Here’s an excellent post by John Rubino. – Ilene
A comment thread on a recent DollarCollapse post reflects a debate that’s pretty widespread these days:
eugene August 1, 2011 at 6:17 pm
The thing that fascinated me the most was the media supported “sale” of Social Security/Medicare as an immediate problem that is destroying the country. While Social Security/Medicare are an issue that needs to be dealt with, it is not what is being portrayed at all. And the lack of understanding at high levels that made it even more fascinating. Routinely, I read columns reflecting this type of thinking.I rely on Social Security/Medicare as do millions of other Americans. I am watching a system I paid into for a lifetime bastardized without a whimper. I will live with increases far less than inflation and an ever decreasing income. I will live with cuts in Medicare that will, definitely, impact my life.
But then I keep reminding myself that enormous numbers of Americans can’t read/write and have difficulty understanding the simplest of issues. And the truly interesting thing is how many well educated people marched through the educational system dutifully memorizing whatever and never learned to think or comprehend much of anything. Huge percentages of college graduates never read another book. For me this is the scariest thing of all. This makes vast segments of the masses extremely easy to manipulate at will. Not long ago, I wrote a comment on a blog and received a criticism stating health care is a social program. How one twists their head around that concept is beyond me.
Most of all, I wish the Tea Partiers well. While it is a vengeful thought, I wish them many misfortunes in life. Maybe, but I’m not sure, they will reflect a bit. But then, listening to them, I not sure the processes necessary for reflection exist. More than one old person has died just as much a fanatic as when young.
Robbie Rob August 1, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Good thing you were responsible and have your private savings to fall back on. Huh? You didn’t? Nothing? Really? So, now young workers need to be deprived of an opportunity to save for their own future because they have to pay for yours? You support politicians who will do your thieving for you so you don’t have to soil your hands. No doubt you have gotten back far more than you paid in (average is 3X), so that excuse doesn’t fly.paper is poverty August 1, 2011 at 8:14 pm
Right, because young workers would absolutely and without fail take that extra payroll money and sock it away in a savings account… sure they would. And thousands upon thousands of retired Tea Partiers diligently send their Social Security checks back to the government every month, rather than accept funds taken from their fellow taxpayers. Uh huh.Open your eyes to who really has the money and power in this country and stop attacking your neighbors. We are all the “little people” to the elites, you, me, and Eugene. As long as their divide and conquer propaganda succeeds, as it’s succeeding with you, the plutocrats are safe to continue their plundering (which is on a much, much bigger scale).
GenX August 3, 2011 at 12:55 am
What younger workers do with their money is no one’s business but their own. There are large numbers of younger workers that can read and write and can understand simple and complex issues. Many understand that there is no chance in hell that they will ever collect a single cent from SS or Medicare. They understand whatever they have or will put into the system will be squandered and wasted by the politicians for the benefit of the older vote. I know more than a few that have gone underground to some degree and get paid in cash. No sense paying into a ponzi scheme when you’re the last one in.eugene August 3, 2011 at 1:07 am
To Robbie Rob
The average worker contributes 345,000 towards Social Security and receives 417,000 in return. Now you can play your silly games with 3x which sounds like some BS anti Social Security garbage. And you can play games with 345K in and 417K out. Unless of course you’re of the ability to calculate the interest gained on a lifetime of contributions. It is people like you that are contributing to the destruction of the only retirement millions of low paid workers will ever have.For your information, Social Security is sound until 2037. I am 70 yrs old so will be long gone. I paid my way buddy so shut up
paper is poverty August 3, 2011 at 4:11 am
I agree which much of what you’re saying. What I objected to was the implication that if it weren’t for the payroll tax, young workers would be saving enough to insure themselves a comfortable retirement. That betrays an ignorance of how many young workers are unemployed (highest since just after WWII) and how many are living hand to mouth, scraping by between paychecks. Maybe Robbie Rob can’t name a half dozen young (or young-ish) workers coming down to their last $15 between paychecks, but I can. Wages have been going down ever since we went off the gold standard and the money printing started, plus the globalists have been disastrously successful at sending American production elsewhere. Those are (a couple of) the big forces that are making younger people’s paychecks inadequate… it’s not the grandparents down the street. But hey, if you’re the guys who’ve been stealing the wealth, there’s nothing better than bitterness between generations… god forbid the little people ever get a sense of solidarity.
A few thoughts:
The inter-generational debate over entitlements is, in tone and substance, a lot like the one between taxpayers and public sector workers over pensions. In each case we’ve made promises that we can’t keep, and both sides — the program recipients who worked hard and followed the rules, and taxpayers who can’t afford to pay any more — are victims here. Of course the people who spent lifetimes building up specific benefits deserve those benefits. And of course taxpayers deserve to keep what they earn.
The problem is that we never had the money in the first place. It was always a con. And now, as with every successful con, the perpetrators are long gone and the marks are left to suffer.
The criminals in this story are the politicians, union leaders, and activists who made unrealistic promises, benefitted from being seen as magnanimous and “progressive”, and who retired long before their promises came due. And of course the bankers who took over the financial system and made debt a way of life.
The tools of the con are finally coming to light: fiat currency that makes it unnecessary for government to prioritize or set limits; fraudulent accounting that allows governments at all levels to hide the unfunded liabilities building up in entitlements and pensions; corporate rules that enable huge executive bonuses for shifting jobs overseas; and a media that’s in on the game and reluctant to uncover and publicize the truth.
So now we’re broke. There isn’t enough wealth to go around, and good people who should be allies are left to fight over scraps of the life they should have had. The guys who ran Citigroup and Merrill Lynch into the ground, or presided over Treasury and the Fed during the greatest credit bubble in human history aren’t worried about their retirements or their taxes because they walked away with all the money anyone could ever want. The con, in other words, went off without a hitch.
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Pic credit: Jr. Deputy Accountant
