economic tsunami
DESCRIPTION
Learn to recognize economic tsunami -- and what to do.TRANSCRIPT
Sensing a Tsunami
Ocean Tsunamis can be detected using our human senses.
Economic tsunamis also have natural warning signs.
Sensing an Economic Tsunami
Warning signs:• FEEL the economy shaking
severely • SEE an unusual disappearance of
benefits • HEAR the roar for more
entitlements
FEEL the economy shaking severely?
Unfunded obligations
• * In 2007, the unfunded obligations for Medicare and Social Security alone totaled almost $41 trillion. That sum, equivalent to $352,000 per U.S. household, is the present-value shortfall between the growing cost of entitlements and the dedicated revenues intended to pay for them over the next 75 years. (David M. Walker, former U.S. Comptroller General: October 30, 2008)
• http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/28/magazines/fortune/babyboomcrisis_walker.fortune/index.htm
Growing cost of entitlements
• In 2008, Maryland teacher Kathleen Casey-Kirschling became the first baby-boom retiree to collect Social Security benefits. Nearly 78 million more boomers hope to collect over the next 17 years.
• http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-12-29-first-boomer_x.htm
Fewer workers to fund entitlements
• As the number of new Medicare beneficiaries rises sharply, there will be significantly fewer workers per retiree to fund Medicare. For example: in 1970 GM had 400,000 union workers. Now, there are only 73,000.
• http://thomas.loc.gov/medicare/factpage4.html
SEE a disappearance of benefits?
Employers reducing retiree benefits
• * The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled last year that employers could reduce or eliminate health benefits for retirees when they turn 65 and become eligible for Medicare.
• Under the new rule, employers may, if they choose, provide retiree health benefits “only to those retirees who are not yet eligible for Medicare.”
• Likewise, the rule says, retiree health benefits can be “altered, reduced or eliminated” when a retiree becomes eligible for Medicare.
• Further, employers will be able to reduce or eliminate health benefits provided to the spouse or dependents of a retired worker 65 or over, regardless of whether benefits for the retiree are changed. (December 27, 2007)
• http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/washington/27retire.html• http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/washington/27retire.html
HEAR the roar for more entitlements?
Demanding that somebody else to pay for your benefits
• "My solution to this problem is to get the foreign manufacturers to help pay for our retiree’s health care! How could we get them to do this? Take the burden of health care off of all our manufacturers by creating a single payer (government) health care plan that would cover everyone in the country.
• Fund it with a value added tax. Domestic and foreign manufacturers would each pay the tax based on the value of the car. Cars manufactured in a foreign country would also pay this tax when the car arrives in this country." --John Ryden, Global Warming Examiner
• http://www.examiner.com/x-325-Global-Warming-Examiner%7Ey2008m12d4-Who-should-pay-for-retired-auto-workers-health-care
Regulation, price controls, and rationing of health care
• Obama will press Congress to pass legislation • To impose new controls on health care costs • To expand insurance coverage . . . • To establish a powerful new Federal Health
Board to contain health care costs and to make recommendations about which health procedures and treatments should be covered under public and private insurance plans. (April 24, 2007)
• http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20081130/pl_cq_politics/politics2992019
RUN !
Don’t wait !• Don't wait for official evacuation orders
from the President.• Immediately leave low-lying entitlement
dependency.• Move inland to the higher ground of thrift,
self-reliance, and responsibility.• RUN -- you've been told the economic
tsunami is coming!
Contact: Isabel HogueHealth and Retirement Insurance
Lafayette, Indiana765-714-4202
• I am an independent insurance agent, living in Lafayette, Indiana. I offer health insurance, Medicare plans, long-term care insurance, life insurance, and annuities.
• I offer free educational presentations to any group.