Book Description
This paperback edition of The Coming Generational Storm has been revised and updated and includes a new foreword by the authors.
In 2030, as 77 million baby boomers hobble into old age, walkers will outnumber strollers; there will be twice as many retirees as there are today but only 18 percent more workers. How will Social Security and Medicare function with fewer working taxpayers to support these programs? According to Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns, if our government continues on the course it has set, we'll see skyrocketing tax rates, drastically lower retirement and health benefits, high inflation, a rapidly depreciating dollar, unemployment, and political instability. The government has lost its compass, say Kotlikoff and Burns, and the Bush administration's spending and tax policies have charted a course straight into the coming generational storm.
Kotlikoff and Burns take us on a guided tour of our generational imbalance: There's the "fiscal child abuse" that will double the taxes paid by the next generation. There's also the "deficit delusion" of the under-reported national debt. And none of this, they say, will be solved by any of the popularly touted remedies: cutting taxes, technological progress, immigration, foreign investment, or the elimination of wasteful government spending. Kotlikoff and Burns propose bold new policies, including meaningful reforms of Social Security and Medicare, that are simple, straightforward, and geared to attract support from both political parties.
Customer Reviews:
Essential Reading - Save Early and Save Often.......2007-08-08
This book should be required reading for all high-school sophomores who are going to inherit the economic problems the authors lay out in the prologue. The more awareness my generation (x) and the younger generations get about the mounting economic conditions we will face within the next 25 years, the better prepared we will all be to fix, or at least adjust to them.
At times the book is a bit too academic and for that I give it only 4 stars but there are parts that you can skip and still not miss the authors' explanation of why we are doomed and what - possibly - we can do to mitigate the situation. Robert Shiller summarizes the points that the authors make below:
"There's a lot of frivolous criticism of our politicians, but this book hits the mark, convincingly documenting their biggest sin: the failure to account for the magnitude of a huge government deficit crisis. The accounting scandals of Enron, WorldCom, and Parmalat pale by comparison. Read this book so you can start preparing for much higher taxes in the future for you and your children."
--Robert J. Shiller, Yale University, author of Irrational Exuberance and The New Financial Order
Perhaps the worst part of all of this is that we CAN fix the debt obligations that are hanging over us but doing so would require massive sacrifices on behalf of all citizens (unlikely since so many of us "expect" the government to play a role in financing our retirement and healthcare) as well as for both sides of the political aisle to work together (even more unlikely in these partisan times when all the Dems and Republicans want to do is blame one another). Failure to grasp the gravity of a $54 Trillion debt obligation and its impact on the quality of our lives will only continue to erode the value of the dollar as more developing nations such as China, India and Brazil increase their ownership of the US by buying up Treasuries that the government continues to issue. Not good, especially when so many of our middle class jobs are being lost to these countries at the same time.
This is perhaps the most important issue of our time. Until voters are heard and a real politician runs on a platform to fix the escalating economic crisis that awaits us all, do what you can to prepare yourself; save as much as possible in both tax deferred and taxed accounts (the latter of which will benefit you in the future since you will likely be in a lower tax rate today than you will 20 years from now when the govt. has no choice but to raise personal income taxes to finance the debt). Also, go to the gao.gov website and click on "Fiscal Wake Up Tour" in the left hand gutter, then click on the CBS New Program 60 Minutes hyperlink. If you dont have the time to read this book, at least read this article and watch the video interview with the head of the GAO office. By that time, the message and its implications should be painfully clear to you.
Informative, but speculative.......2007-01-10
Kotlikoff and Burns rightly portray congress, the president, judges, the AARP, and anyone else who favors increases, or even the status quo, of social security, Medicare, and Medicaid policies as truly irresponsible. The fact that these three entitlement programs will bankrupt the country within 50 years has been known for at least 10 years (when I started to pay attention to politics). Every year, reforms are spoken about, even good ones that would for the most part protect the programs. But every year, the situation becomes worse because nothing is done. And Bush II foolishly expanded Medicare.
On the flip side, economic predictions decades into the future seems fairly irresponsible as well. As is pointed out in this book, other countries are in far worse condition than the US for the same stupidly financed entitlement packages. They will go belly up first. While the US will certainly feel their pain as well since their economies are intimately tied to ours, we will learn from their mistakes and fix our own problems.
All my life, I've been listening that one disaster after another is going to crush us. In grade school, I learned that we would run out of food in the mid 80's through the 90's and billions would starve to death. Didn't happen. Humans now consume more calories on average throughout the whole world than ever before. Then in grade school and middle school I learned that we would run out of energy. Despite the blip of the last year, oil prices have steadily been dropping and they will continue to drop. We will never run out of oil or energy. Destruction of the ozone layer. It's still there. The depletion of our forests. The US today has more forest cover than 80 years ago. Foreign holdings of the US debt. Nuclear war.
And on and on, disaster after disaster that never materialized. Not because the harping drew attention to the problem, but because in the stating of every single problem, the assumption was that nothing would change. That the human response would not adapt as new information and incentives came about. Not a smart assumption.
We will solve the entitlement problem, but, yes indeed, we will have to feel the pain first. And so what? We'll still solve the problem. The sun will rise in the east and set in the west and the US will be around for a long time and in a dominant position, social security, Medicare, and Medicaid not withstanding. The US and the world will continue to become a better place, but in fits and starts.
I've always been an optimist. I really do believe in the power of imagination and human ingenuity.
Generational Fear Should be Great.......2007-01-09
This book gives a great review of the issues facing America in this century due to government give aways. After reading it I found that several current news stories seemed to be confirming the predictions in the book. The numbers are 3 years old, but the suggestions for saving Social Security and Medicare still seem to be valid. I was a little disappointed in the funds listed in the book, but I have received updated listings by visiting the Scott Burns web site.
A Sobering Assessment.......2006-12-05
Per Kotlkoff and Burns (who base their findings on Government projections), the present value of unfunded future liabilities for Social Security and Medicare is $45 trillion (some nine times the size of our "National debt"). The reasons: longer human life spans due to advances in medical science, retirement of the baby boomers, and the disconnect between the consumption of medical services and the responsibility for paying for them.
Drastic action would be required to close the gap now, e.g., (a) increase federal income taxes by 69%, (b) increase payroll taxes by 95%, or (c) cut Social Security and Medicare benefits by 45%. We could make even more drastic adjustments in a few years. Or, we could do nothing and let the U.S. economy go into a meltdown with double-digit inflation fueled by the Government printing money.
Our political leaders are trying to ignore the problem, and, as Kotlikoff and Burns explain, the fault is ours. "The last thing we want is Uncle Sam telling us to save now for a tidal wave of obligations when the baby boomers retire. So we make sure that doesn't happen. We hire [elect?] politicians who tell us what we want to hear."
The authors go on to present a plan for reform, but they don't expect their plan (or other reforms that could save the system) to be enacted. They end with advice as to how workers should attempt to look after themselves and their families if the politicians in Washington "miss this opportunity to save our ship of state."
One thing bothers me about the analysis. Accepting that the fiscal gap is every bit as bad as it is depicted, this problem was created by Government action. Why should we attempt to solve it by giving the Government even greater responsibilities, such as running the world's largest index fund, assessing the health risks of every senior in the country, deciding how much society needs to spend for health care, etc.? It might be more logical under the circumstances to move in the direction of less Government and let people make choices (such as how long should I work, what medical care do I and others in my family need, etc.) for themselves.
Even if the authors don't have all the answers, however, they have diagnosed the problem very well. "The Coming Generational Storm" is entertainingly written and refreshingly nonpartisan (lambasting both Republicans and Democrats with vigor). Don't miss it.
A retort to the complaints about this book.......2006-11-27
The negative reviews of this book tend to note the following: we cannot predict the future and, yet, this book purports to predict what will happen in the future.
On the one hand, this is a valid criticism - it IS true that we cannot predict how things might change over the next few decades. If some changes occur, they may invalidate the predictions of this book. In fact, I would wager that this book ends up being wrong on a number of fronts.
However, one response to this criticism is that the best information that we have about the future is based on current trends. Absent information about unknown innovations, how could we do any better? Using information about current trends is exactly what this book does. Any alternative future is necessarily based on more tenuous predictions.
Moreover, the authors are very, very careful (and I cannot emphasize how careful they are) about the caveats associated with their predictions - they consistently note that no one can predict the future with certainty and that their predictions are based on the best available information.
They then go even further. They consider scenarios that may invalid their predictions such as technological change (i.e. productivity increases) and carefully argue that those changes would be implausible or, at the very least, insufficient to alter the basic gist of their message.
In the end, the authors try a great deal to innoculate themselves against the criticism regarding the uncertain future. They will almost certainly not be correct, and they concede this point throughout. But their predictions are based on more careful analysis than the knee-jerk response that "we cannot predict the future" which ends up being a vacuous criticism since it is not refutable.
What annoys me about this whole issue is that it is quite clear that we are facing a future crisis even if these guys are wrong about the details. And yet our politicians do not have the guts to face up to it. I think that we need a blue ribbon, non-partisan panel that includes serious people like Kotlikoff (who is a serious, well-regarded economist) to consider the issues and make recommendations. Most politicians either do not understand the issues or do not have the chutzpah to confront them. Something has to be done, and even if this book ends up being wrong, at least it's a call to action.
Average customer rating:
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Generational Accounting around the World (National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report)
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0226032132 |
Book Description
The realities of mounting government debt, tax burdens, and an aging population raise serious concerns about the financial legacy confronting future generations. How great a fiscal burden will current policies leave to subsequent generations, and how might changes in those policies alter the intergenerational distribution of public welfare? Generational accounting has recently emerged as a robust new method of fiscal analysis and planning designed to assess the long-term sustainability of fiscal policy and to measure the extent of the financial load ultimately borne by present and future generations. A seminal contribution to public economics, generational accounting has already been adopted by 23 nations around the world.
Combining the latest and most extensive country-by-country generational analyses with a comprehensive review of generational accounting's innovative methodology, these papers are a consummate resource for economists, political scientists, and policy makers concerned with fiscal health and responsibility.
Book Description
Inter-generational transfers are at the center of economic policy debates today. Reducing public debt; financing social security; taxing capital and bequests; and designing the education system imply substantial inter-generational transfers. The tool that economists employ to analyze these issues is the overlapping generations model, which reflects the different periods of life. When the model includes capital accumulation, it also allows researchers to formalize the development of an economy, relating its growth path to the savings behavior of young agents. The aim of this book is an in-depth analysis of this model that includes its major policy implications.
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Generational Policy (Cairoli Lectures)
Laurence J. Kotlikoff
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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ASIN: 0262112833 |
Book Description
In these eight 2002 Cairoli Lectures, presented at the Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Laurence Kotlikoff shows how generational policy works, how it is measured, and how much it matters. Kotlikoff discusses the incidence and measurement of generational policy, the relationship of generational policy to monetary policy, and the vacuity of deficits, taxes, and transfer payments as economic measures of fiscal policy. Kotlikoff also illustrates generational policy's general equilibrium effects with a dynamic life-cycle simulation model and reviews the empirical evidence testing intergenerational altruism and risk sharing.
The lectures were delivered as Argentina faced a devastating depression triggered, in large part, by unsustainable generational policy. Throughout the book, Kotlikoff connects his messages about generational policy to the Argentine situation and the Argentine government's policy mistakes.
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Fiscal and Generational Imbalances: New Budget Measures for New Budget Priorities
Jagadeesh Gokhale
Manufacturer: AEI Press
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ASIN: 0844771678 |
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Few realize how bad the federal government's finances are, because most evaluations are based on what happened in the past--not what is likely to happen in the future.
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Generational Change: Closing the Test Score Gap
Paul E. Peterson
Manufacturer: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
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ASIN: 0742546098 |
Book Description
This book makes the radical argument that the government's budget deficit--the cornerstone of conventional economic policy analysis and management--is a number devoid of economic content and that its use has repeatedly led us astray.
Customer Reviews:
Once again, Larry Kotlikoff is ahead of his time.......2004-08-06
I had the honor of working the Professor Kotlikoff on several occasions in the early 90s. Even in those days, he was well ahead of the thinking on the topic of generational wealth/deficit transfers, off-the-books accounting, and the need for drastic reforms in pensions, social welfare, and government funding.
In this book, Kotlikoff provides extensive detailed analysis of the problems with government spending and government "unaccounted for" obligations. And he presents it in such a manner that the most "geek oriented" numbers cruncher can dig into the details, while at the same time the qualitative policy interested person can also grasp the issues.
I would strongly recommend a combination of this book with the latest edition of David Foot's "Boom, Bust and Echo" to get a real understanding of the house of cards that has been constructed in our economy, based on a combination of fiscal policies and demographic trends.
Larry Kotlikoff is a real hero in raising and explaining these issues.
Book Description
As the ranks of the elderly continue to swell and their social welfare becomes a complex and contentious policy issue, how will the United States balance the conflicting demographic and economic demands of providing for its older citizens -- especially in light of the anticipated economic burden of the baby boom generation's impending retirement? These problems place the destiny of Social Security and health care at the epicenter of political discussion and debate, making a balanced perspective on these issues essential -- particularly as the lives of millions of future Americans will be affected. The Generational Equity Debate offers social workers, policy analysts, political scientists, and sociologists, as well as general readers concerned about the fate of the elderly, a complete range of viewpoints on this vital subject.
Book Description
What separates excellent organizations from the truly ordinary? What allows some organizations to rapidly change and continually reinvent themselves while others have trouble making even modest improvements? The fundamental ingredient is the presence of change agents. Change agents are individuals who have the knowledge, skills, and tools to help organizations create radical improvement. They achieve results through their keen ability to facilitate groups of people through well-defined processes to develop, organize, and sell new ideas. They are the invisible hands that turn vision into action.
The Change Agent's Guide to Radical Improvement is a comprehensive how-to book, packed with all of the information and tools necessary to make any improvement project a rousing success. Its unique methods integrate the best practices in organizational development, team building, voice of the customer, reengineering, problem solving, creativity, innovation, and project management.
The systematic change agent model introduced in this book will help you:
* Pick the right improvement projects to work on, by diagnosing the real issues effecting the organization.
* Organize the project so that it has the best chance to succeed, by uncovering the project's success criteria, securing management support, and building the right team.
* Select the best change process to improve customer satisfaction, reengineer a process, solve a problem or develop a plan.
* Generate innovative out of the box ideas that dramatically impact the bottom line.
* Navigate the politics of change; ensuring radical ideas become radical improvements.
Customer Reviews:
An interesting follow-on.......2007-09-16
This book is intended to be used by practitioners: there is at least as much space spent on worksheets and tools as on the theories and ideas behind the tools. I would recommend reading one of Miller's other books, "We Don't Make Widgets" (unavailable from Amazon at the time of this writing, but you can find it other places on the web), for a very good, concise treatment of those theories and ideas. The tools and their purposes make more sense if the reader has this context in the background.
That said, this book has some great tools and, more importantly, does a great job of putting those tools within a broader strategy for tackling organizational improvement. At no point does it feel prescriptive or mechanical; rather the focus is on flexibility and knowing when and how to use the tools. Miller clearly recognizes the value of questions, and the reader will find suggestions for questions to ask throughout the book. He also cautions repeatedly to take the time to make sure the real problem has been identified. In my own experience, this is a big deal: you can't make any headway until you are working on the real problem, and getting people outside of their own immediate experience in order to discover the deeper problem is no small feat.
Readers who are familiar with other performance or quality improvement paradigms will find things they recognize. The strength of this book comes from its integration of ideas into a larger strategy rather than on absolutely new or unique ideas. Government and nonprofit leaders (the intended target of the book) will certainly benefit from reading this.
Ken Miller's email address.......2006-01-26
I am trying to locate Ken Miller and was curious if anyone has his email address?
Thank you,
Matt Miller
St. Louis, MO
I've been waiting for this book...........2002-06-03
This book is the perfect marriage between process improvement methods and Rob Lawton's Creating a Customer-Centered Culture. Ken has provided a clear roadmap for organizations to get focused on the customer, measure things that the customer cares about, and achieve those results with the least amount of pain and agony.
I have already recommended this book to several of my clients who are starting (or are already on) the journey of using teams, focusing on the customer and improving their organizations. It has everything you need, so it's a great reference book as well.
WOW!!.......2002-04-10
Ken Miller has hit the nail on the head with The Change Agent's Guide to Radical Improvement. Whether you are a seasoned Change Agent / Quality guru, or somebody who often asks "Why do we do it this way?", you need to read this book. That experience alone will leave you energized and chomping at the bit to identify and begin projects that ACTUALLY DELIVER RESULTS.
Miller has provided us with a comprehensive "How-to" guide for making your organization (corporate, government, education, healthcare, Service) and yourself very valuable. The chapters are well-written, easy to understand and thought-provoking. From the proper diagnosis of a project to the implementation to the wonderful method of tracking results, it is literally the only book you need to drive change through your organization. Since reading the book and attending the author's academy, I've used many new, as well as old tools to more effectively run meetings, solve problems, improve processes and lead planning sessions. The big difference I've noticed with the use of the old tools is that I now use them in the proper situations. Miller also identifies the "Change Agent Body Of Knowledge," the features a person must have to be a successful agent of change.
Read this book. You won't regret it, and you might possibly change the way you approach your work. Appropriate for all levels of the organization, especially management.
Replace your entire Quality Library with this One Book!.......2002-03-07
If you are a student of improvement, then this book is an "All You Can Eat Buffet" of your favorite foods. It literally takes the best of thousands of quality principles and tools and combines them into one easy to read and use manual.
Ken Miller's book on tools for change agents has failed to find a prominent place on my bookshelf not because of content, but I simply have not been able to put the book away since I first opened it. It reenergized me as a team leader and has contributed greatly to the effectiveness of our improvement efforts.
Chapters are written using examples that are well suited for the subject matter and that the reader can easily relate to. At the end of each chapter are easy to follow tools that will quickly become an indispensable component in your facilitating arsenal. My personal favorites include the techniques for getting more out of brainstorming, and Ken's methods for analyzing projects.
This comprehensive book is a must have for everyone who wants to see their company grow! Before you start your next team initiative do yourself an enormous favor, READ THIS BOOK!
Books:
- The Craft of Investing: Growth and Value Stocks, Emerging Markets, Market Timing, Mutual Funds, Alternat
- The Economic Implications of Aging Societies: The Costs of Living Happily Ever After
- The Evolution of Economic Thought (with Printed Access Card (InfoTrac 1-Semester, Economic Applications Online Product)
- The Limits of Power: Great Fires and the Process of City Growth in America
- The Next Global Stage: The Challenges and Opportunities in Our Borderless World
- The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy
- The United States and Western Europe since 1945: From "Empire" by Invitation to Transatlantic Drift
- The Vital Few: The Entrepreneur and American Economic Progress (Galaxy Book)
- Trade Policy and Market Structure
- Transport Investment and Economic Development
Books Index
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