Bush 43 has been running his 104 page GOP Social Security game book – but no score. It makes one wonder just how dumb Red voters really are; seems they’ve gotten smarter since November.
No question, we can expect major elements of Congressional GOP anti-Christs to follow the Bush lead and politely denounce any adherence to mandates in Matthew 25.
Now them’s sharp words! But Satanic forces are at work there. GOP wants to dismantle social programs to buy more swords. You’d think it they believed scripture is to be part of government, they would recoil at the idea of going against scripture – but not elected Red State Republicans.
The GOP Social Security revamp will cost trillions for decades to come. But the borrowing will be off budget – a thing called recognizing future obligations – and so the borrow funds will pay for the current deficits.
Duh! Suddenly the deficits disappear and we’re still spending beyond our means – by living on a credit card our kids will have to pay. Of course, there is NO Social Security crisis. We only need to apply it to higher income levels.
OK, the cold weather left me with time on my hands, so I ran the numbers and did the research – the result, I could probably write a book on Social Security, its intent and needs. Since inception, California has been out front on both rights and benefits – the nation followed; then the world.
In 1998, The Center for Strategic and International Studies report recommended diverting 2% of the FICA payroll tax into Individual Savings Accounts – in effect, Bush is promoting this plan. If the equities markets were reliable, the Bush version might make sense; but, as mentioned, the only reason he’s pushing it is to get borrow funds to mask his deficits.
We have less than 6.5 million retirees collecting less than $30 billion. How many years would the Iraq War pay for? And how much will Bush cut from domestic programs to pay for his war?
Social Security needs an actuarial adjustment for both inflation and baby-boomers – basically, a raise in the maximum wage subject to withholding to $180,000 from the current $90,000. An easy KISS solution which has had to be done 47 times in the past 75 years.
Bush’s plan is based on the fallacy of an equities market profit over time. It doesn’t exist. Profit in equities comes from guessing right on what to buy and when to sell. Bush touts a conservative strategy – the most conservative would be buying an index; so I ran those numbers. The results were shocking.
From October 1928 to November 1985, DJIA couldn’t equal 3 percent inflation. It was only with the 21 Nov 1985 Reagan-Gorbachev settlement of the Cold War that the markets expanded – and that was in the face of 15% Treasury yields and record deficits under Reagan’s "go-for-broke" 1950's approach to "defeating" Communism – which was doomed by its own stupid interpretation of Biblical objectives.
Oh! If you don’t get that last line: the key elements of Matthew are Socialist – care for the least able to care for themselves; and evil will use "legalistic rhetoric" to cheat you.
Let me bring that to the most base level. If the Bush really wanted to "save" Social Security, he would simply lift the present limit on wages subject to contributions from $90,000 to $180,000 and index it in the same way Social Security benefits are.
Bush is intentionally deceiving you – lying to us – it is self-evident that he is, at least on that level, immoral. Bush lied about WMD’s in Iraq, and he’s lying about Social Security – we don’t know why he wants to alter Social Security, but he is not saving it. We know he plans to cut benefits by 40 percent.
Worse, he wants to tie Social Security benefits to equity markets. The reality of equities verse bonds is that they are attuned to different conditions. In high interest, high inflation economies – such as we had under Reagan (1983) – 30 year Treasuries yielded an excess of 15 percent.
I created a large spreadsheet – to show the returns on equities over the past 45 years. Assumptions are: an annual investment of $1,000; buy at market open, value at the close; beginning the second week in February 1961. I view it as enlightening.
For 32 years, from Kennedy to the end of Bush Sr’s administration, $32,000 invested would have shown a profit of $98,305 – less than as the average Bond yield during that period. The Clinton administration – eight years – added almost three times as much as all prior administrations.
In four years, Bush 43 managed to exceed the losses that it took Nixon six years to amass. And these two liars are the only ones to initiate actions which generated losses in the equities markets. Bush Sr had called the successful – but high deficit – Reaganomics "voodoo economics"; when it was his turn, he took the nation on a downward slope.
Clinton entered with motto, "It’s the economy stupid", and showed us how it should be done. If we omit his oral in the oval adventures, we see Clinton applying policies based on Matthew 25 – in doing so, he turned record deficits into record surpluses.
Bush came in proclaiming, "compassionate conservatism" – immediately racking up deficits which put Reagan’s to shame, initiating a war in Iraq while allowing a terrorist to run free, and rewarding his wealthy constituency with budget breaking tax cuts – the once strong dollar is now plunging on the world markets. The jewel of Capitalism now depends on loans from Communist China for it’s very survival.
Put Clinton back in the White House – or bring Reagan back from the dead – and privatization might work. But, from 1928 to 1986, the history of equities shows they have trouble matching inflation.
Where is the lie, the deceit? It’s in the returns cited by Bush et al – they assume capital gains; which means you must sell old and buy new; you need to time the market for each equity position, and sell at the right time to maximize profits. Bonds pay a premium above the prevailing inflation rate – equities don’t. Quite the contrary, equity values run opposite to inflation and interest rates – so you cannot lock in a return as you can with bonds. If you do lock in a high rate, the value of your bond goes up and selling it before expiration yields a bonus over the face value.
In the long run, neither economies nor equities, can beat inflation – which is another reason I have gone on record predicting a collapse in the stock market. Put simply, privatization is another way to cut benefits and raise (borrow) off budget funds to mask the deficit. It’s a fraud!
