Deficit Owls | Even Donald Trump Could Tell You: Social Security Cannot Go Broke @deficitowls5296 | Uploaded January 2017 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Professor Stephanie Kelton (economic adviser to Bernie Sanders and the Senate Budget Comittee) explaining why Social Security cannot go broke. It is not possible. The US government issues its own currency, and Social Security promises are all in that currency. Furthermore, the government owes no debt in foreign currency, and doesn't promise to convert dollars into gold or anything else, meaning there's no limit on how many dollars it can spend. The only constraint is inflation that might be created from overspending, by trying to purchase more than the economy can produce.
The US government cannot run out of dollars. Period. This means it can always make Social Security payments. There is no possibility of it being unable to meet those promises. It's just not possible. And the government can never be forced to default on any of its other debt, as even Donald Trump can tell you.
And it's not just Donald Trump, but Warren Buffet and Alan Greenspan saying the same thing! But when Greenspan said it, he made a very important point: we can give an unlimited amount of money to anybody, that's no problem, but what matters is that the economy has the capacity to produce the real goods and services that the people receiving the money are going to buy. In other words, we can give all the money we want out, but we had better make sure that we have enough food, enough houses, enough energy, enough cars, enough computers, and whatever else those people will use that money to buy. If there isn't enough, then we'll get inflation.
So the solution to the "Social Security Problem" isn't to raise taxes, or lower benefits. That makes no sense. The solution is to invest now to build more factories, repair and expand our infrastructure, increase productivity, and whatever else we need to do to ensure that the workers of the future will be able to produce enough goods and services for the retirees of the future to consume.
More about that idea here: youtu.be/QA7DF17fquE
See the whole talk here: youtube.com/watch?v=EyBhU19pD3k
Follow Deficit Owls on Facebook and Twitter:
facebook.com/DeficitOwls
twitter.com/DeficitOwls
Professor Stephanie Kelton (economic adviser to Bernie Sanders and the Senate Budget Comittee) explaining why Social Security cannot go broke. It is not possible. The US government issues its own currency, and Social Security promises are all in that currency. Furthermore, the government owes no debt in foreign currency, and doesn't promise to convert dollars into gold or anything else, meaning there's no limit on how many dollars it can spend. The only constraint is inflation that might be created from overspending, by trying to purchase more than the economy can produce.
The US government cannot run out of dollars. Period. This means it can always make Social Security payments. There is no possibility of it being unable to meet those promises. It's just not possible. And the government can never be forced to default on any of its other debt, as even Donald Trump can tell you.
And it's not just Donald Trump, but Warren Buffet and Alan Greenspan saying the same thing! But when Greenspan said it, he made a very important point: we can give an unlimited amount of money to anybody, that's no problem, but what matters is that the economy has the capacity to produce the real goods and services that the people receiving the money are going to buy. In other words, we can give all the money we want out, but we had better make sure that we have enough food, enough houses, enough energy, enough cars, enough computers, and whatever else those people will use that money to buy. If there isn't enough, then we'll get inflation.
So the solution to the "Social Security Problem" isn't to raise taxes, or lower benefits. That makes no sense. The solution is to invest now to build more factories, repair and expand our infrastructure, increase productivity, and whatever else we need to do to ensure that the workers of the future will be able to produce enough goods and services for the retirees of the future to consume.
More about that idea here: youtu.be/QA7DF17fquE
See the whole talk here: youtube.com/watch?v=EyBhU19pD3k
Follow Deficit Owls on Facebook and Twitter:
facebook.com/DeficitOwls
twitter.com/DeficitOwls
