Why More Immigrants Are An Answer to the Coming Boomer Entitlement Mess

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Just raise the retirement age to 85, and take a lesson from the NHS: No life extending procedures after age 50.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

SS is broke not because of the boomers, but because of all the laggards on disability.

Aren't you a disabled boomer?

[Danno 1,228]

Aren't you a disabled boomer?

I'm guessing he is referring to the exploding population now collecting SS for life for one thing or another.

I have know of at least 2 twenty something guys who partied too hard and are collecting for life.

One killed a few brain cells on acid the other took a minor health condition and milked it into a early retirement.

The trick I am told is to get a lawyer who specializes in this as many cases get turned down at first application.

[alienlovechild 75]

I'm guessing he is referring to the exploding population now collecting SS for life for one thing or another.

Hard to tell how widespread fake disability is in Social Security.

When the allure of easy money comes around, criminals are never too far behind. Disability fraud can be extremely difficult to detect. Just because someone is able to walk around, drive a car, and perform other daily tasks doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't disabled and legally entitled to disability benefits. One of the main reasons that disability can be so hard to detect is because of the wide variety of legitimate medical conditions that aren't immediately recognizable to other people who aren't aware of the specific medical condition that the disability beneficiary may have. These types of disabilities are known as "invisible disabilities".

Many people believe that the term "disability" only applies to people who use a walker or a wheelchair. As I mentioned above, this is simply not the case. In fact, in a 1994-1995 survey, it was found that while roughly 26 million Americans qualified for severe disabilities, however only 1.8 million Americans needed to use a wheelchair or a walker. This means that the vast majority of disability cases are invisible disabilities. This is what makes tracking down and defending against fraud so difficult. Let's take a look at some of the more common types of disability fraud:

Faking An Injury Or An Illness: The most common type of disability fraud, but it's extremely difficult to detect. Phantom pains and other disabilities can easily be faked, and there isn't much a doctor can do to prove that the condition doesn't actually exist.

Working While On Disability: While many people who suffer from disabilities do hold legitimate jobs, there are many people who collect disability benefits, and still perform the exact same job that they're receiving benefits for supposedly not being able to do.

Continuing To Collect Disability Payments After The Condition Is Remedied: Another extremely common form of disability fraud, The patient heals, but continues to collect benefits illegally.

For the reasons stated above, disability fraud can be an extremely difficult crime to combat against. Advances in medical and computer technologies have made combating fraud more effective, but it's still a very difficult form of fraud to enforce against. Disability fraud is damaging to taxpayers, people with legitimate disabilities, as well as the world economy.

http://www.disabled-world.com/disability/fraud.php

[luckytxn 2,265]

So what happens when all the immigrants that come get old and want to retire. That right we bring in more and then after that more. We should be able to sustain a billion or two people. But wait a billion or two then wants to retire. OK maybe we can sustain about 4-5 billion.

We raise Taxes of course but wait we are going to have to raise taxes as they are now to pay for the new entitlement the Socialists brought us. Think SS is giving us problems just wait till the new health care becomes a debacle.

This is known as a Ponzi scheme. The cards fall after awhile.

[scandal 951]

Simply put, the article is absolute b******s.

That's your opinion, clearly. It's also apparently the opinion of just about everyone who posted in this thread.

I note that - in sequence - AJ, Pooky, Bill, Luckystrike, P&V, AJ,ALC,MC,Mawilson,Pooky all dissed the concept in Steve's OP, and not in one case (until this post #11 by Pooky) actually bothered to challenge Reich's assertions and views. Pretty typical VJ fare. So, since it took Pooky to actually mount a real challenge to the OP, this seems like a reasonable place to jump in.

The majority of these immigrants have little intention to become American consumers. The article takes no account of those immigrants who send a large portion of the money they earn back to their home countries.

Of course they are consumers. Sure, they may send remittances home. But they still must spend locally on basics shelter, food, clothing, transportation, childcare, heat & utilities, and more often than not on the typical discretionary items we all like to spend on: a car, a cellphone plan, cable TV, etc.

And what about the higher birth rate of immigrant families? What happens when the future labor pool outstrips the available jobs and loads the entitlement pool even further?

Why do you have a stubborn insistence that labor markets are a zero sum statistic? Economies are dynamic. The supply and demand in the labor force is both a driver and a driven variable. When the population as a whole grows, it places demands on the labor pool. More teachers, dentists, car salesmen, cellphone support technicians, realtors, and meter readers are needed to support the goods & services consumed by the larger population. Whether the population grows through organic birth rates, legal immigration, or illegal immigration does not change this basic economic dynamic.

VJ has had many, many similar discussions of the effects of immigration. I'm pretty familiar with the views of most of the regulars here, as you likely are with mine. Nobody is changing anyone's opinion. But since this thread seems to have universally concluded that there are no positive benefits to increased immigration, and only negative effects I suppose it's either shut-up, or be the lonely soul to get in a counterpoint. No doubt I'll get jumped on just as Reich did, but I've come to expect no different here.

In summary, my views of US immigration are as follows.

1. The USA has always grown through immigration. At each historical phase, new immigrant populations were greeted with derision and suspicion. Nonetheless as the US grew through immigration, miraculously its job pools expanded and absorbed each succeeding generation. Sure, we go through business cycles and recessions and depressions. But if it were true that there is a ceiling to the job pool, surely we would have hit it by now, no? Instead, the remarkable elasticity of the US labor market is a direct result of its entrepreneurial spirit and the innovation and capital that stand ready to build new industries on the ashes of the old. I firmly believe that strong immigration flows will remain a source of America's economic strength in the years ahead just as they have always been in the past.

2. There is such a thing as too-rapid growth. I am in favor of increased immigration, sure, but I also recognize that in the short term local services - housing, schools, healthcare, water, sanitation, etc. - can be overwhelmed if too many people enter a local area before the local environment has the ability to expand those services. We can't control internal migration shifts (think of the impact to Houston or Atlanta when they absorbed Katrina refugees). But we can and should control immigration from beyond our borders. I'm in favor of enlarged and liberalized and streamlined immigration quotas. But I'm not in favor of removing quotas altogether.

3. We absolutely MUST be vigilant for those who would do us harm. Not everyone trying to enter America is here for the American Dream. A primary focus of border control must be to detain and apprehend the bad guys.

4. We are a nation of laws. And the law must be respected to be meaningful. A law that is universally ignored is worse than no law, since it mocks the notion of law, and it encourages everyone to break the law on the theory that if others do it, why shouldn't they? No one is above the law. Not the President or Congressmen. And certainly not people who intentionally flaunt our immigration laws. Anyone who has broken US law should face the consequences. "Back of the line" should not mean that someone already here gets to stay here while his counterpart in a foreign land is made to wait for years to get that chance. There is a practical matter of the estimated 12million already here - they should be dealt with compassionately, but not excused for their lawbreaking. "Back of the line" should mean leaving the USA and reapplying from abroad after their ban expires.

I want to emphasize that I separate the economic argument from the fairness argument. There is no practical economic reason to prefer a legal immigrant to an illegal one. Both can have the same beneficial economic impact as a consumer and productive producer. The difference in my view is one of fairness under the law. It's outrageous that someone should break the law and be allowed to benefit from that. We don't allow caught cat burglars or fraudulent investment advisers to make off with the goods. Why should illegal immigrants get better treatment?

The laws should be changed to enable much larger pools of legal immigrants to enter more easily. That will achieve the positive economic benefits and reduce the temptation and need for people to enter illegally, thereby reducing the problem of illegal immigration. But for those who have already broken the law- the law must be upheld and obeyed. All laws, even those in need of change.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Hate to rain on anyone's parade, but several of the states, especially California, have exceeded their capacity for sustained population growth. California is already experiencing water shortages, mainly because we are suppling food for the rest of the nation. Infrastructure is in disrepair. Bridges, dams, aqueducts, sewer systems, and power grids are approaching, or have exceeded their design life and need to be upgraded and replaced. No, time to look at serious population control, and perhaps consider ways to actually reduce the population by attrition. I love an immigrant, but the time has come to shut the doors for a while, until we can make room for more.

Edited April 14, 2010 by ##########