The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

[DSpencer]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

But here's the thing: this isn't welfare. We pay into these programs individually. You get more if you work more and earn more money

If they start means testing can we call it welfare? There's no guarantee I'll get one dollar out of this system. Mentally I have already written it off. I pay in now so that other people can live off my tax money. When I retire those people will be dead and gone. They don't care at all about whether the system is solvent beyond that point.

Because when people pay money for something, they usually feel entitled to it. That's why they paid money for it.

What? This is a TAX. We pay it because otherwise we go to jail. Only a fool would pay into SS because they think it's a sound investment. And remember, as a society, we already used the money. It's gone.

Your position is that we should raise the age and/or cut benefits. That's not a radical position. It is the standard WSJ/NYT position as well

My position is that I should be able to opt out now if I'm willing to give up any potential benefits that I've already paid in.

[shiny!]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

Maybe 1% of children born today will live to 100. Maybe. But that's very optimistic.

The US Census predicts that for children born in 2020, the expectations for life expectancy at birth for US males will be 77.1 years. That's a far cry from 100. And if you want to push people out past 70 years to collect, there will be a lot of broken, sick, hurt people begging for work.

I've been over this before here.

The phrase "people are living longer" absolutely does not mean that "people are living past the far end of the curve of the life expectancy of human beings." Nobody is ever going to live to 150.

All it means is that there is less infant mortality, fewer accidental deaths, and that we can give you one more shot after a heart attack more often now. That's about it.
People who escaped heart attack and infant disease lived until their 70s or 80s 6,000 years ago, and so they do today.

There was never a time when everybody dropped dead at 25, or 30, or 50.

Thank you! I've been saying this for years but for some reason it doesn't click with most people. The 'we're all living longer' meme refuses to die.

To heart attacks and infant disease, add 'death in childbirth' and 'farming/industrial accidents', which were major killers and served to lower the average for life expectancy. People who dodged those bullets usually lived to healthy old ages.

Also, compare the strong, healthy old people of times past to the extremely frail, unhealthy old people now. From what I've seen, most old people in the U.S. today are on so many medications for diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure that they'd be dead in a month if their meds were cut off. I live in a "senior" community and see it all around me: so many people with horrific scabs and bruising from their blood thinners, riding their 'mobility scooters' and dragging their oxygen tanks around with them...

Cut off medicare and medicaid for a few months and young people who resent the social safety net for the elderly and poor will have their wish, leaving them more disposable income for their anti-depressants and sleeping pills.

[DSpencer]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

The lower interest rates have made a difference, but the OASDI Actuarial deficit was still 1.89 back in 2004 prior to ZIRP and back in 1998 it was 2.19. ZIRP has reduced the effective rate earned, but actuaries would never project long term interest rates anywhere near the level they have been at times in the past. For example back in the early 80s, the OASDI was earning over 11%, but the projected rates would have been much lower. Also, the amount of new money being invested is relatively small, about 1 billion in 2012.

Question for you and dcarrigg:

This idea that lower rates has hurt SS is only true if viewed in isolation. SS is just another part of the government. The assets do not belong to the people who paid in, they belong to the government. If the rates were higher, the SS account would look better but the rest of the government balance sheet would be worse. Since the government has far more debt than just what it owes to SS, the overall situation would be much worse.

Is there something I am missing? You can't "make" money by lending money from one pocket to the other.

[DSpencer]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

Thank you! I've been saying this for years but for some reason it doesn't click with most people. The 'we're all living longer' meme refuses to die.

To heart attacks and infant disease, add 'death in childbirth' and 'farming/industrial accidents', which were major killers and served to lower the average for life expectancy. People who dodged those bullets usually lived to healthy old ages.

Also, compare the strong, healthy old people of times past to the extremely frail, unhealthy old people now. From what I've seen, most old people in the U.S. today are on so many medications for diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure that they'd be dead in a month if their meds were cut off. I live in a "senior" community and see it all around me: so many people with horrific scabs and bruising from their blood thinners, riding their 'mobility scooters' and dragging their oxygen tanks around with them...

Cut off medicare and medicaid for a few months and young people who resent the social safety net for the elderly and poor will have their wish, leaving them more disposable income for their anti-depressants and sleeping pills.

Well people are in fact living longer. Just not anywhere close to what some people seem to believe. Lower infant mortality doesn't really affect SS. Keeping people alive for an extra couple of years at the end of their life does though. It's even more an issue for Medicare. If people work for 45+ years to put money into SS and then live off the money for 10 years, raising that to 11 or 12 could make a big impact if they don't work any longer. The problem is that being kept alive through medicine from 75-77 does not necessarily mean that the person has any extra ability to lay bricks or lift boxes from 65-67.

The overall health of the population is a disturbing trend. As always, the underlying issues in society are the root cause for most of the problems of politics.

[jiimbergin]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

[QUOTE=DSpencer;262314]Question for you and dcarrigg:

This idea that lower rates has hurt SS is only true if viewed in isolation. SS is just another part of the government. The assets do not belong to the people who paid in, they belong to the government. If the rates were higher, the SS account would look better but the rest of the government balance sheet would be worse. Since the government has far more debt than just what it owes to SS, the overall situation would be much worse.

Is there something I am missing? You can't "make" money by lending money from one pocket to the other.[/QUOTE
You are correct.

[shiny!]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

Refreshingly honest. Who do they think spent all the money?! People that have voted in 1 election? The reality is that "Grandma" lived off the exorbitant privilege her whole life while racking up huge debts to finance a luxury lifestyle. Now the idea that her generation should actually experience any quality of life reduction on the LONG path back to stability is simply unacceptable. They are OWED all the money they paid into the system, despite having already paid it out to themselves.

Actually, Grandma is not living a luxury lifestyle. Most Grandmas today were homemakers during their working years. They didn't receive Social Security credits for their unpaid labor of keeping house and raising children. If they did work, they were forced into low-paying jobs. If they managed to work alongside men, they got less than their male counterparts.

A huge number of elderly widows today are dependent on their husband's Social Security, and it's barely enough to buy cat food for supper and keep a roof over their head.

Social Security Benefits for Spouses

[shiny!]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

Yesterday I sat in a Village Inn and had a conversation with a WWII veteran who served in Europe and Korea. He was a gentle, modest, humble man, and I felt honored to have met him. I thanked him for his service. If it wasn't for the sacrifices that he and his generation made, this would be a very different country indeed.

The argument shouldn't be a polarized teeter-totter of "care for our elderly and screw the young" -vs- "throw the elderly off a cliff in order to save the young". Nor will tinkering around the edges of the current system do enough. None of these approaches are good! While the growing majority of have-nots are fighting over an ever-shrinking pie, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and their ilk are raking it in hand over fist, aided and abetted by our elected officials whom they own.

That politicians have allowed FIRE to plunder our nations' wealth is not some poor, old nurse's or veteran's fault, any more than it's your fault or mine.

For many, many years now it hasn't mattered who we voted for, because the political corruption runs too deeply for us to root it out. They are screwing all of us, and they love to distract us from their thievery by fomenting discord between us. So we mustn't fall prey to scapegoating and dualistic "Us -vs- Them" thinking.

Because FIRE interests have robbed our economy blind, we have a problem of not enough money to go around to pay for the things we need. Not just with Social Security and Medicare, but with healthcare, with education and housing and food. If you live in a poor country, these hardships are magnified enormously.

The stuff is there, but we don't have enough monetary units of exchange to obtain it because the game has been rigged in favor of the banksters. Nothing new about that. The world has always worked that way.

I think the humane, sustainable solution must entail a major societal shift, as big as the shifts from scattered hunter-gatherers to agrarian villages. From agrarian to industrial. From industrial to informational. From informational to ... what?

What we need is an evolutionary paradigm shift into a financial system that's so radically different, it's hard to even imagine. Ultimately perhaps a solution that eliminates money altogether. Something along the lines of "The Dispossessed" (one of the greatest thought experiments ever written). Either that, or we blow ourselves up and die. Because the track we're on is not a sustainable path.

Because the modern world we know was built upon and sustained by cheap energy. Social services and financial systems on which we depend only worked because of cheap energy. With PCO and PCEverything, those systems are falling apart and will soon be non-functional. We're experiencing the breakdown now.

Old/young, left/right, poor/not-so-poor, black/white/brown and polka-dotted... we need to stop fighting like dogs over the scraps that FIRE has left us, and come up with a completely different economic paradigm. Hopefully one that has learned from past mistakes.

[aaron]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

A dollar loaned into existence naturally wants to return to the nothingness from whence it came. It may take 30 years for that dollar to disappear, but it surely will.*

Well, over the past 30 years, trillions of dollars have been born into existence. The bucket of dollars has grown so large for so many years that prices of goods and services has soared. Moreover, at this point, people have borrowed so many dollars that all they really have left to do is to pay the money back. So, billions of dollars in loan payments are made back to banks ... heck there are trillions to pay back!

Well, like the price rises when loans were taken out, there is a very strong force for prices to go down as they are paid back. This is why the dollar is so strong. Not only are their guns backing it up, but there are also trillions of loans out there that are "hovering up" dollars as they are paid back. It is like an elastic band stretched thin. It wants to snap back to where it was.

I bring this up, because the fiscal fantasies do not seem to far-fetched. So long as the government manages the dollar so that it maintains its current purchasing power, there should be plenty of spending power to pay for SS, Medicare, etc. etc. So long as debt outstanding is large, that is money that must disappear. The U.S. government gets to benefit from that by making up the shortfall and keeping the money supply stable.

I think there is A LOT of strength in the dollar. Its present value already takes into account the trillions the government will print/borrow to keep the money supply stable.








* Dollars disappear by paying back loans to banks. They just cross them off their books and they cease to exist.

[Penguin]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

shiny!, that is a thoughtful and well thought out post. I appreciate it and will try to respond in kind.

First off I should make it clear that I am solidly in the Generation X category. My generation shoulders some of the blame just like the boomers and ww2 generation before them. I have witnessed the startling changes in this nation during my lifetime.

I was born in the southern WV coalfields and witnessed the very first instance of modern economic downsizing. This was the first time where America threw large segments of the middle class under the bus en masse in order to maintain BAU. We watched in horror as the carnage moved eastward from Detroit and Cleveland down into Pittsburgh and then right down into the hills we lived in. Cars, steel, and coal. The Volkker war on inflation was, in many respects, a proxy war on organized labor. The carnage was deep and the change was permanent.

I will remember till the day I die the image from the school bus of the pillars of my community, strong, tough men all, smoking in circles and speaking in muffled voices as their wives stood in line for government cheese, milk, and bread.

Over the years I have watched this process repeated. Various groups have had their turn in front of the economic firing line in the decades since. The middle class has been dissolving and there is no more fat left to cut. Every cut of the knife takes more and more folks from the privileged middle class down to something less than that. And in most cases it is a permanent change. They won't be regaining that lost ground in their lives and neither will their kids.

Who to blame?

Well there is enough of it to go around. The democratic party made a clear, conscious decision to turn their backs on working and middle class Americans in favor of identity politics. They embraced trade, currency, immigration, and monetary policy choices that put them at odds with those who built actual ~things~ in the US. These decisions had the effect of stripping American workers of any semblance of bargaining power. The results of this are pretty damned obvious.

The republican party, likewise, made their own deal with the devil. Embracing identity politics themselves they married a conglomeration of fundamentalist religion, regional pride, and racial identity to a weird Randian economic philosophy and jingoistic militarism that would make Douglas MacArthur blush with shame. If there has ever been a greater failure in economic systems that has had such widespread support from its adherents I don't know what it would be. Every single major economic initiative that this wild eyed bunch has put forth has not only failed but failed on a scale almost unimaginable.

I agree that a lot of the problems we face are, in some respects, a reflection of an economy based on cheap energy that is confronting a reality of non cheap energy. OTOH though there are a hell of a lot of today's problems that are nothing more than a completely rational response to idiotic policy choices. Choices that both political parties and their cheerleaders made reality.

Who to blame? Everyone who is willing to accept the economic status quo in favor of identity politics. Every captive constituency that is willing to sell out their principles because of fear of what 'the other bunch' will bring down on their ears if their holders get voted out.

But blaming a wide swath of the US electorate does not excuse the older generations from declaring economic war on the younger ones. The ww2 and boomer generation hold the reins of power. And they held them while the above mentioned economic policies so harmful to the next generation were installed. They are out there still defending this lunacy and making excuses for why it is not working. They are out there still stoking the resentment and fear of the electorate and playing identity politics. To this day they advocate "fixes" that do nothing more than allow them to continue a privileged existence while lowering the boom on everyone to follow them.

You cannot declare war on the young, as they have done, and then expect that the young will not return fire. My generation is caught in the middle. Old enough to have seen it happen and be manipulated like the rest while also bearing the brunt of this war in large part as well. We are not blameless. But if the boomers expect anything like a rational discussion they cannot continue to advocate policies that hurt everyone else and yet leave them untouched.

Will

[Polish_Silver]

Who is paying

That politicians have allowed FIRE to plunder our nations' wealth is not some poor, old nurse's or veteran's fault, any more than it's your fault or mine.

For many, many years now it hasn't mattered who we voted for, because the political corruption runs too deeply for us to root it out. They are screwing all of us, and they love to distract us from their thievery by fomenting discord between us. So we mustn't fall prey to scapegoating and dualistic "Us -vs- Them" thinking.

Because FIRE interests have robbed our economy blind, we have a problem of not enough money to go around to pay for the things we need. . .
.

My parents generation got more out of FICA and medicare than they put in. By miles.
Their generation supported those programs which worked out very well for them. It also made it possible for them to give me a good inheritance. But the entitlements are stacked against the younger generation. Kotlikoff calls it "fiscal child abuse".

This is certainly made worse by FIREM parasites (finance, insurance, real estate, medical, military industrial complex)

The two party system makes reform almost impossible. We desperately need changes to FIREM and the entitlements, and they are closely intertwined, with Medicare and Medicaid, for example.

We have no new party. Neither Tea Party nor Occupy was able to create an independent political organization. They should have teamed up. They have many common objectives.

Shiny, the banksters have not always ruled this country. We used to have presidents, like Jefferson and Jackson, that understood and opposed banks. Eisenhower went public criticizing the military industrial complex.

I recently found out that Eisenhower backed the Iran coup because Churchill fed him false intelligence about Mossadegh.

[shiny!]

Re: The Left's Four Fiscal Fantasies

shiny!, that is a thoughtful and well thought out post. I appreciate it and will try to respond in kind.

First off I should make it clear that I am solidly in the Generation X category. My generation shoulders some of the blame just like the boomers and ww2 generation before them. I have witnessed the startling changes in this nation during my lifetime.

I was born in the southern WV coalfields and witnessed the very first instance of modern economic downsizing. This was the first time where America threw large segments of the middle class under the bus en masse in order to maintain BAU. We watched in horror as the carnage moved eastward from Detroit and Cleveland down into Pittsburgh and then right down into the hills we lived in. Cars, steel, and coal. The Volkker war on inflation was, in many respects, a proxy war on organized labor. The carnage was deep and the change was permanent.

I will remember till the day I die the image from the school bus of the pillars of my community, strong, tough men all, smoking in circles and speaking in muffled voices as their wives stood in line for government cheese, milk, and bread.

Over the years I have watched this process repeated. Various groups have had their turn in front of the economic firing line in the decades since. The middle class has been dissolving and there is no more fat left to cut. Every cut of the knife takes more and more folks from the privileged middle class down to something less than that. And in most cases it is a permanent change. They won't be regaining that lost ground in their lives and neither will their kids.

Who to blame?

Well there is enough of it to go around. The democratic party made a clear, conscious decision to turn their backs on working and middle class Americans in favor of identity politics. They embraced trade, currency, immigration, and monetary policy choices that put them at odds with those who built actual ~things~ in the US. These decisions had the effect of stripping American workers of any semblance of bargaining power. The results of this are pretty damned obvious.

The republican party, likewise, made their own deal with the devil. Embracing identity politics themselves they married a conglomeration of fundamentalist religion, regional pride, and racial identity to a weird Randian economic philosophy and jingoistic militarism that would make Douglas MacArthur blush with shame. If there has ever been a greater failure in economic systems that has had such widespread support from its adherents I don't know what it would be. Every single major economic initiative that this wild eyed bunch has put forth has not only failed but failed on a scale almost unimaginable.

I agree that a lot of the problems we face are, in some respects, a reflection of an economy based on cheap energy that is confronting a reality of non cheap energy. OTOH though there are a hell of a lot of today's problems that are nothing more than a completely rational response to idiotic policy choices. Choices that both political parties and their cheerleaders made reality.

Who to blame? Everyone who is willing to accept the economic status quo in favor of identity politics. Every captive constituency that is willing to sell out their principles because of fear of what 'the other bunch' will bring down on their ears if their holders get voted out.

But blaming a wide swath of the US electorate does not excuse the older generations from declaring economic war on the younger ones. The ww2 and boomer generation hold the reins of power. And they held them while the above mentioned economic policies so harmful to the next generation were installed. They are out there still defending this lunacy and making excuses for why it is not working. They are out there still stoking the resentment and fear of the electorate and playing identity politics. To this day they advocate "fixes" that do nothing more than allow them to continue a privileged existence while lowering the boom on everyone to follow them.

You cannot declare war on the young, as they have done, and then expect that the young will not return fire. My generation is caught in the middle. Old enough to have seen it happen and be manipulated like the rest while also bearing the brunt of this war in large part as well. We are not blameless. But if the boomers expect anything like a rational discussion they cannot continue to advocate policies that hurt everyone else and yet leave them untouched.

Will

Thank you for such a thoughtful reply. Your assessment of the Dems and Repubs is spot on. It's why I seldom vote for either of them, because if I do, then I'm at least partially to blame for the consequences of putting them in office. I make a distinction, however, between Dem/Republican politicians and voters who call themselves Democrats and Republicans.

Both the Democrat and Republican parties have sold out to the same financial special interests. They may as well be called Republocrats. Sure, they differ on the surface, especially on social issues, but these are diversionary tactics to keep us divided and fighting amongst ourselves. They give us the illusion of choice, but once they're in office, with few exceptions they will screw us all as they lick the boots of their masters.

Some people who vote for Republicans and Democrats are True Believers. Many others are simply trying to vote for the perceived lesser of two evils. And too many are voting for whomever will give them the most freebies. The True Believers have been hoodwinked by their parties' propaganda spokespersons: the Limbaughs and Hannitys, the Moores and Frankens. Many intelligent voters see throught the spin and are disgusted by what they see, but they still vote for it. They' frightened by the meme that says if they vote third party, the worser of the bad guys will get in, so they hold their nose and vote for the lesser of two evils.

But when you vote for the lesser of two evils, you always end up with evil.

People vote for evil, then feel betrayed when those corrupt villians don't listen to them. They say, "I didn't have a choice, I had to vote for them." But we always have a choice.

Do our voices matter anymore? Look at recent actions by our elected officials:

GATT and NAFTA: Benefitting Multinational Corporations. The people were opposed but the politicians ignored our opposition and forced it on us. They're still throwing us under the bus by negotiating harmful trade agreements in secret. Elizabeth Warren recently tried to force transparency on the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiation by expressing her opposition to Obama's nominee for trade negotiator, but she was outvoted overwhelmingly. Apparently, our government wants the American people to be kept in the dark with respect to international trade pacts.

TARP: Benefitting the TBTF banks and banksters. The people overwhelmingly opposed it, but our representatives ignored our screams.

Affordable Care Act: Benefitting the I of FIRE. The majority of people opposed it, but it was shoved down our throats anyway. That's not to say people opposed health care reform, only that we opposed that particularly monstrous piece of legislation. Pelosi saying they'd have to vote for it first, then we would learn what it says.

"Comprehensive Immigration Reform": Benefitting the Democrats with a ready supply of grateful new voters, and Big Business with a ready supply of cheap labor, thus further lowering wages. Again, the majority of people want the border secured first, then look at immigration reform. Break it down into discrete items that can each be voted on, yes or no. Congress and the president ignore us. Comprehensive Immigration Reform is to the Democrats what the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act was to the Republicans. A way to ensure votes for their party.

I don't think it matters any longer which policies boomers or anyone else advocates. Our elected politicians do not truly represent us. They do not work for the good of the country. Believing that they do, or that our vote counts, or that we want makes a bit of difference to the outcome, is living in a state of denial or delusion. If our votes really counted, they wouldn't allow us to vote.

To paraphrase Mal Reynolds, we've all been united under one rule so that everybody can be interfered with or ignored equally.

I don't feel nihilistic about this in any way. Things run in cycles. The wheel turns. Eventually the decay and misery will reach a point that change will inevitably ensue. If we play our cards well, the transition will happen gracefully. If we don't, it will be a painful, bloody process. This sorry state of affairs will continue to worsen and might outlast us, but it will not last forever.

"Those who make a peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable." - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

[shiny!]

Re: Who is paying

My parents generation got more out of FICA and medicare than they put in. By miles.
Their generation supported those programs which worked out very well for them. It also made it possible for them to give me a good inheritance. But the entitlements are stacked against the younger generation. Kotlikoff calls it "fiscal child abuse".

This is certainly made worse by FIREM parasites (finance, insurance, real estate, medical, military industrial complex)

The two party system makes reform almost impossible. We desperately need changes to FIREM and the entitlements, and they are closely intertwined, with Medicare and Medicaid, for example.

We have no new party. Neither Tea Party nor Occupy was able to create an independent political organization. They should have teamed up. They have many common objectives.

Shiny, the banksters have not always ruled this country. We used to have presidents, like Jefferson and Jackson, that understood and opposed banks. Eisenhower went public criticizing the military industrial complex.

I recently found out that Eisenhower backed the Iran coup because Churchill fed him false intelligence about Mossadegh.

I don't disagree with you about your take on American history, or anything else you said here. Your point on the Tea Party and Occupy missing a great opportunity is especially well taken.

When I said the world has always worked this way, I was referring to history going waaaay back. The strong and wealthy have always exploited the weak and poor. Before we dumped the monarchy to form our republic, kings historically funneled the wealth created by their subjects into their own treasuries. Later, Communist countries funneled the wealth created by its citizens into the government coffers.

Our system of government was a grand experiment to create a new paradigm based on the ideas that individuals should be able to live and keep the fruits of their labor with minimal taxation and interference from government, and that citizens should control the goverenment, not the other way around. We have strayed far from these original ideals.

[c1ue]

Re: Who is paying

Shiny, the banksters have not always ruled this country. We used to have presidents, like Jefferson and Jackson, that understood and opposed banks. Eisenhower went public criticizing the military industrial complex.

Unfortunately, it seems we don't even have a Teddy Roosevelt: an elitist who at least understood that the rage of the masses, once unleashed, is far too dangerous to capitalism. Far better to at least defuse the worst of the abuses.

[lektrode]

Re: Who is paying

....
...
.....
Our system of government was a grand experiment to create a new paradigm based on the ideas that individuals should be able to live and keep the fruits of their labor with minimal taxation and interference from government, and that citizens should control the goverenment, not the other way around.

We have strayed far from these original ideals.

+100

this one kinda summed it up: What Would George Say, today, were he to return to the beltway - personally i think he would want to burn his namesake city to the ground and start again - since they were kinda dramatic in them daze....

esp since today, on this 237th anniversary of that Grand Experiment, known as The United States of America,
We The People are being SUBJAGATED BY THE POLITICAL CLASS, in their never-ending effort to be re-elected.

and i think The Solution is to bring back the broadcast equal time regulations, limit the campain season to 60days, END ALL FORMS OF PAID POLITICAL ADVERTISING and its associated profits, force the broadcast outlets to provide free and strictly limited time for all candidates - coupled with TERM LIMITS, ending the lifetime gravy train of benefits they vote for themselves, no retirement benefits in particular - forcing the political class to get REAL JOBS after their time in office is up

sure, the FIre/bankster-industrial complex, the welfare-industrial complex, the education-industrial complex, never mind the .mil-indusrial complex - along with the social-issue-driven media-industrial complex is fanning the flames of it all - is the symptom, NOT THE PROBLEM.

The Problem is The Fact that the political class benefits from the focus by the media-industrial complex on BS social issues, which allows (one particular faction) of the same group to ride these issues - that typically affect at most single-digit percentages of the population - back into perpetual positions of power involving the GIVING-AWAY OF THE TREASURY TO BUY THE VOTES OF THOSE SO AFFECTED!

meanwhile due to the near-endless campaign "season" - which typically starts the year after election - which is already well-underway for 2014&16 BTW - the name of the game has become media 'attention' - aka propaganda opportunities - whereby the shills of the chattering class profit from controversial and mostly SOCIAL ISSUES - which then require millions to billions worth of PAID POLITICAL ADVERTISING to overcome and or reverse the typically FALSE perceptions of said issues by the Voting Public.

and, IMHO - this is all brought to us by The Liberal-Dominated editorial point of view of most of The Lamestream Media.

which has so thoroughly _avoided_ the most pressing malfeasance of Their Team's reign over the past 6or7 years or so - after their team took over both houses of congress and then put in the most inexperienced, unqualified, clueless ceo this country HAS EVER HAD.

and whos ABJECT FAILURE TO ADDRESS THE CRIMINAL ACTIONS THAT LED TO THE WORST ECONOMIC MELTDOWN THE WORLD HAS EVER FACED - since i flatly refuse to accept that there has been any "recovery" whatsoever.

they print money by the trillions to prop up asset prices to prop up the profits of the same GD clowns that wiped us out - not once, but twice in 10years -

AND CALL THAT A 'RECOVERY' ?????

oh yeah - and i can see already that i'm about to get a bit carried away - and so i'm gonna go fix me another V&T, krank up the stevie ray vaughn and pretend to have a

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY everybody out there in 'tulip land!

signed/sworn-to by a small-r type

[shiny!]

Re: Who is paying

Happy 5th, lektrode. I won't celebrate the 4th again until this country remembers what the 4th is all about. It's about more than fireworks.

Agree what you say, but what do you have any ideas for how to get those thoughts actualized? I don't. I don't believe that working within the political system or voting as a "small-r" will get anything good accomplished. All you or I can do at this point is sit and rant.