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SanJoaquinSooner
1/29/2012, 03:12 PM
1. OK, I’ve skimmed through the 21 pages of the Santorum anti-birth control thread and it appears the big issue driving his suggestion was never discussed: the Demographic Winter.

As our birthrate continues to gradually decline, we must consider the economic consequences. In a vacuum, there may be nothing wrong with a declining birthrate. But with a 12 trillion dollar federal debt to service, with the large baby boomer population moving to suck huge amounts from social security and medicare, and with state and local gov’t facing huge unfunded public employee pensions to pay out – the only way to avoid an austerity winter beyond all winters is to grow our way out of it. The big money transfer is NOT to poor people, but to old people. So merely cutting welfare checks and food stamps won’t solve it.

Santorum wants the gov’t to encourage large families. Triple the child tax credit from $1000/child to $3000/child, he says.
... And then his crazy notion of banning birth control.

There’s been lots of looking at Europe and talking about how we are looking at our future if we don’t get our **** together.

Consider Greece. For every 100 grandparents there are 42 grandchildren. And Greeks think they all deserve to retire at age 55 (just like our public employees). Are the 42 Greek grandchildren going to be able to support the pensions and healthcare of 100 grandparents? Even if they had a strong work ethic, it’s doubtful.

Now, worker productivity can make up for a lot. Fewer people can give more output. But you still need customers. Instead of 100 babies needing diapers, there are only 42 babies. Instead of 100 teens buying ipods and junk food at the mall, there are only 42. And when they are young adults, far fewer homes needing to be purchased. And fewer window coverings for the homes, fewer appliances, fewer insurance policies, etc etc etc.

Germany, France, and other European countries aren’t in this bind quite as bad because they’ve imported lots of Muslims. Lots of transformational changes as a result, which will not make it easy.

So, if looking at Europe is looking at our future, how can we avoid a demographic winter?

Rick Santorum says, “Let’s have gov’t encourage big families!” But too many folks have come to understand that lots of kids costs lots of money and can make you poor, even with a tax credit. And yeah, if you have lots of kids, maybe they'll take care of you personally in your old age, but more likely it will be Jaunita from Guatemala who is feeding you mashed potatoes and giving you a sponge bath when you're in your 80s, not to mention paying the FICA taxes that are transferred to you.

Even in Mexico, we have seen a drop in the birthrate from 6.8 children/woman in 1970 to 2 children/woman today. Santorum may not ignore the Pope on birth control, but more and more Mexican women are. And so do most U.S. women.

The evangelicals and the libertarians of the Republican Party seem to be the only ones who understand that immigration will be part of the solution. We need future customers and we need a productive labor force that can compete for export dollars. There needs to be a mixture of high skilled immigrants for innovation, investments, and high-skilled labor and lower-skilled immigrants for cost efficient labor. Cost efficient labor frees up capital for expansion and the creation of higher skilled jobs.

With the huge drop in birthrates in Mexico, much fewer immigrants will come from Mexico down the road in 15 or 20 years, with more coming from other Latin American countries and Asia.

SanJoaquinSooner
1/29/2012, 03:47 PM
2. I can’t begin to tell you about the pension problem in California, where taxpayers support the lavish retirements of gov’t workers. Here is how an article in today’s paper started …


SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Gilbert Robles retired as a state parole agent at age 53, able to collect a $101,195 annual pension - 94 percent of his final salary. Last year, six months after he retired, the Arcadia resident accepted a political appointment with the same agency that pays an additional six figures.

Scott Hallabrin took retirement as the top attorney for the state's ethics agency on June 29, 2009. The next day, he went back to the same post, as he prepared to watch his pension checks roll in on top of a salary.

Los Angeles school administrator Norman Isaacs got a 35 percent raise in 2006, the year before he filed for his public pension. The increase sharply boosted his retirement benefits.

Robles, Hallabrin and Isaacs acted within their rights under California's pension rules, which the Legislature's independent budget analyst recently described as "among the most generous in the country." That generosity comes with a price: The main pension system for public employees is expected to cost taxpayers $2.3 billion this year and has long-term obligations that it is $85 billion short of being able to fund.

We could afford this during good times, because California has so many rich people who pay a 10% state marginal tax rate and of course five years ago before the bubble burst, your typical 3 bedroom track home sold for $500,000. Mucho property tax dinero.

Cities are in the same dilemma with police and firefighter unions. Six-figure pensions, health benefits with low co-pays, for retirees in their 50s. Some cities may go bankrupt in order to void the union contracts, although they may still have to honor current pensioners.

cleller
1/29/2012, 04:05 PM
Went to the Catholic church last night. (I'm Baptholic) and the priest was sermonizing partly on the government mandate that all health plans cover birth control, and also on the low birth rate for Catholics.

He mentioned how in France the Catholics are dying out, while the Muslims are springing forth eternal.

About 10 years ago I read that the low birth rate in Europe would be a disaster when they had to support all their retirees. Looks like that day is here.
So, on one hand you have so many people in the world we worry about feeding them, and on the other not enough being born to support their elders. Then on both feet you've got so many muslims and Chinese expanding around the globe....

badger
1/29/2012, 04:06 PM
Greece is an interesting case, because like the Califnornians, they milked and abused the system to their benefit for years, for a lucrative, early retirement and tons of benefits during employment.

Greece also suffers a lot of brain drain and loses a lot of younger people because of the current state of their economy. A recent Economist issue said that they are not only working elsewhere because they don't have to worry about skyhigh tax rates and little income (housing prices are reportedly plummeting while property tax rates are tripling), they are also being educated elsewhere so they don't have to worry about university strikes and shutdowns in their education like the Greek schools are going through.

Greece/California is what happens when a country/state is too liberal. That's not to say that a country/state can't be too conservative, though. I worry when Oklahoma is talking about axing income tax while our roads/bridges crumble, our schools rank low and our health sucks... not to mention how much we get ignored during presidential elections and by the federal government as a whole. Race to the Top? Space shuttle for your museum? HahahahahahaNOOOOO, not for you, little red state Oklahoma.

cleller
1/29/2012, 04:16 PM
2. I can’t begin to tell you about the pension problem in California, where taxpayers support the lavish retirements of gov’t workers. Here is how an article in today’s paper started …



We could afford this during good times, because California has so many rich people who pay a 10% state marginal tax rate and of course five years ago before the bubble burst, your typical 3 bedroom track home sold for $500,000. Mucho property tax dinero.

Cities are in the same dilemma with police and firefighter unions. Six-figure pensions, health benefits with low co-pays, for retirees in their 50s. Some cities may go bankrupt in order to void the union contracts, although they may still have to honor current pensioners.

Those kind of pensions make all gov't pension holders look bad. They're not all that way.

The Oklahoma Police Pension allows retirement after 20 years. The employee pays 7% of his pay each paycheck into this, while the participating city pays in also, something like 12-14 %. Not all cities participate, and few sheriff's offices. After 20 years, an employee gets 50% of final salary. After 30 years, 75%. To me, this seems fair enough. Everyone should pay into their pension system. The average retiree makes around $20k per year. Varies alot, though due to time served, what city, etc.

Without the pension system, turnover on police departments would be very high, resulting in very high costs to train new officers. Its also viewed as a carrot for what is often not great pay for work with very hard hours.

badger
1/29/2012, 04:19 PM
Without the pension system, turnover on police departments would be very high, resulting in very high costs to train new officers. Its also viewed as a carrot for what is often not great pay for work with very hard hours.

I think a lot of people forget how sh!tty police hours can be and in crappy work environments. Somebody has to be out patrolling 24 hours a day, nights, weekends, holidays, rain, snow or shine.

okie52
1/29/2012, 10:37 PM
I support a demographic winter.

SanJoaquinSooner
1/29/2012, 10:44 PM
Those kind of pensions make all gov't pension holders look bad. They're not all that way.

The Oklahoma Police Pension allows retirement after 20 years. The employee pays 7% of his pay each paycheck into this, while the participating city pays in also, something like 12-14 %. Not all cities participate, and few sheriff's offices. After 20 years, an employee gets 50% of final salary. After 30 years, 75%. To me, this seems fair enough. Everyone should pay into their pension system. The average retiree makes around $20k per year. Varies alot, though due to time served, what city, etc.

Without the pension system, turnover on police departments would be very high, resulting in very high costs to train new officers. Its also viewed as a carrot for what is often not great pay for work with very hard hours.

Yeah, in California the public employee unions, including public school unions are very powerful. This great recession has cracked their armor at bit. The push is to get them to contribute more toward their retirement and health insurance premiums, and to increase the minimum retirement age.

SCOUT
1/29/2012, 10:50 PM
I read a book years ago called, "The Great Boom Ahead." He was an economist that tied economic cycles to the age of the population. It has turned out to be pretty accurate.

SanJoaquinSooner
1/29/2012, 11:33 PM
I support a demographic winter.

Well now Okie, if you can get the rest of your age group to give up medicare and half of their social security we'll be good.

okie52
1/29/2012, 11:54 PM
We could certainly make the age 70 and reduce the benefits.

But ultimately the pyramid scheme will have to pay the piper.

okie52
1/29/2012, 11:59 PM
And if the illegals ever get on board your age group may need to put it at 100

dwarthog
1/30/2012, 07:58 AM
I think a lot of people forget how sh!tty police hours can be and in crappy work environments. Somebody has to be out patrolling 24 hours a day, nights, weekends, holidays, rain, snow or shine.

Not taking anything away from their hard work, but they ain't exactly "flat footing" these days.

Lots of other folks have crappy work environments too. Someone actually has a TV show about those kinds of jobs I believe.

cleller
1/30/2012, 09:01 AM
Yeah, in California the public employee unions, including public school unions are very powerful. This great recession has cracked their armor at bit. The push is to get them to contribute more toward their retirement and health insurance premiums, and to increase the minimum retirement age.

I forgot about the medical some of these people get. Full medical in retirement? In Oklahoma, its NO medical in retirement. My wife and I now pay around $450 a month for two high deductible policies we never use. I'm sure that's helping out someone sitting in the ER after being stabbed by their common-law, though.

Tulsa_Fireman
1/30/2012, 09:38 AM
I forgot about the medical some of these people get. Full medical in retirement? In Oklahoma, its NO medical in retirement. My wife and I now pay around $450 a month for two high deductible policies we never use. I'm sure that's helping out someone sitting in the ER after being stabbed by their common-law, though.

Glad someone mentioned this.

Whenever the topic of public employee pensions is mentioned in the state of Oklahoma, the turd rockets they've built in California seems to be the usual demon they trot out. They always fail to mention the realities of the Oklahoma state pension system and the massive differences, including what the actual percentage of funding truly means. They seem to easily fail to include the hand in hand work pension officials have taken with state lawmakers, including the penchant of our very lawmakers to scrape sizeable percentages from funding mechanisms for pet projects and pork, only to flip the 180 and use that decrease in funding to show how public pensions are a liability to the taxpayers themselves.

Especially when the fact of the matter is sound, reasonably funded and expenditured state-level pension systems are a GOOD thing on multiple fronts, for the retiree, the state, and the taxpayer themselves.

StoopTroup
1/30/2012, 10:43 AM
I read a book years ago called, "The Great Boom Ahead." He was an economist that tied economic cycles to the age of the population. It has turned out to be pretty accurate.

Amazingly....you can lead a horse to water but only the Elephant will jump in pour it all over himself, clean his butt in it and then leave the water for the jackasses to drink out of?

badger
1/30/2012, 11:45 AM
Glad someone mentioned this.

Whenever the topic of public employee pensions is mentioned in the state of Oklahoma, the turd rockets they've built in California seems to be the usual demon they trot out. They always fail to mention the realities of the Oklahoma state pension system and the massive differences, including what the actual percentage of funding truly means. They seem to easily fail to include the hand in hand work pension officials have taken with state lawmakers, including the penchant of our very lawmakers to scrape sizeable percentages from funding mechanisms for pet projects and pork, only to flip the 180 and use that decrease in funding to show how public pensions are a liability to the taxpayers themselves.

Especially when the fact of the matter is sound, reasonably funded and expenditured state-level pension systems are a GOOD thing on multiple fronts, for the retiree, the state, and the taxpayer themselves.

I think it shocks a lot of public employees here to see other states (read: their unions) howling about contributing to their plans when Oklahoma already expects them all to.

What's even more amazing is that even after employee contributions, and shortfalls like mentioned in this thread... it's one of the most underfunded pension systems by state in the country.

(I partially blame the legislature with their six-years-and-full-pension personal plans, btw)

pphilfran
1/30/2012, 12:22 PM
I am on the opposite side of Santo....

I would lower the child credit to zero...the government should not be in the business of subsidizing babies....

Once population growth hits zero or goes negative the chit will hit the fan...

SS/Med will not be viable in it's current form...

Inflation should be tame with less demand growth...

Growth in the stock market will be very difficult...it will be dog eat dog...p/e's will drop and lots of money will be lost in the market....

sappstuf
1/30/2012, 12:25 PM
I am on the opposite side of Santo....

I would lower the child credit to zero...the government should not be in the business of subsidizing babies....

Once population growth hits zero or goes negative the chit will hit the fan...

SS/Med will not be viable in it's current form...

Inflation should be tame with less demand growth...

Growth in the stock market will be very difficult...it will be dog eat dog...p/e's will drop and lots of money will be lost in the market....

But as long as we keep extending the payroll tax holiday everything will work out...

;)

SanJoaquinSooner
1/30/2012, 01:55 PM
Glad someone mentioned this.

Whenever the topic of public employee pensions is mentioned in the state of Oklahoma, the turd rockets they've built in California seems to be the usual demon they trot out. They always fail to mention the realities of the Oklahoma state pension system and the massive differences, including what the actual percentage of funding truly means. They seem to easily fail to include the hand in hand work pension officials have taken with state lawmakers, including the penchant of our very lawmakers to scrape sizeable percentages from funding mechanisms for pet projects and pork, only to flip the 180 and use that decrease in funding to show how public pensions are a liability to the taxpayers themselves.

Especially when the fact of the matter is sound, reasonably funded and expenditured state-level pension systems are a GOOD thing on multiple fronts, for the retiree, the state, and the taxpayer themselves.

Yeah, that's the key: the eventual payouts need to be funded under sound actuarial principles. So many were structured under rosey scenario growth rates lasting forever. What public employees deserve is negotiable but make sure it's actually funded.

KantoSooner
1/30/2012, 02:25 PM
It will be painful to get there, but ultimately the only system that will be stable over the long haul is one in which you contribute as an employee and your employer contributes and it goes into an account with your name on it.

The rest is all lies and sophistry and the sooner we accede to this point, figure out how much pain will be involved in getting there and get to it, the better.

TUSooner
1/30/2012, 04:38 PM
Does Santorum want EVERYBODY to have more babies, or just the middle-class and up?
Seems like poor women are having plenty of babies, how does Rick feel about that?

SanJoaquinSooner
1/30/2012, 06:47 PM
Does Santorum want EVERYBODY to have more babies, or just the middle-class and up?
Seems like poor women are having plenty of babies, how does Rick feel about that?

It appears to be irrelevant to his position. Here's a brief article on it:


Rick Santorum appeared on FOX News Sunday, where he talked about his plan to triple the tax credit for children (from today's $1000 per child deduction.)

The former Pennsylvania senator talked about the "demographic winter" that is happening in Europe because of tax codes that are worse than ours in terms of promoting large families.

"Children are the greatest resource we have," he said. "They're the natural resource that creates wealth in this country."

Santorum defended himself against charges of social engineering and called criticism of his tax plan "outrageous."

"This is not social engineering," he said. "What's social engineering is the policies of the last 30 years that have robbed the family of the support that they used to have in the tax code."

On Saturday at a campaign stop in Charleston, Santorum also talked about his own children and how they have shaped his anti-abortion views. He told the crowd that his disabled daughter Bella, 3, made him realize that God looks upon him as "disabled."

"The gift that Bella gave me was the gift of looking at this disabled child who in the world's view will never be able to do anything for me other than love me," he said, according to MSNBC. "She is just a font of love as far as I' m concerned. And she made me understand that that's how the Father looks at me, disabled. Unable to do anything for him except love him. And he loves me unconditionally."

SanJoaquinSooner
1/30/2012, 08:49 PM
And if the illegals ever get on board your age group may need to put it at 100

It would depend on the nature of the deal. Politicians can easily **** it up and not make it market-based.

With all the talk of e-verify, I've read that one possible grand deal would be to agree to have a national mandatory e-verify in exchange for a pathway to citizenship for those illegally present.

That's a bad deal. E-verify is designed to inhibit economic activity and simply creating a pathway to citizenship does nothing to reform legal visa policies. As those gaining legal residence become upwardly mobile, another black market demand would lead to more under-the-table employment and identity fraud.

A better deal: A market-based deal would fundamentally reform the movement of labor.... something along the lines of the red-card approach Newt has advocated. A free market of labor would be to best way to grow the economy. And the grand deal would necessarily include entitlement reform. Red-cards would be non-immigrant visas, although I personally would favor those who behave themselves might qualify for a green card after x years - maybe 9 years or so. Those illegally present could apply for red-cards like anyone else in their home countries, but they'd need someone who wants to hire them.

SanJoaquinSooner
1/30/2012, 09:16 PM
By the way Okie,

I hope you are proud of me for all the money I saved the taxpayers.

Maria and I had two kids, but instead of increasing the size of our family by having a third child - like Rick Santorum is advocating - we brought Maria's youngest sister up from Mexico to live with us. Alma was 16 at the time. I put her in school and she needed two years in order to graduate. So her first 10 years of schooling were in Mexico. In today's dollars, educating her here would be $7500/year for the taxpayer (avg cost/student in Calif). A third child born to us would have cost the taxpayer $90,000 (12 years of education) whereas Alma cost only $15,000 - a savings of $75,000. Add on top of that $3000/year child tax credit that Santorum wants to give, we would have saved another 16 years x $3000 = $48,000.

Total savings under a Santorum plan: 75,000 + 48,000 = $123,000.


More generally, that's a big advantage of a guest worker plan - taxpayers don't necessarily pay all the costs of educating them.

I envision a mobile 401k type plan workers take all over the free-market world so that any given host country does not become responsible for all of the health and retirement entitlements.

StoopTroup
1/30/2012, 09:57 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYfOnQF5S88&feature=related

okie52
1/30/2012, 11:10 PM
It would depend on the nature of the deal. Politicians can easily **** it up and not make it market-based.

With all the talk of e-verify, I've read that one possible grand deal would be to agree to have a national mandatory e-verify in exchange for a pathway to citizenship for those illegally present.

That's a bad deal. E-verify is designed to inhibit economic activity and simply creating a pathway to citizenship does nothing to reform legal visa policies. As those gaining legal residence become upwardly mobile, another black market demand would lead to more under-the-table employment and identity fraud.

A better deal: A market-based deal would fundamentally reform the movement of labor.... something along the lines of the red-card approach Newt has advocated. A free market of labor would be to best way to grow the economy. And the grand deal would necessarily include entitlement reform. Red-cards would be non-immigrant visas, although I personally would favor those who behave themselves might qualify for a green card after x years - maybe 9 years or so. Those illegally present could apply for red-cards like anyone else in their home countries, but they'd need someone who wants to hire them.

Although newt is a political whore (like most politicians), I could accept a compromise for workers if there was no citizenship or birthright citizenship involved.....strictly labor for the jobs required. But I suspect nobody is really after that....including newt.

okie52
1/30/2012, 11:23 PM
By the way Okie,

I hope you are proud of me for all the money I saved the taxpayers.

Maria and I had two kids, but instead of increasing the size of our family by having a third child - like Rick Santorum is advocating - we brought Maria's youngest sister up from Mexico to live with us. Alma was 16 at the time. I put her in school and she needed two years in order to graduate. So her first 10 years of schooling were in Mexico. In today's dollars, educating her here would be $7500/year for the taxpayer (avg cost/student in Calif). A third child born to us would have cost the taxpayer $90,000 (12 years of education) whereas Alma cost only $15,000 - a savings of $75,000. Add on top of that $3000/year child tax credit that Santorum wants to give, we would have saved another 16 years x $3000 = $48,000.

Total savings under a Santorum plan: 75,000 + 48,000 = $123,000.


More generally, that's a big advantage of a guest worker plan - taxpayers don't necessarily pay all the costs of educating them.

I envision a mobile 401k type plan workers take all over the free-market world so that any given host country does not become responsible for all of the health and retirement entitlements.

Congratulations sanjoaqin...and a Thank you for saving the US money.

pphilfran
1/31/2012, 07:05 AM
From our favorite source....the UN....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/30/world-food-demand-population-growth_n_1241435.html

LONDON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - The world is running out of time to make sure there is enough food, water and energy to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population and to avoid sending up to 3 billion people into poverty, a U.N. report warned on Monday.

As the world's population looks set to grow to nearly 9 billion by 2040 from 7 billion now, and the number of middle-class consumers increases by 3 billion over the next 20 years, the demand for resources will rise exponentially.

Even by 2030, the world will need at least 50 percent more food, 45 percent more energy and 30 percent more water, according to U.N. estimates, at a time when a changing environment is creating new limits to supply.

And if the world fails to tackle these problems, it risks condemning up to 3 billion people into poverty, the report said.

Efforts towards sustainable development are neither fast enough nor deep enough, as well as suffering from a lack of political will, the United Nations' high-level panel on global sustainability said.

"The current global development model is unsustainable. To achieve sustainability, a transformation of the global economy is required," the report said.

"Tinkering on the margins will not do the job. The current global economic crisis ... offers an opportunity for significant reforms."

Although the number of people living in absolute poverty has been reduced to 27 percent of world population from 46 percent in 1990 and the global economy has grown 75 percent since 1992, improved lifestyles and changing consumer habits have put natural resources under increasing strain.

There are 20 million more undernourished people now than in 2000; 5.2 million hectares of forest are lost per year - an area the size of Costa Rica; 85 percent of all fish stocks are over-exploited or depleted; and carbon dioxide emissions have risen 38 percent between 1990 and 2009, which heightens the risk of sea level rise and more extreme weather.

The panel, which made 56 recommendations for sustainable development to be included in economic policy as quickly as possible, said a "new political economy" was needed.

"Let's use the upcoming Rio+20 summit to kick off this global transition towards a sustainable growth model for the 21st century that the world so badly needs," EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said in response to the report, referring to a U.N. sustainable development summit this June in Brazil.


ACTION

Among the panel's recommendations, it urged governments to agree on a set of sustainable development goals which would complement the eight Millennium Development Goals to 2015 and create a framework for action after 2015.

They should work with international organisations to create an "evergreen revolution", which would at least double productivity while reducing resource use and avoiding further biodiversity losses, the report said.

Water and marine ecosystems should be managed more efficiently and there should be universal access to affordable sustainable energy by 2030.

To make the economy more sustainable, carbon and natural resource pricing should be established through taxation, regulation or emissions trading schemes by 2020 and fossil fuel subsidies should also be phased out by that time.

National fiscal and credit systems should be reformed to provide long-term incentives for sustainable practices as well as disincentives for unsustainable ones.

Sovereign wealth and public pension funds, as well as development banks and export credit agencies should apply sustainable development criteria to their investment decisions, and governments or stock market watchdogs should revise regulations to encourage their use.

Governments and scientists should also strengthen the relationship between policy and science by regularly examining the science behind environmental thresholds or "tipping points" and the United Nations should consider naming a chief scientific adviser or board to advise the organisation, the report said.

KantoSooner
1/31/2012, 10:34 AM
Quick note to SJ: most of the rest of the world has such a plan on retirement accounts. They simply require workers to participate in the local plan (in whatever country they work) and then when/if they 'go home', they get the benefits there that they'd be due under that country's plan.
The general sense is that it all comes out in the wash and it would be too troublesome to spend the time/money to try and do a bean counting exercise. Common sense! From government authorities! My God!
The last time I looked at it, the US and Switzerland were the only countries on earth who insisted on taxing their residents overseas and most of the countries I knew of had pension treaties in place. Again, the US was an outlier.
Much like our healthcare, we pay either more or at least a whole lot for sub-standard results and then act as though we somehow have the secret goodest deal around. Instead we're simply dupes.