Disappearing Baby Boomers

A Social Security-Medicare Slasher

2010-02-27T07:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.alternet.org/story/145725/obama_pick_for_budget_commission_is_a_very_ominous_sign%3B_a_social_security-medicare_slasher

Obama Pick for Budget Commission Is a Very Ominous Sign; A Social Security-Medicare Slasher
By Roger Hickey, Blog for Our Future
February 19, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145725/

On Thursday, President Obama signed an executive order creating a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

This commission is based on an idea promoted by two Senators, Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.). Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus warned that the Conrad-Gregg legislative version of the deficit commission would have “painted a big red target on Social Security and Medicare. That's what this commission is all about. It's a big roll of the dice for Social Security and Medicare."

President Obama pushed to get the Senate to pass the Conrad-Gregg commission, which would have required the Congress to vote on its budget-cutting recommendations in a “fast-track,” undemocratic up-or-down vote with no amendments and little opportunity for debate. Senate Republicans, some of whom sponsored the legislation, refused to vote for it – so Obama is doing something similar by executive order.

So what should the 60 organizations and many concerned citizens who opposed the Conrad-Gregg version of this commission (because they heeded Sen. Baucus’s warnings) think about the Obama version?

One very bad sign: The President announced that the Republican co-chair of this bipartisan commission would be former Senator Alan Simpson, who hated defenders of Social Security and Medicare so much that he tried as Senator to attack and intimidate AARP, holding hearings that could have affected the senior groups tax status. A May 4, 1995 AP story reported then-Representative (now Senator) Ron Wyden called Simpson’s behavior “'classic scapegoating' and said Simpson is trying to cover up Republican efforts to cut Medicare by discrediting AARP.”

Bill Scher's post yesterday about the Simpson pick refreshes our memories about the aggressive role that then-Senator Simpson played in pushing for cuts to Social Security -- and attacking AARP. All over Washington today organizations that care about the elderly are warning that this commission could easily turn into a "runaway train" that could do great damage to Social Security and Medicare. The appointment of Alan Simpson gives no relief to those concerns.

Now before I get pegged as a liberal who doesn’t care about the fiscal health of my nation, let me make it clear that I am in favor of getting the deficit under control. As many recent studies have shown, that deficit (and resulting debt) are due to the profligate tax cuts for the wealthy under George Bush, the Medicare Part D program and two wars that were launched with no worry about paying for them. And the massive recession has hit tax revenues while requiring that Obama launch a crucial stimulus program that kept the world from plunging into a second Great Depression.

Yesterday, President Obama reiterated how important that stimulus spending has been. And he made the case for spending more money (without balancing it with program cuts or tax increases) to get unemployment down and jobs growing again. One problem is that premature focus on deficits chokes off economic recovery.

So, things to worry about: the Obama Commission takes up the Simpson and general conservative fixation on cutting Social Security and Medicare – even though Social Security is now paying for itself and providing extra funds to finance the deficit. Even though the Obama administration is rightly trying to reform the whole health care system which is driving Medicare costs – and they are working to reform Medicare without cutting benefits – conservatives like Simpson want to slash benefits.

Progressives who agree that the deficit is a long-term problem can and must make the case for protecting and improving Social Security and Medicare benefits, while demanding that the nation and this Obama commission focus on reforming the health care system.

There is another job progressives need to take up: defending the original Obama vision for expanded public investment to make the economy prosper for everyone, including unemployed workers.

Here’s the big danger: the Obama deficit commission could find enough budget cuts and revenue just to get the deficit down to their 3 percent of GDP target over time. But that would leave nothing for the Obama investment agenda. Despite Obama's campaign rhetoric, it is pretty clear that this deficit commission will prioritize any new revenues and spending cuts for deficit reduction.

We need to make the case for that more expansive strategy: finding the appropriate revenues (and defense cuts) to both reduce the deficit and expand the investments in good, green jobs, public infrastructure, job training and the next generation of energy-efficient technologies that candidate Obama talked about so eloquently on the campaign trail.

So if we want them to protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare and expand public investment to build a productive economy, we are going to need a collective effort to make the case very forcefully.

Is President Obama on our side in this effort?

Yesterday, he went beyond defending the stimulus, to remind Americans of his original vision for the economy.

Progressives, read this presidential speech and get to work fighting for THIS vision of a federal budget that works:

We knew when we came into office that it wasn't enough simply to solve the immediate crisis before us. We knew that even before the crisis hit, we had come through what some people are calling the "lost decade" -– a period where there was barely any job growth, and where the income of the average American household declined. This is before the recession, over the course of the decade, the average American household, they saw their incomes decline even as the cost of health care and college tuition were skyrocketing, had reached record highs. The prosperity was built on little more than a housing bubble and on financial speculation -- people maxing out on their credit cards, taking out home equity loans.

We can't go back to that kind of economy. That's not where the jobs are. The jobs of the 21st century are in areas like clean energy and technology, advanced manufacturing, new infrastructure. That kind of economy requires us to consume less and produce more; to import less and export more. Instead of sending jobs overseas, we need to send more products overseas that are made by American workers and American business. And we need to train our workers for those jobs with new skills and a world-class education.

Other countries already realize this. They're putting more emphasis on math and science. They're building high-speed railroads and expanding broadband. They're making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs.

And America cannot stand still in the face of this challenge. We can't afford to put our future on hold. So that's why a big part of the Recovery Act has been about investing in that future. Yes, it created jobs now. Yes, it created business opportunities now. But more importantly, it's laying the foundation for where we need to go.

So instead of just pouring more money into America's schools, regardless of their performance, we launched a national competition between states that only rewards success and reform -- reform that raises student achievement, and inspires students to excel in math and science, and turns around failing schools -- failing schools that steal the future of too many young Americans.

We're also making sure that our nation has an infrastructure that's built to compete in the 21st century. So we now have projects in 31 states that are laying the ground for the first high-speed rail network in the United States of America. I mean, for years, Japan and Europe have had high-speed rail. China has got about 40 times as many projects that have been going on, on this front. We're playing catch-up; we shouldn't be.

The Recovery Act has made possible over 12,500 transportation construction projects, from rebuilding highways to improving our airports. And today we announced funding for over 50 innovative transportation projects across America –- everything from railroads in Appalachia to a new passenger terminal in New Orleans.

These projects will put hundreds of thousands of Americans to work. And in many cases, they already have. That's part of the reason that Chuck is here today -- he's the president of a construction company in Pennsylvania, and the Recovery Act will fund about a third of the work his paving company will do this year. That's allowed him to hire two engineers and about a hundred employees. So in case people are wondering whether or not the Recovery Act has created jobs and opportunity for businesses, talk to Chuck. (Laughter.)

The new equipment he's ordered to help pave these roads will save an additional 40 jobs on an assembly line out in California. These are well-paying, long-lasting, private sector jobs that wouldn't be possible without the Recovery Act. They’ll be doing the work that America needs done to stay competitive in a global economy.

In no area is this more important than in energy. Because of the Recovery Act, we have finally jumpstarted the clean energy industry in America, and made possible 200,000 jobs in the clean energy and construction sectors.

Just take one example: Consider the investment that we've made in the kind of batteries used in hybrid and electric cars. You've heard about these, right? Before the Recovery Act was signed, 98 percent of the world's advanced battery production was done in Asian countries. The United States did less than 2 percent of this advanced battery manufacturing that's going to be the key to these high-mileage, low-emission cars.

Then we invested in new research and battery technologies, and supported the construction of 20 battery factories that will employ tens of thousands of Americans -– batteries that can make enough -- factories that can make enough batteries each year to power half a million plug-in hybrid vehicles. So as a result, next year -- next year, two years after the Recovery Act -- the United States will have the capacity to produce nearly 20 percent of the world's advanced batteries -- from less than 2 percent to 20 percent. And we’ll be able to make 40 percent of these advanced batteries by 2015 -- an entire new industry because of the Recovery Act.

This kind of progress is happening throughout our clean energy sector. Yesterday I announced loan guarantees to break ground on America's first new nuclear power plant in nearly three decades -– a plant that will create thousands of construction jobs and 800 permanent jobs in years to come. There's the manufacturer in Philadelphia who makes energy-efficient windows. He used to be skeptical about the Recovery Act until he had to add two more shifts just to keep up with the new business it's created.

And Blake at Namaste Solar -- it's based in Boulder, Colorado. One year ago, Blake gave us a tour of one of his company's solar installations, on top of a museum in Denver, right before I signed the Recovery Act into law. And at the time, Blake was pretty sure that the recession would force him to lay off about half of his staff. One year later, because of the clean energy investments in the Recovery Act, he has instead added about a dozen new workers, and expects to hire about a dozen more by year's end. His company continues to install solar panels all over Colorado, from the Governor's Mansion to the Denver Museum of Natural -- Nature and Science.

So that's our future. That's what's possible in America. You can argue, rightly, that we haven't made as much progress as we need to make when it comes to spurring job creation. That's part of the reason why the Recovery Act is on track to save or create another 1.5 million jobs in 2010. That's part of the reason why I expect Congress to pass additional measures as quickly as possible that will help our small business owners create new jobs; give them more of an incentive to hire.

But for those skeptics who refuse to believe the Recovery Act has done any good, who continue to insist that the bill didn't work, I'd ask you to take that argument up with Blake and his employees. Take that argument up with Chuck and his construction workers. Take it up with the Americans who are working in those battery plants, or building those new highways, or teaching our children new skills -- all because the Recovery Act made it possible.

So our work is far from over, but we have rescued this economy from the worst of this crisis. And slowly, in new factories and research facilities and small businesses, the American people are rebuilding a better future. And we will continue to support their efforts. We will leave our children an economy that is stronger and more prosperous than it was before.

Roger Hickey is co-director of the Campaign for America's Future and leads its Social Security campaign. He is also co-author of "The Next Agenda Blueprint for a New Progressive Movement."

Why Growing Numbers of Baby Boomers and the Elderly Are Smoking Pot

2010-02-26T06:07:00.000-08:00

By Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet
February 26, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145808/

Earlier this week, an AP wire article picked up a lot of buzz in the news-cycle, with a title and premise meant to shock the mainstream: "Marijuana Use by Seniors Goes up as Boomers Age." The article played on the conventional wisdom that as younger generations slowly replace the old, conservative social traditions are jettisoned. This may be true for issues such as gay marriage, where there are clear divisions among younger and older voters, but when it comes to marijuana reform, the evidence indicates that simplistic divisions of opinion along age lines don't apply for pot.

The AP article was pegged to a December report released by the Federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). It revealed that the number of Americans over 50 who had reported consuming cannabis in the year prior to the study had gone up from 1.9 percent to 2.9 percent in the period from 2002 to 2008.

This is supported by earlier polling results. In February 2009, a Zogby poll found that voters aged 50 to 64 were almost equally divided in their support for marijuana legalization at 48 percent. In that same poll, young voters aged 18 to 29 were the cohort who most enthusiastically supported legalization, at 55 percent. But overall support among all ages came in at 44 percent.

So who brought the average down? Don't lay the blame on the elderly. In fact, as early as 2004, an AARP poll found that 72 percent of its members (all 50-plus, with the lion's share over 65) supported marijuana for medical purposes, indicating their understanding of the benefits of legal cannabis availability.

Some expert observers in the marijuana reform movement believe that the bulk of marijuana detractors are made up of 30- and 40-somethings -- adults of parenting age. And as more of the 65-and-over crowd is populated by Baby Boomers, it appears that in the not-too-distant future every age demographic including the elderly will approve of marijuana reform more than Americans in their 30s and 40s.

"These are people who have had children, and whether they used marijuana in the past or not, they've become very concerned that young children will have access to it," says Paul Armentano, deputy national director of National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). "They've been swayed by prohibition and are leery of the option to end it, even though controlling and regulating marijuana would provide less access to children."

In the breakdown of the 2009 Zogby poll -- which NORML allowed AlterNet to review -- 38.7 percent of respondents 65 and older approved of taxing and regulating marijuana for adults. A low number, but compare it to the group aged 30 to 49, who approved it at 38.2 percent. Nearly the same, but still lower. And it ought be noted that in an earlier Zogby poll, commissioned by NORML in 2006, 30-49 year-olds stood out even more starkly, opposing marijuana legalization at 58 percent, while the 65-plus crowd opposed it at 52 percent; approximately two-thirds of the young adult and boomer cohorts approved.

And just as children are the reason many younger parents are against marijuana reform, offspring (or the lack thereof) may also be behind why greater numbers of aging Boomers are embracing marijuana -- most or all of theirs have left the nest.

This makes sense to George Rohrbacher, a 61-year-old cattle rancher in Eastern Washington state who smokes weed every day. When his kids -- now 25 to 35 -- were growing up, marijuana was something he had to keep a secret.

"Children under 18 don't need to be high on anything other than life," Rohrbacher says. His wife Ann espouses the same belief and quit marijuana just before 1976, when they had their first child. She later became a school superintendent.

Although Rohrbacher didn't give up the herb except for small stretches of time -- such as when he served in the Washington state senate -- it wasn't something he shared with his kids. "I didn't want them to have to defend me in the DARE program at school," he says. "But when my youngest son was 19 and off to college, I went from completely undercover to the opposite of that."

An advocate for marijuana legalization today, Rohrbacher speaks to many Baby Boomers who, like his wife, gave up pot. "Due to career choices, family-raising choices, they've not imbibed in years and they tell me they can't wait until they get to that spot in their career or family lives when they can go back to smoking pot," he says.

SAMHSA's study showed that past year marijuana use among those aged 55 to 59 tripled from 1.6 percent in 2002 to 5.1 percent in 2008. Nearly 9 percent of men aged 50 to 54 admitted to using marijuana in the past year, bringing that demographic's level of cannabis use to nearly the same 10 percent rate that the general U.S. population is estimated to consume pot. While SAMHSA has jumped to the alarm on this trend, suggesting that "by the year 2020, the number of persons needing treatment for a substance abuse disorder will double among persons aged 50 or older," the reality of the matter is that may more realistically apply to aging Americans who use harder drugs like cocaine or meth -- not cannabis consumers.

Boomers' enthusiasm for weed is likely due to their being the first generation to experience widespread marijuana use in their youth. Nearly everyone smoked it or knew someone who did. And if what Rohrbacher has observed is true, many of them gave it up not because they didn't like it anymore, but because they felt it might interfere in their efforts to raise families and maintain jobs where drug testing is a concern. After all, legal and salary ramifications are much more significant once you have a family to raise and support.

And as the nation's 78 million Boomers go grayer, they will go also return to pot to soften the pains of aging. "I played a lot of sports when I was younger and I have aches now -- plain old aches from sleeping wrong or doing something wrong -- and those aches are as bad as various moments on the football field years ago," Rohrbacher said. "And I'd rather smoke marijuana than reach for a pharmaceutical."

Rohrbacher isn't alone. Though pharmaceuticals are marketed heavily to aging Americans, among all adults over 50 who admitted to using some kind of illegal substance in the previous year -- 4.3 million adults, or 5.7 percent of adults in that age range -- 44.9 percent admitted to using marijuana, compared to 33.4 percent who'd used prescription drugs for non-medical use.

And in addition to lessening the pain brought on by common ailments -- like joint pain and menopause -- one study found that cannabis might prevent osteoporosis in the elderly. (Interestingly, it might weaken bones in younger people.)

Americans, as a whole, are trending toward marijuana legalization. By mid-last year, a few polls showed that the taxing and regulating of cannabis had support from a majority of Americans for the first time ever. The majorities are slim, but they're majorities nonetheless.

And with an enormous aging population that is more accepting of pot legalization, that more clearly understands its benefits and the downsides to its prohibition, that majority may grow to be a decisive one in the public debate, even if today's -- and tomorrow's -- parents might be the last ones to be dragged on board.

Daniela Perdomo is a staff writer and editor at AlterNet. Follow her on Twitter. Write her at danielaalternet [at] gmail [dot] com.

© 2010 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/145808/

Obama appoints panel to slash social programs

2010-02-20T19:12:00.000-08:00

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/pers-f19.shtml

19 February 2010

President Barack Obama’s establishment by executive order of a bipartisan commission on deficits on Thursday is the latest step in his administration’s attack on health care and retirement programs upon which millions of Americans depend.

The 18-member panel will propose measures to slash government spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. It will also consider a series of regressive taxes, including a consumption or value added tax, to force the working class to pay for the budget deficit. Its aim, according to the White House, will be to reduce the deficit from its current level of over 10 percent of gross domestic product to 3 percent by 2015.

Speaking on Thursday, Obama repeated a theme that has been a constant refrain of his administration—that partisan divisions between Democrats and Republicans are blocking the implementation of policies deemed necessary by the financial and corporate elite. “For far too long, Washington has avoided the tough choices necessary to solve our fiscal crisis,” he said.

“Everything is on the table,” he added.

Obama’s selection of the panel chairs—Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles—is an indication of the far-reaching attack that is being prepared.

As a senator from Wyoming between 1979 and 1997, Simpson served as the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on Social Security. He was among the most fervent advocates of cutting Social Security benefits by reducing their annual growth rate. His position was often to the right of Reagan administration, which he criticized for not moving quickly enough to cut social programs.

In an interview with the Washington Post on Tuesday, Simpson made clear his opposition to the very idea that retired workers should have guaranteed pension benefits. “How did we get to a point in America where you get to a certain age in life, regardless of net worth or income, and you’re ‘entitled’? The word itself is killing us.”

As chief of staff under Bill Clinton in 1997-1998, Erskine Bowles was involved in discussions between the White House and the Republican congressional leadership—particularly House Speaker Newt Gingrich—on budgetary issues. Toward the end of Clinton’s presidency, Bowles reportedly reached agreement with Gingrich on plans to partially privatize Social Security and increase the retirement age. These proposals were not implemented at the time, and Bowles left the White House declaring that the most important unresolved problem was “dealing with the long-term problems of Medicare and Social Security.”

Obama’s choice of Bowles is a deliberate affront to popular anger over bank bonuses. Bowles sits on the compensation committee of the board of directors of Morgan Stanley, one of the top Wall Street investment banks and a recipient of government bailout cash. Morgan Stanley recently paid out billions of dollars in 2009 bonuses to its top traders and executives.

The establishment of the commission further exposes what has been the central aim of Obama’s health care overhaul from the beginning—the imposition of major cuts in government spending through the reduction of health care services for tens of millions of Americans.

The Obama administration has been called on to carry out long-standing aims of the American ruling class. The economic crisis that erupted in September 2008 was seized on as an opportunity to implement an agenda of slashing so-called entitlement programs as part of a vast redistribution of wealth from working people to the financial elite. The coffers of the state have been opened for looting by the banks, to be paid for through the gutting of social programs.

In the run-up to the 2008 election, particularly after the eruption of the financial crisis in September of that year, a consensus emerged within the ruling class that Obama would be better able than his Republican opponent, John McCain, to implement major attacks on the working class. Well aware of popular hatred for Bush and a general discrediting of the Republicans, leading factions of the financial and corporate elite calculated that a Democrat and the first African-American president would be able to exploit popular illusions to politically disorient and disarm the population.

Obama, moreover, could count on various middle-class “left” organizations, which campaigned for his election largely on the basis of identity politics, to continue to promote him as a “progressive” proponent of social reform. It has not taken long for the cynicism of this operation to be exposed.

As part of his ever more open march to the right, Obama has expanded his calls for bipartisan compromise, a refrain of his administration from the outset. His incessant appeals for Republican support in the aftermath of the Democratic debacle in January’s Massachusetts Senate election reflect the ruling class consensus that the class-war measures being prepared can best be implemented by establishing a political framework based on the unity of major sections of the two big business parties.

In seeking Republican support, Obama has chided the opposition party for placing short-term political calculations over the need for united action to carry out “tough” policies.

The 2008 elections have been exposed as a complete fraud. Running on slogans of “hope” and “change,” and appealing to popular hatred of the Bush administration, Obama came to power to continue and expand the right-wing policies of his predecessor. The experience of the Obama administration has underscored the impossibility of defending the interests of working people and effecting any positive change within the framework of the two-party system.

The capitalist crisis that erupted in 2008 is far from over. Despite talk of a recovery, the restructuring of class relations has only begun, in the United States and internationally. The continuation of the capitalist system—the domination of the financial and corporate elite over all aspects of social and political life—means endless war and continual attacks on the working class, including on social programs once considered untouchable.

Popular opposition—outside of and directed against the existing political framework—is not only necessary, it is inevitable. The critical question is the development of socialist consciousness and the construction of a revolutionary leadership capable of uniting the working class and establishing its political independence from all sections of the ruling elite.

US: States short $1 trillion to fund retiree benefits

2010-02-20T19:09:00.000-08:00

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/18/news/economy/public_pension_gap/

US: States short $1 trillion to fund retiree benefits
Tami Luhby
CNNMoney.com
Sat, 20 Feb 2010 20:00 EST

Just as they are contending with massive gaps in their operating budgets, states and localities must also deal with a $1 trillion deficit in public employees' retirement benefits' funds, a new report found.

The shortfall amounts to more than $8,800 for every household in the nation, according to the Pew Center on the States, which published its findings Thursday.

States largely got themselves into this mess by failing to make annual contributions while also enhancing benefits, the study found. Now, they are behind by a total $452 billion in their pension accounts and $555 billion in their retiree health funds, as of the end of fiscal 2008, which ended June 30 for most states.

The deficit is likely even more severe because the report did not take into account the crumbling of the stock market in the latter half of 2008. The typical pension plan lost 25% of its value in 2008.

States must find ways to make up these gaps because retiree benefits for public workers are largely guaranteed by union contract. And they are funded through contributions from both employees and state employers, as well as investment returns.

So when gaps appear, states must ask their residents to make up the difference, usually through property tax or income tax hikes.

"Ultimately, taxpayers could face higher taxes and cuts in services," said Stephen Fehr, one of the report's authors. "You can't ignore the problem. It's just going to be more serious budget trouble for states down the road."

To be sure, the bill isn't due all at once and no state is in danger of default. These benefits are paid out over decades. Still, the deficits must be addressed sooner than later or the gaps will simply balloon more.

In the most trouble

The consequences of the shortfall could be severe. It comes at a time when states are wrestling with a cumulative $180 billion budget gap for fiscal 2011.

Eight states are in the most dire shape, according to the Pew report. These include: Alaska, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey and Oklahoma.

Two of these states -- Illinois and Kansas -- have less than 60% of the necessary assets on hand to meet their long-term pension obligations.

Only four states -- Florida, New York, Washington and Wisconsin -- had a fully funded system in 2008, down from just over half at the beginning of the decade.

Overall, state pension systems are 84% funded.

Many states have been lax about funding their pension systems, even during more prosperous times earlier this decade. Some 21 states failed to contribute at least 90% of the required amount during the past five years.

Retiree health care and other non-pension benefit accounts are in even worse condition. Only about 5% of their total liabilities are funded. States generally paying these bills as they come due, rather than setting aside money in advance.

Also, some states sweetened their retiree benefits during the 1990s and earlier this decade, reducing employee contributions or providing cost-of-living increases. But they didn't allocate money to pay for these changes.

What's being done

Recognizing the seriousness of the situation, states have begun to act. Fifteen states passed legislation reforming their pension systems in 2009 and 16 are looking at making changes this year.

Since it's tough to make changes to union contracts, most states apply the new rules to incoming employees only.

Several states, including Kentucky, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Texas, have reduced benefits offered to new employees or raised the retirement age. Some are also asking workers to contribute more to their pension accounts or retiree health benefits. And a few have created 401(k) style plans to go alongside their traditional pensions.

In Nevada, for instance, those hired in 2010 and beyond will have to wait until age 62 to retire, instead of age 60. They will also have a less generous funding formula: Their years of service will be multiplied by 2.5, rather than 2.67, to derive the percentage of salary being replaced by pension benefits.

In New York, new hires can't retire until age 62, instead of age 55, and they will have to work for 10 years instead of five.

"A growing number of policy makers recognize that their states' fiscal health depends on how well they manage the bill coming due for public sector retirement benefits," said Susan Urahn, the center's managing director. "We are seeing more and more states explore policy reforms aimed at putting their systems on stronger fiscal footing."

The study looked at 231 state-administered pension plans and 159 state-administered retiree health care and other non-pension benefit plans, which include some localities' and teacher plans.

Social Security Will Fall To Obama Before The Taliban Do

2010-02-20T04:14:00.001-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Social-Security-Will-Fall-by-Paul-Craig-Roberts-100218-425.html

February 18, 2010
Social Security Will Fall To Obama Before The Taliban Do
By Paul Craig Roberts

Hank Paulson, the Gold Sacks bankster/US Treasury Secretary, who deregulated the financial system, caused a world crisis that wrecked the prospects of foreign banks and governments, caused millions of Americans to lose retirement savings, homes, and jobs, and left taxpayers burdened with multi-trillions of dollars of new US debt, is still not in jail. He is writing in the New York Times urging that the mess he caused be fixed by taking away from working Americans the Social Security and Medicare for which they have paid in earmarked taxes all their working lives.

Wall Street's approach to the poor has always been to drive them deeper into the ground.

As there is no money to be made from the poor, Wall Street fleeces them by yanking away their entitlements. It has always been thus. During the Reagan administration, Wall Street decided to boost the values of its bond and stock portfolios by using Social Security revenues to lower budget deficits. Wall Street figured that lower deficits would mean lower interest rates and higher bond and stock prices.

Two Wall Street henchmen, Alan Greenspan and David Stockman, set up the Social Security raid in this way: The Carter administration had put Social Security in the black for the foreseeable future by establishing a schedule for future Social Security payroll tax increases. Greenspan and Stockman conspired to phase in the payroll tax increases earlier than was needed in order to gain surplus Social Security revenues that could be used to finance other government spending, thus reducing the budget deficit. They sold it to President Reagan as "putting Social Security on a sound basis."

Along the way Americans were told that the surplus revenues were going into a special Social Security trust fund at the U.S. Treasury. But what is in the fund is Treasury IOUs for the spent revenues. When the "trust funds" are needed to pay Social Security benefits, the Treasury will have to sell more debt in order to redeem the IOUs.

Social Security was mugged again during the Clinton administration when the Boskin Commission jimmied the Consumer Price Index in order to reduce the inflation adjustments that Social Security recipients receive, thus diverting money from Social Security retirees to other uses.

We constantly hear from Wall Street gangsters and from Republicans and an occasional Democrat that Social Security and Medicare are a form of welfare that we can't afford; an "unfunded liability." This is a lie. Social Security is funded with an earmarked tax. People pay for Social Security and Medicare all their working lives. It is a pay-as-you-go system in which the taxes paid by those working fund those who are retired.

Currently these systems are not in deficit. The problem is that government is using earmarked revenues for other purposes. Indeed, since the 1980s Social Security revenues have been used to fund general government. Today Social Security revenues are being used to fund trillion dollar bailouts for Wall Street and to fund the Bush/Obama wars of aggression against Muslims.

Having diverted Social Security revenues to war and Wall Street, Paulson says there is no alternative but to take the promised benefits away from those who have paid for them.

Republicans have extraordinary animosity toward the poor. In an effort to talk retirees out of their support systems, Republicans frequently describe Social Security as a Ponzi scheme and "unsustainable." They ought to know. The phony trust fund, which they set up to hide the fact that Wall Street and the Pentagon are running off with Social Security revenues, is a Ponzi scheme. Social Security itself has been with us since the 1930s and has yet to wreck our lives and budget. But it only took Hank Paulson's derivative Ponzi scheme and its bailout a few years to inflict irreparable damage on our lives and budget.

Years ago with stagflation defeated and a rising stock market, I favored privatizing Social Security as a way of creating a funded retirement system and producing greater savings and larger incomes for retirees. At that time Wall Street was interested, not for my reasons, but in order to collect the fees from managing the funds.

Had Social Security been privatized, I doubt that Wall Street would have been permitted to deregulate the financial system. Too much would have been at stake.

After the latest crisis brought on by Wall Street's dishonesty and greed, trusting Wall Street to manage anyone's old age pension requires a leap of faith that no intelligent person can make.

Wall Street has got away with its raid on the public treasury. Now, pockets full, it wants to pay for the heist by curtailing Social Security and Medicare. Having deprived the working population of homes, jobs, and health care, Wall Street is now after the elderly's old age security.

Social Security, formerly an untouchable "third rail of politics," is now "unsustainable," while the real unsustainables--a pre-1929 unregulated financial system and open-ended multi-trillion dollar Global War Against Terror--are the new untouchables. This transformation signals the complete capture of American democracy by an oligarchy of special interests.

Republicans Propose to Eliminate Medicare and gut Social Security

2010-02-19T14:44:00.000-08:00

http://blogs.alternet.org/truthinessblog/2010/02/11/republicans-propose-to-eliminate-medicare-and-gut-social-security/

Posted by Brad100
February 11, 2010

Americans have been wondering aloud for the past year about the existence Republican ideas related to topics such as entitlement reform, especially as it applies to our national health care debate. Republicans, for their part, have been characterized, perhaps unfairly, as the party of “NO” ideas. It turns out that some Republicans have now come forward with their reform proposals in opposition to the Democrat ideas. George Will recently wrote an article entitled, “How to get the country to solvency on entitlements.”

Will gives gushing support to the theories of Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and Wisconsin Representative, Paul Ryan. A link to his column is included below. These men are two of the rising stars in the Republican party. In fact, George waxes poetic about the day when Daniels ascends to the Presidency, while Ryan takes the number two spot. High praise indeed. Both gentlemen have been involved in various Republican think tanks that are trying to come up with ideas that are consistent with Conservative values and are policies that Republicans can support in opposition to current Democratic proposals. Daniels, in fact, wrote Roadmap for America’s Future. A link to that article is imbedded in Will’s article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/05/AR2010020503475.html

George is a talented writer and his advocacy makes Daniels’ and Ryan’s ideas sound very appealing. Conservatives who desire less government are enthusiastic about these guys. Will writes,

“Ryan would eliminate taxes on interest, capital gains, dividends and death. The corporate income tax, the world’s second-highest, would be replaced by an 8.5 percent business consumption tax. Because this would be about half the average tax burden that other nations place on corporations, U.S. companies would instantly become more competitive — and more able and eager to hire. ”

These ideas resonate with lots of folks who believe that you can expand the economy by cutting taxes to large corporations. Ryan leaves unanswered, however, the question of how to make up the revenue gap created by this proposal. Apparently, the economy would expand, some money would trickle down to everyone, and that would make up for the shortfall.

Let’s assume Ryan’s numbers are accurate, which is, at best, a leap of faith. Ryan, “proposes tax reform. Masochists would be permitted to continue paying income taxes under the current system. Others could use a radically simplified code, filing a form that fits on a postcard. It would have just two rates: 10 percent on incomes up to $100,000 for joint filers and $50,000 for single filers; 25 percent on higher incomes. There would be no deductions, credits or exclusions, other than the health-care tax credit.”

This is the flat tax idea that Conservatives love. Complete your taxes on a postcard! Get rid of the IRS? Once again the idea is proposed without any CBO scoring of it’s potential revenue implications. This proposal also raises a philosophical question. If higher incomes earners pay 25% of their income and lower income earners pay 10%, isn’t that redistribution of wealth? Isn’t that what Conservatives have criticized the current administration for?
I’m just asking.

Inconvenient details aside, what could be better than a simplified tax code, tax cuts for multi-national corporations, and a rejuvenated economy? The plan has something for everyone. We all know, however, that entitlements are the key to our future. Entitlements currently consume over $.50 of every Federal $1.00. How does Daniel and Ryan handle the 800 lb. Gorilla in the room?

“Medicare and Social Security would be preserved for those currently receiving benefits or becoming eligible in the next 10 years (those 55 and older today). Both programs would be made permanently solvent. Universal access to affordable health care would be guaranteed by refundable tax credits ($2,300 for individuals, $5,700 for families) for purchasing portable coverage in any state. As persons younger than 55 became Medicare-eligible, they would receive payments averaging $11,000 a year, indexed to inflation and pegged to income, with low-income people receiving more support. Ryan’s plan would fund medical savings accounts from which low-income people would pay minor out-of-pocket expenses. All Americans, regardless of income, would be allowed to establish MSAs — tax-preferred accounts for paying such expenses. ”

Health care is portable. Medicare and Social Security is solvent. Where do we sign up? Wait a minute. Currently health care costs run about $11,000 a year for a husband and wife. Family plans have even higher costs. Experts have predicted that under the current system Health care costs will double by 2020. How do individuals pay that expense with a $5700 a year credit? There is another problem. The Republican proposal is a tax credit. You have to spend the money first, then get reimbursement later when you file your taxes? What if you don’t have the money up front?

There is other problems with this plan. Let’s use a 45 years old male as an example. Under the Republican plan he will receive $11,000 a year. Great! What happens if our 45 year old need quadruple bypass surgery at 55, or a knee or hip replacement? In other words, what if the surgery amount greatly exceeds the MSA? Those procedures today would easily cost more than the $110,000 accumulated in the MSA account? Future costs are even more problematic. This proposal does not address out of control medical costs down the road? Ryan is silent on that issue. Apparently that is too much government interference for him.

“Ryan’s plan would allow workers younger than 55 the choice of investing more than one-third of their current Social Security taxes in personal retirement accounts similar to the Thrift Savings Plan long available to, and immensely popular with, federal employees. This investment would be inheritable property, guaranteeing that individuals will never lose the ability to dispose of every dollar they put into these accounts. ”

This sounds really attractive. Individuals keep their money and control their own assets. If an individual dies early, their family get the money. What would happen, however, in the event of a market crash, like the one we recently experienced? What if that personal account was suddenly wiped out? Additionally, what happens to Social Security if it suddenly receives 1/3 less funding than in the past? It’s a fact that most companies no longer offer a retirement plan. If people lose their nest egg and have no safety net, what then? Ryan apparently does not offer an answer for that either.

“Ryan would raise the retirement age. If, when Congress created Social Security in 1935, it had indexed the retirement age (then 65) to life expectancy, today the age would be in the mid-70s. The system was never intended to do what it is doing — subsidizing retirements that extend from one-third to one-half of retirees’ adult lives.”

It’s not clear how many actually live to 130 years old. Well, nobody really, but it sounds good. Ryan wants to raise the retirement age at a time when baby boomers are reaching their golden years. Boomers paid taxes their entire life with the promise that they would have a supplemental income in retirement. Many planned their retirement accordingly. Moving the retirement age to 75 would not be supported by this group. First of all, could a person in their 70’s meet the physical demands of their job? Secondly, would their employers still want them? Older workers are generally the most highly compensated employees. What about the group under 55. Are they willing to forego Social Security entirely or at a seriously diminished amount and pay for older Americans? If private accounts fail, what is Plan B?

So we now know have the Republicans plan. It is clear they are not the party of “No” ideas as many thought. They have, with this Roadmap for America’s Future provided the Conservative vision for the overhaul of entitlements in the 21st century. These ideas, supported by Conservatives like George Will, include scrapping Medicare and Social Security. Are these really new and different ideas or simply a rehash of traditional Republican policies? When you think about it, this is the classic Republican approach with different packaging. Republicans have tried to overturn Democrats efforts to provide a social safety net for Americans for over 50 years ago. Unfortunately the same philosophical weaknesses that existed 50 years ago, continue to haunt Republicans today. The Republicans philosophy of less government intervention keeps them from offering real solutions to the real problems that individual Americans face.

Republicans have no answer to the problems they will create for the millions affected by the loss of Medicare and Social Security. If our citizens lost Social Security, many would lose a large percentage of their retirement income. There is no mechanism to help these people recover the income that is necessary for their basic survival. If our government killed Medicare, millions would find themselves without the means to pay for their health care. To understand a potential Republican response, look at the Republican response to middle class Americans who loss health care coverage. Our current health care system has left millions uninsured. Millions more have declared personal bankrupsey because of overwhelming medical debt. Addressing these inequalities would require government intervention which is antithetical to the Republican philosophy. Conservatives like George Will, choose to dismiss this problem by arguing that the numbers of these people without coverage are smaller than liberals claim or non-existent. That is the same response you could expect from Republicans if Medicare ceased to exist.

George Will misses the real issue involving Medicare and Social Security. The real issue is people. We need to rein in entitlement spending AND continue to provide a safety net for our citizens. Most agree that Social Security can be made solvent with some minor reforms. Medicare is more difficult. The problem with Medicare is run away health care costs caused by a system critically in need of reform. Insurance companies currently enjoy a monopoly and hide behind anti-trust exemptions. We need to repeal the anti-trust and end the monopoly. We need to promote competition in all areas of the system. Use the power of the government to obtain volume pricing, rein in excess insurance company profits, and aggressively root out fraud and abuse within Medicare itself with better systems and more investigators.

How will all of this fall out? Why is the Republican party not trumpeting these proposals and fighting for public support? The most pressing problem Republicans face in implementing their ideas is their own constituency. Many so called Conservatives love to say they support less government. Those same Conservatives, however, also love their safety net. Republicans draw a large amount of their support from older Americans. Most older Americans would not support the repeal of Medicare or Social Security and would revolt against any political party that tried.

The answer to the entitlement question is not to scrap the entitlement. That is the easy response to a difficult problem. Clearly, the funding of these programs need reform. Fraud and abuse within the system itself needs to addressed. Price gouging by private business and monopolistic practices needs reform. The programs themselves, however, need to endure.

Medicare and Social Security was started to help older Americans survive their elder years with dignity. They need to endure.

20 reasons Global Debt Time Bomb explodes soon

2010-02-10T13:16:00.001-08:00

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/story/print?guid=98105012-8C05-444F-99C1-CB1F8D95870A

Feb. 2, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EST
20 reasons Global Debt Time Bomb explodes soon
Commentary: Which trigger will ignite the Great Depression II?
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Retire? You can fuggetaboutit if the new Global Debt Time Bomb is detonated by any one of 20 made-in-America trigger mechanisms.

Yes, 20. And yes, any one can destroy your retirement because all 20 are inexorably linked, a house-of-cards, a circular firing squad destined to self-destruct, triggering the third great Wall Street meltdown of the 21st century, igniting the Great Depression II that George W. Bush, Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson and now President Obama have simply delayed with their endless knee-jerk, debt-laden wars, stimulus bonanzas and bailouts.

Deficit as national-security threat?
WSJ's Jerry Seib previews his column in tomorrow's Journal in which he writes the federal budget deficit has become so large, it's time consider it a natural-security threat. Plus, the News Hub provides a February market outlook and also discusses the findings of a new autism study.

Wow, what an epic Hollywood blockbuster this will make: You know the drama, can't miss the warnings. The financial press is flooding us with plot lines ... a Forbes cover story focuses on a "Global Debt Bomb: How It Could Wreck Your Life" ... Leaders at the World Economic Forum on Swiss Mt. Davos fear another global meltdown will trigger mass rebellions ... The Economist calls the plot a "Global Asset Bubble," with cheap money fast driving up asset prices.

Plus, Bloomberg BusinessWeek is adding jet fuel to the ticking time-bomb in: "After the Stimulus Binge, a Debt Hangover: Trillions of dollars have been spent keeping the global economy afloat. But now fears about the Great Recession are giving way to worries about something else: The Great Reckoning" when massive debts come due. Then the debt bomb explodes "and the results won't be pretty for investors or elected officials."

Forbes discovered the trigger mechanism in "This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly," by economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff: The "90% ratio of government debt to GDP is a tipping point in economic growth." For 800 years "you increase it over and beyond a high threshold, and boom!" Well guess what? "The U.S. government-debt-to-GDP ratio is 84%." Soon, Ka-Booom! Depression. Kiss your retirement goodbye.

Who knows? Forbes? Bloomberg BusinessWeek? The Economist? Davos-World Economic Forum? True, they're all looking at the same plot line for a Hollywood blockbuster about the "Global Debt Time Bomb."

But the financial press navigates in a fog. There's not just one, but many triggers, all linked in a lethal network. We've reported on it for years. Now you tell us: What triggers this firestorm?

Poll: 20 economic weapons of mass destruction triggering ticking Global Debt Time Bomb

1. Federal Budget Deficit Bomb. The Bush/Cheney wars pushed America deep into a debt hole. Federal debt limit was just raised almost 100% with Obama's 2010 budget, to $14.3 trillion vs. $7.8 trillion in 2005. The Congressional Budget Office predicts future deficits around 4% through 2020. Get it? America's debt at 84% of GDP will soon pass that toxic 90% trigger point.

2. U.S. Foreign Trade Bomb. Monthly deficits actually dropped from $50 billion per month to roughly $35 billion. But the total continues climbing as $400 billion is added each year. Foreigners now own $2.5 trillion of America, with China holding over $1.3 trillion in Treasury debt.

3. Weakening U.S. Dollar as Foreign Reserve Currency Bomb. Fear China and other currencies will replace dollar as main foreign reserves. The dollar's fallen: The main index measuring dollar strength has gone from 120 at the Clinton-to-Bush handoff to below 80 today.

4. Cheap Money Bomb: Credit Ratings Down, Rates Up. Economists at S&P, Fitch and Moody's were totally co-conspirators of Fat Cat Bankers, misleading investors before meltdown: Soon, debt up, ratings down, interest rates soar.

5. Global Real Estate Bomb. Dubai Tower, new "world's tallest building" is empty. BusinessWeek warns that China's housing collapse could be worse than America's. Plus the U.S. commercial real estate bubble is now $1.7 trillion, a "ticking time bomb" bloating 25% of bank balance sheets.

6. Peak Oil and the Population Bomb. China and India each need 500 new cities. The United Nations estimates world population exploding 50% from 6 billion to 9 billion by 2050: Three billion more humans demanding more automobiles, exhausting more resources to feed their version of the gas-guzzling "America Dream."

7. Social Security Bomb. We have no choice; eventually we must either cut benefits or raise taxes. Politicians hate both, so they'll do nothing. Delays worsen solutions. Without action, by 2035 Social Security and Medicare benefits will eat up the entire federal budget other than defense.

8. Medicare: A Nuclear Bomb. Going broke faster than Social Security. Prescription drug benefit added an unfunded $8.1 trillion. In 5 years estimates rose from about $35 trillion to over $60 trillion now.

9. Health-care Insurance Bomb. Burden increasingly shifted to employees. Costs rising faster than inflation. Recent Obamacare plan would have cost $90 billion annually, paid to Big Pharma and insurers.

10. State and Local Government Budget Bombs. Deficits of $110 billion in 2010, $178 billion in 2011on top of more that $450 billion in underfunded state and municipal employee pension funds.

11. Underfunded Corporate Pensions Bomb. From $60 billion surplus in 2007 to $409 billion deficit in 2009. And a whopping 92% of the pension plans of companies are now underfunded. Defaults are guaranteed by taxpayers.

12. Consumer Debt Bomb. Americans are still living beyond their means. Even with a downturn, consumer debt rose from about $2.3 to $2.5 trillion. Fat Cat Bankers love it -- yes love making matters worse by gouging cardholders and mortgagees, blocking help in foreclosures and bankruptcies.

13. Personal Savings Bomb. Before the 2008 meltdown savings rate dropped from about 10% in the early 1980s to below zero. Now it's increasing, slowing retail recovery. Today, government's the big "unsaver."

14. War and Military Defense Deficits. Costs of Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- $200+ billion annually, $3 trillion minimum, with massive long-term costs for veteran medical care, equipment renewal, recruitment.

15. Homeland Insecurity Bomb. Security at airports, seaports, borders, vulnerable chemical plants all increase budgets.

16. Fed/Treasury Bailout Bombs. Tax credits, loans, cash and purchase of toxic assets from Wall Street banks estimated at $23.7 trillion as new debt was shifted from too-big-to-fail Fat-Cat banks to taxpayers.

17. Insatiable Washington Lobbyists Bombs. Paulson, Goldman, Geithner, Morgan and Wall Street banks, through their lobbyists and former employees working inside now have absolute power over government spending. Democracy and voters are now irrelevant in America's new corporate-socialism.

18. Shadow Banking: The Derivatives Bomb. Wall Street wants no regulation of this $670 trillion, high-risk, out-of-control casino that's highly leveraged versus the $50 trillion total GDP of all nations. We forget that derivatives almost destroyed global economies in 2008-09, finally will by 2012.

19. Dysfunctional Two-Party Political Bomb. Polarized partisanship increasing: Every day both parties show zero interest in cooperating for the public good. Instead they fight viciously, resisting everything and anything proposed by opponents. Only goal: Score political points, make the other side look bad.

20. The Coming Populous Rebellion Bombs. Nobody trusts anyone in authority. For good reason. So immediate gratification, short-term betting and a lack of long-term perspective wins for individual investors, consumers and taxpayers as well as Washington, Wall Street and Corporate America CEOs. Today: "Doing what's right for the common good and country" is just empty political rhetoric.

Forbes. The Economist. Davos-World Economic Forum. Bloomberg BusinessWeek. All one voice, one loud, lonely chorus echoing that famous Beatles tune: "Head in a cloud ... The fool on the hill, sees the sun going down ... a thousand voices talking perfectly loud. But nobody ever hears him, or the sound he appears to make ... And the eyes in his head, see the world spinning 'round ...ooh, round and round and round."

Historians and behavioral economists tell us most investors are blind optimists. Investors cannot see bubbles from inside their bubble. Nor Fat Cat Bankers from inside their mega-bonus-bubble. Nor politicians from inside the beltway bubble.

Why? The optimist's brain filters out bad news. They know their dreams of prosperity will come true. Then, when they finally do see that the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train, it's always too late.

I will say it again, gently: A new meltdown is coming. The Great Depression II is coming, soon. And yet, I know your mental filters are working, blocking warnings of a bomb. I can even hear you calling me "the fool on the hill who sees the sun going down, the world spinning round" ... sees you kissing your retirement goodbye.

USA Today's Social Security Scaremongering

2010-02-10T07:08:00.000-08:00

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4013

2/9/10

Under the headline "Social Security Races to 'Negative': Rash of Retirements Push Fund to Brink," USA Today's February 8 front page presented an alarmist view on a story that is regularly misreported in the corporate media (Extra!, 7-8/95, 1-2/05; FAIR Action Alert, 10/19/07).

Reporter Richard Wolf leads with this warning: "Social Security's annual surplus nearly evaporated in 2009 for the first time in 25 years." But several paragraphs later, readers are told that the program has been "accumulating a $2.5 trillion trust fund"--which certainly sounds less ominous than the headline's warning about being on a "brink." And by a "nearly evaporated" surplus, USA Today means that Social Security "took in only $3 billion more in taxes last year than it paid out in benefits."

The story tries to justify the alarm nonetheless by pointing out that "because the government uses the trust fund to pay for other programs, tax increases, spending cuts or new borrowing will be required to make up the difference between taxes collected and benefits owed." Two "experts" are quoted to endorse that view, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget's Maya MacGuineas, a former adviser to the McCain campaign.

Actually, the fact that Social Security would begin paying out more in benefits is neither alarming nor particularly surprising. In the 1980s, Social Security taxes were raised and benefits cut in the name of covering the retirement of the Baby Boomers--and, not incidentally, so that the system could loan its surplus to the Treasury Department to cover for Reagan's income tax slashing (Extra!, 1-2/88; Nation, 3/2/09). That money was to be paid back with interest, just like the U.S. Treasury's debts to China, Japan, private U.S. citizens and everyone else who owns Treasury bonds. If Social Security fails to collect the money that is owed to it by the Treasury, that would amount to a massive fraud and transfer of wealth, as trillions of dollars specifically collected to pay for workers' retirement benefits would never be used for that purpose, and instead would merely transfer the general cost of government from progressive income taxes to the regressive payroll tax (Center for Economic and Policy Research, 1/27/05).

The money borrowed from Social Security is currently scheduled to be paid back by 2037, at which point the program will have an actual deficit. But many experts have argued for years that this projected future shortfall is not a short-term crisis, and can be addressed with minor changes like eliminating the cap on taxable income, so that the wealthy would pay the same percentage of their income as middle-income and poor workers (Social Security: The Phony Crisis, 1999).

A story that presents Social Security as on the "brink," then, is giving readers a decidely skewed perspective on an important matter of public policy. As economist Dean Baker noted recently on his Beat the Press blog (2/8/10): "If nothing is ever done to change the program, the projections still show that it will be able to pay close to 80 percent of scheduled benefits. This will still provide future retirees with a benefit that is considerably larger than what current retirees receive."

If USA Today were to present these less-alarming facts, the headline might read, "Social Security Continues to Pay Benefits as Expected." That would be much less alarmist--and more accurate.

ACTION: Ask USA Today why it presented such a one-sided report on Social Security. Encourage the paper to include experts who would disagree with the notion that Social Security is in some sort of crisis.

CONTACT:
USA Today
Brent Jones, Standards Editor
Phone: 1-800-872-7073
accuracy@usatoday.com

Next in line for a bailout: Social Security

2010-02-07T03:03:00.000-08:00

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/02/news/economy/social_security_bailout.fortune/index.htm

Alan Sloan
Fortune
Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:07 EST

Don't look now. But even as the bank bailout is winding down, another huge bailout is starting, this time for the Social Security system.

A report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that for the first time in 25 years, Social Security is taking in less in taxes than it is spending on benefits.

Don't look now. But even as the bank bailout is winding down, another huge bailout is starting, this time for the Social Security system.

A report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that for the first time in 25 years, Social Security is taking in less in taxes than it is spending on benefits.

Instead of helping to finance the rest of the government, as it has done for decades, our nation's biggest social program needs help from the Treasury to keep benefit checks from bouncing - in other words, a taxpayer bailout.

No one has officially announced that Social Security will be cash-negative this year. But you can figure it out for yourself, as I did, by comparing two numbers in the recent federal budget update that the nonpartisan CBO issued last week.

The first number is $120 billion, the interest that Social Security will earn on its trust fund in fiscal 2010 (see page 74 of the CBO report). The second is $92 billion, the overall Social Security surplus for fiscal 2010 (see page 116).

This means that without the interest income, Social Security will be $28 billion in the hole this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

Why disregard the interest? Because as people like me have said repeatedly over the years, the interest, which consists of Treasury IOUs that the Social Security trust fund gets on its holdings of government securities, doesn't provide Social Security with any cash that it can use to pay its bills. The interest is merely an accounting entry with no economic significance.

Social Security hasn't been cash-negative since the early 1980s, when it came so close to running out of money that it was making plans to stop sending out benefit checks. That led to the famous Greenspan Commission report, which recommended trimming benefits and raising taxes, which Congress did. Those actions produced hefty cash surpluses, which until this year have helped finance the rest of the government.

But even then, it was clear the surpluses would be temporary. Now, years earlier than projected, Social Security is adding to the government's borrowing needs, even though the program still shows a surplus on paper.

If you go to the aforementioned pages in the CBO update and consult the tables on them, you see that the budget office projects smaller cash deficits (about $19 billion annually) for fiscal 2011 and 2012. Then the program approaches break-even for a while before the deficits resume.

Social Security currently provides more than half the income for a majority of retirees. Given the declines in stock prices and home values that have whacked millions of people, the program seems likely to become more important in the future as a source of retirement income, rather than less important.

It would have been a lot simpler to fix the system years ago, when we could have used Social Security's cash surpluses to buy non-Treasury securities, such as government-backed mortgage bonds or high-grade corporates that would have helped cover future cash shortfalls. Now it's too late.

Even though an economic recovery might produce some small, fleeting cash surpluses, Social Security's days of being flush are over.

To be sure -- three of the most dangerous words in journalism -- the current Social Security cash deficits aren't all that big, given that Social Security is a $700 billion program this year, and that the government expects to borrow about $1.5 trillion in fiscal 2010 to cover its other obligations, about the same as it borrowed in fiscal 2009.

But this year's Social Security cash shortfall is a watershed event. Until this year, Social Security was a problem for the future. Now it's a problem for the present.

Movement tries to fix Social Security inequity

2010-01-30T04:35:00.000-08:00

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/01/27/MNE21BL4Q3.DTL

Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Darleen Young always wanted to be a teacher, but the field was glutted when she graduated from college, so she became a social worker for Kaiser. But after she was widowed 11 years ago, the Albany resident switched to teaching, hoping to both fulfill her ambition and spend more time with her three children. Now a sixth-grade teacher at Hercules Middle School, Young loves her job.

Her midcareer move, however, places her among several hundred thousand Californians who will pay a financial price in retirement for working as a government employee.

In California and 14 other states where teachers do not participate in Social Security, second-career educators who previously held private-sector jobs where they paid into Social Security see some of that money evaporate in retirement because of a decades-old law. They can lose up to $381 a month of their own benefits - Social Security income that their payroll taxes should have guaranteed them.

In Young's case, her teacher's pension will reduce the amount of Social Security she receives from her previous career. The pension also will cut what she can receive from her late husband's Social Security benefits. Overall, she expects to lose several hundred dollars a month of retirement income - even though she and her husband both fully paid into the Social Security system.

From roofing to teaching

After a job injury ended his career as a roofer, Sam Frankel, now 60, went back to school and became a second-grade teacher, a job he's happily held for 17 years.

But he's far less happy about the financial consequences.

"My Social Security (from his previous career) is not a fortune to begin with, but it will be cut so drastically," said Frankel, who teaches at Berkeley's Arts Magnet School. "It's what I paid in; it should be mine. I'm not going to be rich, no way that will happen, but I don't want to be poor."

Such inequity has spurred a grassroots movement that has attracted powerful supporters. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein is sponsoring legislation that would restore the employees' benefits, and President Obama has said he will sign it if it makes it to his desk. Previous attempts to change the law have foundered in Congress, but proponents hope the current climate is more worker-friendly.

"I definitely am going to have to work longer," said Young, 57. "Every year I think about, 'Should I stay in teaching, or should I go back to (a job covered by) the Social Security system?' It's just not fair. I went into teaching having no idea about this."

Moreover, in California and nationwide, other government workers who don't pay into Social Security - police officers, sheriff's deputies, firefighters, librarians, some postal workers - see their spousal and survivor's Social Security benefit slashed by an even larger amount or eliminated altogether. Spousal benefits give a lower-paid spouse half of their partner's Social Security benefit, while survivor's benefits allow a widow or widower to claim their late spouse's benefit if it is larger than their own.

Resolution 'long overdue'

"The bottom line is that we should respect, not penalize, our public service employees," Feinstein said in a speech last year introducing the Social Security Fairness Act. "It is long overdue that we resolve this inequity."

Gil Duran, a spokesman for Feinstein, noted that the bill has 30 co-sponsors, indicating considerable interest. A companion bill in the House sponsored by Rep. Howard Berman, D-North Hollywood (Los Angeles County), has 314 co-sponsors.

But repealing the provisions would carry a hefty price tag of about $80 billion to $100 billion over the next 10 years. Sweeping Social Security reform may be on the national agenda for this year - but it will have to focus on reining in costs.

Congress was trying to eliminate "double dipping" when it passed the relevant laws. But it didn't account for workers who previously had paid Social Security taxes. And it didn't consider the impact of drastic cuts to survivor's and spousal benefits for spouses who were stay-at-home parents for many years and then returned to work as teachers.

"The concept was that the combination of the government pension and (reduced) Social Security would be equal or better than Social Security," said David Walrath, legislative analyst with the California Retired Teachers Association in Sacramento. "But with government pensions, you don't generate significant livable benefits until after 25 or 30 years of work."

'Two inadequate pensions'

More commonly, second-career government workers might have a 20-year private-sector career and perhaps 15 years as a teacher. The net result, Walrath said: "You end up with two inadequate pensions."

John Shoven, director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and an expert on Social Security, said government workers benefit by not paying Social Security taxes, giving them that money during their working careers. Still he added, cutting their survivor's and spousal benefits seems unfair. "It makes no sense to treat someone who had a career worse than someone who didn't work outside the home; they should be treated the same," he said.

Bonnie Cediel of Berkeley was a homemaker and volunteer for about 20 years, then became a teacher for 16 years, just long enough to accrue a modest pension. "That was enough to wipe out my share of everything my husband had contributed to Social Security all the years we were married," she said.

Inequity in benefits

What's the issue? State and local government employees who previously worked in the private sector, where they paid into Social Security, lose up to $381 a month of their benefits in retirement. Government employees who don't pay into Social Security lose a chunk or all of survivor's and spousal benefits.

Why is this? Congress passed laws in 1977 and 1983 that reduced Social Security benefits for people with government pensions. The unintended effect was that government workers who had earlier careers in which they paid into Social Security were penalized in retirement. Government workers whose spouses paid into Social Security lost most or all of their benefits.

Who is affected? The impact is felt most heavily In California and 14 other states where teachers don't participate in Social Security. All states have government employees outside the Social Security system.

Learn Life Extension Lessons from Chickens

2010-01-28T15:48:00.001-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z028040_life_extension_experiments.html

January 28 2010
by Kim Evans, citizen journalist

(NaturalNews) Beginning in 1912, Nobel Peace Prize winner Alexis Carrel kept chicken heart cells alive in a test tube for 34 years. It was an interesting experiment - especially because chickens generally only live three to five years. Those heart cells, however, far outlived even the chicken they came from. It was an experiment to prove Carrel's theory that cells are immortal given the right conditions, and he did this using a simple strategy. Every forty-eight hours, the mineralized water where the heart cells lived was changed, so the cells were always living in a clean, mineral-rich solution. After 34 years, and two years after Carrel's death, the experiment was purposely terminated. But the lessons about cell life - and life extension - are lasting.

Mineralized water is akin to the blood of the chicken - and of humans - and it's a dramatic testament to the results that can be achieved when the body and blood are mineralized and clean. Of course, it's also a testament to the consequences if they are not - and these days, the blood of most humans is far from clean. Our soils and therefore our bodies have also become mineral deplete.

One of the most common ways to collect filth in the body and blood is by having an unclean colon - a condition created when waste is not quickly and thoroughly eliminated. But according to holistic healer Dr. Bernard Jensen, most of the population suffers from constipation and doesn't know it. Dr. Jensen tells us that out of 300 autopsies performed at National College in Chicago - 285 of those people were constipated. Yet, according to those people's medical charts, only 15 said they were constipated and 285 claimed they weren't.

The biggest problem with infrequent eliminations is that it's impossible to have clean blood and a clean body with a dirty bowel. Many prominent holistic health professionals are very clear in saying that an unclean colon leaks filth to every cell and organ in the body. And when filth from the colon is throughout the body, you have the stage set for disease. Of course, with such filth throughout, colon cleansing also becomes just the beginning of the solution.

Dr. Jensen's findings provide a clue as to the level of cleanliness of most people's blood. Studies which have found hundreds of poisons in the average human's blood and even in the umbilical cord blood of infants provide another clue - and they've only tested for less than one percent of the chemicals in use.

Of course, the health of the general population is the biggest indicator of the cleanliness of the population's blood and body. So is the fact that 8 year-olds are getting dementia, heart disease, cancer, and kidney disease - all of which were once thought of as diseases related to aging. However, all of these diseases and more would be better understood as diseases related to having extreme amounts of toxicity in the body. It's just that these days, it's become easier and easier to achieve such a state, so more people are doing it in less and less time.

But, the question left unanswered is: What would human life expectancy really be if our blood and tissues were kept clean and our foods were mineral-rich? In a time of rampant chemical pollution and the destruction of our natural food supply, there's a chance we may never find out.

Retirement age 'should be scrapped'

2010-01-28T15:15:00.000-08:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/jan/25/retirement-age-scrapped-equality-commission

Equality commission says an ageing population and increased willingness among older people to work should see default retirement age scrapped
Hilary Osborne and agencies
25 January 2010

The government will reassess enforced retirement over the coming months.

Workers should be able to stay in their jobs beyond the age of 65, and employers should be incentivised to allow older employees to work flexibly, the UK's equality watchdog said today.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said the ageing population and an increased willingness to work among older people meant it was time for the government to scrap the default retirement age, a law which allows firms to force staff to finish work at 65.

It said scrapping the rule would remove the "safety net" for employers and encourage more radical approaches to issues such as flexibility, handling the performance of workers of all ages, and improving occupational health.

Hand-in-hand with this change, EHRC said, the government should extend the right to request flexible working to all employees and consider introducing incentives for flexible employers, with a particular emphasis on the over-50s.

The commission said the economy "would be the biggest winner" from the proposed changes, with research from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research suggesting that extending working lives by 18 months would earn Britain £15bn.

The government is currently looking into changes to the rule, and has indicated it could eventually scrap it entirely.

A survey of 1,500 workers by the commission suggests a rule change would be welcomed by many workers. It found that 64% of women and 24% of men wanted to remain economically active after the state pension age (currently 65 for men and rising to 65 for women by 2020).

Around 60% said they wanted to continue working but on a part-time basis, while 40% said they would like to stay in their current jobs but with greater flexibility in hours worked.

The commission's deputy chair, Baroness Margaret Prosser, said it was time to move away from systems put in place when people died not long after reaching state pension age.

"Britain has experienced a skills exodus during the recession, and as the economy recovers we face a very real threat of not having enough workers – a problem that is further exacerbated by the skills lost by many older workers being forced to retire at 65," she said.

"Keeping older Britons healthy and in the workforce also benefits the economy more broadly by decreasing welfare costs and increasing the spending power of older Britons.

"Our research shows that to provide real opportunity to older workers, abolishing the default retirement age needs to be accompanied by a concerted drive by government, employers and agencies to meet the health, caring and work needs of the over-50s to enable them to remain in the workplace. Greater flexibility can help to deliver this."

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said the government's long-term aim was to consign fixed retirement ages to the past.

"We have already committed to bringing forward our review of the default retirement age to this year. We are taking evidence now from business and individuals on the impact of retirement ages," he said.

"Our review will reach a decision after full consideration of the evidence on whether the default retirement age is still appropriate."

Author Martin Amis calls for euthanasia booths in UK's street corners to prevent a 'silver tsunami'

2010-01-28T14:53:00.001-08:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245714/Author-Martin-Amis-calls-euthanasia-booths-street-corners-prevent-silver-tsunami.html#

By Vanessa Allen
Last updated at 7:50 AM on 25th January 2010

Martin Amis: The author has called for euthanasia booths on street corners and said 'the denial of death is a great curse'
Euthanasia 'booths' should be established on street corners for pensioners to end their lives with 'a martini and a medal', novelist Martin Amis said yesterday.

Britain is facing a demographic timebomb as its ageing population places an impossible burden on society, the controversial writer claimed.

Anti-euthanasia campaigners reacted with horror to the suggestion of euthanasia booths for pensioners and called Amis's idea 'repugnant and offensive'.

The 60-year-old novelist predicted Britain could be engulfed by a 'civil war' between the old and young if it did not tackle its ageing population.

'How is society going to support this silver tsunami?' he asked in an interview with the Sunday Times.

'There'll be a population of demented very old people, like an invasion of terrible immigrants, stinking out the restaurants and cafes and shops.

'I can imagine a sort of civil war between the old and the young in ten or 15 years' time.'

Amis, a grandfather, added: 'There should be a booth on every corner where you could get a martini and a medal.'

Amis said medical science had ' overvaulted itself' in extending human life, adding: 'There's a certain point where your life slips into the negative.'

He told how his support for euthanasia had deepened since the death of his stepfather, Lord Kilmarnock, last year.

He said he had wanted to help the Roman Catholic peer to die because it was clear he was fighting a 'lost battle'.

He said: 'He thought he was going to get better. But he didn't. I think the denial of death is a great curse. We all wanted to assist him... it was clearly a lost battle.'

The writer said he had also been influenced by the death of writer Dame Iris Murdoch in 1999, two years after her husband revealed she had Alzheimer's.

He said: 'There should be a way out for rational people who've decided they're in the negative.

Amis said he had been influenced by the death of writer Dame Iris Murdoch, pictured, two years after it was revealed she had Alzheimer's

'That should be available, and it should be quite easy. I can't think it would be too hard to establish some sort of test that shows you understand.'

Alistair Thompson, of anti-euthanasia group Care Not Killing, said the idea of euthanasia booths was 'offensive'.

He added: 'We would resist any attempt to put these death booths on the streets of this country.

'How on earth can people describe themselves as civilised when they're advocating this style of euthanasia for the elderly and disabled? It's completely repugnant.'

Amis gave the interview to promote his novel, The Pregnant Widow, which is out next month.

Mr Thompson said: 'There is a very nasty smell about using this to promote a book.

'There is a very nasty smell that someone as high-profile as Martin Amis could actually make such a ludicrous proposal.'

Dr Richard Lamerton, of the pressure group Alert, which campaigns against legalised euthanasia, said he was horrified by Amis's comments.

He said: 'I can think of quite a few modern writers who, if they killed themselves off, never would be missed.

'But to give elderly people the message that it would only be decent to get out of the way would be to deny the wonderful contribution of grandfathers and grandmothers to the lives of young people.

'If Martin Amis wants to avoid lame brains in our society he would do more good fighting against the young people's drug culture.'

Dr Philip Nitschke displaying his computerised 'death machine' in his home in Darwin - he plans to open new clinics to provide legal euthanasia services

The campaign group Dignity In Dying, which lobbies for medically assisted suicides for terminally ill adults, said: 'Like too many people in the UK, Martin Amis has witnessed the bad death of a loved one.

'The answer to this problem is two-fold - we need better access to high quality end-of-life care and we need a change in the law to allow the choice of assisted dying for those terminally ill, mentally competent adults who want it.

'Dignity In Dying's campaign for a change in the law is not about the introduction of "euthanasia booths", nor is it in anticipation of a "silver tsunami".

'Our campaign is about allowing dying adults who have mental capacity a compassionate choice to end their suffering, subject to strict legal safeguards.'

US: Democrats agree on commission to cut Social Security, Medicare

2010-01-23T00:58:00.001-08:00

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/budg-j21.shtml

Patrick Martin
World Socialist Website
Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:34 EST

Obama administration officials and Democratic congressional leaders reached agreement Tuesday on the establishment of a bipartisan commission that would put recommendations for drastic budget cuts to a vote in Congress before the end of 2010. The commission would have unprecedented legal authority to propose changes in both the tax code and major entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, with Congress required to hold an up-or-down vote on its recommendations.

The exact method for establishing the commission depends on congressional action. The Senate and House could vote to establish the commission, as an amendment for legislation to raise the national debt ceiling to $13 trillion.

Press accounts suggested this was unlikely, given divisions over policy between Republicans and Democrats, as well as within both parties. If Congress fails to act, Obama would issue an executive order to create the commission, although this would leave its decisions with less legal force.

The 18 members of the commission would be appointed: six each by the congressional Democratic and Republican leaderships, and six by Obama, of which only four could be Democrats. This would give the commission a 10-8 Democratic majority.

Fourteen votes would be required to adopt any recommendation, meaning that at least half the Republicans would have to agree. This effectively ensures that only cuts in spending will be considered to lower the deficit, not tax increases on the wealthy or big business, since every congressional Republican leader has taken a "no new taxes" stand.

Obama is expected to focus on the rising federal deficit in his first State of the Union speech, scheduled for January 27, and the new bipartisan commission will be the major fiscal initiative for the coming year.

The commission would wait to deliver its recommendations until after the November congressional elections, meaning that voters would have no say on any proposal to slash vitally needed social spending. Moreover, Congress would have to accept or reject the commission's proposals as a whole, without the right to amend them or to reject specific elements of the package.

Negotiations on the commission were limited to Democrats, with Vice President Joseph Biden and Budget Director Peter Orszag representing the White House, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer leading the congressional delegation.

Last year's budget deficit was a record $1.4 trillion, four times the worst previous figure, in large measure because of the bailout of Wall Street, the Obama administration's stimulus package and the impact of the recession on government tax receipts. This year's deficit is projected at about the same level, followed by trillion-dollar deficits each year for most of the decade. These figures will be even worse if the recession continues and unemployment remains at or near double-digit figures.

Congress voted last month to increase the debt limit to $12.4 trillion, a stopgap measure that will allow the Treasury to fund government operations through the first quarter. A further increase to $13 trillion is required to avoid a finance-driven shutdown of much of the federal government.

The driving force behind the commission is a group of conservative Democrats in the Senate, led by Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota, who has threatened to block the increase in the debt ceiling unless the commission was established.

The dimensions of the cuts being prepared is suggested by the commission's mandate to propose a path to reduce the federal deficit from the current level of 10 percent of gross domestic product to 3 percent by 2015. This would amount to a reduction in the annual deficit of about $700 billion - an amount, not coincidentally, roughly equivalent to the bailout of Wall Street - to be subtracted from federal social spending every year.

Washington Post Lets Lobbyists Write Its Stories

2010-01-12T13:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3991

Washington Post Lets Lobbyists Write Its Stories
Anti-Social Security outfit does propaganda, not journalism

1/6/10

The Washington Post's publication of a "news" article written by an organization created to advance an ideological agenda is a troubling reminder of the declining ethical standards at one of the nation's most influential newspapers.

The article, headlined "Support Grows for Tackling Nation's Debt" (12/31/09), was a product of the Fiscal Times, described in an accompanying note as "an independent digital news publication reporting on fiscal, budgetary, healthcare and international economics issues." More accurately, it's a propaganda outlet created and funded by Peter G. Peterson, a Wall Street billionaire and Nixon administration cabinet member who has long used his wealth to promote cuts in Social Security and other entitlement programs (Extra!, 3-4/97; Nation.com, 1/4/10).

Peterson has advanced this agenda by launching groups like the Concord Coalition and the Peter G. Peterson Foundation; he's also funded media projects like the public television show World Focus (FAIR Action Alert, 2/10/09) and the deceptive documentary IOUSA (CEPR, 10/8), which aired on CNN.

Now Peterson has a new vehicle, the Fiscal Times, which he describes (PR Newswire, 12/17/09) as "a new entity whose time has come, an independently supported publication comprised of top journalists and opinion makers covering the critical economic issues of our time." The Fiscal Times' initial news release said Peterson "helped found the publication and will provide its initial funding"; editor-in-chief Jackie Leo (formerly of Reader's Digest) said she aimed to make it "the most trusted news source for unbiased journalism covering government policy and economic issues."

Based on the Fiscal Times' first offering in the Post, though, what it actually offers is a bias that's widely shared by corporate media outlets. The piece, by Elaine S. Povich and Eric Pianin, takes it as a given that the "tough decisions that will be required to dig the nation out of debt" include "painful spending cuts and tax increases"--and when they say "spending cuts," they're talking about the "skyrocketing spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security," not the $663 billion military budget. (See Guardian, 1/4/10, for Dean Baker's debunking of the piece's Petersonian economics.)

Of course, this kind of deficit-mongering is par for the course in outlets like the Post (Extra!, 9/09). But it's doubtful that the Post on its own would have made controversial claims about powerful politicians--like the assertion that "President Obama has voiced support" for an entitlement-slashing commission, or that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "has signaled in recent weeks that she could accept the establishment" of such a panel--without offering any substantiation (Fire Dog Lake, 1/5/10).

And it's remarkable that no one at the Post objected when a news outlet funded by Peterson managed to plug two of its benefactor's other ideological projects--the Concord Coalition and the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform--without noting the financial connection. (The Post ran a correction noting that it should have noted the tie to Concord, but didn't say anything about Peterson-Pew.) Completely missing from the piece was any balance to the Peterson-approved perspective, save an analyst from the AARP, misleadingly cited to suggest that "critics" objected to a deficit commission because it wouldn't be strong enough when "the choices are so hard--and getting harder."

Far from "unbiased journalism," the Fiscal Times article reads like the smoothly written propaganda you'd expect to get from a well-funded lobbying outlet. The Post's "partnership" with this outfit is an ill-advised experiment that ought to be brought to a swift conclusion.

ACTION:
Please ask Washington Post ombud Andy Alexander to recommend that the paper terminate its relationship with the ideologically motivated Fiscal Times.

Conservative Mogul Buying Up Reporters to Promote His Regressive Agenda

2010-01-06T07:38:00.000-08:00

Wal-street looted the other retirement schemes. Makes sense they would try to loot this pool of money, too!

Conservative Mogul Buying Up Reporters to Promote His Regressive Agenda
By William Greider, The Nation
Posted on January 6, 2010, Printed on January 6, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/144961/

He's baaack -- the Wall Street billionaire who wants to loot Social Security. This time, Pete Peterson has invented his own "news network" to promote his right-wing rants about shrinking the only retirement security system available to millions of working people. Peterson styles himself as a patriot saving the nation from fiscal insolvency and has committed $1 billion to that cause (a chunk of the wealth he accumulated at Blackstone Group, the notorious corporate-takeover firm). His efforts might be dismissed as ludicrous -- except money does talk in Washington, and Peterson is now buying Washington reporters to spread his dire warnings.

The retired mogul has created a digital news agency he dubs "The Fiscal Times" and hired eight seasoned reporters to do the work there. "An impressive group of veteran journalists," Peterson calls them. I hope they have shaken a lot of money out of this rich geezer. Because I predict doing hack work for him will seriously soil their reputations for objectivity and independence.

With his great wealth, Peterson could have also bought a newspaper to publish his dispatches, but he did better than that. He hooked up with the Washington Post, which has agreed to "jointly produce content focusing on the budget and fiscal issues." (This media scandal was first uncovered by economist Dean Baker.) The newspaper is thus compromising its own integrity. It's like buying political propaganda from a Washington lobbyist, then printing it in the news columns as if it was just another news story. Shame on the Post, my old newspaper. I predict a big stink like the one that greeted the Post when its publisher decided to hold pay-for-access "salons" for corporate biggies.

The first TFT "dispatch" to appear in the Post -- "Support grows for tackling nation's debt" -- made no mention of Peterson's crusade. But it featured the same devious gimmick the financier has been peddling around Washington. Congress should create a special commission of eighteen senators and representatives empowered to to make the "tough" budget decisions politicians are loathe to face -- slashing benefits, raising payroll taxes or both. Other members of Congress would be prohibited from changing any of the particular measures, and would cast only an up-or-down vote on the entire package, no amendments allowed.

Supposedly, this would give them political cover. Look, no hands. We just cut Social Security but it wasn't our fault.

This "reform" is profoundly antidemocratic because it would strip ordinary citizens of the only leverage they have in Washington -- the ability to lean on their elected representatives and exact retribution if they get sold out. Peterson has two advocates in the Senate -- Kent Conrad of South Dakota and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire -- who are self-righteous fiscal hawks. The TFT story describes the rising federal deficits as a threat to the republic, yet fails to explain why deficits on rising. The billions have been devoted to bailing out major banks and Peterson's old chums in Wall Street or to turning around the failed economy or fighting two wars at once.

So why do the TFT reporters (Elaine Povich and Eric Pianin) zero in on old folks and Social Security or entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid? Because those are Pete Peterson's favorite targets. He has flogged Social Security as a blight on our future for at least twenty years. He is a nut on the subject. His "facts" are wildly distorted or simply not true. Never mind, the establishment press portrays him as a disinterested statesman.

This crusade is dangerous for the people because the "respectables" in governing circles and both parties embrace the same reactionary logic. Does government have money problems? Don't restore the progressive income tax on the wealthy or capital, don't cut away some of the corporate boodle in the federal budget -- that politics is too difficult. Instead, let's whack Social Security while folks aren't watching.

The biggest lie in Peterson's story-telling is his refusal to acknowledge the looting aspect of what he proposes. Despite his inflamed rhetoric, Social Security is not broke -- it has a huge surplus of around $3 trillion (trillion, not billion). With no changes at all, the trust fund will be solvent for at least another thirty years. In fact, workers retiring now have already paid for their Social Security benefits because they paid higher payroll taxes for the past twenty-five years. I might have a little respect for fiscal crazies like Peterson, Conrad and Gregg if I once heard them state these facts honestly instead of demonizing Social Security recipients.

Here is what really worries the fiscal hawks: as the Social Security trust fund built up the huge surpluses, the federal government borrowed the money and spent it. The time is approaching -- maybe ten or twelve years from now -- when the federal treasury will have to start paying back its debts to Social Security. The accumulated wealth does not belong to the US government, any more than the money it borrowed from China. The beneficial owners are all those working people who faithfully paid their FICA taxes for all those years. If Washington stiffs them now, it will be a bait-and-switch swindle larger than Wall Street's.

A year ago, the Obama White House was playing footsie with Peterson and intended to give him a starring role in its "fiscal responsibility summit." The Nation disrupted those plans. I wrote a fierce attack on the billionaire's looting scheme and the true fiscal history of Social Security. The sting that really hurt was The Nation's cover -- an unfortunate photograph of Mr. Peterson in which he resembled a Mafia don. The White House abruptly downplayed its summit and dropped Peterson as keynote speaker.

But the assault on Society Security, we knew, would come back sooner or later because many of Obama's lieutenants are devoted to Peterson's fiscal logic. Budget director Peter Orszag once co-authored a "reform" plan that would raise the payroll tax on young workers and cut benefits for older people near retirement. Isn't that clever? Pinhead economists evidently think that workers won't notice. Now the billionaire is cranking up another fight. We should finger him again, big-time, and all those who willingly collaborate in his plot.

As a candidate, Barack Obama said all the right things about Social Security and described the modest adjustments that would solve any long-term problems. But we learned during the last year not to trust fuzzy expressions of good intentions. We need to bang on the president right now and demand explicit commitment to oppose the sleight-of-hand proferred by Peterson, Conrad, Gregg and others.

Likewise, people need to confront Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi immediately. It has been reported the two Congressional leaders are prepared to go along with this ugly ploy. I find that hard to believe, but we need to find out -- now -- because Conrad and Gregg and their rich friend intend to demand the "commission" legislation be included later this month when Congress votes to raise the federal debt ceiling. That's clever timing designed to stampede members of Congress since, if the debt-ceiling measure is not enacted, government in theory might be shut down.

Maybe progressives should recruit some Democratic senators who will stage a progressive filibuster. Let's see how Harry Reid deals with that. Or maybe progressives in the House can recruit some bipartisan support in Republican ranks. Above all, people need to make a lot of noise, because this issue represents one more fleecing for people already struggling. If the Democratic party and the Democratic president decide to go down this road, arm-in-arm with the billionaire and the Washington Post, they may find themselves in a civil war much like the one tearing up the Republicans.

Our Blue-Mooned, Baby-Boomed 64th Birthday Baptism

2010-01-02T17:05:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Our-Blue-Mooned-Baby-Boom-by-Harvey-Wasserman-100101-668.html

January 1, 2010
Our Blue-Mooned, Baby-Boomed 64th Birthday Baptism
By Harvey Wasserman

"Will you still need me? Will you still feed me?...."
--the Beatles

The moment has come. The first Baby Boomer cohort has turned 64
It officially happened on midnight December 31-January 1, 2009-10.
I celebrated the moment 7 hours and 24 minutes early by jumping into a tiny cove in the Florida Bay.

The chilly but exhilarating water demanded an answer: Will we green the Earth? Will we win social justice? Will we get to Solartopia?

Unlike so many of you reading this, I am not a Boomer. The demographic officially extends from January 1, 1946 to December 31, 1964. It is a giant elephant of a population explosion swallowed by a decades-long python of a population decline.

The soldiers coming back from World War II multiplied like rabbits. The Boom was worldwide. In the US it birthed some 76 million children.
My dad was a submarine welder in Boston's shipyards, so I came early: at 4:36pm, December 31, 1945. Thus the leap into the Bay, which is in desperate need of protection from the ravages of agricultural monsters who are destroying the Everglades on which this fragile but irreplaceable eco-system depends for a clean, steady flow of water.

Those of us who took that astonishing tour through the 1960s came have to think of ourselves as "forever young."
But 64 is a big number. It means many of us have lost one or both of our parents, or are taking care of them as they become increasingly infirm.
It also means WE are meeting such ailments. "Parts wear out," my mother said.

And we're "at that age" when we lose friends and lovers, spouses and siblings, and sometimes, worst of all, even children.

"Learning experience" can never fully cover the losses of loved ones. But they do remind us our own days are numbered.
When we believed ourselves immortal, as all young people do, there was nothing we could not do.

Now we count the victories, and assess what we might win in the time left us.
In our lifetimes, undeniable strides have been made in civil rights---for African-Americans and, in tandem, for women, for GLBT and for other national and ethnic minorities, as well as for those with special challenges.
Social justice is another story. Since the end of the New Frontier/Great Society, with the horror of the Vietnam War, income disparities have worsened. Those social programs did work. Now the gap between rich and poor, a downfall of all great nations, is escalating, with no end in sight. We have long had the means to end poverty and hunger, and have chosen simply not to do it.

The root of that choice is war. The Vietnam assault was the biggest blunder of our lifetime. Everything is worse because of it, from homelessness and poverty to the decline of our educational and health systems. That successive Boomer presidents have chosen to repeat the error in Iraq and Afghanistan is beyond tragic.

Likewise the environment. The green movement has many roots. But the fight against nuclear power was the first to put thousands of Americans onto the streets and into the jail cells, and must be ready to do so again. Talk of reviving this failed technology is beyond lunatic.

Above all, in our lifetime, the globalized corporation has metastasized into the most powerful institution in human history. A cancerous beast that has usurped human rights without human responsibilities, the trans-planetary corporation is now beyond the reach of the nation-state. Only a global green movement, tied through the internet and whatever else we can contrive, can overcome the sinister power of these interlinked financial machines, whose only goal is profit.

To fight back, we need a vision, a Solartopian greenprint.

We need to attack the corporation at its root, in its legal charter and wherever we can find a foothold.
To kill the cancer, we must eliminate waste and its worst expression, war, the ultimate breeding ground of illegitimate power.

Only with peace can we win a true democracy, based on social justice. All humans have the right to food, shelter, clothing, medicine, education and dignity. In tandem must come the paper ballot, hand counted, with universal automatic voter registration.
Our food needs to be organically raised, with sustainable agricultural practices.

The question of how many humans our planet can sustain will be answered with the empowerment of women. With equal access to education, employment and reproductive rights, the mothers of our species will bring us a sustainable number of children.

As that happens we can eliminate fossil and nuclear fuels, replacing them with the Solartopian technologies that really work, including solar, wind, sustainable bio-fuels, geothermal, ocean thermal, tidal, wave, current and other forms of renewables not yet conceived. In a maximally efficient world, with revived mass transit, the green transition we must win to survive does become do-able.

So this Blue-Mooned New Year's Eve, with my growing-up-all-too-fast daughter on my back, we jumped into the Barley Basin to commemorate that moment 64 years ago when my saintly mother gave her final push to get me into this world. The demographic deluge would boom in less than eight hours.

With Bonnie Raitt's "Nick of Time" running through our brains, the equation simplified:

"With justice comes peace"with peace comes freedom"with freedom, all is possible".even Solartopia."

That should keep us busy for a while, yes?

The next blue mooned New Year's Eve is scheduled for 2028. See you then" on a green-powered Earth.

Baby Boom Benefits: A Parametric Analysis of Costs

2009-12-27T06:01:00.000-08:00

Now do you SEE WHY it is in the puppet masters' interests to get rid of this group? The evil elite stole almost all the money and assets a long time ago and there is no money left to take care of Baby Boomers in their old age! Not unless we get think outside the box and get off the established economics matrix to change the paradigm!

http://www.supremelaw.org/ref/ss/baby.boom.benefits.htm

Retirement Benefits: What to Expect in 2010

2009-12-24T14:02:00.000-08:00

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Retirement-Benefits-What-to-usnews-211868074.html?x=0&mod=retirement

Retirement Benefits: What to Expect in 2010
By Emily Brandon , On Monday December 21, 2009, 12:16 pm EST

In most years, retirement benefits increase to keep up with inflation. But 2010 will be far from typical. Because of a drop in the consumer price index, government payouts and tax incentives to save for retirement will generally stay the same. At the same time, out-of-pocket retiree health costs, especially for prescription drugs, will continue their steady climb. Here's a look at what will happen to retirement benefits in 2010.

No Social Security increase. Monthly Social Security checks for most beneficiaries will not increase in 2010. Retirement payouts are tied to the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, which fell between the third quarter of 2008 and the third quarter of 2009. Next year will be the first without a Social Security increase since cost-of-living adjustments went into effect in 1975. (There is a chance of a change, though; several bills to give retirees a raise are being considered by Congress.) The maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax will also remain the same at $106,800.

[See America's Best Affordable Places to Retire.]

Higher Medicare Part B premiums for some. Most current Social Security recipients will continue to pay $96.40 each month for Medicare Part B medical insurance, the same amount as in 2009. But for new enrollees, Medicare Part B monthly premiums will be $110.50, a 15 percent increase from 2009 prices. Retirees with incomes greater than $85,000 ($170,000 for couples) also will pay higher premiums, ranging from $154.70 to $353.60 each month, depending on the income reported on their 2008 tax return.

Larger Medicare Part D premiums and out-of-pocket costs. The average monthly Part D premium will increase by 11 percent in 2010 if beneficiaries remain in their current plans, according to a recent analysis of 2010 plans by researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation, Georgetown University, and the University of Chicago. About 61 percent of drug plans will charge a deductible in 2010, and 80 percent will have a coverage gap--or "doughnut hole"--during which beneficiaries must pay 100 percent of their drug costs, up from 45 percent and 75 percent respectively this year. "For those in a plan that increases its premium, people who have their Part D premiums deducted from their Social Security check could see a reduction in their Social Security payments beginning in January," says Tricia Neuman, director of the Medicare Policy Project at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

[Find Your Best Place to Retire.]

401(k) contribution caps stagnant. The contribution ceiling for 401(k)'s will stay the same next year. The maximum amount will remain $16,500. Those age 50 and older will be able to make catch-up contributions of an additional $5,500 next year, which is also unchanged from 2009. "There was speculation about whether that $16,500 would be reduced for 2010 because there was negative inflation in 2009, but the limits are not going down," says Mark Iwry, a senior treasury official. Workers with a retirement plan who earn less than $66,000 annually ($109,000 for couples) also can contribute up to $5,000 to a traditional or Roth IRA, and workers age 50 and over can contribute up to $6,000. The income limits don't apply to couples who don't have a retirement plan through their jobs.

Pension insurance limits stay the same. The federal government insures most private-sector pensions up to certain limits. The maximum amount that will be replaced by the government if your employer goes bankrupt in 2010 will be $54,000, which is unchanged from 2009. Insurance amounts are indexed to Social Security benefits, which will also remain the same in 2010, according to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. As in previous years, the maximum insured pension is higher for workers who delay retirement and lower for those who retire early. Annual maximums are reduced for workers who elect survivor's benefits for a spouse.

[See 10 Reasons You Shouldn't Retire.]

401(k) matches return. There is some good news for retirement savers in 2010. Many employers that suspended their 401(k) match in 2008 or 2009 plan to resume it in 2010. Among Fidelity-administered 401(k) plans, 27 percent of employers that cut contributions to employee retirement accounts have already resumed the match or plan to reinstate it next year. Another survey, by the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America, found that almost half (47 percent) of companies that suspended their employee match are planning to restore it within the first quarter of 2010. Both studies found that large employers were especially likely to restart the match. Most employers (70 percent) that expect to reinstate their retirement account match are planning to pick up where they left off, according to a recent survey of large employers by consulting firm Watson Wyatt. Other firms surveyed will reintroduce the match at a lower level (13 percent) or will vary the amount of the match based on company profits (17 percent). Robyn Credico, Watson Wyatt's director of defined contribution consulting, says: "They will give you a match, but it will depend on how well the company has done."

Wave of sickness and disease now striking Baby Boomers

2009-12-22T16:13:00.000-08:00

http://www.NaturalNews.com/z027778_Baby_Boomers_degenerative_disease.html

Wave of sickness and disease now striking Baby Boomers
by E. Huff, staff writer
December 21 2009

(NaturalNews) Research is now showing that today's "baby boomers", the generation currently eclipsing age 60, is the first generation to be less healthy than the generation before them. Those in this age group are more susceptible to debilitating diseases than in years past, stemming primarily from poor diet and lack of proper exercise.

Professor Teresa Seeman, a researcher from the University of California, examined those today in their 60s, 70s, and 80s and compared her findings to people from the same age groups examined ten years ago. She came to the startling conclusion that about one in five people in their 60s today requires assistance in accomplishing daily activities. This number is 50 percent higher than it was a decade ago.

A common theme that emerged from the research is that technological advancements have played a significant role in creating poor health. As Americans have generally been weaned off of physical labor and instead placed in front of computer screens throughout the years, the level of physical activity among the population has dropped significantly.

The lack of effective exercise was emphasized by a 50 percent increase over the last ten years in people in their 60s having trouble performing simple activities such as walking a quarter-mile or climbing a small set of stairs. There was also a 40 percent increase in study subjects having trouble bending their knees to crouch, kneel, or get up from a chair.

Significant societal and technological advancements that were of great benefit to the Baby Boomers when they were younger is proving to be their downfall in their current stage of life. Those in this age group are fatter and weaker than previous generations were at the same age, and they are more susceptible to chronic ailments that severely curtail their quality of life.

Experts recommend the obvious, mainly an improved diet and increased physical activity. They also warn the current younger generations to become disciplined in living a healthy lifestyle now in order to help offset the things that are currently plaguing their parents and grandparents.

Dr. Ian Campbell, general practitioner and medical director of the charity Weight Concern, expressed concern over the growing reliance on pharmaceutical drugs rather than on lifestyle changes as the appropriate remedy for the problem. He recommends a more preventive approach in dealing with illness.

Perhaps the conditions of economic turmoil in America will drive the younger generations back to the fields where physical labor and nutritious bounty are sure to help undo some of the damage that's been done by a convenient, technology-driven lifestyle.

Glass Half-Empty, Glass Half-Full, part 3--Older Americans at Risk

2009-12-22T13:41:00.000-08:00

http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2009/12/glass-half-empty-glass-half-full-part-3--older-americans-at-risk.html

December 20, 2009
Glass Half-Empty, Glass Half-Full, part 3--Older Americans at Risk

Few observers have commented on how older Americans will fare under the amended Senate health reform legislation, but as things stand, many could be priced out of the health care market. The Senate bill lets insurers in the Exchange charge an elderly person up to three times as much as they would charge a younger customer. Thus many middle-class and upper-middle class Americans in their late 50s or early 60s who don’t have employer-based insurance could find themselves locked out of health care reform.

Under the bill that passed the House, insurers could only double premiums for the elderly. In the past, I had assumed that the House bill would prevail on this point. I also thought that the public plan might be more generous. After all, it would be hard to argue that a government plan that made insurance unaffordable for middle-class, unemployed and self-employed Americans in their late 50s and early 60s was serving the public good. Surely some in Congress would protest, and the public plan would find a way to keep a lid on premiums, probably by incorporating Medicare reforms that lower costs. If private insurers wanted to complete for customers in that 55-64-year old market, they would have to follow suit.

Now, however, it seems unlikely that any major provisions from the House bill will be added to the final legislation. This was part of the deal that the Senate struck with Ben Nelson in order to secure his vote. Meanwhile, the public option is no longer part of the reform bill. As a result, it is quite possible that the comprehensive insurance that older Americans need will be too expensive for many, just as it is in Massachusetts.
Meanwhile commentators such as Ruth Marcus argue that charging elderly customers more makes sense: “older people cost more money to insure than younger Americans -- and more than three times as much. Is it fair to require younger people to shoulder all the extra cost?”

But what Marcus doesn’t do is take a hard look at the numbers. Whether or not you think younger Americans should help foot the bill for their elders, the fact is that if this provision stands, the majority of customers in this older cohort simply won’t be able to afford good coverage.

As I noted in an earlier post, households in the 55-64 age group report average joint income of just $55,400. Only 25 percent enjoy joint income over $100,000. In other words, fully one quarter of earn somewhere between $55,400 and $100,000—too much for a couple to qualify for much of a subsidy, too little to able to afford pricey insurance.

Remember, couples earning more than $58,280 will not be eligible for subsidies. A middle-class couple earning $50,000 would receive only a small premium credit. How can they afford to pay three times what a younger person pays? They can’t.

Yet middle-aged Americans need full, comprehensive coverage. A 20-something might feel comfortable with a Bronze plan that covers only 60 percent of the cost of “essential care”—after all, he doesn’t plan to use the insurance very often. But most 60-somethings need to go to doctors regularly to control chronic diseases and address the many problems that come with age. And if they are middle-class, they probably cannot afford to shell out 40% of the charge for each visit to a specialist. Granted, their out-of-pocket payments would be capped at $11,900, but for a household earning just $59,000 before taxes, that’s more than 20 percent of their after-tax income. Even for a couple earning $75,000, $11,900 is a hefty sum. No doubt many would simply put off going to the doctor.

Just how much would a couple have to scrape together to buy a better plan? Judging by prices for Federal Employees’ Plans, a top-of-the line Platinum policy which covers 90% of medical bills is likely to cost a younger couple at least $10,000—probably closer to $12,000 in today’s group market. That means that even if an insurer charged the older couple only twice as much, the premiums would run $20,000-$24,000 annually, rendering insurance unaffordable for both the middle-class and most of the upper-middle-class.

If it seems impossible that a 60-year-old couple earning $59,000 a year would be expected to pay that much, consider this: In Massachusetts, where insurers are allowed to double premiums based on age, a 64-year-old adult living in Boston is asked to shell out between $830 a month and $1,000 a month—or up to $12,000 a year for one person--for a policy with low co-pays and deductibles. For an older couple in Boston, an identical policy runs between $1,740/mo. and $2,000/month.—or $24,000 a year. In the end, everything may turn on what state you live in. States will have an opportunity to protect their older citizens. While the amended version of the legislation sticks with the 3:1 ratio, it adds that if a “qualified health plan is offered in a State with age rating requirements that are lower than 3:1, the State may require that . . . plans comply with the State’s more protective age rating requirements.”

This provision is enormously important, but I am afraid it will only create tension between generations. If insurers are not allowed to triple premiums for older customers, younger customers in that state will wind up paying more. And of course insurers want the younger customers.

Assuming that a state does not shield its older citizens, the legislation offers one alternative: if the cheapest insurance available costs more than 8% of a person’s income, he or she can be exempted from the mandate.

As I have suggested in the past, “universal coverage” that exempts those who cannot afford it takes us back to square one: rationing care based on ability to pay.

The Only Solution: Cut the Cost of Care

The only way insurance will be affordable for many families at the upper end of the middle-class—or for older American--is if the cost of health care itself falls. This means squeezing out the waste; refusing to be gouged by drug-makers; trimming fees for some specialists’ services; and refusing to pay hospitals extra for inefficiencies and errors that lengthen hospital stays and threaten patient safety.

Otherwise, the amount that private insurers pay out in reimbursements to hospitals, doctors and patients will continue to climb by 8% a year, just as they have for the past ten years. And premiums will rise in tandem.
But do you really think private insurers will suddenly get tough when negotiating with drug-makers, device-makers, hospitals and specialists?

Not likely. In order to win market share, insurers need to keep brand-name drugs in their formularies; they want marquee hospitals and popular, brand-name specialists in their networks. This means that they will continue to pay whatever suppliers and providers demand, and hike premiums to cover the costs.

Meanwhile, competition for the well-heeled customers who can afford ever-more expensive insurance will heat up. Insurance companies who cannot attract those customers will drop out of the market, as will middle-class and many upper-middle-class older Americans--unless the government intervenes

As I explained in part 2 of this post, the Senate bill still calls for an Independent Medicare Commission made up of physicians and other medical experts who would oversee Medicare spending—hiking some fees, while reducing others. (Already, Medicare itself has proposed raising reimbursements for primary care by 4% next year, while lowering payments to cardiologists by 6%.)

The Commission would bundle its recommendations in a package, and Congress would have to vote “yea” or “nay” on the entire package within a fairly short period of time. It could not edit the changes. This would protect the Commission from Congressional meddling, and pressure from lobbyists.

Unfortunately, when the Senate’s two health care bills were merged, the Commission lost some of its clout. For example, hospitals were exempted from cost-cutting for ten years. But, as I noted in part 2, Senators Joe Lieberman, Jay Rockefeller and Sheldon Whitehouse have now introduced an amendment that would strengthen the Commission, and let it use financial carrots and sticks to insist that hospitals begin providing better value for Medicare dollars.

Keep an eye on this amendment.

Under the Senate Bill, Medicare Could Pave the Way

There is just one way that private insurers might begin to address the waste in our bloated health care system: if Medicare provides political cover, by cutting costs and simultaneously embarking on a campaign to demonstrate to the public that it is possible to trim spending while lifting the quality of care.

The medical establishment has begun to acknowledge that unnecessary tests can be hazardous to your health. Just this week the Archives of Internal Medicine reported on two new studies estimating that the radiation exposure from the 72 million CT scans ordered in 2007 alone will result in 15,000 additional cancer deaths twenty to thirty years down the road. An editorial in the Archives pointed out that there is an eight-fold difference in CT scan use around the country, with no better outcomes where more scans are done. (For details and some pointed commentary on what needs to be done,see GoozNews)
Around the nation, responsible physicians are conveying this information to patients, medical students, interns and residents. They also are talking about the pros and cons of mammograms. A great many women read past the politically- motivated fear-mongering, and are beginning to ask questions.

This all helps to prepare the public for the upcoming Medicare cuts that will try to wring some of the hazardous waste out of the system. Seniors need to understand that that the goal is to protect patients from unnecessary procedures. No one will be denied needed care. No one will be told that they can’t have a mammogram. No one will be told that Medicare no longer covers CT-scans.

But by lowering the fees that it lays out for CT-scans, Medicare hopes to make the procedure less attractive to physicians who are paid fee-for-service. For example, we know that when doctors lease or buy diagnostic testing equipment and begin using it in their offices, they recommend twice as many tests for their patients. Next year, Medicare plans to reduce reimbursements for these in-office tests.

Mammograms, by contrast, are not terribly expensive. It is unlikely that Medicare—or anyone—would cut fees. But there is “shared-decision-making” legislation under consideration that would pay health care professionals for the time it takes to give patients a full understanding of the risks and benefits of mammograms, as well as other elective tests and treatments. We know that when patients are fully informed, they decide against elective procedures 20 % to 30% of the time.

Meanwhile, doctors like Boston surgeon Atul Gawande are calling attention to the fact that complications following surgery kill more Americans each year than car accidents. Prudent physicians who share decision-making with their patients explain the dangers.

In the film, Money-Driven Medicine, Dr. Jim Weinstein, who spent the first half of his career as an extremely successful orthopedic surgeon, explains that often he just didn’t feel that his patients were “getting a fair shake.”

"When it came to risk," he says, "I knew that many of my patients were thinking, 'I trust my doctor. He is so good that nothing bad will happen to me.' I wanted to say, 'Wait. Stop. This is important. You could die. You could get an infection.'". Ultimately, Weinstein devoted the second half of his career to spear-heading the shared-decision-making movement at Dartmouth.

As care becomes more patient-centered, wise physicians are urging patients to consider their options. Try medication, physical therapy, or change of diet first. Don’t rush into anything. Sometimes back pain disappears. In many cases, outcomes are better for patients diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer who choose “watchful waiting” rather than radiation. Breast cancer patients who choose lumpectomies over mastectomies are just as likely to survive, though in the worst-case scenarios, they may have to return for additional treatment.

Recently I quoted Dr. Donald Berwick, president of the Institute for Health Care Improvement: “The best health care is the very, very least healthcare that we need. The best hospital bed is empty not full. . . The best CT-scan, the one we don’t need.” This is the lesson that Americans need to learn—as quickly as possible. If they don’t, health care reform will sink under its own weight, wrecked by over-treatment and over-spending.

Going Like 60, into a Speed Bump

2009-12-13T17:15:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/populum/diarypage.php?did=15258

December 12, 2009
Going Like 60, into a Speed Bump
By Margaret Bassett

In the telling of "womb to tomb" stages, and to cope, we have arrived to the voluntarily retired, the involuntarily retired, and the poor soul hanging on by fingernails. In short, ageism will raise its ugly head.

::::::::

I was an early bloomer, if only because my husband was sixyears older than I. His inbuilt sense of survival from early days as an orphan in San Franciscostarted us on an investment strategy to offset having no pensions at work. Still, at 50 I certainly didn't want to think of quitting what I was making good money at. That was particularly true as I started a new career. Honeywell started some new Institutes to train recent college liberal arts graduates in computer programming. Teaching appealed to me, especially since I was accustomed to working with people younger than myself.

The Honeywell Institute, being new, depended upon their own sales personnel to attract a ready market. One of the recruiters, fresh out of college was a young man with the kind of social skills required to cinch a deal. They had a fancy brochure to back them up, explaining that the staff consisted of "seasoned computer professionals." The words hit me hard one day when I found my coffee mug encircled with them. I took the whole matter with good nature, but at the same time I wondered just what kind of graduates the colleges in 1970 were turning out. Private information let me know that this fellow did not pass the computer programmer aptitude test, although the Institute was nice enough to test his wife, who ranked well. Thus the free tuition for salesmen went to one spouse.

Already I thought of going back for a proper Masters. At Iowa I left with classes completed but no dissertation. The university had no one knowledgeable with my proposal (to write a manual for ESL teachers). This time, I was ready to start a graduate program (GRE intact) but it would be in vocational guidance, since I had no teaching certificate. At Roosevelt University in the College of Education, most of my fellow students were Chicago public school teachers where counseling would bring them higher on their career paths.

When the Honeywell experiment was canceled, due to adverse business conditions in 1973, my supervisor and I were hired at a commercial school similar to how ITT Tech is considered today. Here is where ageism fits. First, inflation was raging. Without even asking, I received substantial raises every year just to maintain the same standard of living. The bookkeeper in me hinted that with more years of service, the firm was ready to price me out of a job. But I also recognized that my employer needed someone to counsel students in accordance with professional requirements. Thus, I could possibly hold my job while doing something which seemed worthwhile. I could walk a few blocks after work to Roosevelt. And I could pay my own tuition, knowing all along that IRS would reimburse me for tuition and books as long as my employer stated that the courses were pertinent to my job. I spent money and time and then gained some money at tax time.

All of this I'm telling only to show that one has two early tasks. First, be sure the plan can be carried out and then test your support system. There came a time when my husband drove down to get me after class when things became more unsettled in the city. I graduated in 1975. (In 2 1/2 years I left town, only because it was his time to reorient from the Rust Bowl.)

The rules aren't the same now. Perhaps those who fit somewhere in the Baby Boomer generation are able to scour their choices easier than I did. But the desire to work until we want to quit is always present. Perhaps it's subtle, but underneath is the knowledge that a young worker will be around for more years at a lower salary than someone like I would have been. Until recently, part time for senior citizens was acceptable because they might have a guarantee of health insurance. (After we retired, we were hard put to find any coverage except possibly a major medical policy.)

I see ageism as being a subtle type of bigotry. Grandparents are to be revered, of course. However, others' grandparents who want to work are just in the way of jobs for TwentySomethings. Oldsters can mumble how "kid nowadays" don't have the skills they do and are only interested in the money. I think everyone will lose if we don't look forward to what may come across the country. As I mentioned, inflation was our worry. I see it coming in a year or so, again. Credit cards will charge more. In essence, be prepared for price hikes and hope there will be a way to trade services with friends and family.

Most of all, disregard TV and radio comeons. It's the likes of them which starts the snowball effect. Remember it was not a tsunami until the banks had wrung the little guy dry.

Spitting on the Boomers’ Financial Legacy

2009-11-23T15:33:00.001-08:00

http://dailyreckoning.com/spitting-on-the-boomers-financial-legacy/

Spitting on the Boomers’ Financial Legacy
By Bill Bonner

11/21/09 London, England – Okay! We’ll say what we’ve been thinking…

…that our children are going to spit on our graves!

First, Americans made a colossal mistake in the ’90s and the ’00s. They partied…they spent…they borrowed…running up huge debts in the private sector. Most kids could forget about inheriting anything from their parents; the geezers spent it years ago.

The boomer generation also made a mess of the biggest success story in world history – the United States of America. In the ’60s and ’70s – when boomers matured and began to take over – the US was still on top of the world. It had a positive trade balance…huge savings…massive investments abroad…and the strongest companies in the world.

They ruined it. The financial industry took over…replacing manufacturing. Instead of making things we could sell at a profit, Wall Street sold debt – mostly to us! In government, imperial ambitions pushed aside the restraints and good sense of the old republic. Overseas, military bases were set up in 120 countries. We now have unwinnable, trillion-dollar wars that could go on forever. At home, the sheep look to the government to solve every problem. Thirty-five million Americans – almost as many as the entire population of Spain – depend on the feds’ food stamp program for their daily bread.

At least, most Americans are making amends in their private lives. The old days, when the US was “the world’s mouth,” are over. We can no longer be counted on to buy up every gadget and gizmo produced in the world. We’re rediscovering the old virtues of thrift and savings. Frugality is back in style. If this continues, the Baby Boom generation may not leave the next generation with much net wealth, but at least it will not leave behind huge net debts.

But over in the public sector, the debt toll mounts up. The boomers want the government – which means, the next generation – to pay for their health care…their unemployment insurance…their bailouts and their handouts. The deficit for this year is expected to be about $1.5 trillion. Next year, it will be about the same. The feds say it is too early to pull back on their stimulus efforts. Housing credits and unemployment benefits have just been extended. A trillion-dollar overhaul of the healthcare system is in the works. Even assuming a real recovery – don’t hold your breath – the deficits are supposed to run $1 trillion per year for the next 10 years. More likely, as we reported in this space a few weeks ago, the deficits will be $2 trillion per year. By the time today’s 30-year-old gets a family…a house…and a mortgage, he will also have his share of a $20 trillion dollar deficit – not to mention the “off budget” obligations of the US government, a total of more than $100 trillion!

But wait…aren’t these spending efforts paying off? Isn’t the stimulus helping the US economy get back to into the pink? Don’t all these federal spending programs create a safer, more prosperous world?

Ah…tell that to the kids! “We were just trying to get the economy back on its feet…so you could find a job in a thriving economy,” we might say.

Take any two young people, 16-24 years old. Odds are, one of them will be unemployed. Joblessness among the young has hit 53% – a post WWII high.

Seven million jobs have been lost in the last 24 months. Employers are still cutting payrolls. And when business picks up…what kind of jobs are they going to offer? Will the next generation compete with the Chinese for low-cost production? Are they going to compete with the Europeans for high-cost/high quality production? Are they going to develop more mortgaged-backed securities? Or are they going to put on waiters’ aprons and take orders from clients who no longer dine out?

Good jobs will be hard to come by. Because the ‘growth’ of the bubble period – 2001-2007 – was a fraud. Instead of building up capital assets and creating more jobs, people borrowed money …and then squandered it. And now, the recovery is a fraud too. Now, the government pumps up the economy with cheap credit…borrows trillions…and wastes the money on pointless ‘stimulus’ programs.

And day after day, the debt builds up. Soon, it will be too big to handle. And then, these same young people – who can’t get a foot onto the lowest rung of the employment ladder – will be asked to shoulder this huge burden of debt left to them by their parents. You can imagine their reaction…

…they will spit on our graves!

Baby Boomer Die-Off: There Will Be No Social Security “Crisis”

2009-11-22T15:04:00.001-08:00

By Martha Rose Crow, M.S.

In July, I turned 52. Every time I have another birthday, I embrace it with marvel and wonder because it’s a miracle that I’m still alive. This is because I am keenly aware that I should have been dead a long time ago. Yes, I’ve had some big health scares in my life, but I am aware that something wicked is going on in American society. No, it’s not about Bush, his corrupt cronies and a neutered congress. It’s much more diabolical than that. The Baby Boomers are dying off.

The day after my birthday, I checked my email letters and found a frantic email from my Aunt Peach who lives in southern Ohio. My first cousin Johnny Ray or “Johnbo” had died (the day before my birthday). He had just turned 45 and had been sick with some kind of virus that had caused him to have surgery on his hip and back. Johnny Ray got up from the table and dropped dead. I’m still waiting to hear from relatives on his “cause” of death.

After I read the email from Aunt Peach, I began to think about my other two male cousins, also “Baby Boomers”, who had died in the past 8 years. My cousin Steve died in October of 2000 in a motorcycle accident (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070302115657.htm) at age 46 and then his brother Mark died at age 45 six months later from throat cancer. Steve and Mark had good professional jobs with good fringe benefits. Both Steve and Mark were the only surviving children of my Uncle Russ, leaving him childless and very alone in this world. A lovely man, it is a miracle that my Uncle Russ has survived these strikes against his life.

Then my thoughts turned to all the people - all “Baby Boomers”- that I knew had died. The list is so long that I had to think hard to remember most of them! The first people I thought of were my friends Steve and Shirley, a married couple that I was good friends with since 1983. Steve died of hepatitis (he was battling cancer) four years ago. He was 54. Shirley died of a heart attack at 58 two years later. Ironically, she was in a hospital in Florida being treated for a kidney infection when she just died.

Three of my four ex-husbands are dead. Two of my old landlords who were close personal friends are gone as well. All were Baby Boomers.

Although I lived in American Indian communities most of my adult life, and thus American Indians have shorter life spans (average of 45 years), I look around and I see that most of the people I knew as an adult are dead. Sure, they died from a variety of illnesses or “causes”, but these were people who never reached their prime and these were people who lived in the world’s wealthiest nation. Half of these people are white, too, not just Indians. All were “Baby Boomers”, born between 1946 and 1964.

BABY BOOMERS

After American soldiers returned home from World War II in 1946, the United States and other western countries experienced an explosion of births. This is where the name “Baby Boom”. This season of fertility continued for the next 18 years, when the birth rate began to drop. In 1964, baby boomers represented 40% of the population, which meant that more than one third of the population was under 19 years of age at that time.

In the past few years, Baby Boomers have been attacked by many groups, including regular people, representatives of government and by the propaganda arm of the “conservatives”; those thoughtless “think tanks” whose job is to create “crises” and then offer laissez faire or “free market” economic solutions for those “crises”. These solutions always come with a blood cost for the regular villagers never benefit from these “solutions” when the elite and corporations, on the other hand, prosper from the violent energies of western capitalism.

There is a plethora of articles on the internet raging against Baby Boomers, accusing them of a “Me Generation”, that we were too shallow, materialistic and parasitic, or that we are going to be a drain on good society in the future (for example, “Boomers to Feast on Social Security” www.wacotrib.com/opin/content/news/ opinion/stories/2007/10/19/10192007wacrncol.html).

Mindless think-tanks (they’re famous for “inventing” crises to effect draconian, conservative social change) accuse us of “crimes” we will “commit” in the future of “bankrupting” the government because Baby Boomers start will collecting Social Security when they retire. The costs to the System will more than bankrupt the government, these costs will force younger workers to pay more taxes into the System. In other words, Baby Boomers will become parasites to society only from the crime of growing old.

There is a reason why mindless, conservative “think tanks” sell these sensational tales: their corporate donor masters want people to invest their Social Security taxes in stocks. Now that wal-street is starting to implode from all its avarice and thus, the economy is crumbling, Social Security investment would have ruined many lives about to retire. It was always a bad idea to invest Social Security taxes in the stock and money markets and will always be a bad idea, but the lapdogs of wealth keep selling this idea. You can find these articles of bad faith all over the internet, including the Cato Institute. These articles have sensational and hate baiting titles such as “The Democrats Want to Raise Social Security Taxes” (http://www.socialsecurity.org/).

Right wing politicians want to pour Social Security taxes into the market to make it flush with wealth – wealth that can either earn a return or be lost forever because of the volatility of the market. Ironic that the big players always walk away rich from the market right before it goes downhill when “average” investors are the suckers that lose money.

If Baby Boomers aren’t being demonized by the media, politicians and others (including think-tanks) for being the group that’s going to bankrupt government, Baby Boomers are being demonized by those same people and groups for the futuristic crime of bankrupting the government for future costs of elderly health care.

Individuals, right wing talk show hosts, newspapers (financial and other), newscasts, articles on the internet, so forth, hysterically scream that the needs (including financial) of aging Baby Boomers will bring down the houses of government and society because of the costs of future payments. These people, financial and political representatives plus their agents (public relations firms, think tanks, so forth) keep repeating the mantra and slogan over and over: Social Security and Medicare are going to go bust because of the bothersome Baby Boomers.

Articles on the internet and newscasts scream how sick Baby Boomers are going to get and how much the public will have to pay for it:

• Smog will hit baby boomers' hearts hard: report (http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2006/07/31/smog-deaths.html)
Everyone knows that smog kills people and those deaths are not reserved for just Baby Boomers.

• 10 Million Baby Boomers Face Alzheimer's, Report Predicts
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/18/AR2008031802101.html)
Many articles on the internet say that there are 70 million Baby Boomers still alive. This means that one in seven Baby Boomers will get Alzheimer’s Disease. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alzheimer) has a chart that explains that 2 people per one thousand people, age 65-69 will get Alzheimer’s Disease. Only when people are older than 90 does the rate of disease go up (69 per one thousand people). THIS RATE IS MUCH LOWER THAN THE RATE CITED BY THE INTERNET ARTICLE AND SIMILAR ARTICLES.

• Diabetes Risk Grows for Baby Boomers
(http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9B0DE3D71331F931A3575AC0A961948260)
This comes from a 1987 article, thus proving the invisible, silent class war against Baby Boomers began a long time ago. More, diabetes has become an epidemic reaching virtually all segments of the population, including Baby Boomers. Baby Boomers aren’t the only ones stricken by this disease.

• Aging Baby Boomers Flocking to Doctors (http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/healthmedical/a/aasickboomers.htm)

• Baby Boomers Appear to Be Less Healthy Than Parents
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041902458.html)

• Optometrists Anticipate “Boom” in Eye Diseases as Baby Boomers Turn 60
(http://www.aoa.org/x5099.xml)

• Kidney Disease Timebomb Ticking in Baby Boomers
(http://www.pfizer.com.au/Media/Kidneys.aspx)

• Researchers Relate Arthritis And Obesity With Baby-Boomers
(http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Researchers-Relate-Arthritis-And-Obesity-With-Baby-Boomers-4585-1/)

Articles on the internet claim that large numbers of Baby Boomers will get alzheimers, back problems, hearing loss, cancer and more. Whether directly or indirectly, there are hidden messages in most of these articles and those messages are that Baby Boomers will cost society and government a lot of money for their medical ailments.

Instead of fixing the problems proactively and humanely, the rabid capitalist element of American society and government dominantly insist that the Boomers are the problem, not their Savage System.

THE JUGGERNAUT

A juggernaut is: “Something, such as a belief or institution, that elicits blind and destructive devotion or to which people are ruthlessly sacrificed.” (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=JUGGERNAUT)

There is no money set aside in some bank account for Social Security payments or Medicare. The money that people pay in Social Security and Medicare taxes is lent to the United States government to pay for its expenses including expensive wars. Social Security and Medicare aren’t going broke: They’re already broke.

People pay into Social Security and Medicare all their working lives. If they should die before they retire, all that money is lost to the government. The government and captains of capitalism only gain when people die off at an early age before the people are eligible for their benefits. The government “saves” money when people die because that it doesn’t have to pay out any benefits. Capitalists benefit, too, as they are safe from higher taxes (which means more profits to the investor class).

It is very fortuitous to the greed elements of society when Baby Boomers die before they become financial “liabilities” to the System. Instead of celebrating the milestones of a person’s life, the Savage Society finds Boomers millstones around their necks. This is because the elderly are not working, thus not contributing to society. You find this attitude and phenomenon in fascist societies. American capitalism is fascist and in that mindset, those who do not contribute to society economically and/or ideologically, must disappear permanently.

Unknown to many, the Nazis got rid of their elderly population the “logical” way: They had them killed either by doctors and nurses or by gas chambers in concentration camps. The Nazis did this with their own German handicapped and infirm as well. The aged, disabled, minorities and sick were looked upon as “useless eaters” in German society and industry.

America is an empire that certain people called neo cons want to cover the earth with. The first law of empire is to kill its redundant, independent, older and poor citizens. This frees up space, disappears critics and enriches the wealthy because they don’t have to share.

Baby Boomers lost a lot of wealth from the recent fallout of the mortgage bubble. Worse, they lost a lot of wealth in their homes.

Thus, many Boomers are facing stark economic futures. They have also been victims of layoffs because of their age and seniority (their jobs were outsourced, destroyed, sent overseas or they were replaced with younger workers without seniority so they would work for less).

My boyfriend’s father is 54 and he’s facing being laid off from his job. This man has worked faithfully as an electrician for a manufacturer for over 30 years and since this manufacturer was taken over by a giant international corporation, someone has to pay the costs so they are laying off workers with seniority and replacing them with younger workers that won’t cost so much. Work is this man’s life; what he’s lived for most of his life. Work is his lifeline and even if my boyfriend’s father gets a nice financial package with his layoff, it will take years off the man’s life because not having his job will put a big empty hole in his life that he was not expecting. Plus it will deny him the money he could have earned if he had not been laid off.

Ironically, my boyfriend’s uncle (mother’s brother) committed suicide two years ago at the age of 49. He killed himself because he lost his job as a tiler and couldn’t find any work but burger flipping at McDonald’s. It murdered his dignity to work for wages he couldn’t support himself on so he put a noose around his neck. And folks, this happened in Holland where there are still social safety nets in place. The working situation for Baby Boomers in America is worse…much worse.

Boomers and older people are also getting poorer because they still have to pay part of their doctor’s and hospital bills plus medicine costs. All of these costs have skyrocketed, thereby depleting Boomers’ savings and income. Many retired thought they had enough saved for the “golden years” have found out that costs for prescriptions by themselves are putting them in the poor house.

Baby Boomers are a juggernaut: They have to be ruthlessly sacrificed for the benefit of the elite and their System.

DEPRIVATION

Deprivation means, “The act of depriving” (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/deprivation) or “The condition of being deprived of what one once had or ought to have” (http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/deprivation)

There are two kinds of Deprivation in sociological and psychological circles. One is Relative Deprivation and the other is Critical Deprivation.

The word “relative” means related. In some scientific circles, relative deprivation is believed to be a phenomenon where people feel deprived when they can’t keep up materially with others, including their neighbors. But this is not the exclusive meaning of relative deprivation, just one meaning and the meaning social controllers and managers try to sell the public to minimalize, degrade or hide its other meaning. Another meaning for relative deprivation is when a person has the “basics” (enough to eat, a place to sleep and possibly medical insurance), but doesn’t have the other things that make life varied, different, unique, interesting and valuable. These things include variety in food to eat, hobbies, vacations, better choices of clothing, money for things like art exhibits/theatre/movies/zoos/museum visits and all the other things of life and civilization that add ambience, meaning and value to individuals’ lives.

Critical relativity means a lack of food, housing and other basics of life.

Historically, many older people in America have historically found themselves riding the fence between critical deprivation and relative deprivation. This phenomenon is a structural problem of the System. Either deprivation or a combination of both deprivations is deadly because when people live in stark, dark lives, they die!

They don’t teach this in school and the media never covers it, but everyone in governing circles or esoteric graduate school classes knows this: Take away someone’s Quality of Life and they will die from deprivation or what I call “Adult Failure to Thrive.”

Many people are aware of the “infant failure to thrive”. They know that infants who are neglected and not cuddled, talked to and loved will begin to wither and die. This is the same phenomenon for “Adult Failure to Thrive,” only some of the factors for it are more advanced.

A Quality of Life is different for many people, but it begins with decent food, decent housing, medical care, some material comforts, recreation, hobbies, a yearly vacation, money for essentials like clothes, shoes to birthday presents, and all the other things that make life healthy for an individual.

Deprive people a Quality of Life and they start dying in droves. This is what I’ve observed all my life and I’m (plus others) are observing it becoming more now.

“Americans at the 95th income percentile or higher can expect to live nine years longer than those at the 10th percentile or lower. The poor are more likely to develop illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and cancer, and there is evidence that relative deprivation and the stress it engenders are involved. When high inequality and rising top incomes shift society’s accepted standards of living upward, it seems that people experience deprivation even when they have adequate food, clothing, and shelter.”
(http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/07/unequal-america.html)

The article (“Unequal America”) where I get my above quote from also says, “The United States no longer boasts anywhere near the world’s longest life expectancy. It doesn’t even make the top 40… Research indicates that high inequality reverberates through societies on multiple levels, correlating with, if not causing, more crime, less happiness, poorer mental and physical health, less racial harmony, and less civic and political participation.”

The “free market” is not free. It is a very violent and thus ruthless economic system that causes a wide gap between the wealthy and the common man. The rich are making off like the (legal) bandits they are whereas everyone else, including the Baby Boomers, are becoming disempowered plus poorer financially and socially.

The rich and upper classes have their own retirement accounts and thus, it is in their “best interest” not to support other classes with things like taxes for Social Security and Medicare. Most of the elite see recipients of any social safety nets as parasites, “stealing” away the elite’s wealth by taxes to support these “useless eaters”. Again, the elite want to use the tax money people pay into Social Security and Medicare for their wal-street ponzi schemes that will mostly benefit bankers, stock brokers, hedge fund managers and other elements of the established financial structures of America.

SOLVING THE BABY BOOMER AND SOCIAL SECURITY PROBLEMS PERMANENTLY

The Baby Boomers are dying off. That is my observation from my personal experiences but it is the observation of others as well. At the website “Baby Boomer Death Counter Clock: Permanent Retirement (http://www.boomerdeathcounter.com/)
shows that 8.03300909% of USA Baby Boomers are dead. It says that 69,766,596 USA Baby Boomers are still live. The site says that every 48.4 seconds another Baby Boomer dies plus it says that 1,786.1 Baby Boomers died in the last 24 hours. The first two counters run continuously, so the percentage of dead Baby Boomers and alive Boomers are constantly changing. More, the site says, “"the big Boomer Die Off will accelerate around 2015 and the majority of boomers will be dead by 2025." So much for the threat of Baby Boomers living to a hundred years and thus costing “society” excess money!

There is a sister site for Canada (http://www.boomerdeathcounter.com/canada.htm). The site’s continuous counters say that 4.18009914% Canadian Baby Boomers are dead and there are 8,507,433.987 alive. The minutes before the next Canadian Boomer dies is 12.57 and the amount of Canadian Baby Boomers that died in the last 24 hours was 114.55.

These internet sites are alarming because they confirm what I and others have observed: The Baby Boomers are dying out and other segments of the population maybe dying out as well.

How fortunate for the government and the elite.

POSTSCRIPT

On July 3rd, six days before my birthday, I received two emails from two friends in America. “Charlene” lives in central Minnesota and “Bill” lives in Arizona. She is 45 and he is 52. Both are college educated (Charlene has two college degrees) and both have a great sense of humor. I find it ironic and horrible that both told me the same thing: That life had no more quality for them and they were “waiting to die.”

Charlene is still paying off student loans she accrued over tweny years ago with a salary of $14,500 a year. She and her daughters go hungry at the end of every month.

Bill is a whistle blower and for that, he lost his businesses and family. He also ekes out a small living like Charlene.

On the same day I received the emails, the Labor Department reported that 62,000 jobs were lost in June. More, both April and May’s job losses were revised, taking their combined job losses to 129,000, compared to an early estimate of 77,000 jobs lost (http://www.financialweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080703/REG/960844336/1028/COMPENSATION).

The chances for Charlene, Bill and other Baby Boomers to find better work are bleak. Although I don’t agree with them, I understand why they are waiting to die.

As the saying goes, “Every time a person dies, a library burns.” How tragic for the world to lose all that potential only because someone is not seen as profitable and/or a problem for western capitalism.

•••

I had a feeling to wait before I contacted publishers about this article. Sure enough, my intuition was right. Since I wrote this article, new information has come out to support this article.

On July 17th, two newspaper articles appeared about American inequality in longevity and low standards of well being. The first article, “American inequality highlighted by 30-year gap in life expectancy (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/american-inequality-highlighted-by-30year-gap-in-life-expectancy-869736.html) says, “…The US finds itself ranked 42nd in global life expectancy and 34th in survival of infants to age…. The report shows that although America is one of the richest nations in the world, it is woefully behind when it comes to providing opportunity and choices to all Americans to build a better life…"

The second article, “Development: US fails to measure up on 'human index'” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jul/17/internationalaidanddevelopment.usa) says, “Despite spending $230m (£115m) an hour on healthcare, Americans live shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed country.”

The article continues, “"We get in this report ... an evaluation of what the limitations of human development are in the US but also ... how the relative place of America has been slipping in comparison with other countries over recent years… "The Measure of America reveals huge gaps among some groups in our country to access opportunity and reach their potential," said the report's co-author, Sarah Burd-Sharps. "Some Americans are living anywhere from 30 to 50 years behind others when it comes to issues we all care about: health, education and standard of living."

On July 25, an article titled “America’s forgotten poor” (http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/?page=editorial&id=666&catID=17) says, “…There are two Americas. There is the one of popular imagination and tourist brochures, highlighting the extravagances of New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, the quiet wealth of New England and the showy opulence of Texas. But there is also the US of itinerant Latino workers, poorly educated African Americans without jobs, white farmers in the south unable to survive on a few acres, ex-soldiers living in the streets. And lots of families struggling to cope, with many parents holding down two or more jobs and still not earning enough for food, clothes and housing…

All of these articles talk about deprivation, whether critical or relative or a blend of both. And where you find deprivation, you find human deaths that are attributed to something else. Like any other living thing, people don’t grow or thrive in deprived situations.

Recession Intensifies GenX Discontent at Work

2009-11-18T02:27:00.001-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091115/ap_on_bi_ge/us_antsy_gen_xers

Recession Intensifies GenX Discontent at Work
Martha Irvine
The Associated Press
Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:32 EST

They're antsy and edgy, tired of waiting for promotion opportunities at work as their elders put off retirement. A good number of them are just waiting for the economy to pick up so they can hop to the next job, find something more fulfilling and get what they think they deserve. Oh, and they want work-life balance, too.

Sounds like Gen Y, the so-called "entitlement generation," right?

Not necessarily, say people who track the generations. In these hard times, they're also hearing strong rumblings of discontent from Generation X. They're the 32- to 44-year-olds who are wedged between baby boomers and their children, often feeling like forgotten middle siblings - and increasingly restless at work as a result.

"All of a sudden, we've gone from being the young upstarts to being the curmudgeons," says Bruce Tulgan, a generational consultant who's written books about various age groups, including his fellow Gen Xers.

This isn't the first time Gen Xers have faced tough times. They came of age during a recession and survived the dot-com bust of 2000. In recent years, though, more members of the generation - stereotyped early on as jaded individualists - had families or began settling down in other ways. It was time, they thought, to enjoy the rewards of paying some dues.

"We were starting to buy into the system, at least to some extent," Tulgan says, "and then we got the rug pulled out from under us."

Now, in this latest recession, nearly two-thirds of baby boomer workers, ages 50 to 61, say they might have to push back their retirement, according to a recent survey from Pew Research.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the age spectrum are Gen Yers, who are often cheaper to hire and heralded for their coveted high-tech knowledge, even though many Gen Xers consider themselves just as technologically savvy.

"It's so annoying," says Lisa Chamberlain, another Gen Xer who wrote the book Slackonomics: Generation X in the Age of Creative Destruction. "First, it was always the baby boomers overshadowing everything. Then there was this brief period in the mid-'90s where Gen X was cool.

"Now it's, 'What are the new kids doing?' It's like 'Yo, hello, the Google guys are Gen Xers.'"

They can sound a little whiny. But there's also some evidence that Gen Xers really are being taken for granted at work.

One survey done this year for Deloitte Consulting LLP, for instance, found that nearly two-thirds of executives at large companies were most concerned about losing Gen Y employees, while less than half of them had similar concerns about losing Gen Xers.

The assumption is often that Gen Yers are the least loyal and most mobile, says Robin Erickson, a manager with Deloitte's human capital division.

However, she points out that a companion survey of employees found that only about 37 percent of Gen Xers said they planned to stay in their current jobs after the recession ends, compared with 44 percent of Gen Yers, 50 percent of baby boomers and 52 percent of senior citizen workers who said the same.

Everyone surveyed worried about job security. Gen X and Gen Y were most likely to complain about pay. But a "lack of career progress," was by far the biggest gripe from Gen Xers, with 40 percent giving that as a reason for their restlessness, compared with 30 percent of Gen Yers, 20 percent of baby boomers and 14 percent of senior workers.

Gen Yers, meanwhile, were more likely than the other generations to cite "lack of challenges in the job" as a reason they would leave, while baby boomers more often chose "poor employee treatment during the downturn" and a "lack of trust in leadership."

The Deloitte study warns of a "resume' tsunami" once economic recovery begins, especially among Gen Xers, and notes that many executives were largely unaware of employee complaints unrelated to money.

Such findings don't surprise Rich Yudhishthu, a 37-year-old Gen Xer who's a business development consultant from Minneapolis.

"The lack of promotional opportunities has pretty much killed job loyalty within a generation," he says.

Liza Potts, a 35-year-old professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., agrees, but also notes that the disillusionment took hold for many of her peers as far back as childhood.

"Many of my friends had hoped to have jobs like their parents - places they would stay forever that would take care of them like they did their parents. But then we saw that start to crumble for our folks," she says, recalling friends whose fathers and mothers got laid off from companies such as IBM or had to relocate.

Now worried about their own foreclosures, debt and unemployment, her generation is left to do the soul-searching their parents did.

"Is there still time to become something different? Must we just accept where we are? Is there time to innovate elsewhere?" asks Potts who left her own career in the software and Internet industry for a life in academia. It's meant less money, she says, but also more freedom to choose her work hours and projects.

In Chicago, 40-year-old real estate agent Adon Navarette has taken on extra jobs to make it, from consultant for an energy supply company to starting his own health and wellness business. He's heard his peers sniping about other generations, but also thinks their experience with other rough economic patches makes them resilient, too.

It's a pivotal moment, he says.

"What's going to define me as a Gen Xer is how I come out of this. What's going to define me is, 'What have I done to allow myself to take advantage of the market when the market turns around?'" he says.

Sometimes, it means working for less money.

Jon Anne Willow, co-publisher of ThirdCoastDigest.com, an online arts and culture site in Milwaukee, is among employers who've recently been able to hire more experienced candidates for jobs traditionally filled by 20somethings.

They're hungry to work, she says. And as she sees it, that gives her fellow Gen Xers and the baby boomers she's hired a distinct advantage over a lot of the Gen Yers she's come across.

"When the dust settles, they'll be exactly as they were before and we'll just have to sift through them and take the ones that actually get it and hope the rest find employment in fast food," she quips.

Spoken like a truly jaded Gen Xer.

Happy Days Are Here Again for Wall Street but Main Street Is Too Poor to Retire

2009-10-24T15:34:00.000-07:00

Happy Days Are Here Again for Wall Street but Main Street Is Too Poor to Retire
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
October 24, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/143445/

Goldman Sachs just posted profits of more than 5 bucks per share. Goldman's people will take home more in bonuses this year than at any point in its 140 year history. Goldman's not alone -- the whole financial sector is up!

My mother is a social worker. She's worked steadily since she was 14 years old. She was looking forward to retiring last year and thought she had it all worked out -- social security, a very small pension from the state in which she works and a modest collection of acorns in her 401(k) were going to allow her some dignified Golden Years. Not luxurious, just dignified.

That was then. Her 401(k) took a deep hit in the financial crisis. Now she's working a part-time job to make ends meet. Because of budget cuts, she just lost that and has been put "on call."

She's not alone, according to a new study (HT: Steven D.):

More Americans plan to delay retirement following steep drops in the value of their savings accounts, data from several new surveys show.

A study to be released on Thursday by Canadian insurer Sun Life Financial Inc found 65 percent of U.S. workers plan to stay on the job at least one more year than planned, an 11 percentage point increase from a similar survey in January.

"There is a huge drop in confidence that has taken place," because of the fall of stock markets since 2007, Wes Thompson, president of Sun Life's U.S. division, told Reuters in an interview. At the same time, longer life expectancies mean individuals need to build up more savings before they stop working.

"It's not retire at 65, get ready to die at 70," Thompson said.

The survey was conducted in September of 2009, when stock markets had already begun their recovery.

Also, a forthcoming study by Prudential Financial Inc found that 66 percent of respondents over the age of 45 said they may need to work longer than expected to afford retirement.

And a recent survey by mutual fund giant Vanguard Group Inc of Pennsylvania found that 45 percent of American investors said putting off retirement was "possible" and the figure was nine percent points higher among people in their fifties.

Fight the Freeze. Save Social Security!

2009-10-22T06:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Fight-The-Freeze-Save-Soc-by-Marcy-Winograd-091021-884.html

October 21, 2009
Fight The Freeze! Save Social Security!
By Marcy Winograd

Let's thank Congressman Anthony Weiner, our single payer champ, for taking to the streets of New York again, this time to protest the Social Security Administration's policy decision to freeze the cost of living adjustment (COLA) on Social Security benefits. Unlike last year, when seniors and the disabled received a 5.8% increase in their monthly benefit checks, Social Security checks in 2010 and 2011 will remain stagnant.

The Arctic freeze, the first one in 35 years since the automatic COLA went into effect during the Nixon administration, comes at a politically bad time, when Wall Street executives, high off their no-strings-attached bank bail-out, are skipping around the conference room with $140-billion in salaries and bonuses, a three-year high in compensation.

Compare that to the average senior's Social Security check -- $1100 per month.

No belt-tightening for AIG, Goldman Sachs, or Bank of America.

Only for the old, the veterans, and the disabled.

Some, like the AARP, are supporting the House-approved one-time $250 bonus to Social Security recipients. Instead of getting last year's COLA boost of roughly $600, they're getting an additional $80 per year, or $7 per month, enough to buy scrambled eggs and toast at Denny's.

Not much comfort in that.

From the words of one senior quoted in an Associated Press report, “We were good citizens all of our lives. We went to work, we lived by the book, we weren't on welfare, we didn't ask the city for anything "”

Defenders of the COLA freeze argue the formula is tied to the Consumer Price Index and prices are down – on oil. But utility costs are on the rise – almost 30 percent. Medicare costs for hospitalization and doctor visits will be capped for most, though not all recipients, but prescription drug costs under Medicare Part D will increase because Part D is not tied to the COLA freeze.

Forget the formulas.

Remember the bigger picture. Ever since former President Roosevelt proudly handed the first social security check to another former president, Harry Truman, the right wing in this country has been driven to destroy the greatest safety net to emerge from the New Deal.

You hear it over and over. Social Security is facing a financial crisis. The Social Security trust fund will soon be bankrupt.

Pinocchio.

Social Security, with its monthly benefits to some 57 million seniors, widows, and disabled, is hardly bankrupt – quite the contrary. In fact, the Social Security trust fund has an estimated $2-trillion dollars in it – and, according to the Congressional Budget Office 2009 analysis of long term projections, this “rainy day” trust fund could last another 30-40 years before we have to dip into the other Social Security fund, the pay-as-you-go system, where this generation of workers pays for the benefits of current retirees, just as today's retirees paid for the benefits of the previous generation.

Let's look at the numbers. In 2008 Social Security collected 700 million dollars, and paid out only 500 million. The extra 200 million dollars went into the trust fund.

Impartial experts estimate that the trust fund will grow to more than 3 trillion dollars in the next eight years. In 2018 Social Security will begin drawing down the trust fund to supplement its regular income, in order to pay the benefits of the baby boomers .

In 2083, over 70 years from now, we will be looking at reducing benefits by 20 percent, unless, of course, we wisely decide to raise the salary ceiling on Social Security taxes.

To fund Social Security, employers pay a 6.2% tax while employees pay the other 6.2% -- up to $107,000 in salary. If a CEO of a health insurance giant makes $20-million in salary, bonuses, and stock options, that CEO still only gets taxed on the first $107,000.

Could anyone seriously be worrying about a small tax increase 30-70 years from now?

Probably not.

The real enemies of government, those masquerading as free-marketers, insist Social Security and Medicare are to blame for our deficit, now estimated at $1.4 trillion. Not true. In fact, it's the other way around. The federal government borrows from Peter to pay Paul, gobbling up special Social Security trust fund bonds to cover the costs of the Bush tax cuts and the trillion dollar occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the bloated military budget and ever-expanding bases.

Social Security is in danger, but not because money is running out. No, Social Security is in jeopardy because Republicans, with the help of Blue Dog Democrats, the same big business shills thwarting the public option, are building their case against our treasured old-age safety net in order to undermine our belief that government is the commons, here for the common good, to protect and provide - with fire departments, libraries, police, national parks and public schools. Should the Right succeed in stigmatizing big government as creeping socialism, publicly-funded institutions will be up for grabs, for privatization, for profit, and for greed.

If we accept the 2010 COLA freeze, if seniors fail to loudly protest, both with their feet and their votes, then we may be looking at another freeze in 2012, 2013 and beyond, while the Right continues to hammer away at the big lie – that we cannot afford Social Security, that this entitlement program must be “re-adjusted” until we adjust ourselves right out of this safety net.

Safety nets are as old as time. The Greeks had olive oil, which they stockpiled for old age, when they could trade it for desired goods. The Old English set up poor houses to feed and clothe not just the poor, but the old. Reactionary forces, also as old as time, wanted to discourage the poor and the old from taking advantage of this safety net, so they required Poor House participants to wear a huge P on their chests.

In America, we must be ever vigilant about protecting Social Security, which means that the question of solvency must be addressed now, urgently, before the insolvency meme spirals out of control.

If it hadn't been for the people raising alarm, jamming phone lines to their congressional reps, President Bush – roaming the countryside with his free market blather - might have succeeded in privatizing our retirement money in a collapsing stock market, replete with auction rated securities frozen at auction and real estate mutual funds buried by toxic mortgages in Las Vegas.

But the beat goes on – Senator George Voinovich, (R-Ohio), the guy who literally turned the lights off to shut down a committee hearing on constitutional rights violations, teamed up with Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn), the once-Democrat who introduced John McCain as the Republican Presidential nominee, to push legislation appointing a study commission reminiscent of the 1981 Greenspan Commission to overhaul Social Security. From Voinovich's press release – “The proposal, dubbed the SAFE (Securing America's Future Economy) Commission Act, seeks to establish a commission that will examine our tax and entitlement programs. The hope is that the commission will offer recommendations on how to reform a system the senators deemed unsustainable and irresponsible.”

The senators say they reserve the right to attach the “study commission” proposal as an amendment to a relevant bill.

Trouble in River City.

Under the proposal, an 18-member bipartisan committee, four lay people, and two members of the executive branch, will study the situation for one year before making recommendations that Congress will then accept or reject as a package deal – an up or down vote, take it or leave it. Lieberman said “a special commission with fast track procedures is needed in this case because of the political difficulty of making such sweeping changes.”

With enough fear-mongering, you might convince congress members who went along with the Iraq invasion and overnight bank bail-outs to approve a study commission's recommendation phasing in social security cuts over a ten year period -- until suddenly the country wakes up, opens its eyes and finds the entitlement program is at best an anemic image of its former self.

Here's how the hatchet job works. Politicians, like Lieberman and Voinovich, have to cut benefits without looking like they're cutting benefits. It was done that way before. In 1984 the Social Security age eligibility was raised on a gradual scale, moving the regular retirement age from 65-67. Also in 1984 Social Security, which was never before subject to income tax, became taxable for anyone whose income is greater than $25,000 per year.

Finally in 1998, the cost of living adjustment formula was revised to pay less. This change didn't even require a vote by Congress.

Only an administrative correction.

And there's no telling what new tricks a supposedly impartial commission might come up with for hidden cuts. One of the most dangerous ways that Social Security may be cut is through a balanced budget amendment or balanced budget legislation that would provide for across-the-board cuts in all government spending, to make up for budget shortages.

So what can we do about the pressure to cut Social Security? Do we have to sit still and let Social Security be cut again to protect the budget against growing deficits resulting from Mastercard wars and occupations?

Absolutely not.

As a candidate for Congress in California's 36th district, I am committed to protecting Social Security from any commission bent on slashing benefits or privatizing our greatest safety net, one of the most remarkable accomplishments of the New Deal.

Fight the COLA freeze.

Long live Social Security!

Congressional candidate Marcy Winograd, of Progressive Democrats of America,is challenging Jane Harman (CA-36)in the June 8,2010 Democratic Party primary. In 2006, Winograd mobilized almost 40% of the vote in only three months of campaigning. To learn more about her campaign, visit winogradforcongress.com or Marcy Winograd for Congress on Facebook.

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Pensions: the Next Casualty of Wall Street

2009-10-21T14:45:00.001-07:00

The vampiric, parasitic elite class sucked it all dry! More, they're getting away with it!

October 20, 2009

Uncomfortable Arithmetic
Pensions: the Next Casualty of Wall Street

By MARK BRENNER

Nobody wants to admit it, but the next casualty of the Wall Street meltdown will probably be your golden years. For years corporations have been trying to choke the life out of traditional pensions, working hard to get out from under the risk—and the cost—of providing for their retirees. Between last year’s credit crunch and changes to federal pension laws, they may get their wish.

Nearly $4 trillion worth of retirement savings were wiped out in the first weeks of the 2008 financial freefall. Half of the drop was concentrated in traditional pension plans, also known as defined-benefit plans. While most workers in these plans haven’t had their monthly benefits cut, unlike the 46 million people riding the stock market with 401(k) defined-contribution plans, the storm clouds are gathering.

Labor needs a strategy to protect what we’ve won. But holding our ground requires moving from defense to offense. If the pension crisis is going to be solved for union members, it has to be solved for everyone.

UNCOMFORTABLE ARITHMETIC

Even before the financial crisis, traditional pensions were a vanishing breed. Thirty years ago more than a third of the private sector workforce had traditional pensions. Last year that number was down to 16 percent.

Driving the decline were employers looking to get off cheap, eliminating pensions entirely when they could get away with it, and when they couldn’t, shifting to 401(k)s. These programs were legalized in 1978 and were originally designed to supplement traditional pensions. Now they’re choking them out like kudzu.

Corporations got a great deal, paying about half what they used to towards their workers’ retirement by the ’90s. Even more important—as anyone who has opened their 401(k) statement recently can attest—the move shifted risk off companies and onto us.

Traditional pensions were a collective solution to a collective problem. Young and old contributing together smoothed out insecurity for all. Now it’s just you and the stock market—with far less in your pocket.

Even before the crash, studies showed that 401(k)s leave workers with 10 to 33 percent of what traditional pensions provide. Given the 30-year squeeze on wages, most people haven’t saved much either, which explains why more than half of all 401(k) participants have less than $75,000 when they retire.

WHAT’S IN STORE?

Even for those with superior defined-benefit plans, the last 20 years have been rocky. Companies spent much of the 1990s gaming the system, siphoning off pension funds to pad the bottom line.

At the start of this year the nation’s defined-benefit pension plans had only about 75 percent of what they owed participants. Companies may need to contribute as much as $100 billion to cover these gaps.

Although Congress waived compliance with new pension rules this year (see page 9), the law will eventually take effect, and will force employers to cover these pension gaps. Rather than clean up their act, more and more employers are looking for the exit. By April of this year nearly a third of America’s largest companies had frozen their pension plans.

Many others are invoking the nuclear option, declaring bankruptcy as a way to unload their pension plans on the taxpayers. Unfortunately, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), established in 1975 to backstop private sector pensions, is already reeling from a decade of high-profile and expensive pension defaults at companies like United Airlines and steelmaker LTV.

Nine of the 10 largest pension defaults in history occurred since 2000, leaving the PBGC with a deficit of $11 billion at the end of 2008. That gap could swell to more than $100 billion over the next few years, amounting to a backdoor bailout for big corporations, and a bitter pill for abandoned retirees.

Workers at Republic Steel saw first hand how it works when they had their pensions cut by $1,000 a month in 2002 by the PBGC and then cut again in 2004. Five workers from the Lorain, Ohio, plant committed suicide after the first time their pension was diminished. In the second round of cuts, retirees like Bruce Bostick, former grievance chair for USW Local 1104, saw their retirements fall from $1,047 a month to $125.

The situation for public sector workers isn’t much better. Although 80 percent of public employees have traditional pensions, those benefits are now in the cross-hairs of conservative and liberal politicians. Two-thirds of public sector pension plans are underfunded—to the tune of $430 billion—and state and local budget crises are pitting taxpayers against public employees from California to Maine.

ANCHORING RETIREMENT

For nearly 20 years the various financial bubbles—from the dot-com frenzy of the 1990s to the recent housing market run-up—papered over the urgent need to address the faltering retirement system.

Wall Street’s collapse last year revealed how the current patchwork of retirement plans is failing almost everyone. As with health benefits, union workers with stable pensions increasingly find themselves on an island of security in a sea of uncertainty. But the water is rising rapidly.

As the debate over the auto bailout and state budget crises revealed, defending your own decent pension is tough work when half the workers in the country don’t have any retirement at all.

The PBGC—which has been swimming in red ink since 2002—is currently set up to pay less than half of what people were promised. If the funding gaps widen, it could fall to pennies on the dollar.

There will be calls to bail the PBGC out—which needs to happen—1.2 million people now depend on it. A sensible demand is to make it function more like the FDIC, by guaranteeing 100 percent of pension benefits up to a reasonable threshold.

But reform can’t stop there.

If it does, workers are on the same path as before the economic collapse, with a temporary reprieve. Employers will still seek to drive union workers down to non-union standards and dump more risk onto individuals.

We need to return to the original vision of Social Security: a program that (like in Western European nations) can actually pay for most of your old-age living expenses.

Mark Brenner writes for Labor Notes, where this article originally appeared.

Wages & retirement benefits head to 20-year tumble

2009-10-19T09:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20091015/UPDATES01/91015083/Wages+head+to+20-year+tumble

Wages head to 20-year tumble
By DENNIS CAUCHON and PAUL OVERBERG
USA TODAY

A bad economy and low inflation are starting to drag down wages for millions of everyday workers and freeze benefits for millions of retirees..

Average weekly wages have fallen 1.4% this year for private-sector workers through September, after adjusting for inflation, to $616.11, a USA TODAY analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data found. If that trend holds, it will mark the biggest annual decline in real wages since 1991.

The bureau's data cover 82% of private-sector workers but exclude managers and some higher-paid professionals.

"Wages are usually the last thing to deteriorate in a recession,'' says economist Heidi Shierholz of the liberal Economic Policy Institute. "But it's happening now, and wages are probably going to be held down for a long time.''

Colorado announced this week it will become the first state to lower its minimum wage since the federal minimum wage law was passed in 1938. The state will cut its rate by 4 cents to $7.24 an hour Jan. 1, to reflect a drop in the Consumer Price
Index.

Retirees are also feeling some pain. Social Security announced Thursday that it will not give cost-of-living increases to beneficiaries next year because prices have fallen in the past year.

Weekly wages have tumbled largely because employees are working fewer hours -- an average of 30 per week -- than at anytime since the government began tracking the data in 1964.

Hourly wages are stagnant or declining, too. After adjusting for inflation, average hourly wages have dipped a half-percent this year to $18.67 an hour in September.

Prices measured by the CPI are down 1.8% from their peak in July 2008. For seven months, the CPI has declined from the same month a year earlier -- the longest stretch since 1955.

That trend is upsetting a wide range of wage-and-benefit packages in this recession.

Nearly 80 million people have wages or benefits tied to changes in the Consumer Price Index. Those include contracts for 2 million unionized workers, food stamp payments and some child support checks. The Labor Department announced Thursday that federal pensions won't increase next year.

The Consumer Price Index fell 3.3% in the last quarter of 2008. Most cost-of-living adjustments include the end of last year in changes that take effect Jan. 1.

Ten states link minimum wages to inflation. But, unlike Colorado, most states do not cut minimum wages when prices fall.

Ohio recorded a 0.2% drop in prices in the past year, says Dennis Ginty of the Ohio Department of Commerce. Like Social Security rules, Ohio's law permits only cost-of-living increases, never decreases, Ginty says.

Business groups say this one-sided inflation adjustment is unfair. "The bar should move both ways, up and down, if you're going to have a cost-of-living adjustment,'' says Shawn Cleave, a lobbyist for the Oregon Farm Bureau

Money the key to a longer life, says Economic and Social Research Council

2009-10-15T23:57:00.000-07:00

This is Concrete Proof why the serpent puppet masters keep 99% of the world poor and ignorant! They don't want us to live full lives or long lives. Once our 'uselfulness' is considered not to be valuable anymore to the elite, they want to put us down like any other older and/or sick animal. To the elite, we only exist to make them money (work/taxes/so forth) and they keep their serpent system erect so we die when they no longer want us to live.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5288280/Money-the-key-to-a-longer-life-says-Economic-and-Social-Research-Council.html

Money the key to a longer life, says Economic and Social Research Council
Money is the key to enjoying longer and healthier life, according to a new study.
By Chris Irvine
Published: 7:00AM BST 07 May 2009

Those with more wealth and better education are less likely to develop illness and tend to die later than those who are poorer and less well-educated.

The study, for the Economic and Social Research Council, also found that those who get the choice of early retirement are also more likely to enjoy a longer life.

Those with less education and money are more likely to say they are depressed or to suffer from illnesses such as high blood pressure, diabetes or obesity, according to the study.

Based on a series of surveys of 12,000 older people, the effect can be seen most sharply for those in their 50s and 60s although it persists as people reach retirement age.

It also found that older people who do charitable work are often healthier than those who do not.

"Early retirement is generally good for people's health and wellbeing unless it has been forced on them," the study said.

"Those forced into early retirement generally have poorer mental health than those who take routine retirement, who in turn have poorer mental health than those who have taken voluntary early retirement."

Professor James Nazroo, from Manchester University, who carried out the study, said: "These findings have implications for us all. Increases in life expectancy raise major challenges for public policy.

"Among these is the need to respond to marked inequalities in economic position and life expectancy at older ages."

The study comes as a report from the National Institute for Economic and Social Research claims Britons will have to work until the age of 70 if the Government is to stand any hope of bringing public debt under control over the next decade.

Full retirement after a life of work could actually kill you, claims new research.

2009-10-15T23:47:00.001-07:00

It seems to me that a lot of people are being forced into early retirement, including those Baby Boomers who are considered 'too old' to work in a glutted unemployed work force of younger workers. Umm...It seems to me that the serpent puppet masters want a lot of us dead by their 'jobless recovery'...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6327956/Could-early-retirement-kill-you.html

Could early retirement kill you?
Full retirement after a life of work could actually kill you, claims new research.
By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
Published: 5:13PM BST 14 Oct 2009

A new study shows that people who give up work completely are less healthy than those who carry on in a part time job.
It found they experience fewer serious diseases and are able to function better day-to-day than those who stop working altogether.

Those staying on in part-time jobs related to their previous career are also likely to fare better mentally than those who drop everything.

The authors claim it could be worthwhile to engage in "bridge employment," which can be a part-time job, self-employment or a temporary job.

Study co-author Dr Mo Wang, an American psychologist at Maryland University, said: "Given the economic recession, we will probably see more people considering post-retirement employment.

"These findings highlight bridge employment's potential benefits."

The researchers looked at data from the US National Institute on Ageing which quizzed 12,000 people between the ages of 51 and 61 on their health, finances, employment history and retirement over a six year period.

They looked at health problems such as high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, lung disease, heart disease, strokes and psychiatric problems.

The results showed those retirees who continued to work in a bridge job experienced fewer major diseases and fewer functional limitations than those who fully retired.

The participants were also questioned on their basic mental health questionnaire.

The findings showed that people whose post-retirement jobs were related to their previous careers reported better mental health than those who fully retired.

However, these mental health improvements were not found among people who worked in jobs outside their career field after retirement.

The authors say this may be because retirees who take jobs not related to their career field may need to adapt to a different work environment or job conditions and, therefore, become more stressed.

The study confirms previously held views that people who give up work after a life-time toiling can die soon after retiring.

Some store chains in the UK like B&Q, Tesco and Sainsbury's have a policy of recruiting older workers because of their previous experience.

The researchers also found pensioners with money problems were also more likely to work in a different field after they officially retire.

Co-author Dr Kenneth Shultz said: "Choosing a suitable type of bridge employment will help retirees transition better into full retirement in good physical and mental health.

He said employers who are concerned about a labour shortage due to numerous baby boomers retiring might consider bridge employment options for their retirees.

The findings are reported in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association.

Right-Wingers Believe Ayn Rand's Every Word, But They Forget She Wrote Fiction

2009-10-12T09:43:00.000-07:00

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/politics/143205/right-wingers_believe_ayn_rand%27s_every_word%2C_but_they_forget_she_wrote_fiction

Right-Wingers Believe Ayn Rand's Every Word, But They Forget She Wrote Fiction
By Colin Greer, New World Foundation
October 12, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://newwf.org//143205/

Ayn Rand is popular again. Her most popular novels Atlas Shrugged from 1957 and The Fountainhead from 1943 are still being bought in large numbers. While it's plainly fashionable for right wing activists and pundits to bandy about her ideas to discredit the Obama administration, it's worth remembering one thing...

The American right sees Atlas Shrugged as an almost prophetic masterpiece that describes "the economic lunacy" of the bailout and economic stimulus plan. As Stephen Moore (formerly of the CATO institute) explains in the Wall Street Journal, the warning of Atlas Shrugged is clear - the more government tries to fix things, the more they break. "When profits and wealth and creativity are denigrated in society, they start to disappear -- leaving everyone the poorer," he says, concluding that the abolition of income tax would be a much better policy idea.

Two new biographies of Rand and maybe even a new film, are in the works. The cult of Ayn Rand has inspired think tanks like the Ayn Rand Institute, and The Atlas Society, and she has numerous followers in high places, notably including Alan Greenspan (former chairman of the Federal Reserve and soloist for the out-of-tune hymn to the inexorable free market). A copy of Atlas Shrugged may have been one of the more popular accessories at recent TEA parties.

Ayn Rand was an immigrant from Russia who worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter. Ironically, her followers nowadays tend to hate both immigrants and Hollywood. If I could run a mandatory e-harmony, I’d have Lou Dobbs meet Ayn Rand. I’d have Glenn Beck meet Ayn Rand. She's the lady off the boat who invented a powerful free market imagery for them.

But remember: She wrote fiction!

In Rand’s novels the heroes pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. They made big profits in unfavorable economic climates. Try pulling yourself up by your shoelaces. It can’t be done. Its all story telling, with no basis in documented experience. And of course, she does not consider the collaborative context (school, roads, community) that make individual success possible. Rand's own life was a cauldron of broken connections, sexual indulgence, war on other people’s marriages, and narcissism of atomic proportions. Nothing new to show business. But pressing social issues are not show business. There is no real economics in Rand, and certainly no moral logic.

Steep Losses Pose Crisis for Pensions

2009-10-11T16:43:00.000-07:00

Another reason WHY the secret puppet masters need to kill off the Baby Boomers. They ripped off all the money and now there's no money left for Baby Boomer retirements!

http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=99116

Two Bad Choices for Funds: Cut Benefits Or Take Greater Risks to Rebuild Assets
By David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 11, 2009

The financial crisis has blown a hole in the rosy forecasts of pension funds that cover teachers, police officers and other government employees, casting into doubt as never before whether these public systems will be able to keep their promises to future generations of retirees.

The upheaval on Wall Street has deluged public pension systems with losses that government officials and consultants increasingly say are insurmountable unless pension managers fundamentally rethink how they pay out benefits or make money or both.

Within 15 years, public systems on average will have less half the money they need to pay pension benefits, according to an analysis by Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Other analysts say funding levels could hit that low within a decade.

After losing about $1 trillion in the markets, state and local governments are facing a devil's choice: Either slash retirement benefits or pursue high-return investments that come with high risk.

The urgent need for outsize returns by these vast public pension funds, which must hit high investment targets year after year to keep pace with rising retirement costs, is in turn fueling a renewed appetite for risk on Wall Street.

Before the crisis, many public pension funds had experimented with risky trading techniques or committed more of their money to hedge funds and other nontraditional firms, which in turn invested some of it in complex mortgage securities. When these melted down, pension funds got burned.

Now, facing an even bigger funding gap, some systems are investing in the same securities, betting that a rebound in their value will generate huge returns.

"The amount that needs to be made up is enormous," said Peter Austin, executive director of BNY Mellon Pension Services. "Frankly, they are forced to continue their allocation in these high-return asset classes because that's their only hope."

Some pension experts say the funding gap has become so great that no investment strategy can close it and that taxpayers will have to cover the massive bill.

The problem isn't limited to public pension funds; many corporate pension funds have lost so much ground that they are also pursuing riskier investments. And they, too, could end up a taxpayer burden if they cannot meet their obligations and are taken over by the federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp.

Public systems still have enough to meet their current obligations. If governments take no action, retirees could keep drawing full benefits for the foreseeable future even under the most pessimistic projections.

But already, some funds are seeking to trim benefits to conserve money. Some governments have also proposed increasing the amount of public money paid each year into the funds. In practice, however, some political leaders have begun doing the opposite -- cutting annual contributions to pension funds -- as a way of balancing state and local budgets buffeted in the recession by falling tax revenue and rising costs.

Around the country, governments are struggling with the pact they've made with employees.

In New Mexico, lawmakers passed legislation this year requiring public employees to contribute about 1.5 percent of their salary to cover retirement benefits. Labor unions representing 57,000 of the workers sued the state in response.

In Philadelphia, officials delivered an ultimatum to state lawmakers: Allow the city to take a two-year break from contributing to its pension system or Philadelphia would lay off 3,000 workers and cut sanitation and public safety services. Last month, the lawmakers not only granted the request, but extended the funding holiday to thousands of cities and counties, despite severe pension deficits in many of these places.

In Montgomery County, officials last year committed to setting up an investment fund to finance about $3 billion in retiree health-care benefits promised to employees. But when it came time to put the first round of seed money into the fund this year, county officials balked, citing budget constraints.

"We know we've got a huge health-care liability," chief administrative officer Timothy L. Firestine said. "Our plan was to work gradually to fund that. And this year we abandoned that plan."

Swift Change of Fortunes
Just a few years ago, it seemed far-fetched that Virginia's pension system would hit hard times. In 2003, the state's primary pension funds either had more money than they needed or, at a minimum, were nearly fully funded. And like their counterparts across the country, state officials assumed they would earn around 8 percent a year from investing in financial markets for years to come given the outstanding performance of stocks in the 1980s and 1990s.

But officials in Virginia and elsewhere soon began to wonder whether those two decades were a fluke. As pension deficits began to rise, officials questioned whether the investment assumptions were too optimistic. In 2006, Virginia's pension officials suggested scaling back benefits or requiring current employees to begin paying into the pension fund. The state's lawmakers took no action.

Then the crisis hit. Virginia lost 21 percent of the value of its portfolio, or about $11.5 billion. Maryland and the District, meantime, suffered drops of 20 percent.

The losses were typical of what pension funds suffered around the country. State and local government officials had predicted before the crisis they would have $3.6 trillion in their accounts by now, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Today, they are $1.2 trillion short of that mark.

Pension funds were not equally affected. Officials in Arlington County, for instance, say their funding levels remain above 90 percent. And even those that suffered huge losses say they have enough money to payout retirement benefits for years to come. Virginia, for instance, still has nearly $43 billion in its accounts.

But Virginia officials now estimate the funding level of its major pension funds will sink to about 60 percent by 2013.

From there, the deficit will grow even wider, according to Kim Nicholl, the national director of PricewaterhouseCoopers public sector retirement practice. Even if public pension funds were to hit their 8 percent investment targets every year, Nicholl calculated they would have less than half of what they need by 2025. This is because a greater share of the population will be retired and those who are will live longer, thus collecting benefits longer, she said.

"I don't think you can invest your way out of this. Plans are going to have to make changes," Nicholl said. "The scale of the losses was just so great and the liabilities are growing so fast, much faster than they can keep up."

For these reasons, billionaire investor Warren Buffett has called these pensions ticking "time bombs." The financial crisis, experts say, shortened the fuse.

Last month, Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine signaled he would consider the politically sensitive step of requiring the state's 100,000 employees to contribute part of their 2011 salaries toward their pensions. But the two candidates running to replace him -- and who would have to carry out the proposal -- have said they oppose it.

More Risk or Lower Returns
This is the dilemma confounding pension funds as they emerge from the wreckage of the financial crisis: If they shy away from riskier investments, they would be settling for lower returns that leave future shortfalls unaddressed. But by aggressively pursuing the higher rates of return they need, pension funds increase the chances they will be burned again by investment bets gone bad.

"State pension fund directors face enormous pressure trying to recover their investment losses. It will be tempting for them to consider investments that promise a high rate of return," said Sue Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, which plans to release a report on pension losses within weeks.

Traditional investment strategies, which rely on stocks, haven't fared well in recent years. To meet their obligations to retirees, pension funds tend to assume they will earn an eight percent return on investments each year. The stock market, as measured by the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, is actually down 32 percent this decade.

Like many states, Maryland had begun moving money from stocks into hedge funds and private equity before the financial crisis. The goal was not only to earn a higher return but to diversify the investment portfolio. Should stocks sink, the thinking went, less traditional investments might hold up.

The financial crisis offered a shocking retort. Nearly all investments, save for government bonds, tumbled at the same time.

Yet Maryland is now continuing its shift away from stocks and into nontraditional investments. Pension officials argue they have little choice.

"How do I act in the new environment? There aren't any ready answers for that," said Mansco Perry, chief investment officer for Maryland's pensions. "But I have difficulty throwing away 30 to 40 years worth of knowledge and practice and say that doesn't work anymore."

Some pension funds are also continuing to engage in other investment practices that got them in trouble during the crisis.

One such trading technique is called securities lending. In this transaction, a pension fund lends a stock it holds to a hedge fund and receives cash in return as collateral. The deal is meant to provide a twofold benefit: The pension fund can make money by investing the cash collateral and can continue to benefit from the stock through its dividends and any appreciation in its value.

Before the crisis, states committed billions of dollars to this practice. But when the credit markets seized up last year, pension funds got stuck. They could not access the investments they made with the cash collateral. Some had to sell off other investments at a loss to pay retiree benefits.

California's pension fund lost $634 million from securities lending as of March 31, but the total could reach $1 billion after a full accounting is done, according to a report from the system's consultant, Wilshire Associates. Still, the pension fund says it remains committed to the practice because it boosted returns in the two decades before the financial meltdown.

Pension funds have also been aggressively pushing into real estate and troubled mortgage securities that were crushed in the crisis. California's pension fund is putting $2 billion into buying these toxic bank assets. Financial analysts say the prices for these assets have fallen so far that they may be a better bet than in the past. But the crisis showed how unreliable these investments can be. And their prices may not yet have hit bottom.

In August, California's pension fund took a similar gamble by investing $463 million in shopping centers across 17 states and the District of Columbia, though many experts forecast a prolonged slump in commercial real estate.

Even if these strategies succeed, the shortfall may still be insurmountable.

In Ohio, for instance, the teachers pension system reported that it would take 41 years for its investments to catch up with the costs of meeting its obligations to retirees. That was before the worst of the financial crisis.

During the last fiscal year, Ohio's fund lost 31 percent. Its most recent annual report detailed how long it would now take for its investments to put the fund back on track. Officials simply said: "Infinity."

Early retirements strain Social Security system

2009-09-27T07:24:00.000-07:00

This is the BIGGEST REASON WHY they have to depopulate us! The jobs lost this time aren't coming back!!! There's few working people left to pay taxes let a lone Social Security taxes. The puppet masters (including the politicians) stripped the money out of Social Security a long time ago. Shit, they stripped the money out of every place they could! It was the BIGGEST RIPOFF IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!!!

So the evil elite parasites put poisons in our air (chem trails and pollution), food, medicine and every thing else to attrition (erase) us one-by-one from the Table of Life! The world's population is at a critical mass level: there are too many us to control by the regular means. If the evil demonic people in control want to continue controlling us, they have to kill off a bunch of us! More, now that there is little work available, the demon rulers feel that it is 'justifiable' because we have become 'useless eaters'. It doesn't matter that it was the demon rulers and their demonic economic system that turned us unemployable! All that matters is that we have become a 'problem' for the
system!

Below is yet another article from the mainstream news prepping the world for the 'justifiable' genocide that is to come. It is eliciting the approval of the younger generations for the destruction of the older generations because the younger generation will have to pay to support the older generation since the original Social Security money that the elders paid was given to crony bankers, politicians and capitalism a long time ago. It's not a 'news story' but a propaganda piece to prepare the Village to accept the coming genocide!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090927/ap_on_go_ot/us_social_security_early_retirements

Early retirements strain Social Security system

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer
30 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Big job losses and a spike in early retirement claims from laid-off seniors will force Social Security to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes the next two years, the first time that's happened since the 1980s.

The deficits — $10 billion in 2010 and $9 billion in 2011 — won't affect payments to retirees because Social Security has accumulated surpluses from previous years totaling $2.5 trillion. But they will add to the overall federal deficit.

Applications for retirement benefits are 23 percent higher than last year, while disability claims have risen by about 20 percent. Social Security officials had expected applications to increase from the growing number of baby boomers reaching retirement, but they didn't expect the increase to be so large.

What happened? The recession hit and many older workers suddenly found themselves laid off with no place to turn but Social Security.

"A lot of people who in better times would have continued working are opting to retire," said Alan J. Auerbach, an economics and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "If they were younger, we would call them unemployed."

Job losses are forcing more retirements even though an increasing number of older people want to keep working. Many can't afford to retire, especially after the financial collapse demolished their nest eggs.

Some have no choice.

Marylyn Kish turns 62 in December, making her eligible for early benefits. She wants to put off applying for Social Security until she is at least 67 because the longer you wait, the larger your monthly check.

But she first needs to find a job.

Kish lives in tiny Concord Township in Lake County, Ohio, northeast of Cleveland. The region, like many others, has been hit hard by the recession.

She was laid off about a year ago from her job as an office manager at an employment agency and now spends hours each morning scouring job sites on the Internet. Neither she nor her husband, Raymond, has health insurance.

"I want to work," she said. "I have a brain and I want to use it."

Kish is far from alone. The share of U.S. residents in their 60s either working or looking for work has climbed steadily since the mid-1990s, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This year, more than 55 percent of people age 60 to 64 are still in the labor force, compared with about 46 percent a decade ago.

Kish said her husband already gets early benefits. She will have to apply, too, if she doesn't soon find a job.

"We won't starve," she said. "But I want more than that. I want to be able to do more than just pay my bills."

Nearly 2.2 million people applied for Social Security retirement benefits from start of the budget year in October through July, compared with just under 1.8 million in the same period last year.

The increase in early retirements is hurting Social Security's short-term finances, already strained from the loss of 6.9 million U.S. jobs. Social Security is funded through payroll taxes, which are down because of so many lost jobs.

The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that Social Security will pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes next year and in 2011, a first since the early 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security.

Social Security is projected to start generating surpluses again in 2012 before permanently returning to deficits in 2016 unless Congress acts again to shore up the program. Without a new fix, the $2.5 trillion in Social Security's trust funds will be exhausted in 2037. Those funds have actually been spent over the years on other government programs. They are now represented by government bonds, or IOUs, that will have to be repaid as Social Security draws down its trust fund.

President Barack Obama has said he would like to tackle Social Security next year.

"The thing to keep in mind is that it's unlikely we are going to pull out (of the recession) with a strong recovery," said Kent Smetters, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. "These deficits may last longer than a year or two."

About 43 million retirees and their dependents receive Social Security benefits. An additional 9.5 million receive disability benefits. The average monthly benefit for retirees is $1,100 while the average disability benefit is about $920.

The recession is also fueling applications for disability benefits, said Stephen C. Goss, the Social Security Administration's chief actuary. In a typical year, about 2.5 million people apply for disability benefits, including Supplemental Security Income. Applications are on pace to reach 3 million in the budget year that ends this month and even more are expected next year, Goss said.

A lot of people who had been working despite their disabilities are applying for benefits after losing their jobs. "When there's a bad recession and we lose 6 million jobs, people of all types are going to be part of that," Goss said.

Nancy Rhoades said she dreads applying for disability benefits because of her multiple sclerosis. Rhoades, who lives in Orange, Va., about 75 miles northwest of Richmond, said her illness is physically draining, but she takes pride in working and caring for herself.

In June, however, her hours were cut in half — to just 10 a week — at a community services organization. She lost her health benefits, though she is able to buy insurance through work, for about $530 a month.

"I've had to go into my retirement annuity for medical costs," she said.

Her husband, Wayne, turned 62 on Sunday, and has applied for early Social Security benefits. He still works part time.
Nancy Rhoades is just 56, so she won't be eligible for retirement benefits for six more years. She's pretty confident she would qualify for disability benefits, but would rather work.

"You don't think of things like this happening to you," she said. "You want to be in a position to work until retirement, and even after retirement."

How the Baucus Bill Bilks People Over 50

2009-09-23T14:20:00.001-07:00

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/09/how-baucus-plan-screws-over-50-crowd

How the Baucus Bill Bilks People Over 50

— By James Ridgeway | Fri September 18, 2009

The people who stand to get screwed most by Max Baucus's health reform plan are those who aren’t old enough to qualify for Medicare, but are still old enough to be discriminated against by insurance companies.

For several months, the Columbia Journalism Review has been publishing analyses of the Massachusetts health care system, which in many ways serves as a model for the current national health care reform—a canary in the coal mine for the rest of us. The state mandates that all residents have health insurance or face a tax penalty. And while it does provide some regulation of private insurers, it doesn’t outlaw “age rating”—setting different premium rates based on age. This doesn’t apply to most working people who are covered by group plans through their employers, at group rates. But for the self-employed and early retirees—whose numbers are growing since the recession began—the costs can be devastating. CJR cites reporting by Kay Lazar in the Boston Globe, which found:

State law allows insurers to charge older people up to twice as much as younger people for the same coverage. In other states, the disparities can be even greater. One result is that more older people choose less comprehensive plans. Data from the Commonwealth Choice program, which offers state-approved private insurance, show that as enrollees grow older, more choose cheaper and less comprehensive coverage.

The main solution that’s been proposed for this problem is to make it “easier for self-employed people and retirees who are 50 to 64 to be exempted from a stiff tax penalty if they can’t afford insurance.” So rather than force insurance companies to stop discriminating on the basis of age, the state may begin “allowing” 60-year-olds to live without health insurance. So much for the great Massachusetts universal coverage model.

All of the major health reform plans that have been floated in Congress allow age-rating. And the Baucus plan endorses disparities even greater than those in Massachusetts. As the New York Times reports:

Under Senator Baucus’s plan, insurers would be permitted to charge older people five times more for their health insurance premiums than younger people. That proposal, first circulated in a Finance Committee policy options paper last spring, is a significant departure from the approaches put forth by three House committees and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Those bills would only allow insurers to charge older people twice as much as younger ones….

According to AARP, the lobbying organization for older Americans, the number of uninsured adults between 50 and 64 grew to 7.1 million in 2007, an increase of 36 percent over 2000. Among the main reasons for the increase: higher premiums demanded of older, sicker people seeking coverage in the individual insurance market.

Supporters of the Baucus plan and the other half-measure congressional health reform proposals have made a big deal of the fact that insurers won’t be able to turn people away, or charge them more, because they have pre-existing conditions. In other words, they can’t discriminate against sick people. They also cannot discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, and the like—meaning that the only form of discrimination that will remain legal is age discrimination.

This is, of course, another sop to the insurance industry, which worries about the effect on its profit margin if it is forced to insure everyone. As the Times notes:

By allowing insurers to charge so much more for older, often sicker people, “You’re just using age as a proxy for health status,” said Uwe Reinhardt, an economics professor at Princeton University. He estimates that Senator Baucus’s age-rating plan would allow insurers to cover roughly 70 percent of the additional risk they’d take on by being required to accept all comers, regardless of health.

Yesterday I wrote in some detail about how the insurance companies stand to gain from the Baucus bill (their stocks immediately jumped upon release of his proposal, which has no public option):

It doesn’t take Einstein to figure out why the Baucus bill is great for the insurance industry: If there’s no public alternative to compete with private insurance companies, guess where all those people will have to go to buy their government-mandated insurance? As for the touted co-ops and exchanges, all they are ultimately likely to offer is better access to private insurance.

And people of limited means will get government subsidies, mostly in the form of tax breaks, to buy private insurance—which means a transfer of funds from the taxpayers to private insurers. We might as well be writing our checks directly to United Healthcare, Wellpoint, and Humana, instead of the the IRS.

Saving Social Security From the Benefit Cutters

2009-09-17T15:29:00.000-07:00

They have to disappear the Baby Boomers so no one will apply for the disappeared Social Security funds...

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/474413/saving_social_security_from_the_benefit_cutters

Saving Social Security From the Benefit Cutters
by JOHN NICHOLS on 09/17/2009

Conservative critics of all things governmental love to talk about "saving Social Security."

But they use the term "saving" in the Orwellian sense.

Conservative plans to "save," "preserve" or "maintain" Social Security invariably involve gutting the program that provides an essential safety net for retired Americans and others in need.

The thing is that Americans, even those have not reached retirement age, like Social Security. And they recognize that, with minor tinkering in contribution rates for the wealthy and perhaps with the retirement age, it can be maintained for generations to come.

So overt schemes to render the program dysfunctional, like those advanced by former President George Bush and Congressman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, fail to attract public support.

The real threat to Social Security comes from backdoor plans that underfund and undermine it in the guise of "cost-saving" schemes that even some Democrats back.

An example of this is this year's decision by federal authorities, for the first time since 1975, to deny millions of seniors a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to their Social Security checks.

In fact, the trustees who oversee Social Security are projecting there won't be a cost of living adjustment for the next two years.

Denying cost-of-living adjustments has the effect of reducing the buying power of seniors who rely on Social Security to get by. While prices for necessities are rising -- especially for vulnerable seniors, according to studies by the American Association for Retired People -- the amount of money the seniors have to pay for those necessities does not increase.

That's an emergency for the 15 percent of beneficiaries who rely on Social Security as their sole source of income.

But it is no small concern for the 70 percent of recipients for whom Social Security provides more than half of their fixed- or declining- incomes. These individuals have taken particularly hard hits as the value of stocks and bonds have tanked in the past year.

"Many have seen their savings disappear, their pension funds severely decline and the value of their homes dramatically diminish -– all while poverty among seniors has gone up, as has the number of seniors declaring bankruptcy," explains Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who adds that, "It is my view that seniors are going to need help this year, and it would not be acceptable for Congress to simply turn its back."

Sanders and Congressman Pete DeFazio, D-Oregon, are responding to the cost-of-living cut by proposing the Emergency Senior Citizens Relief Act, which would provide Social Security recipients an extra one-time payment next year of $250.

DeFazio says it is urgent that Congress act. "Failure to provide a cost-of-living increase for seniors could not come at a worse time," says the Oregonian. "It would simply be unacceptable for seniors on fixed incomes to not receive the help they deserve to keep up with increased prices seniors pay for prescription drugs and medical care."

Social Security Trust Fund Shocker - $6B August Deficit

2009-09-10T07:57:00.000-07:00

Real serious stuff, folks!

This is WHY the evil elite have to terminate a lot of us, particularly the 'useless eater' elderly, Baby Boomers and all the generations to age 30. The bankers and other crony capitalists (including the filthy politicians in bed with them) stole it all! There's no money left to pay Social Security and with so many people losing their jobs, there's little money going into the Social Security coffers! The puppet masters have to kill us off before enough people wake up to realize that Social Security has been completely stolen! Then the psychopathic assholes that did this will be rooted out and will face prosecution! So they have to kill us so they can keep the money they stole and keep their asses out of jail! More, some of the crooks committed treason. You know what the consequences are for treason (capital punishment). I don't believe in capital punishment but there will be masses calling for it!!!

Also, if the serpent race is going to have their new world order, they need to erase a lot of people (as the world's population is reaching a critical mass point where they can't deceive or control the Souled anymore) and they need to erase living memories of history so they can rewrite history and culture; thus society. They can't afford to have cyborgs (part machine/part 'human') dreaming of another kind of life other than the one they're given by the 'Custodians'.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/sstf-shocker-6b-august-deficit

Social Security Trust Fund Shocker - $6B August Deficit

Bruce Krasting
Zero Hedge
Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:53 UTC

The Social Security Trust Fund reported an August net deficit of $5.865 Billion. This is the largest monthly deficit in nineteen years. Base on recent years data it was not surprising the Fund ran a deficit in August. But the magnitude of the shortfall was a surprise to me. This deficit is now the seventh in the past twelve months. That pace has never been seen before.

We deal with very big numbers these days. 100rds of billions and trillions are how we measure things. So a $6b monthly deficit for the Fund would appear to be a ho-hum. That is not correct. This is an important number.

The Actuarial analysis of the Fund is misdirected. Their focus is based on the future value. It should be focused on the here and now. In the June annual report the Trustees concluded that the Fund would be broke in 2037. This conclusion is so far into the future that it is easy for everyone involved to say, "this is a next year problem, health care comes first". Stephen Goss the Fund's head honcho said as much in a recent interview.

While there is a political case that we have to prioritize health care as an issue, it is wrong on a purely economic basis to ignore the exploding problems at the Fund. Every month that the status quo is allowed to continue makes the cost of the 'fix' that much larger. Based on the past twelve months performance I now estimate that the Net Present Value of future committed liabilities is in deficit by $7 trillion. To plug this sized hole would require a significant increase in payroll taxes. That isn't going to happen. Raising payroll taxes by 4% would kill the economy. No White House economist would advocate that. The alternative of cutting benefits would be very unpopular. There are currently 52 million beneficiaries of the system. A lot of them vote. To shore up the fund would require across the board cuts greater than 20%. While that may not be a hardship for some it most certainly will be for others. The only way to address this inequity will be a means test.

The August deficit reconfirms that the Funds foundations are wobbly. Some observations:

-In August the US Treasury had to borrow an additional $6 billion in the public market to finance the cash shortfall of Social Security. We already have too much paper for sale to fund the budget deficit. SS added to the supply problem last month.

-The 2037 Future Value of the August deficit is -$17b based on a 4% return. What this means is that there will be a very significant revision in the 2037 drop-dead date. Based on current trends the go broke date is closer to 2025.

-This is not just a bad month. The net decline in the Funds assets for June/July/August comes to $7 billion. In 08 that period was in surplus by $5 billion, In 07 it was +$7b and in 06 it was +$13b.

-The decline in payrolls is hurting the Funds' top line. January-July 2009 payroll tax receipts were down from 2008 by $5 billion or 1%. While the monthly declines in payrolls will fall over the next six months it is unlikely that there will be much net increase either. It will be a very long time before we see monthly gains of 250k. Without that kind of growth the Fund will quickly fall into annual deficits.

-The expense side is exploding. The September monthly benefits cost will be $56.6b up from $51.5 in 2008, a 10% increase.

-In 2007 the SSTF produced a surplus of $191b that it invested in the US economy. This year it will be closer to $100b. Based on the current trends that surplus will be gone by 2012. Six years earlier than the Trustees forecast in June of this year.

SS is the mother of all systemic risks. Even the debate on this topic brings risk. It will expose an additional $7trillion unfunded liability. Another reason for holders of dollars to worry.

There is no fix to this. Raising taxes is a dead end. Age warfare is a possible social consequence. The really bad news is that no one will touch this for another year. By then it might be too late.

Commentary: Baby boomers out, 'cuspers' in

2009-09-07T14:29:00.000-07:00

I hate it that my generation is getting blamed for greed and the other ills of this world when it's the psychopaths who did this, not us. Remember, we were the 'hippie' generation who wished for peace and love.

Now we're the target of socio-economic genocide and it seems that many people can't wait until we're all dead as someone has to be sacrificed for evil and the evil systems of this world! Notice this article was published last Christmas. Makes the message more evil. As for 'taking over with Obama', well Obama has proved that he is evil (hypocritical and contradictory and is a sycophant for the evil elite) so I wouldn't want to align myself or my group up with him.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/12/23/salzman.trends/index.html

December 25, 2008

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Marian Salzman: For 30 years, baby boomers dominated politics, culture
She says they've earned the title of the "greediest generation"
Salzman says next generation of "cuspers" is taking over with Obama
The cuspers are different and unlikely to repeat boomers' mistakes, she says

By Marian Salzman
Special to CNN

Editor's note: Marian Salzman is chief marketing officer and a partner at Porter Novelli Worldwide and is co-author of "The Future of Men" and "Next Now." She was named among the "top five trendspotters" by VNU in 2004 and has been credited with popularizing the term "metrosexuality." She blogs at www.pnintelligentdialogue.com. See Salzman on American Morning and CNN.com Live Monday, December 29.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Rarely has there been a year when so many things went out of style in such a short time: not just investment bankers, gas-guzzling vehicles, corporate jets, conspicuous consumption and political polarization, but also a whole generation.

After strutting and tub-thumping and preening their way across the high ground of politics, media, culture and finance for 30 years, baby boomers have gone from top dogs to scapegoats in barely a year.

As baby boomers lose their authority and appeal, generational power is shifting one notch down: to cuspers (born roughly 1954-1965), who arrived in style in 2008 with their first truly major figure, Barack Obama (born 1961).

George W. Bush, born in 1946 at the start of the postwar baby boom for which his generation is named, will leave office with the lowest approval ratings since Richard Nixon was president. As Thomas Friedman has written, Bush epitomizes what's now seen as "The Greediest Generation."

Who's to blame for the economy going into serious decline?

The short and easy answer is greedy boomers. This is the generation that knew better than their cautious, fuddy-duddy parents, the generation that protested, that had ideals and marched to the beat of defiant music: "Street Fighting Man," "We Want the World and We Want It Now," "Hope I Die Before I Get Old."

It's the generation that pursued pleasure, proclaimed "I can have it all" and refused to grow old -- "50 is the new 30," etc.

And now, after years of taking credit for changing the world, baby boomers are taking the rap for the reversal of fortune that's shaking the world.

Whatever history may decide, today's commentators and pundits of all ages have decided that boomers, the dominant cohort in many developed countries, are guilty. And whether they're really to blame, what counts is that they look like they are. Their profile fits.

Like a big-name Hollywood director who's lived on the edge too long, caused one too many scandals and made one too many turkeys, suddenly the boomers are the generation no one wants to be associated with.

Cuspers, the age cohort that have been living in the shadow of the boomers, now have even more reasons to stake out their own separate identity and values.

It's taken a long time for this rising demographic to be recognized as a distinct generation in its own right. They've been called "late boomers" because they missed the formative boomer experiences of the '60s, such as civil rights and anti-war protests.

They've been called tweeners or cuspers because they straddle the divide between Boomers and Gen X. American social commentator Jonathan Pontell has worked hard to establish their identity as Generation Jones.

There's still debate about whether cuspers are even a generation apart from boomers and where the generational boundaries lie. But those arguments miss the key point, which is that Americans want change.

In Obama, they see the hopeful prospect of a new generation taking over. And in these dark days, they're hoping against hope that his generation can usher in new, better values to guide the nation. His victory has been portrayed as the end of Vietnam War politics and the 1960s "culture wars."

About half those Obama named to major posts in the new administration are also cuspers including the proposed energy czar, education secretary, treasury secretary and U.N. ambassador. Cuspers may have another poster child if Caroline Kennedy, born in 1957, is named to the New York Senate seat that Hillary Clinton is expected to vacate.

Obama himself has made clear he thinks in terms of generational difference.

He has spoken of carrying on the work of the "Moses generation" -- the Martin Luther King Jr. generation -- whose successors he has referred to as the "Joshua generation." His activists rallied under the banner of Generation Obama, and his campaign's ability to mobilize the youth vote proved decisive in his victory.

Whether we call them cuspers, Generation Jones or Generation Obama, there are enigmas and paradoxes within this generation and its fans. They respond to Biblical imagery, but they're not dogmatic in their faith.

They value traditional notions of family but see men and women as equals in parenting. They go back to older American values -- civility, community, responsibility -- yet keenly embrace technology and use the Internet naturally.

In fact, embracing digital technology is one of the telling dividers between boomers and cuspers. It's no coincidence that leading-edge Cuspers such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Tim-Berners Lee, all born in 1955, helped create the digital universe cuspers and younger generations now inhabit as a matter of course.

It's also telling that Gates and wife, Melinda, another cusper, are the parents of philanthro-capitalism.

For marketers and brand specialists, cuspers are a fast-emerging challenger brand that's fascinating to watch as it defines itself and attracts fans.

Brand attributes once seen as disadvantages -- living in the shadow of boomers, a lack of major formative experiences, no "heroic" narrative -- have turned out to be advantages as the boomer brand loses its sheen. The cusper brand can define itself by what it's not: greedy, selfish, confrontational, hung up on past battles.

The cusper generation is as much an ideal as it is a demographic group, and that appeal extends well beyond the birth years that define it. Watch out for tweets (messages on the Twitter platform) that proclaim "Ich bin ein cusper."

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Marian Salzman.

The Recession Wiped Out $2 Trillion in Retirement Savings Over the Past Two Years

2009-09-06T05:30:00.000-07:00

The recession didn't wipe out the retirement savings! Greedy and evil, demonic bankers did!

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/09/05/obama_offers_steps_to_make_ret.html?hpid=politics

Obama Offers Steps to Make Retirement Savings Easier
By Scott Wilson

President Obama announced on Saturday a series of what he called "common-sense steps" to make it easier for workers to save for retirement, citing an urgent need after the recession wiped out $2 trillion in retirement savings over the past two years.

The changes, which he outlined in his weekly radio address, are largely technical and do not need congressional approval to implement. They are meant to encourage workers to put any extra pay or cash, including unused leave time and tax refunds, directly into retirement accounts, rather than spend it.

Obama said the Treasury Department would simplify rules, making it easier for workers to automatically enroll in an employee-sponsored 401(k) and other retirement plans, to use federal tax refunds to buy savings bonds directly, and to permit unused sick and vacation leave to be transferred directly to savings plans.

In addition, the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service are publishing a "plain-English" guide to retirement accounts, including how to roll over savings when changing jobs or plans. The changes and guide can be found at www.irs.gov/retirement.

"The fact is, even before this recession hit, the savings rate was essentially zero, while borrowing had risen and credit card debt had increased," Obama said. "Many were simply struggling to stay afloat as incomes were stagnant -- or falling -- and jobs were scarce."

"But there were also those who spent beyond their means," Obama continued. "And more broadly, tens of millions of families have been, for a variety of reasons, unable to put away enough money for a secure retirement."

Speaking on Labor Day weekend, the president said that 78 million people, or roughly half the U.S. labor force, do not have a retirement savings plan through their work. Moreover, fewer than 10 percent of those without employer-sponsored plans contribute to a private savings plan outside the job.

Obama said the steps announced Saturday are intended to build on proposals included in his budget, including an automatic IRA-enrollment plan and a government tax-credit matching program to encourage low- and middle-income families to save. Those measures are pending before congressional committees now busy with health-care legislation.

"We cannot continue on this course," he said. "If you work hard and meet your responsibilities, this country is going to honor our collective responsibility to you: to ensure that you can save and secure your retirement."

How to Lower the U.S. Deficit Without Killing Social Security

2009-09-03T06:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15013

How to Lower the U.S. Deficit Without Killing Social Security
By Shamus Cooke
Global Research, September 2, 2009

When it was recently announced that the federal deficit was $2 trillion higher than previously estimated, corporate vultures — after years of high-altitude circling — began their descent.

The dying entity they’re after is the U.S. social safety net — Social Security, Medicare, etc. Years of waiting have finally paid off; the long awaited pretext for scavenging has arrived in the huge federal deficit.

The day the figures were released The New York Times ran an article describing the humongous sums of debt (currently $11.7 trillion). The article’s concluding sentence was a quote from the Obama
Administration’s Budget Office: “…the president is committed to addressing the shortfall in the Social Security system.” (August 25, 2009). Although vague, the comment lines up with Obama’s election campaign promise of “reforming entitlement programs.” Not once has he said that more resources should be diverted to them.

Corporate-orientated Time Magazine was more blunt: “The real budget problems lie in the long-term programs, such as Medicare and Social Security… it's one thing to spend our way out of a recession. It's entirely different if we keep doing this forever.” (August 25, 2009).

Examples like this were replicated elsewhere in the mainstream media.

Obama also used the deficit news to promote health care reform and correctly blamed much of the deficit on the high cost of Medicare, itself the result of outrageous prices that corporations charge for health care. The problem is that nothing Congress or the White House is proposing will change this. The New York Times confirms:

“…even if a health overhaul does pass, it may not include the tough measures needed to bring down spending. Ultimately, the only way to do so is to take money from doctors, drug makers and insurers, and it isn’t clear whether Mr. Obama and Congress have the stomach for that fight.” (June 9, 2009).

Obama’s abandoning of a public option for national health insurance will guarantee that the health care mega-corporations will continue to price-gouge Medicare, handing the business elite the argument: “the giant U.S. deficit means that we can no longer afford large social programs.”

The real reason that the U.S. “cannot afford” Social Security and Medicare is because the Obama Administration has other priorities. Like Bush, Obama continues to spend billions of dollars on two foreign wars — Afghanistan and Iraq — while beginning a third in Pakistan. The truly insane annual military budget that existed under Bush will rise with Obama to $534 billion in 2010.

Another reason for the deficit is the bank bailouts, yet another policy of Bush’s that Obama continued and escalated. The Inspector General for the TARP bailout program, Neil Barofsky, reported that the potential costs for the bailout could be $23.7 trillion!

To combat the immense rage resulting from the bailouts, media outlets recently published reports of U.S. taxpayers “profiting” from the bailout as select corporations repaid their portion with interest, though the profits were minuscule and hardly attention worthy. It was admitted, however, that “The government still faces potentially huge long-term losses.” (New York Times, August 31, 2009).

Workers are not so naive to think that the Bush/Obama bailouts — the fiscal crime of the century — will earn them “profits.” Just the opposite is the case. The profits that some giant banks are reporting are direct results of the bailout, itself a gigantic “forced borrowing” from working Americans, who will be paying the debt with their cherished social programs unless they mount an organized protest.

Make no mistake, the corporate elite want the U.S. deficit taken care of and they don’t want to pay higher taxes to do it. They rightfully fear that foreign investors — most notably China and Japan — will quit feeding the American debt machine unless the deficit is drastically reduced.

Instead of making workers pay off the deficit, the corporate elite should be forced to. A plan of action to accomplish this might look something like this:

1) Pass REAL health reform: nationalized, single-payer health care without the insurance companies, eliminate the Medicare windfall profits for the pharmaceutical companies by operating these companies as public utilities and have the government set affordable prices for all medications. Over the years, this will save billions of dollars.

2) Pass the Employee Free Choice Act: unionized workers make more money, and will thus pay more in taxes to help reduce the deficit.

3) A massive jobs creation program: masses of unemployed workers cost the government billions of dollars in unemployment benefits. Creating living-wage jobs while rebuilding the U.S. failing infrastructure is a very logical alternative.

4) Tax the rich: The top tax bracket should pay what they paid pre-Reagan, which was 70 percent of their income. (If necessary, tax them what they paid under Truman, which was 91 percent.)

5) End the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

6) Drastically reduce the military budget.

7) No more bailouts: Make public all the bailout spending, and make all those who received money return it. If the banks cannot pay back the money, take over their assets, i.e., nationalize them.

8) Require that the rich pay the same percentage of their salary into Social Security as the rest of us. This involves removing a cap on salaries over $102,000 which eliminates payment into Social Security on salaries over that amount.

Of course such a plan is utterly utopian within the realm of the two-party system. Organized labor must permanently withdraw all support to the Democrats and direct its energy and resources toward a progressive political alternative. By creating a truly progressive political platform, the vast majority of society would quickly join their ranks, and the days of the two-party, big business politics would be over.

Our quarter-century penance is just starting

2009-08-31T14:25:00.000-07:00

Notice at end of article, "an army of baby-boomers have seen their old age plans shattered by the housing bust. Their nightmare is here."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6110621/Our-quarter-century-penance-is-just-starting.html

Our quarter-century penance is just starting

Never in modern times has there been such a flat contradiction between the euphoria of markets and the stern warnings of officialdom at central banks and financial watchdogs.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Published: 10:00PM BST 29 Aug 2009

Corporate credit has seen the steepest rally in almost a hundred years, according to Morgan Stanley. Hedge funds are reviving the final bubble play of early 2007, writing put options on long-dated "volatility" contracts to wring out extra profit.

It is as if the Great Contraction – as the Bank of England now calls it – was just a random shock, as if we should naturally expect "V-shaped" resurgence to take us back to where we were. Yet that is what precisely we are being told will not and cannot happen.

"The current financial crisis is unlike any others," says the Bank for International Settlements. Lasting damage has been done. The "cumulative output loss" is likely to reach 20pc of GDP in the major economies.

The message is the same at the International Monetary Fund. "The world is not in a run of the mill recession. The crisis has left deep scars. In advanced countries, the financial systems are partly dysfunctional," said Olivier Blanchard, the Fund's chief economist.

Mr Blanchard said an IMF study of post-War banking crises led to an unpleasant finding. "Output does not go back to its old trend path, but remains permanently below it."

Then the sting: we are exhausting the limits of fiscal stimulus. "The average ratio of debt to GDP in the G-20 economies was high before the crisis, and is forecast to exceed 100pc in the next few years".

We cannot add debt, so the IMF says we must draw down our future pensions and future health spending to keep today's economy afloat. "A modest cut in the growth rates of entitlements can buy substantial fiscal space for continuing stimulus."

Shouldn't bulls be sobered that the bastion of hard-nosed orthodoxy feels the need to talk in such terms, or that White House officials are preparing the ground for another round of emergency spending even as it reveals that fiscal deficits will reach $9 trillion over the next decade. This is $2 trillion worse than feared in March, and based on rosy growth assumptions.
It has certainly alarmed US retail tycoon Howard Davidowitz. "As a country we are out of control, we're in a death spiral," he said.

All that has happened over this crisis is that huge private losses have been dumped on society: but the losses are still there, smothering the economy. Taxes must rise. Debts must slowly be purged. "As long as economic growth relies on the state, you cannot talk about durable recovery," said European Central Bank member, Yves Mersch.

Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman said the US needs another fiscal blast for "political reasons", alluding to the Great Depression. It was Phase II from late 1931 to early 1933 that tipped half Europe into fascism and brought America soup kitchens. Although such a fate has been averted this time by government action, the Atlanta Fed says the true rate of US unemployment is already 16pc (not 9.4pc), worse than early 1931 levels. Official youth unemployment is 34pc in Spain, 28pc in Latvia, 25pc in Italy, 24pc in Sweden, Hungary, and Greece.

I have some sympathy with the Krugman view, but entirely disagree over methods. The key is to prevent a debt deflation trap – note that producer prices have fallen 8.5pc in Japan, 7.8pc in Germany, and 6.8pc in the US. The least dangerous medication is Quantitative Easing a l'outrance (ie printing money), as the Bank's Mervyn King clearly thinks. This does not add debt. It prevents the real value of existing debt from rising.

Mr Krugman undermined his case by citing Italy as a country that faced public debt of 118pc of GDP in the early 1990s without disaster. Actually, it has caused disaster, even if it has taken this recession to expose the damage. Debt will rocket to 125pc next year (IMF forecasts), and then -- one fears – off the charts.

We know what caused this crisis. The West kept short-term interest rates too low for a quarter century, luring society into debt: and the East held down long-term rates by flooding bond markets as a side-effect of their mercantilist strategy (ie suppressing currencies to gain export share).

The outcome was over-investment, excess capacity, and too much debt among those supposed to buy the goods. Has any of this changed? No. Have we cleared the excess plant? No.

Jeff Wenniger from Harris Private Bank says an army of baby-boomers have seen their old age plans shattered by the housing bust. Their nightmare is here. They will have to spend less, and save more. "Generational destruction of a society's balance sheet down not rectify itself in a matter of months".

How about a quarter century?

GOP STILL Plans to Steal Your Social Security

2009-08-20T15:11:00.000-07:00

http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/

THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 2009

GOP STILL Plans to Steal Your Social Security
by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The ascension (apotheosis?) of every GOP 'President' is inevitably accompanied by much GOP salivating over the prospects of getting their greedy, crooked mitts on your Social Security. Thus it was just over eight years ago when George W. Bush assumed (and I do mean 'assumed') the highest office in the land. Rest assured, despite the financial implosions of late, the GOP still plots to rob you blind, screw you silly and leave you a worthless slug on the night stand!

The GOP licked its greedy chops as the stupidest man, the grossest idiot since Warren Harding raised his hand and dared to swear on a holy book! The same gang of mendacious robber barons who made fortunes short-selling stocks on 911, profited from mass murder, and, later, plunged this nation into a new 'Great Depression' saw in the rise of George W. Bush another opportunity to steal your Social Security and buy Baltic Avenue with it!

Unlike GOP's 'trickle down' theory --pie in the sky but only if you are already very, very wealthy --Social Security did precisely what it was intended to do! It lived up to its billing, perhaps exceeded it! It is endangered not because it failed but because it succeeded! It is targeted now because the upper one percent of the population which owns more that about 95 percent of the rest of us combined is eager to seize control of ALL of the nation's wealth. Keep in mind --these are the arrogant bankers and snot nosed whiz kids who short sold stocks on 911!

Social Security is the bright spot. It has maybe some mild financial problems, several decades out, and here we are—he [Bush] wants a crisis there, partly to distract from the very real crises in other places, and there you go.

AMY GOODMAN: Paul Krugman, can you explain how Social Security works? Because it’s not just President Bush. If he was raising questions about it with a little megaphone on the steps of the White House, it would not have the kind of effect it was having without all of the media, it seems, amplifying the idea that Social Security is broken. It’s bankrupt.

PAUL KRUGMAN: Right. And of course, that’s really a question about the media, not about Social Security. Social Security is a program which has been traditionally run. It looks like a retirement fund, and it is not exactly. What it really is is a government program with a dedicated tax. We take the payroll tax and it’s used to pay benefits to retirees. And 20-plus years ago, the commission led by Alan Greenspan said, you know, we are going to have this problem as the baby boomers reach retirement age. We will have a higher ratio of retirees to workers, and we better get ready for it. Social Security, the payroll tax was increased. There were some other things, a small rise in the retirement age set in motion. So that Social Security would run a surplus, which would be used to accumulate a trust fund, and this would tithe us over, some ways into the aging of the population. And that on its own accounting is working just fine. I mean, one of the things that we need to know is that the estimates of the day at which the trust fund runs out, just keep on receding further into the future, because the program is doing so well at running surpluses.
--Paul Krugman, Economist, Published Comments on Democxracy Now

It was not sufficient that GOP policies had enriched only the very, very rich. As a result, just one percent of the nation now owns more than some 95 percent of the rest of us combined! But the greedy bastards wanted to own all of it! They wanted your retirement! They wanted the monies you paid into Social Security over the course of your lifetime! Joe the Plumber recently called Social Security a joke --not because he understands why it is coveted by the GOP. He is merely the recipient of the 'memo'. Stealing your Social Security is still very high on the GOPs list of great things it wants to fuck up permanently! We should take Joe and Palin seriously. The world is endangered by its idiots.

Joe the Plumber may be the GOP 'plug in' du jour! They act in consort like the Borg. They are set up in 'cells' like the 'terrorists' they would have us believe they hate so much. The GOP is not loyal to the principles of our founding; GOP attack dogs attack 'liberals', progressives, and the just plain ornery folk--like ME! And for all the wrong reasons! Because of this 'backward thinking', these misplaced values and priorities we keep losing unwinnable wars of naked aggression, wars that should never have begun in the first place. Because of it, we are now financially and morally bankrupt! Now --the GOP wants a bailout: YOUR Social Security!

Now --what if the GOP had succeeded already? Simply --the Social Security trust fund would be collapsed and millions of seniors would be lucky to find a place to set up a tent!

Let's put the GOP's fraudulent scheme to steal Social Security into perspective.

Social Security routinely runs a surplus, call it a profit if you will! It is this 'surplus' that is coveted by Wall Street! They want to plunder your monies as Bush plunder the taxes you pay every year as a good citizen! The GOP and Wall Street barons want to 'speculate' with the only retirement that millions will ever have! They want to enrich themselves on the interest and/or returns! Do you really think these greedy, latter-day Gordan Gecko's have your interests at heart? Not a frickin' chance!

During George W. Bush's first term I wrote and posted the following on NPR's infamous 'How's Bush Doing' board:

The crisis in 2015 -2018 won't be Social Security! It will be, rather, the utter bankruptcy of the United States and the profligate, incompetent policies of George Bush!

Now --if you are under 20 and still believe yourself immortal, my remarks will mean little to you. But here they are: knowing what we now now about the crookedness, the utter incompetence of an administration that I believe betrayed the people and their Constitution, aren't you glad we did NOT entrust those bastards with farming out the only retirement that millions might ever see to the greedy, shallow, mendacious liars that run Wall Street with their fascist buddies in DC?

You Give Me Real Money and I Will Give You a Worthless Piece of Paper!

It was said at the time that the Wall Street experts would actually turn a profit on YOUR money. Oh! I get it! I give you my money and you give me a worthless piece of paper! Uh Huh! I would have liked to write that time and events proved me correct but, in fact, the crash happened even sooner than I expected or predicted. Anyway --aren't you glad Bush did not steal your money?

It was said that the experts on Wall Street could 'invest' your monies. Sure! So can I Send me a check? I have lots of places I could put YOUR money! Fact is, you don't need no steenkin experts! Everyone can set up private accounts while you still have a job, that is before the GOP economy crashed and burned. My advice at the time was:
...you can still have Social Security to fall back on should GOP policies utterly destroy the stock market.

Keep in mind that I wrote that italicized sentence in 2003. I saw what the GOP had in mind and what has, in fact, come to pass. Given the global financial debacle, what logical rationale is there for incurring an additional debt of some 4.5 trillion dollars? Would it have anything to do with the fact that the truly elite (just one percent of the US population) are currently picking up the bargains and lickin' their greedy chops. They are as we write feasting upon the carcasses!

The Cure'll Kill Ya!

Right wing assaults on Social Security are of the 'stealth' kind, advertised as efforts to 'save' Social Security! As we would say in Texas: "Wah hale! The cure'll kill ya''! The assumption that the GOP wants to save Social Security or the retirement of this nation's elderly in ANY form is naive. As much was admitted by smarmy Dick Armey who admitted to Wall Street Week that he had been trying to abolish Social Security for the last thirty years.

There are several things wrong with "Privatization" in other words "corporatization":

Why 'corporatize Social Security when it is, in fact, working just fine as it is'? If I should want a 'provate account' what is preventing me from doing so? When millions have recently lost every penny in 'private accounts', what --please tell me --is the attraction they hold? What raison d'etre exists but to further enrich the cronies on Wall Street?

All government need do to fix Social Security is to rescind the profligate tax cuts since Ronald Reagan, tax cuts which failed to create a single new job, failed to increase tax revenues, failed to increase capital expenditures and expansions as promised by "supply side" bullshit!

"Privatization", in fact, 'corporatization', is just GOPSPEAK for you give me real money which will enrich ONLY Wall Street insiders and I will give you a worthless piece of paper!

Besides --Social Security may very well be the only government program that is currently turning a "profit"!
There is NO crisis!

Social Security was an easy target of conservative demagogues. (I know --that's redundant) Slimy ilk like Rush Limbaugh are not merely liars, they attack reason itself, the very processes by which fact and truth are determined. Latter day "conservatives" think differently and, therefore, arrive at false conclusions for the wrong reasons. Listening to Limbaugh, one is tempted to believe that "two" versions of the human brain have evolved. But take heart --when "God" passed out brains, "we" got the version that works. Limbaugh and his adoring ilk got the one that will be recalled, version 13.666!

Those who would make a bargain with Satan will have to live --and die --with a really, really bad deal!

During the so-called "Republican Revolution", when the GOP staged a budget stand-off with Clinton, it was clear that this new breed of so-called "conservatives", in truth, subversive radicals, viewed the long practiced art of compromise as synonymous with defeat. Their inflexibility backfired! Clinton won, leading to the eventual and much deserved disgrace and downfall of Newt Gringrich. Would that he had taken the GOP with him into hell!Someone forgot to place a convenient revolver on his nightstand! But Newt would not have done the right thing.

Rush and his ilk have popularized fallacy, celebrated anti-intellectualism, and sought to make it 'cool' to be stupid! Limbaugh wallows in sloppy thinking and appeals to our most ignoble motives. He personifies demagoguery, oozes duplicity! He is smarm itself. Hearing Limbaugh, one does one's best to suppress the urge to puke or walk on all-fours!

Stupidity is the devil. Look in the eye of a chicken and you'll know. It's the most horrifying, cannibalistic, and nightmarish creature in this world.
--Werner Herzog

Herzog has not yet looked into the eyes of a gopper, more terrifying than chickens! It may sound oxymoronic to speak of 'intelligent conservatives', neither intelligent nor truly conservative. Real conservatives would never have tolerated the astronomical deficits run up by Mssrs Reagan and Bush Jr. There must surely be some conservatives still smart enough to understand that the demagogic demonization of 'liberals, liberals' leads inexorably to a one-party, fascist, totalitarian state. Therefore, we must conclude that that is, in fact, the hidden agenda. They only pretend to be stupid and, admittedly, they do a good job of it.

Conservatives prefer a one party, fascist state in which the office of President is replaced with 'Der Fuhrer'! Will they be so enthusiastic 'when the last law [is] was down' and Der Fuhrer turns 'round on them? A fanatic GOP 'fuhrer' need only cite Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes who said "Three generations of imbeciles are enough" to justify the round up, encampment and wholesale disposal of people they don't like!

Save the children
Throughout the conservative movement and the ranks of Limbaugh's mis-informed minions there is an appalling ignorance of history that betrays this nation's utter failure to educate its young. Texas is the best example and most notable. Under Bush Jr and his successor, Rick Perry, Texas now beats out Mississippi for DEAD LAST in 'high school graduations'.

Failing to graduate high school is a guarantee that you will lead a life of poverty or crime or both! It is not coincidental that Texas --thanks to the GOP --is called the 'gulag state of Texas for the growth of its corporate run prison system, in truth a fascist gulag that is paid handsomely from the public trough to warehouse the millions of children who were --in fact --left behind to starve, fail and be warehoused by the fascists in Texas. To save these children, I urge that Texas be invaded and occupied until a responsible and competent government can lock up the current fascist regime and restore the 'rule of law' there.

There is an outrageous lack of outrage about this corporate take-over and occupation of Texas. What can be said of a population so addled, misinformed, uniformed and soporific that it doesn't even notice when it has been screwed without so much as a tip on the table? Does anyone in Texas care that their state has been stolen and is now run by Nazis? Clue for Texans: the corporate fat cats in skyscrapers in New York and Houston do not give a shit about you nor Hank Williams nor Larry Gatlin! You've been had! Wake the fuck up!

The American psychologist tasked with preventing Nazi war criminals from offing themselves before they could be duly hanged, said that "evil" was the utter lack of empathy! You find precisely that throughout the GOP rank and file --Rush Limbaugh's adoring throng. These 'people' defended torture and and state-sponsored murder at Abu Ghraib! They are short-sighted. They will not understand that if anyone can be victimized by unrestrained state power, so too, can they! No one is safe as long as a fascist holds so much as the office of dog catcher!

Tomorrow Belongs to Me!
People have an unrealistic idea of "evil"! Apparently, evil is a cartoon caricature --gleaming eyes, horns, pitchfork, snarls, drooling, and incantations to Satan, Bush Jr, or the Skull and Bones. No! Evil is Reinhard Heydrich conducting a gourmet luncheon meeting of Reich bureaucrats about how best to make legal the mass murder of European jews! Evil is Dick Cheney having a meeting with this 'Energy Task Force' and carving up the oil fields of Iraq before Bush's 911 would give them the pretext to invade! On both occasions, I believe, a quite civilized lunch and coffee were served amid veddy, veddy witty conversation! As Hannah Arendt said, evil is banal!

Had Heydrich and his Nazis succeeded, they would have gloated, patted each other on the back! What jolly good fellows they all were! They would have shared a few brews and toasted the 'Final Solution'. Heil Mein Fuhrer! They might have sang: Deutschland Uber Alles, The Nazi National Anthem or Tomorrow Belongs to Me! They were, after all, just good ol' boys ridding the world of 'vermin'. Or --they were all just good ol' boys hoping to get the terrorists from between them and 'all that oil!"

The GOP celebration of shortsighted, pyrrhic victories will in the longer term destroy America if it has not does so already.

Certainly --the America that I knew is already destroyed. The Bill of Rights means very little even now with Obama's victory. I have yet to hear a resounding denunciation from this administration with regard to Bush's assault upon the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. America without the Bill of Rights is nothing! Without the Bill of Rights, the US is just another huge, unfeeling, corporate dominated bureaucracy!

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it!
--Georges Santayana, American Philosopher

We are, thus, condemned! Humankind has been at war since our evolution beyond the "hunter/gatherer" stage. Since someone decided that the land upon which he grew a crop was his, war has been incessant. Because "winners" procreate, the "war" gene is reinforced over generations. That explains why history repeats itself and 'facts' mean very little or nothing at all! DNA will trump reason and facts every time. Those most enthralled by inherited and irrational war mongering are of the same demographic segment who would discount evolution on religious or superstitious grounds.

The 'conservative' hostility towards intellectuals is blind to obvious parallels with other fascist states past and present.
Demagogue: One who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
--H. L. Mencken

And Voltaire said:
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities!
--Voltaire

Voltaire's statement is not just a well-phrased aphorism chosen because it sounds 'literary'. It could be stated as a mathematical formula when 'atrocities' are actually counted and made a 'statistic', when popular myths and/or outright lies and falsehoods are identified and correlated demographically! Think of it! With such a formula, an enlightened state could identify those states and territories most likely to nurture a state-sponsored mass murder, a state sponsored torture, a state sponsored war of naked aggression as we have most recently witnessed by the United States of America. My country! May God help us all!

At last, I recommend one read Voltaire. When Voltaire learned of Catholic atrocities in Toulouse, he literally papered Europe with his polemics --so outraged was he! Voltaire was no effete 'scholoar'. Today, he would be a kick ass blogger, an activist, a gonzo, counter-culture journalist like Hunter Thompson, or, more likely, an acerbic latter-day H. L. Mencken pooh-poohing fundies down in Dayton! He would be a thorn in the GOP's sorry hide. He would skewer the liars on K-Street and Wall Street! He would laugh at the devil himself and wither him with a phrase!