We are trying to rob our children and grandchildren :(

Robbing Pee Wee to Pay Grandma

An interesting piece this morning from the Op-Ed pages of the Washington Post. Robert Samuelson says, "Shame on us. We are trying to rob our children and grandchildren, putting the country's future at risk in the process."

* At issue is Entitlement Spending, specifically for Social Security and Medicare.
* The implications are dire but, according to Samuelson, "On one of the great issues of our time, the social and economic costs of our retirement, we have adopted a policy of selfish silence."
* The 65-and-over population will double by 2030 (to almost 72 million, or 20 percent of the total population), Samuelson notes.
* To put it in perspective, consider that on 2005, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cost $1.034 trillion, twice the amount of defense spending and more than two-fifths of the total federal budget.
* By 2030 that share is projected to be about three-quarters of the total federal budget.
* So, baby boomers are incredibly self-centered and lack a certain element of... forward thinking. (Look, you don't earn a moniker like "The Me Generation" for selflessness.)Tell us something we don't already know.
* Ok, how about this: You know that long-term structural shift we sometimes write about here - the secular transition from excessive consumption, ostentatious displays and accumulations of "things" to a focus on savings and on the accumulation of intangible "experiences"?
* What makes that transition secular, as opposed to something along the lines of a cyclical and temporary mean reversion away from buying more and more stuff, is an underlying necessity.
* And how about this for a necessity?
* The next generation of income earners (including those of us under 40 already in the workforce) are about to be saddled with an Entitlement Spending tax bill the likes of which have never been seen in the history of the world.
* Looking in the mirror, while we may not presently feel the need to curb spending, reorder our priorities of "goods" accumulation and rethink our views of what truly constitutes wealth, the real elephant in the room is that the necessity is now upon us... whether we want to acknowledge it or not.