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Cat Food Commission Releases 'Shock Doctrine' Draft Version
Fiscal Commission Recommendations: VA Co-Pays, Top Tax Rate 23%
OK, here’s the draft document for the cat food commission co-chair’s mark. In addition, there’s a page with specific “illustrative cuts”,
$100 billion in domestic spending and $100 billion in military
spending. Between the two, you can get a sense of what Bowles and
Simpson have planned. Keep in mind that this is more of a shock doctrine document than a blueprint; they have no support on the commission for all this, and they’re trying to gather it with this early release.
So let’s bullet point some highlights:
• They’re nice enough to wait a whole year to implement the cuts; they wouldn’t start until FY 2012 – in other words, the next budget.
• Their goal is to put revenue and spending at 21-22% of GDP. Their plan would reduce the deficit below the recommended 3% of GDP by 2015, down to about 2.2%.
• They put in spending caps, maybe the worst idea known to man, the kind of program that has turned Colorado so sharply negative that the business community begged the state to lift them. These caps, which are unenforceable, as a current Congress cannot be bound by a previous Congress, would bush spending 18% below the baseline by 2020, a drastic bit of austerity.
• 75% of the solutions in the co-chair mark are spending reductions, 25% are tax increases.
• They want to add co-pays to the Veterans’ Administration and TRICARE, as well as pushing individuals covered by TRICARE into an employer policy. They also want to freeze noncombat military pay for three years. And, they want to end schools for families on military bases, instead reintegrating soldier’s kids into the public school system (because that’s so easy for a military family that moves every other year).
• They would cut the federal workforce by 10%, freeze all salary increases and bonuses for three years, and reduce Congressional and White House budgets by 15%. Surely this is the way to a better and more efficient federal workforce.
• They would eliminate all funding for commercial space flight, as well as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and increase fees at national parks and the Smithsonian museums.
• Increase co-pays in Medicaid and cost sharing in Medicare. In addition, the plan would cap Medicaid/Medicare growth, so that the government would have to either increase premiums and co-pays or raise the Medicare eligibility age if the cost grows above the baseline.
• Massively overhaul the tax code. They have a couple different options on this. In the first, there would only be three brackets: at 8%, 14% and 23% for the top bracket. All tax expenditures – $1.1 trillion, including the Earned Income Tax Credit and the child tax credit, would be eliminated. The corporate tax rate would go down from 35% to 26% as well. Option 2 borrows from the Wyden-Gregg tax reform, establishing rates at 15%, 25% and 35%, increasing the standard deduction, capping the mortgage interest deduction (and eliminating it for second homes), limiting the charitable deduction, eliminating other tax expenditures, and capping the employer deduction for health care. Corporate rates would also go down, with loopholes removed.
• They would increase the gas tax by 15 cents a gallon beginning in 2013, to pay for transportation projects.
• They would pay for the “doctor’s fix” by cutting other reimbursements to hospitals and drug companies, as well as through tort reform (yeah, that’ll do it). They would also speed up a lot of the cost controls in the health care law. They also ask, if health care costs are still rising after the implementation of the exchanges, for Congress to consider a variety of options, including this:
Add a robust public option and/or all-payer system in the exchange
• Reduce farm subsidies by $3 billion per year.
• On Social Security, gradually increase the retirement age to 69 by 2075. They would also institute progressive price indexing to cut scheduled benefits for middle and high-income earners. They would index cost of living increases to inflation and not wages. They would also increase the payroll tax to capture 90% of wages, rather than the current 86%. Social Security savings would stay inside the program to keep it solvent, not be used for deficit reduction.
There’s a lot more in there, but those are the highlights. It’s a very aggressive plan.
UPDATE: More from The New York Times.
- Posted in

68 Comments so far
Show AllYes indeed, the neo-liberal austerity shock doctrine continues the march toward neo-feudal authoritarian dystopia.
When summarizing the article a clear and predictable pattern emerges: increase regressive taxes, reduce progressive taxes and reduce taxes on capital and wealth. Let the wealthy off the hook, and shift the rest of the burden onto the peons.
This can be called kleptocracy; and the further concentration of power and wealth, accelerating a trend that is already in high-gear.
And this commission was initiated by a D President and D Congress.
I am sorry I can't recall which CD commenter wrote this:
Instead of a new New Deal, we get the New Steal.
A friend of mine called it "the free money club". As you recognized, all of these laws are designed to allow the free money club to continue to live lives of pleasure and leisure while the rest of us drown in debt and work ourselves into early graves.
Ain't. Gonna. Happen. F*ckers.
Oh yes it is.
Socialist, that doesn't make sense. ( maybe I misunderstand you )
Isn't the premise of the doctrine the engineering of disasters to justify or distract the masses from exploitative capitalism and government abuses.
The austerity programs are the result of strong arming of governments by banks to cut social programs or the banks will increase interest rates.
The austerity programs are the result, not the cause.
The austerity measures are both the result of the first "shock" and a "new" cause that creates further "crisis" that need further "shocks" untill the population is wiped totally clean of all of its money. See the austerity measures themselves were called by uncle milty freidman as "shock treatment" and the "only medicine" this was long after 9/11 in Chile and way after everything had gone all FUBAR. "there is no other long term solution" he said. Basically just like here at this point some of the people loosing and i mean the powerfull people loosing start wanting out and need more and more shocks to keep them in line. But also the theory is that it's a "shock" to the economy like for a sick patient to get it going again. It's a kind of shock similar to running a car off of a cliff. They know it's going to crash everything and lead to panic. They have to know by now it's not going to fix anythig but just shock into further crisis. Which they can use to call for more and more shock therapy.
Friedman advised Pinoche to cut government spending by 25% within 6 months accross the board. (Ever wonder where the "tea party" got the notion to reduce the size of government). Chiles economy contracted by 15% instantly and unemployment rose by 17% from 3% to 20%. Then the public school system was replaiced by vouchers and charter schools as the next "shock" to this "crisis". Then the Social security system was privatized. Then Chiles economy totally crashed. A "new" "crisis" that needed more and more "fixing". Debt exploded and a hyperinflationary depresssion set in. Unemployment eached 30%. The banks then bought up all the countries assets on borrowed money.This is the ultimate goal just like in the Asian crisis, eventually everything goes on sale in a fire sale and the banks swoop in and buy 100% of everything. final "crisis" the banks went bankrupt pinoche had to bail out the banks by nationalzing them. If it wasn't for one functioning public company Pinoche never sold of Colelco the state run copper mine Chile would have gone competely under. When it was all said and done the richest 10% in Chile had seen their wealth increase by 85% and everyone else was eating out of garbage cans and the children had just stopped going to school altogether.
Opportunism does not mean planning.
I wish you were correct, however when one analyzes who wields power and one determines what their interests are it becomes much clearer. I suggest reading up on folks like:
Naomi Klein
Dr. Richard Wolff (economist)
Dr. Michael Hudson (economist)
www.globalresearch.ca
Noam Chomsky
and so on.
and even just perusing Howard Zinn's "People's History" will help one see the larger picture and the historical trends.
Recommended -
James Matles: "Them and Us" (the story of the UE but also of McCarthyism and how labor met that challenge and a historical reading of how capital gained such an ascendancy over labor in the US).
http://www.ranknfile-ue.org/cat_hist.html
Max Elbaum: "Revolution In The Air."
http://www.revolutionintheair.com/bio.html
Abdul Muhammed Babu: "African Socialism or Socialist Africa?" Babu basically issues a corrective to about two generations of thought on African history, development, course, etc. Grounded, pragmatic, with a critically trained eye on the "leadership" and the misdirection that was (and is) being followed on the continent of Africa.
William Z Foster: "Soviet America."
http://www.archive.org/details/towardsovietamer00fostrich
Dimitri Pisarev/Nikolai Chernyshevsky: "What Is To Be Done?"
The works of Evelyn Reed:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed-evelyn/index.htm
Amilcar Cabral: an agronomist who stepped out of his petty bourgeoisie roots and returned home to lead the successful independence fight of Guinea-Bisseau and the Cape Verde islands from Portugal. His speech to the Tri-Continental Congress in Cuba is incredible.
http://www.africanholocaust.net/news_ah/weaponoftheory.html
Peter Kropotkin:
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/KropotkinCW.html
Nelson Peery: Black Fire: "The Making of an American Revolutionary."
http://www.speakersforanewamerica.com/nelson.php
W.E.B. DuBois: He really provides the intellectual foundation for the black struggles of the 20th century, especially in America (but not at all limited to the US)
http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~shale/humanities/composition/assignments/dubois.html
Alexander Werth: "Russia at War: 1941-1945." A war journalist who was on the ground in Russia for the lead-up to and during the second World War.
http://www.amazon.com/Russia-War-1941-1945-Alexander-Werth/dp/0786707224
John Reed: "Ten Days that Shook the World." John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World represents one of the 20th Century's greatest political-literary achievements, being one of the first book length eye-witness accounts of the great Russian October Revolution.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1919/10days/10days/
The works of Georgi Plekhanov -
http://www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/
And, of course, everything by...
George Jackson
Malcolm X
Kwame Nkrumah
Marx
Engels
Lenin
It is true that opportunism does not mean planning.
However it is also true that there is an entire school of economics (The Chicago school of economics) That is devoted entirely to teaching its students exactly this idealogical "plan" and how to implement it. In the case of Chile mentioned above The Ford foundation created a center called the Center for Latin American Economic Studies at the University of Chicago to teach the "plan". The "plan" was written out on paper and in Pinochet hand before the coup. If anyone here doubts that this opportunism is a "plan" they need only read "Capitalism and Freedom" by Milton Friedman to see it all spelled out quite clearly right before their eyes.
Opportunism does not mean planning, Documents outlining clear plans mean planning.
Beyond laughter-it is not funny. We can't accept this.
We need to beat Cantor to his own loud threats- welcome them even- go for it Cantor and we'll ALL SHUT IT DOWN. It will give great pleasure to take action now that we know we should not trust our leaders. Restore democracy. Our constitution. Just watch the American people come together. Sit down. Go local. Halt the inhumanity and corruption in both parties.
Where is the conscience of America? And F the D traitors.
As a Vietnam Veteran my favorite part of the cuts is the VA Benefits cut. Of course cuts were made in the past, adding means testing to the health care benefits program, for example. Only those near the poverty level qualify for free health care. The irony is, as so many CD'ers know, is that many in the military vote for these yahoo's that want to cut their benefits and don't even realize what's happening to them. Lied to by the recruiter, by their leaders, and by their senators and representatives, and the public that is so faux supportive of the troops. It's Veterans Day. Perfect!
Whatever happened to universal healthcare (Medicare for All) at 1/3 to 1/2 the cost that we pay now? Seems like a better solution than increasing copays on insurance that is hardly affordable now.
Increasing co-pays and increasing government subsidies to medical programs (or any other programs) creates incentives for the vendor to increase the price you and I pay for the respective good or service.
Deficit reduction proposals appear to be all about added corporate welfare and added defacto corporate welfare.
According to todays news, either we cut slowly or it'll all blow up in 2050. as medical costs keep raising forever. I don't see this if all the workers are getting less and less wages all the time. Maybe their planning to switch from non-profit to all-profit.
Seriously, if we can spend a trillion a year bombing brown people, certinally we can have some free medical care. I really like the part about putting the military into an HMO with co-pays and workers-comp if they get hurt, all privatized of course.
I knida wish these crazy old fools would just die, Simpson belongs in a home, the rest of the fossils on the catfood commission should just be sealed in their meeting room for the safety of humanity!
>^^<
Perhaps we could help them along a little.
Obama made back room deals with Big Pharma -- no Medicare negotiation on
drug prices.
And, Obama made back room deals with the private health care industry --
single payer off the table.
Neither Obama nor Democrats chose to call out their supporters to demonstrate
for MEDICARE FOR ALL nor to oppose the Koch Bros T-baggers run out of a PR
firm.
As they say ...
"You can only really be betrayed by those closest to you -- "
.
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Time to write an alternative plan that reduces military spending, increases taxes on estates and income for the rich, closes tax loopholes for corporations, wrings efficiencies out of Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA, and cuts back corporate welfare in the form of subsidies to Big Ag. Insure that corporations pay a minimum tax to the federal government. At the same time the IRS should hire many more accountants to keep track of the money. Courts should establish jail time for tax cheats. The FBI should go after fraud in a way they have forgotten how to do. Heavy financial penalties should be levied on lawbreakers. It is not particularly difficult to envision a budget that pays attention to the needs of ordinary people, but it is hard to get up the moxie to go after the financial terrorists that have caused us to reach the edge of the economic abyss that looms before us.
Wish you were on that commission!
I think we also now have subsidies or tax breaks to oil companies.
Speaking of fraud, we also need to look at the banks and federal reserve, etc.
drosera, excellent post!
Looks like they listended to you...
drosera
"reduces military spending"
catfood commission
"page with specific “illustrative cuts”, ... $100 billion in military spending"
drosera
"wrings efficiencies out of Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA"
catfood commission
"They want to add co-pays to the Veterans’ Administration and TRICARE"
"Increase co-pays in Medicaid and cost sharing in Medicare. In addition, the plan would cap Medicaid/Medicare growth, so that the government would have to either increase premiums and co-pays or raise the Medicare eligibility age if the cost grows above the baseline."
drosera
"cuts back corporate welfare in the form of subsidies to Big Ag"
catfood commission
"Reduce farm subsidies by $3 billion per year"
Time to hit the streets, but not when Mad Men is on
These monsters are going to take our survival away and give it to corporations? Who would ever vote for this political party again or buy anything from these corporations? To Arms, the Fascists Are Here!
The Teabaggers of course.
"On Social Security, gradually increase the retirement age to 69 by 2075."
I can't even imagine what sorry shape our empire will be in by 2075.
"I can't even imagine what sorry shape our empire will be in by 2075." -- NC-Tom
Empire? Empire of Illusion!
America in 2075 will be a continent-spanning, toxic dust-bowl baking away under sweltering skies, with occasional super-storms and filthy balls of discarded plastic flotsam blowing like tumbleweeds from sea to lifeless sea.
Oil will have peaked decades earlier, and gasoline prices will cause widespread hunger and lack of heating in our big cities, which will then be deserted. School children will be taken on tours (by horse and carriage) to see the ruins of our skyscrapers and hear stories about Walmart and Whole Foods.
Yea peak oil, along with peak everything else. I'm glad I won't be around for that show.
oil hit 87 dolars a barrel today. I think we ARE a part of that show, like it or not.
Day before gold topped over $1500 for about five minutes there. FOX Business reported there was a change made to cool off silver trading which was starting to go too high... whatever that means. But the story implied that prices were being manipulated,
>^^<
oil worries me too, as theres nothing on the shelf to replace it. This country really needs an official energy policy.
Actually, it is urban areas that have far smaller per-capita fuel usage. And wal-mart specifically is strictly a rural-USAn, later suburban phenomenon.
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance and the US electorate stopped being vigilant quite a while ago. The bad guys stole your 2000 election in full public view but no-one came out onto the streets. Since then you've been living in a kleptocracy. A tiny percentage of your population owns a vast slab of the nation's wealth, but when we hear of people vowing to "take our country back", it's a few loonies who are backed by those very robber-barons! Your national debt is breath-taking, better get used to cat food I'd say.
Friskies with salmon and beef in sauce is zesty, but for people tightening their belts in these tough times the dry food is pretty good if you sprinkle a little tap water on it.
The dry dog food is better wuth water, I got two 50lb tupperware containers, so I can keep a months worth.
"Bachelor Chow" now with more real bachelors!
>^^<
Ooooh, this is my favorite part:
"Massively overhaul the tax code. They have a couple different options on this. In the first, there would only be three brackets: at 8%, 14% and 23% for the top bracket."
Of course, this means that those who make between $0 and $50,000 will pay 23%, those who make between $51,000 and $150,000 will pay 14% and those who make between $151,000 and $250,000 will pay 8%. Those who make $251,000 and above will pay zero.
yea balance the budget by giving away billions and trillions to the rich!
and make that lazy old widow get off her ass and work! I don't care if she's 80 - she's a DRAIN on society!
these people have no shame or conscience and lack any semblence of empathy - THAT is the definition of a SOCIOPATH
that's where we are - the USA is run by SOCIOPATHS- only death misery and destruction can come from it now.....
yea balance the budget by giving away billions and trillions to the rich!
and make that lazy old widow get off her ass and work! I don't care if she's 80 - she's a DRAIN on society!
these people have no shame or conscience and lack any semblence of empathy - THAT is the definition of a SOCIOPATH
that's where we are - the USA is run by SOCIOPATHS- only death misery and destruction can come from it now.....
Funny thing though, but there are a few little tidbits in this plan that I could support.
The 15 cent increase in the gasoline FET.
The option 2 income tax plan
and by: "increase the payroll tax to capture 90% of wages, rather than the current 86%." I assume they mean raising the SS cap, this is fine, but doesn't seem to be near enough to me.
Overall, though, it is a disaster.
SOCIAL SECURITY COSTS THE GOVERNMENT NOTHING --
NEITHER DOES IT IN ANY WAY ADD TO THE DEBT NOR SUBTRACT
FROM IT --
Social Security FICA payments are made by employees and
employers and is merely administrated by the government at
.03% administrative costs.
If Social Security were immediately reimbursed for the
Treasury securities it holds, then Social Security would
be infinitely solvent.
SOCIAL SECURITY IS SOLVENT -- IN FACT IT RUNS HUGE
SURPLUSSES -- $250 million and more each year -- WHICH
SERVE AS A SLUSH FUND for wars, tax cuts for the rich, etal.
Social Security is intended to be a pay--as-you-go program
and NOT to run surplusses.
The surplusses were engineered as the "baby boomer" scam by
the right wing -- again to raise surplusses to serve as a
slush fund.
Also Social Security is NOT intended to be in the general
budget -- it is there to OFFSET the monstrous costs of our
MIC and warmaking, weapons industry.
Again -- Social Security costs the government NOTHING ....
Anything else is right wing propaganda --
'
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
"SOCIAL SECURITY COSTS THE GOVERNMENT NOTHING " -- huh?
You and I are the US government (of, by, and for the people). Government operations are funded directly and indirectly by its citizens; you and me. Social Security is an arm of the US Government, funded directly by its citizens; you and me. Whatever you call the tax, and however you hide its collection, it's all the same money. You and I earn it and the government gets it. Separating SS from government is like separating an arm from a human.
The government collects the SS money, and pays out SS benefits. All the surpluses are spent on other things, and replaced by debt in the form of Treasury Notes; IOUs if you will.
The current value of the committment in SS benefits exceeds the current value of cash and securities (T-Notes) currently on hand. In the real world, that would call for an infusion of additional capital, reduction in expenditures, or bankruptcy. Complicating this is the fact that the government debt is held by a government agency. Sort of like Dad borrowing money from Mom's grocery money and saying the family has more money.
So while your statement might be historically partly correct, the current state of matters is that SS calls for more expenditure than the named tax collections are capable of funding, and the debt instruments can only be paid by collecting more money from the same source.
What I know now is that if I had depostited all of the money paid to my Soc Sec "account", and invested it as I knew how at the time, I could have completely retired well before my 50th birthday. Today, all that money is gone, and held as debt that only I can pay off. Social "Security" is not much security.
BS..... the wealthy and the chinese also hold t-bills -
can we say they won't get their money back either? Oh it's only the poor and middle class that get screwed that way....
and putting the SS funds into the general fund is DOUBLE TAXATION.. we pay the SS tax AND the income tax.....
Notice that NONE of the people on that commission pay into or will receive SS payments. So of course that's a good place to start cutting....
Couldn't you squeeze any more misleading right-wing talking points into your post?
I think you might have missed one or two.
walt-dimm writes "All the surpluses are spent on other things, and replaced by debt in the form of Treasury Notes; IOUs if you will."
To put that another way the government used the surplus to invest in safe government bonds that mature regularly, and pay interest back into the trust fund, interest that would otherwise be flowing out of country to foreign wealth funds or wherever..
Isn't it fun how you twisted this to sound shady and sinister.
walt-dim writes "The current value of the commitment in SS benefits exceeds the current value of cash and securities (T-Notes) currently on hand."
You just wrote correctly above that "all the surpluses" are spent on something. If commitment exceeded income where would "surplus" come from? the Social Security trust fund actually loans its annual surplus by purchasing government bonds as a safe investment to the tune of over $100 billion dollars a year in surplus income, to the federal government. That would be every year 100 billion more "currently on hand" that leaves hand. If that's the definition of bankrupt then I want some of that kind of bankrupt!
The lies being perpetrated here couldn't be more obvious and transparent.
Waltdimm,
I see you've swallowed hook line and sinker the big lie.
"and the debt instruments can only be paid by collecting more money from the same source."
NOT TRUE! Yes the United States Government owes the money to the trust fund, but it is the GENERAL FUND which owes the money - I can't stress this enough. THE GENERAL FUND OWES THE MONEY.
Why is this important? Because now ALL the taxing and spending reduction authority of the government is involved. Raising the top marginal income tax rates - Hell yes. Putting in a financial trades transaction tax - absolutely. Cutting the military budget, you betcha - not by a measly $100 Billion - slash it by HALF just as a start. Put in a federal estate tax that takes EVERYTHING over $10 Million - money, property, stocks and bonds, artwork, EVERYTHING.
Why do you buy into the BIG LIE that only the working people have to pay this money back?
KrazyKatz etal,
"NOT TRUE! Yes the United States Government owes the money to the trust fund, but it is the GENERAL FUND which owes the money - I can't stress this enough. THE GENERAL FUND OWES THE MONEY."
There's really no left or right to this, if you only follow the money. Let's see if I can get this done...
The USA General Fund (capitalized by direct and indirect tax collections on US economic activity) owes money to the Social Security Trust Fund (which is capitalized by direct and indirect tax collections on US economic activity). Having missed your high school economics classes, you apparently missed the "present value" part of the argument; the part that lets you figure out how far in the hole you are today, based on money you owe later... I'll try to simplify.
In my family, suppose we collect 2 paychecks, paycheck A & paycheck B. We decided that paycheck A would pay the mortgage (Housing Security Fund) and paycheck B would cover everything else (General Fund). Our mortgage was one that the payments escalated each year, so early on paycheck A is larger than the mortgage, but in future years, the mortgage will exceed the paycheck. Our plan was to put the early surpluses in savings for future payments.
Then life happened. We decided that our budget was too small for our "needs" and so we took the excess cash from the Housing Security Fund and spent it on restaurants and air conditioning bills, and wrote notes saying that paycheck B would pay back the money we needed for the future mortgage bills.
Fast forward... The future is here. We have a Housing Security fund full of debt notes from the General Fund and no cash, and a mortgage bill due that is larger than paycheck A. Where does the money come from? Who pays off the debt to the Housing Security Fund?
We now have to make choices:
A. Send less than what we have committed to the mortgage company.
B. Cut back on the General Fund budget and pay the rest of the mortgage with General Fund money.
C. Increase one or both paychecks frequently over time to cover the rising cost of the Housing Security and General Fund budgets.
D. Give up completely and declare bankruptcy.
E. Some of each of the above choices.
Playing games with the names of the accounts doesn't change the fact that all the money comes from the pockets of those who earn it in the first place. When the money runs out, it is time to spend less, collect more, or give up completely.
If it is a BIG LIE that the money comes from somewhere other than the people who earn it, please share this magical source of income.
Yes we as a nation borrow money just as you as a household borrow money as in your mortgage payment in the above example is you coming up with the money to service your debt.
Were did the money come from for you to buy your house? Other people earned it right? And they lent it to you with interest for you to buy your house. What is the magical source of the borrowed money? Other people = the magic source. Of course they don't give you the money out of altruism. You seem to need it and are stupid enough to pay interest for the privilege of using it. The social security trust fund is just that a trust fund or money held in trust by the US government "we the people" for the purpose of paying out to benificiaries. A trust fund is a legal entity that holds some type of assets that another person or group will benefit from. So in essense "we the people" do not own the trust fund but rather are legal trustees of the trust fund and have a legal feduciary duty to the benificiaries. If "we the people" break that "trust" then "we the people" are in violation of the law and should go to prison as embezelors.
If "we the people" are in any way moral and upright individuals then "we the people" would take the job of being trustee seriously and do it to the best of our ability under the law.
Thats what good people do.
second point:
There are also some totally bogus (as in not well done) projections about the social security trust fund not being able to fund its liabilities in the year 2037. What are your household projections for the year 2037? Don't tell us you haven't done them yet.
If you were to do your household projections for the year 2037 how accurate do you think they would be when the actual year 2037 rolls around? If you would have made projections for your household situation today in 1983 and put them in a drawer and dragged them out now how well would they corespond to reality? So enough of projecting into the future 27 years. Unless you are some kind of an all seeing mystic then projections 27 years into the future are a fools game. You appear to be fond of the term "present value".
Exactly what is it about the word "present" that is hanging you up? Granted I didn't pay attention in high school but i think projections 27 years into the future are called "projected future value". "present value" of the social security trust fund is 2.5 Trillion dollars. If you were a trustee (which you are and should take seriously) of the fund your account statement today would read your account as in the black "present value" to the tune of 2.5 Trillion dollars. Woopee! bankrupt? I think not. Plenty of money to pay the benificiaries? yes sir.
OK so i get the point that you say we the people hold notes payable by we the people. That IS a bit hard to grasp. But please explain how that is different than some old T bills I have in my brief case from 1983? The reality of those T bills is that if I take them to the bank my bank account grows after I sign them on the back. Another reality is that I DID put down good hard earned valid cash when I bought them. Hard cash that is not lost but has been invested safely.
I even felt kind of patriotic when i lent the money to my government. (not really i just made that part up for effect) So even though me the people just paid myself interest on money i lent myself it seems to work just fine. How about the huge bond funds run by PIMCO.
It is essentially we the peoples money that is lent to we the people and we the people pay the money back to we the people with interest and it works just fine. The reason it works just fine is that some of "WE" like me appearently have more than i need and some others of "we" have less than we need at any given time. Again like your house mortgage. The money isn't an IOU out of thin air. Try not paying it back and see how fast the bank takes it rather seriously. WHY? because they got "me" again cashing out a big account and need to pay me. Just like the government has "me" cashing in the bonds.
Are you saying, Or rather I should say that you are absolutely saying that PIMCO government bond funds are bogus and amounts to playing games with names of accounts that hold worthless IOU's?
If this were true this would cause quite a shock in the financial markets now that you have pointed it out. Therefore it IS NOT TRUE!
Please explain where my reasoning is wrong.
"Please explain where my reasoning is wrong."
I did once and you missed it.
exactly -- you have no answer because your argument is a house of cards.
Person A pays into a trust fund that then uses person A's money to invest in safe government securities. Person A in turn becomes a benificiary to the trust fund. The trust fund earns good steady interest on the money to the tune of say 4% or 5% which for the last 10 years clearly kicks butt and over time is on par with the stock market but is 100% safe and reliable. Resulting in person A having a source of income when they are old and can no longer work and pay into the system.
The rest of the people borrow the money to build roads and bridges and the other things the society needs to borrow money to do to live happy productive lives. Just like the loan from the bank on your house we are happy to have it and gladly pay the modest interest on the loan. Since the cash up front to build roads and bridges and the other things we need is more than we have on hand we need to finance them. We would just as soon pay the interest to our own and help them with retirement than pay the interest to the central bank of China.
lets face it, your opposition revolves around your own selfishness and the fact that you want to live in a society where you use all the collective resources like the roads and bridges and the rest of the public infrastructure but pay not one single dime of your cash in taxes.
If you want to live like that then go live on an island all alone somewhere and leave the rest of us alone!
Just to clear the air: there is no "trust fund" in any true sense. Just a set of U.S. Government I.O.U.s that are not marketable, saleable, or mandatorily redeemable.
In short, there's nothing "there". There's no money or other assets in the Social Security "trust fund" only unsecured promises to pay. An unsecured obligation of the U.S. Government is not any different from any other unsecured promise to pay (an IOU, for example). If the moneys were in fact held in money market instruments or a balanced portfolio of U.S. Government bonds, or for that matter other AAA debt that could readily be sold to realize value, that would be different. The U.S. government "obligations" in the Social Security "trust fund" are not U.S. Treasury Bonds or other real assets; they are notional only and are not saleable, an accounting mirage designed to comfort the ignorant. Just think about it, would the investors in Bernie Madoff's company have been better off if he had put a $65 billion (or so) personal IOU of his own into the account? Would that have added real assets that could be sold to satisfy claimants?
See: Wikipedia "Social Security Trust Fund", available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Trust_Fund:
"Unlike a typical private pension plan, the Social Security Trust Fund does not hold any marketable assets to secure workers' paid-in contributions. Instead, it holds non-negotiable United States Treasury bonds and U.S. securities backed 'by the full faith and credit of the government'. The Office of Management and Budget has described the distinction as follows:
"'These [Trust Fund] balances are available to finance future benefit payments and other Trust Fund expenditures – but only in a bookkeeping sense.... They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures. The existence of large Trust Fund balances, therefore, does not, by itself, have any impact on the Government’s ability to pay benefits.' (from FY 2000 Budget, Analytical Perspectives, p. 337)"
Thank you Horace. I don't know where these folks got the idea that the SS excess was being invested in gov't bonds, T-bills, or anything else. All the non-existent "trust fund" gets is a note in the box that the "Genreal Fund" "owes" The "SS Trust Fund" some money. No interest, no legal enforceability, nothing but hope. In the business world they call that "theft by diversion", and it is a felony.