Quote:
Originally Posted by jojajn
Feel free to post such a chart. The chart I found ended at 2008 so I couldn't show the last couple years.
|
You can't get the data and make your own chart?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jojajn
We can't discuss what caused the deficit through 2008? Are you saying there is nothing to be learned from history?
|
What we've learned from history is that deficit spending isn't inherently evil, unless it is continuous and out of control, and it exceeds your gross product/revenues with no chance of paying off the debt, at which point, you are insolvent/bankrupt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hnsq
New spending is not a part of the budget process, as you hint it may be. New spending must be introduced as a part of an appropriations bill, which is not linked to a specific president nor does approval of such a bill indicate that new spending will occur during a sitting president's term. First funding is authorized, even though the source of funding is not determined. What does this mean? New spending under a sitting president's term is by no means an indication of that president's policies and actions. Both parties are equally to blame in terms of fiscal responsibility, and making the claim that one or the other is financially responsible in any way is nothing short of stupid.
|
Well said.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toyman at Jewel Lake
Is there anyone that can possibly think that this is sustainable?
|
No, it will come to a halt soon enough.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toyman at Jewel Lake
Or that wonders why we saw such growth and prosperity in the 50s vs current times?
|
Three reasons: first you didn't fully industrialize until the early-mid 1960s (so you were continuing to grow); secondly, you were the only game in town for the 2 decades following the end of WW II, so the US was manufacturing and exporting everything you could possibly think of from machine tools to valves; and finally, most of the countries that are developing now were Economic Slave States to the few remaining Empires, and when they ceased being Slave States, they were embroiled in civil wars, and when not the case the US was overthrowing the governments or destabilizing the country by other means, so they were not in competition with the US directly or indirectly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toyman at Jewel Lake
Until we vote in some leaders that are willing to make real spending cuts...
|
That's a pipe dream that will never happen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InformedConsent
It's going to be hard to tell the folks that paid into the mandatory federal social insurance programs for decades that they won't get what they were promised when the money was taken out of their paychecks for 40+ years.
|
Well, those folks will have to accept blame for closing their eyes, sticking their heads in the sand, and looking the other way while Congress raided the cookie jar.
Worst thing is that there was nothing but crumbs in the cookie jar by the time I was old enough to vote.
Congress won't make the hard choices, they don't have the stomach to fire 500,000 federal employees so that 100 Million Americans can get the benefits Congress swore up and down they would have.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus
Real gov't spending per capita and real gov't revenue per capita should grow over time, with increasing productivity.
|
But we don't really know if productivity has increased. The GDP is presently measured is a very poor model. The only thing your GDP really measures is how many times money changes hands, which doesn't tell me anything, except how many times money changes hands.
That has nothing to do with productivity or growth.
The fact that the GDP is increasing while the unemployment remains at 9% are jobs are continuing to be loss exemplifies how GDP as measured gives a false picture of what is really happening.
If you truly want to measure GDP and productivity, then look at unit volume.
If I am a law firm, and I had 40,000 billable hours in 2009, but only 32,000 billable hours in 2010, did my productivity increase or decrease?
It decreased. GDP has declined, but GDP as measured may falsely show an increase if my law firm received one or more unusually high awards from class action law suits.
If I manufactured 1,000,000 TVs in 2009, but only 800,000 in 2010, then my productivity decreased. Again, GDP should show a decline, but if I sold them for more, then my revenues from 2009 to 2010 would have increased, and that gives a false picture.
The government has had the ability to report unit volume for about 15 years now (the Commerce Department collects it), but they don't publish it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toyman at Jewel Lake
The growth in the economy is accommodated by the adjustment in those figures to constant (fiscal year 2005) dollars. WHY should "real revenue" or "real spending" increase over time? What "services" should the government now be providing that it didn't in previous years? The government takes 3x as much from each person than it did in 1950...what has it provided in return? Better schools? Results wouldn't indicate it. Decreased poverty? What is the p-rate now vs then? More prosperity? What was unemployement in the '50s vs now?
|
Unemployment would be irrelevant. What would be relevant would be the labor participation rate, which has increased dramatically since the 1950s.
Remember, only 6% of households had two wage-earners in the 1950s, compared with 67% in 2008 (I'm still trying to find data for 2010 on that).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus
Because, like I said, we grow more productive and efficient every year.
|
Have we? Again, we don't really know that for certain.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hnsq
And now let's show an honest representation of where tax money goes. As usual you selectively choose sources. Yes, military spending is a big problem, but social welfare spending is an even bigger problem than that.
|
Not all spending is created equally.
Was spending on NASA's Gemini/Apollo Space Program equal to social welfare spending?
No. You got a return on your NASA spending.
Okay, so there was military spending, but didn't you get something for that? Sure you did. Lots of jobs, lots of tax revenues collected.
A better picture would be Dollars Spent vs Revenues Collected.
I'm hoping people can see the difference between spending $1 and getting back $1 or more and spending $1 and only getting $0.69 back.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus
Incomes increase for a wide variety of reasons; in this case I'd say it is a result of an increasing household debt-to-income ratio, but it could also be driven by simple economic growth.
|
That would be spending, not income.
I would agree that spending, at least consumer spending is the result of loose credit and mortgage standards (ie the ability to use one's home as a giant credit card -- an ability that did not exist prior to the 1990s), and you can see that with rising household debt-to-income ratio.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jojajn
|
What about revenues?
You might want to consider that those wars kept your economy from worsening.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MTAtech
There are about 3.2 million federal employees. That would mean that the government is funding $230,000/employee/yr. As I said, that doesn't look correct.
|
Maybe they're including other costs. In addition to their pension, they receive health care benefits. If someone is receiving a $90,000 pension annually, and then $5,000 per month in "health insurance" premiums, that makes the total $150,000 per year, not $90,000 per year. They also get (or got) life insurance as a benefits.
And then I have no idea how much it costs to administer the pension plan per person. The administrative costs for Social Security and Medicare are comparable to the administrative costs for private pension plans and health care plan providers. I would like to assume that the costs are similar to government pension costs, but that might not be the case.
Let's say it cost $0.45 to administer every $1 of the pension plan, then for $90,000 in pension benefits and $60,000 in health care benefits, it would cost $67,500 to administer that, and it would be around $230,000 per year per person.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jojajn
Good question. Makes one wonder why it is always grouped together with the SS.
|
Probably because they are trying to hide something from us.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MTAtech
We know that you spare no chance to blame government but anyone can see it has nothing to do with "unsustainable Socialist programs."
Growth in Total Health Expenditure Per Capita, U.S. and Selected Countries, 1970-2008
 |
Actually it does.
You have a Socialist system, while Europe has a Capitalist system.
Note on the chart where costs start to diverge....right at the time of the Great Proliferation of Health Insuranceâ„¢ Companies when you went from 11 national and 5 regional Health Insuranceâ„¢ Companies to more than 800 between the late 1970s and the early 1980s.
What was it that Europe did that you refused to do?
The Europeans (except the UK), applied Capitalism and the corollaries of Diversification and Specialization. They abandoned the Hospital Model in favor of the highly effective and efficient low cost Clinic Model.
To adopt the Euro-Model, you will have to repeal Obamacare, or at least repeal Section 6001 written by the American Hospital Association (one of Obama's biggest campaign donors) that makes it illegal to use the highly effective and efficient low cost Clinic Model in the US.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MTAtech
The fallacy of your argument are two-fold. The first is that annualized amount. Had there been no Bush tax-cuts and no additional wars, the CBO projects that mounting federal revenues will continue to outstrip spending and produce growing budget surpluses for the next 10 years.
|
The same CBO who claimed there would be a budget surplus in 2001 when there wasn't? Or is that the same CBO that said the unemployment rate would be 5% by December 2012, even though that is impossible, or are your refering to the CBO that said unemployment would be 5% by December 2016, but who now says they don't believe the unemployment situation will change before the end of the decade (which is something I knew 2 years ago since I'm more competent that the CBO)?
The same CBO couldn't even figure out the costs of the Bush Prescription Drug Program (and then butchered their figures 3 years in a row).
The CBO is not very competent, having erred repeatedly, so it doesn't really matter what claims they make or what they say.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hnsq
Interesting. I don't want SS or medicare. I want to keep the money I earned. I want to invest it myself so I can get more than the pitiful return that SS or medicare give.
Anyone who thinks SS or medicare is providing a better life than private investment would has obviously never cranked out the numbers.
|
That's an unrealistic view, and not the purpose of Social Security.
Social Security was intended solely to be the 3rd and last of three safety nets. The first two safety nets you create through your pension/401(k) Plan and through your personal savings.
If you have a pension/401(k) Plan and a nice investment portfolio from your personal savings, then Social Security is icing on the cake.
If you have neither, then Social Security will do exactly what it was intended to do, and that is keep you from being a bag lady or from living under a bridge.
Will Social Security allow you to maintain your life-style? Hell, no, but then it was never intended to do that. It's subsistence living at its best. Social Security gives you shelter, and that might not pay the mortgage on your McMansion or allow you to live in the Penthouse at the Hotel Earle, but will allow you to live in an 8 x 10 carpeted room in a boarding house.
And if people have to move half-way cross-country to get to a place where they can afford to live, then I suggest to them that they should book their Greyhound bus tickets in advance.
In a perfect world, people would have perfect lives with no problems and everyone would make decent wages and have the wit and acumen to wisely invest their money and make a fortune on investments and retire to Monaco and spending their days wining and dining on the Riviera, but it is not a perfect world.
You have to weigh the cost of not doing anything, against the benefit of giving people a hedge to protect them.
Does the government go about it the right way? No, of course not. Better would be to mandate forced payroll deductions, have your employer deposit that money in a lock-box savings account, and then allow you to manipulate it and invest it as you see fit (or not -- some people only have enough wits to buy Certificates of Deposit and keep rolling them over).
Then you can still have your pension/401(k) Plan, your personal investment portfolio, and your own private lock-box savings account to retire on.
But that will never happen so long as there are Liberals. They're control freaks and have to be in your business 24/7 and have their hands all over your money and it would just kill them if to see you have money that they couldn't touch.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EinsteinsGhost
Most people who make a more than decent living can afford to plan beyond SS and MC. I am. But being in touch with the reality that most Americans simply can't afford to put the money in casino-on-your-money style economy. They want and need guarantees, and for practical reasons.
|
Okay, life is a crap-shoot, no doubt about it, but the government's way failed, as you would expect. There are other ways of achieving the same goal, and they don't require the government to have their hands all over people's money.
As I said, the government can simply mandate a forced-retirement savings plan and that money goes to the bank, S&L or credit union of the employee's choice; the employee can't touch that money, but they can invest it if they want, or just let it collect interest, or buy Certificates of Deposit and keep rolling them over (in which case many people would actually come out ahead of the game).
It doesn't require the government to take money from you, and then give it back to you.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
