From an interview on NPR’s Here and Now comes: “The official actuaries of the Social Security system say in order to get our Social Security and retirement funds in balance, they’d have to cut benefits by 25 percent indefinitely into the future,” he says. “Do I think it’s going to happen? Well I don’t know, but this is one of the reasons why inflation is the major problem out there. So long as you don’t do it, you’re going to cause the debt overall — the total government debt — to rise indefinitely, and that is an unstable situation.” He adds: “In the book … discussing what the long-term outlook is all about, we say that the issue of the aging of the population and its consequences on entitlements is having a significant negative deterioration over the
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From an interview on NPR’s Here and Now comes:
“The official actuaries of the Social Security system say in order to get our Social Security and retirement funds in balance, they’d have to cut benefits by 25 percent indefinitely into the future,” he says. “Do I think it’s going to happen? Well I don’t know, but this is one of the reasons why inflation is the major problem out there. So long as you don’t do it, you’re going to cause the debt overall — the total government debt — to rise indefinitely, and that is an unstable situation.”
He adds: “In the book … discussing what the long-term outlook is all about, we say that the issue of the aging of the population and its consequences on entitlements is having a significant negative deterioration over the long run. The reason for that is what the data unequivocally show is that entitlements — which are mandated by law — are gradually and inexorably driving our gross domestic savings, and the economy, dollar for dollar. And so long as that happens, we have to borrow from abroad, which is our current account deficit.”
He also said:
“When you deal with fear, it is very difficult to classify,” he tells Here & Now‘s Jeremy Hobson. “But you can look at the consequences of it, and the consequence is basically a suppressed level of innovation and therefore of capital investment and a disinclination to take risks.”
I agree with this, but not just as it relates to “ a suppressed level of innovation…” but instead as it relates to the 2005 World Bank report on what produces wealth in a developed economy like ours. It comes down to trust. Trust in your judicial system and trust in your education system. I discuss this in the following 3 posts: 2007, 2009, 2011
Human capital is where it’s at!
Attention Republicans/Blue Dog Democrates: Tax cuts as stimulus work against your goal
It’s not the tax and spending cuts, it’s the destroyed trust that has doomed our eco
This election at it’s core is about trust. Destroy that, and we have no democracy, we have no economy. It’s that simple. That McConnell et al has decided he will not abide by the rules agreed to in conducting the business of the Senate means we have no currently functioning democracy. That is how fragile democracy in the US is. Our democracy comes down to two people, the leaders of each party in the Senate agreeing to the rules. When one decides not to, there is nothing that can be done other than vote.
You can hear the full interview here: