Quote (bogie160 @ Apr 9 2014 07:42pm)
Thinness was a product of want, obesity came with plentiful cheap food, and now healthy living is slowly replacing obesity as a product of luxury and social advancement.
The solution was never to embrace Carter's dream of want and Soviet styled sacrifice, instead we've pushed the bounds of societal accomplishment.
Medicare is insolvent and yet the left only proposes to add spending on top, meaningful change isn't discussed. Ryan is being attacked for suggesting we have a problem.
Social Security isn't solvent because the trust fund doesn't exist. It is debt owed by the government, and the funds to pay for obligations will have to come from the budget to make up for it. This represents a double burden on the current and future generations.
We need to forgive these obligations, accept that they're gone, and work to raise the retirement age and reduce benefits to make up for it. Otherwise they will just represent a real and growing burden on budgets going forward masked by the fact that the fund itself is technically solvent.
Demonizing the wealthy and deciding that the minimum wage "just doesn't feel right" is exactly the same leftist populism that those countries embrace.
This bleeds into the anti-intellectualism of the Democratic Paety. Most economists are to the right, most professionals are to the right. The left is composed of the uninformed poor and the liberal arts and social science academics (economics excluded). I don't see why those academics would be seen as particularly informed on how economies should be structured. If I want an opinion on Anglo-Saxon culture in the mid-9th century I'll duly turn to them for help, just as I'm sure you'll embrace the economic wisdom of those who have made their life a study of it.
Adjusting minimum wage to inflating isn't "feeling right", it is acknowledging that whatever it has been for the past few years is worth less and less.
And most credible economist bash the GOP as much as the Dems.
And obviously economics would be the most important aspect of life for somebody who has devoted their entire life to the study of such. But it is only one piece of the picture. Political response to economics is reactive and epiphenomenal. The control is bottom up, stemming from culture. Individualism and hedonism ingrained through socialization maybe could be a problem?