What's this about a free ride?! We PAID for our Social Security!

I saw this rant in an email making the rounds, and it got me thinking:

        Remember, not only did you contribute to Social Security but your employer did too. It totaled 15% of your income before taxes. If you averaged only 30K over your working life, that’s close to $220,500. If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer’s contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the govt. pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working (me) you’d have $892,919.98. If you took out only 3% per year, you receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years, and that’s with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit!
        If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you’d have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month. The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madhoff ever had.

Well, lots of stuff gets passed around the internet that's not true. So, I used this handy-dandy online Annuity calculator and checked it out. I plugged in the following info: $4,500 initial investment (first year of 15% payroll taxes on $30K, which is the total paid by the worker and the employer), $4,500 annual contribution (since you pay every year), 50 year contract term (working 50 years), 6% expected return (1% more than the ranter above, but reasonable), and then added in the effect of 2% per year inflation (something the ranter didn't do). I didn't include any taxes being taken out, because, after all, this is basically a savings account administered by the government. They get the benefit of having all that money to borrow off of (although they've been irresponsible and over-borrowed, but that's another issue).

The above example produces an account total of $719,000. Now, if you lived to 100, and were 68 when you retired, you could take out $22,469 every year, and that's not calculating the continuing interest the account should accrue, which would increase that amount substantially.

Now, you may not start out making what you will later on in life, but this example uses a very modest average of $30K/year, so I think it's more than fair.

So, it's true. We paid for our Social Security, it's no hand out. All this bloviating by our elected officials -- who, after all, get a pretty cushy retirement and health benefit deal -- about how we need to sacrifice some of this "entitlement" to help pay down the national debt is pure BS. Because it is NOT charity, but we ARE entitled to it.

The government has irresponsibly borrowed from the Social Security fund to try to balance their books all these years, and that is not the fault of the workers paying into it. We've spent untold gazillions over the decades on our ill-conceived military exploits, but once again, that's not the fault of the worker. We give HUGE tax breaks to multi-national corporations who are already making record profits -- now THERE'S some welfare that needs to be scaled back!

The super-rich exploit loopholes and pay less in taxes as a percentage than us working stiffs, yet the Republicans refuse to even consider going back  to the Clinton-era tax rates, which would go a long way toward balancing the budget. The rich were doing just fine under those rates, by the way.

Yet the only "shared" sacrifice being called for by these hypocrites is off the backs of the ever-receding middle class, the seniors and the poor. We must reject this whole line of so-called "reasoning," and demand fair treatment and common-sense solutions.

And NO WAY will we let them rip off our hard-earned Social Security!

The best way to turn around the economy is not austerity

For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps. The top 1% of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago. Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008. In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one. 61% of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, up from 49% in 2008 and 43% in 2007.

Given these facts, showing wealth continues to get concentrated at the top, while the majority continues to slide down the economic scale, why would anyone want to vote for the party that consistently does the most to help the rich, while ignoring the needs of the majority?

Families earning more than $1 million a year saw their federal tax rates drop more sharply than any group in the country as a result of President Bush’s tax cuts.
-- New York Times, January 8, 2007

Republicans have been promising more of the same, should Americans give control of Congress back to them next election.

Of course, it's more than tax cuts that have created this super-rich class. It's all kinds of policies that affect all aspects of the economy. Laws that help corporations avoid responsibility, for example, save them money.

Starting unnecessary wars enrich the military industrial complex. So much money has been thrown at privatizing the national security state that "no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work," as the Washington Post reported recently in their Top Secret America exposé.

The list of ways our government helps the rich and hurts the rest of us goes on and on.

What we really need to do is encourage a fundamental change in direction. Many have called for an FDR-style work program on energy conservation, such as retrofitting buildings, and on building a vibrant alternative energy industry, such as solar, wind, geothermal and so on. Transportation, too, is an area we desperately need to put people to work on, building more light rail and speed rail lines. There is plenty that needs to be done in the area of rebuilding our infrastructure as well.

It would take another, very targeted, stimulus to accomplish these things. But by getting our economy moving again, really moving, by employing people rather than throwing money at banks, etc, we would increase the tax base and be able to pay down our national debt.

The austerity measures being touted now by conservatives and even some Democrats will not accomplish this. It will only increase the pain. And, of course, help the rich.

GOP got their wish -- Gov't drowned in a bathtub

Conservatives got their wish: over the years since the Reagan administration -- admittedly helped along by Clinton -- they managed to squeeze government down small enough to "drown in a bathtub," as conservative Grover Norquist put it. The financial regulatory function of the government has been moribund for some time now.

Well, staring us in the face is the awesome and terrible result.

And now we're supposed to take John McCain's word for it that, after 26 years of complete and utter allegiance to the philosophy of deregulation -- proudly proclaimed from his own lips many times -- he knows best how to create a just, sane, orderly, fair-to-the-taxpayer structure of regulation out of the pile of rubble and dust that he, his economic guru Phil "You Bunch of Whiners" Gramm, and his team of die-hard deregulation-loving lobbyists have left us? Uh-uh. I don't think so.

The whole conservative philosophy of "getting government out of the way, so that the private sector can do what it wants, because the market will correct and police itself," is today totally bankrupt. It was already proven to be a bankrupt philosophy back in 1929. Back then, it required Roosevelt's New Deal to repair the financial devastation left behind, and it will require an even Newer Deal now.

All along the way, we have seen examples showing us that lack of regulation is disastrous in a capitalist system, but we allowed these clowns to remain in control of the levers of power anyway. So, they continued to make it easy for greedy slimeballs to take advantage of the lack of oversight. And when their behavior caused a major problem? Government bailout to the rescue!

The same government they had been trying to drown in a bathtub the whole time. "Privatize the gains, but socialize the losses." That's their real, unspoken, philosophy. Meaning the government picks up the tab for their high-risk and unethical behavior.

But wait! Who is this benevolent parent that always has enough to save the day? Why it's us -- we're the government, remember -- and it's our pockets these greedy bastards are picking every time their get-rich-as-quick-as-possible schemes implode.

Sure, something has to be done. But does that mean we rush a bill through on the say so of the president, no matter what? (Isn't that the same thing Bush did with the war and then the Patriot Act?) Does it mean we give total control over to his administration to do what they will with obscene piles of cash that are supposed to materialize out of thin air, and without any oversight? That's what Treasury Secretary Paulson demands. Yes, he has the gall to actually DEMAND it!

If this whole scene weren't so outrageously obscene, it would be funny.

But think about it, this whole mess could be an opportunity. Just as the Chinese word weiji, translated as "crisis," is composed of the characters for "danger" and "opportunity," we could, if we were a people worth our salt, use this crisis as an opportunity to completely revamp the financial system. The time is ripe, and if ever the people were ready for effective change, it is now.

But fear and ignorance will likely prevail instead. Fear of change, and general civilian ignorance of the depth and breadth of the problem and its systemic nature. The entire banking system is corrupt to the core, because it is founded on the Federal Reserve system, which is actually unconstitutional, and antithetical to everything the founders stood for.

It is a private central bank, despite the word 'federal' so deviously included in its title, when it was drafted by a group of the world's most powerful bankers on an island of the coast of Georgia in 1913. Later passed when most lawmakers were out of town in the dead of night near the holidays that year, it obliterated Article I, section 8 of the constitution, which gives Congress the power "To coin money [and] regulate the value thereof." Instead, the Federal Reserve Act let the private bankers start printing the money and regulating its value.

That is an enormous power. It has made the banking families stinking rich, and has slowly put our nation into previously undreamt of amounts of debt.

That act needs to be repealed. Call me radical -- this crisis calls for a radical solution, or we become China's property, basically.

After we abolish the Fed, and the government (that's us) regains the power of the purse, we set up a sane financial regulatory system. Then we freeze the assets of those in the financial sector who made off like bandits, and sort out what is ill-gotten gains, and do our best to return that money to where it came from.

We immediately institute a tax on offshored businesses, and steadily increase the rate of that tax, to give a powerful incentive to keep our nation's business at home, and our own people employed.

Then, we forgive all debt. Wipe the slate clean. Everyone gets their houses back, and the economy is instantly back on an even footing. We can all flourish once again.

Socialism? A dose, perhaps, temporarily. As are the bailouts these financial titans want -- only their brand of socialism -- corporate socialism -- is only for them, not the general population.

Insane? Could be. But I'd argue that a continuation of the present system is what's insane. After all, insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over again, yet expecting different results.

Sure, some will get hurt worse than others in this scheme. But no one will be in too bad of shape, as they will not be in debt. Some financial "wizards" of the present system may have to find new jobs, but hey -- they didn't mind telling that to all the people put out of work in their globalization schemes.

With the so-called "pillars" of our economy falling like dominoes, what have we got to lose?

We have national pride, and a sane, prosperous society, to gain.

Mainstream media and politics - more of the same ol', same ol'

Most of the mainstream media seem to me to be pawns of the corporate behemoths, which own those same media sources, by the way. Corporate greed and control of our political process has driven our country into the deep hole it's in, both financially and morally. Greed rules. Look at NAFTA, corporate-controlled health 'care', war for private profit, and the neglect of our infrastructure and a real energy policy -- to mention the dismal state of just a few facets of our present national predicament. After eight years of sinking into the largest deficit and national debt in history, record foreclosures and unemployment, I think it's time for some big changes. The mainstream media, meanwhile, continues to whistle a mostly happy tune, everything's ok, we just need to drill off the coasts. Rising sea levels, melting polar caps and extreme weather, droughts and hurricanes be damned.

Sorry, but I can't buy into the same ol' same ol' -- it's just lemmings marching off a cliff. We need big, systemic changes here and around the world. Personally, I don't think the Dems have it in them to do what really needs to be done either, they also are too dependent on the big money that has been corrupting our government. But at least they're a step in the right direction, with regards to energy and perhaps health care, investment in infrastructure, and of course, ending the fiasco in the middle east that has killed, maimed and tortured so many, while only inspiring a new generation of terrorists who hate us.

If we're truly to change things deeply enough and quickly enough, we need to somehow divorce the electoral process from its addiction to big money. Until then, politicians will continue to serve their real constituency, the ones that get them elected, the deep pocketed corporations that not only fund the campaigns, but lavish hundreds of millions on the big parties that pass these days for political "conventions."

No matter who wins in November, the people need to demand real election reform.

The rich get richer, and you know the rest

As Holly Sklar notes in her recent article Billionaires up, America down on Daily Camera Online, America is producing a record number of billionaires, and a record amount of debt and record poverty. If you're one of the 482 billionaires, the news is good, if you're just about anyone else, things are getting worse.

A few gems from her article:

We have a record 482 billionaires — and record foreclosures, a record 47
million people without any health insurance and 5 million more people living
below the poverty line.

Between 1983 and 2004, the average wealth of the top 1 percent of
households grew by 78 percent, reports Edward Wolff, professor of economics at
New York University. The bottom 40 percent lost 59 percent.

The top 1 percent of households — average income $1.5 million — will
save a collective $79.5 billion on their 2008 taxes, reports Citizens for Tax
Justice. That's more than the combined budgets of the Transportation Department,
Small Business Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and Consumer
Product Safety Commission.

Tax cuts will save the top 1 percent a projected $715 billion between
2001 and 2010. And cost us $715 billion in mounting national debt plus
interest.

Many of the new billionaires made their fortunes on the backs of Americans' misery – namely, with hedge funds short-selling subprime credit this summer. As hard-working Americans who were just trying to get a slice of the "American Dream" fall by the wayside, losing their homes, the sleazeballs in the subprime hedge fund market, with their special tax breaks intact, rake in billions. What is wrong with this picture? Plenty.

It is eerily similar to the inequality and the stock market euphoria of the 1920's – and we all know where that led.