One quibble: the conflation of the terms deficit and debt. Our debt of 39T (isn't that easy to say, and impossible to comprehend?) is our accumulated debt.
We solved a similar debt problem in the decades after WWII, and could do it again, by changing the tax laws. We first have to make the moral decision you suggest in your last sentence.
When I was very young, my father was driving our family somewhere and somehow the subject of inheritance came up. I remember him saying that if things work out, he’d be spending his last penny on his last day here. That sounded reasonable to me, and he came pretty close. My parents were raised during the depression and went through WWII. Mom took care of us while Dad flew bombing missions over Germany. Somehow, he made it back and thanks to their hard work and sacrifice, our generation enjoyed a higher standard of living than they did.
Now, the top 1% of the nation’s households have more of the nation's wealth than the bottom 90%, and everything is less affordable. I’m just glad my father is no longer here to see our nation degenerating into what he was defending it against in WWII.
Mike, you are right. That wealth disparity, coupled with income disparity, results in a degeneration of our nation, and the concentration of wealth and power will destroy democracy. We don't have much time to reverse the trend; the abyss is staring at us, hard.
I am also glad my father is not here to see what is happening. He was a World War II veteran who was against war and was a child during the depression, so he loved FDR and everything he did. It would break his heart to see this.
Kyla Scanlon on substack does a great job of breaking down this problem in a column about AI scaring us all to one degree or another. Other factors that play into fewer dollars for our youngsters (I’m leading edge of Boomer Gen) include how long it takes to adult, the setbacks of 2008 and Covid, the longevity of their parents and grandparents and the cost of education and housing, the difficulty of investing in growth companies with private stock, the threat of worldwide depression like soon. That said my father apparently never paid into Social Security although he worked to the age of 62 and managed a comfortable retirement thanks to my mother. Live by the code of the Western, die by it. (I just read an A.B. Guthrie novel, The Big Sky, so I’m full of the notion that our people collectively as in at the ballot box have rarely actually cared enough about our kids to do real things for them like pass universal health insurance, help them with dollars for school. I hope we figure this stuff out with some elegant and enforceable taxes like Momdani’s pied a terre tax for NYC mega rich.
Excellent, Erich. Thanks.
One quibble: the conflation of the terms deficit and debt. Our debt of 39T (isn't that easy to say, and impossible to comprehend?) is our accumulated debt.
We solved a similar debt problem in the decades after WWII, and could do it again, by changing the tax laws. We first have to make the moral decision you suggest in your last sentence.
When it comes to taxation, as long as we have unlimited campaign contributions, there will be no political will to level the playing field.
When I was very young, my father was driving our family somewhere and somehow the subject of inheritance came up. I remember him saying that if things work out, he’d be spending his last penny on his last day here. That sounded reasonable to me, and he came pretty close. My parents were raised during the depression and went through WWII. Mom took care of us while Dad flew bombing missions over Germany. Somehow, he made it back and thanks to their hard work and sacrifice, our generation enjoyed a higher standard of living than they did.
Now, the top 1% of the nation’s households have more of the nation's wealth than the bottom 90%, and everything is less affordable. I’m just glad my father is no longer here to see our nation degenerating into what he was defending it against in WWII.
Mike, you are right. That wealth disparity, coupled with income disparity, results in a degeneration of our nation, and the concentration of wealth and power will destroy democracy. We don't have much time to reverse the trend; the abyss is staring at us, hard.
I am also glad my father is not here to see what is happening. He was a World War II veteran who was against war and was a child during the depression, so he loved FDR and everything he did. It would break his heart to see this.
Kyla Scanlon on substack does a great job of breaking down this problem in a column about AI scaring us all to one degree or another. Other factors that play into fewer dollars for our youngsters (I’m leading edge of Boomer Gen) include how long it takes to adult, the setbacks of 2008 and Covid, the longevity of their parents and grandparents and the cost of education and housing, the difficulty of investing in growth companies with private stock, the threat of worldwide depression like soon. That said my father apparently never paid into Social Security although he worked to the age of 62 and managed a comfortable retirement thanks to my mother. Live by the code of the Western, die by it. (I just read an A.B. Guthrie novel, The Big Sky, so I’m full of the notion that our people collectively as in at the ballot box have rarely actually cared enough about our kids to do real things for them like pass universal health insurance, help them with dollars for school. I hope we figure this stuff out with some elegant and enforceable taxes like Momdani’s pied a terre tax for NYC mega rich.