https://www.wsj.com/opinion/france-is-bu...t-3c87bc11

Once again Progressive Liberal Ideology aka Socialism just brings chaos and collapse.

Americans are heading down the same path. Socialism is never been has never been financially viable.

The REAL PROBLEM with Socialism or Democratic Socialism or whatever you want to call it is that the system rewards those who refuse to carry their weight. It is the flaw that Karl Marx refused to see. Some folks are good with living off others and will do as little as possible but entitled to their fair share.

This is not a system that rewards those who help themselves but rather a system of rob from those who are productive and give to those who are not.

Herein is where things fall apart. The productive class learn the funds they have invested many years into has been mismanaged and doled out to dead weight and other pork barrel projects in order to placate those who will not help support the system. It fails time again spectacularly throughout history and France is learning a painful lesson. The UK will be next in short order.

Toss in millions of illegals and the system goes into a nose dive crash.

All of this a perfect recipe created by French Politicians. They have created an unaffordable society and their citizens now reap what they have sewn

Looks like we are well on our way to emulating them.

Have they tried cutting taxes, cutting benefits for poor and middle classes, increasing Department of War spending, and proposing illegal tariffs the government can't collect? Its working like gangbusters on this side of the pond.

The French politicians did actually see this coming and have tried to lower retirement benefits or raise the retirement age several times over the past decade. The French people have rioted every time and the government backed off. Now let's see what happens when they just can't fund it and there isn't still several years to fix it.

Not surprising given the demographics in Europe. Sadly----we are right behind them. The Social Security Trust Fund currently makes up the shortfall resulting from the revenue gap between current Social Security tax revenues and the actual Social Security obligations to SS enrollees. I believe the current estimate is the Social Security Trust Fund will run dry in 2032---and when it does---the Social Security system will only have whatever revenues the social security tax brings in each month to pay its retirees. Assuming nothing is done between now and then, the current estimate is that would mean each recipient would get about 80% of what they are actually owed by the SS system starting sometime in 2032. My guess is this "worst case" scenario will be avoided (just as it was the last time this almost happened in the early 1980's)-----but because any "fix" will require some unpleasant realities----I suspect politcal leaders will probably wait until the very last minute to do something about it (just as they did back then).

(Today 08:51 PM)glacier_dropsy Wrote:  Have they tried cutting taxes, cutting benefits for poor and middle classes, increasing Department of War spending, and proposing illegal tariffs the government can't collect? Its working like gangbusters on this side of the pond.

They didn't but SS security taxes weren't cut in the US.

I'm sure rioting will work even better than the above though. It's worked for the French so far....

The payroll tax cap needs to be eliminated and Social Security will be fine for decades more, even some Republicans are starting to come around on this -

https://moneywise.com/news/top-stories/s...ayroll-cap

I was not referencing government revenue specific to SS. I do wonder what some conservatives debt to gdp ratio could be, when they would stop rooting for tax cuts.