Re: Boomers have screwed us
- From: phil scott <phil@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 30 May 2007 10:17:08 -0700
On May 29, 3:35 pm, Straydog <a...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 29 May 2007, Marcos Martinez Sancho wrote:
From The Sunday Times
May 27, 2007
Because we're worth it
The baby-boomers' culture of hedonistic consumerism has left their
offspring with the crumbs from their table. And 65% of them say their
children's lives will be worse than their own. But are they bothered?
Bryan Appleyard
Yes, US (and Jap and Western European) society has become materialist (and
China is getting there, too). I just read that they are estimating that
China's CO2 production is really going to beat the USA's _THIS_ year, not
5-10 years from now. Also, we have a lot of spoiled brats, too.
Elisabeth - a 51-year-old financial analyst - has banned her four
children from using the sentence "I'll put it on my CV." A child of the
1960s, a baby-boomer, her youth was one of freedom and fun. Now she
watches in dismay as her children fret anxiously about their futures.
"My generation," says Sally, her 20-year-old student daughter, "is faced
with a huge amount of pressure to plan a career early on in life. Many of
my friends at university are simply getting a degree as a stepping stone
to work in the City."
!
Sally asked her mother what she should do for her summer holidays that
would look good on her CV. "I flipped," says Elisabeth. The brightly
coloured 1960s of her youth had given way to the grim noughties of her
children's.
She should spend some time reading the newspapers, first.
Elisabeth is not alone. The boomer generation is suddenly waking up to
the terrible truth that their legacy to their children is a nastier,
tougher and more anxious world than the one they knew. And the young are
waking up to the fact that it has happened thanks to the unthinking greed
of their parents.
Um...its the executives that are farming out the jobs to India-China, not
the parents. What does the parents greeed have to do with it?
Battle lines are visible in the sand; an inter-
generational war is brewing.
Another generation gap?
"When I speak to my parents," says Daniel, Elisabeth's 21-year-old son, a
PhD student, "I hear stories of how they campaigned against war,
government, for freedom of speech, etc. No one my age seems to believe
that what they do will have any impact on how the world is run."
Give up before the race starts?
Money offers them no hope of salvation. Pensions can't be trusted and
property prices have put houses beyond the reach of the young.
Um...where is the debt picture here? As in cc debt? college loan debt?
"I was lucky," says Maureen Ellis, a 55-year-old mother of three and a
manager at a transport consultancy, "because I worked in a merchant bank
and was able to buy a two-bedroom house in Wimbledon. That house today
would cost £350-400K - if one of my children wanted to buy that house
they would need to be earning £80-100K. Even a one-bedroom flat is way
beyond their means."
For those at the low end of the socio-economic scale (and no disciplined
program of saving some money), they are going to have nothing when they
hit 62,
As a result, their children live at home. And pay rent. "I'm paying off
someone else's mortgage when I could be saving for my own," says Holly,
their 26-year-old daughter.
The Ellises (Maureen's husband, John, 57, is a joiner) were mis-sold
pensions in the 1980s, but, like many of their contemporaries, have come
to think of their home as their pension fund, a safety net denied to
their children. "We've always regarded our house as our pension," says
Maureen, "which means the booming housing market is great for us but not
for the children. We've already decided we will have to help them out
when they're nearer to being in a position to buy somewhere. As we don't
have lots of savings, we'll need to take equity from the house. We're
very lucky that even when things got really bad financially when the
children were small, we managed to pay the mortgage. I know people who
had to sell their houses to pay off debts."
Boomerang kids are also a problem.
"I haven't even thought about a pension yet," says Patrick, her 25-year-
old son, who has gone into his father's business. "I need to get
somewhere to live first."
There is going to be massive shock if we ever have another depression, or
dearth of jobs.
The ageing boomers fear even more for their children as their own
mortality looms. Maureen has contracted diabetes. "It's funny getting to
middle age and losing what you'd never valued previously. I was hardly
ever ill, and overnight I became this sick person. I try not to let it
get me down, as I don't want to be defined by my poor health, but I often
get very tired and worried about how things will work out for them all."
Ahhh... this is the "it will never happen to me" mindset. We've gotten a
ton of this here on SRC for 15+ years. rick++ thinks all these people are
losers and whiners.
Her husband, John, blames his own generation for utterly failing to equip
their children. "It's always those who have had privilege that wish, in
their twisted sense of egalitarianism, to seek to deny others, and this
is particularly relevant to post-baby-boomer education for the majority.
What happened to the work ethic?
I feel our generation benefited from an education system that was the
envy of the world and which taught us the "tools of the trade" for life.
Peace, love and happiness, equality for all, rich/poor, male/female
liberalism of the post-1960s baby-boomers has robbed our children's
generation of an education that would have equipped them to stand on
their own two feet."
All went to dust when "The Pepsi Generation" became part of the media.
But for the youngest Ellis child, Jack, 19, higher education is desirable
primarily as a way onto the property ladder. "If I go to university, I'll
take a great life experience away with me and a chance of getting a
better job, in turn allowing me to save for a house a lot quicker and
easier."
Where, here, is the question: "Is my IQ high enough for this?" and the
second question: "Am I willing to really work to get somewhere?"
These thoughts, these anxieties, these dramas, these obsessions
are being played out across Britain and the developed world. Dinner-party
conversations may start with the banality of the "property ladder", but
soon spread to wider issues of guilt and responsibility. The baby boom -
the generational bulge that followed the second world war - created
demographic cohorts that were very different from, even remote from,
their predecessors.
"We were all so much more detached from our parents," says Maureen. "Our
parents in general," says John, "did not help with homework or take much
interest in our education, as they generally believed the schools were
doing a good job, or they themselves hadn't been educated to the same
standard we were."
!
The boomers are not detached. They fret and fuss over their ambitions for
their children, as if unaware that they are simultaneously bleeding them
deleted
But now all the boomer chickens have come home to roost. The house-price
explosion that kept their dreams afloat has inflicted a double burden on
their children. First, they can't get on the housing ladder, and second,
it has left them with a dangerously unbalanced economy. A report from the
National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) suggests that
the boomers' boom means that the real national debt is, in fact, 130% of
GDP, not the 40% claimed by Gordon Brown. And Martin Weale of the NIESR
also estimates that the boom amounts to a transfer of assets from the
young to the old of £1.3 trillion since 1987. Weale writes: "Working
through the chain, the capital gains of the house-owners are transfers
from first-time buyers. The political appeal of this situation is easy to
grasp. The burden of rising house prices falls on current and future
first-time buyers."
Lots of peole are going to be living in trailors.
Understanding this is crucial, because it casts serious doubt on the
common boomer habit of using their homes as their pension fund. If they
simply held onto their houses and passed them on to their children, their
cash value would be much less important. What would matter is they had
passed on a place to live. But if they consume the value of the house in
the form of a pension, then they deny their children both the cash value
- hence the staggeringly high figure of £1.3 trillion - and the home,
thus burdening them with the need to get on the housing ladder as quickly
as possible. Boomers are therefore leaving their children in a society
catastrophically in thrall to the idiot god of property values. No less
than 21% of the average household's income goes on mortgages; in 1996 it
was 11%.
Better ask how offshoring and immigration is affecting this.
Pensions, meanwhile, have collapsed. Boomers now retiring with their
final salary schemes intact will seem fabulously affluent to their
children when they retire. Workers will now retire on less than half
their salary: on average they will receive little more than the minimum
wage. An under-40 "generation X-er" on the average wage of £447 a week
can expect £223 in retirement.
What the heck, wife and I make from our pensions half or less than salary.
Again, the full implications of this need to be understood. Lower
pensions, combined with lower savings in general, mean that boomer
children are heading for very impoverished retirements. This will produce
intense political pressure over the next few decades for government to
intervene by raising state pensions. So boomer irresponsibility is
creating a huge liability for the next generations.
It all doesn't tell the whole story.
Even welfare generosity has backfired. Higher education for the masses,
for example, now means tuition fees, leading to debt - a further barrier
to getting into the homeowner club.
"Everyone has a bloody degree," says Daniel. "To differentiate yourself
and get a job requires further education, which costs time and money,
with the outcome that you ironically end up working for some lucky git
who went into work straight after university and is less qualified than
you but has more work experience."
Another myth. There are lots of 2 year programs. There are lots of niche
jobs.
Boomer children are anxious and trapped in a future that stubbornly
declines to look after itself. At the personal level, there are all the
problems defined by Elisabeth and Maureen and their families, and at the
global level, there is the threat of environmental disaster, the apparent
restarting of the cold war with Russia, the confrontation with terrorism
and uncertainties about food, fuel, water and the pressures of
globalisation and mass migration. So now is the time for the boomers to
ask themselves a very awkward question: have they wrecked the joint with
their freedom and fun and left their impoverished, anxious children to
make what they can of the wasteland that remains?
If the kiddies would dump their cell phones, the need for whitener
treatment by the dentist, plastic surgery & botox, and read some books
instead of watch MTV over dish networks, they'd save a few bucks. Oh, yes,
how 'bout dem tatoos & metal rings?
Economists, sociologists, philosophers, environmentalists and politicians
are deep in debate about this. How we value the future, what we are
prepared to sacrifice for our children, is one of the most intriguing and
urgent debates of our time. But what are we prepared to do now?
Nobody can agree.
"We have had a period of gradual incremental change following the shocks
of the world wars in the first half of the century," says Avner Offer,
professor of economic history at Oxford, "but now new shocks are in sight
- climate change, ageing, energy depletion, globalisation, immigration,
runaway technology and maybe nuclear war. These cannot be dealt with by
the means of changing prices, which is the current economic orthodoxy. I
think we know what to do, but we don't have the willpower to do it."
Yep.
This is unlikely to remain a merely academic debate for long. At the
global level, the environment is raising questions about how much we are
prepared to sacrifice in the present to protect the future. At the
personal level, young people are protesting about the political power and
greed of the boomers. In Germany, Dr Jorg Tremmel, 35, runs the
Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations (FRFG). "Because of the
labour market in Germany," he says, "the present young are known as
Generation Internship because they can't get paid jobs. In 1970, a 30-
year-old was earning 15% less than a 50-year-old. Now the gap is 40%."
This is going to be a big problem, but I don't see them trying to figure
out why (including the decline of unions, union memberships).
Precisely the same income gap between young and old has opened up in
France over the same period. Unemployment among the young has soared,
with a quarter of all graduates without a job.
Um...where are the jobs going?
In the recent presidential
election campaigns, both candidates were falling over themselves to
soothe the anxieties of increasingly disaffected youth - Sarkozy with
interest-free loans and training allowance, Royal with more housing and
guaranteed jobs. Meanwhile, savings ratios among the French young have
collapsed. A group, Impulsion Concorde, has been founded to give young
people a say in their future. One of its slogans, significantly, is "We
will not pay your debt." As in Britain, young people are forced to stay
at home with their parents - 45% of Italian 30- to 34-year-olds are still
at home - as property prices keep them out of the housing market and
ageing boomers fail to die and pass on their wealth.
Those housing prices will have to come down. Law of supply and demand.
The FRFG is campaigning to change the constitution of Germany to make it
mandatory to consider the rights of future generations. This was tried by
Chirac in France, but Tremmel says he just set up a committee of old
professors. In Israel there is a Commission for Future Generations
designed to take "a comprehensive view of the legislative picture with
regard to any potential negative effect on the needs and rights of future
generations together with the means to prevent such legislation from
taking place". And, as our own David Willetts, shadow secretary of state
for education and skills, is fond of pointing out, the Iroquois, an
American-Indian tribe, have, as a part of their "great law", the idea of
seven-generation sustainability. Every decision has to be taken in the
light of its effects on the next seven generations. At the moment the
FRFG is a small operation and Tremmel says there is not enough activity
elsewhere. But he is sure the idea will spread as the young realise how
much they have been expropriated by the old.
It ain't going to happen here, either.
This, as Tremmel says, is a confrontation that is only just beginning. We
are used to class wars, but are facing an inter-generational battle.
Realising their predicament, the young will want to fight the
expropriations of the old. Avner Offer welcomes this. He sees it as a way
in which the political market can offset the baleful effects of the
economic market. In the end, he points out, the old can't go on stealing
from the young for ever. "How can the old seize everything? The young
will rebel? They'll simply go on strike."
This reminds me about the automation articles I read some 40 years ago:
they never explained how people could still buy food when automation was
going to free up everyone's time because the machines were going to
eliminate jobs.
This will mean the boomers will have to be deprived of some home
comforts. There are any number of ways of doing this. Gordon Brown's 1997
raid on the pension funds might just be the beginning. One obvious way
would be a massive liberalisation of the housing market by allowing new
building on an unprecedented scale. This would slay the idiot god by
driving down house prices and, of course, it would impoverish millions of
boomers. Unsurprisingly, this step is not being openly advocated by any
party.
And, go further into debt?
I read the rest of this, and still say the "slant" is off the beam. No
mention of corporate involvement, government involvement, what are the
rich/powerful doing, and many more including the shady finaciers and
predatory lenders.
===== no change to below, included for reference and context =====> Our leading thinking politician in this area is "Two Brains" Willetts. He
has a lecture on the issue that, Al Gore-ishly, he takes around the
country to spread the news. He strongly believes we have to focus more on
the needs of future generations, but thinks the sting can be taken out of
this for the boomers: "I'm an optimist. I think we can rise to this
challenge. What it requires is a different way of thinking, of making
policies that take account of the future. The question of whether we can
appeal to anything above the selfish gene. But I'm not a reductionist; I
do think there's more to life than the selfish gene."
Willetts believes that government must take responsibility. "Government
and society is an inter-generational contract and one task of government
is to maintain that contract so that no one generation exploits the
others."
He is pressing for incentives for long-term thinking to be included in
the next Conservative manifesto. "There are several things we are working
on: a regulatory regime for utilities that rewards and encourages
investment; a simpler, more attractive savings vehicle to make it easier
for young people to get started with saving?"
As yet, no manifesto decisions have been made, perhaps because the
problem is, as Willetts knows better than anybody, highly complex. The
question of how exactly we should value the future is one that evades all
academic disciplines, though the economists have tried very hard to give
an answer, notably through the strange idea of the social discount rate
(SDR). If I offer you £100 now, you know exactly what it is worth. But
what if I offered it to you in a year? How would you value it? Probably
at less than £100 because, apart from anything else, you might die or the
world might end. So your SDR involves a reduction in value over time;
indeed, it is standard practice. The Treasury applies an SDR of 3.5%,
plus inflation - about 6%: so £106 in a year's time would be worth £100
today.
Infants tend to apply a staggeringly high SDR. Researchers offered
children a choice of one sweet now or two in the near future. A minority
chose two in the future; the rest applied an instant SDR of 100%.
(Unsurprisingly, the prudent ones were found to do better later in life..)
You might think it would be virtuous to value the future more highly than
the present, and thus apply a positive SDR, making your cash worth more
in the future. But beware. Lenin and Stalin applied a very high positive
SDR by valuing the present as nothing and the future as everything.
Millions died because they had no value.
This dusty aspect of economic theory became urgent with the publication
of Sir Nicholas Stern's report on climate change. Stern is one of the
world's leading economists and he applied a very low SDR of below 1%
(meaning £100 will be worth almost the same in the future as it is
today), calling for sacrifices and long-term investments now to ensure
the wellbeing of the next generations. He ran into fierce criticism. "It
was a ludicrously low figure," said one economist, "that would mean
present generations would impoverish themselves for the future. He did it
to make the climate-change figures look big."
On the other hand, Stern may have just been offering a corrective to the
instinctive boomer belief that the future will look after itself, as
economic growth would ensure that successive generations would grow
richer and their wealth would outstrip our present concerns. After all,
the SDR is arbitrary: mine is as valid as Stern's. It can be anything we
want it to be. If we are selfish, it is high; if unselfish, low. For
boomers it has seemed high because they expect the economic growth they
have enjoyed to continue for ever.
Americans, in particular, seem to take this view for granted. In their
book The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America's
Economic Future, Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns argue that current
government schemes - notably Medicare, which provides health care for the
elderly - are based on deluded economics and are liable to explode,
placing a huge, almost incalculable tax burden on future generations. The
official debt figure of the US is understated by trillions of dollars.
"The official debt is not really the measure of anything," says
Kotlikoff. "You have to look at something fundamental, which is the
generational imbalance? I realised we were flying blind - we had no idea
what our true generational policy was. We were looking at numbers that
had no clothes - you're probably familiar with the Emperor's New Clothes
story. In current economics every single institution is looking at the
wrong numbers routinely."
Kotlikoff also points to the key political force sustaining these
delusions: the brute boomer power of numbers. "I think certainly the
elderly as a group, when it comes to election day, have nothing to do but
vote. You know they're not working, so they're a group that gets a lot of
attention from politicians and are well organised because they have
nothing to do but organise."
Our position is not quite as bad. Our hospitals aren't, on the whole, as
good as American ones, but the NHS does keep costs under control.
Medicare, in contrast, is an open cheque written by the boomers but drawn
on their children's account. Also, our Treasury does do some inter-
generational accounting that discourages the writing of open cheques. Yet
politically we are dominated by the boomer bulge, and culturally we share
the American fondness of living on credit: spend now so someone else will
pay later.
At this point it becomes clear that economics can only describe the
symptoms: the disease itself is political and, ultimately, cultural. As
Avner Offer writes in his book The Challenge of Affluence, "Contracting
for the future is difficult, For example, consumer choice finds it
difficult to cope with providing support for everyone's old age. The time
gap between consumer decisions and their consequences is just too long.
It is up to politicians to craft durable commitments for inter-
generational transfer."
But how do they do it? At one level, human beings are just bad at
thinking coherently about the future. The great philosopher David Hume
said it all in the 18th century: "There is no quality in human nature,
which causes more fatal errors in our conduct, than that which leads us
to prefer whatever is present to the distant and remote." But, at another
level, it seems the boomers are historically bad at planning for or
making sacrifices on behalf of the future. This raises the question: are
they a uniquely selfish generation?
No, says Avner Offer, we cannot blame one generation, it is simply what
has happened. The welfarist assumptions of the immediate post-war period
gave way to market liberalisation and the cult of the individual. This,
in turn, led to what he calls a "retreat from commitment".
"? in embracing the tide of new rewards," he writes, "cognitive,
occupational, and material, men and women have had to choose, and they
have often chosen the shorter view. In particular, they appear to have
given a lower priority to the longest of horizons, that which transcends
the individual, and extends beyond him and into the future, by means of
his or her children."
Individualistic boomers loosened the ties of family and future just
because, in essence, they could do so. The loosening was done with an
excess of enthusiasm amounting to self-indulgence and greed. Qualms were
overcome by the thought that, just as the boomers had been much richer
than their parents, so their children would be much richer than them.
This led to more dangerous developments than just credit-card debts and
stratospheric mortgages. It led to widespread short-termism. Investment
payback times are now calculated in a few years, so all projects are
subject to instant obsolescence. In the European context, Britain is very
good at short-term profits and very bad at long-term investment. In an
American context, we are very bad at incubating businesses. Our venture-
capital groups are only interested in buying existing businesses; in the
US they pursue start-ups. We are also ridiculously indulgent to the
insanely short-term ambitions of private equity operators, complacently
watching as they manoeuvre to overthrow long-established companies.
Government is little better. Gordon Brown's PFI scheme is a short-term
way of keeping debt off the government balance, but one day someone will
have to pay.
At the heart of this short-termism is the deep cultural truth that
boomers have lost the old, philanthropic view of the future. Look at it
this way: Sir Joseph Bazalgette was a Victorian civil engineer who built
the Thames Embankment and the London sewers that suppressed cholera. Both
are still in use today. Peter Bazalgette, his great-great-grandson,
produces Big Brother. No new London buildings - nor sewers - are designed
to last as long as anything the Victorians built.
Can the boomers be persuaded to think their way out of their short-
termist, profligate ways? It would be nice to imagine they could. The
problem is that the philosophers haven't got much further than pointing
out that economic devices like the SDR are meaningless. How can they
explain the need for sacrifice?
"We have no theory of ethics involving future generations," says Stephen
Gardiner, a British philosopher working in the US. "And I don't like this
notion of sacrifice. If I'm overspending on my credit card and someone
tells me to cut back, can I say that is sacrifice?"
The sad reality is that individual boomers are realising they are trapped
by the world they have made, at the same time as they realise the extent
of the damage their generation has done.
"It's distressing," says Elisabeth. "You want to wave a wand and tell
your children it will be fine, that they will manage, but you know it's
going to be really, really tough."
"I think," says her daughter, Sally, "we live in a very narrow-minded and
decidedly selfish society. We ought to seek to succeed where our parents
have failed? but instead we have become cynical about it."
The final irony is that even as environmentalists - the one
unconditionally virtuous role they have invented and passed on to their
children - the boomers fail. One academic study called Greening the Greys
observed that boomers have the biggest carbon footprint of any
demographic sectors: 13.5 tonnes a year, up to 20% higher than anybody
else.
The boomers have poisoned the wells and ploughed salt into the fields.
Their post-war idyll is over; the world is returning to its default mode
of confrontation and violence, now made more ominous by looming
catastrophes like global warming. In the midst of their success and
greed, the boomers forgot Edmund Burke's most imperishable insight - that
society is a contract with three interested parties: the dead, the living
and the unborn. Their children are paying the price of their amnesia. For
the moment, they seem resigned, but, soon enough, they'll want their
world back.
Generation gap: Quids in
Sarah Cook, 20, Sedgefield, County Durham
My mum had a tough childhood in comparison to mine. She was the eldest of
four children and had to look after the others, but she passed her 11-
plus, got to grammar school and became a teacher. My Dad was a teacher
too. After he was offered a job lecturing at Durham University, my
parents moved to Sedgefield. At that point, they didn't have much money,
but they managed to buy their own house. House prices were low then
because of the miners' strike. I guess my parents got lucky at the right
time. It wasn't easy for them bringing three of us up and paying off
their mortgage at the same time. But things have worked out. When I
decided to go to university they were very supportive, just as they had
been for my brother and sister. I didn't qualify for a grant, but I do
have a student loan. I'm careful with what I get and make the money last.
Mum and Dad didn't want me to get a job so that I could focus on my
degree, so they help me out as much as they can, paying my rent as well
as my tuition fees. I think I am quite lucky in comparison to friends at
university. And the fact that my parents have worked in the public sector
has given me a real sense of security. I know that there are systems in
place for public-sector workers, such as pension schemes being
automatically set up for you. It must be a relief. With their pensions,
their house and the money they've saved over the years, I hope Mum and
Dad will be able to enjoy their retirement. When I think about the future
I worry about money, but I am sure things will be okay. Mum and Dad
definitely won't be leaving me with any debt, that's for sure.'
Generation gap: Quids out
Matt Gibbins, 21, London
'I am very worried about money and I see myself leaving university with
student-loan debts of around £15,000. My parents have helped me a little
financially, but they like to enjoy life, rather than saving for my
inheritance. I'm not complaining about it. It's what everyone does now.
They have bought a house in Spain, a villa with a swimming pool, which
they are going to use as their retirement home. They sold our four-
bedroom family home in Woking, and are living in a downsized two-bedroom
flat. They love their house in Spain and I don't begrudge them spending
the money now, even though I did expect more from them. I'm an only
child, too. I work in an office during the day in the holidays, and in
the evenings I work in a pub. I am permanently worried about money, and
even though I'm earning a reasonable amount in the holidays, I still need
student loans to tide me over. When I leave university I'll be on my own,
and I can't imagine getting on the property ladder around here - a little
flat in Woking costs at least £200,000. It will be years before I can
afford my own place. I do have friends whose parents have paid for them
to go through university and it can make me feel envious, but my parents
have their own life and I don't see why they shouldn't enjoy themselves.
It's just hard for me to set off in life with all this debt round my neck
like a millstone. I am very worried for my children in the future, as
going to university is becoming more expensive, coupled with the cost of
living. People don't expect to save in the way that they used to, so
there is going to be a growing expectation that children have to fend for
themselves.'
I am on the road these days with a laptop and 'information skills'..
(engineering, project management and 3-D CAD etc.). The job
market has fragmented into part time or project gigs predominantly,
even 'permanent' jobs in this business are called road gypsied
jobs..with a necktie.... owning a home when your next several
opportunities will be 1 to 6 month gigs across the northern hemisphere
is not practical... especially for boomers with the kids out of the
house.... and property tax rates at confiscatory levels.
accordingly the coffee shops and the back tables at the hamburger
stands can be seen populated with guys using laptops... half or more
doing bidness on the road...and staying in motels / van as it suits
them day to day. This was not possible 10 years ago at all, even 5
years ago prior to wireless broadband it was difficult, now with that
capability, and life time membership national health spa's... its next
big thang.... as corporations move to the use of imported or
telecomute talent from india, russia and china, anyone living in the
USA had better already be well off, with a home paid for, - and a
real good job that will allow him to pay the property taxes, fuel
taxes, income taxes, registration, fines, home maintenance etc.
necessary to keep it.... such are slaves to their homes....and
geographically limited to jobs within driving distance (at $4 per
gal)....
Many have hit the road....their property tax, load drops to zero, they
dont need to earn as much to pay the taxes, so their state and federal
tax load drops a bracket or two.... working less as they do, these get
a lot of beauty rest... their health returns, countered by the
tendency to drink too many latte's at starbucks...and chase women.
all of this is a snow ball, it further lowers the hourly rate at which
corporations can get talent... those with families and homes to take
care of are increasingly not competive in this market... these have
not been breeding well.
Such a nation then imports more talent, alien to its constitutional
goals and standards, and allegiances... and it outsources its weapons
and military personnel.
and lives fat and luxurious as a result... for 5 years or so, before
collapse ensues.
we are currently deep into that phase.
Those currently secure in their half paid off homes. will be hit with
the already drastically increasing property tax rates (calif is next
despite prop 13 protection, that will end up gutted). That and other
tax will rise as income taxability goes south, this mix is currently
driving home prices below loan values, the banks and IRS are
increasingly being forced to forclose... causing govt to panic as
these know that much of that will force the realestate bubble to
burst... so now these are proposing a 6 month moratorium on forclosers
and confiscations, although there are ads stating 40,000 of those are
currently at auction... the forclosure rate in the sf bay area by
county is up 50% in Marin county, and in the 300 to 400% range march
06 to march 07... a sudden spike
as the spin from govt is that silicon valley jobs have rebounded to
pre-crash levels... oh yes. With side bar mention that 53% of those
are foreign national held positions, at half or a fourth the previous
pay rate.... there is no tax base in that.
accordingly the counties are deep into the red, Richmond is close to
being taken over by the State, none are in the black... the San Diego
termed this a 'train wreck' in 2003 or so.... its gotten much worse
since. these are no longer talking like that.
spin is all thats keeping this mess afloat as the underlying causes
are going exponentially more extreme.
Accordingly, for greatly increasing numbers, trailer living is the
berries...very nice, semi affordable, taxable at only 500 dollars a
month or so. and RV / trailer park space in SF for example at $700+/
mo... totally more than the new lower classes earn...and for sure more
than those laid off can afford etc.
so the starbucks, McDonalds, and Burger king back tables are filling
up with professional looking guys with laptops.
*******
How is this going to woik out for the glorious govt (paying 100k+
retirements to its people)... well, its not working out
actually..those are deep into the red...without the tax base to pay
their retirements.... and no way to tax the working people further as
that just drives them out of their homes (that tax dissapears then)...
if govt levies on wages from any job these get, that dissapears, no
tax in that... but the person can go on general welfare by law.... not
only is there no tax in that, but it is a huge further drain.
The city of San Francisco in its brilliance a few years ago had
discovered a way to fix the problem... they were going after those
damnable bag ladies, the ones who pee on the street with no permit,
and force them to pay taxes...
such brilliance leaves one in stunned awe.
One had better stage early to dodge this range of bullets if he can.
Phil Scott
Phil Scott
Phil Scott
.
- References:
- Boomers have screwed us
- From: Marcos Martinez Sancho
- Re: Boomers have screwed us
- From: Straydog
- Boomers have screwed us
- Prev by Date: Ph.D. student position 'Computer Systems Architecture' (University of Amsterdam)
- Next by Date: Re: Boomers have screwed us
- Previous by thread: Re: Boomers have screwed us
- Next by thread: (serious, heavy rant) Part of the CS dumb-down...
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
Loading
