I would postulate the opposite - I would have thought because we believe that neither companies nor the guvmint would be there to support us, we would have fended for ourselves better (I know that's how I personally took it, and many/most of my friends). But you might be right... sounds like an attitude of "ef it, we're doomed" set in.
Healthcare? Universal healthcare (Medicare For All), allowing for shedding the current jigsaw of healthcare benefits across the country. Less admin overhead, more care providers. If you're a pension that committed to healthcare expenses (state & local government, and manufacturers), you should be ringing the Medicare For All bell the hardest, to get the necessary infrastructure in place before your shortfalls arrive.
> I would postulate the opposite - I would have thought because we believe that neither companies nor the guvmint would be there to support us, we would have fended for ourselves better (I know that's how I personally took it, and many/most of my friends). But you might be right... sounds like an attitude of "ef it, we're doomed" set in.
Most Americans don't have the discretionary income after mandatory expenses to save to "fend for themselves" due to forty years of wage stagnation. This is why so many must rely on government programs to survive. [2]
[1] https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/social-securit... (Social Security Lifts More Americans Above Poverty Than Any Other Program)
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... (For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades)
The trust fund is the government loaning money to itself. Ultimately, it is an accounting fiction. Instead of tax payers having to shore up a SS shortfall they have to pay back T-Bills. Either way, there's about 3 trillion dollars missing that will need to be paid.
I would agree there are lots of liabilities (somewhere between single and triple digital trillions) we should start paying back now versus later though, before the debt service becomes unmanageable and we steal from savers by inflating the debt away, but this is a policy issue. We must stop kicking the can down the road, as a society, as a country, and as a species.
[1] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/fundFAQ.html (Frequently Asked Questions about the Social Security Trust Funds)
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19686549 | https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/Bank-of-Japan-to-be... (Bank of Japan to be top shareholder of Japan stocks )
You can, it's just that current consumption is fulfilled by current production. Current production gets allocated to some combination of return to labor, return on capital, and taxes. All else equal, the state owning more capital will just squeeze out some combination of return to labor and return on capital. If you look at the cash flows, there's no difference between the government owning 1% more of your employer vs taxing an extra 1% of the company's overall value.
The biggest practical consideration is that taxation is a much more visible way of paying for benefits for current retirees, so replacing that with less obvious means is more politically viable.
How long so you think you can charge an individual or company an "extra 100M"? Realistically would you stay in a country that suddenly added an extra 100M to your tax bill?
And your numbers are wealth, not income.
Also, there are ~600 billionaires in the US, most of them however would pay $100M tax (and realistically numbers can be adjusted down by stretching over say 100k highest TC individuals rather than 11k like my original statement).
[0] - https://www.fool.com/retirement/2018/10/28/americans-average...
Let me put it in another way. I think a 60 year old doing manual labor in 1980s would be less productive than a 72 year old doing desk work in 2030.
I’ve never included it in my retirement planning.
I didn't realize this was a generational thing.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/22/social-security-is-headed-fo...
Ok, so maybe it'll be ok for two years.