December « 2010

Ah, "entitlement reform". Sometimes referring to just Social Security, many times Medicare [and maybe even Medicaid] thrown in, and if they're being really expansive, they also mean public pensions.

But that word "entitlement".....is misleading.

Because this is what the various parties are entitled to:

Nothing.

I'm not meaning that people didn't "earn" whatever benefits in question. It's that government promises are worthless, and can turn on a dime. You cannot count on them being there if they are unsustainable in reality, as many government promises are. You can't be entitled to something when you've got no way to enforce getting it.

Let's consider Social Security. What promises were made? What promises have already been broken?

There were lies from the very beginning [a 1936 brochure]:

After the first 3 year--that is to say, beginning in 1940--you will pay, and your employer will pay, 1.5 cents for each dollar you earn, up to $3,000 a year. This will be the tax for 3 years, and then, beginning in 1943, you will pay 2 cents, and so will your employer, for every dollar you earn for the next 3 years. After that, you and your employer will each pay half a cent more for 3 years, and finally, beginning in 1949, twelve years from now, you and your employer will each pay 3 cents on each dollar you earn, up to $3,000 a year. That is the most you will ever pay.

I don't think my grandparents were that gullible. They knew they would end up paying more. The more the government asserts, many times, without thinking, one can call such an assertion into question.

But due to the "richer people pay more, richer people get more" design of Social Security benefits, people got to feel like they "earned" the benefits. And that language is still used. But a 1960 Supreme Court case, Flemming v. Nestor affirmed that Congress can do whatever the hell it wants with Social Security. People were given the warning 50 years ago. They should have paid attention then.

Social Security, in many ways, is the easiest of all the entitlements to fix. It's a pure cash transfer. Congress can change the formulas and benefits at any times, and the formulas [and the tax status] of these benefits can be so obfuscated that the cash gets cut in dozens of "itty-bitty" cuts that add up to quite a lot. That's what has been done previously, but now it may require more overt changes to retain sustainability.

Several people have proposed means-testing Social Security benefits. I think my grandfather maxed out, and every year just sends his checks straight to the Church [he's got one of those generous, old-style defined benefit pensions from back when private companies could afford them]. Under any reasonable means-testing regime, he'd get nothing from Social Security. My grandmother on the other side has a state pension from her teaching job. I'm not sure how that stacks up against Social Security, but I hope it's a bit more.

Now, you would think that means-testing would be popular with progressives, given the class warfare underpinnings that have been in the estate tax debates. Hah. Expect consistency from progressives? =snort= No, and it's not a principled opposition. They know the moment that means-testing is on the table, Social Security starts its slide towards being an explicit welfare program for seniors. You know, the supposed purpose for which it was originally set up. Once it becomes that, and the benefit isn't "earned", but is a true safety net, and the tax argument becomes hairy. You want to raise payroll taxes to pay for welfare? Uh, I love granny, but.... [...and a lot of the problem is because a lot of these oldsters aren't grandparents]

The payroll tax has just been a sneaky way to gather in more taxes, while making people think they were earning something in return. News alert: you weren't earning anything. To link this a second time, that money was spent on all sorts of federal goodies and that money is long gone [even with those extra taxes, they ran deficits. Imagine what happens once the program no longer spews money, but sucks it.]

My fellow American actuaries have recommended that the full retirement age for full Social Security benefits should be increased, and I agree with that. It's a matter of setting expectations, not just cutting benefits down to size -- if you want to retire "early" [and I consider 65 early, given I can see my generation living into their 90s in large numbers], you need to prepare appropriately. [More actuarial stuff on changing the benefit formulas.]

If you guys wanted the rhetorical "children" to have paid for your goodies, you really should have had more children, boomers. Your parents had plenty, and so I do not begrudge them [my grandparents, having 9 children amongst them, and it would take me a while to count the grandchildren, so I'm not going to.... I've got 17 relatives by blood on facebook, that I've counted thus far.] But the cashflows are going in the wrong direction, and there aren't enough kiddies. So I think the entitlements aren't merely going to get cut for my generation, but also my parents' generation, the boomers, while they are getting those benefits.

Who knows? Perhaps Social Security will devolve to its original purpose. That's what I'm betting on.

Imagine, a government fulfilling its original promise.

Meep

Meep is a member of the Irish Catholic mafia, having a suspiciously high number of green-eyed, red-haired friends. While she doesn’t have red hair herself [except when she goes into the sun (rare for any vampire)], she does have green eyes. She’s a raving Papist and is a life actuary on the side [i.e., she counts dead people]. An amateur pain-in-the-ass [willing to go pro!], she likes covering retirement, mortality, math, and education issues.

Tagged as: entitlements, medicare, public pensions, social security, tax 2 Comments

20Dec/100

Governor Christie Discomfits Police State

Frees Brian Aitken.

And shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly.

For meep: 60 Minutes finally gets around to covering Pensionquiddick.

Prayers for Raquel are appreciated.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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20Dec/100

Those Who Can’t Do Teach; Those Who Can’t Teach . . .

become politicians.

Over at Jeff Dunetz' place (he's blegging, BTW, and a worthy recipient of your patronage), the story of soon-to-be-ex Congressman Steve Driehaus, D-Ohio:

From now on when ever you see the word loser in the dictionary you might see a picture of soon to be former congressman Steve Driehaus, D-Ohio. Driehaus is blaming the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List for his shellacking in November, going so far as to sue the PAC in federal court for "character defamation" and "depriving him of his livelihood." Driehaus was one of those pro-life congressmen who decided to vote for Obamacare even though the "Stupak Amendment" banning the use of federal funds for abortion was stripped out of the bill and replaced by a nonsensical executive order that did basically nothing.

Pathetic hardly scratches the surface. What a bag of douche.

Only an entitlement gravy train papsucker (yeah, bet you had no idea trains have paps) would stoop so low as to insist, in effect, that he has a right to employment as a Congresscritter. I'm glad this whiny baby is gone.

This is the kind of putrescent crap (yes, crap can putresce) that comes of replacing self-respect with self-esteem.

Speaking of whiny bitches who can't let the chips fall where they may, the Department of Health and Human Services has purchased the Google search term "Obamacare" with your tax dollars, so that searchers will be directed to government propaganda. I use Googles mail and document platforms, but that just sucks.

Question for "Progressives": does it constitute an in-kind donation? Stick it.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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20Dec/103

Human Events and WND Spam

I get the spam because I subscribe to their email news feeds. I don't dig WND's attitude toward gay conservatives, and I've got a bit of a beef with Human Events' Jason Mattera for having been a bit of a dick towards me, but on the whole I enjoy reading their stuff, and I don't hesitate to link to them when I think they're deserving. Heck, I even complimented a Salon writer last week, though admittedly it was not an article about Why I Had My Tubes Tied or Why I Nearly Decided To Jump Off A Bridge.

Still, I grow weary of the solicitations, probably because I'm a curmudgeon. WND is always sending me email about how I can make huge returns getting in on the ground floor of investment opportunities in cryptic stocks. Maybe I'm too skeptical about such touting, but after awhile, it just makes me angry. As for Human Events, today I received from them an email from an outfit calling itself the "United States Justice Foundation," urging me to send faxes to every Congresscritter urging them to stop the FCC's contemplated Internet regulating power grab, whilst making a generous donation to them:

This "stealth" use of new FCC rules and regulations will sneak up on us just before Christmas. TOMORROW! Quite frankly, not too many people know about this; or took the notion serious because, after all, we have the 1st Amendment to the U. S. Constitution to protect us. Right? Wrong!

The FCC is ready to add the Internet to its "portfolio" of regulated industries. The Obama Administration wants to take control of the Internet tomorrow! (even though the regulations won't "officially" go into effect until after the holidays). FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced that he has circulated "draft rules" that he says will "preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet." No statement---I call it a bald face lie---reflects the vast gulf between the rhetoric and the reality of Obama Administration policy.

Obama's FCC is ready to steal our Internet freedom by simply declaring it has the "right" to regulate it. Here's the underlying problem for Barack Obama. Internet journalists tend to report the news without coloring it with the brush of "political correctness." They challenge the lies that the Obama Administration puts out that the so-called "mainstream media" simply accept and repeat as the truth.

Please, CLICK HERE to send a FAX to every single Member of Congress TODAY, and tell them that they need to exercise their Constitutional authority and oversight over the FCC, by insisting that the FCC postpone the implementation of these new regulations until proper Congressional Committee hearings are held to determine whether the Executive Branch has the Constitutional authority to take over the Internet. Three federal judges in three different cases have already ruled that the Internet deserves the same protection under the First Amendment as printed material receives. AND, please be sure to send a sizeable DONATION to the United States Justice Foundation (USJF) as we keep this Internet freedom issue before the eyes of every Member of Congress. We must not let the federal government continue to whittle away at our Constitutional freedoms!

Look, I am strongly motivated to keep the Internet out of the hands of nanny-state apparatchiks, particularly the "Progressive" sort who gravitate towards imposing various strange rules of mental hygiene, and my writings for years over the web prove it. But if you click on the link, you are brought to a site where it's explained to you that emailing each and every Congresscritter and awarding a generous donation to the US Justice Foundation is going to cost you $175. Then, if you go to Charity Navigator, you discover that the profile of the organization is, frankly, pathetic.

Hey, I realize that the folks who back Townhall have to make money to do the good work that they do, but in cases like this one, they ought just say no.

The weirdest solicitations I get, though, are the ones for cruises. I'm not really inclined towards cruises, but the idea of going on a cruise with a bunch of political junkies frightens me, especially when their idea of a good time is to rub elbows with famous pundits. It strikes me as an especially nerdly sort of star worship, perhaps in its way more demented than worship of Hollywood stars. I'm not saying that I don't like to meet other bloggers at formal or informal gatherings. I do. I'm just saying, if you are going on a cruise, don't you want to get away from politics and all the other usual bullshit?

Don't even get me started on the idea of taking a sea cruise with Dick Morris. I'm just going to say, ladies, no open-toed shoes.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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20Dec/100

Monday Fare

Over at Cold Fury, Mike's been on a tear. I urge you to read his recent rants, but he takes a break to share some interesting spam.

Fathers, don't let your children grow up to be Julian Assange.

WikiLeaks: Conspiracy theorists hardest hit.

Blow, between the lines.

Nina Totenberg says a naughty word on air.

Hey, remember that stuff we used to call "snow"?

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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19Dec/104

The Odious Eric Boehlert

It's his job to lie. I get it.

Still, Verum Serum's piece covering his tweets regarding the School Board Shooter and Media Matters makes for fun reading, because the guy's always getting splodied by his own rhetorical devices. Boehlert is truly the Wile E. Coyote of the internet. Verum Serum also has an in-depth takedown of another recent "study," commissioned to demonstrate that conservatives are living a lie.

I share Serr8d's disdain for some of the folks listed in the Top 25 conservative commentators, including Noonan and Morris. I'm glad to see Victory Davis Hanson and others from the alt media. Too many slots, IMO, are given to Townhall. Not that I don't like Townhall, but there are others at least as deserving. Among those would be Richard Fernandez at Pajamas. Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft probably is too prolific to be a great writer, but he pushes a lot of information into the blogosphere. Clarice Feldman is consistently excellent about digging up all of the telling details in complex stories. Zombie and Robin of Berkeley are indispensable. Stacy's got his hands full writing with insight and at length about a wide variety of topics, including breasts, and mentoring young upstarts. Ace slices like a hammer. Jeff G's back in form.

Sadly, neither Iowahawk nor Treacher gets mentioned, either. Their genius consists in making the grotesque palatable, which is no easy trick. That they recognize the depth of the grotesquery probably places them beond the pale of polite political letters. To which I can only say to polite political letters, "You suck."

Ed Morrissey and Allahpundit certainly have more influence than a lot of people on that list. Karl Bade and the other Green Room people are getting a (generally well-deserved) airing. Doug Ross does a lot of worthwhile spadework, along with the Verum Serum folks. There are a bevy of worthwhile writers over at NewsReal, and the Real Clear sites grab what's best from around the sphere. Among the Breitbart sites, the ones that I go to most are Big Politics and Big Journalism, though the other ones are good, too.

There are a lot of lesser known bloggers who do yeoman's work day in and day out, many of whom you will find on the Island of Misfit Blogs. Many of them are represented, too, in my blogroll. I try to visit folks like David Thompson and Christopher Taylor, Cynthia Yockey and Bob Belvedere and Jimmie Bise and Carol of No Sheeples, Sister Toldjah and Sissy Willis and Dan Riehl when I can, but to tell you the truth, not as often as I should, unless I happen to be looking at my RSS feeds when they post something.

You can get a peek at a bunch of the young bucks at Pundit League (.us), who inexplicably chose to recruit this old guy--to lend ballast, I suppose.

With apologies to the many, many bloggers whom I admire whom I haven't mentioned, what I mean to say is that we are confronted daily with an embarrassment of riches, many of which are underappreciated. So, this holiday season, I hope you'll go make someone's day by thanking them for their contributions to your life this year. Just a comment is all it takes.

Any of them is more deserving than Boehlert.

Keep BJ Tex, with whom I chatted this morning, in your prayers. He's doing well, but feeling a bit run-down from all the treatments. And Ric Locke, who is another remarkable blogger who doesn't get the attention he deserves. I hope he's doing all right. And thanks to all of you who have prayed for KT and family and the other bloggers who make POWIP worthwhile. It's much appreciated.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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18Dec/104

Bernie Madoff Still Doesn’t Get It

As everybody knows, Madoff's son Mark committed suicide by hanging himself with a dog leash on the second anniversary of his father's arrest. Just prior to that arrest, Madoff had called his sons into his office to tell them that the jig was up. According to their version, it took them entirely by surprise. Nobody's been able to prove otherwise.

It's easy to disbelieve them, since their father's Ponzi scheme bilked so many people with such success and sophistication for so long. The SEC seems to have been distressingly susceptible to his flim-flam, too. Certainly his clients were. And in all cases it was a matter of people believing what they wanted to believe in the face of the evidence, a condition of delusion that extended to Congresscretins and insider power-brokers like Franklin Raines and Rahm Emanuel, who rode the gravy train to personal wealth while avoiding the "clawback" for unethical practices that the Obama administration once claimed it sought on behalf of the taxpayers whose trust was abused at every turn. In the event, the only clawing back was more clawing of the backs of taxpayers.

The NY Post runs a story today about how Madoff took the news of his son's suicide when it came to him in prison. Following his visit to the prison chapel, he returned sobbing to his cell and spent the next couple of days in self-imposed isolation. What comes at the end, though, makes you wonder whether he's learned anything at all:

The ex-con said he has since learned that Bernie was steamed that neither [his wife] Ruth nor any other family members had been to the prison to grieve with him.

"He's upset that his wife hasn't come down to see him because of [her] fears that the media is at the prison, and that she'll be harassed," he said.

"He thinks the family is trying to avoid the media."

Then again, perhaps his family blame him for Mark's suicide.

Maybe "steamed" was just a bad choice of words on the part of the inmate interviewed for the story. Maybe heartbroken and devastated are more like it. I hope so. But for a person so monstrously selfish, it's credible, and that in itself is very sad.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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18Dec/100

Beefcake Friday Volume IX

Yes..it's Eric again.....that will probably happen about once a month..cuz it's my pr0n room and I can. :0

Dede

Sometimes stuff rumbles around in my brain that's longer than 140 characters and, well......twitlonger just seems like cheating. :)

Tagged as: beefcake friday, eric balfour, it's in his kiss, tingle up my leg No Comments

18Dec/104

The Dude Who Tried Shooting Up The School Board Meeting

We abstained from covering the story, too, but a lefty troll caused John Hitchcock finally to post about it:

Beyond that, Clay Duke had already spent time behind bars several years back on a gun-related offense. There is no doubt Duke was a left-wing radical. There is little doubt that Duke was a serious nut-job. But even though he was a 911 truther who held Media Matters in high regard, those organizations are not responsible for Duke’s terroristic actions. Duke is.

Let me repeat that. Despite Duke’s obvious 911 truther status and his obvious high regard for Media Matters, 911 truthers are not responsible for Duke’s terrorist actions. Media Matters is not responsible for Duke’s terrorist actions. Clay Duke is responsible for Clay Duke’s terrorist actions.