Re: [Pen-l] PK on the Madoff Nation

[joel blau <jblau@xxxxxxxxx>]

Sure. Roosevelt wanted Social Security to be funded out of general 
revenues, but was forced to retreat to pay as you go. He consoled 
himself with the belief that a self-funded social security program would 
be less subject to the whims of politicians who at any point in time, 
might or might not be inclined to pay for it.

Joel Blau

Carrol Cox wrote:
> joel blau wrote:
>   
> > Are you less confident that social security will be paid than any other
> > government obligation? Unless your point is that social security is mere
> > social welfare, and hence readily dispensable, why is government
> > borrowing from the trust fund any less an obligatory debt?
> >     
>
>
> kThere is some evidence that even on group of pre-humans, the
> neanderthals, took care of their elders. This generation ALWAYS takes
> care of the elders of the preceding generation. It is nothing at all new
> with Social Security. That system is a fraud in a way, however. What we
> should really have are old-age pensions NOT based on contributions, NOT
> even pretending to be an insurance system, but merely paid out of
> general funds by the federal government. The working generation always
> takes care of the young and the old. That is the way it has to be. Any
> pretences otherwise are a form of political fraud.
>
> Carrol
>   
> > Joel Blau
> >
> > David B. Shemano wrote:
> >     
> > > Of course the benefits will stop being paid.  "Entitlements" make up an increasing larger share of government budgets.  Eventually that trend will stop.  We might all be dead by that point, but the trend will eventually stop.  Some governments will default.  Others will inflate away the obligations.  Others will switch over to 401(k) type plans.  Maybe we can reach a point where we all so wealthy that one taxpayer can support one or more beneficiaries, and I really hope that happens, but I am way to skeptical to think the odds are good.  I live in California, where the voters of a bankrupt state continually vote for large bond measures, apparently upon the assumption that they can get immediate benefits while the taxes are pushed far into the future, by which time they will be dead or have moved to Nevada or Arizona.  I am not optimistic about our ability to manage social security and other entitlements.
> > >
> > > David Shemano
> > >
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