Adam Smith addressed this issue in The Wealth of Nations during his discussion of sub-subsistence wages.
I’d also suggest that the potion of the population on welfare are not only surplus to need but an actual drag on the prosperity of everyone else. By leeching off the productive while contributing nothing of value they actively reduce the quality of life for everyone else.
This welfare is detrimental when provided at both ends of the financial spectrum, with the wealthy having learned how to leech best, and with many in government becoming wealthy through leeching.
It appears so. But, when the population is decimated because of war the country is usually further destroyed by the loss of so many of the best and brightest. It takes a long time raise back that portion of the population. So, in the long run people are more expensive than missiles.
Japan was trapped through politics and a central bank designed to extract wealth from the people. You have to go to WW2 and fake nukes is the start of this story. Ends with the carry trade financing the west.
Poor above average-smarts people don't have kids. Ultra poor do. They squeezed everyone to create this.
You’re focusing on Pennie’s. lol think of all the taxes you pay. Even property taxes wrapped up in rent. All those poor people are, is an excuse to tax you more so the politicians and the Jewish bankers can rape you more in the form of taxes and programs. You’re worried about the losers of society when you fail to see the rich using your dumb ass to live their lap of luxury. Are you even joking right now. Think how many thousands you pay in not only inflation but personal taxes. Many are hidden. And you don’t even realize you’re paying it. Bc they wrap it up in the price.
the infamous Protocols of Zion dossier was written by the Zionist Jews. If you’re not familiar, the Protocols publication discusses how the Zionists will take over society by capturing every aspect of it (schools, media, government, etc.). They don’t hide their cult. Con-vid revealed a lot of truths. They were all Jewish every single person on that board for the NIH was Jewish, everyone in Pharma head of the pharmaceutical companies are Jewish my research. These people that are ruining the world are actually Phoenicians and I think they have co-opted religions. Insert themselves reality is they are cannonites. That have infiltrated every single Government but they’re not all the same so you can’t just say it’s all the Jews. It’s all the Jews at the top of the food chain. Even your president is a Jew look up his background they are running everything.
I mean, yes. But so many people balk when it is pointed out that Social Security is *also* "welfare". And the people getting it are *definitionally* producing nothing of value. Or they'd, y'know, *still be getting paid*.
I very much disagree. The fact that a given person is on welfare does not prove that he is useless or unable to contribute - perhaps very greatly - to the community.
All it proves is that the existing, highly corrupt and callous, system has rejected him as unsuitable for its purposes. Those purposes are not congruent with the welfare of us all - indeed, often they are very distant from it.
I disagree. One can be productive and contribute to society without burdening that society via taking benefits that should only be available to citizens.
Well, zooming in to individuals, haven't you ever known someone who was capable and willing, but couldn't find a job? At least, a job that would pay enough to live on?
Perfect world real leaders who are not hell bent on destroying humanity. Would find a need to employ them instead of just handing out charity. Most of those people are so shut down and depressed they can no longer function.
NAXALT is midwit at best. Certainly there are 'some' who could be useful and able to contribute, but the real question is this: what do you REALLY think the percentage of those people in the illegal immigrant community is?
There is a bell curve, and it exists for a reason.
If poor people have to eat, and there is an 'issue' with that happening, then somehow bringing in more poor people and those who contribute little to nothing is going to be helpful?
Nice analysis I believe the concern stems from two things: 1) a mistaken assumption that growth is dependent on population and I think you’ve shown that’s not the case, and 2) the fear that without population growth, our social security system will collapse. That’s probably true (due to the fact that it’s a Ponzi scheme) BUT, that system could easily be and should be changed for younger generations. Whether our politicians understand that is another story.
The Social Security problem will become stark in just five years. That's within the time horizon of some politicians. Not that they will fix it sensibly.
I was too lazy to look it up last night to properly attribute it, but do please note, *I* didn't come up with it, and it is a quote of someone else. Which, yes, you very likely gathered from my having placed it in quotation marks, still, I just want to make it clear to everyone who might see this that I'm *not* claiming to have come up with that bit of wisdom. :D
But yes, it applies to... just a *god awful* lot of people, doesn't it?
I think Social Security should be reserved for protecting citizens against poverty in old age. Not an entitlement. Should people with millions in assets receive Social Security payments? Not arguing. Just thinking.
Structurally, it’s not an entitlement because what you get is based on how much you contributed during your working lifetime. So yes, if you made more, you get more back, but it’s scaled so the “richest” don’t get back what they paid in. My view is that the money should be invested in the stock market. Everyone would need up with a lot more money instead of IOUs from the government.
Boomers are the biggest drain on the economy. Hate to break it to you. Y’all are the most selfish generation. Which explains the generation you bred. Millennials.
Of course, I paid for the 10mm as well. So I guess, in the strictest, most technical sense, I get to have a "retirement that I paid for" as well. Yay me!
We did pay the most in, ( relative to the size of the population we were) it is just that we were not expected to live as long as we do now, and the government kept other people to access social security that they had not contributed much or anything to and they set up SSI which expanded the amount of money going out. But, lets face it there was only IOUs in the SS system because the grubbermint's endless need for money just made the SS an accounting line in the spreadsheet.
So, 1. Stay out of hospitals except in cases of physical injuries. 2. Learn proper nutrition, 3. Learn about alternative medicines and herbal remedies. 4. accept that we will ALL die in time anyway. = Live like you will live forever and that you could die today.
Social security is now at a situation where the worker to retiree ratio drops below sustainable levels. We've known it was coming since the 70s. Somebody back then decided we could just solve that situation with immigration.
They never, ever considered that the kind of people that could replace the white boomers were european and east asian folk, who were going through their own demographic collapse.
To be fair, in the 70s there wasn't ample evidence that the "achievement gap" could never be closed. But political correctness has kept us from admitting the problem, and it seems like we've just continued to double down on the importation of people that can never be net positive in large numbers (individual people can be smart and great people, a positive for any society, but they will be a small minority, so to speak).
What is doubly crazy is importing tens of millions of third world people that go to the head of the line for subsidized housing, college scholarships and for jobs. Such extreme policies can only be the product of enemies of the state.
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been making the same point for a long time. I believe those policies (similarly adopted by most E.U. countries) were first adopted for reasonable - although naive reasons. Continuing them after watching the results was insane and, as you note, would only be done by those that hate America western civilization.
Canada is on a demographic and economic kamikaze mission: a collapsing GDP - howdy, Alabama! - coupled with batshit-truly insane immigration levels (and despite what you may hear, Carney isn't really reducing the numbers to what they should be, which should be *very* low thousands). In other words, we are a textbook case of what countries should *not* be doing as Canada's economy is a Ponzi scheme comprised of importing a slave labour class in order to keep boomer housing prices high. Please, *please* learn from us and do the opposite.
Quality of life in Canada has certainly decreased. Health care is overburdened and is in serious decline and we used to have a wonderful system in the 1980’s. Public education is overburdened with lack of funds and support for behavioural issues, cognitive issues, societal issues, cultural issues, and lack of quality infrastructure. Housing costs are artificially high due to immigration pressure and the floodgates have been opened to greedy builders tearing down historic neighborhoods to build ugly apartment buildings. I could keep going, but enough for now.
Are these the same experts who claimed that "only a comprehensive solution can solve illegal immigration"? Strange how quiet these people have gotten since the Trump administration proved otherwise.
Now we will add to the diversity with AI driven robots and digital AIs taking over large segments of jobs like accounting, lawyers, medical diagnosticians. Will they all be paying into Social security? Gotta fund the old robots homes, don't ya know.
US immigration wasn’t permitted to support population growth, it was done to obtain cheap labor and votes. Politicians couldn’t give a flying f-ck about population growth, all they see are votes and cash. The “humanitarian” cloak they throw over it is total BS, designed to help AWFLs feel good about their suicidal empathy.
There is hope though. Gen Z seems to have more traditional values than millennials, they want kids, so there is hope.
They do have that right, for legal employees, hiring illegals, even at prevailing wages, is illegal.
No pol thinks long term like that. They couldn’t care less about the solvency of SS or Medicare long term, they care about reelection and kickbacks. And you think companies who hire illegals actually pay FICA for all of them, at the actual rates? Or is it more likely many of them are paid off the books and contribute nothing in taxes?
Voting is a fixed scheme like every sports game you see. They can easily alter the votes like they did with the electronic voting and they fully admit the machines were never fixed. So you really believe that bs huh? Importing 3 rd world immigrants is kalergi plan. They want a dumbed down nation of slaves. They want your white daughter to breed with a black Somalian. And they even programmed you to think such comments are racist and ti should feel guilty. The mind fuck is vast and clearly you aren’t educated enough I. The UN Phoenician Jew scheme that has been going on for centuries. Bc you still think voting is legit. Tell me “vote them out” has remotely worked in the last 100 years. Right. Here’s a clue. Look up the main players of the Declaration of Independence. See what they did. Hint. Anyone who owns slaves is not a good guy. Anyone who avoids taxes. While promoting taxes is not a good guy. And also. Not one of those assholes were elected by the people they just assumed leadership. So there is the start of the farce. Learn real history. And you’ll see the fake matrix you believe in.
US employers have a basic right to hire anyone willing to work for the compensation and conditions offered.
But the pols know that underground labor working under fake IDs for large businesses pay taxes - especially FICA - with no hope of ever obtaining the related benefits. The more US employers use illegal labor, the longer SS & Medicare can pay benefits...
They do have that right, for legal employees, hiring illegals, even at prevailing wages, is illegal.
No pol thinks long term like that. They couldn’t care less about the solvency of SS or Medicare long term, they care about reelection and kickbacks. And you think companies who hire illegals actually pay FICA for all of them, at the actual rates? Or is it more likely many of them are paid off the books and contribute nothing in taxes?
> US employers have a basic right to hire anyone willing to work for the compensation and conditions offered.
I take it you've never heard of the "minimum wage"? Well... perhaps they have the "right"... but they certainly don't get to exercise the *privilege* of doing so. Because if they try to pay someone too little, they go to prison.
I take it you don't recognize when a right is hampered by the state.
What the law says is "Warmek" may not sell his own labor beneath a government imposed price floor. "Warmek" has not been able to sell his labor because employers find the government mandated wage price too high for "Warmek's" labor output. Hence "Warmek's" current wage rate is $0....
"illegal" is an arbitrary prohibition by the federal government, not an action causing physical harm to anyone.
Yes - all businesses have to report payrolls & remit related taxes withheld by SS number, all of which has to tie back to their federal income tax reporting.
The folks paid off the books are those being picked up at Home Depot to spread mulch and work odd jobs at private residences.
Further, every dime they spend in the US is taxed by one or more entities as far as sales and excise taxes....
this is only true in a construct where such people do not consume government services paid for by others and into which they do not pay, swamp schools, ER's, etc.
you can have open borders or welfare and open entitlement public systems and so long as you have the latter, you need the concept of "illegal" to keep from being eaten.
Oh I don't condone any social-welfare benefits for immigrants of any "legal" status. Only citizens should be allowed those, and the path to citizenship can be as easy or tough as the people wish to make it.
Trump has shown the borders can be tightened up dramatically and quickly. My stance is that labor migration across the borders should be as easy and routine as the flow of economic goods. Anyone wishing to come here and work given the closed borders can be registered and given a revocable work visa with a real government tax ID number. I would also stipulate such visas have nothing to do with a "path" to citizenship. That should be a separate issue.
Then when the work dries up, and no access to social-welfare benefits, they should be allowed to freely migrate out - which has been the case in the US in the past during recessions as net emigration happened.
That you don’t like duly enacted immigration law means absolutely nothing. And there are quite a few examples of your beloved migrants harming US citizens.
Do you live in the real world? You think all illegals are on payrolls? Go to any construction site and check. Have fun!
Oh, they pay sales and excise taxes?! Well then, let’s reopen the floodgates and bring in all those tax paying migrants, otherwise the US economy will collapse.
That you can't separate prohibitions on physical aggression against individuals and their stuff from arbitrary political wedge issues created by government is obvious.
Do you pick your own veggies? Clean toilets and spread mulch for a living? Did you raise your kids to aspire to the crummy jobs immigrants willingly do for minimal wages?
I've been in business and finance over 40 years, including corporate taxation. I know of what I write.
If the illegal who committed the crime were prevented from entering the country (or deported when they were apprehended for other crimes in many cases), the crime would not have occurred. Is that difficult to comprehend for you?
Nope, I don’t. And Americans would do those jobs for a fair wage. Or did farming and landscaping not happen prior to the migrant influx? My children were taught that working is expected of them, at fair wages.
Nah, you don’t. You’re the professor from Back to School, and I’m Rodney Dangerfield, giving the kids the real skinny.
Oh, now we’re getting all Latin and shit! You wrote: “Further, every dime they spend in the US is taxed by one or more entities as far as sales and excise taxes....” suggesting that migrants contribute positively to the US economy. So how is what I wrote a non sequitur?
The numbers do not support your view. See the recent Cato report. The great majority of immigrants are net contributors. (Importing old, sick immigrants is an exception.) Cultural issues are another matter.
“The government first began gathering detailed information on benefits use by citizenship status in 1994. The data show:
For each year from 1994 to 2023, the US immigrant population generated more in taxes than they received in benefits from all levels of government.
Over that period, immigrants created a cumulative fiscal surplus of $14.5 trillion in real 2024 US dollars, including $3.9 trillion in savings on interest on the debt.
Without immigrants, US government public debt at all levels would be at least 205 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)—nearly twice its 2023 level.“
So Cato used government reported data to develop their analysis. Forgive me my skepticism, but I think the government would have ample reason to cook the books to support their preferred outcome.
I remember Productivity(tm) being the number that Wall Street was obsessed about in the 90's and early aughts. It suggested, reasonably, that all this tech everybody was cheering about was *doing something good* for businesses and our lives. You don't hear about it much anymore, probably because managers have found a way to be productive with hidden factors like depressed wages due to mass immiseration. Sorry, I meant immigration.
Two issues I think are relevant; first, since the 70s women have entered the job market in huge numbers which has diluted wages. (and many women exited or put off motherhood). Just like allowing in too many immigrants, excess numbers of workers prevent any real wage growth.
In general, it is no longer considered possible, particularly for the young, to afford home and family on a single income (whether or not this is actually true is another issue). The stress involved in working full-time and raising small children is immense, leading inevitably to a contraction in the number of children a couple has.
Second, having children is an optimistic action; a couple must have faith in their ability to provide... and the more children, the higher the level of faith in the future.
During the Great Depression, birth rates dropped precipitously, down to just barely over replacement levels., despite the complete lack of what we moderns would consider effective birth control.
Post war, the baby boom reflected the energy and optimism of a happy population.
It would seem to me that a society can only afford a certain percentage of dependents, and the USA and Europe governments have made choices that have replaced having and taking care of our own children with dependent immigrants instead.
yes, i suspect that's a driver from governmental level, but it's likely wrongheaded. it's far easier to rein in costs, esp on medicare and medicaid. they are probably 1/3 fraud and another 1/3rd overpayment for pharma (as US prices are 3-4X the rest of world and we are the one system that does not negotiate with the pharmcos and our private insurance structure ios set up to prefer higher prices because of profit % caps under obamacare)
it's also sort of a "pee you pant to keep warm" solution as it tends to import more benefits takers than it generates in taxpayers.
There are reforms that can be made, like privatization, or Ron Paul's idea of making the federal social-welfare state self-funded & optional via one-time, life-time opt in or out decision in your early 20s.
But the last attempt at "reform" was 40+ years ago when Congress folk still had some semblance of spines!
i'm actually seeing some cause for optimism at HHS. they are looking to gut pharma prices and starting to do it. seems like they are dialing in on waste/fraud as well.
cautiously optomistic they make some progress.
they are also mooting making A LOT of drugs OTC which would cut out a ton of doctor costs. AI gonna gut that as well.
Pharmacy drugs kill people. So who gives a flying fuck if they cut prices. Drugs are for lazy sin pigs who don’t want to fix their issue bc eating right is harder than eating McDonald’s and taking a drug to make baseline blood numbers normal. Pharma is the biggest con in the world.
We should see a tremendous increase in upfront efficiency and accuracy in diagnosis with AI. It won't replace the human connection between a good physician/practitioner and the patient, but should drive down rates of misdiagnoses and improper treatment...
The US economy is like a gigantic, sclerotic company that could be great again with a savage, cost-cutting CEO at the helm who isn't afraid to say, "You're fired!"
Ha yes. Great piece. I don't know nuthin' about mathematical analyses which is why I depend on you and a couple of others to run 'em and explain 'em.
And you've reminded me of those social horror exposes people of my generation learned about in school--Jacob Riis et al--and the lesson we *weren't* taught was that floods of desperately poor immigrants can't be easily absorbed and assimilated and their neighborhoods will indeed become jungles of misery and violence.
And--those who rhapsodize giant families of people of the *right sort* are to me liars and delusionists. When you have more than four children you've got the oldest helping to raise the youngest because Mom and Dad don't have enough time to nurture each child themselves. Recently that moron Bethany Mandel posted a photo of herself nursing her two-day-old while standing in line at Costco and she looked every bit as haggard yet self-righteous as you might expect.
Quality over quantity--one o' them eternal truths.
Its all about the giant welfare benefit schemes. Yes social security is also welfare no matter how many times you say 'I paid in' as though that money was buying an asset or adding value to an account owned by you.
Instead of fixing them - hardening against fraud, tightening requirements, eliminating the programs altogether - mass migration was inflicted on us in the hopes that foreigners could prop them up
A boomer, here, and I agree with Dave (who forgot to mention medicare). I am surprised el gato never mentioned the need for young 'uns to keep propping up their elders.
- Improvements in ascertainment: is a big confounder though. Epidemiologists have surely sorted a lot of that out reasonably (except with autism, lol).
- Diet and activty: are a function of population size. IMO 95% of chronic disease is environmental/lifestyle. If you are not overpopulated you don't get junk food in stores as there is a lot more small scale agriculture. You get more activity, etc. Every damn environmental cause of disease is tied to population density.
- mating pattern: just exclude some countries.
- genetic is jsut as stable background. No biggie.
definitional is a massive issue. kids used to be called "restless" now it's ADD/autistic/etc. you used to have "a bum gut" now it's 20 varieties of IBS or whatever other trashcan diagnosis of exclusion we are using. anyhting gets called "chronic disease" now.
i also think your point about junk food is incorrect. it's just a one way ratchet with little to do with population and once it starts, the slide is hard to stop. it's cheap and generates too much serotonin/dopamine.
also, genetic is not stable when countries have 1/3 of their pop as first gen immigrants.
- I would concede that diseases (or conditions rather) can be trimmed based on which are least subject to diagnostic changes.
- I disagree about hte processed foods, but ignoring that so many other things are going on. Stress, trauama, artificial lights, sleep, noise pollution, air pollution, industrial chemicals, lack of access to nature, exercise, sunlight, infectious diseases. EVery health evil is tied to urbanization.
- Genetics: If you are styding the US for exmaple, you could exclude border states, or if oyu ahve hte data only study native citizens. In any case, instability of genetics is only a major issue IF EITHER ("genetics is a major cause of prevalent chronic diseases in the absence of environmental triggers" OR "genetic susceptibility to environmental triggers is highly prevalent") AND ("said relevant genetics are highly variable across populations"). The answer to that is a hard no IMO.
It's a complex epi problem, and it's all doable, if the needed steps are taken.
Human health and well-being started going downhill with the advent of agriculture ~10,000 years ago. In the mid-20th century dwarf wheat was invented so that more grain could be produced and farmed mechanically. Modern wheat can have four times the number of chromosomes as primitive grains, with increased risk of detrimental sensitivity.
Of course the modern diet has a lot more wrong with it than just the wheat.
Evolutionarily we're designed to eat more fat and protein and fewer carbs. Hence, more chronic disease.
No nation-state has ever (or in my viewpoint will ever), increased its prosperity by importing debt into its social welfare system... but it will certainly increase the voting rolls that perpetuates its social welfare system. Economic Slavery has merely donned its party attire.
Adam Smith addressed this issue in The Wealth of Nations during his discussion of sub-subsistence wages.
I’d also suggest that the potion of the population on welfare are not only surplus to need but an actual drag on the prosperity of everyone else. By leeching off the productive while contributing nothing of value they actively reduce the quality of life for everyone else.
This welfare is detrimental when provided at both ends of the financial spectrum, with the wealthy having learned how to leech best, and with many in government becoming wealthy through leeching.
Part & parcel of the WEF assault.
It seems humans are less expensive than missiles.
It appears so. But, when the population is decimated because of war the country is usually further destroyed by the loss of so many of the best and brightest. It takes a long time raise back that portion of the population. So, in the long run people are more expensive than missiles.
100%
Who benefits from increased population? Elites, monied interests and politicians.
It's more propaganda - just like every other corrupted system we see today.
Once you see this truth, it becomes blindingly obvious.
Japan was trapped through politics and a central bank designed to extract wealth from the people. You have to go to WW2 and fake nukes is the start of this story. Ends with the carry trade financing the west.
Poor above average-smarts people don't have kids. Ultra poor do. They squeezed everyone to create this.
The criminal aspect of that population is actively reducing the quality of life as well
You’re focusing on Pennie’s. lol think of all the taxes you pay. Even property taxes wrapped up in rent. All those poor people are, is an excuse to tax you more so the politicians and the Jewish bankers can rape you more in the form of taxes and programs. You’re worried about the losers of society when you fail to see the rich using your dumb ass to live their lap of luxury. Are you even joking right now. Think how many thousands you pay in not only inflation but personal taxes. Many are hidden. And you don’t even realize you’re paying it. Bc they wrap it up in the price.
why is it always the jews bro
the infamous Protocols of Zion dossier was written by the Zionist Jews. If you’re not familiar, the Protocols publication discusses how the Zionists will take over society by capturing every aspect of it (schools, media, government, etc.). They don’t hide their cult. Con-vid revealed a lot of truths. They were all Jewish every single person on that board for the NIH was Jewish, everyone in Pharma head of the pharmaceutical companies are Jewish my research. These people that are ruining the world are actually Phoenicians and I think they have co-opted religions. Insert themselves reality is they are cannonites. That have infiltrated every single Government but they’re not all the same so you can’t just say it’s all the Jews. It’s all the Jews at the top of the food chain. Even your president is a Jew look up his background they are running everything.
I mean, yes. But so many people balk when it is pointed out that Social Security is *also* "welfare". And the people getting it are *definitionally* producing nothing of value. Or they'd, y'know, *still be getting paid*.
I very much disagree. The fact that a given person is on welfare does not prove that he is useless or unable to contribute - perhaps very greatly - to the community.
All it proves is that the existing, highly corrupt and callous, system has rejected him as unsuitable for its purposes. Those purposes are not congruent with the welfare of us all - indeed, often they are very distant from it.
I disagree. One can be productive and contribute to society without burdening that society via taking benefits that should only be available to citizens.
Well, zooming in to individuals, haven't you ever known someone who was capable and willing, but couldn't find a job? At least, a job that would pay enough to live on?
Nope.
I am surprised.
Hey, if you know people whose incredible talent is being vastly underutilized, that seems like an amazing business opportunity for you.
Agree. In a
Perfect world real leaders who are not hell bent on destroying humanity. Would find a need to employ them instead of just handing out charity. Most of those people are so shut down and depressed they can no longer function.
NAXALT is midwit at best. Certainly there are 'some' who could be useful and able to contribute, but the real question is this: what do you REALLY think the percentage of those people in the illegal immigrant community is?
There is a bell curve, and it exists for a reason.
I don't think anyone has mentioned immigrants in this thread, let alone illegal ones.
Oh, I see. So the people being 'brought in/over' are somehow already from here?
Playing semantics to avoid the obvious is simply underscoring having nothing of value to say.
“We need more locusts!” Said no one ever…until the 21st century rolled around.
In the Old Testament, God often sends locusts as punishment.
He also sends politicians...
Yes, even worse than locusts.
as in the definition of politics. = many blood sucking parasites.
I wrote a piece entitled “How much feces would you like in your lemonade?”
Well, poor people have to eat...
And...?
So the PTB need more locusts for the poor people to eat.
So, you're suggesting cannibalism...?
If poor people have to eat, and there is an 'issue' with that happening, then somehow bringing in more poor people and those who contribute little to nothing is going to be helpful?
Yeah, no.
Nice analysis I believe the concern stems from two things: 1) a mistaken assumption that growth is dependent on population and I think you’ve shown that’s not the case, and 2) the fear that without population growth, our social security system will collapse. That’s probably true (due to the fact that it’s a Ponzi scheme) BUT, that system could easily be and should be changed for younger generations. Whether our politicians understand that is another story.
The politicians understand that if they kick it down the road long enough, it becomes someone else's problem. SOP = standard operating procedure.
as they have done all of my life. = why 1 dollar today is worth about 1.5 cents in the purchasing power of the 1913 dollar.
The Social Security problem will become stark in just five years. That's within the time horizon of some politicians. Not that they will fix it sensibly.
Who thought giving gov extra money to hold for retirement was a great plan anyway. Like putting cake down in front of a fat kid.
Until Congress loses its generous pensions and is as dependent on the rest of us on Social Security, nothing will get done.
and then the blame game
Exactly
> Whether our politicians understand that is another story.
"It is impossible to get a man to understand what his livelihood depends on him not understanding."
That quote truly says it all, and certainly applies to our government and the green grifters.
I was too lazy to look it up last night to properly attribute it, but do please note, *I* didn't come up with it, and it is a quote of someone else. Which, yes, you very likely gathered from my having placed it in quotation marks, still, I just want to make it clear to everyone who might see this that I'm *not* claiming to have come up with that bit of wisdom. :D
But yes, it applies to... just a *god awful* lot of people, doesn't it?
It sure does, and it was Upton Sinclair.
I think Social Security should be reserved for protecting citizens against poverty in old age. Not an entitlement. Should people with millions in assets receive Social Security payments? Not arguing. Just thinking.
Structurally, it’s not an entitlement because what you get is based on how much you contributed during your working lifetime. So yes, if you made more, you get more back, but it’s scaled so the “richest” don’t get back what they paid in. My view is that the money should be invested in the stock market. Everyone would need up with a lot more money instead of IOUs from the government.
Hey, I’ve got a lot of years in front of me still 🤣
@Urs- we Boomers, the largest cohort sucking up the SS, are dying off soon enough.
Boomers paid for SS.
Boomers are the biggest drain on the economy. Hate to break it to you. Y’all are the most selfish generation. Which explains the generation you bred. Millennials.
This reeks of envy.
Sure, obviously I envy people who get to have a retirement that doesn't involve a 10mm to the temple, that I'm paying for. Duh?
Of course, I paid for the 10mm as well. So I guess, in the strictest, most technical sense, I get to have a "retirement that I paid for" as well. Yay me!
No, they did not. It is not a trust fund.
We did pay the most in, ( relative to the size of the population we were) it is just that we were not expected to live as long as we do now, and the government kept other people to access social security that they had not contributed much or anything to and they set up SSI which expanded the amount of money going out. But, lets face it there was only IOUs in the SS system because the grubbermint's endless need for money just made the SS an accounting line in the spreadsheet.
Don’t worry they’ll convince you to take more boosters so you in alive yourself with turbo cancer in the form of a bioweapon n labeled vaccine.
So, 1. Stay out of hospitals except in cases of physical injuries. 2. Learn proper nutrition, 3. Learn about alternative medicines and herbal remedies. 4. accept that we will ALL die in time anyway. = Live like you will live forever and that you could die today.
Thinking the same.
@Les- I know. But we're the biggest cohort. Once we're gone there will be more money in it.
Social security is now at a situation where the worker to retiree ratio drops below sustainable levels. We've known it was coming since the 70s. Somebody back then decided we could just solve that situation with immigration.
They never, ever considered that the kind of people that could replace the white boomers were european and east asian folk, who were going through their own demographic collapse.
To be fair, in the 70s there wasn't ample evidence that the "achievement gap" could never be closed. But political correctness has kept us from admitting the problem, and it seems like we've just continued to double down on the importation of people that can never be net positive in large numbers (individual people can be smart and great people, a positive for any society, but they will be a small minority, so to speak).
What is doubly crazy is importing tens of millions of third world people that go to the head of the line for subsidized housing, college scholarships and for jobs. Such extreme policies can only be the product of enemies of the state.
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been making the same point for a long time. I believe those policies (similarly adopted by most E.U. countries) were first adopted for reasonable - although naive reasons. Continuing them after watching the results was insane and, as you note, would only be done by those that hate America western civilization.
Canada is on a demographic and economic kamikaze mission: a collapsing GDP - howdy, Alabama! - coupled with batshit-truly insane immigration levels (and despite what you may hear, Carney isn't really reducing the numbers to what they should be, which should be *very* low thousands). In other words, we are a textbook case of what countries should *not* be doing as Canada's economy is a Ponzi scheme comprised of importing a slave labour class in order to keep boomer housing prices high. Please, *please* learn from us and do the opposite.
Amongst others, Canada is a WEF colony.
Look who our last two Prime Ministers were/are.
Toranto is all Asian at this point. They make obedient little slaves. Kallergi plan in full effect.
Isn't WEF policy communism light?
Quality of life in Canada has certainly decreased. Health care is overburdened and is in serious decline and we used to have a wonderful system in the 1980’s. Public education is overburdened with lack of funds and support for behavioural issues, cognitive issues, societal issues, cultural issues, and lack of quality infrastructure. Housing costs are artificially high due to immigration pressure and the floodgates have been opened to greedy builders tearing down historic neighborhoods to build ugly apartment buildings. I could keep going, but enough for now.
Australia almost *exactly* the same.
"We need more population!" said the experts who told us that "diversity is our strength. "
We need it to keep the Ponzi schemes of SS & Medicare going...
Are these the same experts who claimed that "only a comprehensive solution can solve illegal immigration"? Strange how quiet these people have gotten since the Trump administration proved otherwise.
Now we will add to the diversity with AI driven robots and digital AIs taking over large segments of jobs like accounting, lawyers, medical diagnosticians. Will they all be paying into Social security? Gotta fund the old robots homes, don't ya know.
The signals through my tinfoil hat tell me that maybe that's why TPTB insisted that people in the west get "vaccinated" during the covid hysteria.
I think that slogan in quotes above has been proven to be incorrect.
US immigration wasn’t permitted to support population growth, it was done to obtain cheap labor and votes. Politicians couldn’t give a flying f-ck about population growth, all they see are votes and cash. The “humanitarian” cloak they throw over it is total BS, designed to help AWFLs feel good about their suicidal empathy.
There is hope though. Gen Z seems to have more traditional values than millennials, they want kids, so there is hope.
They do have that right, for legal employees, hiring illegals, even at prevailing wages, is illegal.
No pol thinks long term like that. They couldn’t care less about the solvency of SS or Medicare long term, they care about reelection and kickbacks. And you think companies who hire illegals actually pay FICA for all of them, at the actual rates? Or is it more likely many of them are paid off the books and contribute nothing in taxes?
I think a lot of the push is from enemies of the state, such as China.
Voting is a fixed scheme like every sports game you see. They can easily alter the votes like they did with the electronic voting and they fully admit the machines were never fixed. So you really believe that bs huh? Importing 3 rd world immigrants is kalergi plan. They want a dumbed down nation of slaves. They want your white daughter to breed with a black Somalian. And they even programmed you to think such comments are racist and ti should feel guilty. The mind fuck is vast and clearly you aren’t educated enough I. The UN Phoenician Jew scheme that has been going on for centuries. Bc you still think voting is legit. Tell me “vote them out” has remotely worked in the last 100 years. Right. Here’s a clue. Look up the main players of the Declaration of Independence. See what they did. Hint. Anyone who owns slaves is not a good guy. Anyone who avoids taxes. While promoting taxes is not a good guy. And also. Not one of those assholes were elected by the people they just assumed leadership. So there is the start of the farce. Learn real history. And you’ll see the fake matrix you believe in.
US employers have a basic right to hire anyone willing to work for the compensation and conditions offered.
But the pols know that underground labor working under fake IDs for large businesses pay taxes - especially FICA - with no hope of ever obtaining the related benefits. The more US employers use illegal labor, the longer SS & Medicare can pay benefits...
They do have that right, for legal employees, hiring illegals, even at prevailing wages, is illegal.
No pol thinks long term like that. They couldn’t care less about the solvency of SS or Medicare long term, they care about reelection and kickbacks. And you think companies who hire illegals actually pay FICA for all of them, at the actual rates? Or is it more likely many of them are paid off the books and contribute nothing in taxes?
> US employers have a basic right to hire anyone willing to work for the compensation and conditions offered.
I take it you've never heard of the "minimum wage"? Well... perhaps they have the "right"... but they certainly don't get to exercise the *privilege* of doing so. Because if they try to pay someone too little, they go to prison.
I take it you don't recognize when a right is hampered by the state.
What the law says is "Warmek" may not sell his own labor beneath a government imposed price floor. "Warmek" has not been able to sell his labor because employers find the government mandated wage price too high for "Warmek's" labor output. Hence "Warmek's" current wage rate is $0....
> I take it you don't recognize when a right is hampered by the state.
Of course I do, and that's entirely the point I'm making.
"illegal" is an arbitrary prohibition by the federal government, not an action causing physical harm to anyone.
Yes - all businesses have to report payrolls & remit related taxes withheld by SS number, all of which has to tie back to their federal income tax reporting.
The folks paid off the books are those being picked up at Home Depot to spread mulch and work odd jobs at private residences.
Further, every dime they spend in the US is taxed by one or more entities as far as sales and excise taxes....
this is only true in a construct where such people do not consume government services paid for by others and into which they do not pay, swamp schools, ER's, etc.
you can have open borders or welfare and open entitlement public systems and so long as you have the latter, you need the concept of "illegal" to keep from being eaten.
Oh I don't condone any social-welfare benefits for immigrants of any "legal" status. Only citizens should be allowed those, and the path to citizenship can be as easy or tough as the people wish to make it.
Trump has shown the borders can be tightened up dramatically and quickly. My stance is that labor migration across the borders should be as easy and routine as the flow of economic goods. Anyone wishing to come here and work given the closed borders can be registered and given a revocable work visa with a real government tax ID number. I would also stipulate such visas have nothing to do with a "path" to citizenship. That should be a separate issue.
Then when the work dries up, and no access to social-welfare benefits, they should be allowed to freely migrate out - which has been the case in the US in the past during recessions as net emigration happened.
Philosophically, I agree with your position. From an engineering perspective, one must destroy the welfare state *first*. Order of operations matters.
That you don’t like duly enacted immigration law means absolutely nothing. And there are quite a few examples of your beloved migrants harming US citizens.
Do you live in the real world? You think all illegals are on payrolls? Go to any construction site and check. Have fun!
Oh, they pay sales and excise taxes?! Well then, let’s reopen the floodgates and bring in all those tax paying migrants, otherwise the US economy will collapse.
That you can't separate prohibitions on physical aggression against individuals and their stuff from arbitrary political wedge issues created by government is obvious.
Do you pick your own veggies? Clean toilets and spread mulch for a living? Did you raise your kids to aspire to the crummy jobs immigrants willingly do for minimal wages?
I've been in business and finance over 40 years, including corporate taxation. I know of what I write.
Your last sentence is non sequitur...
If the illegal who committed the crime were prevented from entering the country (or deported when they were apprehended for other crimes in many cases), the crime would not have occurred. Is that difficult to comprehend for you?
Nope, I don’t. And Americans would do those jobs for a fair wage. Or did farming and landscaping not happen prior to the migrant influx? My children were taught that working is expected of them, at fair wages.
Nah, you don’t. You’re the professor from Back to School, and I’m Rodney Dangerfield, giving the kids the real skinny.
Oh, now we’re getting all Latin and shit! You wrote: “Further, every dime they spend in the US is taxed by one or more entities as far as sales and excise taxes....” suggesting that migrants contribute positively to the US economy. So how is what I wrote a non sequitur?
The numbers do not support your view. See the recent Cato report. The great majority of immigrants are net contributors. (Importing old, sick immigrants is an exception.) Cultural issues are another matter.
“The government first began gathering detailed information on benefits use by citizenship status in 1994. The data show:
For each year from 1994 to 2023, the US immigrant population generated more in taxes than they received in benefits from all levels of government.
Over that period, immigrants created a cumulative fiscal surplus of $14.5 trillion in real 2024 US dollars, including $3.9 trillion in savings on interest on the debt.
Without immigrants, US government public debt at all levels would be at least 205 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)—nearly twice its 2023 level.“
So Cato used government reported data to develop their analysis. Forgive me my skepticism, but I think the government would have ample reason to cook the books to support their preferred outcome.
you could call it the 'there must be panic' sickness. quite a few people suffer from it
Fear porn
Western societies are refugeeing and immigrating themselves out of existence.
I remember Productivity(tm) being the number that Wall Street was obsessed about in the 90's and early aughts. It suggested, reasonably, that all this tech everybody was cheering about was *doing something good* for businesses and our lives. You don't hear about it much anymore, probably because managers have found a way to be productive with hidden factors like depressed wages due to mass immiseration. Sorry, I meant immigration.
And it was purest irony for the *financial sector* to be cheering "productivity".
I agree, but adding MS Word helped reduce the size of the secretarial pool below the trading room.
Two issues I think are relevant; first, since the 70s women have entered the job market in huge numbers which has diluted wages. (and many women exited or put off motherhood). Just like allowing in too many immigrants, excess numbers of workers prevent any real wage growth.
In general, it is no longer considered possible, particularly for the young, to afford home and family on a single income (whether or not this is actually true is another issue). The stress involved in working full-time and raising small children is immense, leading inevitably to a contraction in the number of children a couple has.
Second, having children is an optimistic action; a couple must have faith in their ability to provide... and the more children, the higher the level of faith in the future.
During the Great Depression, birth rates dropped precipitously, down to just barely over replacement levels., despite the complete lack of what we moderns would consider effective birth control.
Post war, the baby boom reflected the energy and optimism of a happy population.
It would seem to me that a society can only afford a certain percentage of dependents, and the USA and Europe governments have made choices that have replaced having and taking care of our own children with dependent immigrants instead.
You missed the great population drop fear in the US - the implosion of SS & Medicare!
Ponzi schemes fail once the pool of new entrants stagnates and declines...
yes, i suspect that's a driver from governmental level, but it's likely wrongheaded. it's far easier to rein in costs, esp on medicare and medicaid. they are probably 1/3 fraud and another 1/3rd overpayment for pharma (as US prices are 3-4X the rest of world and we are the one system that does not negotiate with the pharmcos and our private insurance structure ios set up to prefer higher prices because of profit % caps under obamacare)
it's also sort of a "pee you pant to keep warm" solution as it tends to import more benefits takers than it generates in taxpayers.
There are reforms that can be made, like privatization, or Ron Paul's idea of making the federal social-welfare state self-funded & optional via one-time, life-time opt in or out decision in your early 20s.
But the last attempt at "reform" was 40+ years ago when Congress folk still had some semblance of spines!
i'm actually seeing some cause for optimism at HHS. they are looking to gut pharma prices and starting to do it. seems like they are dialing in on waste/fraud as well.
cautiously optomistic they make some progress.
they are also mooting making A LOT of drugs OTC which would cut out a ton of doctor costs. AI gonna gut that as well.
Pharmacy drugs kill people. So who gives a flying fuck if they cut prices. Drugs are for lazy sin pigs who don’t want to fix their issue bc eating right is harder than eating McDonald’s and taking a drug to make baseline blood numbers normal. Pharma is the biggest con in the world.
We should see a tremendous increase in upfront efficiency and accuracy in diagnosis with AI. It won't replace the human connection between a good physician/practitioner and the patient, but should drive down rates of misdiagnoses and improper treatment...
🤞🏻
I'm encouraged by the MAHA emphasis on lifestyle to promote health and reduce the perceived need for pharmaceuticals.
Whether it survives the next administration, that's another question.
IMHO...that was the purpose of the gene therapy product injection.... to save some $$$ by culling the aging herd.
Not before taking every cent we have through useless medical treatments that will hasten death. Win - Win
The US economy is like a gigantic, sclerotic company that could be great again with a savage, cost-cutting CEO at the helm who isn't afraid to say, "You're fired!"
Ha yes. Great piece. I don't know nuthin' about mathematical analyses which is why I depend on you and a couple of others to run 'em and explain 'em.
And you've reminded me of those social horror exposes people of my generation learned about in school--Jacob Riis et al--and the lesson we *weren't* taught was that floods of desperately poor immigrants can't be easily absorbed and assimilated and their neighborhoods will indeed become jungles of misery and violence.
And--those who rhapsodize giant families of people of the *right sort* are to me liars and delusionists. When you have more than four children you've got the oldest helping to raise the youngest because Mom and Dad don't have enough time to nurture each child themselves. Recently that moron Bethany Mandel posted a photo of herself nursing her two-day-old while standing in line at Costco and she looked every bit as haggard yet self-righteous as you might expect.
Quality over quantity--one o' them eternal truths.
Its all about the giant welfare benefit schemes. Yes social security is also welfare no matter how many times you say 'I paid in' as though that money was buying an asset or adding value to an account owned by you.
Instead of fixing them - hardening against fraud, tightening requirements, eliminating the programs altogether - mass migration was inflicted on us in the hopes that foreigners could prop them up
A boomer, here, and I agree with Dave (who forgot to mention medicare). I am surprised el gato never mentioned the need for young 'uns to keep propping up their elders.
Chronic disease prevalence is my metric of overpopulation.
that one seems tricky as a lot of it is:
1. definitional
2. diet and activity based
3. core genetic
4. mating pattern based (countries with high levels of cousin marriage have all kinds of issues)
- Definitional:not so big issue IMO.
- Improvements in ascertainment: is a big confounder though. Epidemiologists have surely sorted a lot of that out reasonably (except with autism, lol).
- Diet and activty: are a function of population size. IMO 95% of chronic disease is environmental/lifestyle. If you are not overpopulated you don't get junk food in stores as there is a lot more small scale agriculture. You get more activity, etc. Every damn environmental cause of disease is tied to population density.
- mating pattern: just exclude some countries.
- genetic is jsut as stable background. No biggie.
definitional is a massive issue. kids used to be called "restless" now it's ADD/autistic/etc. you used to have "a bum gut" now it's 20 varieties of IBS or whatever other trashcan diagnosis of exclusion we are using. anyhting gets called "chronic disease" now.
i also think your point about junk food is incorrect. it's just a one way ratchet with little to do with population and once it starts, the slide is hard to stop. it's cheap and generates too much serotonin/dopamine.
also, genetic is not stable when countries have 1/3 of their pop as first gen immigrants.
- I would concede that diseases (or conditions rather) can be trimmed based on which are least subject to diagnostic changes.
- I disagree about hte processed foods, but ignoring that so many other things are going on. Stress, trauama, artificial lights, sleep, noise pollution, air pollution, industrial chemicals, lack of access to nature, exercise, sunlight, infectious diseases. EVery health evil is tied to urbanization.
- Genetics: If you are styding the US for exmaple, you could exclude border states, or if oyu ahve hte data only study native citizens. In any case, instability of genetics is only a major issue IF EITHER ("genetics is a major cause of prevalent chronic diseases in the absence of environmental triggers" OR "genetic susceptibility to environmental triggers is highly prevalent") AND ("said relevant genetics are highly variable across populations"). The answer to that is a hard no IMO.
It's a complex epi problem, and it's all doable, if the needed steps are taken.
Human health and well-being started going downhill with the advent of agriculture ~10,000 years ago. In the mid-20th century dwarf wheat was invented so that more grain could be produced and farmed mechanically. Modern wheat can have four times the number of chromosomes as primitive grains, with increased risk of detrimental sensitivity.
Of course the modern diet has a lot more wrong with it than just the wheat.
Evolutionarily we're designed to eat more fat and protein and fewer carbs. Hence, more chronic disease.
Truth! But the world is not ready for this truth.
No nation-state has ever (or in my viewpoint will ever), increased its prosperity by importing debt into its social welfare system... but it will certainly increase the voting rolls that perpetuates its social welfare system. Economic Slavery has merely donned its party attire.
Corporate welfare is criminal.