Robert Reich and old people ‘clogging up the pipes’
Video of Robert Reich is here discussing unemployment and (updated) uses the lump of labor fallacy description:
Transcript:
>>and when we’re at a time when there’s so many people in their 50s who are unemployed and may not be able to get back into the job — the job market, I mean, it’s unlikely to happen, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to actually lower the eligibility for social security retirement?
>>It might be, Sam. In fact, a lot of people right now are saying that the eligibility age for social security retirement given the depth of our continuing jobs recession — and this jobs recession does continue — maybe should be lowered so that you create openings for younger people coming into the job market who right now don’t have a chance because there are so many older people clogging up the pipes, as it were.
lumps
You can take an early retirement but chances are the actuary reduction of benifits will not be substainable. Social Security will barely cover your basic expenses if you live out the east coast or west coast when you fully “retire” at age 65.
I think may be extending the unemployment benifits might be better. People easily live until the 70s nowadays…
Very few are likely to retire until they reach 65 and can receive Medicare.
Pax–A reduced SS benefit is better than zero income or reduced income because of protracted unemployment, low interest rates on savings/returns on investments, increased medical expenses, or part time employment in lieu of full time employment caused by tight job markets.
STR, the majority of people filing for retirement benefits file before age 65 for the reasons I mention above or others specific to them. Many people who retire before 65 also file for disability at the same time and receive a reduced retirement benefit until they become eligible for DIB. One advantage of doing this is that disabled beneficiaries received Medicare after 24 months of DIB entitlement. For a person who retires at age 62, that’s a year earlier than he could receive Medicare otherwise. FYI NancyO
So, how much would Reich supporters want to further lower the SS and Medicare eligibility ages if official unemployment was 20% or higher?
This is the kind of nonsense that gets floated when economists and others are looking at the wrong end of the economic horse.
We will hear all kinds of make work ideas over the next few years as well as recommendations to further load up the social support systems. Meanwhile, the structural economic problems and their causes will be largely ignored.
Unfortunately, Economist’s answers can be parodied “scientifically” in this fashion.
Oh! I have a bad toe. Let’s see an axe will do the job nicely. How bout the mole on my face. I guess an real nice swing with a might sword will take care of it! I think we could “afford” a leg or two, but what if a head comes off… LOL
Sometimes it is very easy for people to pass judgement on issues. In medicine there are levels of evidence. Randomized Controlled Trials are the gold standard when the people studying the effect/end results are totally blinding. Followed by prospective study. The last level is expert opinion… Unfortunately, people likes listening to experts…When scientifically they are the least reliable bunch…
Messing with Social Security will have massive unintended consequences. (Baby Boomer will be very official starting next year…) Our economy will recover, people will have happiness, jobs again. But at the mean time, is it better to stop the leaks temporily with extension of unemployment benifits???
Besides, we have been experimenting with Keynes theory since the late 1960s… It will be really interesting when the final verdict is heard…
Given the very slow speed of the SSA disability process it would be dangerous to count on this strategy, IMHO.
This is use of a lump of labor fallacy as well.
wonder how many of us have gone ‘underground,’ working for cash-only.
Just to be clear, I view the “early retirement” line with mixed feelings. I don’t really believe in the retirement myth of golf and cocktails. The Sandwichman will work until he dies. But Sandwichman wants to do what he wants to do and that’s not working at a wage-slave job forever. I’m for phased retirement rather than early (complete) retirement. I’m 62. I work three days a week. I receive a small pension. My only complaint is that I would prefer the days to be shorter — say six hours instead of eight. I’d like to start taking a month off every three or four months, too — to write.
I find that the less PAID work I have to do, the more REAL work I’m able to do. So, I don’t totally buy Bob Reich’s “clogging up the pipes” metaphor. On the other hand, I know what it’s like to be “old” and out of work. It’s scary as hell. But then being young and unemployed is scary too. Bob Reich is a nice man. He doesn’t have all the answers but he has compassion.
All I could think as I watched this was that it was time that Reich retired. It is a total cop-out when someone wants to solve problems by creating more problems down the road. The Yves interview was an excellent followup to this. It’s almost embarrassing the way Reich babbles stuff that doesn’t establish a future direction for the country. He’s been sleeping with politicians too long and has taken on their habits.
MG
After the Orwellian agitprop that changed the majority in the House is showing itself the vast voodoo economics fraud continued!!
Keep fanny and Freddie for more CRA abuses (only matter when Pelosi is speaker) and bankers’ billion $ bonuses!! More TARP, and a little interest from them is paid back??!?!?!
When the seat of the US government moves to Des Moines!
When the US spends the same proportion of its income on taking care of people in the lesser 4 quintiles as the Germans…………..
“structural economic problems and their causes will be largely ignored.” J
ust gut the war machine free up $350B a year and the US will still be armed more than the next 10 arms racers. End militarists’ Keynesianism. And corporate welfare. Fee and tax increased.
“Wrong end of the horse”, after nearly 30 years of voodoo? You can(not) seeming “make the horse drink”.
This social upheaval is a good reason right now to lower age of Medicare to prenatal for the the citizen in the womb. If the “pro lifers” would go there I would be militantly opposed to abortion. However, pro lifers are like the slave society after importation was banned, breeders of new workers for exploitation.
As to “retirement” age take a look at Germany’s social insurance processes.
When the US spends the same proportion of its income on taking care of people as the Brits…………..
Stop dumping on Reich.
The issue with Reich , as well as the new congress, is the leg is broken, compound fracture of femur, the patient is bleeding to death, and they are digging at a hang nail.
Among several things including 30 years of voodoo that clogs the pipes in the US is wrong headed military Keynesianism and corporate welfare, discretionary spending is too high compared to the revenue stream to fund those outlays which help a very few. That 4% of GDP for the war machine, like the rest of the discretionary spending, is lost and harming the economy.
Fear not, the new republifraud congress will keep the voodoo alive and well.
It is the republicon party!
Interesting back & forth. FYI, Norman retired @55 on SSDI, which gave me full benefits. @ age 65, I was automatically transferred to regular SS with no loss of bebefits. I’m 72 now, live on the “Left Coast” as some put it, have gone through all my savings, yet, here I am. I have proven to myself, that I can survive and live a decent life. Granted, I don’t own an auto nor have the expenses of one, also don’t ride the bycycle anymore due to my extream conract with “Mother Earth”. I have been blessed with rather good health, eat well, feed 3 cats, my daughter & grandson while they retrain for the ? ? ? rebound. I might add too, that I can also afford a round trip or two via the aeroplane to visit my girl friend who lives in another state a couple of tymes a year. Yes, it is sometymes difficult to budget, but, the rush of being able to do so, is equel to waking up each morning. So, perhaps this is a bit off tract, but it is a real life story. Besides, living on the edge has its exciting moments.
Norman
glad to see you can make it. so have i. so could Sandwichman. what i worry about is the kids who can’t find a job, even after getting a PhD.
the point people can’t seem to hold in their minds about SS is that the workers pay for it themselves. if people want to be able to retire at 60 on XX dollars a month, they need to save enough while working so the money will be there. Pay as you go with wage indexing provides the “interest” that covers inflation and helps you keep up with the Joneses.
But folks insist up taling about SS as if it was welfare and the money comes either from some magic place or the rich man’s pocket… which is exactly why the rich man hates it.
Whatever money is.
In the ownership (top oners’) society all money comes out of their pockets.
The magic place exists somewhere between the federal reserve and the US congress and the top oners’ know the magic word.
The social contract is effective in denying the populace the fruits of resources, labor and technology.
We have always been at war with terrorists!!
The terrorists win when the owners lose control of money……………….
One CEO said he is doing God’s work…Dimon? Never heard of the eye of the needle aND CAMELS??
I think in analyzing any policy or economic circumstance, it helps to know who benefits. Who benefits from high domestic unemployment and underemployment? Who benefits from people losing health insurance if they lose their jobs? Who benefits from keeping the age when one is entitled to social security benefits and medicare health insurance high? Who benefits from lower marginal tax rates on income, capital gains and dividends? Who benefits from a lax regulatory environment? Who benefits from a bloated military? Who benefits from the “war on drugs”? Who benefits from “free trade”? Who benefits from illegal immigration? Hint: It is not labor
I have to agree with Coberly about playing with Social Security as if it was welfare. It’s not a good idea. What we need are new programs and institutions that are appropriate to the situation. I propose a few. Reich and Jamie Galbraith fall back on “early retirement” because there is already a program there. But loading new burdens on old institutions risks overburdening them. Don’t forget what Marx said about the first time as tragedy, the second as farce…
I have to admit I’m flushed with excitement over the idea.
That was Lord Blankfein of Goldman Sachs. Dimon became the darling of the free market press when he gave his “Let banks fail” speech. This was of course after TARP was securely in hand, the Fed had also made what is now known to total $3.3T in emergency loans, and the regulators sanctioned faking the bank books.
But he hasn’t been harping on the concept much lately now that we have mortgage gate and that has put JPM-Chase in some potential difficulty again.
ilsm – “”Wrong end of the horse”, after nearly 30 years of voodoo? You can(not) seeming “make the horse drink”. “
You should try burning some of your energy on understanding structural economic problems in the U.S. as opposed to your normal rants. And focus on what caused some of those problems.
“Understand”!
I understand well what has happened the past 50 years and what is going on. I am not sure what you know.
Rant, easy for you to avoid addressing a rant.
Explain what you think I should “understand”.
I will not follow any links.
ilsm,
If you “understand well what has happened the past 50 years and what is going on”, then I suggest that you should have more to offer than your standard narrow range of blog rants. Your comments are so limited that readers probably ignore them after a few reads.
I don’t recall that you have discussed any of the current structural problems facing the U.S. economy.
MG,
Invest 9 minutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk3sURDS4IA
“discuss…. structural problems facing the U.S. economy.”
Ignorance is strength!
Why bother, it is a monster.
See Krugman today.
Fallacious facts.
The best is at the end.
Read below my response to Sandwichman at 9:30 30 Dec.
The structural issues are the war machine and corporate welfare consume 40% of US G outlays for nothing!! No one wishes to talk there. And I see the fraud in the war machine each consulting I do.
Paid from SS surpuses and deficits, they harm future production rather than make it possible to pay it off.
Invest 9 minutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk3sURDS4IA
“discuss…. structural problems facing the U.S. economy.”
Ignorance is strength!
Why bother, it is a monster.
See Krugman today.
Fallacious facts.
The best is at the end.
Steppenwolf 1969.
Where were you then?