[Russian_Cowboy]

Just as a note, for what I know, Russia and Saudi Arabia are converting most of the revenue from exporting oil and gas (almost all of it in the case of Russia) into bonds issued by the US and European governments. I am talking about hundreds of billion dollars a year here. This explains why Russia and Saudi Arabia remain relatively poor countries despite making fabulous money selling oil and gas abroad. Hence, the debt bomb will not explode in the near future despite the spike in the oil price and the debt-based Western economy will keep chugging along. Additionally, the price of oil will keep growing for a while as the proverbial demand destruction in the Western countries will be delayed by many years.

[MrBill]

I hope you have enough gold and silver coins to pay for your healthcare, too?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')espite all the talk about the shaky future of Social Security, its potential shortfall isn't the biggest risk for future retirees. They should be worrying about Medicare instead.

The government's health insurance plan for retirees is on a crash course with the realities of an aging population and an increasingly expensive medical system. It's projected to go bust in 2020.

That's 20 years earlier than the Social Security fund is expected to become insolvent, and -- boomers: are you getting this? -- only 14 years away.


The Employee Benefit Research Institute is reporting that today's typical Medicare-covered retired couple needs $295,000 in the bank just to cover health care throughout retirement. And that's assuming that they have Medicare to depend on.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')The government's health insurance plan for retirees is on a crash course with the realities of an aging population and an increasingly expensive medical system. It's projected to go bust in 2020.

[EnergyUnlimited]

I think, that the problems of US high cost of healthcare is mainly due to greed of health care proffessionals.
It is quite likely that most of medical operations for poor and middle class will be carried out in countries like Cuba and most of pharmaceutical remedies will be imported from countries like Mexico, China or India.
They are chemically identical with US branded products and prices are in range of 10-20% of US price with potential of future fall.

In reaspect of surgeon skills you will also find out, that Cuban doctors can successfully perform 90%+ of medical procedures of those which their american counterparts can do.

Shortly: Facing lack of cash US health system will be outsourced in exactly the same fashion like most of manufacturing sector was done.
The slight fall in quality of services will be statistically insignificant.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', 'I') am waiting for the realization to come that it is not US governments that are to blame, but US citizens. The greatest intergenerational theft ever is taking place right now and you guys are either sleeping or focusing on side issues. Wake up!

[Dukat_Reloaded]

Was recorded in 1995, things havn't changed.

[stream]http://members.optusnet.com.au/~jrowl/lies.wav[/stream]

[onequestionwonder]

Mr. Bill,

You seem to know a great deal. How did you become so erudite?

And answer a question for me.

What happens if the US scraps Medicare and Medicaid, and replaces it with a single-payer National Health Program.

I'm sure you will think it is a mistake, as the current US system is so vastly superior to what exists in Canada, France, Denmark, Sweden, uhhh come to think of it Cuba?

The super efficient market system of the US squeezes every drop of effectiveness out of health spending in the US. Drug companies struggle with the cutthroat competition the discipline of the market imposes on them. There has never, ever, been a better health care system, certainly not in Europe.

Things go on till they can't.

So tell me how a National Health Program wouldn't address the problems of Medicare and Medicaid, and a myriad of other vexing economic problems as well.

I'm sure you have many arguments.

What are they?

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onequestionwonder', 't')he current US system is so vastly superior to what exists in Canada, France, Denmark, Sweden, uhhh come to think of it Cuba?

The super efficient market system of the US squeezes every drop of effectiveness out of health spending in the US. Drug companies struggle with the cutthroat competition the discipline of the market imposes on them. There has never, ever, been a better health care system, certainly not in Europe.

[marko]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'A')ny of you own US savings bonds? I'm sitting on a pile of them and, since I no longer trust the US government's long-term solvency (or anything else about the US government), am thinking of cashing them in. Can you envision a scenario in which the US would actually renege on its savings bonds?

[onequestionwonder]

"I can't tell if you're serious or are just joking. The US doesn't even have a health system (except for those over 65), just a mishmash of private insurance plans, with half the money wasted on administrative overhead, advertising, forms, etc. And 50 million people have no coverage at all, including me. I'll take the Cuban system anyday."

I was being sarcastic. Evidently I'm not very good at it.

And what you've written is exactly what I was referring to.

It wouldn't surprise me if MORE than 50% of what is spent on health care is "wasted," that is not truly necessary spending to actually deliver health care to a patient.

Though in the world of economics measurement I'm not sure any form of mostly white collar inefficiency is ever wasted.

Back to lurking. It just gets annoying to see the "Marketeers" post over and over.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onequestionwonder', '"')I can't tell if you're serious or are just joking. The US doesn't even have a health system (except for those over 65), just a mishmash of private insurance plans, with half the money wasted on administrative overhead, advertising, forms, etc. And 50 million people have no coverage at all, including me. I'll take the Cuban system anyday."

I was being sarcastic. Evidently I'm not very good at it.

And what you've written is exactly what I was referring to.

It wouldn't surprise me if MORE than 50% of what is spent on health care is "wasted," that is not truly necessary spending to actually deliver health care to a patient.

Though in the world of economics measurement I'm not sure any form of mostly white collar inefficiency is ever wasted.

Back to lurking. It just gets annoying to see the "Marketeers" post over and over.

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onequestionwonder', 'M')r. Bill,

You seem to know a great deal. How did you become so erudite?

And answer a question for me.

What happens if the US scraps Medicare and Medicaid, and replaces it with a single-payer National Health Program.

I'm sure you will think it is a mistake, as the current US system is so vastly superior to what exists in Canada, France, Denmark, Sweden, uhhh come to think of it Cuba?

The super efficient market system of the US squeezes every drop of effectiveness out of health spending in the US. Drug companies struggle with the cutthroat competition the discipline of the market imposes on them. There has never, ever, been a better health care system, certainly not in Europe.

Things go on till they can't.

So tell me how a National Health Program wouldn't address the problems of Medicare and Medicaid, and a myriad of other vexing economic problems as well.

I'm sure you have many arguments.

What are they?

[onequestionwonder]

"My" health care program is easy enough to describe.

1) Survey the rest of the world and identify the model that works the best.

2) Implement it here.

Now I'll "fix" Social Security, the other big entitlement (unless you also count flood insurance, ag subsidies, roads as entitlements. They usually aren't thought of as such, though how they differ isn't apparent to me. We'll be here all day though).

1) Raise retirement age to 72 (not 70). If there is some advance in medicine that greatly extends life expectancy, raise it again. Eliminate the early (currently age 62) retirement right now.

2) Tighten up the early social security retirement due to disability criteria. Review egregious cases that have already been approved. This system is already starting to suffer widescale abuse in my opinion. The fact that a drug/alcohol abuser can get this is ridiculous.

3) "Chump" people by playing with colas and inflation numbers. This program has already been implemented by the federal and all state governments.

4) Means test social security. If you have sufficient assets or income you don't get any. Fraud perpetrated to claim social security benefits when violating the means test, is forfeiture of assets and a five year prison sentence. Don't like the system? Call an 800 number. There is one line for the whole US, and it is outsourced to France. Or call your local representative in Congress. You'll have better luck with the 800 number.

Not a satisfying system, but it will be solvent. And my bleeding heart won't break because the spectre of totally impoverished elders pre-social security won't come back.

Now some general things.

1) Drown flood insurance and Grover Norquist in a bathtub.

2) Repeal not only the George W. Bush tax cuts, but implement the tax system that existed in 1980. The american economy is not as dynamic as it was then, unless financial masturbation is your style. 9 out of ten americans are in worse shape than they were then.

3) Send one of Negroponte's death squads to the economics department of the University of Chicago. None shall live. Then send it to the world bank and the IMF. Rinse and repeat on the none shall live.

Some general things.

If you are a died in the wool, Ayn Randian sign of the dollar worshipper, let's break off a good portion of the US so you can finally have a part of the world to run exactly as you see fit. Countries throughout the world can export their dynamic entrepenurial freedom lovers, that don't want the government to hold them back to this place (apparently some evil bureacrat snuck into your home when you were a child and pissed in your wheaties, you just haven't been able to get over it). The process could be based on the Mariel boatlift when Cuba exported it's prisons to the US.

You can name it what you want. I'll call it "Shitworld." Peak oil and climate change notwithstanding, in 5 years you'll be practicing cannibals fighting battles with sharpened sticks over who has the most "animal spirits." The CEO chieftain will lead his managers in battle against the workers of another tribe. When the conflict is over one tribe will be the workers. Ancient manuals reprinted in the 1800's in the american south on Carthaginian slave holding - uhh management techniques will be consulted for the corporate edge they can give their users...

If the fundamentalists don't sacrifice you to the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob first. And I don't think you guys can take them in a fight.

I could go on to other things like peak oil, and an idea of mine that the US or state government should be the insurance industry.

But I've solved some of the problems of the US and I deserve a beer.

The thing is though, we'd have to agree on something, or have a common world view on something. A debate between us is pointless because we don't have enough in common to even argue or agree on what the likely consequences of something would be.

[MountainHiker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onequestionwonder', '
')If you are a died in the wool, Ayn Randian sign of the dollar worshipper, let's break off a good portion of the US so you can finally have a part of the world to run exactly as you see fit. Countries throughout the world can export their dynamic entrepenurial freedom lovers, that don't want the government to hold them back to this place (apparently some evil bureacrat snuck into your home when you were a child and pissed in your wheaties, you just haven't been able to get over it). The process could be based on the Mariel boatlift when Cuba exported it's prisons to the US.

You can name it what you want. I'll call it "Shitworld." Peak oil and climate change notwithstanding, in 5 years you'll be practicing cannibals fighting battles with sharpened sticks over who has the most "animal spirits." The CEO chieftain will lead his managers in battle against the workers of another tribe. When the conflict is over one tribe will be the workers. Ancient manuals reprinted in the 1800's in the american south on Carthaginian slave holding - uhh management techniques will be consulted for the corporate edge they can give their users...

[mattduke]

And if somebody does not wish to participate in your system will you arrest them at gunpoint and drag them off to jail?

[onequestionwonder]

I don't have any plans to seize control of the US. And I don't have much hope of my system being implemented.

If it were it would be enforced exactly as the system of any country is. That is the fist is not so abstracted away into laws and courts and the legal system.

And to be blunt, the boat lift thing is hyperbole. I'd say rather "There is your perfect heaven. Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out."

[marko]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', 'A')s for the intergenerational theft it is quite clear that a segment of the population never had it so good, consumed so many resources in pursuit of their own happiness, then borrowed from future generations creating unfunded liabilities to keep on consuming, while taking early retirement and leaving behind debts for everyone else.

[Ayame]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('marko', '
')On the other hand, I think a very strong case can be made for theft across class lines. Do I need to say it? The rich are stealing from the middle classes and poor. The dimensions of the theft are not yet fully known. But it is already clear that the distribution of real income has been shifting for a generation in favor of the ultra rich.

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onequestionwonder', 'I') don't have any plans to seize control of the US. And I don't have much hope of my system being implemented.

If it were it would be enforced exactly as the system of any country is. That is the fist is not so abstracted away into laws and courts and the legal system.

And to be blunt, the boat lift thing is hyperbole. I'd say rather "There is your perfect heaven. Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out."

[Dukat_Reloaded]

Great thread. The rich will be rich and the poor will be poor. It's allways been that way and allway will.

About the increasing retirement age to slove unfunded pentions, raise the retirement age high enough and you don't need to provide pentions, people will just work until they die, which in away I aggree with but on the other hand I don't. In an ideal society, the Disabled should be looked after, the elderly looked after but if at the end of the day, when the workers cut their meat and there isn't enough to go around, those who don't produce will miss out.

Do not rely on the Government to support you in the future as I'm quite sure they won't. If your close to retirement age or unable to work I strongly suggest increasing your liquidity by selling items you don't and scrimp and save the pention your currently reciving. How you invest your money is upto you, one of the greatest upside and low downside risks at the moment is precious metals, afew ounces of gold could last you quite afew years during an inflationary/depressionary environment to buy the bare essentials to live on.

There is no point in blaming the generation before you, yourself or your fellow man. Just accept what is what and make plans based on that. It's quite simple and if you plan correctly, you should have little to fear.