International News
See other International News Articles
Title: We're All Greeks Now
Source:
Pat Buchanan
URL Source: http://buchanan.org/blog/were-all-greeks-now-4802
Published: Jul 18, 2011
Author: Pat Buchanan
Post Date: 2011-07-18 15:47:55 by jwpegler
Keywords: None
Views: 33879
Comments: 63
Departing for New Hampshire in November 2010, Sen. Judd Gregg, the fiscal conservative President Obama wanted in his Cabinet, blurted an inconvenient truth: “This nation is on a course where if we don’t do something about it, get … fiscal policy (under control), we’re Greece.” The remark was regarded as hyperbole. But Gregg had a point. For though Greece, measured by the size of her economy, is only 2 to 3 percent of the EU or the U.S. economy, she is a microcosm of the West. Consider the demography. According to the most recent revision of the U.N.’s “World Population Prospects,” Greece in 2010 had 11.2 million people. More than 24 percent were 60 or above, more than 18 percent 65 or older. Three percent were 80 or above. And, every year, for every nine Greeks who are born, 10 Greeks die. Greece is slowly passing away. Fast forward to 2050. Greece’s population will have fallen by 300,000 to 10.8 million. The median age will have risen by eight years to 49.5. Half the population will be 50 or older. More critically, the share of Greece’s population 60 or older will be 37.4 percent, with 31.3 percent over 65. One in nine Greeks will be over 80. If Athens is breaking under the weight of early retirement and pensions for seniors today, her situation will be horrendous by mid-century. Where, in 2010, there were four Greeks under 60 for every Greek over 60, by 2050, there will only be 1.7 Greeks under 60 for every Greek over 60. Conclusion: The retirement age must rise, and pension benefits fall, or Greece collapses. What of the possibility of a new baby boom? Not likely, given that the fertility rate in Greece has been below replacement levels for three decades and is today only two-thirds of that needed to replace the present population. Indeed, by 2050, the fertility rate of Greek women will have been below zero population growth for 80 years. One wonders: How can the U.N. estimate that Greece’s population will fall only 3 percent by then? Is the U.N. assuming mass immigration from the Muslim world? But what does Greece have to do with the rest of Europe, or with us? Only this. The median age of all of Europe is rising, and the demographic numbers for Greece look positively rosy alongside those of the east, where population declines in the tens of millions are projected for Russia and Ukraine. And outside Iceland and Albania, not one nation of Europe has a fertility rate sufficient to maintain its population. Those that are projected to grow, like Britain, have to be relying on Third World immigrants and their higher birth rate. But while this may maintain an existing population size, immigrants from the Maghreb, Middle East, Caribbean, Latin America and South Asia, on average, lack the language, technical skills and educational levels of native-born Europeans. The same is true in the U.S., where peoples of European descent are expected to drop to half the population by 2041. Hispanics will grow from 15 percent to near 30 percent of the U.S. population, and their absolute numbers from 50 million to 135 million by 2050. Yet, again, Hispanics and children of Hispanic immigrants have not, as of yet, reached close to parity in educational achievement with Americans of East Asian or European ancestry. People equate today’s immigration with the immigration of 1890-1920. But another major difference is this: We erected a Great Society over 50 years that did not exist in 1920. In Washington in the 1950s, a city of 800,000, half black and half white, food stamps had not been invented. Families fed themselves. Today, in a District of Columbia of 600,000, one in five are on food stamps. Nationally, a program that did not exist in 1964 feeds one in seven Americans, 44 million people, at a cost of $77 billion a year. And that is but a small fraction of our new Great Society. We are entering a new “age of austerity,” said British Prime Minister David Cameron in 2009. The halcyon days are over. Government payrolls, as is happening from California to New York to Washington, D.C., will have to be slashed. Pension and health care benefits, not only for seniors, will have to be reduced. Retirement ages will have to be raised. From food stamps to foreign aid, programs are going to be capped and cut. The left believes it can get the money from the wealthy. But the top 1 percent of Americans in income already carry 40 percent of the federal income tax load, while the bottom 50 percent of wage-earners ride free. This, too, will have to end. We are either going to man up and radically reduce government at all levels in the United States, or the bond markets are going to do it for us, as they are doing it today for Greece, Ireland and Portugal. We’re all Greeks now.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 28.
#1. To: jwpegler (#0)
That's one of the stupidest things i've ever read. Greece isn't selling its debt for next to nothing. Our debt/deficit to GDP ratios are nowhere near Greece's. Greece can't devalue its currency. Greece's economy isn't growing unlike ours. And we could balance the budget over the next ten years simply by having Congress do nothing, thus allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, and ending both the annual AMT and Medicare patches. Folks want to continue to manufacture a debt crisis in the U.S. when there is none, simply because they want to dismantle New Deal and Great Society programs that they've hated for years.
Of course it is. According to the IMF, total public debt: Greece -- 130% of GDP U.S. -- 93% of GDP (including both Federal and State levels) Greece is clamping down. The U.S. is still spending. The U.S. will surpass Greece's GDP to debt ratio in a few years if nothing isn't done.
Cutting spending in a recession further reduces revenues - see U.S. 1937, Ireland/UK, for examples. Heck, you can even look at the present-day U.S. where massive cuts in state/local government spending over the last year coupled with record low tax rates have resulted in a 9.2% unemployment rate and a slowing economy. And not only is our spending relative to GDP is falling, as is our deficit., but we have far more flexibility to deal with our debt/deficit issues than Greece - we could for example restore tax revenues to historical norms, or as I noted above, simply do nothing and watch our deficit go away in 10 years. These are all facts you wish to ignore.
Nope...
your chart ends in 2009. Remember just yesterday I showed you data showing that spending relative to GDP had fallen from 25% to 24.1% this year? Again - record low tax rates, massive cuts to state/local spending, and falling federal spending relative to GDP = 9.2% unemployment.
No, you are confusing tax rates and tax revenues as you always do. You have some kind of mental block about this. The lowest tax rates we've had in the post WWII era were in 1986, when the top rate was 28%. The top rate is 36% today. Insofar as tax revenues are concerned, federal tax revenues are about the same today as they were when Harry Truman was in office. Harry Truman had a balanced budget. All we have to do is cut spending (like Truman did after WWII) and we can have a balanced budget too.
your chart shows a hell of a fall off in Obama's presidency. meanwhile most Republicans think Obama actually raised taxes. Again - falling taxes, massive cutting of state/local government jobs, and falling federal spending relative to GDP have given us 9.2% unemployment. Highest since January. You keep ignoring this.
You keep ignoring this. The best they can do is ignore the fact that following the conservative prescription for economic growth results in high unemployment and lackluster economic growth.
Weren't you alive when Reagan was president?
Reagan signed eleven tax hikes as President, and he increased government spending (even non-defense- related). You guys keep ignoring that.
#38. To: go65 (#28)
Reagan lowered the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 28%. Marginal tax rates are what counts for economic growth. Ask Bill Bradley or Erskin Bowells.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest“This nation is on a course where if we don’t do something about it, get … fiscal policy (under control), we’re Greece.”
#3. To: go65 (#1)
(Edited)
Our debt/deficit to GDP ratios are nowhere near Greece's.
#4. To: jwpegler (#3)
(Edited)
Greece is clamping down. The U.S. is still spending.
#5. To: go65 (#4)
And not only is our spending relative to GDP is falling...
#6. To: jwpegler (#5)
#10. To: go65 (#6)
record low tax rates
#17. To: jwpegler (#10)
federal tax revenues are about the same today as they were when Harry Truman was in office
#23. To: go65 (#17)
Again - falling taxes, massive cutting of state/local government jobs, and falling federal spending relative to GDP have given us 9.2% unemployment. Highest since January.
#24. To: lucysmom (#23)
The best they can do is ignore the fact that following the conservative prescription for economic growth results in high unemployment and lackluster economic growth.
#28. To: A K A Stone (#24)
Weren't you alive when Reagan was president?
Replies to Comment # 28.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 28.
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]