“Social Security is a solemn compact. Its basic guarantee of retirement security is based on its guaranteed minimum benefit,” Gore said. “To turn Social Security into a system of winners and losers would jeopardize Social Security for all Americans,” he said. “Gov. Bush’s plan takes the ‘security’ out of Social Security."
Al Gore, presidential candidate
http://www.ontheissues.org/celeb/al_gore_social_security.htmHow we chuckled at Al Gore's "locked box"...
Ten years later, it does not sound so funny. Though Bush is out and Obama is in, corporate America is still eyeing your Social Security dollars. Here is the Heritage Foundation telling us the Social Security is doomed---
Doomed, I tell you! ---because of the recession, which has increased unemployment and decreased tax contributions into the system. The Heritage Foundation/Big Business’s “solution”? Reduce the amount of tax dollars going into the system
even more by encouraging young Americans to give their retirement money to the Banksters.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/08/2010-Social-Security-Trustees-Report-Reform-Needed-NowThat’s right, the Banksters. You know, the guys who made investments with our 401k dollars and then turned around and bet that the investments would go belly up---for their own profit. Now that they have eaten up our private retirement dollars, they want to gobble down our federal retirement funds. Hell, no wonder they will not loan (our Wall Street bailout dollars) to small business. Small business creates jobs, and if unemployment numbers went down, the Banksters would lose their best chance at looting Social Security.
Paul Krugman writes about the topic today in the NYT.
So where do claims of crisis come from? To a large extent they rely on bad-faith accounting. In particular, they rely on an exercise in three-card monte in which the surpluses Social Security has been running for a quarter-century don’t count — because hey, the program doesn’t have any independent existence; it’s just part of the general federal budget — while future Social Security deficits are unacceptable — because hey, the program has to stand on its own.
Excellent analysis. The point at which I must part company with Krugman is when he writes:
What’s really going on here? Conservatives hate Social Security for ideological reasons: its success undermines their claim that government is always the problem, never the solution
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/opinion/16krugman.htmlAs long as the nation’s corporations and uber-wealthy can claim
ideology we will not be able to confront the real issue, which is their
greed . In the U.S.
ideology is respectable. It is the next best thing to religion. Greed? Well, out of work and underpaid Americans know about corporate greed. They will sign away their futures if the issue is
ideology , but they are more likely to riot in the streets if they figure out that this is about
greed .
How do the rich stay rich in America? They steal someone else’s money. U.S. capitalism is just domestic colonialism. The workers of America are the third worlders who are being robbed of their natural resources, their homes, their labor---and now their retirement. All so that some dirtball who has fifty million dollars stashed away in an off shore account can increase that to one hundred million dollars.
Texas, the quintessential robber baron state should serve as an example of the broader schemes of corporate America. Under Rick Perry, the Texas Teacher Retirement Fund has been raided for schemes like a toll road project that the Banksters will not touch and to pay off the debts of an out of state bankrupt business (they call it an “investment”). In their frenzy to get their greedy little hands on all that public service retirement money, the Banksters have declared war on the nation’s teachers.
Fire them all! Replace them with temp workers! That won’t work with Social Security. So, they have aimed their most effective political weapon---Divide and Conquer---at the American worker. If you are young, you are told that greedy, selfish old people (who should just go away and die) are stealing your future. If you are retired or near retirement age, you are told that profligate, fun loving “live for today” kids are about to rob you blind---presumably so that they can buy another fix of something to snort up their noses.
Their goal? To unlock that box and liberate all that money---$2.6 trillion---in order to pay for CEO bonuses and corporate jets. And---of course----political contributions to right wing “ideological” candidates.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wall-street-opens-wallet-republican-senate-candidates-upcoming/story?id=11359466The next time you hear about "conservative ideology" remember that the only "ideology" that interests the nation's right wing is the kind that makes them a whole lot of money.
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