There appears to be a severe, even cataclysmic downturn in the money available to government coffers looming on the horizon.

We here at SIGforum are likely Boomer heavy, with most of the remainder being Pre-Boomer an Gen-Xers. I'm guessing that we, along with the populace at large represent the greatest contributing segments of tax dollars based on our incomes & years of employment.

Considering the "social programs" and various ways the government can piss away money, how on earth do the next generations figure to fund this when we, the aforementioned time-out of the system? Is there really enough wealth in the tax base to continue this ride?

Am I missing something?

If it's as dire as it looks to me, when does it hit?

Discuss...

I believe this has already been discussed in Govt. circles:

- take away the "tax breaks" boomers get on their retirement income (IRAs, etc.),
- tax capital gains at the same rate as regular income,
- delay Social Security and Medicare eligibility until age 70 or 75,
- other "innovative" revenue enhancement measures.

IOW raise taxes to cover the "shortfall," so as to keep spending at rates that would embarrass a drunken sailor.

It is no mystery to me why they don't want their subjects to have guns.

Pretty similar to this thread just a few down. https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...0601935/m/4990058584

This is going to be a big problem. The U.S. birthrate still hovers are 2 per female, but that is skewed by the fact that well educated parents are often having one or no kids and poor people are having more. Hispanic and Islamic immigrants have the most kids. Millenials are more abundant than X-ers (I am an X-er) so eventually they will get their acts together, which should help things. The hippies of the 60's continued to party in the 70's then became the Yuppies of the early 80's once they had kids.

This is already a big problem in Europe, where the the native birth rate is close to 1. So they will have to immigrate more and more middle easterners to take the jobs and pay the taxes to support the aging population.

It's also the problem that will cause China to collapse. One child policy for 40 years 1978-2018 - and the single child parents are hitting mandatory retirement age now. As they continue to retire die off over the next 50-60 years. the population of China will drop by 1/2. There is no way to stop it. Now they let people have two or more kids, but 2 kids for every family will only stabilize the population at the 1/2 mark. To avoid falling to 1/2 families will have to have 3 or more. And guess what? The culture, economics, housing, school costs, and everything else has normalized to having only 1 child. People can't afford more than 1, or they cannot afford more than 1 and have the lifestyle they want. Only other option is to immigrate massive numbers of people from SE Asia, or possibly to industrialize farming such that they can move some of the 1 billion people in the countryside into the cities to take the industrial jobs.

Just saw the other day that Illinois spends 30% of all education funds on retired teacher pensions. The incestuous relationship between teacher unions and democrat machine politicians is making this problem even worse.

pretty sure the significant majority of Baby Boomers have exited the workforce. and the one's who have NOT -- the majority of those are likely well past their maximum earning years as they have cut back hours / intensity of schedule, etc

so generally they would currently be a net 'drain' on government resources. taking now instead of paying in (SS / Medicare / disability, etc).

'Full Retirement Age' has increased over time also ... (I'm Gen X)

obviously it deals with demographic and economics so its complicated. one could also make the case immigration might 'help' in that it increases the taxpayer base (under the table income notwithstanding -- even illegal immigrants pay sales tax, hotel tax, gas tax, etc etc). Countries with declining population bases do poorly in the long-run.

My concern is the spending by both D and R reps has gotten way out of control. Our national debt to GDP ratio is very problematic IMO and must be addressed asap.

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quote:

Originally posted by vinnybass:
Considering the "social programs" and various ways the government can piss away money, how on earth do the next generations figure to fund this when we, the aforementioned time-out of the system? Is there really enough wealth in the tax base to continue this ride?

1. Dramatically increase the number of IRS agents.
2. Dramatically increase audits on the middle class.
3. Push monitoring down to the lowest level - accounts with aggregate total of $600 or more.
4. Increase taxes.
5. Cut out exemptions.
6. Implement a 'wealth' tax.

Several of these are well on their way to being implemented.

quote:

Originally posted by frayedends:
Pretty similar to this thread just a few down. https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...0601935/m/4990058584

I posted this thread because of that one, but so as not to derail it.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig209:
pretty sure the significant majority of Baby Boomers have exited the workforce. and the one's who have NOT -- the majority of those are likely well past their maximum earning years as they have cut back hours / intensity of schedule, etc

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This is one of the reasons I was pondering this. I'm likely going to retire in the next year or two. I am, and have been making the most money (and paying the most taxes) of my life for about the last twenty years. My job is great, but I just want to live the rest of my life on my terms.

There's a solution to both the problem mentioned in the other thread and this one: Stop giving people money (money you don't have, btw) to sit on their asses.

They will either find employment, and start paying taxes, or they'll starve to death, die of exposure, etc.

Several years ago I caught a radio interview with a demographics researcher. He listed the birth rates for various countries and ethnicities, and the U.S. was among the majority of nations following the trend in the civilized world of declining birth rates.

I don't recall the exact number, but the U.S. birth rate average was @ 1.3-1.4 children born per family/ couple, at that time (which just barely sustains our population number). Birth rates were falling across all demographics and ethnicities, with groups in the Middle East and Hispanics having the highest birth rates, and the Japanese having the lowest birth rate. At that trend line it was forecasted that Japan would be a deserted island in 200 tears.

World population was still increasing, but the rate of increase was decreasing and, at that time of the interview, he was forecasting that the World Population would peak @ 2040-2050 at about 9-10 billion people, and then decrease from there.

There are various factors that influence birth rates (affluence/ poverty, child mortality rates, agg. vs. industrial, religious, etc..), and these trends vary, and I haven't researched more recent numbers, so it wouldn't surprise me go learn if the trends have changed.

During the interview, a couple Interesting points were made, the first being that with declining birth rates and lower national populations, the productivity levels would drop and there would be fewer goods/ necessities produced and it would take longer to produce them.

The second noteworthy point was that declining birth rates/ population numbers means fewer tax payers .. which means the burden of debt is spread across fewer people and each individual is saddled with a higher share of the tax burden.

This isn't just a U.S. problem, this a global problem, increasingly for future generations.

So, yeah, the younger generations in the U.S. are short-sighted and probably not aware of the misery they are voting in, not just for themselves, but their kids/ grandkids... as few as they will be, unless things change.

My wife and I have three children so we have done our part. The real problem is Socialism. People will always want more if they are told someone else will pay for it. Socialism fails every time it’s tried.

Well, for one thing we Xers never expected to be able to retire. No kidding.

For another, we'll have to start taxing millennials - and if that happens to be on the basis of wealth inherited from boomers because millennials aren't working or making as much as their parents did, then we can either tax inherited wealth even more than we do now (and we tax it pretty heavily) or we can simply tax millennials and expect them to figure out how to raise the money.

^^^
That is not the plan. The plan is to destroy the middle class, destroy property ownership, make everyone dependent on the .gov. Once everyone is under the same thumb, it’ll be 1984 time. Orwell was right, just a bit late in his prediction.

What makes you think that taxing inherited wealth for the middle class and blindly taxing anyone the government deems 'capable of working' won't do exactly that? Remember, these are the twits who think it makes sense to tax unrealized capital gains regardless of what the assets sell for when it makes sense to sell them.

I'm willing to believe they're evil. I'm also willing to believe that they're just not willing to think things through.

At some point they will most likely get rid of the Social Security Tax Cap...currently at $142,800.

Interesting and informative discussion about the birth rates.
If I weren’t so old that it can’t make any difference to me, I’d be in favor of slowing the population growth if the undesirable side effects could be controlled—except for one thing:
Population growth isn’t slowing among certain groups, and sooner or later that will have profound effects that a lot of the rest of the people won’t be happy about.

sigfreund, population growth is dropping among all demographic groups, with the exception of sub-Saharan Africa, which has an offsetting high mortality rate. (This is all from memory, so don't quote it). Take Mexico, for example. In the 1920s, the birth rate was nearly seven births per female. Now, however, it is below three. Significant declines are the norm throughout all of the world. Notice how all of the illegal immigration on the southern border is overwhelmingly not Mexican, but others who have traveled through Mexico. The Mexican population does not have the surplus like it did in the past.

Some of you are talking about the need for taxes. How are we going to make up for the loss of revenue, some have opined. That is not the issue. Money is nothing more than a token, or claim, upon a good or service. Let us suppose, for argument, that the Social Security fund had all the money it needs. What happens when a well-funded group who is not producing (the retired) chases after a much smaller supply of goods or services (the product of those working)? Inflation. Shortages. We have seen exactly what happens in this situation, in the housing market of the last two years. Young people are increasingly shut out of the market because they cannot compete with the older and better funded.

How long do you think the young will continue to be productive when they cannot receive the benefit of the goods and services they produce? Is it possible for a society to prosper when two-thirds are living on the productivity of the other third? There will come a point where the young will simply refuse to work. We are currently getting a small taste of it now.

I hope my point is understandable. It is not about having enough money to support the retired. It is about having enough goods and services to support the retired AND the working. When those get out of balance, and the younger cannot buy in, they may quit. The only way around this is a massive increase in productivity.

At least in all this we have an indicator. To know our fate, we only need watch what happens to Japan over the next century.

The .gov collected 4+ trillion in tax revenues this year. God forbid they actually cut spending and not call a spending increase that is less than last years increase a “cut”. Cutting taxes increases revenue. Crazy I know.

I’m 47. Kids are 11 & 13. At my current pay rate with normal increases I’d like to work 15-20 more years. I’m finally at a point in life with only a mortgage, some money in the bank and maxing out my 401k and IRA contributions annually . So I need to really pump accounts up. I don’t foresee any inheritance coming that will change my life so it’s all on me to maximise my income into income producing investments.

Regarding the demographic problem in China. What viable solution is there for a few hundred million young men with little prospect of wives and family ? A good war may seem like a reasonable outlet for them unfortunately.

Omega Covid of course. They will make it so it kills off everyone over 65. Problem with SS solved!

Force all oldsters to be turned into Soylent Green.