> But don’t treat social security as some bank account you’ve paid into, it’s not that.
It's not that, and it cannot ever be. Any government that "saves" dollars in a social security account is lying to themselves and their citizens.
At a national level, dollars are a way of measuring the pie, they aren't the pie itself. A government can't put a trillion dollars into a savings account one year and then take it out a decade later. If they pretend to do that all they are doing is destroying a trillion dollars today and then creating it again a decade later, causing massive inflation and deflation.
A government can only save tangible items. If they spent a trillion dollars on building retirement homes and training nurses, then those will be available for purchase by private or public dollars in the future. Anybody looking at the book and saying "there's a trillion dollar deficit, we're stealing from the future" would have it completely backwards.
"Anybody looking at the book and saying "there's a trillion dollar deficit, we're stealing from the future" would have it completely backwards. "
Isn't that only true if the government is spending that money in a way that creates wealth down the line? I think that is a very debatable notion. Not only is the government not creating that army of doctors and nurses, it's allowed the creation of a system where only a limited amount of doctors and nurses can be made privately. They are not good stewards of the money looking out for your grandkids best interest.
> Isn't that only true if the government is spending that money in a way that creates wealth down the line?
Yes exactly. Which is why the amount of the deficit isn't particularly relevant, it's how it's spent. For example, giving everybody COVID relief cheques makes inflation worse, but spending on green infrastructure lowers inflation in the long term.
It's not that, and it cannot ever be. Any government that "saves" dollars in a social security account is lying to themselves and their citizens.
At a national level, dollars are a way of measuring the pie, they aren't the pie itself. A government can't put a trillion dollars into a savings account one year and then take it out a decade later. If they pretend to do that all they are doing is destroying a trillion dollars today and then creating it again a decade later, causing massive inflation and deflation.
A government can only save tangible items. If they spent a trillion dollars on building retirement homes and training nurses, then those will be available for purchase by private or public dollars in the future. Anybody looking at the book and saying "there's a trillion dollar deficit, we're stealing from the future" would have it completely backwards.