"Father Ray, you're not in a socialist country here. Here you have to earn everything yourself. You have to 'walk the walk.' I know that in your affirmative-action programs, from the mid-1960s, in the states there were some good things that happened."
-"True. African-Americans have increased their high school graduation levels from 19% to 35%, while whites were up 31%. Blacks increased their college graduation rates from 5% in 1965 to 19% in 2009, compared to 30% for whites. Their business ownership went from 2.2 percent 7.1%. So affirmative action seems to have made some real differences in our society.”
"Well, good for you. Our affirmative action starts in school with equal opportunity, If you don't cut it there life may be a bit tough for you. Of course we have a few very successful people who did not complete school. Some have not even passed our citizenship tests. So our affirmative action affirms those who achieve.
“I suppose I could approve of the new rules in India where in their elite Indian Institutes of Technology only one student of every 50 applicants makes it into the university. But recently they have set aside 30 places for deserving students from the lowest social classes. I'm interested to see how that works out. Will it be true equality of opportunity or will it only be an exercise in futility?"
-"I can be pretty sure of your answers here but I must ask anyway. Do you have any entitlements such as Social Security or medical care or anything else that your citizens are entitled to?”
ENTITLEMENTS
"Who should be entitled? You in America seem to spend your money on those who are voting rather than on those who are the future of your country and who will be the voters.
“You Americans spend four dollars per citizen for every person over 65 and only one dollar per potential citizen under age 18. We think money is better spent at this earlier stage of life. We want equality of opportunity when you are young rather than a useless equality at the end of life when you are no longer productive and just want to play golf or bridge or be cured of your diseases.
"You should be investing in your youth and in your infrastructure, like roads, communication, renewable energy, research technology and the like. Instead you are putting your money into Social Security, high pensions for public servants, medical care for terminal patients, and a large military complex. The East Asian countries have been investing more in these essential things than the Europeans and Americans for over 15 years. You see where it has gotten them while the West has been going backwards.
“Just look in New York City as an example. Every year they have reported that they have all the money they need to pay the city's pensions. Naturally, city workers are an important group of voters. While the annual budget would appear to indicate that there is plenty of money, more realistic calculations project that the pension fund shortfall could be as high as $50 billion, about the amount of a year's total budget. So if the promised pensions eventually become expenses, and the retired city employees continue to live longer and collect pensions for many more years, either city taxes will have to be raised or severe budget cuts will have to ensue. Pensions are one of the fastest growing expenses for New York. In the last few years nearly $5 billion a year have been needed to bolster pension funds and it now requires 10% of the city's budget to fund the pensions.
"It seems to be quite common in your country to allow pension funds to project earnings from investments when those earnings are only hypothetical. When you have a downturn in the economy, as you did in 2008, you had huge real losses and no hypothetical gains.
"Here in The Colonies you are in charge of your life. If you want to be entitled to a wealthy retirement and to lifelong medical care, that's a matter between you and your insurance company."
”For years people have been saying that our Medicare and Social Security funds will be exhausted soon. Medicare funds were exhausted in 2024, five years sooner than had been previously proposed. Social Security funds are now projected to be exhausted in 2036, a year earlier than previously thought. (23)
ELDERCARE
-"Tyler, I just can't accept that you will not take care of your older citizens. The more advanced countries are quite grateful to those who have gone before. In fact in France, Spain, and Italy 25% of their gross national product goes to care of the elderly. Even China spends about 8% of its GDP on the elderly. And as for India, they spend almost 4% of their GDP on their older citizens. In US it is a little over 16%.”