get it to x wrote: ↑Wed Dec 08, 2021 10:14 am
MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 08, 2021 9:46 am
Farfromgeneva wrote: ↑Wed Dec 08, 2021 7:29 am
They’re bad now because we’re paying for underfunded long term obligations made ages ago. However we got here (not enough taxes, too much spending on opex/waste) the deficits are fueled by Medicare/Medicaid and SSI. Arguing about marginal deficit spending is ridiculous when we have this hanging over our head and it’s only going to get worse as a greater proportion of the population is retirement age vs working age and overall population potentially shrinking due to HH replacement rate deficiency + our tightening of immigration (even the legal kind has been getting squeezed for 20yrs before some maniac starts talking about “border control”).
I find it pointless to talk about it on the margin or incrementally with this overhang and therefor default to it being a problem. In abstraction and starting at a zero point in the timeline then yes deficit spending is fine. Even in earlier years of say the first century. But now with where we are at to ignore that existing gap and call deficit spending “investment” when it’s at best deferred maintenance is objectionable on many levels to me. If we need a reset then let’s call it that and jam who we need to jam to do so. It’s tough medicine but that’s the more honesty and transparent way to fix the problems we’ve created IMO.
Just to be clear, even deferred maintenance should get done, right?
Not deferred even more?
But if there's a new, better, more efficient replacement, then scrap the old?
Yes, we should greatly expand legal immigration.
We don't need more cheap labor. We are having to import talent because we're doing a crappy job of producing it here. If we don't reform education to just educate (and not try to parent) we are screwed. The more time these children spend learning head trash instead of algebra the quicker we will decline as a country.
Ohhh, I'm certainly in favor of investing in the human capital born here in the US. I'd spend far more on education, in all aspects.
I'd also invest heavily in all the other social determinants that impede human capital development, from lead pipe removal to urban and rural digital access, health access, etc...and much more...long list.
I don't buy the "head trash" comment at all, at least as I suspect you mean it, but I'm sure I'd find some teaching methods and curricula I'd change significantly. Primarily to focus far more on personalized education rather than bulk batch training.
But that's a different conversation, specific to education, far more involved than this discussion.
But geneva is right that we also don't have enough younger workers and household replacement to address an otherwise aging population's retirement.
Who says that immigrants are "cheap labor"? Sure, some will be on the first rungs of the economic scale, but immigrants and their progeny also drive a disproportionate share of technology innovation as well as new business formation.
I'm not saying we need more workers to exploit with low wages (we should have a living wage as minimum wage)...but we sure as heck need more workers and that's only going to be exacerbated with the retirement of the baby boom and our longer life expectancy. We aren't going to see more children born earlier in younger families as long as we're unwilling to provide expansive family leave, so that means we should expect a continued trend of fewer children and born later.
That's the challenge...as well as developing every bit of human capital capacity as we can in families already here.