GM's labour costs work out to $70/hour per employee, a large chunk of that is the pension and medical care for retired workers.

So you're saying that even though they pay $30 per employee is really like them paying $70 dollar per employee because of retirement packages?

There is more than just pensions, but essentially that is correct ...

So, with the excessive amount of dependency in our economy, for GM to pay their employees enough that they take home $10 to $20 per hour it costs them $70 per hour. If you start having people retire younger (as you suggested) it would push the cost of an employee to $100 to $200 per hour even if the employee only takes home $10 to $20 per hour.

But then unemployment rate shoots way up.  Suppose for GM, they need 10 people to make a car, 5 people ritire, that's 5 more jobs that openned up.  If you have people working until they die those 5 jobs will never open up and that's 5 more people unemployed.  5 less people unemployed what do they do?  Welfare?  Starve and die?  Like you're right about private pensions (For instance Air Canada had to pay more pensions than the money they were making yearly and causing big losses), but that same problem also affects unemployment.  Which comes back to the government having to step in and pay pensions, but they don't have the money for it which is why they want retirement age raised, but all this does is delay the inevitable and causes more unemployment (Especially with companies downsizing left, right and centre because they screwed themselves over with their greed).  Which comes back to the money not existing for people who are born every day and that money needing to be printed so they can pay for retirement.  Governments don't want to print more money cause it causes the dollar to devalue and inflation to hit.  Which comes back to my statement of governments should be allowed to print a certain amount of money yearly without penalty to redistribute into pensions and jobs.  Or close all tax loopholes and make a far larger tax bracket on rich people who even if half their money was taxed yearly they'd still make a hell of a lot more than everybody, pay 50k a year in their country clubs, and still save.

You're using zero-sum beliefs to explain a situation that isn't zero-sum.

The unemployed people? They can find jobs elsewhere. Its not unheardof for people to re-tool to other jobs. If they have any skills at all, they should be able to be hired elsewhere.

You have no idea about printing money, and your statements show it. Unless money is backed by something - goods and services being produced - then it is simply paper. If you let the print any amount of money beyond what the M1 or M2 level is, then you're simply inflating what is already there - which does absolutely nothing, other than drive up the price of goods and services, rendering the pensioners' funds useless.

Furthermore, even if you magically waved a wand and made all rich people (say 250k/yr) pay 50% of their incomes, no loopholes, it would barely be enough to pay for what we spend today - much less what it'd be in 5 years. That doesn't include increases in government costs in so many other areas.

This is why many of us argue against the welfare state - it's not sustainable. When the lifespan of people is increasing, while government pensioner retirement ages are static, it continues to drain what little is in the system. Because of that, we've gone from 10 people supporting every 1 retiree to about 4.5 supporting 1 retiree, with that number dropping yearly.

Furthermore, companies aren't downsizing because of greed. Where do you get that idea from? Do you even own or run a business? If it were greed, why would any company hire at all?

Tax cuts was what bought USA to deficit. Obama can do whatever the hell he wants to dig USA out. Be it tax rise.

The simple solution is to *gasp* make these public employees actually contribute more towards their pensions and benefits. I know right, that's just crazy. Only those in the private sector should be forced to put out for their own retirement and health benefits, while ponying up for the public sector on top of that.

The days of the government promising people something for nothing has to end, because now we have an entire generation that expects something for nothing.

Uh, no.  The bursting of the tech/dot com bubble, which was the main reason why the US had a surplus towards the end of the Clinton presidency in the first place, along with increased competiton from overseas markets like China, and 9/11 causing global turmoil, are the reasons we went from a surplus to a deficit in little over a year.

In fact, the federal deficit in 2007, after 6 years of "Bush tax cuts", two wars and disasters like Katrina, was roughly the same as it was in 2002 where we had a mini-recession and 9/11 back to back... roughly $150 million or so.  That's small potatoes compared to the more than a trillion dollar deficits we've been running every year during Obama's term in office.

...well that and the surplus was really more of an accounting trick then anything else because it didn't count intragovermental debt.

Which means essentially the budget was "balanced" on the backs of social security, medicare and other things.

It's like claiming you have a balanced budget for a week when your spending money meant to pay your rent later in the month.

Not quite true.

Federal tax revenue is at about 16% of GDP - down from a 50 year average of about 18.5%. Spending is at 26% of GDP - up from an average of about 19% of GDP.

Tell me, which one do you think causes more deficits? Revenues being down 2.5% from their historical average, or spending being up 7% from historical averages?