[OT]America. The land of the not-so-free (economy)

[Michael Costolo]

On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 11:31:27 -0500, Randy Edwards <redwards at golgotha.net> wrote:
>  >> as now millions have come to rely on a system that is fundamentally
>  >> not sustainable
> 
>    This conveniently ignores the reality that several presidents have raided
> the social security trust fund to pay for things like military increases, the
> S&L bailout, and general budget deficits.

Sort of.  The "trust fund" dollars have been used to by US Treasury
Bonds for decades now.  Thus the "trust fund" has nothing but a bunch
of IOUs from the Uncle Sam.  The money goes into the general treasury
and is spent just like income taxes, so it has been used to pay for
everything that our government does.  That was and continues to be the
fault of *Congress*, the branch that wields the federal checkbook,
rather than any given president.
 
>    But even after that, social security is easily sustainable.

Perhaps, but at what cost?  If in 1935 people were told that 12.4% of
their earnings would be taken above and beyond income taxes (but the
money would be spent as income taxes are spent) the program never
would have been signed into law.  Sustaining a bad investment (based
on the real rate of return) just to sustain it doesn't make sense.
 
>    The bottom line is that social security has no real problems -- this is a
> fake "crisis" designed to privatize the system and to pump money into Wall
> Street.

I can hardly think that people controlling their own money, and
getting a decent rate of return on it, is a bad thing.  Still, no real
problems with the program?  It can hardly be said to pay a liveable
amount of money to seniors today.   I call that a problem.
 
>    We could "fix" social security easily.
> 
>    By revoking ONE-FOURTH of Bush's tax cuts or by just keeping the estate tax
> (the "death tax" in the Republican propaganda language), we could guarantee
> social security out past the end of the century.

Perhaps.  Even if that is so, it wouldn't "fix" the underlying issues
that make Social Security a bad investment.  Shorter life expectancies
might.  But higher taxes simply postpone dealing with the problem
until a later date.
 
>    But of course, those solutions don't address the "real" problem -- the
> desire by the right to privatize what is the gov'ts most widely supported
> social program and to pump the money into corporate coffers.

Well that or perhaps trying to put people in control of their own
money and future. I trust my ability to plan for my retirement more
than I trust the government for anything.  Since I know that I won't
be able to live on what Social Security promises me anyway once I
retire (making the program relatively pointless, one could argue), I
*have* to make alternate plans.  So why is it wrong to take MY money
(it is my money afterall) and put it toward MY retirement rather than
giving it to the government and simply kissing it goodbye?

-- 
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by
those who have not got it."
-George Bernard Shaw