Two in Three Young Americans Want Social Security Reform

 

Young Americans are more likely than Baby Boomers to want Social Security reformed according to a new survey by Redfield and Wilton Strategies.  According to Newsweek magazine:

“A majority of 63 percent of Americans ‘strongly agreed’ (28 percent) or ‘agreed’ (35 percent) that the Social Security system needs to be reformed, according to the Redfield & Wilton Strategies/Newsweek poll. Only 10 percent ‘strongly disagreed’ (5 percent) or ‘disagreed’ (another 5 percent).”

Support for reform was strongest among Millennials:

“According to the poll, 56 percent of Gen Zers, 76 percent of millennials and 69 percent of Gen Xers believed the system should be reformed, against 50 percent of boomers.”

Newsweek interviewed Richard Johnson, Head of the Urban Institute’s program on retirement security.  Johnson offering sobering comments for young Americans: "unless policymakers fix Social Security's finances in the next 10 years, millions of retirees and people with disabilities would plunge into poverty."

That’s bad news for young Americans. 

Will the Biden Administration and the Democrats fix Social Security?  That’s easy: NO.  In fact, their plans will make things worse.

For example, Senator Elizabeth Warren wants to increase benefits for Baby Boomers by $200 a month. 

Giveaways to current beneficiaries like Senator Warren’s will make the system even more unfair to Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X.

It’s far past time to exert real pressure on the Washington political class to end the fleecing of young Americans.  Real Social Security reform would be a good place to start. 

Africa Moves Ahead on Nuclear Power, The West Falls Further Behind

 

I consider myself an eco-modernist.  I understand the science behind climate change.  But I don’t think either panic or deindustrialization is necessary to address it.  Rather, I believe that technology can allow us to reduce carbon emissions and at the same time increase our material standard of living. 

The most promising alternative to fossil fuels is nuclear power.  Unfortunately, government regulation and environmentalist scaremongering has prevented the development of new commercial nuclear facilities in the United States and Europe for the last fifty years.

Fortunately, the rest of the world is not so backward looking.  Commercial nuclear development is taking off in Africa. 

African economies are growing rapidly and so is their demand for reliable electricity that can power industry and commercial activities.  Wind and solar can’t do that. 

Here’s a roundup of commercial nuclear development in North and East Africa. 

Egypt is building a mammoth 4,800 MW plant on the Mediterranean coast.  The El Dabaa plant is being financed with assistance from Russia. 

Four East African countries have announced plans to develop commercial scale nuclear power plants to support economic growth.

Uganda is leading the way.  Uganda is planning a 2000 MW nuclear power plant with the first 1000 MW of capacity to be brought online in 2031.

Rwanda signed an agreement with a German-Canadian company to develop a nuclear power test facility. 

Kenya plans to start construction on a 1000 MW commercial nuclear plan in 2027. 

Burinka Faso is working with Russian on the development of commercial nuclear. 

And Tanzania is looking into developing commercial nuclear facilities in conjunction with Russia. 

Meanwhile, Germany shut down its last three nuclear plants this year.  In their place, Germany has ramped up generation from carbon-emitting coal. 

Nuclear energy is yet another industry where the United States is far behind Russia and China.  None of the African projects are being developed by U.S. firms.  Commercial nuclear has become another industry of the future where the United States is not competitive.

Update: China brings the world's first Generation IV nuclear reactor online.

Young Voters Rally to Conservative Parties in the USA, Argentina and Canada

 

Young Americans are turning thumbs down to the statist policies of the Democrats.  Polls show Trump leading Biden among 18-35 year olds.  But it’s not just the USA.  Young people are rejecting socialism and the parties of the left throughout the world.

The most recent NBC poll shows Donald Trump beating Joe Biden by four points among 18 to 35 year olds.  Trump also has a four point margin over Biden among all voters.

This is a seismic shift in the views of young voters.  In the 2020 election, Biden had a 26 point lead among voters between the ages of 18 and 35 reports the Daily Mail 

But its not just the United States. 

Young people are rallying to candidates with a conservative and free market message throughout the world.

Young voters were the key to libertarian Javier Milei’s victory in the Argentine presidential election. 

Milei promised to stop inflation through a sound money policy; cut public spending by 15 percent; and stop rampant corruption.

Milei got 56 percent of the vote in the November 19 election.

In his victory speech, Milei said that his victory marks the beginning of the reconstruction of Argentina. 

“Today we retake the path that made this country great.  Today we embrace the ideas of libertarianism.  The model of decadence has come to an end.”

Argentina was once one of the richest countries in the world.  Today, more than half of all Argentines are poor or destitute.  Inflation is 143 percent a year.  The

And it doesn’t stop there.

North of the border, in Canada, Pierre Poilievre’s free market message is winning over young voters. 

Poilievre’s stock speeches address issues like inflation and loose monetary policy; Canada’s housing shortage, free speech and cutting Canada’s bloated and oppressive government bureaucracy.  He’s an eco-modernist backing technological solutions, not taxes, to the climate change question. 

And importantly, Poilievre’s upbeat and making it fun to be a conservative again. 

Young people throughout the world are rejecting socialism and the bureaucratic, high tax parties of the left.  This includes Joe Biden and the Democrats. 

Instead, young voters are putting their hopes in pro-freedom, pro-opportunity parties in much of the world.  This is good news for parties on the right.  Now these parties need to deliver.

 

Share of Young Adults Living with Parents Highest in 80 Years

 

The percentage of young adults that live with their parents is higher now than at any time since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Almost one in two now live with parents.

The inability of young people to form their own households is a long-term negative for American society.

Moving out of one’s parent’s home is an important marker on the road to independent adulthood.

But today, young people are finding it difficult to strike out on their own. 

Young people were harder hit than older Americans from job and income losses from the COVID lockdowns.  Now they’re facing an unstable job market, the hangover from the high cost of college and student debt, and falling income in real terms.

However, the biggest barrier to independent living is probably sky-high rental and housing prices.

Marriage and family are for most people a source of personal happiness and a fulfilling life.

The inability of young people to form their own households will inhibit marriage and birth rates.  Married couples want their own space and to live their lives outside of parental authority.  Unaffordable rents and home prices are causing young people to delay getting married and having children.

Though marriage rates and average family size have declined over the past fifty years, Americans still want the joys of family life. 

In fact, the percentage of Americans that view three or more children as ideal in 2023 is higher than at any time since the start of the 1970s.  According to Gallup, almost 50 percent of Americans view three or more children as ideal.  Only 2 percent of Americans view zero children as ideal.

The early years of adulthood are a critical time in our lives.  Until now, it is the stage of life in which so many important life decisions are made.

High housing costs and a bad economy limit the flexibility of young Americans to explore life’s possibilities including those concerning marriage and family and to make those choices that produce the greatest happiness and fulfilment in the long-run.

 

Gen Z on the Move

 

New report from the consulting firm Oliver Wyman has lots of interesting data on what young people in the United States and the United Kingdom look for in a job.  

An astonishing 62 percent of Gen Z workers are at least passively looking for a job as are 60 percent of Millennials (graphic below).  

Some other key findings

- Young people today are twice as likely to struggle with mental health issues as older workers.

- 41 percent of men and 48 percent of women have a side hustle of some sort whether it be a second formal or informal job.  

A key takeaway form the study is that young people want flexibility.  As I point out in my own research, the rigid environment of unionized workplaces is unlikely to provide the flexibility that young people need.

The United States should be freeing up workers, not forcing them into rigid employment relationships.  This is a big problem for the Democratic party as it pits one of their most important voting blocks (younger people) against one of their main funders (labor unions). 

The Economic Plight of Chinese Youth Demonstrates Yet Again That Socialism Doesn’t Work

 

Surveys show that roughly half of the young people in America have a positive view of socialism.  Yet socialism has failed everywhere it’s been tried. 

Typically, it is young people that are harmed the most by socialist economic policies.  The economic plight of young people in China is just one recent example.

If there’s anyplace that socialism should work for young people, it’s China.  China economy has been centrally planned and managed since1949, longer than any other nation on earth. 

Yet young people in China are having a difficult go of it.  Jobs are scarce, youth unemployment high. 

It’s so bad in China cities that young people have begun sharing beds with strangers just to make ends meet.  Young Chinese call this “hot bedding”. 

Hot bedding with a stranger is not a good thing.  It’s the kind of thing you might have seen in a Three Stooges short, not a romantic rendezvous. 

Hot bedding has come common because job opportunities for young people in China are so poor and rents so high.   

Below is China’s youth unemployment series for the last five years as reported by the New York Times. 

By comparison, the youth unemployment rate in the United States is 8.7 percent.

Notice that the unemployment rate for older Chinese has actually ticked down a bit over the last five years.  Why is rising unemployment in China a more widespread phenomena?

Simple.  Patronage and work rules in China protect more senior workers with greater political connections.  The Chinese have a name for that: The Iron Rice Bowl. 

That works out great for older workers.  They have lifetime sinecures. 

But when the economy slows, as it has in China, someone has to bear the downside. 

Instead of sharing the risk of job loss throughout the workforce, patronage places all of the downside risk on younger people. 

Because of their relatively short tenure in the workforce, younger workers and new entrants have had fewer opportunities to acquire political connections within their own organization.  Note that I’m not using “political” in the ideological sense.  Rather “political” refers to relationships which may involve the local Communist Party apparatus, or it could just be relationships with influential managers and other employees.

Union seniority rules in the United States work the same way.  They protect the jobs of some but they also place the entire risk of job loss on younger workers with fewer years of experience.

To make matters worse, the Chinese government has decided to cover up the youth unemployment problem by discontinuing publication of youth unemployment statistics. 

In socialist economies, governments have more control over everything including the media. 

Control of the media allows the ruling party to squelch any news that makes the ruling powers look bad. 

That’s exactly what’s happening in China.  As the Chinese economy slows, inconvenient economic data series disappear.

This week China announced that it was no longer going to publish the youth unemployment rate.

That doesn’t solve the problem.  That just covers it up.  

Despite so much evidence on the failures of socialism, large numbers of young Americans are sympathetic to socialist ideas.  Many even endorse communism.

A recent survey found that 49 percent of Gen Z had a favorable view of socialism and a third supported the gradual elimination of capitalism in the United States.   

18 percent of Gen Z and 13 percent of Millennials think communism is a fairer system than capitalism and deserves consideration in America.

As Marion Smith, the Executive Director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation put it, the findings of the survey demonstrates “a total failure of our education system, not just in schools but also a basic dishonesty in our media and popular culture. When one-in-four Americans want to eliminate capitalism and embrace socialism, we know that we have failed to educate about the historical and moral failings of these ideologies.”

 Indeed.

New Survey Shows Gen Z is Remarkably Career Focused

 

There's a new survey on the career goals and higher education needs of Gen Z high schoolers out from Question the Quo.  The results show that younger Americans are very much focused on their careers and the practical education requirements necessary to achieve those goals.  

Findings were published in June 2023.  Fieldwork was done in January 2023.

Some high level takeaways from their January 2023 survey.  

- 65 percent think that some education after high school is necessary however 52 percent are considering a four year college, down from 65 percent in their February 2020 survey.  The letter follows a general decline in perceived value of a four year college experience and degree among the general population.

- Interest in community college, on-the-job training and career and technical education are all up from February 2020.

- Students eel unprepared for the next step.  Only 13 percent feel prepared for their next step after high school.  

- 63 percent say that they need more guidance on managing their finances.  

I personally am a big advocate for financial education.  There was a bill put forth in the Wisconsin legislature that would require some form of financial education in high schools.  Unfortunately, that bill was not enacted.   

- 53 percent want more formalized learning throughout their lives, up from 46 percent in 2021.  

Opportunities for formalized learning throughout one's career are important.  

My own view is that the Baby Boom generation, of which I am a part, was not good (or motivated) to develop others.  The Baby Boom was a large generation.  When generations are large, there's more competition for opportunities.  

The jobs website Indeed points out the competitive nature of the Baby Boomers.         

Up and coming generations are smaller and more interested in getting along rather than getting ahead.  This has virtues as well as drawbacks.  Nevertheless, successful employers need to meet their workers where they are and adapt to their desires.  Opportunities for life-long learning are one such area where employers need to step up their game.  

#Bidenomicsfail: Just 1 in 3 Gen Zs Say They Can Handle a $400 Emergency Expense

 

Joe Biden wants us to think that the economy is doing great.  In fact, the Biden economy has large numbers of Americans living on the edge. 

Morning Consult survey found that only 32 percent of Gen Z report that they could pay for an unanticipated emergency expense with cash.  Just two quarters ago, 39 percent of Gen Z could handle a $400 emergency expense. 

The normal pattern of saving over one’s lifetime is that as one ages holdings of financial assets should grow as one saves for retirement. 

However, the Morning Consult survey shows that Millennials and Gen X are making very little progress in building wealth.  

The survey found that only 36 percent of Millennials and 41 percent of Gen X said that they could handle an unanticipated $400 expense.  These percentages are not materially different from Gen Z. 

Seen differently, Gen Xers are now more than twenty years into their adult lives and their finances are not much more stable than the finances of new college graduates. 

 

The survey also asked whether the $400 expense would require putting off payment of other bills.  38 percent of Gen Z and 39 percent of Millennials and Gen X would have to put off payment of other bills. 

It’s not just Americans.  A video posed by TikTok user Simone (@simonesdays) shows how after paying taxes and bills, the paycheck from her CAD75,000 corporate job leaves her with exactly in $80 spending money for the next two weeks. 

Her TikTok video has been viewed 2.7 million times and has 184,000 likes as of Friday the 4th. 

Here are some of the comments on her TikTok page from other young people struggling to get by. 

At the core of the financial struggles of young A

mericans is a lack of economic opportunity.  The inability of the Millennials and Gen X to improve their finances so that they are closer to the Baby Boomers than Gen Z is particularly concerning.

Debt Tsunami Causes Fitch To Downgrade America’s Credit Rating

 

Fitch ratings announced that it has downgraded the credit rating of the U.S. government from AAA to AA+  Every American is going to pay for Washington’s irresponsibility though higher taxes and higher interest rates. 

Fitch’s announcement of their rating change highlights the massive amount of borrowing by the Biden Administration in addition to the decades of fiscal irresponsibility and governance failures in Washington and many state capitals. 

In Fitch's view, there has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters, notwithstanding the June bipartisan agreement to suspend the debt limit until January 2025. The repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management. In addition, the government lacks a medium-term fiscal framework, unlike most peers, and has a complex budgeting process. These factors, along with several economic shocks as well as tax cuts and new spending initiatives, have contributed to successive debt increases over the last decade. Additionally, there has been only limited progress in tackling medium-term challenges related to rising social security and Medicare costs due to an aging population.

Fitch projects that Biden’s spending will blow the top off U.S. debt levels.  Interest on the debt will consume 10 percent of all government spending by 2025.  Interest rates are going to be higher making it even more difficult on young Americans afford a home. 

Fitch forecasts a [general government] deficit of 6.6% of GDP in 2024 and a further widening to 6.9% of GDP in 2025. The larger deficits will be driven by weak 2024 GDP growth, a higher interest burden and wider state and local government deficits of 1.2% of GDP in 2024-2025 (in line with the historical 20-year average). The interest-to-revenue ratio is expected to reach 10% by 2025 (compared to 2.8% for the 'AA' median and 1% for the 'AAA' median) due to the higher debt level as well as sustained higher interest rates compared with pre-pandemic levels.

The response from the Biden administration has been predictable.  Hit the snooze alarm and spend, spend, spend. 

S&P downgraded the U.S. in 2011 and China’s Chengxin International Credit Rating service downgraded the U.S. in May of this year. 

Canada’s Conservatives Are Attracting Gen Z Voters. What Can Republicans Learn from Them?

The Republican party lags far behind the Democrats in attracting young voters.  What is the Canadian Conservative Party doing right and the Republican Party doing wrong? 

Polling data from Canada shows that the Conservative Party has a significant lead among Gen Zs and Millennials over Justin Trudeau’s ruling Liberal Party. 

A June 2023 Ipsos poll puts Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives at 37 percent overall compared top 32 percent for the Liberal Party. 

Importantly, Conservatives are ahead among Canadians of every generation. 

Conservatives have an 18 point lead over the Liberal Party among Gen Z and a 1 point lead among Millennials. 

This is enough for a huge swing in Canadian politics.  Like the United States, Canada has a first past-the-post electoral system control requires only winning the most seats, not a majority of the overall vote since Canada has a multiparty system.  Trudeau’s ruling Liberals only got 33 percent in the last Canadian federal election but that was sufficient to form a governing coalition.   

Contrast that with the United States.  Sixty-five percent of voters 30 and younger voted for the Democrats in 2022, up from 62 percent in 2020. 

Young voters were the key to the Democrats maintaining control of the U.S. Senate in 2022.  Were it not for younger voters, Republicans would now control both houses of Congress. 

Young people are fed up with Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and the relics governing our country.  A New York Times survey found that only one percent of 18 to 29 year-olds strongly approve of the job that Joe Biden’s been doing.  That’s one percent. 

Yet the Republican Party badly trails among younger voters and has no identifiable plans or strategy for outreach to twenty- and thirty-somethings. 

For a glimpse at what Canadian Conservatives are doing right, here’s Jordan Peterson’s interview with Pierre Poilievre

Lesson 1: Communicate.  Notice how clearly and calmly Poilievre speaks.  Contrast that with Joe Biden’s mumblings or Kamala Harris’s word salads.  Bureaucratic speak and empty talking point won’t do it.  Younger voters want leaders that communicate in language the average person can understand. 

Lesson 2: Have principles.  Poilievre’s statement on the importance of the free market is more forthright than anything that’s come from a Republican politician since Ronald Reagan.  The Republican Party needs candidates that can speak to free market economics or other conservative ideals with the same passion as Mr. Poilievre. 

Lesson 3: Be for change.  Poilievre clearly contrasts the Conservative agenda with the of the ruling Liberals.  Young Americans are looking for change too.  Surveys show that more than 90 percent of young Americans are either angry or frustrated with the federal government. 

Lesson 4: Have an agenda for younger voters.  Notice how Poilievre talks about housing costs and job opportunity—two issues of core concern for younger voters.  being against won’t do it.  The Republican Party needs an agenda that speaks specifically to the concerns of twenty- and thirty-year-old Americans. 

Republican politicians and operatives should look to Canada as a model on how to broaden the base by brining younger voters into the coalition.  If not, Republicans will find itself in the political wilderness, unable to win elections or influence the future direction of the 

China’s Youth Unemployment Problem Provides More Evidence That Socialism Doesn’t Work

 

Karl Marx wrote that communism would solve the unemployment problem created by capitalism.  Evidence from China shows he had it backwards.

In 1847 Marx wrote: 

“Big industry constantly requires a reserve army of unemployed workers for times of overproduction. The main purpose of the bourgeois in relation to the worker is, of course, to have the commodity labour as cheaply as possible, which is only possible when the supply of this commodity is as large as possible in relation to the demand for it, i.e., when the overpopulation is the greatest.”

But does his critique of capitalism hold? 

China provides a natural experiment.  Were Marx correct that socialism solves the unemployment problem then we’d expect to see little or no unemployment in China. 

China is the world largest communist regime.  The Chinese Communist Party has been in power for 74 years.  Surely they must have gotten it right by now. 

Well, not so much.

The figure below contains the unemployment rate for young Chinese (between 16 and 24).  Their reported unemployment rate is almost 20 percent.  And since the Chinese government often fudges its figures, the actual youth unemployment rate may well be far higher. 

 

Compare that to the United States.  Youth unemployment in the United States never got above 20 percent.

 

This comparison show that socialism, even when practiced in its most extreme form (communism), doesn’t solve the unemployment problem.  In fact, it makes it worse.

The figure below contains average unemployment rates among young people between the ages of 20 and 34 for the advanced countries of the world (OECD member countries) over the past ten years.

The chart clearly shows that unemployment rates are lower in countries with economies that are closer to the capitalist economic model (more economic freedom) than those with larger public sectors and more regulation (less economic freedom).

 

Bottom line: socialism fails young people wherever its been tried.  And that’s a fact.   

 

America’s Core Problem: Those with The Least Pride in the USA Control All its Major Institutions

 

Gallup recently asked about pride in America.  The results show a large gap between the parties with Republicans having much more pride in America than Democrats.  So isn’t it a problem that the people with the least pride in the USA control all of our major institutions?  You bet it is. 

The fundamental rule of management is that you want the people at the top to be dedicated and enthusiastic about the organization and its mission.  If you are in business, you want the CEO to be a relentless optimist, a cheerleader for the company.  How confident or dedicated would you be in your work if the CEO of your company were constantly running down the organization?  Not too much I suspect.

Or consider your house of worship.  You wouldn’t want your parish priest, rabbi or pastor to be a non-believer or atheist.  Unless it’s clear that the leader passionately believes, followers won’t believe or follow either.  The pews will be empty. 

However, when it comes to America’s major institutions, the fundamental rule of management is turned on its head.

The people that control all the major institutions of American life are the people that have the least pride in the United States of America. 

Below are the results from Gallup regarding pride in America.  Barely half of all Democrats are very or extremely proud to be American versus 84 percent of Republicans.

Or looked at it another way, 48 percent of Democrats are just so-so on the country we live in.  They say “meh” about the USA.  

Yet the Democrats that control all our major institutions: Hollywood, the media, higher education, primary education, the arts, administrative government and in the last few years the military and big business too. 

Ponder this: In the 2020 presidential election, Democrats received 92 percent of the vote in the District of Columbia.  That percentage is far higher than in any state (next was Vermont at 66 percent).  If DC Democrats are like Democrats nationally (if anything, DC Democrats are more liberal) then it’s likely the case the bureaucrats that run our national government have less pride in the country than any comparably sized group anywhere in the United States.  How messed up is that?

The reason that most Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track is that the wrong people, the people with the least pride in the USA, are the ones running every major institution in America. 

We need to get back to management rule number one; have people that believe in and take pride in America be the ones in control of our major institutions if America is ever to be a great country again.   

 

Wide Support Among Young Americans for Ending the Use of Race in College Admissions

 

The media and Democrats portray young Americans as firmly behind affirmative action.  This isn’t true.  Young Americans are ready to put racial discrimination behind us. 

Don’t believe the media and Democrats on the Supreme Court decision to end racial discrimination in college admissions.   

Democrats and the media portray Gen Z and Millennials as fully behind the use of race in college admissions.  The truth is much different. 

A plurality of Americans oppose the use of race in college admissions.  A survey by the Pew Foundation found that 50 percent of all Americans opposed the use of race versus only 33 percent that approved.  Hispanics were equally divided, 39 percent to 39 percent.  Less than half of blacks (47 percent) approve of affirmative action.

Still, universities cling to the use of race.  This demonstrates how out of touch higher ed has become with middle America. 

Young people are at best split on the issue of affirmative action.  Just as many young people disapprove of using race for college admissions and hiring as do. 

Harvard University’s Youth Poll regularly asks Americans between the ages of 18 to 29 whether “qualified minorities should be given special preferences in hiring and education.”

In the most recent poll, only 30 percent agreed with affirmative action.  33 percent disagreed.  This that held strong opinions were more unfavorable toward affirmative action.  Only 12 percent strongly agreed with affirmative action while 18 percent were strongly opposed. 

Given that young people are at most evenly divided on the issue, the predominance of young backers in the media reflects not reality but instead the media’s preferred narrative. 

Instead of attacking the ruling, President Biden should stop dividing Americans based on race.  His own record on racial matters is a dismal one.    

Polling by Harvard shows that most young people don’t like the way Biden is handling race relations.  58 percent of 18–29-year-olds disapprove of Biden’s handling of race relations, only 38 percent approve. 

55 percent of blacks and 38 percent of Democrats between 18 and 29 disapprove of how Biden’s handling race relations.

 

 

Slouching Towards 1984: Shocking Numbers of Young Americans Embrace the Surveillance State

 

One wonders whether they still teach Orwell in schools these days.  Almost one in three members of Gen Z says that they would accept government surveillance cameras in their home.    

A new survey from the Cato Institute asked Americans about their view on government surveillance and central bank digital currencies. 

The survey found that large numbers of young Americans would be happy having Big Brother watching them. 

Almost one third of 18- to 29-year-olds said that they would favor having the government install surveillance cameras in their home to monitor them for illegal activity.    Only 6 percent of Baby Boomers would allow Big Brother into their homes.    

It’s not just their homes.  Gen Z also is happy having Big Brother in their pockets.  32 percent of Gen Zers support CBDCs.

In fact, 24 percent of Gen Z would support CBDC even if it meant that government could freeze the bank accounts of political protestors. 

That’s exactly what happened in the Canadian trucker protests in which the government ordered banks to freeze the accounts o truckers and other protesting the government’s authoritarian (and unnecessary) COVID lockdown. 

History shows that when governments have the ability to squelch dissent they will do it. 

Whether it is the East German Stasi, the Chinese Communist Party’s social credit system or the National Security Agency’s domestic bulk data collection program (for which they lied to Congress about its existence), the tools of government surveillance are the tools of totalitarianism. 

 

Deaths of Despair Growing Among Young Americans

 

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent piece pointing out that death rates among young people have been rising.  here's a quote from the article:

Between 2019 and 2020, the overall mortality rate for ages 1 to 19 rose by 10.7%, and increased by an additional 8.3% the following year, according to an analysis of federal death statistics led by Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University, published in JAMA in March. That’s the highest increase for two consecutive years in the half-century that the government has publicly tracked such figures, according to Woolf’s analysis.

Other developed countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and Norway also saw a rise in some death counts among young people during that time, though the upticks were often concentrated in narrow age groups or one gender, according to global death counts provided by Christopher J.L. Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

Here is the graphic from their article: 

One of the comments made reference to how homeless or living rough should be considered a cause.  I agree.  That's not well captured in the medical data--it's hard to attribute a specific cause.  However, watching videos of homelessness, especially places like Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood,. one gets the sense that there are too many young lives off course in our country.

Biden Medicare Plan Fleeces the Young

Biden’s Medicare plans look like they came straight out of the playbook of the AARP.  His plans demonstrate that the Democratic Party doesn’t care about young Americans. 

On Tuesday (March 7) President Biden announced his plan to save Medicare.  His plan disinherits the young: it sacrifices the interests of young Americans to benefit the old.  That may be good politics.  Young people have little political power in America.  But it’s bad for the future of our country.

Here’s a quick roundup of three ways that Biden’s plans harm young Americans:

First, Medicare is going bankrupt because it provides the elderly with benefits that cost far more than the amount of taxes that they out into the system.  But Biden wants to make Medicare even more generous and thus more costly to younger taxpayers.

Biden wants to reduce the age of eligibility from 65 to 60.  That means that millions more will become eligible for government benefits.  That costs the system in two ways.  First, more people will be part of the program which means benefit costs go up.  Second, Medicare and Social Security payroll tax revenues are going to go down since people will take advantage of the benefits by retiring earlier. 

The responsible thing is to raise the age of eligibility from 65 to 70.  The average life expectancy of Americans has increase by 9 years since Medicare started in 1966 so retirees in America are already collecting benefits far longer than originally intended.  Reducing the age to 60 means that the average retiree would get 25 years of taxpayer subsidized health care.

Second, Biden wants to hike taxes on Americans earning more than $400,000 a year.  Currently, Americans in this range already pay an extra 3.8 percent on top of the existing federal income tax rate of 37 percent.  Biden wants to increase the rate to 5 percent which means that the top federal rate is now 42 percent.  Then add state taxes on top of that.  So high earners in California are going to be taxed at the astounding rate of 55 percent (47 percent in Massachusetts, 50 percent in Wisconsin).

High taxes reduce economic activity.  Hiking taxes on the most productive, hard working and entrepreneurial Americans will only these people to do three things: (a) become less productive; (ii) not work as hard; and (iii) be less entrepreneurial.  The result: slower growth and fewer career opportunities for young Americans in a stagnant economy.     

Third, Biden wants to force down process for prescription drugs.  That sounds good in the present.  But lower prices mean less incentive for the development of new drug treatments.   Economists Tomas Philipson and Troy Durie of the University of Chicago estimate that price controls for prescription drugs would lead to a 29 to 60 percent decline in the number of new drug treatments brought to market by 2039.  As a result, Millennials and Gen Z will have fewer treatments available when they need them in later life.

It true that Medicare is going bankrupt.  But is it doing so because of political myopia and the craven desire of Washington politicians to channel benefits to the politically influential (the elderly) while stock the costs to the politically weak (the young).

What America needs is statemen that think of the next generation, not politicians like Biden that only think of the next election.

A statesman would acknowledge that life expectancy has increased dramatically since the program began.  Therefore, rather than lowering the age of eligibility to 60, a statesman would raise it to 70.

A statesman would recognize that Medicare is a very good deal for current retirees.  Economists C. Eugene Steuerle and Karen Smith estimate the even high earnings individuals are getting more out of the program in terms of benefits than they paid in in taxes.  It shouldn’t be too much to ask the elderly to pay a little more in premiums to support the program.

Unfortunately for young Americans, statesmen are in short supply.  Washington is full of politicians.  And that’s why you are routinely fleeced by the likes of Joe Biden. 

 

Quiet Quitters and Productivity

Survey datashows that job dedication among young people is far lower than for older generations. Is this due to their upbringing--that what's important is me and my happiness? Or is it due to the fact that older people tend to be managers while young people are individual contributors? My experience is that it's far easier to be dedicated to your job if you are the one calling the shots versus the one taking orders. If the latter, it suggests that we are going to see very slow productivity growth going forward.

WSJ: Young Americans Being Driven Deeper into Debt

 

The Wall Street Journal documents how inflation, rising home prices, and fallout from COVID are driving young Americans deeper into debt.  One wonders how long they’ll keep voting for the politicians that are impoverishing them.

The Wall Street Journal reports that debt levels and credit card delinquencies are rising more rapidly among young Americans than any other demographic group.

The article cites three factors, all of which have their basis in government policies. 

First, there is inflation, a creation of frenzied Federal Reserve money creation.  The Journal writes:

“Now, rapid inflation is forcing many to spend more on gas, groceries and rent, eating into pandemic savings. The last round of stimulus checks went out in 2021. Families are back to commuting, traveling and eating out again. The Federal Reserve’s campaign to curb inflation has pushed up interest rates on credit cards and other types of loans.”

Then there’s COVID.  The Journal points out that families had to spend a lot more on child care when schools were closed—and teachers given paid vacations—during the pandemic.  The Journal writes:

“Some changes are hurting millennials in particular. Many spent unplanned thousands of dollars on child care or tutoring when schools closed. Some relied heavily on a pandemic-era program, the government’s monthly child tax credit payment, but that has lapsed.”

And third, we have skyrocketing home prices.  The Journal writes:

“Many 30-somethings are trying to buy their first homes and have been squeezed by higher rates and home prices. The median price for an existing home was $359,000 in January, more than $90,000 higher compared with three years earlier. In recent years, prices rose the most in lower-cost neighborhoods that are more likely to be in millennials’ budget range.”

The factors that lead to home price inflation can all be traced back to government policy in some form.

 The Federal Reserve’s free money policies of the last fifteen years did nothing for home buyers.  Sure, you could get a mortgage on the cheap.  But that also meant that there was a lot of competition among buyers so sellers could get a high price. 

On balance, low rates did nothing for home buyers.  Home ownership rates for young people didn’t go up during Bernanke, Yellen and Powell’s decade and a half of monetary madness.     

Couple that with NIMBYism and zoning restrictions that make it very difficult to build new homes because that’s no land.  As Mark Twain said about land: “they ain’t making any more of it” and as long as local governments won’t allow greater density, they ain’t making more homes either.

Unfortunately, the Baby Boomers and Gen Z have proven slow to learn that government is the source of, not the antidote, to their problems.

As long as young people keep voting for more government, they’ll continue to get the shaft, and go deeper into debt to make ends meet.

Government Schools are America’s Engine of Inequality

 

The failure of government schools to provide poor kids with a basic education is a handicap that few are ever able overcome.  Rather than a social leveler, government schools are the driving force for inequality in America.

In Baltimore there are 23 elementary schools in which not a single student is proficient in math.  No one student in the entire school.  In the entire city, only seven percent—one in fourteen students—is proficient in math.

In one Baltimore school, a GPA of 0.13 places a student in the top half of the class. 

To call Baltimore schools a public school is a misnomer.  They don’t serve the public.  Instead, they serve the teachers unions, administrators with lifetime appointments, and the craven politicians who benefit from a captive voting block of government dependents. 

Here’s a story from the Baltimore Fox affiliate on the failure of government schools in that city.

  

If the Fox Project Baltimore story doesn’t make you mad, check your pulse to make sure that your heart is still beating.

The same story plays out in government schools throughout the United States. 

In Milwaukee, just 11 percent of fourth graders are proficient in math.

In California statewide, only 27 percent of eleventh graders met or exceeded statewide standards for math.   

Just 30 percent of Boston public school students—less than one in three--are proficient in math. 

The primary reason for inequality in America is not racism or the police.  It is the government school system. 

Consider what life is like for the students in these 23 Baltimore schools.  They’ve been robbed of the opportunity to have an education, to develop their minds.  And when you don’t have educational opportunity, you don’t have life opportunity either.

It’s not just that they’ve been victimized by the Baltimore school system today.  They’ll continue to be victims for the rest of their lives. 

So many important decisions in life require quantitative reasoning skills.  Managing your finances requires quantitative reasoning skills.  Weighing risk against reward requires quantitative reasoning skills.  Running a business requires quantitative reasoning skills. 

Those who can manage their finances, understand risk, and run a business get ahead in life.  Those who can’t find themselves falling victim to scammers, loan sharks and flim-flam artists throughout their lifetime. 

Nearly Half of Millennials and Gen Z Struggling to Make Ends Meet in the Biden Economy

 A new survey of the financial condition of Americans shows that nearly one in two Millennials and Gen Zers report that they regularly run out of money.  And this is before the likely recession in 2023.

Janet Yellen might not see signs that Americans are hurting but a new survey of personal financial conditions tells a different story. 

Prudential Financial’s most recent Pulse Survey found that 49 percent of Millennials and 40 percent of Gen Zers report that they regularly run out of money and have to rely on credit cards or parents for financial support. 

The survey also found that 46 percent of Gen Z and 42 percent of Millennials say that they would not be able to support their current lifestyle without parental support.

Financial difficulties are a major source of stress for young Americans. Half of the Millennials surveyed reported that they had trouble sleeping during the past year because of financial stress. 

The financial difficulties facing the Millennial generation are particularly concerning because most Millennials should be well into their careers at this point.

The Millennial generation is typically defined to include those born in 1981 through 1996.  The youngest Millennials are 26 and the oldest 43. 

That so many young Americans are struggling financially underscores the weakness of the Biden economy.

And this is before the much-anticipated recession of 2023.