.
What is happening now, September 2008:
(excerpt) from France 24
Meltdown Monday shakes the world once again
Monday 15 September 2008
It’s being called Meltdown Monday: the day when the collapse of Lehman Brothers was just one of a series of stunning developments sending shockwaves through global financial markets.
What Ian Wilder wrote about in December 2004:
from How far will Dubya get in ratifying Social Security? in December 2004 The Improper
Since GW Bush just barely got (re)elected to office, I doubt that he will have the ability to make much of a radical change to Social Security. Saying he has a “mandate” or any “political capital” from a 3% victory makes as much sense as saying the Yankees are the World Series Champion because they won the first 3 games of the playoffs.
I know, I know. Like Mighty Mouse, privatizing Social Security is going to save the day. The Bush White House will ignore the findings of its Commission to Strengthen Social Security. The Commission found that diverting some of the Social Security funds into private accounts would increase the shortfall. This makes complete sense since the money you pay into Social Security today is immediately paid out to retirees. That means that the more money you divert from the Social Security fund, the smaller the pool is to pay benefits now.
I’m sure my esteemed colleague to the right will also ignore this basic physical law and instead use some minuscule foreign economy such as Israel as his example for privatizing Social Security. What he won’t bother to mention is that Israel is a Social Welfare economy with an extensive safety net including, heaven forefend, Universal Healthcare, so that citizens’ basic needs are provided for no matter what. We used to at least have a half-assed safety net in this country until Clinton shredded it to pay down the Reagan deficit.
Now we have no safety net, no surplus, and we’re about to give away Social Security to a bunch of people who can’t count as well as a kid on Sesame Street. No, I’m not talking about Enron’s billion-dollar energy pyramid scheme. Nor Halliburton’s treasonous stealing of 400 million dollars from our military. The companies that we’re supposed to invest our Social Security savings in can’t even count thousands, or even hundreds, of votes.
Social Security is going broke because of the graying of our population. If we switch the system from the government to private corporations, it certainly won’t make us any younger, but we can count on it making us a lot poorer.
What wilderside is thinking now: What if everyone had their pensions invested in the stock market now?????????
Filed under: media, Political Websites, progressive politics, reform, republican, social & economic justice, US Politics Tagged: | Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, meltdown, merrill lynch, Monday meltdown, pension, privatization, savings, social security, wall street
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