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Thom Hartmann - Cash for Geezers aka Economics Fail

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liberty student Posted: Thu, Aug 27 2009 1:56 PM

The clueless progressive radio show host, Thom Hartmann is back at it.

Cash for Geezers? Lower the Retirement Age to 55 Now!

http://www.thomhartmann.com/2009/08/25/cash-for-geezers-lower-the-retirement-age-to-55-now/

Intro (prepare for your brain to explode)

One of the most powerful forms of stimulus we could apply to our economy right now would be to lower the current Social Security retirement age from the current 65-67 to 55, and increase the benefits back to where they were in inflation-adjusted 1960s dollars by raising them between 10 to 20 percent (so people could actually live, albeit modestly, on Social Security).

The right-wing reaction to this, of course, will be to say that with fewer people working and more people drawing benefits, it would bankrupt Social Security and destroy the economy. But history shows the exact reverse.

Instead, it would eliminate the problem of unemployment in the United States. All those Boomers retiring would make room in the labor market for all the recent high-school and college graduates who are now finding it so hard to find a job.

It gets better.  He cites policy in Uganda to support this view.

"When you're young you worry about people stealing your ideas, when you're old you worry that they won't." - David Friedman
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BobT replied on Thu, Aug 27 2009 4:21 PM

wait why stop at 55... if we make it 30 then the remaining workforce will have even higher wages, which will lead to even higher tax revenue to pay for everyone else, and there will never be any unemployment!

 

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haha..

 

well bob, i guess it is possible to have too much of a good thing   Wink

 

 

.... in this case its credulity for economically illiterate ideas!!!

Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid

Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring

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Bogart replied on Thu, Aug 27 2009 4:58 PM

I guess the definition of "right wing" is people that earn a living.  I find it funny to that someone would think this way.  They believe that the stastic of unemployment is what drives productivity and living standards and not the work that people are employed to do. 

 

According to this logic we should just make a 8 hour work week.  Then we would really reduce the unemployment rate.

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the "right-wing" is correct that would bankrupt the scheme. he can't honestly expect taxpayers to pay for 20 years of some else's retirement.  And he can't really believe that Americans between the age of 50-65 welcome the potential of retirement at such a young age, many people who are tenured and worked up the ladder for 30 years would much rather work and earn $45,000-75,000 then vegetate and collect a $3,200 check every month, 50 is not a very old age.

do we get free cheezeburger in socielism?

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Sage replied on Fri, Aug 28 2009 6:42 PM

It's pretty funny when non-economists go to great lengths to prove that they actually aren't economists.

AnalyticalAnarchism.net - The Positive Political Economy of Anarchism

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liberty student:
Cash for Geezers? Lower the Retirement Age to 55 Now!

I love the obligatory leftist "Now!" ending.  "Whatever half-baked, self-righteous busy-body scheme that pops into my head....Now!"

It's like they're still 8 years old in their parent's plush house, barking orders at their over-indulgent limousine-liberal parents.

"the obligation to justice is founded entirely on the interests of society, which require mutual abstinence from property" -David Hume
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Praetyre replied on Fri, Aug 28 2009 8:36 PM

Lilburne:

liberty student:
Cash for Geezers? Lower the Retirement Age to 55 Now!

I love the obligatory leftist "Now!" ending.  "Whatever half-baked, self-righteous busy-body scheme that pops into my head....Now!"

It's like they're still 8 years old in their parent's plush house, barking orders at their over-indulgent limousine-liberal parents.

I'll take that over the endless parade of "Save our failing socialist programs from their inevitable destruction via wasting more money on things the private sector can handle 10 times more efficienctly and where most of the money doesn't end up in the pockets of government bureaucrats and politically connected businessmen" campaigns.

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