Re: Reposted, re the larger economic issues



On Mon, 21 May 2007, phil scott wrote:

On May 21, 3:36 pm, Straydog <a...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, 21 May 2007, phil scott wrote:
On May 21, 12:02 pm, Straydog <a...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, 21 May 2007, phil scott wrote:
On May 21, 10:11 am, T. Keating <tkuse...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 21 May 2007 09:27:51 -0700, phil scott <p...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



have on the total work force in the USA, roughly 168 million

One google reference said that the US population is about 300 million. You
are saying 70 mil--or nearly 25% is going to retire (hit age 62?) in the
next 5-8 years? Seems pretty high to me.

The *work force is 168 million... the general population including the
kiddies and old folks of course is bigger, a little over 300 million
today.

Of the work force the most *experienced are retiring over the next 4
to 6 years approx...

so lets say that a good percentage of the work force is younger and
many of those unskilled, but certainly not all of them... but
generally the younger the less skill and experience, and with age came
experience and a broader skill set... it is the latter that are
retiring. My statement is 'half of the most skilled work force'..
approx. Certainly not all are rocket scientists...but most in that
situation are beyond hamburger flipping but doing more substantial
work or management.... 50 to 70 million of those are retiring over the
next 4 to 6 years approx.

Farther above you used the figure "70 million" and in this last sentence
it looks like you expanded downward by about 30%?

its 50 million between now and three years from now,

So, if we have 168 mil work force, you're saying 30 % (or about one in three) are going to retire over the next three years?

with another 30
million or so in an additional 4 or 5 years.

That's 80 mil, or close to half? 50% in the next 5 years?

the figures are from
the national press and have been largely consistent for a while, my
grammar is a little spottier.

Well, I'm not deliberately trying to attack you on this, but, unless you can show me that half of the working people are between about age 61 and 56, I'm going to tend to doubt your analysis.


....thats one hell

of a huge impact, considering the dirth of skilled folk to fill those
positions...a situation lamented extensively by various govt agencies
as they struggle to fill the empty spots from those retiring
already...and commenting that the situation will hit the wall over the
next 4 years.

What is going to happen is that there will be a degredation in the quality
of services, NOT that society is going to fall appart. We're already
"benefitting" from services from India.

correct, there is already degradation. offset by throw away type
appliances and cars so service isnt as much of an issue etc...and non-
education... we dont see an immediate effect from that.


Nothing is going to happen to products we buy because most of them come
from China.

correct... many will get better. My last two computers, except for
this laptop, were GQC (great quality computers) from china, 189
dollars with software, 1ghz...mother board chip about 1/8 the size of
an intel and no fan needed to cool, the hard drives were good to the
end ( 9 years of running a lot).

cars will get a lot better, china is far in advance of the US in
alternative energy cars.



Millions of exceptions of course.... maybe a million will work into
their late 80's...and a few hundred thousand will stay productive into
their 90's....

the majority 98% or so will retire by age 65.... a few old ladies as
we have seen are engaging in gun fights over 100 years old....God
blesses those.

meantime our govt already with record deficits going exponential, and
20% of our gross tax revenue used to pay interest on the national
debt, is going to see approx 50% reduction in income tax, as social
security outlay doubles.

I've seen the projections and they have three assumptions: average, worst,
and best. No problems till 2030+/-.

in that mix is a lot of govt disinformation designed to keep the
sheeple from revolting ahead of schedule...

On the contrary, I went on SS a year ago and they had a small brochure to hand out and in very plain language, it said that SS may not be around in the future and that administrators and legislators were aware of this. Sure didn't sound like disinformation to me.

and to 'talk' up the
economy....

You can go out and find any kind of story you want. Conservatives & big business people are always talking up the economy and complaining that taxes on the rich are still too high despite going down over many decades.

the tactic is used a lot... 'bad' news leaked deliberately
with much hysteria... then it comes out that its a real disaster, due
to hit us in 100 years... everyone breaths a sigh of releif... later
the time frame is upped to 50 years..then 25... then 5 or 10... a slow
habituation process.

BFD. 35 years ago there was all this talk that we were going to run out of oil in 35 years. I have seen civics books that talk about national, corporate, and govt debt, all going up. Never down. Never get paid off.

What you need to do is look at some economic history books; practically every country in the world has debt. If anything, there is going to be even more debt in the future. Govt, personal, and corporate.



thats immediately the case... that train is already off of the
tracks... and part of it has hit the canyon wall ... the rest will
bottom out over the next 4 -6 years unless we can figure out a way to
cause the SS recipients (incl myself) from drawing SS and medicare and
expand our national high end worker base enough to restore income tax
revenues.

Should I save this speculation and we meet again in 4-6 years and talk
about it?

yes you should...and I sure as hell hope Im wrong....but i dont see it
in the cards.

Fine. I see all kinds of speculations out there. I've been reading a few econ books. Most of the smart guys were proven wrong as time went by. Question is: what kinds of projections are valid? Another question: What kinds of economic shocks throw monkey wrenches into the gears?

Over the centuries though doomsayers are generally wrong...
especially in the mid phase in a national life cycle... at the end
cycle the doomsayers may be half or totally right... in Russia many
suffered recently, probably half did OK, and 10% did well.

Underlings almost always suffer. And, they are in the majority. Old story.

it will not be even that bad for the USA imho...just a bit nassty for
the old folk dependent on minimal fixed incomes...for yourself with a
wife, and both with dual retirements and a paid off home... you should
do more than fine.

We have a modest lifestyle and our resources cover our costs. Our only new purchase items are our cars and we don't get new cars until the old ones wear out. Practically everything else we buy is used except for food. We know people who are better off, and some that are worse off. I am thankful.

Currently however we are fortunate that US corporations due to
downsizing and outsourcing have run thier net profits up by 400% or so
in many cases, and the tax on that has funded a good part of govt.....
not sufficiently though to prevent us from going into even *deeper
debt.

Well, we could send letters to Bush and suggest that he execute an
executive order to privatize the USA and then let all the top executives
loot the whole damned country. Especially since you can find in all the
criminology books reference to more crookery among the executives than the
general public AND more tax evasion among the rich.


We are being hosed to the max now...most of it not known, insider
trading mostly to the tune of trillions in fraud, and the derivitives
mess to near limitlessness.

I am (also) bothered by the widespread manipulation, plunder, exploitation, tax evasion, fraud, dishonesty, and general shenanigans carried out by people mostly in the upper 1% layer of our socio-economic spectrum. I just call them (including CEOs) a bunch of crooks.


is currently hitting the wall also.

there is a limit to how much one can viably value a pile of lumber,
nails and paint, regardless its location... in Calif over 400,000 are
on the auction block..with urgent legislation on the table to forstall
forclosures while home 'owners' arrange refinancing... however many
will be unable to do that with a falling real estate market and middle
class jobs fast evaporating.

I'm not going to disagree with this one. The question is how much
spillover it will cause the rest of society. The polls are still out on
this.


the lower middle class will get nailed, over worked...the former
middle class will join them in spots...others will escape the
carnage..the upper classes will mostly coast..along with most of
govt... the tax base will collapse, the ability of the USA to dominate
the world militarily will fade fast, especially as china develops its
satelite imobilization technology.

I mostly agree.

that spins in.

Govt will try to prevent that.
Meantime the chinese are funding a good share of the cheap mortgage
offers you hear about on the radio... loans to keep the owners in the
property, but 100% title goes to the lender if he defaults ...and of
course with US manufacturing going overseas fast, and mid range talent
being imported from mexico and china...many of those post middle class
folks will be woiking for a lot less...and will default regardless..

Each stage of default causes the banks to loose equity, they are
forced to stop lending..then business dependent on operation loans
collapses... that has not happened to date because the fed is printing
money unannounced now since Jan 1 of 2004 (or whatever)...the M3 money
supply is now secret...


I read that MX is hard to measure, therefore it is not tracked that
carefully any more.

thats both true and spin... the advent of what I call 'e money', loans
to banks etc via credit transfers cascade as they derive through the
economy...making the actual amount perhaps impossible to assess.. not
like the old days when they printed paper.... the principle is the
same...bogus money... it can only be disquised so long...we are fast
hitting the end of that rope ...many other nations are no long taking
our currency for use as reserves.

Yeah, and there's all those hedge funds, collateralized debt obligations, derivatives, and stuff way over my head. J-shaped curves. Small numbers of guys are getting rich and getting mansions. It can't go on.

and...that is why the chinese are still willing to sell us cheap goods
(cheap in terms of the dollar also) but only as long as those sales
are immediately convertible to real property.

They are "willing" because they deliberately devalued their currency to
guarantee themselves business from export and discourage imports.


there are many factors......

overriding all of that is a *nations costs/ productivity ratio....as
the burocracy bloats. and production goes offshore the nation becomes
non viable.... no matter the machinations and smoke in between.

Somewhere, down the road, like I said, things will deteriorate. History repeats itself. The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.

.

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