Well, since Paul Krugman said it, then deficits don't matter. See what has happened in Zimbabwe, which adopted the same attitude. Or, Venezuela today. Greece. Puerto Rico. Deficits don't matter as long as we are willing to burden our children in order to enjoy ourselves today. They don't matter as long as we can convince other people to accept meaningless pieces of paper in exchange for food, manufactured items, and other things of real value. When the crash comes, it will be sudden and brutal.
Virtue-signaling numbskulls will wag their fingers at the hoi pollloi and the greedy capitalists, blaming them for the destruction. Krugman et al will have no clue about their own culpability, and the two real villains - Johnson and Nixon, one of whom brought Social Security and Medicare on budget, the other who was afraid to point out the ticking time bomb - are dead and buried. So, we'll blame Trump, or AOC, or the nearest racist (defined as any white male), and learn the wrong lessons. Happens every time.
You left out Larry Kudlow, and the Chicago School. I guess that when you are old enough to collect Social Security and Medicare, you will refuse it based on your conscience.
You must have missed the part about me being 73. I began collecting social security at the first possible opportunity, and have been on Medicare for a while. And, my conscience is just fine.
When Social Security was established a number of promises were made, all of which have since been broken. The program was known to have a projected surplus for nearly seventy years, which had to be hoarded because it was in danger of having a huge deficit after that point. In the 1960s Johnson brought social security "on budget," meaning that its artificial surplus could be spent to buy votes. Members of congress from both parties jumped at the chance to use free money to get themselves re-elected. Nixon's sin was worse. He knew that by about 2005 we'd tip from surplus into deficit, but did nothing about it.
Had he taken Social Security, and then Medicare, back off-budget, we'd have the funds to weather the storm. But it was spent for special favors, special tax breaks, everybody was special. I argued to acknowledge the Emperor had no clothes, but I wasn't important. The first politician to try to point out the problem was Bob Dole in 1996. Clinton ran scare commercials bout how Dole and the Republicans wanted to take away your social security, and Clinton's margin of victory among seniors was more than 100% of his total winning edge. After he was safely re-elected, he called Dole, told him he had known all along that Dole was correct, but hey, it's politics, now would Dole lead a panel to fix the problem Clinton had denied existed?
Dole's response is not recorded, but I suspect it was primarily four-letter words. I'm a Bill Clinton fan, by the way, because he took advantage of the peace dividend bequeathed him by G.H.W. Bush and the victory over inflation courtesy of Reagan, and then added the toughest thing President can do in the face of a good economy: nothing. He got out of the way and didn't try to manage the economy and we had eight great years.
It's not enough to live through momentous events; you also have to pay attention.
Even Paul Krugman says that deficits don't matter. Money today is meaningless unless your are poor. Then, it's everything you don't have access to.
Well, since Paul Krugman said it, then deficits don't matter. See what has happened in Zimbabwe, which adopted the same attitude. Or, Venezuela today. Greece. Puerto Rico. Deficits don't matter as long as we are willing to burden our children in order to enjoy ourselves today. They don't matter as long as we can convince other people to accept meaningless pieces of paper in exchange for food, manufactured items, and other things of real value. When the crash comes, it will be sudden and brutal.
Virtue-signaling numbskulls will wag their fingers at the hoi pollloi and the greedy capitalists, blaming them for the destruction. Krugman et al will have no clue about their own culpability, and the two real villains - Johnson and Nixon, one of whom brought Social Security and Medicare on budget, the other who was afraid to point out the ticking time bomb - are dead and buried. So, we'll blame Trump, or AOC, or the nearest racist (defined as any white male), and learn the wrong lessons. Happens every time.
You left out Larry Kudlow, and the Chicago School. I guess that when you are old enough to collect Social Security and Medicare, you will refuse it based on your conscience.
You must have missed the part about me being 73. I began collecting social security at the first possible opportunity, and have been on Medicare for a while. And, my conscience is just fine.
When Social Security was established a number of promises were made, all of which have since been broken. The program was known to have a projected surplus for nearly seventy years, which had to be hoarded because it was in danger of having a huge deficit after that point. In the 1960s Johnson brought social security "on budget," meaning that its artificial surplus could be spent to buy votes. Members of congress from both parties jumped at the chance to use free money to get themselves re-elected. Nixon's sin was worse. He knew that by about 2005 we'd tip from surplus into deficit, but did nothing about it.
Had he taken Social Security, and then Medicare, back off-budget, we'd have the funds to weather the storm. But it was spent for special favors, special tax breaks, everybody was special. I argued to acknowledge the Emperor had no clothes, but I wasn't important. The first politician to try to point out the problem was Bob Dole in 1996. Clinton ran scare commercials bout how Dole and the Republicans wanted to take away your social security, and Clinton's margin of victory among seniors was more than 100% of his total winning edge. After he was safely re-elected, he called Dole, told him he had known all along that Dole was correct, but hey, it's politics, now would Dole lead a panel to fix the problem Clinton had denied existed?
Dole's response is not recorded, but I suspect it was primarily four-letter words. I'm a Bill Clinton fan, by the way, because he took advantage of the peace dividend bequeathed him by G.H.W. Bush and the victory over inflation courtesy of Reagan, and then added the toughest thing President can do in the face of a good economy: nothing. He got out of the way and didn't try to manage the economy and we had eight great years.
It's not enough to live through momentous events; you also have to pay attention.