RE: The Democrats, the Deficit, and Social Security

Article can be read here

This guy is just unbelievable.

First: An editorial in the NYT IS NOT official. I would accept a press release from the White House to be official. Since Obama said Medicare/Social Security would go untouched in his address, I would even say officially, they won't be touching those programs. (This is not to say they won't, Obama lies a lot after all, but the official stance of the White House is what it is, don't infer more)

Second: The problem with America's health care is that it is way too expensive. As a Canadian I find it funny when I travel and I get medical insurance which applies to every country except the US. By definition Health Care is expensive, but when doctors have average salaries well above that of other countries - you're going to have a problem. Americans as a whole get paid more then they're worth for a lot of jobs (sports coaches, athletes, doctors, union workers). But hey, that's their culture and I'm not the one to judge...but the offshoot of this culture is increased costs for certain industries such as health care. As the next dominoe falls, any public effort will be too expensive and likely mediocre (medicare/medicaid). Same goes for SS.


Third: Shamus actually makes the case that the solution to the deficit is to tax the rich as high as 90% - what a moron.

Deficit and debt were not caused by lack of income from loss of taxation, it's from over spending. Yes, you are correct, military is one of those big expenditures, but medicare, medicaid and social security are much worse. Worse yet, THEY DON'T SCALE!!! They may have appeared to work over the last 30 years, but the ratio of workers to those collecting SS benefits was much greater then it will ever be again (same goes for medicare/medicaid). This means that the cost of SS will balloon, while the income (those paying into it) will tapper. Fundamentally this means it's doomed. The solution is not more taxation, it's sadly a decrease in benefits that shouldn't have been promised to begin with.

The issue with increased taxation is that it stifles innovation, creativity and drive. Without those 3, there will be no prosperity.

IMHO, it is a travesty that SS might be gutted, I hate to think of how many people are going to have the rug slipped out from under them. But truth be told, if the US gets into hyper inflation because they default on all their debt then those people will face the same fate. The US was supposed to be the land of opportunity. What does this mean? It means if you work hard, save hard you can make it rich. It doesn't mean you can work hard, spend hard, then continue to live on the backs of taxpayers.

SS should only ever exist as a form of forced retirement planning. And no, I don't mean that measly few bucks that come off the paycheck, but a colossal amount coming off the paycheck. Then the amount you put in you get back with interest when you retire...that is a system that would work.

RE: The US Economic Crisis: Jobs Continue to Vanish While the Media Applauds “Recovery”

You can view the article here

Man this drives me nuts.

I think the thing about unions that most upsets me, is when they negotiate a contract with a company that they must employ a certain percentage of unionized workers. This is discrimination. Last I checked unions don't fall under any affirmative action criteria. I could imagine how upset I would be if I started a job and they automatically signed me up in a union, I'd freak out. How dare they remove my right to negotiate my raises and terms of employment, as well as strip part of my wages that was actually taking away those 2 rights! If I kick ass at my job I want to be compensated for it, if I suck ass I should be penalized. Why work hard if you'll be rewarded the same as a dimwit who does nothing?

Seamous makes the claim that since the number of workers belonging to unions dropped by 771000, that this implies drop in benefits and wages overall.

You know what Seamous, that may very well be - but I would be willing to suspect that the businesses that pandered to unions (such as GM/Chrysler) had to lay off more people then their competition because their cost/worker was much too high. Those businesses couldn't weather a financial storm because they were bleeding by the wounds inflicted by the unions.

Unions have completely lost their way. They were once introduced to bring power back to the people, now they serve only to empower a select few and reward the lazy.