Regrettably, failure was inevitable from the very get-go! It was never meant to be a workable solution. :down:

Ah, English numbers... :doh: What a "Billionen" means in German, in English is called trillion. What English calls billion, in German is "Milliarden".

I meant to say 1.2 trillion.

No, what you have there is American English which is different from English

The battleline of saving priviliges for old have-somes, who become numerous, while few and fewer have-nots should pay for that. The clients of the Republican, tend to have - demgraphically - overaged voting groups, then the Democrats. More of the old ones vote Rep, than young ones. The parties know that, and they wil decide fiancial issues accordingly - so that they get the max votes in return.

I read that by several American commentators in summer, too, when the battle was up for the budget. It seems it is not just my exotic assessement from outside. American soceity is overaging like European ones. Very very very big problem, you cannot solve it by arguing for people creating even more babioes, can you. If you want to know how bad such things can become, look at Japan, and to a lesser degree: China. The social-cultural distortions caused by and damagin g fundamental pillars of soceity, are nothing but disastrous.

And we are heading the same way.

But when you manage to get yourself stuck right in the middle of something, then the only way out is right through the mass of it.

Partisanship strikes again.

But taking sides is so cool. I love that American politics has become the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry.

Winning no matter what the cost is great in sports...

But not in a country of 300 mil people.

How's that infighting, sabotaging fellow Americans thingy working out for you guys? BOTH SIDES...

We oughta be ashamed of ourselves.

No worries, I knew what you meant. When you are talking about 4 trillion dollar annual deficits, 1.2 trillion over 10 years really is small potatoes.

It was the "old have some" that built the country. What privileges did they not earn? The "have not's" paying for it? Paying for what? The day to day obscure things such as roads, police, fire, water, sewerage and safety of the country? Everyone enjoys these and should pay for them. The old have some pay like anyone else. The parties understand the demographics of the members. That is a given. Sadly what has been home grown is the 'welfare and entitlement' state. This has compounded over the past two years and added to a already mismanaged welfare system. The battle lines are between young and old are manifested from a misguided notion that somehow something is owed to the them. No one promised the young a rose garden.

As much as it pains me to think it, but in a 100 years from now, this era in which we live will be lectured in Social Studies and American History classes across the country. This particular chapter will probably be labeled something along the lines of, "The decline and ending of the American Century".

The problem is the yopung ones should pay for the old. More old. And then more. With inflation marching. And few and fewer young ones being born and making it to tax-.payer ranks. At the same time these young ones are expected to raise and fiannce families. And save for their own high age, when they cannot work anymore.

Being young these days, is a penalty. The worst penalty since WWII. Looking at the daughters of close friends of miney, and hearing the very bad stories of offsprings of families my parents are befriended with, really breaks my heart. A system that was designed that so and so many young ones should pay for so and so many old ones, now turns into something where the young ones are one third less in numbers, and decreasing, but should pay for twice as many old ones, with higher prices, smaller wages, smaller social security, and greater uncertainty for the future. They get eaten up alive, without having chances to consider their own future safety.

The young ones are bitten in the ar$e, to use a German proverb.

It will get worse. Much worse. You can't fight the numbers, the problem is one of pure mathematics.

That is correct, I think. The era of the American empire is coming to an end in this time. A classical case of imperial overstretch in the periphery, and collapsing implosion in the centre. I point to Paul Kennedy, Herrfried Münkler and van Crefeld, who all have described these terms. In the end the American empire is just another one that has refused to learn anything from the lesson its predecessors has suffered.

The EU also counts as such a case. Imperial overstretch, getting a bigger bite than one can swallow. The EU is even more classic an example maybe, than America.

That's exactly what i meant. Only, it will take a 100 years from now, for the US to admit it as a people. Only then will it be studied. Until such time, pride being what it is, we as a people won't admit to it.

The problem is the government set up the program so the young pay for the old. It was named Social Security. I am one of the young ones (46) raising and financing a family. I have a 401K savings plan to supplement Social Security when I retire. I have a mortgage that will be paid by retirement age or sooner. I get these through hard work.

1/3 less in numbers does not raise what is taken from your pay I believe. Furthermore, one day these young ones will be old and will need a supplement to Social Security. Depending on Social Security alone for retirement is a very bad plan. Social Security was never to be a retirement plan nor sold as one to the public at large. In reality, the Social Security is nothing but a fund that the government raids when they feel like it. The young should save for retirement if a pension plan is not offered where they work.

Only if they let it.

I don't believe in living with gloom and doom. Mathematically sitting on ones butt not doing or attempting to do something about the issue is not the answer either. Attempting to become a productive member of society will give one a far better shot of living comfortably later in life.

You seem to be not aware how pension plans and retirement systems work, on a system-lebel I mean. They do not put the money aside that you pay in. The so-called generation-treaty - it is called like that over here in Europe - instead demands the future young ones to pay for those living today and becoming old tomorrow. It is a snowball system - and if you look at it you will see that the American insurrance companies and pension system do not work any different from our ways here, in principle. If there would be sufficient money saved to cover all future emands, we would not have a crisis today. Fact is - we have not even a fraction of those future demands. We have nothing, and expect to make those future payments by future debt-rising, and the fwewer young ones paying for the pensions of more and more old.

And do not be so sure of your payment plans that you mentioned, mortage and all that. Friends of friends of mine had the same setup like you claim for yourself. Some years ago, they lost it all when their mortage was sold to another bank, or better, a foreign (=US) investor who cancelled the treaty and demanded to be payed out. They couldn't do that and so like several thousand others lost both the house, the payments so far, and had no compensation. The family is in free fall since then.

What I mean is you put a lot of trust into rules that in fact are just ink on paper. Whgen the sh!t hits the fan, this paperstuff will not save you. And when somehwere higher in the food chain it gets decided accordingly, you will get eaten, in the name of a higher good or inevitable sacifices that need to be accepted. Right this is what is happening to hundreds of thousands of families in Greece, Spain, Italy currently, but also in other countries, including Germany. It is happening in your country, too - counting by the high hundreds ofg thousands.

And do me and yoursrelf and all of us a favour - leave ideology out of this. Ideology too will not save you or me or any of us.

We are living through a significant part of our history. Let's just hope the history books clean it us so we don't look like total idiots. :O:

Fiddle while the everyday person pays.

Time to bash some heads together, maybe.