Hello? If McCain Had His Way, That'd Be Our Social Security Money Wall Street is Losing
What do we democrats have to say about the mess on Wall Street?
Today Obama said it proves that the Republican economic philosophy has failed, and I heard him mock McCain for calling for a commission because "we know how we got into this mess." Now some people think about things like "economic philosophy" a lot, and many have at least a general notion of how we got into this mess. But even though everybody cares how much money ends up in their pockets, most people are understandably a little fuzzy about all the policies and philosophies and market forces behind our very complex economy. To further confuse the issue, McCain is also saying something about reform, and taking on "fat cats," and accusing Obama of being just as cozy with these Wall Streeters as anyone else. And at this point, slightly more voters trust John McCain to handle the economy than trust Barack Obama.
As it happens, though, not that long ago we had a rare political moment in this country, a moment where the public sat up and took notice of economic policy -- and spoke out and made its voice heard too. When George W. Bush made it to term #2, he decided to try to privatize social security to reward his supporters on Wall Street with a new source of capital, customers, and fees. (Those would be the same people whose firms are now cratering under the weight of the bad debt they recklessly took on while Republican regulators looked the other way.) But as it turned out, we Americans were not about to let our elected representatives turn over our social security taxes to Wall Street financiers to gamble with if it meant losing the guaranteed income that has allowed millions upon millions of American seniors to live out their sunset years with at least a basic measure of dignity.
But while ordinary Americans spoke out, John McCain stood with Bush (hugged him awkwardly in public, even), against the American people. In fact, just six months ago, McCain again let slip his fondness for privatization.
I have been scratching my head why this has not been talked about more, especially since Obama has been having trouble winning votes among seniors. There may well be some good reason I'm missing why it hasn't been a top argument thus far.
But now that you can't look at a newspaper or TV screen without seeing the mayhem on Wall Street, it's time to remind Americans what the world would look like if John McCain was in charge of our economic policy. Plenty of people are losing plenty of their retirement savings as it is. But if we had let Bush and McCain privatize social security, some of those people would be losing a lot more. And a lot of other people with less retirement savings would be hurting even more, because they depend on social security to cover basic needs.
This is something Americans understand: social security is secure, and the stock market is anything but. There are few more personal or dramatic ways to illustrate McCain's terrible judgment than to imagine the nightmare scenario so many Americans would face if McCain and Bush had gotten their way on this -- or if McCain were to get his way as President.
When Wall Street's woes are the top story, this should be our top talking point.
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One proposal for SS reform was that a person could divert half their SS Taxes to an account. The accepted investment vehicles would be determined by Washington to keep the investments in safer vehicles. Their SS payout would be guaranteed to be no worse than if they stayed completely in the system. The Left did not like this, as it would create some inheritable wealth for those who typically start over each generation, thereby making them not so dependant on the Dems. If even a few of you would stop just repeating the rhetoric and look at some facts on ANY topic, you would see the Left is the opposite of their stated intentions on virtually every subject, specifically caring about those less fortunate. An easy one to start with is look at who actually pays federal income taxes, it is published data. And by the way, we don’t tax wealth, we tax income. You would find many wealthy Liberal supporters change their tune if we taxed wealth, not just income.
Actually, no, there were no guarantees, your investments would be taxed and you would be paying investment fees to Wall Street brokers. All the info is still up on the WH's website, take a look for yourself at the independent non-partisan reviews. They panned the idea as well.
You just keep drinking the kool-aid and wonder why you are still thirsty.
Where are all the good posts from last night? Democrats were really behind Neffinger with great talking points, and I don't see those posts this morning.
The greatest capitalist paradox "GREED IS GOOD" it is the engine that creates jobs, wealth and keeps the economy going, now like in all business someone has to lose, that is why the government must protect us and leave us along in our dealings for we know how to do it and how to run with all the money and never, never be caught." What a country" the one that McCain boasts "My Country First" a metaphor for "Money First to feed the greedy patriots who sacrifice daily for the good of the nation for what is good for the goose is good for the gender.
If mccain and his campaign friends ever stopped lying about his real intentions there would be very few votes for him. Talking points DON'T MATTER when no one is talking about the TRUTH. Those currently in charge are seeking RE-ELECTION. This is not the platform of revolution or even the most modest change, this is the platform of the status-quo. You are correct to point out one of the many terrible ramifications of having people that don't care about other people running our government. I am still surprised to this day that we were able to hold off the privatization of social security although I'm still not convinced they won't try to take this money anyway at some point. The only way the American people will win in the coming election is by taking a stand against greed and selfishness and I don't know if the people have it in them.
I tell you for the milliomth time, it is the " Republicans stupid" a metaphor for deteriorating, economy, environement, education, health-care, energy, a 1 thousand billion dollars quagmire in Iraq, for Iraq and by Bush the 21st century cruzador, liberator, emancipator of the US corporations.
Obama will win Florida if he goes there and talks to the retirees about their social security under a McCain Presidency. And these same retirees are heavilly invested in the stock market to support their retirement. I wonder how they like what the Republicans have done to threaten their financial security. If this keeps up many will be moving back to live with their children. Deliver those messages to the Floridian retirees and let see the polls there in the next month.
Now it's chrystal clear: Palin is wrong. This time it is bigger government what we need. I mean not spending but saving. These days Wall Street is not a good investment. As Alan Greenspan put it: he has never seen a recession like this since the Great Depression. and what has led us out of that? New Deal. creating new jobs by government.
Do a little research. We are not in a recession. The media would like you to believe that and they promote it ever night on the news. I blame the problems in the econmy on them. If you say it's bad enough long enough people will respond and make it come true. Until this last year, unemployement has been lower under Bush than Clinton yet they keep saying this is the worst economy ever. WHY?? They want to have Democrats in office. Socialism is great!!
Actually the Dems caused this problem. Chris Dodd was the # 1 receipient of Fannie Money and BO was #2...
This is what happen when a party start to run away from their responsibilities, you blame the other group even though you're in power. Are you saying that Bush shouldn't have been elected to the office and John McCain should not be elected because he would not matter after all Chris Dodd and Obama were the only two people who created this problem and Bush is been incapable of fixing this problem for eight year?
well, there is the small matter of there not being enough money in that system to pay out all the entitlements, so if they don't figure out some way to lose what isn't there as an excuse, someone will have to raise taxes pay out social security benefits.
When Social Security looks down the line, they make three predictions: The optimistic, the normal, and the worst case. The worst case is adopted by those who say Social Security is headed to bankruptcy and this is why the bankruptcy keeps getting pushed back. Under normal conditions, Social Security is sound into the foreseeable future; that is, if the economy continues to grow at 1.9% a year or better. Medicare is something else.
Privatization has nothing to do with rescuing Social Security. It is simply a different kind of program, an investment savings rather than a self amortizing pension plan.
The weak Medicare plan is a Bush innovation and probably designed to fail so as to discredit both programs. The radical national Republicans regard both as "socialism," a very bad word in their lexicon so long as it doesn't refer to bankers.
Back in the Reagan years, Greenspan chaired a committee to rescue Social Security. It amounted to charging extra to build up a fund to use as the baby boomers began to retire. This fund, invested in federal securities, the safest savings in the world, is now growing more slowly. Therefore, it is said, taxes will have to be raised to replace the Social Security money which is now slightly less excessive. This is an amazingly cynical maneuver!
Hurrah to Bush and the Republicans, they've given every taxpayer a piece of the ownership pie. Now I can proudly say I own a piece of Frannie & Freddie, AIG, Bear & Sterns, and my portfolie will continue to grown under the Republican program of an ownership society. I'm so happy, I'm going down and put a downpayment on a new Bentley, tomorrow.
What a rediculous statement by Obama! The Republican economic philosophy has nothing to do with the recent situation on Wall Street. It is due to investor's fear over the recent mortgage crisis, (AIG, Fannie, Freddie, etc.). The problem will fix itself as real estate values will come back like they always do, regardless of who the president is. Soon the panic will be over and the recent fad of letting your house go back to the bank so you can live free for a year will be over. The common tax paying citizen will pay for it all unfortunately and we will all hopefully learn a lesson: Just because the bank will lend you the money to buy a half million dollar house, doesn't mean you can afford it!
As for privatising SS, I ask you this quesition: When the stock market recovers and continues to grow over time, will you take back that statement on the headline of your article John N? Retirement is a long term investment. The average person can diversify their SS account and end up way ahead of the game over time. If it were not so, then we might as well all give up because there is no future for anyone anyway. If a person does not want to manage their own SS account, they can leave it in a managed fund or money market insured savings account. You would still be better off than what we have now.
Oh, my goodness! chartneck is serious! Democrats, that's what we have to deal with.
And just exactly what did the housing market have to do with Enron's collapse? The volatility of Wall Street predated and will always be independent of any one single feature of our economy, unless one posit's unmitigated greed and callous unconcern for how it's gratified or who suffers its consequences as a feature of our economy. Capitalism without proper controls can and does go as berserk as Communism did under too much control. There's a happy medium where no one has to get hurt.
Social Security can support itself from its own payroll tax just as it has for seventy years. Investing in the stock market or anything else is a business endeavour, and money to invest indicates we are gathering more payroll taxes than we need to cover the costs. It is possible to lose money even in an up market as San Diego and San Jose California can testify since they were both forced into bankruptcy by aggressive investment programs despite a rapidly growing Dow Jones. As the expression goes, sometimes the bulls win, sometimes the bears, but the pigs always lose. When it has a program of sufficient size, the government should let speculators play with their own money and leave ours alone.
Republican economic philosophy (and policy!) is quite definitely at fault. We've been ramping up for this mess since the 80's - um Reaganomics????! I think this is finally proof that it works - however, it's not money trickling down from the top (we all know that money just stays at the top) - it's problems trickling up from the bottom. Wall Street FAT CATS - welcome to the real America!
Allow me to demosntrate how wrong you are with a simple analogy:
You have the feeling that a nasty neighboor in Mexico, whom you have any idea who he is, what he wants or he can ever get a visa to enter the US, is arming himself with WMDs and because of your devotion to your family you decide they need to be protected and therefore since you have imagined he plans to come and attack your family; you get all your toughest friends and down South you go, take the guy out and stay at his home for an extended period of time, all the while you fight every day with his neighbors who kill your friends and in revenge you kill his friends and destroy his neighborhood.
In the mean time you go into a extreme debt, almost broke, you owe your soul to the devil, your family no longer enjoy you nor the living standard they were accostumed to and the entire country of mexico hates you and wants to kill you.
Now, whose fault is it?
Yes, just what we need -- more Republican Wreckonomics to . . . .
Next burst or collapse is the Healthcare Industry and the infamous HMOs. Less people getting healthcare insurance means less money for HMOs. Right now they are getting some money from left over workers of big companies and that they keep raising premiums, otherwise they would have collapsed already. As they raise prices it forces more people to forego of medical insurance completing the cycle. The HMOs fat cats will run with their pockets full of green when this deck of cards collapses though and they will find a new scheme to hoodwinkle us. Remember these folks are the same from the Savings and Loans scandal.
As far as I'm concerned the Republican campaign platform boils down to "You trusted us to get you into this mess, now trust us to get you out".
And if anyone buys that, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell them...to nowhere...
This was a good piece. I'm afraid the Obama people have endangered their potential lead in Florida by going after the youth and ignoring the non-computer literate older folk who are such a large part of the vote here. The Social Security argument is easily made and can readily be understood in the light of the utter destruction of hundreds of billions of dollars in retirees funds every day in the stock market.
There still is time, but someone up there in Chicago needs to get more print media out that speaks clearly and simply to seniors. Most of us, after all, are old enough to remember far better days under Democratic presidents.
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