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Vicious Ideologue Renews Attack on Social Security
Billionaire investment banker Peter Peterson is back on the warpath. He just established a new foundation with a $1 billion endowment, the main purpose of which is to cut back spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
These programs, which provide an essential safety net to virtually the entire country, are hugely popular and will be politically difficult to cut. Nonetheless, $1 billion is a lot of money. Therefore, Peterson's campaign deserves to be taken seriously.
Peterson has long been an ardent foe of these programs. He first rose to national prominence as commerce secretary in the Nixon administration. He then returned to the private sector and became a partner in the Blackstone Group, a very successful private equity fund.
Mr. Peterson is fond of telling his audiences that he doesn't need his Social Security. Of course, as a manager in a private equity fund, Mr. Peterson was allowed to take advantage of the fund manager tax subsidy - a provision of the tax code that allows some of the richest people in the country to pay much lower tax rates than ordinary workers.
With his enormous wealth, Mr. Peterson was probably given more than 1,000 times as much money through this tax subsidy as the typical worker can expect to see on her Social Security. Needless to say, if the rest of us had been beneficiaries of the government's largesse to the same extent as Mr. Peterson, we would not need our Social Security either.
Mr. Peterson's public crusading against Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid began in 1992 when he formed the Concord Coalition. This organization crusades for cuts in these programs under the pretext of fiscal responsibility.
Mr. Peterson has also written several books calling for cuts in these programs with ominous titles like "Gray Dawn: How the Coming Age Wave Will Transform America," which warns that the country will be bankrupted by the retirement of the baby boomers. He uses his power and wealth to publicize these diatribes and get them reviewed in top outlets, such as the New York Times Book Review.
While Peterson's efforts appeal largely to Republicans, he generally pulls enough Democrats on board that he can pass off his attacks on the country's key social programs as bipartisan. In fact, the media often treat Peterson's assault on the social safety net as being above the political fray, allowing him to spout his views unanswered on major national talk shows.
Peterson has not been shy about using slippery logic to advance his agenda. For example, back in the 90's he argued for cutting the annual cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security, which is tied to the consumer price index (CPI), based on the claim that the CPI substantially overstates the true rate of inflation. If Peterson's claim about a CPI overstatement were true, then it would imply that incomes are rising far more rapidly than our projections show. Peterson's CPI adjustment would mean that our children and grandchildren will be far richer than we could possibly imagine, because incomes are rising so rapidly. Similarly, the retirees for whom he wanted to cut benefits actually spent much of their lives in poverty. If incomes have been rising more rapidly than the official data show, then we must have been far poorer in the past than the data show.
In the same vein, Peterson supported the partial privatization of Social Security, based on assumptions on stock returns that were inconsistent with the profit growth projections of the Social Security trustees, and the price-to-earnings ratios that existed in the stock market at the time. In the push to cut Social Security and Medicare, Peterson does not feel the need to be bound by the truths of logic and arithmetic.
There is a fundamental point on which Peterson is correct. The long-term budget projections do show a horror story of enormous deficits. But these projections are not driven by aging and overly generous retirement programs. They are driven by projections that our private health care system, which already costs twice as much per person as the average for other rich countries, will get ever more inefficient through time. If we never fix our health care system, then we will face an economic disaster, which will include serious budget problems, since half of our health care is paid for through government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
This reality would suggest the importance of reforming the health care system. Health care reform would mean confronting the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, as well as the doctors' lobbies. These groups have serious power. That's why Mr. Peterson prefers to stick with granny bashing.
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of "The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer" (www.conservativenannystate.org). He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues.
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68 Comments so far
Show AllI read Pete Peterson's book 'Running on Empty' and found it valuable reading about the national debt. He seemed reluctant to excoriate Republicans for this monstrous debt, but he generally put blame where it belonged (another great book about debt is 'Empire of Debt' by Bonner and Wiggins).
Peterson seemed, in his last chapter, genuinely aghast at what Reagonomics had wrought regarding the enslavement of future generations by debt. He all but apologizes for being a part of it. And, yes, he calls for attention to be paid, and soon, to the approaching juggernauts of SocSec and Medicare/Medicaid. Of the two, BY FAR the worst is Medicare/Medicaid, and as this author Baker relates, reform of our bizarre health care system could go a long way toward addressing that problem.
Solve Medicare/Medicaid and it seems the SocSec shortfall can be resolved without too much trouble. Any way you slice it, however, thanks to the enormous national debt, the term 'Generation Debt' to describe todays twenty-somethings is accurate, and will be for about 30 years.
The amazing thing is that conservatives have so far not infiltrated the social programs to plunder them. Apparently the beneficiaries have trained their Demok reps as highly effective guard dogs. Just think what these beneficiaries could accomplish by employing their magical power over Washington to end war profiteering, fossil fuel gluttony, war on democracy, and the rule of capital over people, generally. Unfortunately the social program beneficiaries do not seem to be motivated by civic responsibility, but rather by fear of drowning in the capitalist cesspool. So what are these guard dogs really guarding?
The poor did not bribe Congress to give them Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, so of course these are illegitimate governmental programs. The only legitimate governmental aid comes through proper bribery -- the Murkan Way!
Article doesn't mention the vast sum the yanks spend on the military either... Wonder why the offence dept is so sacrosanct, especially as it's such a socialist type of thing. Oh, right, I forgot how much profit they make by selling weapon systems that will never be used, or if used prove not to work.
If (over the objections of most of the posters at CD) you can get Obama and a Dem Congress elected, Peter Peterson ain't gonna matter at all. Because Peter Peterson won't be writing legislation no matter how much money he spends peddling lies. That's IF you ninnies stop griping and get Obama elected.
I wonder why mr. peterson doesn't just advocate for death when a person reaches sixty, putting an end to the need for having to pay out social security.
Oh, of course. That would include his miserable ass too.
With a cool Billion$$ - you should just about be able to buy America now, couldn't you? But then I forget about he collapsing dollar. The billion is probably only worth a couple of hundred grand now.
When I was growing up, the Poor Farms were still around. We passed one of them everytime we drove to town, and because my parents pointed it out to us and told us what they were, I grew up with a deep fear of one day ending up there.
I'd be worried again, the way this country is going, but thankfully won't be around too many more years to see it come to pass. I really don't want to live in a world of WalMarts, prisons, poor farms and human beings who've been turned into sewer rats by those who've stripped us of everything, including our humanity, in order to line their own pockets.
Another form of Genocide!
Peterson must have a eugenics agenda. Starting with the most vulnerable and working his way up to the others he deems unworthy of living.
I love it when the ones (at the top) screech "Socialism" when it comes to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. I don't suppose that bailing out the banks and mortgage companies with taxpayer funds is in any form of Socialism.
It appears that these companies knowingly screw the public and when it all goes south they have to be propped back up with money that taxpayers will provice in the future. Looks like a win win situation to me. With unemployment on the rise in their manipulated economy it will be difficult for more and more people to build up much of a reserve in their "Social" security benefits. Why would anyone want to use any part of their income to support something that is pretty apt to fail by the time they retire. How many retirement funds have already been wiped out in the last few years? I guess 'Socialism' for the haves means anything that helps out the have nots, not for anything that helps them to hang on to what they already have, plus more.
soylent green is people
Timelus,
I was thinking the same thing. And wilmoor at 1:04 pm appeared to be on that same track. I just saw that movie a couple of days ago and I was shocked that it seems more believable now than it did when it first came out.
Obama supports the rape of social security funds.
He protects the insurance scam in health care.
He wants to increase the military (troop level), wants to expand the war in Afgahnistan, while cosmetically reducing American presence in Iraq.
VOTE NADER 08
wilmor: it is the sewer rats that have wrecked everything so far. Poor folks are too busy trying to eat regularly to be doing much else.
This guy Petersen; after having sucked on the government teat for far too long now wants to go mucking about in the social engineering game pit. He needs to get a life.
Conservatives never have and never will do anything that doesn't benefit them personally. No Republican is worth a shit.
What a perfect title to describe such a miserable crumb! It would also work for those behind AEI. the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute. Their collective motto seems to be "hooray for me and to hell with everybody else".
By the way, there is a dandy and easy way to fund social security for the ihdefinate future: tax all capital gains as income, especially the value appreciation of non-homestead real estate.
Instantly the treasury would be hundreds of bilions of dollars richer and trhe soaring cost of real estate (and the inflation of currency value to worthlessness would diminish rapidly.
Poet makes a good point. The conservatives say that taxing capital gains is bad. I think they have it exactly backwards. Cap gains taxes not only raise revenue to get the government out of such a deep hole, they also tend to prevent speculative bubbles.
We ought to be incentivizing LESS trading for the sake of trading, not more. In other words "Flip this House" was about as big a national error as the Iraq war in terms of damage done to the country. So was "flip the tech stocks" a few years ago. So is "flip oil and commodities" at present.
I once read an article on the plight of women who come from third world countries to Canada as immigrants. Generally their husbands have jobs, but many of these women are isolated and suicidal. They don't know their neighbours. They feel no sense of community.
One of the things they all mentioned was how , while iving in Villages where everyone was poor, the people would look out for one anothers children.
The people grew up with the attitude that the children were a common resource of all in the village, and not a personal and private possession that should excel over all others.
If everyones children prospered, so too would the Village.
Very much the same is true in Aboriginal communities. The society is responsible for the well being of all children, not just their own.
America seems the leading edge of where that all leads. It the society that all but worships he concept of self reliance and rugged individualism.
Everyone is asked to compete with one another, so that the cream rises to the top, and more often then not one person prospering is at the cost of another suffering.
There are those that claim the breakdown in community is due to "Moral Values" being lost, the breakdown of the family, or homosexual marriages.
I suggest it the ME ism taken too far, to the point where the sense of community crumbles because there is no true COMMUNITY.
People lock themselves behind gated neighborhood, isolating themselves from one another.
"I got mine....I dont want to share it with anyone...you can all bugger off. If I did it, you can do it."
What amazes me the most is that The Middle Class in America has taken to blaming their eroding Standard of living on the poor, the illegal immigrant and the like.
The logic of it evades me. The lattter live in the most run down neighborhoods and have next to nothing yet people believe that thise in poverty are somehow stealing from the hard working middle class.
Yet at the same time a gug Like John Mccain, who owns 10 homes of over a million dollars each , runs for President and calls social security an absolute scandal.
If an alien came to America and was asked with who was hogging all the wealth and makeing everyone else in that society poorer, he would not single out the peoples living in the Ghetto or sleeping in the streets.
The elite in America have done a bang up job of salemanship.
PK
Billionaire investment banker Peter Peterson is back on the warpath.
Perhaps some retiree with a rusty pocketknife will hand him his head.
Then Congress can add his $1 billion endowment to Social Security. Or else.
No one can come by a billion dollars honestly.
I have had a job since I was 14 and I have paid into the Social Security Program since then. I will be eligible for full SS benefits at 67; that means I have worked 53 years for that small check! I have had a pension in the past, but due to corporate restructuring, etc, that was paid out at the NPV and then rolled over into a 401K. We all know what has happened to market based 401K in the past. I have to have company medical insurance as I cannot get an affordable individual policy on my own due to past medical history. So where does this overpaid, greedy, hateful man think I am going to go? Or does he think, he is the only one entitled to have a decent retirement? How about just getting to see a doctor without taking a mortgage out on your home? People like Peterson haven't a clue and seek to make the lives of everyone not like him miserable. I agree with the Brian Brademeyer, I don't think anyone can come by a billion dollars honestly. Tell Peterson to go f@#$ himself and leave the rest of us alone.
Another "let them eat cake" republican.
Their gated communities will be no refuge from thousands of starving, desperate people, and they will face our wrath soon enough.
Once the planet is rid of the scourge of the BABY BOOMERS, there will be a huge sigh of relief. And that included me.
When Socical Security was "rescued" in the '80's by Alan Greenspan, it was by the imposition of a draconian and regressive earnings tax on earned income up to $90,000, which exempted the top 2% from paying social security taxes on much of their income. Fast forward to 2001, when overwhelming social security tax collections "threatened" a budget surplus. There is Alan Greenspan, standing by George W. Bush, proclaiming that the excess revenue from the draconian and regressive social security tax would cause chaos in the government debt markets. He said this would endanger our economy, and that there was a need for tax custs that, coincidentally, were like the ones George W. Bush advocated. Even though Bush lied about who would receive the cuts, most of it went to the 2% of high-income taxpayers who escaped paying most of their social security tax obligation in the first place.
Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.
skippyagogo41 July 22nd, 2008 12:33 pm
I have nothing intelligent to add to whats been said. My reason for posting the above is so skippyagogo41 can twice in one month kinda, sorta agree with me. Doesn't happen a lot you know.
Why Peter Peterson isn't afraid of us and why he thinks he can get a big return for his endowment might be summed up in the words Jay Gould uttered when he was asked if he feared unions.
"I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half," Jay Gould.
U.S. financier & railroad businessman (1836 - 1892)
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/33148.html
generallee July 22nd, 2008 1:16 pm
"Peterson must have a eugenics agenda. Starting with the most vulnerable and working his way up to the others he deems unworthy of living."
I would bet on it generallee. It has only been about forty years since the last eugenics movement ended, and since then the Congress has legislated wealth to the top. It will only get worse now that the wealthy have realized that there is no punishment for them in America, thanks to George Bush and Nancy Pelosi.
Another greasy casino owner bullies into the gossip column with a grotesque display.
Again, a so called visionary a-hole who half owns the game he's already rigged, touts the profitability of slow-warfare on the lower classes. The lies are powerful, housewives can't resist, after all the Suze Orman and Oprah they've been softened up with. The ferocity of the continuing facist plunder of our quality of life goes on unabated, yet gives pause; How long are people simply going to tolerate illegitimate royalty?
Here's some eugenics for you, folks. This fascist with the name "Peterson" was born into a Greek family, certainly not named Peterson. He grabbed that name due to his craving to become a parasitic GOP lackey. Bugs me cuz I'm an old Greek.
We can't let social security be privatized. It will be deregulated and handled by the same "heads I win, tails you lose" financial gambler types that have screwed up everything else over the past 30 years.
We need a SOAK THE RICH tax system so we can fix all the problems this SOB points to with HIS money.
Nader has a plan to tax the Securities and Exchange Commission activities and do away with income tax. Sounds like a good start.
A note to Daniel David and other ObamaBots, if you think Obama can't be bought, you haven't been listening!
After FISA, I'm sorry but I can't vote for him.
GwNorth, Good post. All adults are the parents of all children. Socialism does not only involve economic fairness, It fosters thinking in terms of 'WE' instead of 'I'.
Self made people are illusions. All of us owe everyone else for everything we have or don't have. If everyone has enough, it reflects well on everyone. If some are obscenely rich and others are dirt poor, never doubt that somebody has stolen from somebody else.
They don't try to hide their dishonesty. 'Nothing personal' they say, 'It was business'. And a phenomenal number of poor people seem to accept such nonsense as being logical.
'Gee, if he is rich he must know what he is talking about'. History sadly shows we accept such drivel until our empty bellies overrule our empty heads and wholesale slaughter ensues.
Yet another "I got mine, you don't deserve yours" republican.
These greedy assholes fear the govt coming for THEIR money to help the unruly rabble. To them, what is money, but something to hoard, selfishly covet and hold onto, for the fear that someone, somewhere who is "undeserving" would find a little joy in this world and not die wondering if their children will survive.
I begrudge no one who comes to their wealth through offering the world a better mouse trap, or a well written book. The source of creation is available to us all, and money is simply a form of energy, a reward for putting out the energy in the first place.
That there exists, still, the draconian mentality that predates our nations founding, where Royalty somehow had a birthright to all the wealth, and the rest - well, be glad you have some straw to sleep on, says that we haven't won our freedom yet.
Our Revolution was fought to throw off the yoke of British tyranny, and IT encouraged the overthrow of all despotic monarchs.
If the American's have to fight another revolution to gain their rights again against the tyranny of the republican's, then so be it.
"Give me liberty, or give me death"
certainly, the thin layer of shinola they've caressed into the crevices of the turd they call the 'privatization' of social security is losing more and more of it's small amount of lustre every day as the american market and economy swirl faster and faster around the toilet bowl, saying hello-and-goodbye many, many times before finally whirlpooling and heading irreversibly down that dark hole (where does my feces and urine go, anyway?)...wouldn't it be great to be a high-up in a bank\mortgage house\brokerage?
That's the way the rich in the Third World would argue.
But if one taxes the rich like a Third World country, i.e. hardly at all, if one (i.e a major part of the American population) does not believe that the role of a state is, among other things, a redistribution of wealth via taxes, then one gets these Third World-like oligarchs as a self-produced result who think that their money can buy a change in politics.
A system that keeps proving that triple-digit million expenses for political campaigns are indeed able to buy political power is only harvesting what it's been sowing.
A system which - contrary to European democracies - excludes non-millionaires from high political offices has been asking for this public exhibition of brain-dieting by Peter Peterson.
Where his ancestors seem to hail from, i.e. Scandinavia, he'd be socially ostracized for such statements, BTW. His only choice would be to leave country (in his case possibly Sweden), that Petersson.
But then again, he would never have become that rich in Sweden - see "taxes as a redistribution of wealth".
Social security may not have been needed in times of family farms, where 3 generations or more fed and cared for each other. Most of those farms are gone as is the multi generational close knit family.
What they really want is for anyone with an IQ of 150 or less to die. After they are gone the IQ to live factor will be raised. Type A's will be given tax breaks. After generations of this there will brilliant people frothing at the mouth killing each other in violent fits of rage over tee times and prime Big Gamefishing grounds etc. that the "little people" used to occupy.
Seems to me that spending 10 billion per month in Iraq might have something to do with our lack of funds.
As you can see in our marvelous capitalist model, money trickles up, not down.
Meanwhile across the pond... civilized countries have good standards of living for all their citizens. If you want to attend a university and educate yourself, it's free. If you want to save up your vacation time and take it all at once- you'll have 4-6weeks of paid vacation. If you or your spouse has a baby, both of you can take 1 year off work (paid) to raise your baby. When you're done with that year... and if you work at a moderate sized company- then you can bring your child to the daycare facilities provided to you at your place of work so you can still be close to the young ones. If you or your loved one has a medical problem- go see a doctor. It's free. You're not going to lose your house paying medical bills- no matter what ails you.
Yeah, you will have to pay higher taxes to live in an affluent society like this. But isn't it worth it? Compared to the American race to the bottom... poverty around every corner... mega-franchises stomping out the mom and pop american dream... working gruelling overtime because Chairman Crunk tells you to.. or else he'll outsource your entire existence.
Here is a radical idea. Before you can understand it, you must know something about money.
First of all, in the US there is only 300 billion dollars in printed money (there is another 500 billion overseas). One thousand dollars for each man, woman and child in the US (don't rush to get your money out all at once now). The other 15 trillion exists on a hard disk or ledgers.
We have a fiat money system, which means an infinite amount of money can be created on a ledger, constrained only by Fed policy. It is not backed by any tangible asset like gold, oil, whatever. Thats not necessarily a problem, since money is simply a medium of exchange.
It is also a fractional reserve system, whereby only 3% of our current money supply is actually held by reserves. Infinity times 33. Beautiful.
Thats not necessarily a problem either, at least not directly.
Money under the Federal Reserve System is created out of thin air, in order to purchase Treasuries from the US or to make loans for mortgages, credit card debt etc. It does not exist until someone borrows it. Wipe out all debt, and our money supply is 0. This is the problem. Government has no say on what the money being created should be used for.
The Treasuries are the government debt which pays interest. Mortgages, credit card debt etc are private debt also pay interest at much higher rates.
Government debt does not need to be repaid, they just take out new loans to pay those loans that come due. Only the interest gets paid, so the debt always increases. To ensure the government has money to pay the interest, the income tax was required.
You see, while the system creates money for the principal, it does not create the money for the interest. An impossible contract, no?
While private debt must be repaid in full, it is asset backed (meaning if you do not pay it you lose your house or other property like your car). Since money is not created for the interest, the system works on defaults.
In return for money created out of thin air, meaning it is without consideration and an invalid contract, an increasing amount of tangible assets get transferred to the banks via defaults. Beautiful system. Profit by foreclosure and credit card defaults.
In the late 70's, the Federal Reserve Banks were required to return the interest they received on treasuries they purchased, less costs. Don't feel bad for them, since they are owned by the commercial banks which make most of our money and they earn enormous profits, at least the big ones. And whenever there are bank failures, the big banks get bigger. If a big bank fails, it gets bailed out. So we have moral hazard, the big banks have nothing to fear, and profit from each financial crisis (sure they take a couple of years losses in return for higher profits for the next 15 years).
But since the Federal Reserve banks could not profit from buying treasuries, we had to find others to do so. Today, we have 20 or so primary dealers used by the Fed made up of big financial firms, not necessarily commercial banks, and they buy the treasuries and earn the interest. But the primary dealers can not create money, they were not commercial banks, they were investment banks, separated from the commercial banking by the Glass Steagall Act (which was repealed in 1999 and helped fuel the sub-prime explosion). Of course, the shareholders who owned the Fed and commercial banks, also owned the financial firms investment banks. A close knit family.
So our own central bank, the Fed, has little interest in buying our treasuries, as there is little profit there. In order to facilitate money growth and the growing governmnet debt, we needed other countries central banks to take over for the Fed. China for example helps out. We send dollars to Chinas manufacturers who sold us manufactured goods. The manufacturers need RMB to pay for local expenses and investment so the governments central bank creates the RMB out of thin air, and gets the manufacturers dollars that accumulate in their reserves. Thus they are able to buy US treasuries by creating RMB out of thin air, and we get our dollars back. Beautiful huh. The money we spent for our clothes gets sent back to our government by China, but it works for China too since it allows China to create the money that is growing it's "real" economy.
But instead of owing money to the Fed, which returns the interest, we get to owe the money to China, which wants it's interest, and has the right to ask for the principal back. Today, about 3.5 trillion dollars of our debt are owned to foreign central banks in which we pay interest. Theoretically, if the foreign central banks called in their loans, the Fed could jump in and take up the slack. Theoretically.
Now, the only way this ridiculous system has not fallen like a house of cards is because interest rates have been kept low, and inflation figures have been understated which means people are paying a hidden tax to fund the government debts interest payments, as well as the income tax. If interest rates should be increased to stamp out inflation driven by higher oil prices and cartel pricing practices (and interest rates would have no impact on prices increasing for this reason), the USD is dead, and we become a debt slave to the IMF who will demand we get rid of medicare, medicaid and social security, and much much more. The IMF will audit the Fed next year. Congress has never been allowed to perform a complete audit on the Fed.
It seems pretty hopeless. Under the current system, it is.
Now you are ready for the idea that has caused the death of at least 2 Presidents, Lincoln and JFK.
One point needs to be made first. The Federal Reserve System hates to create money for infrastructure development and social welfare expenditures, since these are not profitable. So they get funded entirely by taxes. Remember I told you that the Fed being giving a monopoly of determining where the money being created goes is the problem.
The idea is this. The government can create it's own interest free money. It can loan the money to corporations at low interest for infrastructure projects like solar power plants, high speed electric train systems, earning income once the projects are complete and generating revenue, and it pays it out to meet our current obligations under social security, medicare, medicaid, and perhaps even a national health care system. Simple, huh.
We obviously will need to borrow less money from foreign central banks, and as long as they need dollars to buy oil, thats not a problem.
Of course, the international bankers who run the current system would immediately attack the currency and turn us into Zimbabwe, using financial terrorism. These are the guys who should be treated as enemy combatents and sent to Gitmo.
Araquin,
As mentioned earlier, "Peterson" is not his original name. His father was a Greek immigrant (starting as a dishwasher) named Petropoulos. On the one hand I give him credit for achieving success on his own (he was CEO of Bell & Howell in the 60's). On the other hand .. what a sellout to his working-class roots. link: http://www.cityfile.com/profiles/pete-peterson
An if that wasn't enough, Peterson is yet another "Chicago School" Milton-Friedman-follower. Probably an Ayn Rand accolyte, too. A proponent of the (actual) Republican mantra: "fuck everyone but me."
Thanks for the primer, MiMiCcS -- very interesting! Here's my question: is it possible to bring the System down in a "controlled demolition" kinda way while we bring up alternative institutions - or do we have to wait for it to collapse of its own weight - or do we knock it over with a bulldozer? I prefer the first option myself.
"An oligarchy of private capital cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society because under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information."
- Albert Einstein
"Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, despotism will come from either of those excesses."
- Aristotle
"How to join the oligarchy:
All you have to do to join up, to become a 'fellow traveler' of the Oligarchy is to follow the Party Line – absolve yourself and all others of the mob of any responsibility. Voting Republican is a simple means, but mindless voting any other party ticket is hardly a radical act. Not voting at all is even worse: that is simply abject surrender to the Oligarchy."
http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay42.htm
Bad parenting...this guy should have been aborted..he's a sick freak!
Republican Neo-Con's have no heart and only want our money to enrich themselves and rob the rest of us of the little we have, I hope the day of retribution is coming.
You gotta love the system. The rich make their money by selling people stuff they don't need (morgage, credit card debt), food that is unhealthy (cheap fast food, frozen processed meals, bottled water and pop), and cars and trucks so they don't have to walk (drive thrus, suburbs, mega malls), then they have the audacity to complain about the cost of health care and old age security! FUCK THEM!
Perhaps we can save taxpayers dollars by feeding the wealthy to the wealthy. They had better watch their cholesterol levels though. Hey if you can dream it, you can do it.
Why save social security for America, we can spend it on more wars.
Or free aid for country's all over the world.
Corporate welfare.
Oil company subsidies.
The list is endless for where we need to spend our money.
Let all American family's go flat ass broke while we cary the burden of aging and sick in this country.
You see , they take our money, spend it where they want and tells us to stop whining and die quietly and bankrupt.
Thank you Senator Phil Graham, creator of the Enron loop hole which oil speculators have used to drive up oil prices.
We need to stop whining.
George Bush , Dick Cheney , Phil Graham and Congress, Traitors.
BornFreeMen
Don't some the 28% Bush/Cheney supports receive Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security?
Wouldn't they losebenefits like the rest of us?
Mr. Petersen is a corporate stooge and therefore will get lots & lots of media attention.
I have an idea... let's tax corporations more to offset the loss! While we're at it, let's have universal health care, downsize the DoD & Homeland Security and aggressively pursue corporate crime!
Terrorism isn't the greatest threat to America... Corporatism is!
I am a baby boomer whose amount of social security is truly pitiful. I worry that I will have to keep on working till I drop. And now here comes Peterson with his book "Gray Dawn: How the Coming Age Wave Will Transform America."
The book is a warning of the bankrupcy of our country by . . . ME, a retiring baby boomer!
I can't tell you how heartening this is. For years now I believed I had no power to change anything about this country. And suddenly a billionaire is saying that I, a simple baby boomer, have the power to bring a nation to its knees.
So here is my manifesto: I want Bush and Cheney impeached, all U.S. troops out of all foreign countries, all money pulled out of the pentagon and poured into social programs, and mandatory hokey-pokey sessions at all offices during lunch hour. Furthermore, if these conditions are not met, I will retire and collect social security forthwith, and boy will you be sorry!
McCain gets $1,930 a month from 'broken' Social Security system
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Republican presidential candidate John McCain cashes his monthly Social Security checks despite calling the federal program "a disgrace," the Associated Press reports.
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McCain, who is 71, has received benefits since he was 65.
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B.J. Jarrett from the Social Security Administration said that individuals can refuse retirement benefits.
In 2006, McCain's wife Cindy earned $6 million, and has a net worth of approximately $100 million.
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Now there's the true disgrace...