Comments for Matt Miller is Worried That Bill Gates' Kids Will Go Hungry at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 11 out of 11 comments http://www.cepr.net Wed, 22 May 2013 03:32:24 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/matt-miller-is-worried-that-bill-gates-kids-will-go-hungry#comment-16877 Never underestimate the willingness of the elite's pundits to construct arguments that allow the elite to thieve from the rest of us. I do wonder, though, how they claim that pension funds will make only 3-6%, while 401k estimates require an assumption that growth will be in the neighborhood of 10% for most workers to have a decent retirement. - PeonInChief Thu, 14 Jun 2012 11:25:17 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/matt-miller-is-worried-that-bill-gates-kids-will-go-hungry#comment-16874 "It's true that we leave our debts to future generations.....[b]But we also leave them our assets."[/b] - diesel Thu, 14 Jun 2012 10:13:29 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/matt-miller-is-worried-that-bill-gates-kids-will-go-hungry#comment-16873 So we cut taxes for the rich, remove pesky regulations and other financial controls for banks which leads to a huge real estate bubble that then collapses and takes the economy down with it. Unemployment and resulting costs for "automatic stabilizers" are up, tax receipts are down and the deficit is large as a result. But the problem is not banks, bankers, income inequality or the lack of strong financial regulation. No. The problem is we've got too many firefighters, police, school teachers, street lighting and paved roads. And our old people are bleeding us dry by taking $1100 per month out of a pension system they paid into. It's true that we leave our debts to future generations - we always have and always will. But we also leave them our assets. If we run up our debts improving those assets it won't be a problem. But if we run up those debts by refusing to tax ourselves at appropriate levels during times of war and/or relative prosperity while at the same time refusing to maintain, repair or upgrade our roads, bridges, freight and cargo systems, power grid and telecommunications infrastructure while refusing to do anything about healthcare costs rising to 20% of GDP or rising education costs which result in a lot of wasted potential (50% of young people avoid college due to the cost), well, then they're screwed. - BH in MA Thu, 14 Jun 2012 09:37:28 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/matt-miller-is-worried-that-bill-gates-kids-will-go-hungry#comment-16872 Matt Miller's argument boils down to this: working class retirees have to give up most of their pensions, health care, Social Security. As a centrist Democrat, Miller is simply voicing the views of his party's leadership. - ellis Thu, 14 Jun 2012 05:12:49 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/matt-miller-is-worried-that-bill-gates-kids-will-go-hungry#comment-16871 "the young" can pay for their own social security at today's retirement age and income replacement rate (both represent a huge increase in "benefits") by raising their own payroll tax an average of one half of one tenth of one percent per year... or about forty cents per week per year while their wages are going up eight dollars per week per year. medicare is a bit trickier... the costs need to come down, but even if they don't, people can pay for their own future Medicare costs by raising the medicare tax an amount that is less than their expected increase in wages. so it becomes a choice between buying the medical care you hope will make you live longer and healthier or buying more "stuff." dean says (elswhere) that people cannot afford the projected medical care costs. but even the people who make the projections say it's not going to happen that way... the costs will be controlled. how is mostly a political game. meanwhile the idea that we can pay for our own medical needs should not be left off the table. of course a time may come when we can't... it just costs too much to live forever... but that is a different problem. - coberly Thu, 14 Jun 2012 04:38:07 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/matt-miller-is-worried-that-bill-gates-kids-will-go-hungry#comment-16870 actually its easier than that. today's young will be tomorrows elderly. they are paying for their own future costs. pay as you go is the same (in all important respects) as paying in advance. only better. it finesses the inflation problem, including medical inflation. and your money is not going to disappear one bad day on Wall Street. and in terms of "cost to society" there is no difference between pay as you go "tax" and collecting dividends. the money represents production. and the money you collect from your stocks is "lost" to future production in exactly the same way that money paid to retired people through SS taxes is "not invested." oddly enough, this is exactly what societies have done for at least fifty thousand years under the idea of "honor your father and your mother." difference is, of course, they knew what they were doing. we like to fool ourselves with "ownership of assets." - coberly Thu, 14 Jun 2012 04:28:12 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/matt-miller-is-worried-that-bill-gates-kids-will-go-hungry#comment-16869 Our ruling elites and their mouthpieces always say that entitlements are "Stealing from our Children". In their view, "Children" means "Legacies of the Wealthy Elites". For our ruling elites, the legacies of the wealthy are the only children who matter. The children of the poor and Middle Class are not part of the conversation. Miller is simply stating the belief of our elites that the wealthy have no obligation to support the society that helps create and maintain their wealth. - jonny bakho Thu, 14 Jun 2012 04:20:32 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/matt-miller-is-worried-that-bill-gates-kids-will-go-hungry#comment-16867 For my PE calculations I take the value of all corporate equity (from the Fed's Flow of Funds) and divide it by trend after-tax corporate profits. My definition of trend is the average profit share of income over the last decade. I think is by far the cleanest and most comprehensive measure. Note that this may well differ from the S&P 500. This is appropriate for pensions because they invest in private equity, which are of course not going to be included in the S&P. - Dean Thu, 14 Jun 2012 04:05:04 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/matt-miller-is-worried-that-bill-gates-kids-will-go-hungry#comment-16866 P/E ratios have come down a lot from their ridiculous values before the 2000 crash, but still are not as promising as Dean makes out. Corporate earnings are currently anomalously high considering the state of the economy - how long can this continue? At some point corporations will run out of workers to fire. The current historical average P/E level, however it is calculated, has been influenced by the very high values of the 90's bubble - the average before that is distinctly lower. Bond prices have been on a long upward trend since 1981, but this is obviously at an end now. The investment situation is very different now from what it was around 1981, when stock P/E and bond prices were both very low - no one should expect to get similar returns to those 1981-2000 or even 1981-present. That said, the 3-6% estimates are almost certainly too low, at least for the long term. In fact, most economic projections are probably too pessimistic at the moment. There is obviously a mass-psychological effect that causes the outlook to be too optimistic when things are going well, and too pessimistic when they are going poorly. If this were not true the business cycle might not exist. Somehow economists as well as those in the real economy don't seem to be able to take account of this when making projections. - skeptonomist Thu, 14 Jun 2012 03:55:42 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/matt-miller-is-worried-that-bill-gates-kids-will-go-hungry#comment-16863 The CBO projected that the surpluses Clinton left for Bush were enough to pay off the entire US debt by the time that the Social Security/Medicare trust funds would have to be amortized for beneficiary payments, all without having to raise taxes to pay for the amortization of those trust funds. These “surpluses” were made up entirely of excess payroll taxes building up the trust funds. Bush took those excess payroll tax receipts and gave them “back” as income tax reductions, heavily weighted to the wealthy–who didn’t create those surpluses in the first place. By doing this, Bush guaranteed that taxes would have to be raised in order to amortize the trust funds. The failure to do so simply permits the Republicons to steal the money contributed by workers for their retirement. Everything Matt Miller is arguing is about stealing senior's money. - bmz Thu, 14 Jun 2012 03:44:28 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/matt-miller-is-worried-that-bill-gates-kids-will-go-hungry#comment-16858 The Shiller price-earnings ratio (I think its 22), which uses a moving average of earnings, is not low by historical standards. The ratio you cite, 15, is often criticized by analysts. There has recently been a lot of discussion of this difference, especially after a Goldman Sachs report touting stocks. I'd be interested in your opinion of this debate. - tom michl Thu, 14 Jun 2012 02:50:27 +0100