"The US and western welfare states can’t just say they’re recognizing the “independence” of their wounded veterans and elderly and cut them off"
Just watch them.
Also: this is why the MAID program exists. It's also why fentanyl is being allowed to flood the streets. Every dead useless eater is several hundred thousand in unfunded liabilities off the balance sheets.
I hope fiscal collapse will convince red states to secede, since fedgov is broke, and convince the blue states to let the red states secede, since the blue states subsidize almost 2% of a red-state person's income, on average, through the federal government.
This is primarily because blue-staters have higher incomes and so pay more income tax. But red states have such a low cost of living that red states have a higher overall standard of living and don't need the blue states.
However, when governments face this fiscal problem, they always inflate currency enough so that they can afford to pay what's left of their obligations. Of course, this will cause a collapse in confidence in the dollar, which will make imports much more expensive, and so reduce American standards of living. But exports will become more competitive.
I just noticed Kulak commented that inflating the currency would mean retirees would not get paid enough to live, so the problem remains. True. Either we ramp up the real value of transfers to retirees, or they have to live with less than they were promised.
The banksters have proved they can extend and pretend longer than we think is mathematically possible, but eventually it has to collapse into a death spiral. Thanks for imagining what that may look like.
I have a cunning plan -- but you aren't going to like it.
No one is going to like it.
It involves spending cuts AND tax raises.
It also involves bridging that world-to-welfare gap. We have lots of people collecting disability (the other part of Social Security) who are scared to try to get off -- because they are partially disabled. A more gentle clawback system would get some of these people into the workforce, at least part time.
And replacing payroll taxes with tariffs and excises would make living wages a real thing again.
There is much more. Lots of pain. But less painful than going into French Revolution mode.
Knowing the psychopaths in power, I very much suspect that a plan is afoot to implement a biological tool (it isn't a weapon if you use it against your own people, right?) to cull the old and disabled. Covid, and, more accurately, the supposed 'treatment' (see comment vis-à-vis tools vs weapons) looks to have been a trial run.
The elite hugely increased their fortunes (further insulating them from the fate of the masses, they hope), the gov massively extended its powers (so the elite got more power), and the people got poorer and less of a danger to the elite.
I can already see a day in which the inner cities will be washed with blood, in which insurgents just kill all the druggies you see in those videos. It’s gonna get brutal!
I've read a few of these pieces by you and you always ignore the fact that most of the debt the US has incurred in the past 20 years has been bailouts for banks and military spending. That, and asset inflation built into all those tens of trillions flowing to the financial system and the creation of vast oligopolies across every industry (and the control over prices combined with all the middle-man extractive looting oligopoly enables) has created a high cost economy that can't compete internationally. You can blame medicare and social security (funds that were actually well-funded but have been repeatedly raided by the govt to pay for bullshit) which are paid directly by taxpayers and will be funded well enough if they just remove the cap on those taxes that gives the wealthy a free ride on them (and the ~13% up to $120k that we pay for social security and medicare is the smaller portion of the taxes we pay). So of the roughly 38% taxes I pay on my income (not including sales tax and all the other little taxes), 25% goes to bankster bailouts, war and the worse than useless administrative state. Picking on the one part of my taxes that actually help the average citizen is perverse and morally questionable.
Gonna be a rough ride for everyone no matter what. But I'm not sure those federal pensions are in quite the danger you think they are. Especially for those hired in the 90s or later. The Federal Employee Retirement System is financially stable. The politicians and federal law enforcement do know how to look after their own (to an extent). Source: https://www.fedsmith.com/2012/11/14/how-much-do-you-know-about-funding-of-the-federal-retirement-system/
Can you see any large logical holes in the hypothesis that the Western elites are aiming to bring about the end of (the appearance of) democracy and a return to neo-feudalism?
"But of course, cutting benefits is political Anathema to boomers, so nothing was done…"
I am a retired boomer. I do not know any boomer who was not willing to see reform. I have set up my retirement with the expectation of losing my social security benefits. I would not be able to travel the world, buy a big RV, but I can live modestly with lessor expectations. Its the politicians who fear the marginal vote loss who fear reform!
Harper began to reform entitlements, moved CPP (social security) to age 67, immensely disliked even though CPP was on a path to insolvency.
Now what does Canada do electing Trudeau and moving CPP back to what they thought was an unsustainable system, why they quadruple the number of immigrants.
While quadrupling immigration may have inflated an unsustainable housing bubble, harmed younger workers and generally made life unaffordable, the key is no politician need take any responsibility.
I would be unsurprised if we continued on our current unsustainable path of reckless borrowing and spending until their is a recession, market crach and or sovereign debt crisis. After all this way no one has to take any responsibility
Isn't it more likely that, instead of a spectacular collapse, we'll see something more like a long series of gradual "adjustments" that will keep the real value of the liabilities in check through inflation and periodic recessions? Partially cushioned by valuable technological advances? So, yes, living standards gradually decline for many, but everything keeps limping along more or less as it is now for the foreseeable future? In fact, hasn't this already kind of been happening for a while?
I've always thought the endgame for the U.S. debt is going to involve a lot of refinancing at gunpoint. The Romans did it many times. "Don't quote laws to men with swords", or aircraft carriers for that matter.
"The US and western welfare states can’t just say they’re recognizing the “independence” of their wounded veterans and elderly and cut them off"
Just watch them.
Also: this is why the MAID program exists. It's also why fentanyl is being allowed to flood the streets. Every dead useless eater is several hundred thousand in unfunded liabilities off the balance sheets.
I hope fiscal collapse will convince red states to secede, since fedgov is broke, and convince the blue states to let the red states secede, since the blue states subsidize almost 2% of a red-state person's income, on average, through the federal government.
This is primarily because blue-staters have higher incomes and so pay more income tax. But red states have such a low cost of living that red states have a higher overall standard of living and don't need the blue states.
However, when governments face this fiscal problem, they always inflate currency enough so that they can afford to pay what's left of their obligations. Of course, this will cause a collapse in confidence in the dollar, which will make imports much more expensive, and so reduce American standards of living. But exports will become more competitive.
I just noticed Kulak commented that inflating the currency would mean retirees would not get paid enough to live, so the problem remains. True. Either we ramp up the real value of transfers to retirees, or they have to live with less than they were promised.
I predict Canada will be euthanizing 100k people/year by 2030.
Am I being too conservative?
The banksters have proved they can extend and pretend longer than we think is mathematically possible, but eventually it has to collapse into a death spiral. Thanks for imagining what that may look like.
I have a cunning plan -- but you aren't going to like it.
No one is going to like it.
It involves spending cuts AND tax raises.
It also involves bridging that world-to-welfare gap. We have lots of people collecting disability (the other part of Social Security) who are scared to try to get off -- because they are partially disabled. A more gentle clawback system would get some of these people into the workforce, at least part time.
And replacing payroll taxes with tariffs and excises would make living wages a real thing again.
There is much more. Lots of pain. But less painful than going into French Revolution mode.
Knowing the psychopaths in power, I very much suspect that a plan is afoot to implement a biological tool (it isn't a weapon if you use it against your own people, right?) to cull the old and disabled. Covid, and, more accurately, the supposed 'treatment' (see comment vis-à-vis tools vs weapons) looks to have been a trial run.
The elite hugely increased their fortunes (further insulating them from the fate of the masses, they hope), the gov massively extended its powers (so the elite got more power), and the people got poorer and less of a danger to the elite.
I can already see a day in which the inner cities will be washed with blood, in which insurgents just kill all the druggies you see in those videos. It’s gonna get brutal!
If something cannot go on forever, eventually it will stop.
It seems that the only infinite resource in the world is delusion.
I've read a few of these pieces by you and you always ignore the fact that most of the debt the US has incurred in the past 20 years has been bailouts for banks and military spending. That, and asset inflation built into all those tens of trillions flowing to the financial system and the creation of vast oligopolies across every industry (and the control over prices combined with all the middle-man extractive looting oligopoly enables) has created a high cost economy that can't compete internationally. You can blame medicare and social security (funds that were actually well-funded but have been repeatedly raided by the govt to pay for bullshit) which are paid directly by taxpayers and will be funded well enough if they just remove the cap on those taxes that gives the wealthy a free ride on them (and the ~13% up to $120k that we pay for social security and medicare is the smaller portion of the taxes we pay). So of the roughly 38% taxes I pay on my income (not including sales tax and all the other little taxes), 25% goes to bankster bailouts, war and the worse than useless administrative state. Picking on the one part of my taxes that actually help the average citizen is perverse and morally questionable.
Gonna be a rough ride for everyone no matter what. But I'm not sure those federal pensions are in quite the danger you think they are. Especially for those hired in the 90s or later. The Federal Employee Retirement System is financially stable. The politicians and federal law enforcement do know how to look after their own (to an extent). Source: https://www.fedsmith.com/2012/11/14/how-much-do-you-know-about-funding-of-the-federal-retirement-system/
Can you see any large logical holes in the hypothesis that the Western elites are aiming to bring about the end of (the appearance of) democracy and a return to neo-feudalism?
There will be blood.
"But of course, cutting benefits is political Anathema to boomers, so nothing was done…"
I am a retired boomer. I do not know any boomer who was not willing to see reform. I have set up my retirement with the expectation of losing my social security benefits. I would not be able to travel the world, buy a big RV, but I can live modestly with lessor expectations. Its the politicians who fear the marginal vote loss who fear reform!
Example from Canada
Harper began to reform entitlements, moved CPP (social security) to age 67, immensely disliked even though CPP was on a path to insolvency.
Now what does Canada do electing Trudeau and moving CPP back to what they thought was an unsustainable system, why they quadruple the number of immigrants.
While quadrupling immigration may have inflated an unsustainable housing bubble, harmed younger workers and generally made life unaffordable, the key is no politician need take any responsibility.
I would be unsurprised if we continued on our current unsustainable path of reckless borrowing and spending until their is a recession, market crach and or sovereign debt crisis. After all this way no one has to take any responsibility
Isn't it more likely that, instead of a spectacular collapse, we'll see something more like a long series of gradual "adjustments" that will keep the real value of the liabilities in check through inflation and periodic recessions? Partially cushioned by valuable technological advances? So, yes, living standards gradually decline for many, but everything keeps limping along more or less as it is now for the foreseeable future? In fact, hasn't this already kind of been happening for a while?
I've always thought the endgame for the U.S. debt is going to involve a lot of refinancing at gunpoint. The Romans did it many times. "Don't quote laws to men with swords", or aircraft carriers for that matter.