Last week, Peter was interviewed on Speak Up with Anthony Scaramucci. In their conversation, they covered a wide range of important topics, including inflation, the fate of the dollar, and the trade-offs between gold and cryptocurrency.
In this week’s Friday Gold Wrap Podcast, JD and Joel discuss why gold is up today, “doom spending,” and other market and precious metals news.
Social Security recipients will be getting a big raise in 2023. That’s good news if you’re receiving benefits from the program, but not so great if you’re hoping inflation will abate any time soon.
The Social Security Administration recently announced an 8.7% cost of living adjustment (COLA) for next year. That goes on top of a substantial 5.9% COLA for 2022. The 2023 increase is the largest in 40 years.
The Federal Reserve has held interest rates artificially low for decades. This causes all kinds of distortions and misallocations in the economy.
And it’s creating quite a problem for the Social Security Administration.
A lot of people have a vague sense that too much inflation might be a bad thing. But in a world where central banks and governments promote and implement policies intended to increase inflation by 2% annually, most people don’t seem to really understand just how much inflation erodes their purchasing power over time. After all, 2% doesn’t sound like a lot.
But you have to remember that this decrease in the value of your money compounds over time and it ultimately devastates savers and those on fixed incomes. Looking at Social Security benefits drives this reality home.
Last year, the Social Security and Medicare trustees warned that the programs are going broke. A year later — they’re still going broke.
Social Security will dip begin dipping into reserves in order to pay out benefits next year and those reserves will run dry in 2035, according to the annual Social Security and Medicare trustees report that was released Monday.
When reserves dry up, the system will no longer be able to pay full benefits.
The SchiffGold Friday Gold Wrap podcast combines a succinct summary of the week’s precious metals news coupled with thoughtful analysis. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.
Are you depending on Social Security and Medicare for your retirement?
You might want to rethink that plan. These government retirement programs are going broke even faster than expected.
