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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: All Mtn Ski who wrote (10981)	11/20/2001 7:03:47 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"Oh, and we also know that the Federal employees, including our elected 'Public Servants', never have to pay into Social Security, and get their own sweetheart deal, so what do they care if it fails?" Sorry AMS, that's not true. Most Federal employees currently contribute to Social Security. The switch from the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) to the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) happened in the mid-80's. At the time CSRS employees could switch to FERS or stay in CSRS. However, all new hires went to FERS which includes SSI as part of their retirement plan. I believe that your elected public servants have their own separate retirement plan that doesn't include SSI, so there may still be some merit to your argument.

To: All Mtn Ski who wrote (10981)	11/20/2001 7:49:07 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I agree that our debt burden hurts our country, Think it's bad here? Try Japan. Our national debt is 58% of our annual GDP, but only 33% of the national debt is held by the general public (the rest are intergovernmental holding such as the IOU in the Social Security Trust Fund). publicdebt.treas.gov But when you compare that to Japan, which has spent the past 10 years engaged in minimalist economic pump-priming efforts (with little corporate restructuring), you'll see they reportedly have a total national debt amounting to 140% of their GDP, and they are still facing another trip into recession (given the drastically lower trade deficit figures reported today). Now granted, the Japanese people have roughly $12 Trillion in personal savings, but they don't have nearly the social security system we possess here, relying primarily on private corporate pension plans and personal savings. Thus, they will be hoarding their savings for retirement (1 in 4 Japanese will be over 60 within 10 years, drastically lowering the tax base). Yes.. the US debt might seem large, but we're the strongest economy on the planet and the one that will likely lead the rest of the world out of this economic slump. As for Japan.. the only hope they probably have of recovery from the liquidity trap they've entered into, is a devaluation of the yen. And that's something that they just can't seem to bring themselves to do, given their aging population and how such an action would immediately reduce their purchasing power by between 20 and 40% (assuming they devalued the way the US did in the 1930's to bring us out of the depression). Hawk