There is no way I'd have ever been involved
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Originally Posted by
jmm99
...and Ken (who wrote the original SS statute).
with that consumate Krupp / Bismarkian rip off of the American taxpayer. None.
I can however remember how much more independent and self reliant people were before the tentacles of SS took hold in the late 50s after the first generation departed. Been downhill ever since...
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... Are you younger guys willing to pay the freight when we hit step 7 ?
I hope not. That's the only thing that's likely to introduce some fiscal sanity to DC.
Because I have a Federal pension, my SS is reduced to about half the average payment -- I shouldn't be getting anything if it were properly means tested so I'm effectively ripping off Schmedlap and my kids to plunk money in said kids inheritance (unless I drink it up first... :D ). SS was a very bad idea to begin with, aimed at putting too-independent Americans in thrall to their government and it has morphed into a middle class vote buying scam. Criminal malfeasance on the part of a slew of Congroids over a good many years...
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...If someone else has an objective explanation, please post it.
All part of the Fed's plot to rule the world economy IAW there own view of who should have money and who should not...:eek:
Thank Congress... :mad:
And believe it or not, none of this is really off-thread. Regrettably. It isn't because it concerns how Congress acquires and spends tax dollars, a direct contributor to the current fiscal foolishness.
Not a bad political platform ...
but I suspect it may have to be tweaked by some give-up by the "geezers" as well. Nothing special in my mind, but I think the crunch will hit first in Medicare (as Ken has already said in a non-Bravo Sierra comment).
So, I expect that some of the "geezers" who can afford it (not those who are at the edge now) will have to cough up more in Medicare premiums - I among them. That would have to be re-calculated each year.
It would be better if everyone realized (and all the pols would say) that SS and Medicare are "pay as you go" programs - and end the BS about it. We would have been better off if, in the past, SS taxes had been reduced to what was needed for SS payments only.
PS: still in law school ? If so, and if you care to respond, send a PM so as not to disrupt the thread.
Hey Slap, I'm an eclectic ...
and not that much committed to fancy economic theory because too much of it is (1) not mathematically sound at its base premises (although it uses very provable formulas from those premises); and (2) is often divorced from the real world which I perceive and in which I live.
Agreed: money, gold, crude oil (and you could name 1000s of other things) have no value, unless they can be applied to get something else needed to survive (1st goal) and live better (2nd goal - varies with the person as to what that means).
Agreed: have to have a working physical economic system for anything to work at all. Could use barter (lots of people in the underground economy are doing just that today), but that is not very efficient for multi-party transactions. Don't really need money - could do it by accounting entries (which is what we are doing in large part today).
Agreed: that a "well-planned" physical economy (and accounting system) is necessary - and is sufficient. The issue is who does the planning - if the government, I am off the ship and onto the desert island with necessary survival gear.
Agreed: that Fed Res is an unnecesary step in the process. If all the banks want to get together and have a central bank which is unlinked in every way to the government, so be it. My understanding of how the Fed works is basically buying open-market government paper by writing a check on itself (neat, heh). It gets the bonds and the seller has a choice of a Fed Res account (an accounting entry) or taking payment in Fed Res notes. Treasury could do (and used to do) the same thing, without the mesne costs.
Agreed: that some government programs (but certainly not all - and I suspect a minority) have a real benefit. TVA may well be one of them - I don't know that much about it, but it is in your backyard, so I'll accept your judgment unless proven wrong by facts. In any event, if you are going to spend $150B, don't give it in "tax rebate checks"; but spend it on infrastructure - agree with the Mike from Arkansas on that one.
Agreed: we love Andrew Jackson (actually have studied him a bit - and the Taney SCOTUS which he in large part created); but I am totally biased because he was the first real Irish-American president (both parents born in the North of Ireland).
Not sure about the exact economics of your last paragraph. The Fed Res balance sheets are discussed in Econ 101 (from my son's text of 20 years ago); but they aren't accompanied by the profit and loss statements. I don't know how the Fed Res accounts for its income, or what it is in $. It may use some form of fund accounting that ends up showing no profit or loss - but has to show "unused funds" ("profits") somewhere - that from my wife who did fund accounting for an NGO before she had to go on SS disability.
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My personal approach has been to not get involved with the "macro-economic program"; and focus on personal survival against whatever the idiots come up with. So, basic program was (1) get out of debt early, and not incur any except for current accounts; (2) have bought and paid for what we need to survive and live a comfortable, modest life; (3) continue to work to the extent physically and mentally able; and (4) have some liquid assets to meet emergencies - cuz, Slap, whatever you say, money at certain points does talk - and the rest walks.
PS: - on FDR (actually in my time for 3 years), we agree and disagree - lots of pluses and lots of minuses. You and I would have to write a book to even start to discuss that complex man and his administrations.
Bernanke is Fighting the Last War
Bernanke Is Fighting the Last War
'Everything works much better when wrong decisions are punished and good decisions make you rich.'
by Brian Carney, WSJ
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Instead, we've been hearing for most of the past year about "systemic risk" -- the notion that allowing one firm to fail will cause a cascade that will take down otherwise healthy companies in its wake.
Ms. Schwartz doesn't buy it. "It's very easy when you're a market participant," she notes with a smile, "to claim that you shouldn't shut down a firm that's in really bad straits because everybody else who has lent to it will be injured. Well, if they lent to a firm that they knew was pretty rocky, that's their responsibility. And if they have to be denied repayment of their loans, well, they wished it on themselves. The [government] doesn't have to save them, just as it didn't save the stockholders and the employees of Bear Stearns. Why should they be worried about the creditors? Creditors are no more worthy of being rescued than ordinary people, who are really innocent of what's been going on."
It takes real guts to let a large, powerful institution go down. But the alternative -- the current credit freeze -- is worse, Ms. Schwartz argues.
v/r
Mike