Raising the retirement age.

[tod evans]

Military spending should be cut. But it is a comparatively small percentage of the budget. It is inconsequential compared to entitlements.

In my view entitlements are any checks issued by government where nothing was purchased at fair market value.

That absolutely includes every federal employees salary, every salary that's paid from grant money, federally insured student "loans" and the obvious welfare, medicaid and SSI........

 

[timosman]

You are right. It is unfair. The programs are insolvent. Somebody has to pay. It sounds like you are against even raising the age of eligibility. People are living longer and having few kids. It is extremely immoral for current seniors to get full benefits when the program is insolvent.

Why not make those responsible for the clusterfuck pay? Maintaining an empire sure is expensive. Can we scale back?
Raising the retirement age will not do us anything good as we do not even have jobs for the current workforce. We should be lowering the retirement age instead.

Stossel had a piece called greedy geezers that convinced me.

Yeah, it was not hard when they put "Greedy Geezers" in the title.

 

[fisharmor]

You are right. It is unfair. The programs are insolvent. Somebody has to pay. It sounds like you are against even raising the age of eligibility. People are living longer and having few kids. It is extremely immoral for current seniors to get full benefits when the program is insolvent.

Why the hell would anyone think asking old people what to do about it is even remotely a good idea?
Why would old people say anything on the topic other than 'fuck you, I'm getting mine and if I have to send thought police to your house to convince you about it then it's gonna go down that way'?

Look I realize most of you are running head first with your eyes shut and your ears plugged up in the opposite direction of everything Ron Paul ever said, but FFS, please try to take a cue from the guy whose name is on the site.

1. Allow young people to opt out.

Once they can opt out, the system will begin to collapse. And once we know there is no 100 year obligation that we have to plan for, the problem becomes manageable.

2. Get rid of taxes.
Stop talking about replacing everything with a fixed rate. If you want to avoid discussing the retirement age - fine, let's stop talking about the retirement age altogether. Start talking about real solutions - like having the government simply STFU about when people can and can't retire.
To that end, get rid of all taxes on investments. Bank interest? ZERO PERCENT TAX. Capital gains? ZERO PERCENT TAX. Mutual funds? ZERO. IRAs? ZERO.
Anything else the market can dream up? ZERO PERCENT TAX.
It would take maximum five years for the market to respond to that combination of events - first that people wouldn't have a safety net, and second, that they wouldn't have to pay taxes to create their own. And the market would outperform those state-tainted investments, and create jobs in the process.

3. Go back to honest discussions about the current state of medicine in the USA and how to apply free market principles to it.

Put the focus back on making these "freebies" affordable, and knock the legs out from under the argument that "we have to take care of old people and it's cost prohibitive to do it".

4. End all of our "wars", both real and metaphorical, and apply that money to the problem of getting rid of socialism in a controlled fashion.



I'm just repeating things that were said during Ron's runs here.
Again, I'm fully aware that the idea of having a consistent philosophy has been abandoned wholesale in this dead movement... but please, can some of you take a minute to recognize that maybe the reason it's dead is because you're not making any sense? Especially since we had that time between '07 and '12 when things actually did make sense!

 

[Krugminator2]

Why not make those responsible for the clusterfuck pay? Maintaining an empire sure is expensive. Can we scale back?
Raising the retirement age will not do us anything good as we do not even have jobs for the current workforce. We should be lowering the retirement age instead.

The seniors are responsible for the clusterfuck. They got the "benefits" of big government. This demographic issue has been on the table forever. They did nothing. They shouldn't pass the consequences on without experiencing some loss.

As the article I linked by Kevin Williamson (a libertarian who wants to reduce military spending) points out, we are spending less on the military as a share of the economy than at any point in the last 5 decades. This expensive "empire" is a myth, at least compared to entitlements.

 

[Ronin Truth]

The seniors are responsible for the clusterfuck. They got the "benefits" of big government. This demographic issue has been on the table forever. They did nothing. They shouldn't pass the consequences on without experiencing some loss.

As the article I linked by Kevin Williamson (a libertarian who wants to reduce military spending) points out, we are spending less on the military as a share of the economy than at any point in the last 5 decades. This expensive "empire" is a myth, at least compared to entitlements.

Let each segment squirm on their own demerits.

Repeating: When did the geezers pass the current entitlement rules? The size of the Boomer generation has been known since 1964.

 

[euphemia]

Origanalist and myself make our livings in the trades.

I have never worked a desk job.

That's what I'm saying. Someone who chose a vocation that makes use of the body will only last as long as the body does. A driver who loses vision, a construction worker whose knees or back fails, or anything like that might mean a laborer would need to retire. People seem to be staying healthy longer, but there is also the possibility that one catastrophic event could bring about the loss of full use of the body.

Making a blanket statement about raising the retirement age sounds good, but may not always be doable in a lot of cases.

 

[Krugminator2]

Let each segment squirm on their own demerits.

Repeating: When did the geezers pass the current entitlement rules?

Voters passed the rules trrough representatives. Look at how many liberty people are against cutting entitlements. It is not evil irresponsible people in Washington who are to blame. They are just acting in their political self interest. They are responding to voters. And cutting entitlements is unpopular across the political spectrum.

 

[Ronin Truth]

Voters passed the rules trrough representatives. Look at how many liberty people are against cutting entitlements. It is not evil irresponsible people in Washington who are to blame. They are just acting in their political self interest. They are responding to voters. And cutting entitlements is unpopular across the political spectrum.

Cutting through the smoke and mirrors, yes, you're correct they didn't.

 

[timosman]

How much are the "black" projects? TRILLIONS?

He, he. Nobody talks about that. The shadow economy probably thwarts the "real" economy by the order of magnitude.

 

[Ronin Truth]

He, he. Nobody talks about that. The shadow economy probably thwarts the "real" economy by the order of magnitude.

Aren't there also several TRILLIONS that the DOD has just "lost" and been unable/unwilling to account for?

 

[timosman]

Aren't there also several TRILLIONS that the DOD has just "lost" and been unable/unwilling to account for?

Makes you think how were they able to lose it in the first place. Maybe we should audit DoD before auditing the Federal Reserve and I mean both sets of books?

 

[Ronin Truth]

Makes you think how were they able to lose it in the first place. Maybe we should audit DoD before auditing the Federal Reserve and I mean both sets of books?

The Pentagon office investigating that, "just happened" to be destroyed in the 9/11 attack. What are the odds?

 

[timosman]

Voters passed the rules trrough representatives. Look at how many liberty people are against cutting entitlements. It is not evil irresponsible people in Washington who are to blame. They are just acting in their political self interest. They are responding to voters. And cutting entitlements is unpopular across the political spectrum.

I would be interested in the breakdown of the entitlements between government vs non-government sector. This could be eye opening.

 

[Voluntarist]

xxxxx

 

[CaptUSA]

Ok, let's talk about another idea of his...

He is advocating for eliminating the payroll tax. People are looking at that in the context of a tax policy, but I'm not sure anyone fully understands the implications of that.

Imagine 20 years from now, when we have lots of people who haven't "paid into the system". At that point, it becomes a straight up entitlement and much easier to eliminate. It's actually quite ingenious.

 

[erowe1]

Is this the best idea to cut spending Rand can come up with?

There's no limit on the number of ideas he's allowed to have. It's a good idea anyway, regardless if it's the best or not.

 

[Keith and stuff]

The base social security age for non-scammers has been raised before. As people live longer, it makes sense to raise it again. Everyone should be able to clearly see this without even the need for an explanation. It used to be 65. So what if it is now 66 or 67. If people are living 10 years longer, maybe it should be 70. Obviously, this isn't a retirement group. It is a plan to fund the government by stealing money from workers. No one is ever guaranteed the money, except the government. No individual should ever even consider relying on this stolen money.

 

[jbauer]

That might work for people who make a living in a cubicle, but I would not want to force a man who has made a living with hard physical work to be forced to do that until age 70 if his body is not holding up.

So don't right now you can get a 30% decrease in SS at 62 vs full age. 75% take it right away. Just increase the cut, thus not actually restricting them from taking SS at 62.

 

[Ronin Truth]

I see raising the retirement age as being merely the next battleground in the ongoing war of the government, on the middle class.

 

[angelatc]

That might work for people who make a living in a cubicle, but I would not want to force a man who has made a living with hard physical work to be forced to do that until age 70 if his body is not holding up.

Retirement was unheard of until the New Deal.