In response to my speculation that we’re going to end up reforming Social Security by letting it break, several people told me—disapprovingly, which is good for them—that politicians will just fill the gap the way they always have, by borrowing more money.Well, here’s the thing about that. They can try borrowing their way out of this, but by the time Social Security breaks down for good, 19 years from now, they might find it a bit difficult.Why? Because borrowing endless sums of money is how we’re alreadypapering over the fiscal unsustainability of the middle-class welfare state.It’s middle-class welfare that drives the budget. That’s my answer to people who tell me we can deal with the problem by cutting “corporate welfare” or foreign aid or NASA space missions. Look at the federal budget. Aside from national defense—the only really big federal expenditure that’s actually mandated in the Constitution—federal spending is absolutely dominated by Social Security and Medicare. Even welfare to the poor—like food stamps or Social Security Disability, which has become de facto welfare for the long-term unemployed—is secondary. Everything else is loose change.
But, of course, at this late date in post-America, rather than face it squarely, a large swath of the cattle-masses are falling for the straw men Squirrel Hair and his disgusting cheerleaders - and Bernie and his slavish devoteesExcept for one other big expenditure: interest on the national debt, which is becoming bigger and bigger. By the time the next president completes two terms—based on the choice we’re about to make—interest on the national debt will be the third-largest item in the federal budget. Shortly before Social Security uses up all of its nominal reserves in 2035, interest on the debt will be the second-largest expenditure. A few years after that, it becomes the single-largest expenditure. We will be taking the lion’s share of government revenues and using them just to keep up the minimum payments on all the money we’ve borrowed for decades in the past. So don’t think we’ll just be able to go back to that well and borrow even more to save another failing government program.These projections depend on the assumption that we do nothing to avert the problem. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.
have set before us:
We still want the middle-class welfare state to work. When it doesn’t work, a whole lot of us don’t want to deal with the hard choices or question the basic ideas behind it. We want to find scapegoats like Chinese factories or Mexican immigrants (on the Right), or Wall Street and “billionaires” and the Koch brothers (on the Left).This is what drives us conservatives up the wall. Our prescription - getting government out of the business of providing services - would work, and immediately. But that would require free individuals taking charge of their destinies.
It was entirely possible to have a surplus of funds good for the next 36 years had not the government spent it. You think that many would prefer to manage their own funds amongst the lying cheating wolves of Wall Street? I feel lost but not ashamed. They're the ones who should be ashamed, but there's no price on same.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteJust how would/could your prescription for getting government out as an agent of the amelioration for the impact of sickness and old age work and work immediately if we only discovered the current arguable conundrum until we greyed-on into our 50s? The whole thing started because of a melt-down on Wall Street.
ReplyDeleteWhat whole thing?
ReplyDeleteIt would just "work" the way any other aspect of personal-finance management works. People would budget for most health care expenses and get insurance for the really big-ticket possibilities, and, for retirement, establish a relationship with any one of the fine, knowledgeable wealth-management/ retirement-planning professionals of which any community has several
ReplyDeleteOASI
ReplyDeleteI think one of the biggest frauds ever foisted on the American worker is the IRA and the 401K. They were trumpeted as tools to financial freedom in retirement when all they were were tools for the wall street wolves to get huge chunks of our money to gain commissions from and for a whole new industry called wealth management to grow around it. Real cool beans when the meltdown of 08 occurred because of fraud and mismanagement. And it is sure to happen again. And again, all the while free marketeers such as the bloggie scream for less and less government involvement. MBAs wrecked our economy. They should have gone into proctology with the brains they were born with.
ReplyDeleteI hear your ilk is stumping for pregnancy IRAs to defeat the paid family leave idea. You're all just a bunch of salespeople.
ReplyDeleteAbsolute horse shit. How is it that, as I say, every community has several people in that field, family people, people of integrity, civic-minded church-going people who contribute to their communities in all kinds of ways. My own financial advisor is one such guy. How would they maintain a client base if those clients were;t satisfied?
ReplyDeleteAnd, the pregnancy IRA sounds like it has possibilities. Far better than the tyranny of the government telling private businesses that they must offer paid family leave.
In fact, I'll tell you what. I wrote two articles on aspects of this very subject for Prime Time magazine. On stock market volatility and what to do if you haven't saved adequately for retirement of the fall and winter issues, respectively. Since they've now been published, I'll reprint them here. I interviewed quite a few wealth-management and financial-planning people as you'll see. Many of them are people I know from other contexts besides our interviews, and I can tell you they are people of integrity
ReplyDeleteThe stock-market volatility article:
ReplyDeleteThe argument that the stock market is, in the long run, the most stable place for investment dollars is borne out by statistics comparing it to other investment tools going back a century. Still, that’s scant comfort in times such as the beginning of 2016, in which Wall Street saw the worst start to a new year since 2008.
The selloff was attributed to a confluence of world events: Chinese structural economic problems, fever-pitch tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and a North Korean nuclear test. This leaves the everyday investor with a nagging question: How can I make my financial security less vulnerable to such upheavals?
That question looms large for the baby-boomer generation. It has lived through that 2008 market dive, as well as the subsequent economic downturn. More fundamentally, boomers have not prepared as well as previous generations for their sunset years. A 2015 AARP study of residents of New York shows that 38 percent of the state’s residents in the 51-to-69-year-old age bracket lack any savings for retirement. This year, a survey by bankrate.com revealed that 63 percent of Americans don’t have cash on hand for such unexpected expenses as an emergency-room visit or a $500 car repair.
That definitely adds to the jitters of those who have stored away at least a little something and chosen the stock-market route.
Steve Meredith, senior vice president at Hilliard Lyons, points out a few key factors that need to be part of a baby boomer’s strategy for retirement investing: reducing debt wherever possible, “thinking like a lifer,” and “knowing what you currently own and why.”
Regarding the “lifer” mindset, he acknowledges that “market volatility is certainly frightening. When we look at it from a 2 to 3 year time frame, it’s much less predictable than the long-term frame is.” Still, he points out that “the worst bear market we’ve had, which went from a high-water mark of 14,198 in October 2007 to a low-water mark of 6,469 in March 2009, still didn’t have the highs and lows seen over the last 20 years. In March 2013, we eclipsed the October 2007 high.”
He also says that an individual’s personality is an important factor. “Risk is not a cookie-cutter phenomenon,” he notes. “I see people in their 40s and 50s who buy nothing but bonds, and people in their 90s who want to take an aggressive approach. I’d say the key question is, are you sleeping well with your current level of risk?”
Craig Kessler, president and chief investment officer of Kessler Investment Group, cites hockey legend Wayne Gretzky’s adage about “skating to where the puck is” to summarize his view of how baby boomers ought to approach investing.
“The market and the economy don’t care what stage of life you’re in,” he says, “so it’s incumbent upon an investor to recognize what opportunities there are in the marketplace. It’s important not to become dogmatic about investing based on your age. There’s a different opportunity set at any point in time.”
Meredith says that in addition to “thinking like a lifer,” another key element in dealing with volatility is “being prepared to back down from your current risk level.”
Kessler basically concurs: “If your biggest fear is outliving your money, you’re going to have to give some with regard to the volatility that comes with an aggressive strategy.”
Advanced-technology companies garner a lot of attraction when they first go public, but have a history of fading or failing to overcome obsolescence. The most obvious example would be the dot-com bust right around the turn of the century. With that in mind, how should an investor regard their inclusion in his or her portfolio?
“We wouldn’t typically think of them as core holdings in a retirement plan,” says Meredith. “Certainly they might be inside a mutual fund, but the core would tend to be companies such as Procter & Gamble or General Electric that have established product lines.”
Kessler cautions against “chronological snobbery. We don’t remember the 1890s, but this country was brought to its knees by the railroad industry going bust. That was fresh in the minds of people in the early 20th century, and affected their behavior. The same thing happened a century later, with the Internet bust, but now look at the proliferation of cloud technology, such as Google and Facebook. What’s consistent over time is the human desire to be more efficient.”
ReplyDeleteHe points out the reliability of the market’s cyclical nature. “What happens every time at the peak is that people forget about the bad times. Everybody who wants to invest is investing and there is no incremental buyer. At that point, the opportunity set starts to change significantly. The opposite is true, too. You reach a point where you have all buyers. Capital seeks the place where it gets the best return.”
Meredith says that the stock market continues to be the best long-term place for investment dollars. “Precious metals don’t produce anything of value like a company does. There’s no dividend. Gold was down over 800 points between August 2011 and late December 2015.”
Regarding real estate, he says, “I think an argument can be made for a place for it in an overall investment plan. Farm land leasing provides a pretty consistent return.”
Still, he says that “a company, hopefully, has a new idea, a new product, a new management that is making it grow. That’s a major factor in increasing the share value.”
Kessler says there is no substitute for being aware of conditions at any given time: “You have to be as dynamic in your plan as the market is cyclical.”
The retirement-planning article:
ReplyDeleteIf you’re a Baby Boomer looking at retirement and realizing you’re not adequately prepared for it, there is at least the consolation that you’re not alone. Intel, a market research and analysis firm, finds that 20 percent of your demographic doesn’t have any retirement savings at all. Only one in ten uses a written plan to manage his or her finances, and only 28 percent feel they have a sufficient understanding of the decisions involved in being financially ready for retirement.
So what can be done? The three common themes that emerge from the views of an array of financial planners are establishing a written plan, eliminating debt, and tending to your health.
Warren Ward, principal at Warren Ward Associates, insists that clients have a balanced budget. He says that no two budgets are going to look alike. In working with his array of clients, “themes emerge, but every situation is unique. We’ve found that we can always make a balanced budget work.”
One reason for his relative optimism is that Boomers are healthier and more active as they enter late middle age than were previous generations.
“Life is longer for us, but more interesting,” he says. “The periods of life are not as distinct as they were for our parents. If it takes a part-time job to balance the budget, we’re healthy enough to do that. Plus, it’s a chance to look at fulfilling occupations we didn’t take the time to consider before.”
Mike Englestad, branch manager with Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, LLC, is a little more inclined to see the Boomer generation as carefree to the point of being short-sighted. There was an unprecedented abundance of consumer goods as we went through the adolescent and working decades, as well as good-paying jobs, that made it easy to put off considerations about the future.
“We played for a lot of years,” he says. “We drove the nation’s spending habits.”
He says a lot of Boomers with $1 million in savings anticipate taking $60,000 from that per year in retirement and being secure.
“No, they won’t,” he says. “What number do you need to live on ten years from now? Probably more like $90,000.”
Scott DeDomenic, senior vice president at Hilliard Lyons, says that the retirement calculators one sees online are “very basic. You still need a financial planner’s software for looking at more sophisticated variables, such as travel, or leaving a legacy.”
He says that those working for companies typically utilize their employers’ 401K plans. For freelancers and entrepreneurs, the basic IRA is usually the tool of choice. In some cases, they choose the Roth IRA, in which there’s no upfront deduction, but the money stays in and can never be taxed.
For the past two years, the maximum contribution one can make in a year to either a traditional or Roth IRA is $5,500. Those over 50 can make an additional catchup contribution of $1,000.
“Government is trying to come up with other savings plans, but they’re not getting much traction,” he says. “Congress is more talk than action.”
The second component common to these takes on retirement is getting out of debt, which Engelstad says “solves 99 percent of someone’s problems.” Ward advises people not to retire until their mortgages are paid off.
The snowball approach to debt elimination, in which one tackles the numerically smallest debt, then the second smallest and so on, is popular, and DeDomenic thinks it has merit. However, he says, “If you were looking at it just mathematically, you’d start with the one with the highest interest rate.”
He points out some problems with the idea of debt consolidation. “A lot of companies charge you to restructure your debt,” he says. “Plus, it can affect your credit.”
Financial planners generally speak of two periods of life’s retirement phase. For the first several years, many people are still in robust health and able to act on their “bucket list” items, such as travel or new hobbies. At some point, the body’s general wear and vulnerability to health issues come to dictate one’s choices.
In one out of two cases, according to Englestad, a retiree will need long-term care. “You generally don’t need it until age 75 or 80, but the time to buy coverage for it in a cost-effective manner is on your 50s or earlier.”
ReplyDelete“What’s happened is that insurance companies underpriced their policies and then had financial challenges,” observes DeDomenic. “Also, the cost of nursing-home care has gone up quite a bit. I sort of joke that you’d better be nice to your family members.”
Social Security is, of course, a component of the retirement picture. The Social Security Administration considers 66 to be full retirement age for those born from 1943 to 1954. It plans to gradually increase that age to 67 for those born in 1960 or afterward. The agency’s website, www.ssa.gov, has extensive information about the effect on benefits of working in the months previous to retirement age.
Englestad advises Boomers, especially those still in their 50s, as well as younger citizens, not to set much store by Social Security, however, mainly due to its unfunded liabilities, as well as the shrinking pool of those paying in relative to those receiving benefits.
“It was never planned for people to draw Social Security for 20 or 30 years,” he notes, adding that “the next generation realizes we have taken and borrowed against their future. The reason nothing gets done about the situation is that it continues to be a third rail that no one wants to touch.”
Scaling down one’s lifestyle to gain control of one’s financial picture is an advisable move, but in this aspect of it as in all others, there are as many individual situations and sets of preferences as there are people looking at retirement.
“A lot of the financial magazines want to say, ‘We have the four answers for this or that aspect of retirement,’ but it really comes down to personal choice,” says DeDomenic. There are all kinds of definitions of austerity, modest living and luxury.”
Ward encourages clients to see possibility, no matter what the present looks like. “”What we can do is start from here. We ask clients what different scenarios look and feel like.”
Engelstad sees it as a matter of core values: “What are you really trying to accomplish that goes beyond money?”
I know, one of their spouses is ours. Their spiels are straight out of the playbooks for whatever corporation they shill for. When the market melts down, they all have no clue unless it's the spin from the rackets they're in.
ReplyDeleteLook, you're always touting common sense, well that includes a cold-eyed view of human nature too, doesn't it? Making money grow is a difficult and arduous art and there is a considerable Vegas factor involved too. Rare is it that the hardworking person has the time, inclination and savvy to manage their money. Forced savings has been continually found to be about the only way most people will consistently save. Leaving retirement saving to the cattle masses, as you often refer to the formerly great unwashed is setting up for premature financial slaughter. Sad, but true.
No. No. Did I say no? Government forcing people to save is tyranny. Must be fought ferociously by all who love people being free to chart their own destinies.
ReplyDeleteRe: the hardworking person having neither the time nor inclination & savvy to manage their money, that's why you want to find an advisor who has what Dave Ramsey calls the heart of a teacher.
ReplyDeleteGovernment must be pared back to nothing but its Constitutionally specified functions or this nation will permanently be post-America.
ReplyDeleteWhy do all those quoted in my two articles still have enough clients to make a living?
ReplyDelete"Forced savings." I'm still considering all the levels on which that is offensive. As offensive as being served dog shit when you sit down as a dinner guest at someone's table.
ReplyDeleteAlgorithms aka Robo Advisors are rapidly replacing these humans who take their considerable, often hidden, cuts and get spliffs for pushing stuff deemed hot by their corps. Survey says: a majority of millennials would rather go to the dentist than to the bank. Too bad they're such clueless cattle,
ReplyDeleteBreaking, from Buffet: Supposedly sophisticated people, generally richer people, hire consultants. And no consultant in the world is going to tell you, ‘Just buy an S&P index fund and sit for the next 50 years,’” Buffett said. “You don’t get to be a consultant that way, and you certainly don’t get an annual fee that way.”
ReplyDeleteBuffett supports the presidential candidacy of Democrat Hillary Clinton, who has lamented that the nation’s top hedge fund managers earn more than all US kindergarten teachers combined. He has also agreed with Republican Donald Trump in calling an end for a tax break that helps hedge fund managers.
Buffett on Saturday also called out money managers for routing investments offshore and gaining tax advantages by creating reinsurers, a strategy that Clinton has also criticized. Berkshire is one of the world’s largest reinsurance companies and competes against such firms.
http://www.livemint.com/Companies/pJIWtCZZeS55e87zDaAHAP/Warren-Buffett-says-hedge-funds-get-unbelievable-fees-for.html
Your point being?
ReplyDeleteShould we abolish privately owned corporations and have the government make everything we "need"?
ReplyDeleteNo, but since privately owned corporations have made it clear that they are not in it for the employees for over 3 decades, we need a, for lack of a better term, hedge. The forced savings idea is actually social security and good luck with your ideas to repeal it. It might happen, but after the boomers are dead and gone. Sell it to the Millennials, which of course you are trying to do. I applaud your always supra-moral efforts to enlighten us cattle.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the wish of good luck. Glad to have the support for our struggle against tyranny.
ReplyDeletePrivate corporations have one responsibility only, and that is to shareholders
That idea has only been dominant since Neutron Jack Welch saturation bombed GE back in the early 80s. Few citizens have called social security tyranny since its implementation in the 40s after a horrid world-wide depression. It's not much, but it's something. If the brave new world of IRAs and 401Ks was working, why aren't the boomers more prosperous as they enter their golden years?
ReplyDeleteAmerica’s Structural Problem
The real problem is structural and baked right into our retirement security system.
The three-legged stool of retirement income we boomers thought we could count on — Social Security, company pensions and personal savings — has gone wobbly. With the declining availability of employer-funded pensions; the inadequacy of 401(k) plans with their steep fees and dependence on people’s voluntary savings for 40 years; stagnant wages and the sharp drop in personal savings, many near-retirees are left with what some experts describe as the “pogo stick” of Social Security to negotiate their Golden Years.
And how much is that? According to the Social Security Administration, the average retiree is receiving just $1,335 per month or $16,020 annually, just above the federal poverty guidelines ($15,930) for a two-person household.
I know, bring out the cattle prods.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/351230
Aww, I always wish you luck. Your ilk is much better behaved than those who feel the Bern. Picking on social security is a loser, kind sir, but be my guest.
ReplyDeleteThe US government simply needs to pay back the trust fund surplus they raided. Social Security ain't much and it is real hard to sit on a one-legged stool. But, hey, let them eat dog vomit, right?
ReplyDeleteRe-read my article. The American people don't save money or plan their financial lives adequately. That's no one else's responsibility.
ReplyDeleteAnd you did not read my next to the last post. When you go about your rounds in our little town today, look around you. Nearly 9 out of 10 people you see will disagree with your sorry posterior, but good luck herding us all in.
ReplyDelete"Overall, the AP-NORC poll found 85 percent of Americans think protecting the future of Social Security is extremely or very important for the next president and 81 percent said the same for reducing unemployment."
http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2016/02/23/poll-social-security-joblessness-top-economic-concerns/
Then consider how many of them are going to vote for your man, da man, tomorrow. Mooo! No, they're gonna vote for the Big Man Cruz, The Donald, The Boor for the ages. Such is the Republican party. And don't count me in with the Bern's protestors either. I remember when there were real murderers to protest. And so do the people of North Viet Nam.
ReplyDeleteWell, then how do we do it? Speaking of re-reading, review what Tracinski has to say in the actual post. We're borrowing money to try to shore up its unfunded liability. "By the time the next president completes two terms—based on the choice we’re about to make—interest on the national debt will be the third-largest item in the federal budget. Shortly before Social Security uses up all of its nominal reserves in 2035, interest on the debt will be the second-largest expenditure. A few years after that, it becomes the single-largest expenditure. We will be taking the lion’s share of government revenues and using them just to keep up the minimum payments on all the money we’ve borrowed for decades in the past."
ReplyDeleteOr what Mike Englestadt has to say in my article. SS was never intended for people who would live 30 years after becoming eligible.
ReplyDeleteYou must be a heavy hitter, we only got Jody, his wife. Pay the trust fund back! And take your placard and stand outside by the courthouse today and rail against social security and see how far that gets you. You can setup near the Trumpsters who are handing out free posters for protection.
ReplyDeleteAs for living 30 years after eligibility, well, be like me and keep working until you're 70 and beyond, which is my resentless intent. It helps you live longer. My parents sat on that 3 legged stool. My father-in-law retired at 58 with a pension from GE, continuing health insurance from GE (even though Welch threw him out a decade before he retired) strong savings and, yep, you guessed it, he never threw a social security check back at the gummit. I know you try to make me out to be a needy crybaby, but go pick on someone else in that regard because you're wrong. Moo!
No, not a needy crybaby, just someone who hasn't a clue sat how to "pay the trust fund back" and will do any amount of gig reading to avoid that fact
ReplyDeleteDigressing not gig reading
ReplyDeleteYou can talk about placards and you dad's pension all you want, but you have no idea how the government can come up with the money to keep SS going in its current form
ReplyDeleteYou say it. Starts with a "t". And its priority! The debate over social insurance has already been waged. Done deal. Done deal which 85% of Americans want saved. It will be saved. Can do attitudes, my boy. You sure gottem when it comes to aggressing with Israel.
ReplyDeleteYou still aren't answering the question of how. Who gives a shit if 5 million percent want it saved if it can't be done?
ReplyDeleteIt's a 4 year old poll but the numbers in favor likely exceeds that of then:
ReplyDeleteMost Americans say go ahead and raise taxes if it will save Social Security benefits for future generations. And raise the retirement age, if you have to.
Both options are preferable to cutting monthly benefits, even for people who are years away from applying for them.
Those are the findings of a new Associated Press-GfK poll on public attitudes toward the nation's largest federal program.
Social Security is facing serious long-term financial problems. When given a choice on how to fix them, 53 percent of adults said they would rather raise taxes than cut benefits for future generations, according to the poll. Just 36 percent said they would cut benefits instead.
I know you don't give a crap about vast majorities but that is only because you have never been in one. I know you wear that mantle proudly. Just an old obstructionist tryin to counter crime. Last time I looked, the will of the people ruled.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/poll-raise-taxes-to-save-social-security-1.1223673
ReplyDeleteWell, then most Americans hate freedom and common sense. There is no reason - moral or practical- to raise taxes of any kind by any amount for any purpose
ReplyDeletePlus, there is no way to tax the post-American cattle masses sufficiently to make up for the program's shortfall
ReplyDeleteDo I really mean to call the post-American people freedom-hating cattle masses? Oh hell yes, if that poll is accurate. What else are we to call a people who would willingly let the stinking government take more of their hard-earned money in order to make up the shortfall caused by, as you point out, generations of Congressmen treat SS like a general fund. Ther is no more essential freedom than that of keeping what is yours.
ReplyDeleteAnd re: hating common sense, they'd rather cough this money up and give government stewardship of it than hang onto it for their working years and making it grow as they each individually see fit. Which gets us back to what the financial planners point out: SS has a garbage rate of return compared to a well-managed mutual fund
Yep, savings and investments are one of the legs of the stool our forefathers stood on. Still gotta save if there's anything left. Pensions were another, which some fewer still have. Social security alone is not going to make to stool fit for sitting or standing.
ReplyDeleteConstitutionality of Social Security Act
ReplyDeleteThe constitutionality of the Social Security Act was settled in a set of Supreme Court decisions issued in May 1937. The text of those decisions, with dissents, is presented here. (We also include a brief historical essay to help general readers better understand the context of the decisions.)
https://www.ssa.gov/history/court.html
If pre-post Americans cared about social security and even voted FDR in for a 4th term by an overwhelming margin, were they cattle too? It might behoove you to care about my father and my grandfather and my in-laws, and every other citizen's relatively recent American progenitors because to me, and likely many of us as well, they are/were Americans too and they care/cared about their social security. It is from when we were great like some of them out there say they want us to be again.
ReplyDeleteIf you think I think that Supreme Court decisions confer legitimacy on matters that violate basic principles, you're sadly mistaken. See last June's three disastrous sections - on disparate impact in housing, the "A"CA, and homosexual "marriage" respectively, as well as Roe c Wade an Dredd Scott
ReplyDeleteThe process of turning the American people into cattle has been going on for over a century. The progressive movement of Herbert Croly, Woodrow Wilson, Thorstein Veblen and John Dewey was a hugely poisonous influence on this country, giving legitimacy to the idea that the modern era was too complex to be addressed by the Cinstituion alone, that the executive branch had to have at its disposal a cadre of "experts" in various areas of policy - think banking, health care, the environment, food production, retirement - to implement concrete details of broad legislation that Congress would pass. It's that mindset that gave us villains like that bitch France's Perkins, architect of Social Security, unemployment insurance and the God-damn minimum wage.
ReplyDeleteYou mean the grans and my parents were cattle? I was 15 years from being calved yet back in '35 when this was all decided. Turn back the hands of time if you can. If the Millennials want to get rid of it, they can and will.
ReplyDeleteIf whatever. The progreesives were pure poison and the Democrats swallowed it like it was the nectar of the gods
ReplyDeleteWell, I wasn't there and I only heard good things about it.
ReplyDeleteI did hear bad bad bad things about our Great Depression though, still scares me.
ReplyDeleteThe first compulsory social insurance programs on a national scale were established in Germany under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck: health insurance in 1883, workmen’s compensation in 1884, and old-age and invalidity pensions in 1889. Germany’s example was soon followed by Austria and Hungary. The issue of social insurance elsewhere in Europe was dominated by a debate between those who preferred voluntary, subsidized insurance and those who advocated a compulsory system. Great Britain adopted national compulsory health insurance in 1911 and greatly expanded it in 1948. After 1920, social insurance on a compulsory basis was rapidly adopted throughout Europe and in the Western Hemisphere. The United States lagged behind Europe; until 1935, with the passage of the Social Security Act, government insurance programs were exclusively the responsibility of state or local governments. The three federal insurance programs adopted in the United States since 1935 provide retirement and survivor benefits, health care for persons over 65, and insurance against disability.
ReplyDeletemore at http://www.britannica.com/topic/social-insurance
"Compulsory" is all we need to know. Bad and wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe constitutionality of income taxation was widely held in doubt [Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Company, 157 U.S. 429 (1895)] until 1913 with the ratification of the 16th Amendment.
ReplyDelete