121–130 of 198 posts
> Nearly one-third of U.S. heads of households ages 55 and older have no pension or retirement savings and a median annual income of about $19,000. So now we finally get to the root of why Baby Boomers are so upset with the Millenial generation - there's nobody to bail them out of the mess they created.
Poor old folks aren't the exploiters you are looking for.
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The punishment for this speeding infraction is $300. Think about what kind of effect a $300 fine has on your life, and compare it to the impact on this woman's life. The punishment is to pay a fine, not to starve. We should not punish people with starvation, it's cruel and unusual. The punishment is different for you than for her, and that's not just.
Think about what kind of effect a $300 fine has on your life, and compare it to the impact on this woman's life. I have. That's why I don't speed. $300 lost means that I have to find what to cut from a budget to support a family of four , while trying to pay off all my bills with a goal to become debt free before I become this woman's age. Unlike the woman in the article, we don't choose tours of Frank Lloyd Wright b…
Here's a breakdown of the US 2015 combined (Federal, State, Local) government spend: Total Spend: 6.18tn Total Revenue: 6.08tn Healthcare: 1.32tn (21.3%) Pension: 1.20tn (19.7%) Education: 0.93tn (14.8%) Defense: 0.80tn (13.1%) Welfare: 0.50tn (8.2%) Other*: 1.43tn (23.1%) *Other = Protection, Transportation, General Government, Interest Currently, social security is taking in ~$74bn less in payroll taxes than it pay…
From what I read the Federal deficit was >$400 billion in 2015 and the majority of states and municipalities seem to run either at neutral or a slight deficit.
What am I missing here or how does the math work out?
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They'll say "I don't trust the government to spend that money properly. Take $232/yr away from some entitlement program that services people who aren't directly related to me."
Is "they" a large enough voting cohort for it to matter?
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Is "they" a large enough voting cohort for it to matter?
Yes, I think you'll find that the majority of U.S. citizens will vote down a tax increase, even if the intentions are good.
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> Its tricky to feel sympathy w/ the lady in this article. ... > and by world standards she's won the lottery to even be alive and living comfortably at her age" Why does that need to be trotted out whenever a story about someone's misfortune or bad circumstances is written about? It would be nice if people could just be happy with what they have because they aren't living somewhere else, under worse conditions, but…
You compare yourself to your peers and what your expectations are growing up and what you experience. Life is much easier if you don't have that mindset. I, in fact, do wake up every morning thankful for what I have, even if it's not as much as my neighbor.
Why? Striving for something is actually fun for some people. (Unless I am not getting your point exactly.)
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Perhaps you should ask the questions: Why did Boomers not have enough income to put savings aside? If savings was put aside, what rate of return did it earn? And what remains of those savings? But heh, f___ old people for decisions that were made before you were born, amirite?
> Why did Boomers not have enough income to put savings aside? Many of them did have enough income to put aside, but chose not to. My father is one of them. He was making 6 figures back in the 1980's when that was a lot of dough, yet he finds himself at 74 still having to work and living essentially paycheck to paycheck. I'm pretty sure he is not the only one like this.
>She owes $50,000 on her credit cards.
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Social Security worked well, before cost of living overtook the benefits provided.
Cost of living is not the problem (except for healthcare cost inflation, which Medicare could mitigate if someone could gut Congress of representatives preventing Medicare from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies). The problem is that everyone who collects Social Security is living longer. The question is: How can you continue to provide a high quality of life to seniors without bankrupting the country. It can…
So it is important to remember that social security is not a black hole. Some people like my dad exclusively invests his, but for a lot of people it is immediately spent in the economy. The greatest economic stimulus you can produce is direct cash injection into the poor - it produces immediate real goods demand to be met.
It is also why I always go crazy when people talk about "affording" a universal basic income. It is wealth redistribution, not destruction. Wealth is destroyed when it is dedicated to unproductive things, like means testing or incredible bureaucracy. The only risk UBI has is that you redistribute enough that the massive demand increase from the poor does not offset the slowdown of investment at the high end. Its a progressive curve - its not about affordability, it is about finding the maxima that matches peak social stability, equality, and individual prosperity against economic growth and investment.
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Perhaps you should ask the questions: Why did Boomers not have enough income to put savings aside? If savings was put aside, what rate of return did it earn? And what remains of those savings? But heh, f___ old people for decisions that were made before you were born, amirite?
Perhaps I will try to answer: 1. There is no evidence Boomers did not have enough income to put savings aside; rather, their years of prosperity, bubbles, and behaviors indicate they squandered or bilked each other out of large sums of money. 2. Historical interest rates are about 7% - at least that's the peg for most public pensions rate of growth, which is not unrealistic in a healthy US economy. The Baby Boomer po…
"7% interest", i.e. amount paid back from money you borrow out, is pretty rare these days. CDs did pay >8% in the 80s and junk and troubled sovereign might still pay that much.
With lower inflation, some pension funds are targeting a lower return.