for us in this very message of yours that I am replying to:
I do believe social security is welfare
While indeed you are not the first right-wing sound-bite-machine to say that, it is indeed a made-up "undeniable fact" that is neither a fact nor is it undeniable.
Frankly, Pudge, you aren't even doing as good a job as usual of parroting right-wing rhetoric this time; did you just phone this one in?
You seem to have welfare and social security confused.
I do believe social security is welfare
Well, I'm glad we understand and agree on where you are confused in this matter. Allow me to state once again - social secu
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You actually provided one for us in this very message of yours that I am replying to:
You're a liar. I never said that "social security is welfare" is a undeniable, nor a fact. On the contrary, I directly implied otherwise when I repeatedly said "I believe."
Allow me to state once again - social security is not welfare.
Allow me to state once again: we are not talking about Social Security, but your proposed expansion of benefits.
Do you read the social security statements that the government sends you regularly
Yes. It says that because I paid a certain amount, I will get a certain amount, at a certain date. Getting MORE than that -- or getting it earlier -- is WELFARE.
At no point did I suggest that people retiring early should get more than what they have contributed to social security.
Your statement is self-refuting. Retiring early IS getting mor
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Yes, you are well-known to disagree with undeniable facts.
*cough cough [slashdot.org]* I didn't quite catch that. Could you type a little louder for me please?
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You do realize you didn't really "challenge" my govt. welfare assumption, right? As in, simply stating that you disagree, and then going on to reiterate basically what I already said about how private health insurance affordability for those near retirement age generally makes early retirement unfeasible, is not explaining, nor even touching on, how it's not welfare.
And what is this "trap" that you speak of? The "trap" of having to work?
And the problem (to me, that is -- it's the ultimate solution to you) o
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You do realize you didn't really "challenge" my govt. welfare assumption, right? As in, simply stating that you disagree, and then going on to reiterate basically what I already said about how private health insurance affordability for those near retirement age generally makes early retirement unfeasible, is not explaining, nor even touching on, how it's not welfare.
Welfare is payment from the government that is not connected to anything you have paid to the government. Social security is payment from the government for money that you have paid them for retirement. Ergo, social security is not welfare. I did not talk about the other things to support the statement of social security not being welfare, because the statement of social security not being welfare is obvious. Similarly I do not need to support a statement that objects dropped from a height on earth wil
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It's funny how the guy who's complaining about the use of the term "welfare", is talking of "robbery" as not having something you never had! Here, maybe you'll understand this then: By being a govt. program that pays out vastly more to a person than they put in, it is essentially welfare. (And to begin paying out retirement and medical benefits ear
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People who are willing to take cuts in their take-home pay (by way of shorter work weeks) are essentially robbed of that option by the current health care system.
It's funny how the guy who's complaining about the use of the term "welfare", is talking of "robbery" as not having something you never had
Fine, if you don't like the term robbery, we could instead put it in more conservative-friendly terms. We could instead point out that the system is effectively denying people the freedom of choosing a shorter work week.
Here, maybe you'll understand this then: By being a govt. program that pays out vastly more to a person than they put in, it is essentially welfare
No, it makes it an investment. If you buy a certificate of deposit at your local bank, and you allow it to go through several periods of compound interest, you can cash it out as more than what you put in. Is that welfare from the bank?
(And to begin paying out retirement and medical benefits early, makes it even moreso.)
Perhaps you have errantly assumed that people who
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If the people wanted that, they'd be calling their congressjerks about it. There'd be mass demonstrations over it, like the Tea Parties and the (so-called) anti-war protests before that. Start a grassroots movement over it. I'd be for it -- I see capitalism as serving the people, and all of our history of innovation and production ought to be reaped as what I'd label it as a "productivity div
Early Retirement (Score:2)
Early retirement and buyout packages are common in the private sector. However, they are usually lump sum payments, so I'm not sure how the experience with those would enlighten us on the gov't doing something similar.
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An interesting idea, for the federal govt. to offer a lump sum buyout of its obligation to incur future expenses for an indefinite period of time on behalf of a given person. There would prolly be quite a few that would take the cash now. Which would prolly extend the viability of the senior citizen entitlement programs, in theory. Unfortunately, a financially uneducated and immature and irresponsible populace, trained to view the entity with the money printing apparati as daddy savior, would spend it early
An interesting idea (Score:2)
Basically- accelerate the age demographic bubble so that families raising kids can get back to work. I agree that the idea is interesting- especially coming from Mr. Living Wage himself.
But here's the problem I see with it. Social Security is already a ponzi scheme with mathematics that are unable to handle the Baby Boomer generation (because that generation aborted 51 million pregnancies, and thus the next generation won't have the numbers of workers paying FICA to sustain SS), and will be out of money
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Well, you're projecting on this the purpose of saving our socialistic programs. That was never stated as a purpose, it was only about stimulating the economy (and I would say then towards breaking the deadlock we/I talked about earlier). And I don't know that sustaining the situation of some socialism jerryrigged onto a mostly capitalist system is what Leftist intellectuals and elites really want.
Basically, by giving us abortion on demand and open borders, the Left has decided that a large part of later gen
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Starvation is *also* a Logan's Run scenario. Just a significantly less humane one. I foresee a day when places like Southern California, having already reached peak water production, will indeed have no water left for crops, and thus massive food shortages.
But I find it very interesting that you liken America's rise and fall, to the exact same concept I have for my young cousin's suicide last month- living too fast and burning the candle at both ends.
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There's still plenty of food production elsewhere, so I think just the depopulation of SoCal and the central valley would be the only eventual result of Leftists' cutting off the water, rather than a nation-wide food shortage.
I'm very sorry to hear about that tragedy in your family. I think the living too fast phenomenon is a symptom of the secularization of America (courtesy primarily of the Left being anti-religion ("religion is the opiate of the masses")). The Amish know how to live modestly and humbly,