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New York Times Budget Puzzle

Sirkickyass said:
You are wrong. Roughly 80% of all wages are covered, not 80% of all wage-earners....
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well what's REALLY sad Archie, is the amount of time I spent trying to figure this out. What does it mean, actually, 80% of all wages?

anyhow, I did find some interesting links:
Contribution and Benefit base : https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/cbb.html
(from 1937-1950, it was $3,000; in 1971 it was $9,000; in 1986 it was $42,000 and since 2009 it's been $106,800)

Average & Median Amounts of Net compensation: https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/central.html
(average compensation has gone from approx. $20,000 to $39,000 from 1990 to present, and increase of 93.6% while median compensation has gone from $14,500 to $26,200 over the same period, an increase of 81%)

also: https://www.fairmark.com/retirement/socsec/social-security-tax.htm and https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/08/social-security-benefits-and-maximum.html
 
C l u t c H 385 said:
Cut ALL foreign aid.
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No joke, what's up with these moderate choices? This game is meant to be played by people that like getting their junk touched at airports, not real budget cutters. I would gut this government like I was Mitt Romney gutting companies at Bain Capital.
 
C l u t c H 385 said:
Cut ALL foreign aid.
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Cut Gordon Hayward. He's a bust.

Then tax all sports owners $1 billion each. If they have the money to be handing out $20M contracts, then they have the money to help reduce the deficit, especially if you cap salaries at no more than $500K/per. Hey, if Obama wants to cap what CEO's make, then it should certianly apply to athletes. And if they don't like it, just have them go play for the Shanghai Dragons or Tokyo Fighting Carp.
 
I doubt many of these "savings" fully account for the other side of the ledger. A carbon tax is going to drive down economic growth elsewhere. I'd prefer taking a balance of payments approach. Best are revenue neutral ideas such as raising the gas tax and offsetting with lower payroll tax for the workers and phased out subsidies for non-workers on social security, etc. This is an American solution that doesn't raise taxes but lowers fuel imports and encourages the most economical use of fuel. That would mean more money circulating inside the economy, which would add jobs and thus raise tax revenue from a broader base while lowering transfer payments.

I also have hopes for QE2 (3, 4, etc. whatever it takes without overdoing it) to produce a Plaza Accord effect. QE2 is really about China, (and somewhat about Germany and Japan) not playing by modern currency rules. China reacted right away by raising rates. I think their currency will either strengthen or they'll lose control of inflation. QE should (has) help exports and will (hasn't) hopefully hurt imports.

Balancing trade gaps would go a long ways to balancing the budget.
 
Sirkickyass said:
Oil at $35 a barrel in 2030?

Care to wager?

www.longbets.org
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i picked $35 somewhat randomly. and i meant in todays dollars...i dont pretend to know what kind of currency fluctuations will happen in the next 20 years.

Oil is at $82.41 today...i believe it will be less than $41.20 in 2010 dollars in the year 2030.

But i'm a poor graduate student with student loans and a penchant for late night online shopping...200 dollars is a lot more to me than it is to you.
 
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