EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Wisconsin Bill Would Treat Organic Milk, Sharp Cheddar, Brown Eggs as "Junk Food"
- Patent Filing Claims Solar Energy ‘Breakthrough’
- Climate Change's 'Evil Twin': Ocean Acidification
- Disaster Capitalism Strikes as Hedge Funds Circle Near-Bankrupt Municipalities Like Vultures
- Ignoring Bee Crisis, EPA Greenlights New 'Highly Toxic' Pesticide
- Patent Filing Claims Solar Energy ‘Breakthrough’
- Wisconsin Bill Would Treat Organic Milk, Sharp Cheddar, Brown Eggs as "Junk Food"
- Climate Change's 'Evil Twin': Ocean Acidification
- In 'March Toward Disaster,' World Hits 400 PPM Milestone
- Ignoring Bee Crisis, EPA Greenlights New 'Highly Toxic' Pesticide
Popular content
Today's Top News
A Boomers Revolt: Madison a Foretaste of Things to Come?
The Next Big Occupation Could be Boomers Taking Over the Capitol Building
The dramatic and inspiring occupation of the Wisconsin Statehouse in Madison by angry public workers and their supporters over the past few weeks is an exciting preview of what we can expect to see in the halls of Congress before long, as right-wing forces, funded by corporate lobbies and corporate-funded think-tanks push hard for cutbacks in Social Security and Medicare.
The drive to undermine these two critically important social programs is moving into high gear as the 79-million Baby Boomers this year start to reach eligibility, even as their other assets--their homes and their investment portfolios--are still shriveled by the Wall Street heist known as the “fiscal crisis” and Great Recession.
For years, the right has been gravely warning of the supposedly looming “bankruptcy” of Social Security and the even more imminent “bankruptcy” of Medicare, as though these twin disasters for the elderly were an actuarial imperative. In fact, both programs are political creations, whose problems have political causes and political solutions.
Social Security is starting to draw down the huge reserves it had built up, not because of an increase in retirees (the bulge in retirees hasn't hit yet), but because the share of national income that is subject to the Social Security FICA tax has fallen, from 90% back in the 1980s to just 84% now, as the wealthy have appropriated an increasingly large share of the total national income. If more of the income of the rich were slapped with the FICA tax, to bring the total share of income subject to FICA back to 90%, there would be plenty of money to pay promised benefits into the foreseeable future. The same can be said of Medicare. More taxes on the rich would ensure the funding of that program too.
There is no inherent reason why only the first $106,000 of a person’s income should be subject to the FICA tax. It could be the first $200,000, or the first $500,000, and if it were the latter, we could be talking about improving benefits for retirees, or lowering the retirement age, not just preserving current levels. Benefits could be better still if investment income were no longer exempted from a FICA tax (and the Medicare tax).
But here’s the big point: Corporate America, and its political lackeys in the Republican and Democratic Parties, know that they are about to confront a dramatically more powerful protagonist in their campaign to kill Social Security and Medicare: the Boomer Retirees.
Next time, angry Boomer retirees occupying the Capital Rotunda in DC?
The so-called Senior Lobby is already enormously powerful. That’s why Social Security has so far largely defied concerted efforts by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush to undermine it, and it’s why Republicans and conservative Democrats running for national office always hasten to claim they are not going to threaten Social Security or Medicare, or at least that they won’t threaten “current beneficiaries.” It’s why they call Social Security the “third rail” of American politics: touch it and you die (for those of you unfortunate enough to live where there are no subways, the third rail is the “hot” rail that carries the electricity to power the electric trains).
But a Boomer retiree population will be two times the size of the current retiree population. That means that just in terms of the number of potential voters, it will be two times as powerful. But that’s only part of the story. The new generation of retirees are the people who came of political age in the late 1950s during the Civil Rights movement, and the 1960s and ‘70s during the anti-war movement and the feminist movement. We are veterans of both engaged electoral politics (witness that support our generation gave to the insurgent campaigns of Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy and George McGovern, as well as a host of more successful Congressional campaigns), and of powerful and of successful militant street politics.
What we showed back then in our youth and our formative young-adult years was that when our interests were on the line, as they were with the draft, or when we saw a gross injustice, as was the case with Jim Crow, we knew how to fight politically. And both our personal interests and our sense of justice are on the line when it comes to Social Security and Medicare.
My prediction: As the number of Boomers nearing or entering retirement soars, and the number anticipating or signing up for Medicare soars over the next few years, we will see massive national campaigns grow around not just saving these programs but expanding and improving them. With traditional pensions vanishing, and with IRAs and 401(k) plans having been exposed as the shams they are, we are going to see an irresistable demand grow for Social Security benefits to be raised, particularly for poorer retirees, so that all Americans can have a secure old age. And we will see another irresistable political drive to have Medicare not just improved but broadened to cover all Americans, as we Boomers recognize that it makes no sense at all to have a program that only covers the oldest and sickest of Americans, and not the younger and healthier population (our own kids and grandkids!). We will realize that it is in our interest to have all Americans invested fully in supporting a well-funded national Medicare program.
And if we don’t get it, we will be ready and willing to do what the public employees of Wisconsin are doing now--or more.
Hold on to your seats (and your walkers)! The new Boomer retirees are coming!
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
97 Comments so far
Show AllWhhatt?
That's the spirit! A do-nothing, addle-brained centrism is our only hope!
NZAKHAR, "Whhatt?"
I had exactly the same response. Except a few more Whhatt??????????????????????
I don't know how you can refer to Obama and Congress as "radicals on the left". Obama appointed a commission to look at cutting the deficit and packed it (including the chairs), with people who are notorious for wanting to cut Social Security. Not surprisingly, they came back with a call to cut benefits and delay retirement. That's a "radical left-wing" plan?
Please. You made me laugh my coffee up my nose. At least give us a warning at the start of a note like this that you're going to be saying something ridiculous, if it's early in the morning...
Dave Lindorff
editor
ThisCantBeHappening!
www.thiscantbehappening.net
Dave! I had same misfortune with coffee!
Me, too! Jeez, Dave, a little fair warning next time you sneak up on us pious CD readers with actual humor!
Sorry that the first poster's brain-dead response spun things around.
A very good article, Dave, except I don't see a strong political movement among boomers. Although I am a boomer I see my fellow boomers rooting for the blue team or the red team while discounting or ignoring the damage being done by the two teams. How many boomers are even aware that Obama's payroll tax holiday is seriously weakening Social Security?
When I turned 50 I joined AARP thinking it was an advocacy organization for those over 50. Seven years later I dropped my membership after seeing only scattered token advocacy and lots of corporate shilling for Wall Street, and the drug and insurance industries.
Also, raising the contribution cap from 84% to 90% would not only resolve Social Security's issues for the "forseeable future", it would solve them for the lifespans of nearly every American alive today. Obama knows that if he gets it boosted to 90% his Wall Street buddies will never get to privatize Social Security, so Obama barely pays lip service to real solutions.
Dave,
Better add "humorist" to your bio.
Naah. That's my colleague Chuck Young's job.
Dave
www.thiscantbehappening.net
Mr. Linforff is certainly correct. Despite the beliefs of that right wing commenter and his grammatically mangled sentences, if Obama and Congress were really allegedly radical they would have withdrawn all U.S. soldiers and mercenaries from Afghanistan as well as from the rest of the Middle East. They would have made sure that universal health care would become a reality in this country. But that had no chance of happening since Obama declared not long after he became president that UHC would be taken "off the table." They would have stopped the foreclosures of people's homes in this country instead of coming to the aid of the fat cats on Wall Street.
The irony is that the last thing that this country will probably ever tolerate is anyone who is remotely thought of as being a "radical." Perhaps a best example of this can be seen during the 2000 campaign when the Democrats and the Republicans conspired with the television executives to make sure that Ralph Nader was not going to be allowed inside a building to debate Bush and Gore during the summer of that year.
Henry Ford once said that anyone in America could buy a car in any color as long as it was black. Nowadays, one can basically choose between any political candidate in this country as long as that candidate is either a Democrat or a Republican. The last thing that the political establishment as well as the mass media wish to see happen is for anything supposedly radical to happen in the good old US of A.
Dave! Who is in the halls of congress and CEO and managers of these mega corporations, who are the war mongers , who runs the MIC, that have been around the last 40 years?
They are boomers! In electing Obama I was hoping that the power was transferred to a new generation that were not corrupt corporate war mongers. Sure got that wrong!
I'm hoping you are right and the other 76 million of us stand up and make ourselves heard.
Every generation has its villains and its scum. Their existence hardly serves to characterize the entire demographic.
Dave Lindorff
editor
ThisCantBeHappening!
www.thiscantbehappening.net
You generalized in your article Mr. Lindroff... turn around is fair play.
I for one am not going to hold my breath waiting for the "The Boomers" to save us all. Whether you are willing to admit it or not, the boomer generation is a big reason we are where we're at.
"Every generation has its villains and its scum."
Yes,but my generation's villains and scum have risen to the top, while the best and brightest dropped out to help the common good.
Aren't McCain and GWB both "Boomers"?
McCain is at least a decade too old to be a boomer. Clinton and Dubya are early boomers and Obama is a late boomer.
No. GWB is, sadly, a boomer, but not McCain. The Boomer demographic starts with the first WWII war babies of 1946, who would now be 65. John is well past that. the youngest are those born in 1957, after which the birth rate started to sharply decline.
Kiely, what we're talking about here is the spark that creates a revolutionary moment. When the big population bulge that is the Baby Boom generation realizes that they are being screwed by the corporate elite that is taking away their retirement security and health care (after just having robbed us of our home equity and our investment savings, and gotten many of us prematurely sacked from jobs), we will be pissed in ways we haven't been pissed since the late '60s and early '70s. That's what I'm saying.
It will be in our interest to fight for better Social Security, but we all have kids too, and we will certainly be fighting for them too, so we'll want the bill for better SS coming off the rich, not off young workers. As for Medicare, insurance--any insurance--works best when everyone's in the pool. 90% of the costs of Medicare are for care of the people who are in their late '80s and older, which is why the program covers people from 65, but the logic goes to expanding it to cover everyone, which would not add that much to the cost of the program, while at the same time eliminating the cost of private insurance, eliminating the cost of Medicaid, eliminating the cost of VA programs, eliminating the cost of "charity care" which cities and counties have to cover or which get shifted onto private insurance premiums right now. In short, it will be only logical as well as politically astute to demand Medicare for All.
Believe me, this is tomorrow's revolutionary movement, not because I want it to happen, but because the imperative will be there.
Dave Lindorff
editor
ThisCantBeHappening!
www.thiscantbehappening.net
I hear ya' and I'm not trying to crap on your parade or anything. My parents are Boomers and tuned in ones at that. My father was a Vietnam war "draft dodger" who knew the "agenda" since 1969. But when I see the tea party rallies, I see Boomers, when I see the corporate elite, wealthy bankers and bought and paid for politicians, I see Boomers. Time and time again the majority of Boomers have proven to me they are looking out for themselves. Sure they may get pissed-off enough once they realise THEY aren't taken care of, but do they even know who the real enemy is? I'm not convinced.
Before immigrating to Canada my family was from Missouri so in the spirit of that state I say to you and all the other Boomers, "Show Me" and I will eat all the crow you can throw at me. Until then I will continue to believe the poor and middle class are the ones who need to find "the spark that creates a revolutionary moment" not just a particular age demographic that up until now has been rather unimpressive to this Son-of-a-Boomer.
http://kiely-flashpoint.blogspot.com/
Your dad did the right thing.
I was a draft dodger who stayed under the radar in the US (rather than heading north to Canada) until President Carter decriminalized draft dodging in 1977.
In retrospect, moving to Canada would have been the better long term choice.
Concerning who is or isn't a boomer...statistically the boomers are the 78 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964, so 1957 was not the end of boomer births.
Kiely: As much as I admire Dave, I think you are right on this one. The age divide is far less significant than the class divide, and the awareness of issues relating to class will be the tipping point. Our lights blink on one at a time. I'm joyful about what the heroes of Madison are doing because of the potential they are creating for awakening in all of us, all around the country. Sometimes for the duller ones among us it takes a lifetime to catch on to the evil of this system.
"Social Security is starting to draw down the huge reserves it had built up, not because of an increase in retirees (the bulge in retirees hasn't hit yet), but because the share of national income that is subject to the Social Security FICA tax has fallen, from 90% back in the 1980s to just 84% now, as the wealthy have appropriated an increasingly large share of the total national income."
Wrong. There are no reserves, huge or otherwise. As I have pointed out in previous posts, the Social Security "trust" fund is a "dry" trust. Its only "asset" other than money that is immediately paid out the door to retirees, is an unsecured congressional "promise" to pay that is not saleable, has no market value, and is not a Treasury bond, bill, or note. The Congress has raided the "trust fund" to pay for current governmental operations. It can revoke the "promise" if and when it decides to do so. This is not unlike an embezzler who puts an IOU in the cash drawer in place of the money he has borrowed; he promises to pay the IOU when his horse comes in.
Social security is not solvent; it is insolvent and apparently always has been.
Mayor Bloomberg, one of the richest men in the country, compared Social Security to a Ponzi scheme in an interview with Time magazine.
When asked how Ponzi fiend Bernard Madoff got away with his epic $65 billion scam for so long, Hizzoner said, "Nobody cared. Everybody just thought, where did Madoff get the idea?"
"A cynic would say Social Security, [though] I would never say that. But it's exactly the same thing, isn't it?"
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/social_security_like_ponzi_mike_le3xccazL1bAbuJsNZpASN#ixzz1FerCTDD0
You are simply wrong. The surplus that has been collected over the years has been loaned to the federal government in the form of the purchase of Treasury bills, and if you think those are worthless scraps of paper, then we have much bigger problems than paying for Social Security benefits.
You're singing a right-wing propaganda song, and it's flat out wrong.
Dave Lindorff
editor
ThisCantBeHappening!
www.thiscantbehappening.net
Dave, I don't know if you know of Horace or not. He is equivalent to the scruffy little snappy dog that followed you home one day, you fed him, now he refuses to leave. He has been a persistent presence from the right here at CD for some time now.
Sometimes he comes to poke the hornets nest and rile things up. Sometimes he comes to spout right wing talking points, and sometimes he comes to make a legitimate point or two.
Now Horace, Dave is a guest at our house today. Please no biting or peeing on his shoes, Please!
Very few people, other than I, who post on this website have any actual information to contribute. Most are uninformed or ill-informed. Virtually all the bloviating about the U.S. Constitution is wrong. Virtually all the information about Social Security, taxation, government fiscal policy, etc. is laughably ignorant. The one really sound economic post I have seen here was yesterday, in which someone who I expect is a Ph.D. in economics, discussed Robert Triffin's monetary policy and made some intelligent points.
Oh, my, a fellow troll with a highly exaggerated opinion of himself. It makes me ashamed of trolldom.
I just try to avoid making factual assertions without doing enough homework and due diligence to be reasonably sure they are true. That's being careful, not being arrogant. I try to leave the arrogance to others, and there's plenty of it here on this website.
Could I have your autograph sir?
LOL- that's a good one, mate!
This person, who received a Pulitizer Prize in economics, is far from being uninformed or ignorant.
http://www.tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/UBEN-8EDJYS?OpenDocument
Ahem...
There is no such thing as a Pulitzer Prize in economics.
Just sayin'...
Dave Lindorff
editor
ThisCantBeHappening!
www.thiscantbehappening.net
Mr. Lindorff
My apologies. Your are most certainly correct in what you have said. David Cay Johnston did not win a Pulitizer Prize for Economics. Instead, he won the 2001 Pulitizer Prize for Beat Reporting "for his penetrating and enterprising reporting that exposed loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code which was instrumental in bringing about reforms." He was a finalist in 2003 "for his stories that displayed exquisite command of complicated U.S. tax laws and of how corporations and individuals twist them to their advantage." He also was a finalist in 2000 "for his lucid coverage of problems resulting from the re-organization of the Internal Revenue Service."
He is also the author of, among other books, Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With the Bill [2007].
Perhaps if you were to go to the link that I had posted, you may find out why the Pulitizer Committee was right in awarding him their prize as well as seeing why his article dealing with the unions in Wisconsin, along with other essays that he has written on other topics, is right on the mark.
I know Dave Johnson. He's terrific. I commend everyone to him. In fact, at the moment he has a great piece, if a trifle long, on the lies surrounding right-wing claims concerning public pensions, and pensions in general and who actually pays for them. It should be required reading, especially for the mainstream journalists "covering" stories like Wisconsin.
Dave Lindorff
www.thiscantbehappening.net
Mr. Lindorff
That piece that you recommended by David Cay Johnston [not Johnson] can be found on the link that I had posted on Mar. 4 at 6:14 pm.
There is no such prize in economics, and the Nobel prize for economics is a hoax.
You wouldn't say that about Obama's Nobel peace prize, would you?
I surely would as I believe that anyone who considers him or herself to be a leftist would certainly recognize the hypocrisy of seeing a warmonger like Obama receiving a prestigious prize for peace. That selection could have been taken directly from the novel 1984 where up is down and where slavery equals freedom. It is highly doubtful if the Afghans and the Pakistanis and the Iraqis believe that Obama was justified in receiving that award. If the Nobel Committee had an ounce of integrity they would strip Obama of his prize and award it instead to Bradley Manning.
ROFL @ your pompous whore ass.
I don't think the federal government will default on its debt, including the Treasury bonds in the Social Security trust fund, because that would prevent it from borrowing more money from other countries by selling more treasury bonds.
What it can do, if we don't fight back, is raise the SS "full retirement" age, which is already too high, and cut benefits. Thus reducing the government's need to pay back what it has borrowed from the SS trust fund.
I'm sort of an honory boomer, six years older but I went to college with them in the 60s and was a radical hippie. We were a small minority. The majority of my classmates were gut determined to get that BA, meanwhile avoiding the draft, and join the middle class. That's what it was all about. Ever since most of them have avoided politics like the plague. They say it's "boring" and "depressing." Besides, activists have been shut out of the political process and can't get any traction.
Also, as organizers, we seriously suck. Meetings are so badly organized that I want to scream, and therefore seldom go.
I hope this will change as middle-class boomers recognize that they too are threatened, but I wouldn't count on it. They've been too comfortable, complacent and passive for too long.
"Social security is not solvent; it is insolvent and apparently always has been."
WTF?
Its been paying out for around 70 years, how is that possible for something that you say "has always been insolvent?"
It's a Ponzi scheme. Today's contributions are paid out dollar-for-dollar to current retirees. The game works only as long as there's enough money coming in, as was true in Bernie Madoff's scheme (and Charles Ponzi's). The Social Security "trust fund" doesn't own a single Treasury bond, bill or note. It owns only special, non-negotiable promises by the Government, promises that are unsecured and can be revoked by the Congress if it changes the legislation. The idea of a "lock box" is comforting but false. There are no real assets there. Very much like the embezzler's IOU in the cash drawer.
EVERY financial scheme ever dreamed up by man that depends on indefinite growth is a Ponzi scheme. That is because we live on a planet with finite resources, that in the end will only allow for finite growth due to resource limits, and population limits. The bigger the Ponzi scheme the longer it will last, but in the end ALL are destined to eventually fail.
What you say is correct that the trust funds are "special issues" of the US treasury, and so what? It is just one more guarantee or promise by the government. Im not sure why you are picking on it as apposed to any other .gov promise/guarantee. If we can't trust that promise, why should we trust any government financial promise?
Look at our debt. Should this cause military contractors to be concerned that the government checks THEY get will bounce? What about FDIC insurance, or even T Bills themselves. Heck can we be absolutely POSITIVE that the US just won't default on it's debt someday?
Also you really have a case coming here and complaining about peoples financial naivety as I watch Republican politicians, (and many Democrats) in action.
Yea the finical "geniuses" had a plan all right to make the US into a great financial power. Here it is. Lets ship as many jobs overseas as possible. Lets transfer as much money as possible from average people to a small very wealthy subset of the population. Then lets cut taxes to that tiny rich group (and corporations), then shift that tax burden to people you took the money from. (Blood from a stone anyone?) Next deregulate the financial industry and allow too big to fail organizations to from. Next let them to take crazy risks, then when the whole thing fails, bail the looser's out.
Yea there's a hell of a great plan there, or should I more correctly say scam. Yup real financial geniuses, blows away any ideas anybody here has ever had.
Horace, first off, Mayor Bloomberg's being a rich man has absolutely nothing to do with his knowledge of the Social Security Trust Fund.
You say it's insolvent and always has been. Well, per independant econoomist Bruce Webb, the trust Fund will cash in around 23 billion of the Special Treasury Bonds that fund Social Security along with 9 billion in interest paid to the fund this year.
Yes, cashing your monthly SS check does prove the fund's solvecy. Since the creation of Social Security, there have always been an increasing number of retirees and disabled collecting benefits. So how would the fund pay for the increasing number of retirees if it were insolvent?
I wish I could take you by the hand and show you the Special Terasury Bonds in the fund, but I don't have that kind of clout. So I'm afraid you are just going to have to believe what the majority of economists say when they say that the fund is secure for quite some time into the future.
No Ponzi scheme ever lasted this long. They can't last. But Social Security has... hmmmm.
Horace, my fellow troll, once again you are wrong. I realize that your thoughts are somewhat common, but it does not make them correct. US IOUs to SS, China, Saudi Arabia, heh, we will make good on all of them. We're not a bunch of dead-beats here in the good ol' USA. I'm constantly surprised by right-wingers poor opinions of their fellow Americans.
My point is there are no "real" assets, such as Treasury bonds, bills or notes that are negotiable and can be sold in the market for money. The Congress's unsecured "promises" are not real assets--they can't be transferred or sold and they have no real value if Congress decides to renege on them. That's what I mean by "insolvent"; the Social Security Administration basically owns nothing other than tables, chairs and water coolers. It certainly doesn't have trillions of dollars in a trust fund somewhere.
You're confused. All US bonds are nothing but Congress's "promise to pay."
Because the government can always pay, if need be by printing money, they are considered "as good as gold" - and a lot less volatile.
Everybody else reports that the SS Trust Fund is in the form of bonds, so we suspect an outright, brazen lie. It really doesn't matter whether they're a literal pile of paper.
Can you say "mirage"?
See, 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)
Now do you understand? The "trust fund" is political comfort food, a "bookkeeping" sleight of hand. It has no real assets.
The Special Treasury Bonds "backed by the full faith and credit of the government" are no different than U.S. currency, which carries the same backing by the government. Of course a $100 bill isn't worth $100, but it is a note issued by the government saying that in our society and in view of governments around the world, the note represents that amount of worth in production, assets, or whatever.
It is not possible for the usa to EVER be able to pay off its debts/obligations. But, I believe that that is the intention.
It is time for 'merkans to break free from Collective Stockholm Syndrome and see the strategic view. The Banksters and Corporate Mafia are the ruling oligarchy and massive collective action is required to overthrow these criminals.
After the Cheney/Bush gang were given de-facto pardons; after the worst financial criminals and terrorists in history are rewarded with billions instead of prison; after the rule of law and the Constitution has been shredded and made a mockery of; after our money has been stolen by the kleptocracy, after yet more "austerity" measures are announced; after the victims are blamed by the corporate media oligopoly propaganda machine time and again.
How many kicks in the teeth is it going to take before 'merkans take a cue from Egypt? It seems there are still too many bloated, igorant, complacent Stockholm Syndrome stricken folks to do anything.
Too many bourgeois liberal pundits are too busy writing articles and books detailing how bad we are getting screwed. We can write all the articles we want, but the message is not going to get throuhgh. Too many single-issue articles get lost in the forest for the trees. The 98% need to confront the 2% oligarchy and bring them down. If poor Egyptians can defeat a brutal dictator why can't 'merkans? Time to write articles calling for massive collective action - single issue groups must unite!
When gas goes to 8 bucks or more, when food doubles in price, will that be enough?
The Fed Reserve and the Banksters are busy looting the place, and few are paying attention.
Take all of the worthless fiat paper currency out of the Big Banks, buy precious metals. And REVOLT!