(July 4, 2011 at 10:50 am)reverendjeremiah Wrote: Wait..are you cutting me down for actually admitting that I didnt have all the facts and in light of that your numbers convinced me? Looks to me like the employee needs to jack up his or her payment around an extra 7 percent or so..at least until the recession blows over.
Nevermind, I misread you
Sure, they could throw another 7% of their incomes in to pay for the people who are already getting payments, but they wouldn't be recharging the pot, when you consider the entire cost of social security and not just pension as we have been discussing the figures are much more unmanageable, for instance their health system costs about the same.
What they need is to be given back their incomes so they can save or invest a few percent, a typical investment portfolio with suitable hedging and variety (the typical investor package type deals that used to be popular) deals with low liabilities manages 8-10%/yr, when that is reinvested your average person can earn much more than the Greek or any other social security scheme (Including the American one) while taking home much more of their own income so they can have a higher standard of living in the interim. Then the Greek businesses wouldn't need to rally for corporate tax cuts because they aren't paying for 28% of the Social security tab, maybe they can reinvest some of their capital so the country doesn't have a manufacturing block that resembles a wilted penis, sending their share prices up and bolstering productivity, and guess what, the Greek investors who have been investing their own money in local businesses (because any average person given the choice between investing in off-shore or local companies is going to choose the locals any day but your government portfolio is likely bought and paid for by their existing debt obligations and consists of nothing but shitty bonds than sit there producing nothing) AND now with more local production they aren't so dependent on exports so the root cause of the debt is eliminated.
It's a fucking win win win win win. If you think the solution is taxing people more you're frankly bonkers
If you want the conclusions of a fellow progressive on the matter;
"Running the numbers at Dinkytown again I can see that if a guy made minimum wage his whole life (who's going to make minimum wage their whole life?) and got to save 15% of his income he'd still get in retirement the same amount someone making $50K today would get from Social Security"
http://bigwhiteogre.blogspot.com/2011/07...urity.html
Quote:Yeah..same here. It is rather frustrating as well. How can me and you (or anyone else on this topic) have a decent discussion about Greece without good numbers. If the group of numbers I pulled up are correct, then I would say that my original deduction (though admittedly simplistic for space reasons) is probably in the right direction. Your numbers, on the other hand, toss out my hypothesis and may very much support your hypothesis. I am willing to change my view, as I did for the early retirement, if I can see some solid realistic numbers for this situation.
I still think the tax numbers are largely aside from the real cause, poorly structured revenues don't help and they might even be a manifestation of a struggling economy but it still seems to me that the economic fundamentals of supply and demand are by far the dominant issue regarding Greece.
Quote:..and just for the record, I am not dodging your questions or posts. I have decided to suspend my judgement (past and present) in the light of conflicting facts and numbers. You may very well be correct and I may very well be incorrect...or vice versa.
You've still not addressed it!
Look, I'll ask again for clarity:
If you believe that the cause of the Greek problem is the tax ratios (including exemptions) but there are many nations with relatively similar tax systems to Greece who are doing relatively well then you have failed to identify or fully explain any real cause for the situation.
Do you agree with that?
If that is the case then you need to explain why Greece, given the specifics of it's situation, is in a much worse situation considering the ratios between income, expenses and tax are comparable. If you're conclusion has anything to do with the pathetic state of their productive sector relative to other nations then you've essentially come full circle in proving my point that tax is but a distraction for really understanding the problems they face and why they happened.
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