Predictions: recession, stagflation, depression?

[Wyokie]

Sorry, I'm rambling today, but like, for shit's sake, how much does the average person draw a month from social security? $1,600? How much is the average SS deduction on a person's wages, employer and employee? like $500-$600. Doesn't take a genius to see this is not sustainable, especially with an ageing population and a workforce participation rate of like 60% and declining.

LOL Well, be grateful you aint disabled. Each state is different on how much SSI (Supplemental Security Income) can be sent. I get all told around $750 a month! So the stimulus payments that Trump and El Moron (Biden) "gave" out to keep things going due to the pandemic helped me but....it totally messed up and caused runaway inflation.

 

[ragtimejoe1]

I've listened to Peter Schiff talk about economics quite a bit and he's always said that we're going to pay the piper and it looks like it's finally here. You can't print money the way we have and not have consequences. The Fed doesn't want to cure inflation this time because inflation is the only way we can service the debt we have. The problem is that wages won't increase fast enough and everyone will be much much poorer. The government needs to get it's spending under control.

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy...”
― Alexander Fraser Tytler

This is it. People need to quit relying on the government and the government needs to reprioritize to the basic fundamentals it was intended for. I hope we have the intestinal fortitude to do what needs to be done.

What about the elderly and the physically disabled like myself? I get a monthly check (direct deposit) from the Feds to allow me to be independent enough...O.K. barely enough...financially.

Social Security, Medicare medicaid and Defense are the biggest costs at the moment.

Honestly, I'm not sure what's going to happen but it seems we're on the cusp of something major. We simply can't sustain this level of spending. It might be too late to fix

 

[Wyokie]

I've listened to Peter Schiff talk about economics quite a bit and he's always said that we're going to pay the piper and it looks like it's finally here. You can't print money the way we have and not have consequences. The Fed doesn't want to cure inflation this time because inflation is the only way we can service the debt we have. The problem is that wages won't increase fast enough and everyone will be much much poorer. The government needs to get it's spending under control.

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy...”
― Alexander Fraser Tytler

This is it. People need to quit relying on the government and the government needs to reprioritize to the basic fundamentals it was intended for. I hope we have the intestinal fortitude to do what needs to be done.

What about the elderly and the physically disabled like myself? I get a monthly check (direct deposit) from the Feds to allow me to be independent enough...O.K. barely enough...financially.

Social Security, Medicare medicaid and Defense are the biggest costs at the moment.

Honestly, I'm not sure what's going to happen but it seems we're on the cusp of something major. We simply can't sustain this level of spending. It might be too late to fix

There's so much fraud in both Medicare and in Medicaid, it aint even funny!!!!! A large part of the problem with both....simple bureaucracy i.e. paperwork.

 

[ZapPoke]

Yeah, about that fraud. Surely they could audit it better. Back in the 90’s I was the chief cost accountant for a defense contractor. About half of our contracts were fixed price and the other half were cost plus. Naturally the Defense Contract Audit Administration assumed we would try to shift costs from the fixed price contracts to the cost plus contracts. They were so sure they assigned a full time auditor and put him in the office right across the hall from me. Convincing him we were not cheating was practically a full time job for me. If the government can go to that extreme for a couple hundred million surely they can audit the hundreds of billions they spend elsewhere.

 

[laxwyo]

Something like 13 of the 17 wealthiest counties surround DC and they produce nothing. We might be one of the most corrupt counties in the world. One thing I didn’t like about trump was the increase in the military budget. It needs to be cut and cut hard.

 

[ragtimejoe1]

Something like 13 of the 17 wealthiest counties surround DC and they produce nothing. We might be one of the most corrupt counties in the world. One thing I didn’t like about trump was the increase in the military budget. It needs to be cut and cut hard.

That's no shit. Couple that with our "foreign interests" which is really money laundering back to the politicians.