Obama Flips Social Security Off Again.

Okay, if I know that Social Security has nothing to do with the $1.4 trillion deficit or the $13.8 trillion debt, President Obama certainly knows. In fact, he knows the SS surplus has funded President budgets for decades! Why? Because, once again, I know, and I'm not exactly the brightest bird in the flock.  I didn't even have to look it up...I just knew.

Yet, despite his obvious intelligence,  he continues to make statements like the following:

"Actually, I think that if you talk to economists, both conservative and liberal, what they'll say is the problem is not next year. The problem is, how are we dealing with our medium-term debt and deficit, and how are we dealing with our long-term debt and deficit? And most of that has to do with entitlements, particularly Social Security and Medicaid." - President Obama

You see, Social Security and Medicare represent the last vestige of an American society governed by the people and for the people...or at least, as much as that statement has ever held any truth. Therefore, they remain the targets of the Republican demolition squad. Why? Because to completely unravel the remaining tattered threads of the people’s “safety net" - those same threads that former President Roosevelt’s New Deal and former President Johnson’s Great Society wove together that created a network to cushion the blows that can result from occurrences beyond our control - completes their agenda to eliminate protection for the people.  But, President Obama is not a Republican. He is a Democrat...one, who promised he would work on behalf of the people for a change.

He knows we the people are already suffering from an economy that has devastated our savings, home values and retirement security, so why is he  trying to impose measures aimed at cutting working-class living standards? And falsely citing Social Security and Medicare as the biggest problems in dealing with the long-term debt and deficit? Especially, when it's not true.  Moreover, why has President Obama tried to put Social Security on the chopping block (Conrad-Gregg Commission) from the moment he took office?

Anyway, here's the truth: The $1.4 trillion deficit nor the nearly $13.8 trillion debt have anything to do with SS. SS has taken in more revenue each year than it has paid out in benefits for the last 30-years. The excess revenue has been invested in U.S. government securities that the federal government "borrows" from to spend on other things.

Yet, despite the innocence and contribution of social security, increasing the retirement age to 69, making citizens work longer so they pay more into the system, and then, in turn, giving them less when they retire, ranks up there as one of top solutions offered at the expense of the American public.

Read more...

We, the Money Sheltered Ignorant, Must Stand Up.

Let's face it, most of us, who were sheltered by a certain amount of wealth, were "free market" advocates. Brainwashed, perhaps, however, fully supportive of the idea that interference in the "free market" system is akin to treason, we never asked ourselves, where's the freedom in "free market"?

Or, in what universe are the markets free when a few large corporations completely control the supply and the price of commodities? At least, I didn't. Anyway, if that's the case, why did we the "wealthy enough to be comfortable" worship at the altar of laissez faire?

The simple answer is, as George Orwell put it, "money-sheltered ignorance". That between the illusion of our own sense of security, too much wealth, and 'willful' or 'distracted easily' ignorance of what was really going on; we the "wealthy enough to be comfortable" fell asleep at the wheel. The market was never free.

However, now, that we're in a financial crisis that effects all of us, even those at the top of the pyramid, it's clear that the "free market" did not, does not and will not guarantee economic efficiency or social justice all by itself. Government must interfere in order to avoid inequity and social stratification in the extreme. As President Obama indicated, the size of government matters little...what matters is if government works.

The chance for freedom is here, and it's up to we, the people privileged enough to remain ignorant of the reality of "free market" economics, to transcend any leftover greedy impulses to determine what will really work to stimulate our economy for all of us, rather than just the few.

So, what's the best way to get the most bang for our buck?

Consider this. People who literally live paycheck to paycheck have no choice but to spend every dollar received. Whether it's spent on groceries, gas for their car, or electricity to heat their home, etc., the working poor and lower income America cannot afford to stash their money away. Therefore, this group of people should be targeted to stimulate the economy.

According to Moody's Report:

For every $1 spent on food stamps; $1.73 is generated in economic activity.

For every $1 spent on unemployment; $1.64 is generated in economic activity.

For every $1 spent on infrastructure; $1.40 is generated in economic activity.

For every $1 spent on tax cuts; $103 is generated in economic activity.

For every $1 spent on business incentive tax breaks, for example, "accelerated depreciation" or tax breaks for buying new equipment; $ .33 cents is generated in economic activity.

Not to mention, the greatest way to induce spending is to direct a large part of the stimulus toward the states and other localities because without federal aid, states must cut spending, therefore deepening the recession even further.

Unfortunately, President Obama's reality is that, in order to pass a stimulus package, he must conciliate to those stuck in the old framework. However, the more that we, the people stand up, the less conciliatory the President has to be.

Read more...

Entitlement Programs for Who?

CEO pay, executive pay and corporate profits are soaring —to 110 times the average, -- at the same time the pay of the typical worker in the United States has been stuck, with real earnings growing less than half as fast as productivity.

According to the Forbes business magazine’s annual executive pay survey, the top eight CEOs on the Forbes list each pocketed over $100 million last year. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, nine out of ten American families -- all but the top 10% of American wage earners -- saw their income fall by 11% after being adjusted for inflation over the last three decades, according to an analysis by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez.

The people at the top siphoning off most of the profits for themselves do not care about health care, Social Security, Medicare or any of the social programs we have now that are supposed to ensure American citizens are provided the basic necessities of life, including food, clothing, shelter, education, safety and medical care at the very least.

Obviously something is not working when we have 45 million uninsured Americans in the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world. This ever increasing concentration of wealth distributed to an increasingly smaller and smaller part of the population can only serve to make these programs even less effective over time.

"We had a society 25 years ago in which there were some constraints imposed by public opinion, by strong unions, by a general sense that there were things that you don't do.

And maybe that led firms to make a decision to think of there being a sort of tradeoff between a "let's have a happy high morale" workforce, or let's have a super star CEO and squeeze the workers for all we can." -- Paul Krugman

The American middle class will cease to exist if this trend continues. There is no way stagnant wages can compete with rapidly increasing costs for health care, prescription drugs, energy, housing, etc especially when our lawmakers are in bed with giant corporations and powerful lobbyists to find more and more ways to rob the average American citizen blind.

Read more...