Republicans don’t like Social Security and think people should be responsible for their own retirement savings. But they also oppose paying workers enough to live on in the present, let alone save for the future.
“Too many Americans are too dependent on Social Security” and need to save “continuously through life” for retirement, says prominent Wall Street money manager Larry Fink, who is very rich but apparently not a billionaire.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102097789?trknav=homestack:topnews:2
How, exactly, do you save for retirement in a job paying the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour?
To his credit Fink, a Democrat, unlike many of Wall Street’s spoiled-brat rich guys, sympathizes with the nationwide movement to raise the minimum wage. He says a higher minimum wage will help the economy and won’t destroy jobs:
“If one graphs the unemployment rate between 1940 and 2010 and overlays on it the timing of the increase in the minimum wage, it would appear that the post-WWII minimum wage increases follow rather than precede the unemployment rate increases, so they cannot cause them, unless one invokes economic clairvoyance, which I wouldn’t put beyond the Republicans ….
“So, if one takes the long view, an increase in the minimum wage eventually[will] reverse the economic implosion by increasing demand …. In that respect, raising the minimum wage is a hidden form of Keynesian Economic Theory, which requires that we spend our way out of economic implosions/recessions …. If the economic accelerator and brake are operated optimally, the GDP, employment, and wages will be maximized and inflation and unemployment will be minimized.
“Conversely, when greed rather than self-restraint rules the economic decision-making, the expansion continues until it is unsustainable, the profiteers collect their winning, and the rest of us are shaken down and then hung out to dry as the economy implodes behind them. … If you want the referenced graphic, I will be happy to provide, so that you … can let the truth set the Republicans free.”
https://www.facebook.com/thelastword/posts/619443251443858 [Emphasis added.]
Say what you want about this, Fink is a guy who knows what he’s talking about, and someone presidents and bankers call when they need financial advice. As for me, I’m tired of listening to Republicans who make people work for below-poverty wages criticizing those who can’t save for retirement and using that as an excuse to dismantle Social Security.