To the editors:
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Note that the only variables are the amount produced and the level of retirees’ consumption. If retired boomers live off their Social Security, their private pension plans, their savings, their children, they still consume what others are producing. We can’t bake the bread now, put it in a freezer, and eat it in 2030.
Fake solution. Jackson advocates “government incentives to save,” especially IRAs, and paying Social Security to those still working after 65.
Since the federal government must take an enormous percentage of production for Social Security from 2020 through 2050, it should take as little as possible for other purposes. That means especially: the federal debt (not merely the deficit) should be pared down to a minimum over the next 30 years, and the public infrastructure should be spanking new and in need of little repair by the time that process begins. The work force of that period, the kids in school today, should be as productive as possible. Not only government, but industry as well, should be paying as little in interest and dividends as possible: workers have not only to produce for retirees but for all other receivers of interest.
