The Cost of Entitlements

5 responses to “The Cost of Entitlements”

1. Alan Scott | January 19, 2013 at 8:45 am | Reply

   There you go again . Putting out truth and facts to attempt to persuade people who only care about ideology and emotion . I have said the same things more or less to educated people on the left and they are simply not interested .

   • Pino | January 19, 2013 at 11:14 am | Reply

     Putting out truth and facts to attempt to persuade people who only care about ideology and emotion .

     With that said, I’m sure the defense budget has room for cuts in it. On the above chart it represents near 1/6th of the total spend being described. I am willing to treat defense just like any other government agency.

2. Scott Erb | January 19, 2013 at 6:14 pm | Reply

   The issue of entitlements is also to assure their structural stability as demographics change. But one thing that I’m worried about is how in the new economy higher levels of productivity yield increased profits but not increased wages/salaries. That’s because technology decreases the number of hours needed to produce more, so the demand for labor decreases relative to the supply. Yet those owning the company (stock holders) and executives get paid more. This not only shrinks the middle class, but makes entitlements harder to maintain because workers overall are not earning enough to keep the system viable. The market on its own doesn’t seem to be able to fix this – and it risks both a bifurcated society (very rich vs. the rest) and a structural entitlement crisis.

   • Pino | January 19, 2013 at 7:59 pm | Reply

     one thing that I’m worried about is how in the new economy higher levels of productivity yield increased profits but not increased wages/salaries.

     Its because you are measuring only one aspect of compensation; money. You aren’t measuring other things:

     1. On call
     2. Travel
     3. Hours worked
     4. Danger
     5. Training
     6. Vacation
     7. Sick days
     8. Amenities
     9. Health Benefits

3. Alan Scott | January 20, 2013 at 9:53 am | Reply

   The new economy is not new . What is happening has happened before and will again . From 1800 on you have had nothing but labor saving technology reducing the need for labor . Somehow a new need for labor always appears somewhere else . Having been in more than one industry that was suddenly made obsolete by progress I do not minimize the social dislocation that always follows .

   I only know that scapegoating Capital for the suffering of labor is counter productive . The mismanagement of the economy by the present Administration is the current example that picking winners and losers and punishing those who are successful, of that truth .