By Manifesto Joe
Old Scout, the handle of a frequent commenter on my home blog, remarked about one of my recent post-election posts that I was being far, far too polite with right-wingers after Obama's re-election. Now I have to concede his point. There are just some people with whom you can't make nice.
I thought I would sincerely try to do that, to make nice at least up to a point, because I was taken aback after witnessing some of the obnoxious gloating that "conservatives" did after the highly questionable 2004 presidential election. But it was wasted effort, I must concede.
It didn't take the right wing any time at all to start talking about impeaching Obama, with robocalls to "save America." And, one "libertarian" Republican blogger told his readers that it's time for all like-minded people to tell every Democrat they know to "fuck off and die." When elections go their way, the U.S. is painted as an example for the world. When they don't, you start hearing about the U.S. electoral system being a corrupt joke, and suggestions of "revolution" (to wit, Donald Trump).
Restaurant chains weigh in
Boycotting restaurants because of their political/religious proselytizing is a bit difficult, because so many are right-wing. Most of the major hamburger chains are Republican-leaning and donate money to that party, so it's hard to get a burger and fries anywhere without being complicit. Even on the more healthful side, I used to get big salads for lunch at a mom-and-pop joint near my workplace in the early '90s -- until I saw a poster they put up near the men's room, depicting a movie poster of the Clinton administration, with Barney Frank cast as "the Rear Admiral." Haw, haw.
Now we have assorted chains announcing that they will cut hours, raise prices and even fire people to cut costs they associate with "Obamacare."
It's not hard to avoid Papa John's, because I never liked their pizza much, anyway. Pizza is one of those foods that's very hard to screw up, although it can be done and Papa John's almost succeeds. The most offensive part of this is that "Papa John" his own self, John Schnatter, is worth $350 million and held secret fundraisers for Romney on his mansion grounds. Can you say greed?
Domino's pizza is very little better than Papa John's, and I found out, years after I drove for that chain in a desperate period of my youth, that the head honcho is a reactionary psycho-Catholic.
It's not hard to avoid Chick-fil-A either, because their chicken sandwiches taste like cardboard enhanced with salt and grease. Their pronouncements about gay marriage came as no surprise to me, anyway. I won't miss Red Lobster, either, as I have allergies to some types of shellfish and their food usually sucks anyway.
It may be harder to completely boycott Applebee's. Although it's a franchise place with food quality varying widely, I know of one local place that makes a great top sirloin plate with steamed broccoli, and their spinach-and-artichoke dip is a winner, too. I'll miss them. Same goes for Olive Garden -- one local place makes wonderful eggplant parmigiana.
The main thing Denny's has going for it is affordability. When I was working my way through grad school and living largely on dry cereal and canned goods, the Grand Slam Breakfast was like a cheap staple, and about the only time I ever ate eggs (they were once thought to be bad for you). Now, some Denny's eateries plan to add a 5% "Obamacare" surcharge. I'll never eat at one of those places.
Pearls before swine
The point is that good manners and being gracious in victory are virtues that are absolutely wasted on some people.
Time has come for Obama to get his veto pen out, and stop making nice. His enemies clearly aren't going to change. Even Scumney is being a sore loser, blaming his defeat at the polls on Obama's "gifts" to women, minorities, and young people. It had to be government bribery, not differing ideology.
Time has come for all Democrats to start telling Orange Julius, Mitch for the Rich and all their supporters to "fuck off and die."
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Showing posts with label right wing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label right wing. Show all posts
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Monday, November 7, 2011
Somebody Needs To Tell Right-Wingers Like Palin: The Free Market Is A Myth
By Manifesto Joe
What got me thinking about this was the cosmic fool Sarah Palin's recent pronouncements, to a Republican crowd in Florida, about the Occupy protesters.
This fool called the Occupy protesters misguided, in that they are supposed to be just more people seeking a bailout, more people who want to help themselves to other people's money, rather than being what she would prefer -- an Astroturf movement directing their rage at Washington politicians, i.e. Democrats.
Here's a link to a story on this.
According to this dipstick, the protesters shouldn't be blaming "the free market," or "job creators." They should be blaming Obama, Pelosi, et al, for the current morass.
Her imbecilic pronouncements embody all that is delusional about right-wing thinking in America today, and also in many generations past.
What "free market"?
Let's get into this point by point. In the wholesale grocery business, there's a thing called "slotting allowances," through which producers of a food product pay supermarket chains to get more prominent display on the shelves and aisles, etc., for their products. It's common knowledge among those who work in that industry.
It's a sort of legal payola, so that a dominant producer -- let's say, Campbell's soup -- can get much more prominent promotion on any grocery aisle than any of their competitors. Not surprisingly, Campbell's has a very impregnable oligopoly in U.S. soup sales. They have competitors, but they are largely ineffectual. Once an outfit like that gets on top, just try knocking them off.
Tax abatements
In the part of Texas where I live, this is a racket par excellence. The companies getting tax breaks at the local level read like a who's who of area corporations: Bell Helicopter, Radio Shack, General Motors, General Electric, Alcon and In-N-Out Burger. That's just a few.
The game is simple. The local yokels offer tax abatements to corporations to locate in said area. The corporations get competing offers from several locales. If one bunch of yokels doesn't offer a sweeter deal, well, they can just do legal blackmail and say, we'll just locate someplace that will give us MORE, and we'll take all the jobs there! All of them!! Booohooohooohahahaha!
And, guess what: THEY GET IT. ALL OF IT.
And you, John Q. Taxpayer, pay more in local property and sales taxes so that these corporate scofflaws can pay less. And they hire you at minimum wage or little more, and say that this has been their good deed as job creators!
What is the business of lobbyists?
This is something that renders notions of a "free market" nonsense. Or at least it should.
What do lobbyists do for a living? They are in places like Washington and Austin to influence public policy, and in such a way that will help maximize profits for their employers. Sometimes they don't even do it in a subtle way. Twentysomething years ago, chicken magnate Bo Pilgrim created quite a stir in Austin when he showed up passing out checks on the floor of the Texas Senate. At least most of the people on the make are more subtle than that.
Tax breaks, 2011-style
Recent studies have revealed that about two-thirds of U.S. corporations pay no federal income tax. I mean, nothing, zilch, nada. The list reads, again, like a who's who of giant corporations -- ExxonMobil and General Electric come to mind. If someone wants to challenge me on this, the data are out there, and I'll be quite happy to respond.
How have they been able to do this? Short answer -- LOBBYISTS. They employ the very best, and they have been getting results over the past 25 years that have been little short of unbelievable. They own a lot of Washington politicians (please take note that these are just the front people, Sarah Palin) and can make them write a lot of lucrative things into the tax code.
Capitalism's internal contradictions
As a young man, trying to make my way in newspaper journalism, I was interviewed by a typical medium-small publisher, a silly man who had made his way up from being a sports woof-woof. He told me that, "We're all for competition. But when we get a competitor, we do our best to crush them, to run them out of business."
And, of course, they had been frequently successful at doing just that. And obviously, that's something that would be expected of them.
But it points out the basic problem that the entire capitalist system faces sooner or later: Capitalism thrives on competition, yet every capitalist wants a monopoly.
They say they are for competition, but they ultimately want to eliminate competition. And, sadly, they will resort to whatever hideous means are necessary to do just that.
Adam Smith wasn't entirely on their side
Smith was writing in a very different time and place, but there are some selections from his writing that show a very different Smith from the one that the right wing lionizes.
"Our merchants and master manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people."
Where is THAT Adam Smith when you need him?
Quotes from the "GOP," including one from a current presidential hopeful
In 1993, President Bill Clinton's economic plan raised the marginal tax rate on wealthy individuals, and not by a huge amount, by rich folks' standards. I was a taxpayer back then, middle-class, and I noticed little difference in my tax bill. The increase mostly hit the very rich. By the way, it passed in the House by ONE vote. Clinton had a strong Democratic majority in the House, but he couldn't even get all the Democrats to vote for it.
Let's see what Republicans had to say about this:
"We are buying a one-way ticket to a recession." -- Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, 1993. (Gramm, by the way, was an economics professor at Texas A&M before he began his lucrative political career.)
"It'll flatten the economy." -- Sen. William Roth, R-Delaware, 1993. (This is the dude for whom the Roth IRA is named.)
"I believe this will lead to a recession next year. This is the Democrat machine's recession, and each one of them will be held personally accountable." -- U.S. Rep. Newt Gingrich, 1993, soon to be House speaker. Well, Newt, we did eventually have a recession. You were just 14 or 15 years off in your prediction.
Of course, you the reader remember quite well what happened during the '90s, after the Clinton economic plan passed by one vote. The U.S. economy collapsed. The national debt quadrupled. Tens of millions of people were thrown out of work.
Oh, wait -- none of that happened, did it? Quite the opposite, if I remember right. I guess I finally awakened from that long national nightmare of peace and prosperity.
How many times do the supply-siders have to be proved wrong?
Apparently it's going to take at least one more time. The polls show a very disheartening trend among many Americans toward delusional nostalgia. One poll indicated that, when asked which past American president people would want back to help guide us through the current crisis, 36% said Ronald Reagan! And only 29% said FDR!
Americans, don't get stuck on stupid. Reagan? You mean the guy who cut the marginal tax rate on rich people down to 28%, and tripled the national debt? Hell, he's one of the major reasons we're in this predicament now!
Part II is coming: The Myth Of The Free Market
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
What got me thinking about this was the cosmic fool Sarah Palin's recent pronouncements, to a Republican crowd in Florida, about the Occupy protesters.
This fool called the Occupy protesters misguided, in that they are supposed to be just more people seeking a bailout, more people who want to help themselves to other people's money, rather than being what she would prefer -- an Astroturf movement directing their rage at Washington politicians, i.e. Democrats.
Here's a link to a story on this.
According to this dipstick, the protesters shouldn't be blaming "the free market," or "job creators." They should be blaming Obama, Pelosi, et al, for the current morass.
Her imbecilic pronouncements embody all that is delusional about right-wing thinking in America today, and also in many generations past.
What "free market"?
Let's get into this point by point. In the wholesale grocery business, there's a thing called "slotting allowances," through which producers of a food product pay supermarket chains to get more prominent display on the shelves and aisles, etc., for their products. It's common knowledge among those who work in that industry.
It's a sort of legal payola, so that a dominant producer -- let's say, Campbell's soup -- can get much more prominent promotion on any grocery aisle than any of their competitors. Not surprisingly, Campbell's has a very impregnable oligopoly in U.S. soup sales. They have competitors, but they are largely ineffectual. Once an outfit like that gets on top, just try knocking them off.
Tax abatements
In the part of Texas where I live, this is a racket par excellence. The companies getting tax breaks at the local level read like a who's who of area corporations: Bell Helicopter, Radio Shack, General Motors, General Electric, Alcon and In-N-Out Burger. That's just a few.
The game is simple. The local yokels offer tax abatements to corporations to locate in said area. The corporations get competing offers from several locales. If one bunch of yokels doesn't offer a sweeter deal, well, they can just do legal blackmail and say, we'll just locate someplace that will give us MORE, and we'll take all the jobs there! All of them!! Booohooohooohahahaha!
And, guess what: THEY GET IT. ALL OF IT.
And you, John Q. Taxpayer, pay more in local property and sales taxes so that these corporate scofflaws can pay less. And they hire you at minimum wage or little more, and say that this has been their good deed as job creators!
What is the business of lobbyists?
This is something that renders notions of a "free market" nonsense. Or at least it should.
What do lobbyists do for a living? They are in places like Washington and Austin to influence public policy, and in such a way that will help maximize profits for their employers. Sometimes they don't even do it in a subtle way. Twentysomething years ago, chicken magnate Bo Pilgrim created quite a stir in Austin when he showed up passing out checks on the floor of the Texas Senate. At least most of the people on the make are more subtle than that.
Tax breaks, 2011-style
Recent studies have revealed that about two-thirds of U.S. corporations pay no federal income tax. I mean, nothing, zilch, nada. The list reads, again, like a who's who of giant corporations -- ExxonMobil and General Electric come to mind. If someone wants to challenge me on this, the data are out there, and I'll be quite happy to respond.
How have they been able to do this? Short answer -- LOBBYISTS. They employ the very best, and they have been getting results over the past 25 years that have been little short of unbelievable. They own a lot of Washington politicians (please take note that these are just the front people, Sarah Palin) and can make them write a lot of lucrative things into the tax code.
Capitalism's internal contradictions
As a young man, trying to make my way in newspaper journalism, I was interviewed by a typical medium-small publisher, a silly man who had made his way up from being a sports woof-woof. He told me that, "We're all for competition. But when we get a competitor, we do our best to crush them, to run them out of business."
And, of course, they had been frequently successful at doing just that. And obviously, that's something that would be expected of them.
But it points out the basic problem that the entire capitalist system faces sooner or later: Capitalism thrives on competition, yet every capitalist wants a monopoly.
They say they are for competition, but they ultimately want to eliminate competition. And, sadly, they will resort to whatever hideous means are necessary to do just that.
Adam Smith wasn't entirely on their side
Smith was writing in a very different time and place, but there are some selections from his writing that show a very different Smith from the one that the right wing lionizes.
"Our merchants and master manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people."
Where is THAT Adam Smith when you need him?
Quotes from the "GOP," including one from a current presidential hopeful
In 1993, President Bill Clinton's economic plan raised the marginal tax rate on wealthy individuals, and not by a huge amount, by rich folks' standards. I was a taxpayer back then, middle-class, and I noticed little difference in my tax bill. The increase mostly hit the very rich. By the way, it passed in the House by ONE vote. Clinton had a strong Democratic majority in the House, but he couldn't even get all the Democrats to vote for it.
Let's see what Republicans had to say about this:
"We are buying a one-way ticket to a recession." -- Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, 1993. (Gramm, by the way, was an economics professor at Texas A&M before he began his lucrative political career.)
"It'll flatten the economy." -- Sen. William Roth, R-Delaware, 1993. (This is the dude for whom the Roth IRA is named.)
"I believe this will lead to a recession next year. This is the Democrat machine's recession, and each one of them will be held personally accountable." -- U.S. Rep. Newt Gingrich, 1993, soon to be House speaker. Well, Newt, we did eventually have a recession. You were just 14 or 15 years off in your prediction.
Of course, you the reader remember quite well what happened during the '90s, after the Clinton economic plan passed by one vote. The U.S. economy collapsed. The national debt quadrupled. Tens of millions of people were thrown out of work.
Oh, wait -- none of that happened, did it? Quite the opposite, if I remember right. I guess I finally awakened from that long national nightmare of peace and prosperity.
How many times do the supply-siders have to be proved wrong?
Apparently it's going to take at least one more time. The polls show a very disheartening trend among many Americans toward delusional nostalgia. One poll indicated that, when asked which past American president people would want back to help guide us through the current crisis, 36% said Ronald Reagan! And only 29% said FDR!
Americans, don't get stuck on stupid. Reagan? You mean the guy who cut the marginal tax rate on rich people down to 28%, and tripled the national debt? Hell, he's one of the major reasons we're in this predicament now!
Part II is coming: The Myth Of The Free Market
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
As Older Americans Become Paupers, Talk Of Cutting Social Security
By Manifesto Joe
I turned 54 late last month. Where I work, nearly half the work force we had 30 months ago has been laid off or pushed into buyouts. Many of those who hit the sidewalks were about my age, and from what I've heard, they've had trouble finding work. If you're over 50, people don't want to hire you.
And now, amid this rapid impoverishment of upper-middle-aged Americans, there's serious, bipartisan talk in Washington of cutting Social Security.
People in their 50s and 60s are being put into an economic vice grip. There was plenty of talk in the past about how much we baby boomers were going to be needed for the work force, since there are so many of us and fewer workers among the younger generations.
I also remember futurists of the 1960s and 1970s talking about how, by now, we were all supposed to be working 25-hour weeks. Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!...
We have now seen the future, and it looks a lot more like some high-tech version of the 1930s. But since I make the comparison, let's go back in time.
One of the main reasons FDR and Congress created Social Security in 1935 was the destitution seen then among Americans born between 1860 and 1880. The old were perhaps hit hardest by the Great Depression -- a 65-year-old back then was often physically unable to work at most jobs, and unable to be hired for less-demanding
ones. And if you can imagine what it's like to be thrown out of your house and into the street as a younger person, envision what it must be like when you're old.
And yet now, in the middle of what's being called the Great Recession, Washington's "deficit hawks" are talking about raising the age for standard Social Security benefits to 70. House Minority Leader John Boehner is on record as favoring this. It's being discussed seriously by people like former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, who's "serving" on President Obama's debt commission. (See previous post.)
What seems to be in the works is a deliberate impoverishment of people over 50 -- or not? Inside the Beltway, most of the big players are over 50, but they aren't the kind who will be laid off and have to live on a limited term of unemployment while they search fruitlessly for a new job. Maybe they are so out of touch with reality, as it is experienced by most people, that it isn't deliberate. Or maybe they know exactly what they are doing. The truth is somewhere in between. It's easy for someone whose ass isn't on the line to talk about breaking eggs to make an omelet, about things being tough all over, and so forth.
Another thing that apologists would point out is that the raising of the retirement age would be implemented gradually, with people born after 1964 being the main victims. They will someday grow old, too, and they will wonder how this travesty ever happened.
There are a lot of myths being floated as this debate goes on inside the Beltway. Moveon.org recently named five of them:
Top 5 Social Security Myths
Myth #1: Social Security is going broke.
Reality: There is no Social Security crisis. By 2023, Social Security will have a $4.6 trillion surplus (yes, trillion with a 'T'). It can pay out all scheduled benefits for the next quarter-century with no changes whatsoever.1 After 2037, it'll still be able to pay out 75% of scheduled benefits—and again, that's without any changes. The program started preparing for the Baby Boomers' retirement decades ago. Anyone who insists Social Security is broke probably wants to break it themselves.
Myth #2: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.
Reality: This is a red-herring to trick you into agreeing to benefit cuts. Retirees are living about the same amount of time as they were in the 1930s. The reason average life expectancy is higher is mostly because many fewer people die as children than they did 70 years ago. What's more, what gains there have been are distributed very unevenly—since 1972, life expectancy increased by 6.5 years for workers in the top half of the income brackets, but by less than 2 years for those in the bottom half. But those intent on cutting Social Security love this argument because raising the retirement age is the same as an across-the-board benefit cut.
Myth #3: Benefit cuts are the only way to fix Social Security.
Reality: Social Security doesn't need to be fixed. But if we want to strengthen it, here's a better way: Make the rich pay their fair share. If the very rich paid taxes on all of their income, Social Security would be sustainable for decades to come. Right now, high earners only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,000 of their income. But conservatives insist benefit cuts are the only way because they want to protect the super-rich from paying their fair share.
Myth #4: The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided and is full of IOUs
Reality: Not even close to true. The Social Security Trust Fund isn't full of IOUs, it's full of U.S. Treasury Bonds. And those bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. The reason Social Security holds only treasury bonds is the same reason many Americans do: The federal government has never missed a single interest payment on its debts. President Bush wanted to put Social Security funds in the stock market—which would have been disastrous—but luckily, he failed. So the trillions of dollars in the Social Security Trust Fund, which are separate from the regular budget, are as safe as can be.
Myth #5: Social Security adds to the deficit
Reality: It's not just wrong—it's impossible! By law, Social Security's funds are separate from the budget, and it must pay its own way. That means that Social Security can't add one penny to the deficit.
I smell the stench of Grover Norquist here -- the concept that government must be reduced to the size where it can be drowned in the bathtub.
This is probably not something the right wing will be able to pull off in the long run. When your belly is empty and there's no roof over your head, you've got nothing to lose. It's not likely that our power elite is going to let things go that far, even when the victims are going to be those over 50.
But history teaches that many horrors can be perpetrated before action is finally taken to correct them. The idea here is to prevent this atrocity before it happens.
The boomers started out as a pretty bad-ass generation. Then they went soft during the Reagan years. Time to get tough again, fifty- and sixty-somethings. The barbarian elite is at the gates.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
I turned 54 late last month. Where I work, nearly half the work force we had 30 months ago has been laid off or pushed into buyouts. Many of those who hit the sidewalks were about my age, and from what I've heard, they've had trouble finding work. If you're over 50, people don't want to hire you.
And now, amid this rapid impoverishment of upper-middle-aged Americans, there's serious, bipartisan talk in Washington of cutting Social Security.
People in their 50s and 60s are being put into an economic vice grip. There was plenty of talk in the past about how much we baby boomers were going to be needed for the work force, since there are so many of us and fewer workers among the younger generations.
I also remember futurists of the 1960s and 1970s talking about how, by now, we were all supposed to be working 25-hour weeks. Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!...
We have now seen the future, and it looks a lot more like some high-tech version of the 1930s. But since I make the comparison, let's go back in time.
One of the main reasons FDR and Congress created Social Security in 1935 was the destitution seen then among Americans born between 1860 and 1880. The old were perhaps hit hardest by the Great Depression -- a 65-year-old back then was often physically unable to work at most jobs, and unable to be hired for less-demanding
ones. And if you can imagine what it's like to be thrown out of your house and into the street as a younger person, envision what it must be like when you're old.
And yet now, in the middle of what's being called the Great Recession, Washington's "deficit hawks" are talking about raising the age for standard Social Security benefits to 70. House Minority Leader John Boehner is on record as favoring this. It's being discussed seriously by people like former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, who's "serving" on President Obama's debt commission. (See previous post.)
What seems to be in the works is a deliberate impoverishment of people over 50 -- or not? Inside the Beltway, most of the big players are over 50, but they aren't the kind who will be laid off and have to live on a limited term of unemployment while they search fruitlessly for a new job. Maybe they are so out of touch with reality, as it is experienced by most people, that it isn't deliberate. Or maybe they know exactly what they are doing. The truth is somewhere in between. It's easy for someone whose ass isn't on the line to talk about breaking eggs to make an omelet, about things being tough all over, and so forth.
Another thing that apologists would point out is that the raising of the retirement age would be implemented gradually, with people born after 1964 being the main victims. They will someday grow old, too, and they will wonder how this travesty ever happened.
There are a lot of myths being floated as this debate goes on inside the Beltway. Moveon.org recently named five of them:
Top 5 Social Security Myths
Myth #1: Social Security is going broke.
Reality: There is no Social Security crisis. By 2023, Social Security will have a $4.6 trillion surplus (yes, trillion with a 'T'). It can pay out all scheduled benefits for the next quarter-century with no changes whatsoever.1 After 2037, it'll still be able to pay out 75% of scheduled benefits—and again, that's without any changes. The program started preparing for the Baby Boomers' retirement decades ago. Anyone who insists Social Security is broke probably wants to break it themselves.
Myth #2: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.
Reality: This is a red-herring to trick you into agreeing to benefit cuts. Retirees are living about the same amount of time as they were in the 1930s. The reason average life expectancy is higher is mostly because many fewer people die as children than they did 70 years ago. What's more, what gains there have been are distributed very unevenly—since 1972, life expectancy increased by 6.5 years for workers in the top half of the income brackets, but by less than 2 years for those in the bottom half. But those intent on cutting Social Security love this argument because raising the retirement age is the same as an across-the-board benefit cut.
Myth #3: Benefit cuts are the only way to fix Social Security.
Reality: Social Security doesn't need to be fixed. But if we want to strengthen it, here's a better way: Make the rich pay their fair share. If the very rich paid taxes on all of their income, Social Security would be sustainable for decades to come. Right now, high earners only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,000 of their income. But conservatives insist benefit cuts are the only way because they want to protect the super-rich from paying their fair share.
Myth #4: The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided and is full of IOUs
Reality: Not even close to true. The Social Security Trust Fund isn't full of IOUs, it's full of U.S. Treasury Bonds. And those bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. The reason Social Security holds only treasury bonds is the same reason many Americans do: The federal government has never missed a single interest payment on its debts. President Bush wanted to put Social Security funds in the stock market—which would have been disastrous—but luckily, he failed. So the trillions of dollars in the Social Security Trust Fund, which are separate from the regular budget, are as safe as can be.
Myth #5: Social Security adds to the deficit
Reality: It's not just wrong—it's impossible! By law, Social Security's funds are separate from the budget, and it must pay its own way. That means that Social Security can't add one penny to the deficit.
I smell the stench of Grover Norquist here -- the concept that government must be reduced to the size where it can be drowned in the bathtub.
This is probably not something the right wing will be able to pull off in the long run. When your belly is empty and there's no roof over your head, you've got nothing to lose. It's not likely that our power elite is going to let things go that far, even when the victims are going to be those over 50.
But history teaches that many horrors can be perpetrated before action is finally taken to correct them. The idea here is to prevent this atrocity before it happens.
The boomers started out as a pretty bad-ass generation. Then they went soft during the Reagan years. Time to get tough again, fifty- and sixty-somethings. The barbarian elite is at the gates.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
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