Can The Economy Ever Be 'Good' While So Many Don't Have Walls?

[David Horn]

(03-15-2020, 09:29 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-15-2020, 01:43 AM)TheNomad Wrote: Social Security benefits, retirement, the whole thing, it was all created by blue people.  In fact, if those programs were on the table at that time, he himself, my friend, would do everything he could to help kill it.  Yet, a whole Saeculum cycle later, after SS was created and implemented before my friend was even born, he was relishing the time approaching when he would retire.

Social Security was created by FDR when the stock market crash wiped out the savings of a large number of people at the same time.  Ideally, each generation would pay for its own retirement.  Each individual would.  This was not possible at that time.  The only option available was to have future generations pay for the past.

I can almost applaud recent attempts to get off this system.  It is hardly ideal.  It was only the best that could be done at the time.  I anticipate that as some have not been able to save for retirement, they will use their voting power to rebuild Social Security along the future pays for the past model.  If someone could phase this model out while not breaking too many promises, fine.  Nice try.  Possibly not now.  Eventually.  After the "but we haven't saved for retirement" gap.

There is a lot of talk about how Social Security in its current form is bound to fail.  I do not see America as allowing it to do so, as those who depend on it have too many votes.  Whoever promises to save Social Security will get elected.  If they fail to do so, they will get booted.

Your friend is naive.

Social Security is a transfer program: working age and healthy to older aged, disabled and their survivors. It's not ideal, but it's impossible to replace.  Why?  Because breaking that model to fund another would bankrupt the country (remember, my spending is your income), and funding both at once is simply impossibly expensive.  And yes, it was certainly a response to the GD, when the old and infirm were unsupportable in any other fashion.  A quick look around would show that the Spanish Flu was the trigger of nationalized healthcare in Europe and elsewhere (just not here).  Programs tend to rise to meet a need.  Doing smart things for purely worthwhile reasons tends to fail the greed test.  The PTB don't need or want it, and are in a position to block it, unless it's demanded by enough angry voters that they have to agree. 

The anger may be rising even as we speak. Coronavirus is just an added incentive to ones that have already been building for a long time. Let's see what it brings.