Catching Up

I apologize for light posting today. Much of work was consumed with--work. Imagine that. Seriously, I had to set up a couple of servers that will become the new print servers on the network. Interestingly, the two original servers were also set up by myself. So it's come full circle.

Once finished, we're going to cluster them--that ought to be fun--Microsoft, cluster, Hewlett Packard--makes me think cluster alone doesn't quite describe the chaos of the near future in regards to this project...

But, I didn't want to post about work...

I managed to plow through a pretty long piece over at Ken's site about Social Security, or the lack thereof, for folks his age...to be fair, I'm a little older than Ken--I think--but I come in under the post boomer era as well, so no turkee for me either, supposedly. And, considering I work as a bureaucrat, I wouldn't get Social Security anyway, because this State has its own retirement system, assuming I actually put in my twenty years or so at my present job.

But I thought it was an interesting essay, if only because it manages to capture a degree of Malthusian angst that harkens back to the early industrial era. Of course, back then, there was an elitist component to Malthus' argument, what with all the unclean people breeding and so on, which Ken, to his credit, leaves out of the picture. But the meme is clear: we're doomed. Doomed to waste hours and hours of back-breaking labor on the churlish, ungrateful boomers who will take our tax money and spend it on trips to Bermuda, or the Bahamas. Worse still, if we ever normalized relations with Castro, we might see Clinton-clones daring to cruise on down to Cuba, playing communist shuffleboard and laughing the whole way, while we post boomers grimly set about the daily toil.

A few observations: first, the outlays for Social Security and Medicare are only in "danger" due to the fact that politicians have been spending the Trust Fund money as if it was part of the general fund. To be fair, this is a fine example of what I believe is called bipartisanship government--both major parties have spent with zeal and relish. To cover the fund, they've deposited T-Bills into its coffers--much as Reagan during the 80's set off a moderate growth spell by simply raising the debt ceiling, which is kind of like Visa upgrading you to a platinum card because you've pretty much maxed out the gold card you had.

The Social Security Trust Fund acts a lot like any pension fund, with one exception: it invests SOLELY in US Government securities. The reasoning behind this is twofold. One, it IS a government program, in spite of present Bush's statements to the contrary back during his campaign. Two, by investing in this way, it provides maximum stability, even if returns may suffer. It's a CONSERVATIVE investment strategy, and it's worked quite well over the years--and, yes, I'm aware of the Carter era payroll tax increase. I didn't say it was PERFECT.

Here's another way to look at it: by investing in T Bills, the only thing that could affect the ability of the Social Security Trust Fund to disburse funds would be a default by the United States' Government. And, if that happens, I'd strongly recommend that anyone with survival as a goal stock up on canned goods, ammunition, bottles of water, and barrels of gasoline--along with a means of transport to the desert or wilderness of your choice.

Sure, when the Fund starts cashing in its securities, our taxes will have to go up--for that matter, our taxes will have to go up when China starts doing the same (for those who don't know, Communist China is a major buyer of US debt). But don't blame the Social Security Administration when they cash in--if anything, blame today's politicians who gleefully and greedily lard up the budget with pork while neglecting basic priorities like healthcare and old age pensions.

Aside: Without knowing the particulars, I don't doubt that Al "Lockbox" Gore had his fingers in the Social Security cookie jar as much as any politician. However, to his credit, a good bit of his campaign consisted of promoting just what I noted above, namely, ensure that the Trust Fund has FUNDS, not T-Bills, in the coffers. Actually, to be fair, they probably would have come up with a mechanism that allowed for some degree of return on an investment of some type--let's not take the weird-sounding 'lockbox' promise TOO literally, although I'll bet that it tested better than 'putting the surplus under the mattress.' Gore most likely would have swapped out debt in some manner that would have essentially tied up the forecasted budget surpluses, thus keeping the money out of the grubby fingers of those who claim to be for "small government," which tends to mean small government for 'other people.'

To say that we're facing doom at the hands of a bunch of graybacks is really missing the picture--the problem we face is a LACK of income distribution based on economic policies which have the support of BOTH major parties. Defense Department Lard tops that list--upwards of $140 billion a year for mostly crap we don't need like space-based-missile defense-systems--talk about pie-in-the-sky. Add to that things like insurance companies basically holding jurisdictions hosage (how patriotic), or companies like Halliburton that suck up more dough from the government than a city of welfare queens (and offer overpriced gasoline in return) and you've gotta realize that the negative rhetoric about Social Security is primarily designed to scare some, while causing others to simply give up on the notion of a pension at all, which means that there will be more government money for the fat cats to chow down on--because while Grover Norquist might want to stangle the "baby" of Social Security and Medicare, you can bet that you'd never see a nickel in tax savings should they actually get away with it. No, instead, even more of your money would go to Dick Cheney's personal pension, which I think is somewhere around $40 million and counting. See, Dick needs all the cash he can get, even if his lump-of-coal heart gives out before he can spend it.

Pensions and health care benefits for the elderly actually are a net benefit to the economy (unless you're Dick Cheney): retirees SPEND their money on goods and services, which, in aggregate, help establish an economic base, which helps communities establish a tax base, which provides for services like roads, city water systems, police, fire and EMT personnel, etc. etc. Which, if you ask me, is both a net gain, and the basis around which government serves its citizens.

Besides, with a GDP of roughly 10.5 TRILLION dollars, I think we can all chip in a little to help out the old folks. Helping out the sick and/or the elderly has been a human tradition, oh--since at least the time of Cro-Magnon. But I suppose an argument could be made that agriculture and industry are but failed experiments, and that we should return to a hunter-gather social structure, if only because it will assist in weeding out all those old people that threaten to work us to death before taking away our OWN winter years...