World's Biggest Ponzi Scheme? You bet

[BLADEMDA]

Social Security and Medicare Projections: 2009

Brief Analysis | Social Security





No. 662
Thursday, June 11, 2009
by Pamela Villarreal



The 2009 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports show the combined unfunded liability of these two programs has reached nearly $107 trillion in today's dollars! That is about seven times the size of the U.S. economy and 10 times the size of the outstanding national debt.
The unfunded liability is the difference between the benefits that have been promised to current and future retirees and what will be collected in dedicated taxes and Medicare premiums. Last year alone, this debt rose by $5 trillion. If no other reform is enacted, this funding gap can only be closed in future years by substantial tax increases, large benefit cuts or both.
Social Security versus Medicare. Politi­cians and the media focus on Social Security's financial health, but Medicare's future liabilities are far more ominous, at more than $89 trillion. Medicare's total unfunded liability is more than five times larger than that of Social Security. In fact, the new Medicare prescription drug benefit enacted in 2006 (Part D) alone adds some $17 trillion to the projected Medicare shortfall - an amount greater than all of Social Security's unfunded obligations.


Future Payroll Tax Burdens. Currently, a 12.4 percent payroll tax on wages funds Social Se­curity and a 2.9 percent payroll tax funds Medicare Part A (Hospital Insurance). But if payroll tax rates rise to meet unfunded obligations:

• When today's college students reach retirement (about 2054), Social Security alone will require a 16.6 percent payroll tax, one-third greater than today's rate.
• When Medicare Part A is included, the payroll tax burden will rise to 25.7 percent - more than one of every four dollars workers will earn that year.
• If Medicare Part B (physician services) and Part D are included, the total Social Security/Medicare burden will climb to 37percent of payroll by 2054 - one in three dollars of taxable payroll, and twice the size of today's payroll tax burden!

Thus, more than one-third of the wages workers earn in 2054 will need to be committed to pay benefits promised under current law. That is before any bridges or highways are built and before any teachers' or police officers' salaries are paid.

Impact on the Federal Budget. The combined deficits of both programs now require about 14 percent of general income tax revenues [see Figure I]. As baby boomers begin to retire, however, that number will soar, and it will be increasingly difficult for the government to continue spending on other activities. In the absence of a tax increase, if the federal government keeps its promises to seniors and balances its budget:

• By 2020, in addition to payroll taxes and premiums, Social Security and Medicare will require more than one in four federal income tax dollars.
• By 2030, about the midpoint of the baby boomer retirement years, the programs will require nearly half of all income tax dollars.
• By 2060, they will require nearly three out of four income tax dollars.

Impact on Federal Revenues. On average, every year since 1970, Medicare and Medicaid spending per beneficiary has grown 2.5 percentage points faster than per capita Gross Do­mestic Product (GDP). In the future, Medicare spending may rise even faster than the Trustees estimate. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), if Medicare and Medicaid spending continues growing annually at 2.5 percentage points above GDP growth:

• By 2050, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (health care for the poor) will consume nearly the entire federal budget.
• By 2082, Medicare spending alone will consume nearly the entire federal budget.

Can Higher Taxes Solve the Prob­lem? The CBO also found that if federal income tax rates are adjusted to allow the government to continue its current level of activity and balance its budget:

• The lowest marginal income tax rate of 10 percent would have to rise to 26 percent.
• The 25 percent marginal tax rate would increase to 66 percent.
• The current highest marginal tax rate (35 percent) would rise to 92 percent!

Additionally, the top corporate income tax rate of 35 percent would increase to 92 percent.
Pay-As-You-Go. Social Security and Medicare are in trouble precisely because they are based on pay-as-you-go financing. Every dollar of payroll taxes is spent. Nothing is saved, and nothing is invested. The payroll taxes contributed by today's workers pay the benefits of today's retirees. However, when today's workers retire, their benefits will be paid only if the next generation of workers agrees to pay even higher taxes.
What about the Trust Funds? The Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds exist purely for accounting purposes: to keep track of surpluses and deficits in the inflow and outflow of money. The accumulated Social Security surplus actually consists of paper certificates (non-negotiable bonds) kept in a filing cabinet in a government office in West Virginia. These bonds cannot be sold on Wall Street or to foreign investors. They can only be returned to the Treasury. In essence, they are little more than IOUs the government writes to itself.
Conclusion. The Social Security and Medicare deficits are on a course to engulf the entire federal budget. If our policymakers wait to address these growing debts until they are out of control, the solutions will be drastic and painful.
Pamela Villarreal is a senior policy analyst with the National Center for Policy Analysis.

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[BLADEMDA]

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/25/1/11.pdf

 

[BLADEMDA]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l2ZE4v9kw4


"Who said life is fair." You gotta love that line.

 

[BLADEMDA]

Medicare is unsustainable.
"There is $34 trillion sitting off the balance sheet, waiting for future generations to pay," Herzlinger said.
That's how much more Medicare money government has promised than it has budgeted. It's the price of about 30 Iraq Wars.
We locked up Bernie Madoff for running a Ponzi scheme. Medicare is a bigger one. Seniors think the money deducted from their paychecks was stored in a trust fund. But, in fact, it was spent immediately. The "trust fund" is an accounting gimmick.
The giant seniors' lobbying group, AARP (www.aarp.org), rarely talks about Medicare's coming bankruptcy, and it rejects reforms like means-testing or raising the eligibility age, claiming most problems can be solved simply by lowering health-care costs.
"Do things like make better use of health information technology," David Certner, AARP's director of legislative policy, told me.
The Congressional Budget Office says such reforms won't save much money.
"Well, they're going to have to," Certner said.

 

[BLADEMDA]

Who will take care of an older population?
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY
Susie Cooke could live to 100, and she knows it.

Jim Davis, a urologist in Cullman, Ala., says U.S. needs "legal and ethical way to decide" where to put medical dollars.

By Karim Shamsi-Basha for USA TODAY
The 58-year-old grandmother from Tampa took early retirement from Verizon in 2001. She lives a vibrant life — biking, hiking, yoga, aerobics. She still wears a bikini at the beach. She got her 82-year-old mom to take up yoga and aerobics, too.
"I don't feel 58," she says. "I think of myself as I was in college. But when I look in the mirror, I know that I'm not as young as I feel."
Americans are living longer and better than ever. The Census Bureau predicts the nation will have more than 1 million centenarians in 2050, up from 71,000 today.
That's the good news. Now the bad: The cost of health care and retirement benefits of an aging population threatens to bankrupt the nation unless dramatic changes are made.
The average American retires five years earlier than in 1950 and lives 12 years longer. This phenomenon — work less, collect more — has ripped a hole in the senior citizen safety net. The longer we live, the bigger the hole.
"Suppose longevity goes way up, and we're all living to 115," says Ron Gebhardtsbauer, senior pension fellow at the American Academy of Actuaries. "We can't expect to retire at 65 and take our final 50 years off. On the other hand, do we want to work until 100 and have a traditional 15-year retirement?"
The money hole from living longer has been partly patched in the short-term by favorable demographics: Baby boomers, born in the nation's 1946-1964 population explosion, are still working and paying taxes.
But that's about to change. In 2008, the first boomer qualifies for Social Security at age 62. More important, in 2011, the first boomer turns 65 and qualifies for Medicare, the government health program for seniors.
Susie Cooke planned well for her early retirement. She stays fit. She watches expenses closely. As part of her early retirement package, Verizon will pay 62% of her medical insurance costs until she qualifies for Medicare in seven years. Like many other retirees, she gives back to the community — volunteering at a hospice, reading for the blind — in ways that don't show up in tax collections or the gross domestic product (the nation's economic output).
But like most Americans, she is likely to take more out of Social Security and Medicare than she paid in. That's because the federal retirement programs were created when people died sooner and more cheaply.
The cost of longer life spans and medical breakthroughs puts the nation in a dilemma.
"What would happen if we developed a pill that would let us live to 120?" asks economist Dana Goldman, director of health economics at Rand Corp., a non-profit research firm.
His answer: "Our society is not ready for that. Certainly, our fiscal institutions are not ready."
Costly medical breakthroughs
The surprising thing about healthy seniors is that they don't save Medicare money. They might cost the program even more. Average lifetime medical costs after turning 65 are about the same — about $225,000 in 2005 dollars, of which Medicare pays $135,000 — no matter how long a person lives.
But living longer through medical innovation — rather than by staying trim and not smoking — is very costly.
"The dirty little secret of public health finance is that cigarettes are a very cost-effective killer," Goldman says. "Living longer is great for society but a disaster for government programs."
A large Rand study published in September estimated what the most promising medical advances might cost Medicare for every year of life added to patients. Unlike a private insurance company, Medicare has little control over what expensive new treatments it covers. It is legally required to pay for all beneficial medical care without regard to cost.
Rand found that potential breakthrough treatments — from cancer vaccines to anti-aging compounds — are expected to be enormously expensive for the amount of time they add to life.
For example, Vice President Dick Cheney had a defibrillator the size of a deck of cards implanted in his body to regulate his heart's electrical rhythms. Installation costs $30,000, replacement $19,000. Earlier this year, Medicare approved the device as medically beneficial for an estimated 500,000 patients. Cost: $2 billion.
The device is expected to become part of standard care for many heart patients. If half of new patients suffering from heart failure got this device, it would cost Medicare $14 billion in 2015 and $21 billion in 2030 (in 2005 dollars), Rand estimates.
For some people, the device would add years of life; for others, days.
To control Medicare costs, Congress might be forced to make life-and-death decisions about the benefits and costs of medical innovation. That could pit Medicare grandparents against taxpaying grandchildren. "People enjoying the fruits of improved health care aren't the people paying for it," Goldman says.
Political stakes are high
The political clout of seniors will be tested as the cost of medical care grows. The outcome is uncertain because polls show that Americans — young and old — oppose every possible solution: raising taxes, cutting benefits or delaying retirement.
The aging of 79 million baby boomers will make the political influence of the elderly even more potent.
Social Security and Medicare created the formidable senior citizen constituency, says political scientist Andrea Campbell of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before Social Security, the elderly were among those least likely to vote, she says. Today, seniors are the most likely to vote. In 2004, turnout was greatest among voters 65 to 74 and lowest among those 18 to 24.
Older voters also contribute more to political campaigns than any other age group, she says.
"Baby boomers are more affluent now than their parents were, but they haven't saved as much," Campbell says. "They have an enormous stake in Social Security and Medicare. The politics of the future will revolve very much around senior issues."
It's a myth that seniors vote as a bloc, Campbell says. They are almost evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats — a swing voter role that makes them more powerful.
In 2004, President Bush won 52% of the 65-and-older vote, a 5 percentage point improvement over his performance in 2000. That swing was enough for him to win the popular vote, which he had lost in 2000. "That's why both Democrats and Republicans fell over themselves to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare," she says. "Political survival depends on courting this group."
A doctor's concern
Jim Davis, 61, a urologist in Cullman, Ala., thinks a lot about getting old. It's happening to his patients. It's happening to him. "No matter how I cut it, 61 sounds old to me," he says. "But I don't feel old!"
Like most his age, he's healthier and wealthier than his parents. His father's health at 61 was already in decline from hypertension and heart disease.
Not Davis. He runs 5-kilometer races with his grandson. He enjoys practicing medicine more than ever and plans to work another six or eight years. "I don't have the financial worries I had at 31 or the social worries I had at 41," he says. "Now, I can say whatever I want."
One thing he says bluntly: Medicare can't survive as it's structured. It is spread too thin, because it has to cover everything, especially expensive new technology. Davis today gets $575 from Medicare for a prostate operation that earned him $1,450 in 1984.
But new technology and treatments — good innovations that he uses every day — have sent costs soaring. "Doctors have no incentive to cut medical costs, because that would severely cut income to physicians," he says. "I'm amazed at how many CAT scans get ordered. I joke that we should put a CAT scan at the entrance door, like a metal detector at the airport, because that's how we use them."
He says the overuse of expensive technology has many causes: fear of malpractice suits, extra fees for physicians and medical value that might be small but still is real.
Don't get Davis wrong. He's a big fan of Medicare and intends to rely on it when he turns 65. "I don't know what the country would have done without it," he says.
But he's worried about what we're getting for our money. "I see first-hand the astronomical cost of dying," he says.
"There are no limits on the amount of money spent for the very old and the very young (in neonatal care). We need a legal and ethical way to decide where to put our medical dollars."
Richard Miller, a University of Michigan geneticist and expert on aging, acknowledges that extending human lives creates problems, but he says that shouldn't stop us from expanding research into living longer.
"Society has always shown, more or less, an ability to adapt to demographic changes," he says. "I don't want to minimize the doom and gloom of our economic problems, but it's a worthy goal to create healthy people and let them live as long as possible."
Maya Rockeymoore, former research director for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, fears that African-Americans won't benefit equally from medical advances that extend life spans, because they lack adequate medical insurance.
"You must have access to new drugs and new procedures if they are going to extend your life," says Rockeymoore, who now runs Global Policy Solutions, a consulting firm. "The direction of health care costs and coverage could widen the gap in life expectancies (between blacks and whites) over the next few decades."
Stanford University economist Robert Hall says it's not surprising that a wealthy, aging society spends more on health care, because that's what consumers want. He predicts that medical spending will rise from 15% of the gross domestic product in 2004 to more than 30% in 2050.
"Rising health care spending occurs because it is beneficial, not a burden on the economy," Hall says. But paying for that medical care through huge tax increases on a shrinking base of workers would create serious problems for the economy.
How will we solve the dilemma? "Stay tuned," Hall says

 

[BLADEMDA]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EK5D42O8ic&feature=PlayList&p=ZkDjqA7QTBM

 

[BLADEMDA]

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Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada's doctors
By Jennifer Graham (CP) – Aug 15, 2009
SASKATOON — The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country's health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.
Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country - who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting - recognize that changes must be made.
"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
"We know that there must be change," she said. "We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands."
The pitch for change at the conference is to start with a presentation from Dr. Robert Ouellet, the current president of the CMA, who has said there's a critical need to make Canada's health-care system patient-centred. He will present details from his fact-finding trip to Europe in January, where he met with health groups in England, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands and France.
His thoughts on the issue are already clear. Ouellet has been saying since his return that "a health-care revolution has passed us by," that it's possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage and "that competition should be welcomed, not feared."
In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system.
He has also said the Canadian system could be restructured to focus on patients if hospitals and other health-care institutions received funding based on the patients they treat, instead of an annual, lump-sum budget. This "activity-based funding" would be an incentive to provide more efficient care, he has said.
Doig says she doesn't know what a proposed "blueprint" toward patient-centred care might look like when the meeting wraps up Wednesday. She'd like to emerge with clear directions about where the association should focus efforts to direct change over the next few years. She also wants to see short-term, medium-term and long-term goals laid out.
"A short-term achievable goal would be to accelerate the process of getting electronic medical records into physicians' offices," she said. "That's one I think ought to be a priority and ought to be achievable."
A long-term goal would be getting health systems "talking to each other," so information can be quickly shared to help patients.
Doig, who has had a full-time family practice in Saskatoon for 30 years, acknowledges that when physicians have talked about changing the health-care system in the past, they've been accused of wanting an American-style structure. She insists that's not the case.
"It's not about choosing between an American system or a Canadian system," said Doig. "The whole thing is about looking at what other people do."
"That's called looking at the evidence, looking at how care is delivered and how care is paid for all around us (and) then saying 'Well, OK, that's good information. How do we make all of that work in the Canadian context? What do the Canadian people want?' "
Doig says there are some "very good things" about Canada's health-care system, but she points out that many people have stories about times when things didn't go well for them or their family.
"(Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now - if it keeps on going without change - is not sustainable," said Doig.
"They have to look at the evidence that's being presented and will be presented at (the meeting) and realize what Canada's doctors are trying to tell you, that you can get better care than what you're getting and we all have to participate in the discussion around how do we do that and of course how do we pay for it."
Copyright © 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

 

[BLADEMDA]

My analysis shows LESS government involvement is part of the health care solution. In addition, a restructuring of the tax code eliminating a tax deduction for all health care premiums.

1. Health care companies can compete across state lines.

2. No tax deduction for premiums. None. Zero.

3. Means testing for the elderly. Health care premium vouchers offered by the government as Medicare gets phased out for upper middle class citizens. Poorer Citizens are offered Medicaid or Medicare voucher.
Providers are NOT required to accept Medicaid. Age limit raised to 70 for vouchers. Medicaid available to "poorer" seniors over age 65.

4. Private Insurance Only except for Medicaid

5. Non- profit cooperatives- privately funded and privately supported. No taxpayer money

6. Multiple insurance plans permitted- from basic to premium/deluxe.
No one size fits all plans. Allows flexibility of the market place


The less government involvement the better considering the TRILLIONS of dollars in unfunded obligations already on the books.

Blade

 

[cfdavid]

Social Security and Medicare Projections: 2009

Brief Analysis | Social Security





No. 662
Thursday, June 11, 2009
by Pamela Villarreal



The 2009 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports show the combined unfunded liability of these two programs has reached nearly $107 trillion in today's dollars! That is about seven times the size of the U.S. economy and 10 times the size of the outstanding national debt.
The unfunded liability is the difference between the benefits that have been promised to current and future retirees and what will be collected in dedicated taxes and Medicare premiums. Last year alone, this debt rose by $5 trillion. If no other reform is enacted, this funding gap can only be closed in future years by substantial tax increases, large benefit cuts or both.
Social Security versus Medicare. Politi*cians and the media focus on Social Security's financial health, but Medicare's future liabilities are far more ominous, at more than $89 trillion. Medicare's total unfunded liability is more than five times larger than that of Social Security. In fact, the new Medicare prescription drug benefit enacted in 2006 (Part D) alone adds some $17 trillion to the projected Medicare shortfall - an amount greater than all of Social Security's unfunded obligations.


Future Payroll Tax Burdens. Currently, a 12.4 percent payroll tax on wages funds Social Se*curity and a 2.9 percent payroll tax funds Medicare Part A (Hospital Insurance). But if payroll tax rates rise to meet unfunded obligations:

• When today's college students reach retirement (about 2054), Social Security alone will require a 16.6 percent payroll tax, one-third greater than today's rate.
• When Medicare Part A is included, the payroll tax burden will rise to 25.7 percent - more than one of every four dollars workers will earn that year.
• If Medicare Part B (physician services) and Part D are included, the total Social Security/Medicare burden will climb to 37percent of payroll by 2054 - one in three dollars of taxable payroll, and twice the size of today's payroll tax burden!

Thus, more than one-third of the wages workers earn in 2054 will need to be committed to pay benefits promised under current law. That is before any bridges or highways are built and before any teachers' or police officers' salaries are paid.

Impact on the Federal Budget. The combined deficits of both programs now require about 14 percent of general income tax revenues [see Figure I]. As baby boomers begin to retire, however, that number will soar, and it will be increasingly difficult for the government to continue spending on other activities. In the absence of a tax increase, if the federal government keeps its promises to seniors and balances its budget:

• By 2020, in addition to payroll taxes and premiums, Social Security and Medicare will require more than one in four federal income tax dollars.
• By 2030, about the midpoint of the baby boomer retirement years, the programs will require nearly half of all income tax dollars.
• By 2060, they will require nearly three out of four income tax dollars.

Impact on Federal Revenues. On average, every year since 1970, Medicare and Medicaid spending per beneficiary has grown 2.5 percentage points faster than per capita Gross Do*mestic Product (GDP). In the future, Medicare spending may rise even faster than the Trustees estimate. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), if Medicare and Medicaid spending continues growing annually at 2.5 percentage points above GDP growth:

• By 2050, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (health care for the poor) will consume nearly the entire federal budget.
• By 2082, Medicare spending alone will consume nearly the entire federal budget.

Can Higher Taxes Solve the Prob*lem? The CBO also found that if federal income tax rates are adjusted to allow the government to continue its current level of activity and balance its budget:

• The lowest marginal income tax rate of 10 percent would have to rise to 26 percent.
• The 25 percent marginal tax rate would increase to 66 percent.
• The current highest marginal tax rate (35 percent) would rise to 92 percent!

Additionally, the top corporate income tax rate of 35 percent would increase to 92 percent.
Pay-As-You-Go. Social Security and Medicare are in trouble precisely because they are based on pay-as-you-go financing. Every dollar of payroll taxes is spent. Nothing is saved, and nothing is invested. The payroll taxes contributed by today's workers pay the benefits of today's retirees. However, when today's workers retire, their benefits will be paid only if the next generation of workers agrees to pay even higher taxes.
What about the Trust Funds? The Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds exist purely for accounting purposes: to keep track of surpluses and deficits in the inflow and outflow of money. The accumulated Social Security surplus actually consists of paper certificates (non-negotiable bonds) kept in a filing cabinet in a government office in West Virginia. These bonds cannot be sold on Wall Street or to foreign investors. They can only be returned to the Treasury. In essence, they are little more than IOUs the government writes to itself.
Conclusion. The Social Security and Medicare deficits are on a course to engulf the entire federal budget. If our policymakers wait to address these growing debts until they are out of control, the solutions will be drastic and painful.
Pamela Villarreal is a senior policy analyst with the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Blade, I didn't check your source, but I've seen similar statistics from reliable sources. Basically, we could go the way of the USSR. No friggin joke. Or, we'll see some major inflation to fund all of our deficits, as most experts agree we'll simply print money to fund our debt versus defaulting.

But, what happens to the demand for such debt when our currency falls through the floor? Again, we're seriously fuc.ked.

Then, the government will come in to save the day with some sort of "solution" that may include an alternative currency and a consolidation of power and maybe risking some liberties. We'll see. Nowbody can say for sure what the global elite will do to sort this mess out.

Or we could see some sort of major war in which case such a mess could be created in global markets that the U.S. (still by far the most powerful military) looks comparatively good and problem "solved". Again, who knows. But, the facts are the facts. We're a nation in virtual bankruptcy and the next 20 years or so are NOT going to be business as usual. I'm pretty certain of that.

 

[pgg]

Nowbody can say for sure what the global elite will do to sort this mess out.

I think they believe they'll be dead of old age before the bill comes due. They might be right.

We're a nation in virtual bankruptcy and the next 20 years or so are NOT going to be business as usual. I'm pretty certain of that.

B-b-b-b-but the DOW is up to 9500 again!

And the Fed's still buying treasuries, which gives me an idea, maybe I'll go run up a bunch of credit card debt and see how long I can use my Visa cash advances to make minimum payments on the Mastercard and I'm sure Discover will increase my credit limit 'cause I'm a doctor and there'll always be title loans on my cars and that payday advance place by the taco truck down the street. Nothing to see here, move along.

 

[facetguy]

Another good video that examines the coming $50+ trillion in unfunded Medicare and Social Security mandates:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_TjBNjc9Bo

Worth the 30 minutes.

 

[BLADEMDA]

Another good video that examines the coming $50+ trillion in unfunded Medicare and Social Security mandates:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_TjBNjc9Bo

Worth the 30 minutes.

The video is MORE proof why we can't trust the govt. Thus, we need LESS govt. involvement in our lives and not more. A govt. option? Who will pay for it? What will you get for high taxes in 20 years?

Watch the last 5 minutes of the video. Start at 26 minutes thru 30.5 minutes and see why ObamaCare is BadCare.

Blade

 

[cfdavid]

I think they believe they'll be dead of old age before the bill comes due. They might be right.



B-b-b-b-but the DOW is up to 9500 again!

And the Fed's still buying treasuries, which gives me an idea, maybe I'll go run up a bunch of credit card debt and see how long I can use my Visa cash advances to make minimum payments on the Mastercard and I'm sure Discover will increase my credit limit 'cause I'm a doctor and there'll always be title loans on my cars and that payday advance place by the taco truck down the street. Nothing to see here, move along.

I tell anyone that will listen, if you get a raise, bonus, whatever, and things APPEAR that we're heading back to "normal", think again. Use that to consolidate/shore up ones financial status (assuming it could be improved which it can for most Americans), because the systemic risks we face have gone nowhere and in fact are increasing by the month.

I saw the "Fed" was going to float 120 billion in Treasuries this week..... Oh boy....

BTW, amidst your sarcasm, I see your point with the taking on debt thing......

Der Spiegel International (in English) had a very interesting column on the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic. Very insightful. Thankfully, todays investor has many, many more ways to diversify as a hedge.

Here's the link; I highly recommend reading this to put some things in perspective. Sure, the world is different, but we can't keep thinking the U.S. is somehow "immune" to such things....

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,641758,00.html

 

[cfdavid]

Another good video that examines the coming $50+ trillion in unfunded Medicare and Social Security mandates:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_TjBNjc9Bo

Worth the 30 minutes.

Awesome. It's great to see so many more of us educating ourselves proactively. This video was made by the organization that is now headed up by EX-GAO president David Walker. He got frusterated with preaching on deaf ears from within the gov't, so Peter Peterson (look him up) hired him with a 1 billion dollar budget to get the word out......

Great job studs!

 

[cfdavid]

The video is MORE proof why we can't trust the govt. Thus, we need LESS govt. involvement in our lives and not more. A govt. option? Who will pay for it? What will you get for high taxes in 20 years?

Watch the last 5 minutes of the video. Start at 26 minutes thru 30.5 minutes and see why ObamaCare is BadCare.

Blade

Sadly, our future generations will pay dearly. I shudder to think of the burdens we're putting on my little nieces and nephews...... As well as ourselves, because we'll also shoulder a great deal of the debt repurcussions we're headed for.

 

[deleted50478]

In a Ponzi scheme, people are suckered into investing with promises of great income. With the US government, people are forced to 'invest' under threat of imprisonment whether they are suckers or realize that it's a fools game. Otherwise, I agree with you. It was originally a pyrimid scheme with people enrolling ever increasing numbers of children. Obviously, population growth can't continue forever, so collapse is inevitable. If politicians cared about the future instead of just the next election we wouldn't be in this mess and we'd at least try to get out. Instead, Chairman Obama wants to drive us deeper down the wrong road.

 

[MErc44]

this is a huge problem. I am 27, and dont plan on having medicare or social security when I reach the required age. We should be able to opt out of contributing to it since we won't see any benefit. It is hard to believe that reimbursement for prostate surgery under medicare has gone down by 900 dollars in 25 years, not even considering inflation. I personally know physicians who have stopped taking medicare altogether and where I grew up it is difficult to find an internist who is willing to take on a new medicare patient.

 

[Narcotized]

You guys clearly don't understand the brilliance of Obamanomics. He has fixed everything. All you have to do to solve your debt worries is just borrow more money. And when you can't even pay the interest, borrow just to pay the interest. When you can no longer borrow enough to prevent bankruptcy, then steal it from the citizens. And as last resort, just print it like it's monopoly money.

When your banks look insolvent, commit accounting fraud by getting rid of mark to market and just apply what ever made up value you think their assets are worth, not the rock bottom prices that their assets are REALLY worth. Kind of like if you went to get a million dollar loan and your only collateral is a $100,000 condo, you just tell them to ignore the market value because you feel the condo is really worth 2 million dollars. That's perfectly acceptable, right?

Finally, take whatever sheckles the country has left over and dump them into the absolute worst companies and industries in the USA. I mean, isn't that what you would do? If you were broke wouldn't you take your last bit of money and look for the absolute worst failing companies to invest in?

You see, you guys just aren't getting it. Obama is an economics genius.

 

[coprolalia]

Another Failed Presidency
By Geoffrey P. Hunt
Barack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson.

In the modern era, we've seen several failed presidencies--led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed presidents have one strong common trait-- they are repudiated, in the vernacular, spat out. Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon indeed resigned in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially restored by his triumphant overture to China.

George Bush Jr didn't fail so much as he was perceived to have been too much of a patrician while being uncomfortable with his more conservative allies. Yet George Bush Sr is still perceived as a man of uncommon decency, loyal to the enduring American character of rugged self-determination, free markets, and generosity. George W will eventually be treated more kindly by historians as one whose potential was squashed by his own compromise of conservative principles, in some ways repeating the mistakes of his father, while ignoring many lessons in executive leadership he should have learned at Harvard Business School. Of course George W could never quite overcome being dogged from the outset by half of the nation convinced he was electorally illegitimate -- thus aiding the resurgence of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.

But, Barack Obama is failing. Failing big. Failing fast. And failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal put her finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loathe them. Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has lost control of his message, and is overexposed. Clarice Feldman of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity and lack of shame.

But, there is something more seriously wrong: How could a new president riding in on a wave of unprecedented promise and goodwill have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His poll ratings are in free fall. In generic balloting, the Republicans have now seized a five point advantage. This truly is unbelievable. What's going on?

No narrative. Obama doesn't have a narrative. No, not a narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it fabricated, cleverly disguised or written by someone else. But this self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us. He doesn't have an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a positive endearing way with the majority of Americans. We admire those presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are. Presidents we admire are aspirational peers, even those whose politics don't align exactly with our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, Reagan.

But not this president. It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, is historically illiterate, and woefully small minded for the size of the task-- all contributory of course. It's that he's not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper. Moreover, he doesn't command our respect and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up. They are not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don't make sense and don't correspond with our experience.

In the meantime, while we've been struggling to take a measurement of this man, he's dissed just about every one of us--financiers, energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else who has a non-green job. Expect Obama to lament at his last press conference in 2012: "For those of you I offended, I apologize. For those of you who were not offended, you just didn't give me enough time; if only I'd had a second term, I could have offended you too."

Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate state--staggered terms for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally abominable Congress can get voted out next year. With a new Congress, there's always hope of legislative gridlock until we vote for president again two short years after that.

Yes, small presidents do fail, Barack Obama among them. The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps rolling along.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/another_failed_presidency.html

 

[coprolalia]

Obama failing on transparency promise
Comments 0 | Recommend 0
Monday, Aug 17 2009, 8:13 pm
Freedom Newspapers

It should hardly come as a surprise that once in office elected politicians forget about, abandon, or fudge on promises made to get elected.

President Barack Obama’s record on transparency and openness, however, is more disappointing than most such instances.

During the campaign, candidate Obama promised an unprecedented degree of openness and transparency, in contrast to the notoriously secretive Bush White House.

Regarding health care, he said: “We’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN so the people can see who is making argument on behalf of their constituents and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.”

Once in office, however, the administration quietly cut a deal with Big Pharma not to allow Medicare to grind drug companies for lower drug prices, in exchange for a promise to voluntarily reduce prescription prices by some $80 billion over 10 years. The news has trickled out and there’s some question whether the deal will be honored, but it wasn’t exactly shown on C-SPAN, nor was the White House the first to tell us.

During the campaign, candidate Obama promised that pending legislation would be put up on the Internet for at least five days before bills were signed so the general public would at least have a chance to see what devils might be buried in the details.

So far, the president has kept this promise once out of 46 chances, according to the libertarian Cato Institute’s Jim Harper, who is keeping score. The pork-laden $787-billion “stimulus” bill, arguably the most significant and certainly the most expensive bill he has signed, was signed within a day of being presented to him, with no Internet presence.

Candidate Obama criticized President George W. Bush (rightfully so) for his practice of attaching “signing statements” to bills, which sometimes spelled out parts of the legislation he considered unconstitutional or which he didn’t necessarily intend to enforce. President Obama, however, has continued the practice.

You might think his signing statements would be available on WhiteHouse.gov, but according to the Sunlight Foundation they’re not to be found there. A private attorney has made a list with links to signing statements publicly available (www.coherentbabble.com/listBHOall.htm), but not the White House.

The Obama administration has just filed an appeal with the Supreme Court appealing a decision by a lower court that the government must release photos of prisoners allegedly abused in Iraqi prisons. The administration has invoked “state secrets” to keep a case involving warrantless electronic surveillance out of court. These decisions mirror the approach of the allegedly uniquely secretive Bush administration.

President Obama is hardly the first president to prefer to keep much of what goes on in the White House under wraps unless and until it is seen as politically advantageous to make public disclosure. In his case, however, the gap between rhetoric and reality is especially wide.

http://www.cnjonline.com/articles/obama-34788-elected-transparency.html

 

[coprolalia]

Letters: Obama failing to keep word

Rick D. Greb • Sioux Falls • August 27, 2009

President Obama pledged there would be no lobbyists working in his White House on matters on which they lobbied, and then he made 17 exceptions during his first 10 days in office. For example, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn is a former lobbyist for Raytheon.

In the Senate and on the campaign trail, Obama promised to redress the grievances of black farmers who suffered from racial discrimination to the tune of $4 billion. Once in office, however, his Justice Department moved to cap the payments at $100 million in addition to prior settlements, angering the Congressional Black Caucus.

Preceding his trip to Egypt, Obama declared that America was one of the largest Muslim countries in the world even though the federal government's own statistics show that less than 1 percent of Americans are Muslims.

Obama stated he is not in favor of a single-payer health care plan, but apparently, he forgot he made this statement at an AFL-CIO meeting in 2003: "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan. ... But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately because first we've got to take back the White House, and we've got to take back the Senate, and we've got to take back the House." He went on to say that it might take 10 years, 15 years or 20 years.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a president who says what he means and means what he says? Yes, America, this is the "change" you voted for.

http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090827/VOICES09/908270333

Has everyone figured it out yet...

OBAMA IS A FRAUD!

Fail, FAIL, FAIL!

-copro

 

[amyl]

blade, you speak like a libertarian -- considered officially throwing your hat into politics? copro as veep? you guys got my vote. blade/copro '12 on the libertarian ticket.....

 

[racerx]

blade, you speak like a libertarian -- considered officially throwing your hat into politics? copro as veep? you guys got my vote. blade/copro '12 on the libertarian ticket.....

I'd say Cop for pres; he can nominate Blade for Secretary of HHS.

 

[coprolalia]

If any of you believe that we still live in a "free" country, I hope you will soon take the rose-tinted glass off. This country is going in the sh*tter... and fast.

My advice: If you want to have a job in 20 years, learn Chinese.

http://www.rosettastone.com/learn-chinese

-copro

 

[Narcotized]

Sadly, our future generations will pay dearly.

That's best case scenario and very wishful thinking. The ponzi will cave in most likely long before then. It's no longer just future generations, it's you and me and everyone else. We have already begun printing money out of thin air to make payments. Even the most economically challenged know that is a loser system with a very bad ending.

The gullible get brainwashed with words like "stimulus," when it is nothing more than a massive spending/debt bill putting off today's collapse at the price of a larger collapse tomorrow. My favorite oxymoron term than the *****s use is "bailout." How can anybody capable of adding 2 + 2 say a broke ass government can bail out anything? NOTHING is getting bailed out; the debt remains. It is just transferred from whomever (AIG, autos, banks, you name it...) to the taxpayers, and now owed to China.

Anybody that thinks we have hit desperate times needs a reality check. That comes when entitlement nation gets cut off by a broke government. I can't possibly see our entitled society watching patiently and graciously in soup lines for a free meal. The only bright spot is the worst president in history will be a one and done president. That's an impressive feat to be a bigger idiot than the one he followed, but so far he's done everything possible to lock that one up.

Got Guns?

 

[Narcotized]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l2ZE4v9kw4

I've seen the IOUSA video before. Too bad most are unfamiliar with it. Most Americans think cut a little waste here, tax a few rich people there, and all is well. We are so buried in debt, and lead by politicians selling the masses that more wasteful debt is the answer. Finally, I'm starting to see some revolt against Obamageddon, and the masses are putting down the Messiah's Koolaide for a couple of minutes and actually thinking.

We have a long way to go; first education on the issue, then reality that you will pay much more to the government and receive much less. We aren't even close to accepting the solution. We aren't even at critical mass on the education phase. There were some attendings at my residency program that swore by Obamanomics. Granted, they probably never studied a day of economics in their life, but neither have most Americans, and these blind sheep attendings fall in the highly intelligent end of the spectrum.

I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but it's a long shot to me that this one doesn't end badly. How can we possibly avoid a massive currency devaluation and extreme civil unrest?

 

[BLADEMDA]

I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but it's a long shot to me that this one doesn't end badly. How can we possibly avoid a massive currency devaluation and extreme civil unrest?

Obama's plan is to Socialize Medicine through a Public option. This way all funds go through the government. The other part of the plan is greatly limit the care patients, particularly the elderly, receive after a certain age. This coupled with high income taxes, medicare, social security, national and goods (VAT) tax will allow a huge Federal government to save trillions in health care expense while raising trillions more in tax revenue.

Did I mention the vast reduction in Physician salaries and Pharmaceutical drugs/Biotech/Device Manufacturers as part of this plan?

Blade

 

[coprolalia]

Hey, everyone who voted for Obama is getting exactly what they bargained for... inexperience and inability to articulate a clear plan.

Seriously.

Can anyone quantify what this man has actually accomplished... or what he even intends to accomplish... and, I mean, more than just a nebulous, theoretical set of ideas? Has anyone seen a concrete and clear plan for this purported "change" that he went on-and-on about during his campaign?

In the words of John Stossel, "GIVE ME A BREAK!"

-copro

 

[pgg]

I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but it's a long shot to me that this one doesn't end badly. How can we possibly avoid a massive currency devaluation and extreme civil unrest?

I don't believe we can, though the time frame could be a couple years to another decade or even two, and it wouldn't surprise me to see a period of stagflation or deflation before the bottom falls out of the dollar.