Politics of the Day

[greybeta]

You would think that as an opinion editor for a campus newspaper that I would have a lot of opinions on the politics of a day. I do, but a little thing called "senior project" gets in the way. While I have already presented, there's the matter of the final product where I have to dot all my i's and cross all my t's. I do have some quick thoughts about the politics of the day...

Domestic

• Immigrant situation seems to be yet another application of realistic vs. idealistic thinking. Realism says we have to deal with the over ten million "undocumented workers" living within our borders. Idealistic thinking says we can pass laws to solve the problem. The thing is that each party wants to control who these illegal immigrants will vote for down the road (if they aren't already voting).


• The Bush leaks have caused some consternation among certain members of Congress. The only thing is that this isn't anything new...just more public thanks to advent of the Internet. I wonder if the Bush administration will increase the time for released gov't documents (currently 30 years) in an effort to improve national security.


• Sixty-two percent of students who identified themselves as Republicans said religion was losing its influence on American society, while 54 percent of Democrats said it was increasing its influence. Most agreed, however, that a candidate's religion wouldn't affect how they voted.

Foreign

• Iran wants to play ball with the big boys. The big boys are going to play ball back. Gotta love the "we came here first" mentality. Even if Iran is discouraged from continuing its nuclear program, it will win many favorable concessions as a result of doing so. Why wouldn't Iran stay on its current path? America is too outstretched to invade and nobody else is going to want to invade Iran.


• Prodi wins Italian elections. The boon of coalition politics is that it gives you a lot of choices. The downside is that it's difficult to create a stable and coherent direction. It's a razor thin coalition though, so I don't expect this setup to last more than two years.


• France back downs on youth law. One Fox News commentator said that the French just want cushy jobs where they can't be canned and that doesn't work under capitalism. I don't know just how true that is, but something tells me that's what a lot of Americans think. No, don't give me all that high end theoretical economic theory, I'm talking about your average American here who watches Fox News. You know there are a lot of them because otherwise we wouldn't have elected our current president otherwise.

Comments

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

It is a bit difficult to wrap one's mind around... a job as a right...

What happens if your economic policies stagnate growth so much there aren't jobs to be had? Grow government to pick up the slack?

[usmu.livejournal.com]

That's what universal welfare is for.

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

Paid for by...

[usmu.livejournal.com]

Taxes, and therefor by us loyal citizens.

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

But there comes a point where the tax burden becomes too great.

[usmu.livejournal.com]

Sure, but that point would need a certain state of the economy that might never be reached. The Dutch have general welfare and though it does costs us a lot of money, it's definitely bearable. And has been at points when things were worse.

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

Well, we have welfare here, too. I'm not sure how it compares with the Dutch system, though. The scenario I was thinking about, though, is when the number of workers isn't sufficient to support the entitlement system because the number of jobs has dwindled significantly.

[usmu.livejournal.com]

That's the scenario I had in mind. I think that's not one we'd have to be very anxious of, because it's not the economy that's the problem. Currently the Dutch system in general, specially pensions, is facing a major problem know as "the greying of society". In other words: we'll have more old, retired people than can be sustained by the work force. Ratio is suspected to be something like 2:1, which is not feasible. Which probably means that retirement age will go up and the possibilities for early retirement will disappear. But it still doesn't really have me worried. I've still got 30 to 35 years to take care of that.

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

Sounds like Social Security here! Baby boomers are reaching retirement age, and there won't be enough people paying into the system to support it.

Whenever real reform is discussed, there is a general uproar, so politicians avoid it like the plague. Say what you will about Bush, but I give him credit for proposing reform to the plan before it becomes an even more critical issue.

The scenario we have here is:

Politician A: "Social Security will be bankrupt in 30 years. We need to fix it now."
Citizenry: "Yeah, fix it! It can't go bankrupt. But when you're formulating the reform plan, we have a few requirements."
Politician A: "Okay, what are they?"
Citizenry: "Well, we don't want the retirement age to change, and we don't want the level of benefits to change."
Politician A: "Ummm...okay...but I just got through telling you that it would be bankrupt at the current rate, so..."
Citizenry: "And did we mention that we don't want to pay any more taxes?"
Politician A: "Wha?!"
Politicians B - Z: "This won't be an issue for 30 years! Politician A is just trying to scare you! Change nothing, we'll worry about it later!"

This is why I am not relying on Social Security for my retirement income.