The rich have a new answer to the Depression: Eat the Old.

[Jackpine Radical]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090302/greider?rel=hp_currently

Governing elites in Washington and Wall Street have devised a fiendishly clever "grand bargain" they want President Obama to embrace in the name of "fiscal responsibility." The government, they argue, having spent billions on bailing out the banks, can recover its costs by looting the Social Security system. They are also targeting Medicare and Medicaid. The pitch sounds preposterous to millions of ordinary working people anxious about their economic security and worried about their retirement years. But an impressive armada is lined up to push the idea--Washington's leading think tanks, the prestige media, tax-exempt foundations, skillful propagandists posing as economic experts and a self-righteous billionaire spending his fortune to save the nation from the elderly.
These players are promoting a tricky way to whack Social Security benefits, but to do it behind closed doors so the public cannot see what's happening or figure out which politicians to blame. The essential transaction would amount to misappropriating the trillions in Social Security taxes that workers have paid to finance their retirement benefits. This swindle is portrayed as "fiscal reform." In fact, it's the political equivalent of bait-and-switch fraud.

Defending Social Security sounds like yesterday's issue--the fight people won when they defeated George W. Bush's attempt to privatize the system in 2005. But the financial establishment has pushed it back on the table, claiming that the current crisis requires "responsible" leaders to take action. Will Obama take the bait? Surely not. The new president has been clear and consistent about Social Security, as a candidate and since his election. The program's financing is basically sound, he has explained, and can be assured far into the future by making only modest adjustments.

But Obama is also playing footsie with the conservative advocates of "entitlement reform" (their euphemism for cutting benefits). The president wants the corporate establishment's support on many other important matters, and he recently promised to hold a "fiscal responsibility summit" to examine the long-term costs of entitlements. That forum could set the trap for a "bipartisan compromise" that may become difficult for Obama to resist, given the burgeoning deficit. If he resists, he will be denounced as an old-fashioned free-spending liberal. The advocates are urging both parties to hold hands and take the leap together, authorizing big benefits cuts in a circuitous way that allows them to dodge the public's blame. In my new book, Come Home, America, I make the point: "When official America talks of 'bipartisan compromise,' it usually means the people are about to get screwed."

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Or lift the cap on FICA.

:think:

[sybylla]

2. Wow, Jack. That's depressing allby itself.

Probably why I don't get the Nation anymore.

[Jackpine Radical]

18. Hi Sybyllla.

No fooling it's depressing. I'm not sure the proponents understand what they'd be unleashing in terms of Grey Panther-types, though. I can imagine a scene in which the National Guard is overwhelmed by millions of cane-wielding geezers intent on overrunning the White house.

[CoffeeCat]

3. Can you imagine where we'd be today...

...if George Bush got his way and Social Security had been privatized?

With SS funds invested in the stock market, as Bush wanted--a $700 monthly Social Security
check, would be about $350 now.

So, that old man---the one in the DU post who is paying 90 percent of his Social Security check
on rent? He wouldn't even be able to pay the rent.

We need to tell the Republicans to keep their oh-so-wise ideas to themselves.

[4_TN_TITANS]

27. And that is precisely why we need to constantly remind

the public about the disaster we avoided by NOT MESSING WITH SOCIAL SECURITY.
Personally, I believe Bush's 2005 effort on privatization was an effort to infuse the market with cash and float it through 2008 until he could leave the scene and impending disaster for someone else's legacy, most likely a Dem.

[peacetalksforall]

4. K & R Excellent. Thanks for posting.

[TBF]

5. Required reading, K&R. n/t

[Captain Hilts]

6. Prez Obama, you lie down with Jim Cooper, you get up with fleas and a bad rash. nt

[RockaFowler]

7. By the title I was thinking of Soylent Green

[Jackpine Radical]

29. Soylent green is passe. Human flesh is not fit for human consumption

because of the lifetime accumulations of oil-soluble toxins in the body fat. I would presume that the least healthy food sources would be fat old people (like me). I imagine I still have DDT in in my body fat somewhere, not to mention Agent Orange and all the other shit I've been exposed to over the years.

[earth mom]

8. The scariest part of this is how they re-framed it as "Fiscal Reform". It's such a bland name

that most citizens will ignore it as something to do with the stimulus package instead of being about Social Security.

Like "No Child Left Behind" and "Homeland Security", the name "Fiscal Reform" hides it's real and truly evil purpose.


We must stop those bastards from looting Social Security!!! :grr:

[Tsiyu]

9. I love The Nation mag

Dude who owns the gas station I patronize used to pass his copies on to me when he had a scrip.

This is outrageous.

The AARP needs to get wind of it, eh?

Kicking and rec'in this one :kick:

[whosinpower]

10. Last night on CNN - I heard something along this line

I think the rhetoric will be rapidly ramped up now.
Social security is too expensive. Medicare is too expensive. This, according to the talking heads is what caused the collossal debt that America faces and needs to be abolished.

They would rather do this, than increase taxes. Be prepared for a fight of all fights coming soon - because this one is BIG, in my opinion.

Funny - it was eerily silent about the Iraq war, and defense spending......

I also heard something from a capitalist who is one of the investors on "Dragon's Den"' a program that has regular folks pitch their "ideas" to investors in hopes that the investors will help them with their businesses. He basically stated that this "creative destruction" or recession was totally normal, and NECESSARY, in order to allow for growth in the future. Makes a person consider that this was not entirely accidental, and was deliberate. Of course, this is the same person that stated the only thing that gives you "love" is your money. Nothing else. A true capitalist in all sense of the word.

Here is an idea for a television series - follow the life of a millionaire CEO - who thinks the only thing that is worth working for, living for, striving for - is how fat your bank account is.....and follow that through a catastrophic evaporation of the economy, where money becomes valueless.....and see how he lives, how he survives, and who he will ultimately turn to for food, shelter, water and security. Watch as he has to learn to grow food, cook his meals and live cooperatively with others for survival - where money has no value, and things are bartered with other things.....the poor understand this instinctively.

[wroberts189]

13. "idea for a television series"

You did not elaborate on your excellent point so please let me try.


We are all in this together.

The more you have the more you will lose.

The rich ..in the end will find themselves with the rest of us... begging for an MRE from the back of an Army truck. They did not realize that if they killed off the economy their money is as good as rocks.

And that's if they can liquefy in time.

gold? will only last so long as there is something to trade for it.


IMHO

[Kansas Wyatt]

16. Social Security & Medicare too expensive?

Well sure, if they never intend to pay back what they borrowed against it, to pay for tax reductions and limits for the Wealthy Elite.

The Wealthy Eite... Using the social safety net for 'We The People' to avoid their responsibility, and now they are crying, because they are bankrupting their 'personal social safety net piggy bank.' They are nothing, but glorified scum.

[CrispyQ]

23. "The Wealthy Eite...

Using the social safety net for 'We The People' to avoid their responsibility, and now they are crying, because they are bankrupting their 'personal social safety net piggy bank.' They are nothing, but glorified scum."

:applause:

[CrispyQ]

22. It's the last big loot left in the country.

They will never stop trying to get it. Never.

[bertman]

26. Another idea for your television series: shoot the motherfucker in the head before he

does any more damage than he's already done.

That would be considered standard fare on TV these days wouldn't it? Instructive too.

[Fly by night]

11. And my response to that: Eat the rich

Just today, I had another obnoxious SUV tail-gating my 22 year old pick-um-up truck on a wet and windy (but paved) country road in a rainstorm. He tail-gated me, that is, until he got close enough to read my homemade "EAT THE RICH" bumper-sticker. At that moment, he slammed on his brakes and got way the hell off my bumper.

BTW, we don't actually have to eat the rich ourselves. But since many of us are having a hard time paying for pet food these days, we can always feed them to our dogs.

"Here puppy, puppy, puppy. Here's some fresh road-kill for ya'."

[wroberts189]

14. Another? This works.... ? Cool nt

[Fly by night]

15. Oh yes, it works. I have to drive thru a very Red TN county on the way to my farm ...

... and I've had people back way the hell off my truck a number of times when they see the bumper-sticker. Whenever I am in Nashville traffic, I make a point of positioning myself where the conspicuously wealthy drivers can see the sticker, along with my Democratic Underground, Re-elect President Gore and Harley-Davidson stickers. (For balance, I also have a "Life is good" sticker.)

I still have room for one more sticker. I'm looking around for one of those drecky "Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty" stickers that I shorten to "Practice random and senseless acts".

[wroberts189]

12. And they laughed at Gore when he said SS should be put in a locked box.

[Jackpine Radical]

17. Funny--That's exactly what my wife said last night

when we were talking about the Nation article.

[earth mom]

19. This crap wouldn't be happening under a Gore presidency that's for damn sure! nt

[Romulox]

20. There is nothing to "loot" but IOUs; the so-called SS "surplus" is spent every year. nt

[CrispyQ]

21. This needs to be distributed to everyone.

We can never let up our fight for social security because they are never going to stop going after it! :grr:

I don't kid myself that it's safe just because Obama's in the White House. Send this to everyone you know & encourage them to contact their representatives & senators!

Send a link for them to find that info, too!

http://www.votesmart.org/

[femrap]

24. End World Hunger....

Eat the Rich!!!

Or are they going to develop 'soylent green?'

[dmr]

25. How about when the off-shore tax dodgers finally pay their taxes w/ fines & interest

Then come and talk to me about my SS, which from there I'll tell them to look up the war profiteers and their tax dodging.

Interesting how the fat cats always look to swindle the regular tax paying citizen to pay for their foibles.

That Social Security money is eating away at them. The GOP can't stand that Democratic Roosevelt's 'New Deal" program actually works. They can't stand that Democratic Johnson's 'Great Society' Medicare works.

If Obama falls for this, he will be blamed for the demise, the heartache, and deaths of the aged, disabled and dependent children.

Guess I'm off to write some more letters.

And you know what pisses me off?

The ignorant Repub voters who fall for the crap spewed by these asshats. Each and every Repub voter benefits and takes for granted the good things our government offers - and those good things have been brought to them by Democrats who fiercely fought the unfeeling Repubs.

[Blue_Tires]

28. ttt