DL Open Thread: Sun., May 26, 2019
AEW Threatens the McMahon Empire. Having been a fan of the game of human chess known as pro rasslin’, I bought the All Elite Wrestling pay-per-view last night. It rivaled the top New Japan cards I’ve seen and blew away anything WWE has done since Austin and the Rock reigned. Bleeping great! And talk about an inclusive company–wrestlers from Japan, China, and Mexico. Openly trans and gay characters, even a wrestler with no legs. Non-traditional women characters. Which wouldn’t have mattered if the wrestling wasn’t good. But it was great. Three great tag-team matches, including an opening six-way, on the main show, an epic bloodbath between Cody and Dustin Rhodes with epic storytelling, and Omega/Jericho II. Surprises galore. All I can say is Woo-Hoo!!!
A Million Pensions At Risk. Miners and truckers especially vulnerable.
Trump Presents Trophy To Bare-Naked Man. Someone should give him a stinkface.
Carbon Credits A Total Scam? Gee, who’dathunkit? Isn’t this one of Carper’s faves?
What do you want to talk about?
I’d like to wish a very pleasant 70th birthday to the Champion of Chippenham, Wiltshire, the absolute warrior boy, Jeremy Bernard Corbyn.
We are on the cusp of taking back what is rightfully ours. AMLO already in Mexico. Jezza soon in Britain… Then Bernie for the hat trick.
For the many not the few.
(Yes, Corbyn’s middle name is Bernard )
And if you don’t know about López Obrador, read a fucking newspaper.
Another take on last night’s AEW show. I can’t overstate just what a great debut it was:
https://www.si.com/wrestling/2019/05/26/aew-double-or-nothing-dean-ambrose-jon-moxley-chris-jericho
Leonard Pitts, Miami Herald:
“Trump has lied, given succor to our enemies, spilled state secrets and obstructed justice in plain sight. If you cannot impeach this president for that now, what president can you impeach for anything, ever? Short of first-degree murder, what crime could some future president commit without being able to defend herself by pointing back to 2019, when Trump did worse and Congress only shrugged?”
https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article230802224.html
The multi-employer PBGC pool woes are a small scale version of the social security and medicare issues which are coming. Congress could have enacted mildly painful reforms years ago (as they did with the single employer pool which is solvent and has a projected surplus), but they lacked the political will, and now we have a crisis.
I keep reading reports that say there is no crisis and won’t be a crisis.
It is not just single or employer pensions which are at risk. There is approximately $50 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities for Social Security and Medicare, coupled with $6 trillion in state government unfunded liabilities and $500 billion in private industry unfunded liabilities.
So we have somewhere in the ball park of $60 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities over the next 75 years, the majority of it is Social Security and Medicare.
If there were no mortality in the female population from birth to the end of the childbearing years, the replacement level of Total Fertility Rate would be 2.1 (2.0 is the considered the baseline replacement rate to sustain a population in a country). After World War II the TFR peaked at about 3.8 and by 1999 was at 2.0. In 2017, the US TFR continued to decline 1.765.
You can readily see how the population growth after WWII provided sufficient population to sustain early retirees. But as time went on, there are less workers and more retirees. It is simply not a sustainable system at this point.
I can think of one blogger who might be willing to see the mass ending of boomers to mitigate the problem, but fortunately he is not in position to effect such a drastic measure. Still, we have a limited set of options and none of them are going to pleasant.
I dig how you guys don’t engage me directly anymore. Just discuss the numbers you read in the Atlantic. Very Boomer. Everyone needs to stay on brand. Passive. Weak.
I see you.
When you all do a cirle jerk can any of you still shoot a load or no?¹
—————–
¹I promised Jason. I’m a man of my word.
When engagement leads to vituperation, engagement will decline. Natural fact.
Correct! It’s good. I’m just saying I notice.
Better to sit a few plays out than spew stupid Boomer takes.
Also, for the record, I’m not bitter. i have a keen interest in humiliating bad Boomer takes in the strongest terms.
There is a second solution you seem to overlook: High levels of immigration. That’s why the anti-immigrant stance of so many Americans is self-defeating.
Also true
Wasn’t really overlooking immigration. But I will note, the interesting trend is that while immigrants have more children initially, successor generations follow the downward trend of the TFR.
The inference is that you would need a continuing flow of immigrants, including the initial higher fertility rates to sustain the population. But even then it would result in another bubble of a higher TFR followed by lower TFRs. Even so, immigration is indeed an option, but won’t by itself fix the issue. I think the problem is exacerbated over time by life span increases.
I understand why we continue to kick the can down the road, because most solutions are stop gap at best. I kinda wonder whether we really need to redefine the notion of retirement. Maybe we should never stop working and earning.
Address the Greenspan video and MMT!
The fertility rate talking point is reactionary nonsense. Totally irrelevant.
It’s the value of the economy in a system of sovereign currency.
Actually, removing the income cap and subjecting all earnings instead of just the first $110,000 would go a long way to kicking the can down the road — all the way to 2075 IIRC. That’s NFL-level can-kicking.
Bullshit
Please note I wished Jezza the Boomer a happy birthday today. Not all Boomer politics is useless theoretical overwrought trash.
Mostly just Dave’s
To wit:
Boomer mentality is solution myopic. Profession management only. This is a failure
There are no unfunded social liabilities.
Even fucking Greenspan knows:
https://youtu.be/DNCZHAQnfGU
Greenspan understands MMT!
Greenspan said nothing to contradict the fact that there are real future liabilities that corporations, local, state, and the federal government must deal with. I’m not going to debate MMT. There are plenty of examples of governments cranking up the presses to print as much money as they want (Venezuela, Brazil, among others).
While the federal government can and does print money, corporations, state and local governments cannot. If the State of Delaware needs to pay pension benefits next year and the year after, they have to obtain the cash from somewhere. That’s a liability according to the FASB. The fact that there ways to pay those liabilities, like printing money, does not change the fact that they are liabilities.
And by the way, that was Greenspan testifying in 2005. Since that time he has suggested (2015) reducing benefits for future Social Security retirees. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aewUdcOVuAg
I’m not familiar with the term “unfunded social liabilities”, so I won’t comment on that.
MMT only works to bail out banks, kill brown people & topple democratically elected leftist governments in the Americas!
If your granny need Medicare, fuck her!
Because Fertility Rates™
Folks, I have terrible news…
Dave is very confused .
You all should consider a podcast patronage. I have a lot to teach you. Lord knows you have much to learn.
Patreon.com/TheHighlandsBunker
@highlandsbunker
Like, I could’ve just posted the Greenspan & Ryan bit and said, “See, Dave, your point is really immaterial” and so on.
But what’s the fun in that?
@RE Vanella-
Do you really enjoy replying to yourself? It seems to be your favorite pastime.
I like the short bursts.
I find them more fun than, for example, a Dave 5 paragraper on fertility rate nonsense and strange Seinfeld analogies.
“I like the short bursts.”
That would Twitter. A more appropriate forum for flamers in my opinion.
See what I mean?
He’s not familiar…
Also refuses to debate MMT.
Hmmm.
Changes the subject to state funding, Venezuela reference.
Double hmmmm.
Take special note, folks.
Even AOC likes where All Elite Wrestling is going:
https://www.newsweek.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-wrestling-race-diversity-aew-sports-1436559