The two biggest economic challenges facing the U.S. are Social Security and Medicare, both problems ignored by both parties. If they could set aside their politicking for any length of time, these two economic problems should be solved first. Why? Because these two programs will be needed by the vast majority of Americans. For most it will be their largest source of support in retirement. For many, given the current 401k Ponzi model, it will be their only source of income/medical coverage.
The right-wing disinformation surrounding these two programs is rampant, beginning with the Banana Republican terminology "entitlement programs". Somehow a monthly deduction from paychecks turned into an "entitlement". Why? Because the funds were comingled with the rest of the U.S. budget. So now, it appears as though these two programs are "driving up" the deficit. Which isn't true at all. Both of these programs are funded through 2035 for Social Security and 2026 for Medicare. The problem is that both of these sources of paycheck deductions flowed through government coffers and out to tax cuts for billionaires. Which means that there is no money left in the imaginary program reserve funds. What is left are "IOUs" to Social Security and Medicare from the Federal government to these two programs, which will entail 1:1 bond issuance, going forward "driving up the deficit". The money should have never been comingled in the first place, because then it couldn't have been raided by criminals to pay for tax cuts leaving nothing behind but worthless chits.
Conservatives call this strategy "starve the beast", as in skim all of the money to tax cuts in order to bankrupt social programs aka. "entitlements". In developed nations they call this theft.
Here, below, we see that taxes on corporate income have collapsed since Trump took office, which is the real reason why the deficit is record wide.
The Treasury has been plundered by criminals and their known accomplices.
Worse yet, the Ponzi 401k model is now in the hands of psychopaths who have misused fiscal and monetary policy to create human history's largest end-of-cycle mega bubble. This combined over-stimulus has created a late stage double sugar high of unprecedented proportions.
Meanwhile, the Financial Services crime syndicate has succeeded in convincing people that the only way they will retire is to blow themselves up by taking on excess risk.
These are people such as Suze Orman who keeps saying that everyone needs $5 million to retire. Even though the number of Americans who have retired on $5 million throughout history is a rounding error. Most people could retire on a fraction of that amount IF they could count on Social Security. Nevertheless, scare tactics such as these have worked. The generation closest to retirement and the one that has lived through three bubbles in a row, is now taking the most risk on retirement:
"Almost all fundamental measures show the stock market to be somewhere between overvalued and extremely overvalued—with one notable exception. I’m referring to an indicator that relates the stock market to demographic trends."
[The "MY" ratio favorably compares the size of the Millenial generation to Gen X which is dwarfed by Millenials. But it totally ignores Boomers who are entering peak retirement. Meaning it's an extremely long-term view of the market that ignores 72 million Americans at peak retirement. It also ignores beginning valuations]
"The real significance of the MY Ratio is in providing some solace to long-term investors who have allocated much or all of their retirement portfolios to equities. So long as they stick with stocks through the inevitable bear markets, the uptrending MY Ratio suggests that investors will eventually be amply rewarded."
It took 25 years for stocks to recover from the 1929 crash. And now stocks are even more overvalued than they were back then, based on the Margin Adjusted PE ratio.
I hope everyone has that kind of time. I'm guessing that the people most over-allocated to stocks, don't. Unless 70 is the new 25...
"I could work in your administration"
"Sorry, you're small time"
