Reply #30: Welcome to the end of retirement. [View All]

[Voltaire99]

As Krugman, Akerlof and others have been pointing out for some time, the money isn't there. We're flirting with Argentina-scale crisis.

So, are we going to cut the benefits upon which millions depend? Or are we going to scale back our military empire and give our rich as well as our corporations a thorough old-fashioned soaking?

One constant, too seldom noted, is the increased workload of Americans relative to real income growth. Most Americans are asked to work more and more for less and less. Cutting Medicare and SS benefits will widen that disparity while sharpening its worst effects: declining health and economic security. What happens to a society when its top swells to bursting from the disease of rotten greed, while the middle shrinks and the the ranks of the bottom swells from scandalous mistreatment?

Why, nasty things, of course.