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Commentary

Young workers pay into entitlements that will be bankrupt when they retire

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Payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare
Payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare

Doug Ross from Director Blue has a public service announcement for young people. Even if they are able to find jobs, they can look forward to paying a large chunk of their income to the government for retirement programs, Social Security and Medicare, that will be bankrupt by the time they are ready to retire.

Excerpt:

Ever seen these numbers on your pay stub? The numbers I’ve highlighted?

That money is being taken from you — or, more properly, it’s being stolen from you — to fund a myth. A mirage.

You’re never going to see a dime of that “Social Security Retirement Insurance” you’re paying for.

You’ll never a see a nickel of that “Medicare Health Care Insurance” either.

That money is being taken from your pay — your livelihood — to fund a system that will be bankrupt in less than a dozen years.

Oh, and it’s not me saying that: Medicare’s own actuary, Richard Foster, is. Social Security is in a similar situation, according to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who serves as the system’s senior trustee.

Suffice it to say that these systems will actually go broke far sooner than anyone’s really admitting because the economy remains poor and appears to be slowing down even further.

My public service message is this: this money is being taken from your pay in exchange for a promise that will be broken in just a few years. You’ll never see that money again. And it is the government — the government, not “the rich”, not the Koch brothers, not the oil companies — that is ripping you off.

It is the government, not corporations, spending untold billions on “green energy” scams like Solyndra. It is the government, not “the rich”, slathering EBT-welfare cards around like confetti. And it is the government, not “the Tea Party”, that is promoting illegal immigration and offering huge financial benefits to those in the country illegally. All with your money.

Medicare is the one that is really in trouble, as Forbes magazine explains:

The Trustees of the Medicare program have released their annual report on the solvency of the program. They calculate that the program is “expected to remain solvent until 2024, the same as last year’s estimate.” But what that headline obfuscates is that Obamacare’s tax increases and spending cuts are counted towards the program’s alleged “deficit-neutrality,” Medicare is to go bankrupt in 2016. And if you listen to Medicare’s own actuary, Richard Foster, the program’s bankruptcy could come even sooner than that.

See, the funny, funny thing about young people is that they are almost complete uninformed about basic economics. They don’t know where jobs come from. They don’t know where the money that the government spends come from. They don’t know how much the government spends. They don’t know about our debt-to-gdp ratio. Their view of economics is all determined by socialist public schools and socialist Hollywood and socialist mainstream media. It’s all emotional for them. They have feelings that the rich are greedy, and must be taxed, and that the government is Santa Claus, helping the poor with money from the rich. It’s the ultimate system of slavery, except the slaves want to be enslaved.

News

Two-thirds of British millionaires disappeared after income tax increase on the rich

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What happens when you “tax the rich”, like Obama wants to do?

The UK Telegraph explains what actually happens when you tax the rich.

Excerpt:

Almost two-thirds of the country’s million-pound earners disappeared from Britain after the introduction of the 50p top rate of tax, figures have disclosed.

In the 2009-10 tax year, more than 16,000 people declared an annual income of more than £1 million to HM Revenue and Customs.

This number fell to just 6,000 after Gordon Brown introduced the new 50p top rate of income tax shortly before the last general election.

The figures have been seized upon by the Conservatives to claim that increasing the highest rate of tax actually led to a loss in revenues for the Government.

It is believed that rich Britons moved abroad or took steps to avoid paying the new levy by reducing their taxable incomes.

[…]Last night, Harriet Baldwin, the Conservative MP who uncovered the latest figures, said: “Labour’s ideological tax hike led to a tax cull of millionaires.

Far from raising funds, it actually cost the UK £7 billion in lost tax revenue.

Similarly in France, with their Socialist leader’s 75% top tax rate: (worse than Obama!)

A flood of top-end properties are hitting the market as businessmen seek to leave France before stiff tax hikes hit, real estate agents and financial advisors say.

“It’s nearly a general panic. Some 400 to 500 residences worth more than one million euros ($1.3 million) have come onto the Paris market,” said managers at Daniel Feau, a real-estate broker that specialises in high-end property.

[…]While the Socialists’ plan to raise the tax rate to 75 percent on income above 1.0 million euros per year has generated the most headlines, a sharp increase in taxes on capital gains from the sales of stock and company stakes is pushing most people to leave, according Didier Bugeon, head of the wealth manager Equance.

French entrepreneurs have complained vociferously against a proposal in the Socialist’s 2013 budget to increase the capital gains tax on sales of company stakes, which they argue will kill the market for innovative start-up companies in France.

Entrepreneurs in the high-tech sector in particular often invest their own money and take low salaries in the hope they can later sell the company for a large sum.

They say a stiff increase in capital gains tax would remove incentives to do this in France. They also argue that capital has already been taxed several times in the making.

Rich people are not stupid. If you change the rules of the game, they make adjustments. Why on Earth would anyone keep working as hard as before when the government takes more of what they earn and gives it away to left-wing special interest groups? You either stop working as hard as before or you leave the country entirely. Rich people are not our slaves.

We let people keep the profits they make so that they will risk their capital and try to invent new things and create jobs. If we don’t let them keep their profits, then they will not save, invest, take risks and create jobs. People who depend on “Obamaphones” don’t create jobs. Only rich people do. And the more you tax the rich, the fewer jobs you will have. That’s the way the world really works. Taking money from those who work and giving it to those who don’t sounds “nice”, but it doesn’t actually help the poor. What helps the poor is having a job, not giving them free stuff paid for by others who work. You should not be able to make more money by not working than by working in this country, either.

Remember what happened when Reagan and Bush cut taxes? Massive drops in unemployment and higher revenues from taxes.

News

New FAA regulations will cause shortage of airline pilots

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From the Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

U.S. airlines are facing what threatens to be their most serious pilot shortage since the 1960s, with higher experience requirements for new hires about to take hold just as the industry braces for a wave of retirements.

Federal mandates taking effect next summer will require all newly hired pilots to have at least 1,500 hours of prior flight experience—six times the current minimum—raising the cost and time to train new fliers in an era when pay cuts and more-demanding schedules already have made the profession less attractive. Meanwhile, thousands of senior pilots at major airlines soon will start hitting the mandatory retirement age of 65.

[…]Another federal safety rule, to take effect in early 2014, also will squeeze the supply, by giving pilots more daily rest time. This change is expected to force passenger airlines to increase their pilot ranks by at least 5%. Adding to the problem is a small but steady stream of U.S. pilots moving to overseas carriers, many of which already face an acute shortage of aviators and pay handsomely to land well-trained U.S. captains.

[…]Estimates differ on the problem’s magnitude. Airlines for America, a trade group of the largest carriers that collectively employ 50,800 pilots now, cites a study by the University of North Dakota’s aviation department that indicates major airlines will need to hire 60,000 pilots by 2025 to replace departures and cover expansion.

Mr. Darby’s firm calculates that all U.S. airlines, including cargo, charter and regional carriers, together employ nearly 96,000 pilots, and will need to find more than 65,000 over the next eight years.

[…]Dave Barger, chief executive of JetBlue Airways Corp., said in an October speech that the industry is “facing an exodus of talent in the next few years” and could “wake up one day and find we have no one to operate or maintain those planes.”

The same thing is already happening with doctors because of Obamacare. And there is also a broad-based effort to put policies in place that cause private sector businesses to raise their prices, for example, by raising gas prices because of blocks on domestic energy development. Why would a socialist government pass taxes and regulations that cause consumers to become dissatisfied the private sector?