Franchise, I thought investment was up a lot in the past year (this could be incorrect, I need some time to look it up after work.)
Krugman is not an unbiased point of view. Can you refute his points? Who is unbuiased in your UNBIASED opinion?
P Moon, thanks for the "unbiased" article on Krugman. I found it interesting. Keep in mind you will eventually have to have an opinion yourself and can only go so far proclaiming a crisis and that you have no opinion on it but are unbiased while everyone else is biased.
glynch, I am most definitely biased, but I made an effort to back up my original argument with right, moderate, and left-leaning think-tanks. I'm fine if the response is left-leaning op-ed pieces and web pages. As far as trying to argue that tax cuts helped the economy and greenspan is not out to get poor people, well, that is an excercise in futility. From my perspective, it is like trying to convince people who believe 2+2=5 that it actually equals 4. For you all it's like I'm trying to tell you that 2+2=3 when quite clearly it equals 4. As a matter of fact, since all we're doing is refuting links with links, here you go : link
Well we have Krugman, again. Spitting out irrefutable facts that are just too much for his detractors. As further evidence of Krugman's credibility we have from P Moon his prior article from the Wash Monthly which says: On balance, Krugman's record stands up pretty well. On the topics he writes about most often and most angrily--tax cuts, Social Security, and the budget--his record is nearly perfect. "The reason he's gotten under the White House's skin so much," says Robert Shapiro, a former undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton administration, "is that he's right. None of it is rocket science." Here Krugman expalins that the crisis we have is mainly medicare, i.e., health care costs, which is widely known. Of course to point that out destroys the whole canard that those younger individuals who pay in will never get social security, which understandably seems to scare P. Moon and others so much. P. Moon should be happy that Krugman does admit we need SOME CHANGES. I'm not sure if this is enough for P. Moon as he led with the financial industry funded "the sky is falling" hype from the Cato Institute. *********** Social Security Scares By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: March 5, 2004 The annual report of the Social Security system's trustees reveals a system in pretty good financial shape. In fact, it would take only modest injections of money to maintain that system's current benefit levels for at least the next 75 years. Other reports, however, appear to portray a system in deep financial trouble. For example, a 2002 Treasury study, described on Tuesday in The New York Times, claims that Social Security and Medicare are $44 trillion in the red. What's the truth? Here's a hint: while even right-wing politicians insist in public that they want to save Social Security, the ideologues shaping their views are itching for an excuse to dismantle the system. So you have to read alarming reports generated by people who work at ideologically driven institutions — a list that now, alas, includes the U.S. Treasury — with great care. First, two words — "and Medicare" — make a huge difference. According to the Treasury study, only 16 percent of that $44 trillion shortfall comes from Social Security. Second, the supposed shortfall in both programs comes mainly from projections about the distant future; 62 percent of the combined shortfall comes after 2077. So does the Treasury report show a looming Social Security crisis? No. Social Security's problem, such as it is, is a matter of demography: as the population ages, the number of retirees will rise faster than the number of workers. As a result, benefit costs will rise by about 2 percent of G.D.P. over the next 30 years, and creep up slowly thereafter. By comparison, making the Bush tax cuts permanent would reduce revenue by at least 2.5 percent of G.D.P., starting now. That — combined with the fact that Social Security, unlike the rest of the federal government, is currently running a surplus — is why the Bush tax cuts are a much bigger problem for the nation's fiscal future than the Social Security shortfall. Medicare, though often lumped in with Social Security, is a different program facing different problems. The projected rise in Medicare expenses is mainly driven not by demography, but by the rising cost of medical care, which in turn mainly reflects medical progress, which allows doctors to treat a wider range of conditions. If this trend continues — which is by no means certain when we are considering the very long run — we may face a real long-term dilemma that involves all medical care, not just care for retirees, and is as much moral as economic. It may eventually be the case that providing all Americans with the full advantages of modern medicine will force the government to raise much more money than it now does. Yet not providing that care will mean watching poor and middle-class Americans die early or suffer a greatly reduced quality of life because they can't afford full medical treatment. But this dilemma will be there regardless of what we do to Social Security. It's not even clear that we should try to resolve the dilemma now. I'm all for taking the long view; when the administration makes budget projections for only five years to hide known costs just a few years further out, that's an outrage. By all means, let's plan ahead. But let's set some limits. When people issue ominous warnings about the cost of Medicare after 2077, my question is, Why should fiscal decisions today reflect the possible cost of providing generations not yet born with medical treatments not yet invented? The biggest risk now facing Social Security is political. Will those who hate the system use scare tactics and fuzzy math to bring it down? After Alan Greenspan's call for cuts in Social Security benefits, Republican members of Congress declared that the answer is to create private retirement accounts. It's amazing that they are still peddling this snake oil; it's even more amazing that journalists continue to let them get away with it. Yesterday in The Wall Street Journal, a writer judiciously declared that "personal accounts alone won't cure Social Security's ills." I guess that's true; similarly, eating doughnuts alone won't cause you to lose weight. Why is it so hard to say clearly that privatization would worsen, not improve, Social Security's finances? Should we consider modest reforms that reduce the expenses or widen the revenue base of Social Security? Sure. But beware of those who claim that we must destroy the system in order to save it. Krugman
P. Moon, then we might be in agreement. What do you think of the argument that medicare or rising healthcare costs is the main culprit? I do think that ultimately we will have to have national health care as there is no other way to keep the potentially down the stratospheric costs of state of the art healthcare, while maintaining as much fairness as Americans have traditionally aimed for. The advances and therefore costs of the best care are probably being made at a rate of increase that exceeds such increases as the growth in an older population, the fact that the anti-social security forces use to make their argument.
Yeah, I agree that Medicare's rising cost is already and will be a huge problem. I think that instead of blanketing money over all seniors, we should target low-income seniors that have high drug-costs. Unfortunately this is politically unlikely, since senior groups are powerful and want coverage for everyone, even if they are wealthy or have other forms of coverage. Does that make sense? Also, I don't think nationalized healthcare is the correct solution. It will have huge administrative and transaction costs, which will be passed on in the form of increasing taxes. Of course the richest and most politically connected will get around paying all of their taxes, and be able to afford private alternative options (such as with our school system.) Most Americans will be stuck with only one option for healthcare (which will decrease in quality over time, IMO.) The fact is that the government is currently wasting too much money trying to provide care to citizens who could otherwise afford it, instead of solely focusing on those who can't. Sort of the health version of corporate welfare. Reform is definitely needed.
Please, the government is busy working overtime doing everything it can for the wealthy. They could take a break and do one thing that would help fund Social Security, which would be to take it out of all the income that's earned by the rich that would be subject to SS if there wasn't a cap! Yes, there's a cap on the SS income of the rich, but not on the Middle Class. Someone explain the fairness of that??
I agree completely. That's one of the problems of giving the government too much power, which we have. You think Halliburton pays 35% in taxes? Do you think they get extreme benefits from being well-connected? I agree again, it is not logical to just pick an arbitrary number and stop taxing. A fair flat tax across the board would generate much more revenue, IMO you could actually lessen the percentage by several points and still bring in more money. I am also for a simple flat income tax, which would be without all of the loopholes that we have now. This would put a lot of accountants out of business, but I think it could raise more money, help the economy, and save jobs. I agree. It is not fair at all. Once again, I am not libertarian because I think that the rich will benefit from classic liberal economic policies. I am libertarian because I think everyone would. The way the rich benefit most is under our current system where they have extreme influence on the political process and loopholes that 95% of the population can't access. Powerful corporations are much scarier with the government and military on their side (ie Halliburton) than they ever are in a free-market. BIG money
Also, I don't think nationalized healthcare is the correct solution. It will have huge administrative and transaction costs, which will be passed on in the form of increasing taxes I think you will find that you are totally wrong on this. In fact that is one of the main arguments for national health. You get rid of the huge amount of paperwork, advertsing and jockyi g around to exclude money losing patients from your insurance company ete. and other administrative costs generated by the US system. A national health insurance program could save approximately $150 billion on paperwork alone. Because of the administrative complexities in our current system, over 25% of every health care dollar goes to marketing, billing, In the Canadian system they have about 10% of the paperwork. From my own experience. In Italy an emergency room at a hospital spent 45 minutes picking out the spines from a man of war from my son's foot. They didn't even open a file as the medical technician, nurse ? was on salary, wo what was the point. Of course, for profit insurance companies have billions at stake in making counter arguments so these are readily available. link
Found this graph on the Economists web site: Pretty interesting that we already spend as much as other countries do on health. Also, my dad grew up in Canada, so I know a lot about their system. It provides pretty good care in less time than most countries non-emergency waits are kind of high though), however, they have a shortage of doctors and rising medical costs. Where will they be 10 or 20 years from now? My godfather is from Britain, and you don't want to get him started on the NHS! I think that nationalized healthcare, like most socialist programs, works best when you have a small, homogenous country that has a 'we' first instead of 'me' first attitude. Places like Sweden are perfect for this. In America, you would have wide discrepencies in different areas in terms of quality service, and I truly believe that costs would rise at an incredible pace. We're talking about managing 300 million people here! I think it would look like the public school system -- great private, good in suburban areas, between okay and terrible in the inner-city and rural areas. (Have you ever heard teachers or school administrators say "You know, our systems running efficiently, we have more money than we can spend this year."?) I just don't trust a group of elected bureaucrats, who have already proven they can't spend money responsibly, to do a better job with healthcare.
