The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    If you're going to offer marshmallows to a bear

    By Flavius on Fri, 04/12/2013 - 12:36am |

    be sure you have a big bag.

    Obama was wrong to put the chained CPI on the table. I'm fully aware that the Social Security fund will be exhausted in 2000 something or other . And it won't make any difference . The then current contributions from payroll taxes will cover some large % of the requirements and the balance can bloody well be contributed by the public. After all,by then there would have been around 100 years during which the public enjoyed lower taxes because of the subsidy from the social security surplus it'll be time for the public to return the favor.

    Or maybe it won't have to. The projected short fall in 2000 whenever is just that. A projection. I remember a projection in 2000 of fiscal surplusses extending so far into the future that poor dear Alan Greenspan's brow was furrowed with concern that with no national debt  to amortize those toxic excess funds would have to be invested in corporate securities and we would be risking (gasp) quasi nationalization.

    Thanks God we escaped that. It was a near thing.

    Why do I think Obama did this. I think he did it because he thought it was right. And he was wrong. Someone wrote here last week that Obama shouldn't use Social Security or Medicare as bargaining chips. And that was exactly right . Of course that would mean he doesn't have any  bargaining chips and a negotiator with no bargaining chips can't negotiate. Yup. 

    The horse may talk.

    Why was he wrong. Well friends, he's a lawyer and a community organizer..  I suspect that Krugman, or Brad Delong or Dean Baker aren't so good at the law and the only community in which they'd be organizing  would have deep leather chairs ,a fireplace and a good restaurant. But they know the numbers. Obama doesn't . 

    In 2009 he absolutely needed Timothy Geithner. He knew where the bodies were buried.  But about Jan 2011 he should have thanked Geithner for the resignation that Geithner hadn't known he had handed in ; there should have been brass bands,fulsome accolades and a disappearing  Tim G. And A.Nother should have started having his name on the currency. Even Larry Summers would have brought a broader vision to the job if he could avoid speculating about the lack of women scientists.

    Obama has done many things with which I agreed. Slowly. And partially. And he seems like a decent guy. 

    He's wrong this time.

     

    Comments

    A thought just come to me, that by 2038  about 40% of the baby boomers will have aged out of SS.  That big fat bulge of seniors won't be a bulge anymore.  It just needs the ceiling raised some on FICA to handle the bulge for the next 15 or so years.  The sky is not falling when it comes to SS.  It is not a program that we need to give up because the senior population will drop off and level off.  Our grandkids are capable figuring out how to adjust the funding for themselves based on their needs and economy.  In fact they will probably run the economy better then it was run for the last 35 years.  I am so tired of the Stupid Party.  Our President is wrong on his budget this time.  The focus should be stimulus for jobs. 


    by trkingmomoe on Fri, 04/12/2013 - 4:21am

    After reading your comment, it came to me; the fastest growing population will be the Hispanics who are predominantly Catholic and not believing in birth control.... do the math. If Homeland Security doesn't protect the border, there'll be another 11 million enter the US illegally. If they take the jobs and in affect lower the wages in our country, as planned, then we can compete in the world markets against the other slaves of the world.  SS and Medicare will not have enough money for future retirees. Our government feels the working middle class are already overpaid and it needs the middle class to accept forced cuts. Just as it effected the housing market driving down values and equities of the middle class. Another form of wage control, Whip inflation is just what the plutocracy wants, Flood the work pool with workers with no benefits. It wont be too much money chasing goods,, because who'll have the money, except for the already rich, who are selfishly gaming the system .............. Beware of the  Gang of 8's Trojan Horse. PS Why would Seniors in Florida care what happens to the next generation that follows them. They got theres, now get yours.  Divide and conquer the middle class.  Ben Bernanke you can keep the printing presses running, they have a plan to whip inflation through wage contol.  Deficit reduction by means of screwing the middle class. Productivity at lower costs. A rising tide does raise all ships, as long as yours, is not purposely being sunk. ............ You're right though, the stimulus should be for jobs, but that comes after they drive wages lower and break the Unions, then all you slaves get to work.


    by Resistance on Fri, 04/12/2013 - 7:31am

    A reply to both.

    I think I've read that hispanic immigrants have smaller families by the next generation.

    I don't resent immigrants coming here. I resent their  working at slave wages and thus reducing the income of the rest of the working class. If the minimum wage were enforced employers would hire existing citizens which would simultaneously reduce their unemployment and reduce the incentive for immigrants to come here.

    ........................................................................................

    The social security financial  "crisis" isn't one. If we want to deal with it we'll find a way, other than impoverishing the aged elderly ( like me BTW) .

    We aren't fixing it because we don't want to. It's a convenient way for the rich to hurt the lower class. Whom they hate , of course.They cower behind security guards ,fly in private jets or at worst in first class and the less contact they have with anyone earning less than $50 K the more they first fear and then hate them. I went to a dinner  meeting with the CEO of my company. At the "Bankers' Club" on Park near Grand Central. As we left he asked where my car was. I said I was taking the subway and he was astonished. He clearly hadn't done that in years.

    In the discussions about the level of executive pay one of the unacknowledged reasons for excessive compensation is that the board wants the CEO to be so desperate to keep him job that he will implement the "headcount reductions" that they so badly want.

    It's a cliche to say that Labor is at war with Management. Probably  true some times. Whereas the ownership class is always at war with the working class.

    Stuck in a hospital with a  MRSA I was reading Steve Jobs' biography. The doc saw the book and remarked that his son worked at Apple. And had described getting on an elevator followed by Jobs. In the short trip to the next floor Jobs got into an argument with an employee and when the door opened  fired him.

     

     

     

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    by Flavius on Fri, 04/12/2013 - 10:29am