The only person I’ve ever heard make a stab at this was a guy who runs the largest auto/truck dealership network in the US (can’t recall the name, it’s in one of my past posts). Anyway, he estimated every auto/truck manufacturing job created nine jobs somewhere else.

Who knows.

The $288 billion isn’t just salaries and benefits. Geesh.

The post I did about a commentator at Angry Bear is the best explanation I’ve yet read about how to ‘smooth’ out the various projections to come up with a more viable estimate of what it will take to fund SS adequately–without diminishing it’s value to recipients. Bottom line, pennies per week in additional contribution supporting SS.

Much the same problem with Medicare projections. IMO the only way we’ll bring some sanity to our health care system is to fashion an American version of the European model–where the doctor/patient relationship is sacrosanct, and ‘insurance’ companies compete mainly on how quickly they process claims.

That said, a currency’s underlying value is dependent upon the issuer having the ability to produce productive goods. Now that we’ve shipped a great deal of our productive capital offshore, that’s the problem we’ll face. Not whether as an issuer of fiat currency we can’t fund SS claims.

The private economy just finished wiping out 8 million jobs. If you think we’re going to recover any time soon by private agents hiring, you’re naive.

At 18,000 jobs per billion dollars in infrastructure project (this number is accurate because there’s no mystery how much labor is created by such projects), Obama should have announced a $300 billion plan. That’s 5.4 million well paying jobs. Falling smack dab into private corporation balance sheets.

Next he should list the projects and the expected jobs. And then buy ads in every state’s major newspapers listing the project and the resulting jobs to be created.

He started too small. But if the Repubs reject it, he sould double the number and so on. At some point Republicans would be put in the position of rejecting the replacement of all the private jobs destroyed.

I love math. So 36% of 800 bln = 288 bln
288 bln divided by 500,000 = 576,600$ per job.

What a great deal! WHere is the signup sheet for this work anway? I assume that is the salary for one year? Are they hiring everyone to be a ceo?

I hate social security in its current form. It is a horrible tax on younger people (of which i am one) for a meager benefit when and if you get older. something like 6% of someone’s wages go to funding this social security trust fund, some of which goes to paying someone else’s current benefit. On top of that, your employer also pays 6% (which could be yours!) And what do you get? A big maybe. Maybe you’ll get something if you live long enough to hit 62. If you don’t… tough luck. I die tomorrow at age 34, my family gets nada. I’ve been paying into this for over 18 years, for perhaps nothing. But maybe i make it to 62….. what interest have i earned on my money? oh, close to zero. Great deal! But even more revolting to me is this:

I don’t want the government to give me a dime of anything. Then i become beholden to it. Think of all the people who rely on this program as their primary income in retirement. What is their only issue when going to the polls if someone is going to change their primary income? We have turned a large percentage of an entire voting block (and those older folks do like to vote) into a group who is dependent on the government. Granted, they paid into the system too, but frankly, it was never their money. There is no jane doe account where its held. Just right into the government coffers for a non guaranteed future benefit. A benefit at the whims of our elected officials, who endless remind us who has the power to do away with it, or change it to our detriment. Our founding fathers would be ashamed.
As with most things, it was created with noble intentions which i agree with. A widows and orphans fund. A fund to provide for those who cannot. I even have disabled extended family members who have been collecting for their entire lives! Not much, but enough to get by. Every society should take care of their neediest citizens, but everyone? Certainly not.
And think about ssn as it stands now….. it has a surplus. A relatively large (around 2 trillion i think) amount of treasury bonds. So the government has our money sitting in a debt….. of our own government! What does this mean? When the bill comes due then the current taxpayers will have to pay it. If this trust fund was held in foreign securities or stocks we could just sell them. Instead, our government has used this surplus to fund their expenditures and mask our defecit by funding it with our own money. Money specifically assigned to a certain program. Its a big joke. There is NO NEED for a trust fund. I have no faith that our elected leaders would save anything anyway, and giving them more money today is throwing it away. Social security should run year to year as a budget item, if at all. Governments local and federal should not run surpluses for any extended period of time anyway. It just means your taxing too much. Small surpluses for a short time yes, but only to pay back whatever your borrowed when you were at a deficit. Because in the end, its all about who controls the money, or power. The more power we give to these fools, the more embolded they become to expand it. And so they have.
How much better would our economy be if we were living hand to mouth with ssn? How much better would it have been? The economy has taken a mighty tumble, but ssn still runs a surplus. How much better would our economy be if the payroll tax was say, 5%? or 3%? A lot better is the answer.
So in a sense beez i agree that social security is nothing to worry about, when it comes to the future. However, it is an abnorimally large drain on resources. What is the multiplier effect for all this money? Not good. How is this money going to invest and grow this economy. It isn’t. It is just another program that effectively shackles us to our government. A big bad ponzi investment scheme, with all the great payoffs already going to the first generation. And our government now, and more importantly certain blog writers and elected officals, endless scare us with taking away our benefits! OUR BENEFITS! Think the founding fathers wanted this? Doubtful. So when i turn 62, or 65 or whatever i’ll go beg my congressmen to give me back my own money. Sad.

I agree the multiplier right now on much of anything has decreased as the economy has slowed. However the apoplectic current reaction by you and your commie cohorts is more frightening. Half the reason things have slowed so dramatically is that there is an exceptional amount of uncertainty about future regulation (tax policy, health care, fin reg), and clearly there is a lack of confidence in washington. A better solution at this point would be to remove the uncertainty and unfortunately for you this amounts to voting out all the bums in washington.
Imagine for a minute you owned a bank. Has your mgt team even finished reading the 2000 page bill yet? Who the hell passes any legislation that long anyway? How many pieces in that bill still have to be figured out and ruled upon by regulatory authorities before you have a clear idea of what the playing field is going to look like?
Imagine you run a company that sells implantable something or others. Who is your main customer in the near future? The gov’t. HOw’s that going to work when talking about reimbursement rates from the new gov’t insurance now that it is becoming ever larger?

And if you get the time…. go read lords of finance. Exceptionally boring but gives you an idea of the types who run the central banks world wide. Not pretty.