Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (681904)	5/10/2005 1:59:55 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (681904)	5/10/2005 3:30:05 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

The average age of immigrants is 35. They typically bring their families either with them or later. These are people in their peak earnings period who arrive with limited usable skills but much enthusiasm. Their biggest contribution is generally by holding multiple jobs, and by spending nearly all of their incomes on their children. They also invest often in homes, but it is done by mortgage financing which is not as harmful to the economy as savings accounts. Our education system no longer produces sufficient engineers or scientists. As China emerges, they will compete with increasing success for the scarce resource of educated immigrants or expatriates. P: "The baby boom fueled the growth, it is now reaching retirement. That is what is fueling the Social Security crisis." B: "What 'crisis'?" P:From Merriam Webster: Crisis: 3 a : an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending; especially : one with the distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome <a financial crisis> b : a situation that has reached a critical phase <the environmental crisis> When Social security starts having to redeem the bonds that it holds, we will be in a crisis. It requires cash payments. The cash will have to be: a) printed - causing inflation; b) revenues increased - higher taxes will crush the economy ; c) expenditures decreased - yah right, by us and which army? d) Investments sold - depressing the stock market - oops, Democrats don't want to admit stock might help solve the problem. The unfunded liability of Social Security is currently in the $ 4 Trillion range. Federal accounting for it does not admit the existence of the liability. It is getting bigger every year. You ignored my answer! B:Problem with most of the administrations scare-mongering on the issue is that they are USING TWO DIFFERENT SETS OF BOOKS in their public presentations. 1) They attempt to convince us of an on-coming 'crisis' by ASSUMING extremely low rates of national growth going forward. 2) But in presenting their 'privatization' proposals as a supposed 'cure' for the system, they ASSUME MUCH HIGHER rates of national growth to predict that participants will get a better deal out of their proposed changes... instead of getting screwed. Which is it? High growth or low growth? Who knows, but they can't have it both ways, they have to use the same projections for both sides of their argument, or else the argument is just reduced to a flim-flam exercise. They learned the trick from Democrats. They project Social Security with optimistic estimates and Budgets with pessimistic estimates. Democrats had their hand picked CBO head who long overstayed her welcome doing their dirty work of applying static assumptions to tax cuts, but projecting dynamic effects of expenditures. Don't decry one without condemning the other. Meanwhile, we have two MUCH LARGER problems facing us: 1) Rising national debt levels (and interest costs on that debt, which are projected to EXCEED THE ANNUAL COSTS of both SS AND Medicare/Medicaid by 2042....) 2) Medicare/Medicaid which is ALREADY a much bigger fiscal funding problem then SS... and is about to take a serious turn for the worse just next year as new costs enter the system. Far too much waste/fraud/abuse and corporate welfare embedded into the Medicare/Medicaid system. So, why are the much LARGER PROBLEMS being totally ignored, while a more dubious one is trumpeted to the sky? 1) The budget deficit as a percentage of GDP is climbing modestly. The rate of increase is fairly low by historical standards. Here is a table: faculty.econ.northwestern.edu There is a chart here: faculty.econ.northwestern.edu label ratio of federal government debt to gdp 2) As I have said numerous times in the past. Deal with one problem at a time. Have you ever known any person with debt problems? The most common advice is to take care of one problem at a time. Generally credit councilors will recommend taking on a small debt first regardless on interest rate just to give a sense of accomplishment. Dave Ramsey says stop using credit, pay the minimum on every debt except one, pay as much as possible on it. When you eliminate it, roll the entire payment into paying down the next debt. Robert Kiosaki has very similar advice. Most credit counselors offer very similar advice. President Bush has picked one problem which is imminent. It does not matter what order you choose to expunge debt problems. The important thing is you get committed to a plan and make regular payments in excess of the minimum amount. President Bush is leading on a problem that was being ignored and swept under the rug until he volunteered to take it on. Rather than criticizing him for the order he chose to prioritize the many problems, why don't you join the fight to solve our problems? We should be praising him for raising awareness of the problem, and trying to at least partially solve it.