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.

Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Giordano Bruno who wrote (242208)	3/25/2010 11:28:35 AM
From: marcher	Respond to of 306849

james galbraith, economist at u of texas, has a lot to say about soc sec (in bold): "...What must now be done?...we should offset the violent drop in the wealth of the elderly population as a whole...For an increasing number of the elderly, Social Security and Medicare wealth are all they have...instead of cutting Social Security benefits, we should increase them, especially for those at the bottom of the benefit scale. ... ...we need more recovery bills. There should be open-ended support for state and local governments, public utilities, transit authorities, public hospitals, schools, and universities for the duration, and generous support for public capital investment in the short and long term... ...we will soon need a jobs program to put the unemployed to work quickly... ...a payroll tax holiday would help restore the purchasing power of working families, as well as make it easier for employers to keep them on the payroll... ...the government must take control of insolvent banks, however large, and get on with the business of reorganizing, re-regulating, decapitating, and recapitalizing them...Big banks should be run largely by men and women with the long-term perspective, outlook, and temperament of middle managers, and not by the transient, self-regarding plutocrats who run them now... washingtonmonthly.com

To: Giordano Bruno who wrote (242208)	3/25/2010 11:29:43 AM
From: neolib	Respond to of 306849

Interesting that the article made no direct mention that the excess SS inflows have provided current funding for the federal budget deficit. The key here is not that the SS trust fund has a cushion of $2.5T, but that 1) it is no longer providing year by year subsidies to the federal budget, and 2) the federal budget must in fact figure out how to pay SS in the current year. The "tipping point" is wrt the annual federal deficit, not SS and its $2.5T "reserve".