LesBlog

Why is there no real discussion on the subjects of real importance these days?

You know, things like: poverty, hunger, illiteracy, homelessness, joblessness, the lonely, the aged, the afflicted, foreign aid, a plan for alternative energy, the national debt, runaway spending, and why we’re really at war…

Instead all we hear about is that Social Security is supposedly in danger of bankruptcy. Therefore, private savings accounts are the only solution.

It makes perfect sense on the face of it, if you accept the spin at face value. If you can’t rely on your government to do what it said it was going to do, then change the system so you can rely on yourself.

Only the problem here is… there is no social security “crisis”. It’s completely fabricated. It’s a red herring meant to distract us from the real reason why we’re at War in Iraq:

1.) Control over oil, and
2.) Preservation of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

Please forgive me while I take the bait for a second to show how irresponsible this is…

Why private accounts are a bad idea

No-one has yet indicated how we would pay for private accounts, which would divert trillions of dollars currently going into the social security trust fund to pay current benefits.

How would we possibly pay for it? We’ll have to sell more bonds meaning our Government will go further into debt.

It’s pure recklessness. Our debt is 7.7 trillion dollars and counting. It’s more than two-thirds of our national economy.

To be sure, social security funding is a problem. However, the trustees say it won’t start to experience funding problems until the year 2042!

I was born in 1962, so I’ll be eighty years old then…, I hope I’m still around then. Who knows what’s going to happen by then?!?

In the coming years, there aren’t going to be enough people working, therefore not enough money coming in from payroll taxes going into the Social Security Trust Fund, to pay for all the entitlements to Baby Boomer retirees.

We, all of us, are going to do more with less. Pare back benefits. Extend the retirement age.

What’s sad about the spin put on this entire story is that anyone who opposes the idea of private accounts, or the War in Iraq, is a ___ (fill in the blank), and therefore not credible.

“Just say ‘no’” to Ad Hominem

Ad Hominem has completely replaced our national discourse.

Ad Hominem is a fancy word for a PR tactic that means “against the man” in Latin, but essentially means “change the subject”.

In other words, if your ideas can’t hold up on their own merit, then change the subject, and attack the man (any man, all the men) who won’t go along with what it is you want to do.

For example:

I claim Social Security isn’t in danger of bankruptcy, and that the whole so-called debate is a red herring…

Then someone attacks me saying I’m just a marketing guy and I don’t know anything about budgeting, finances, economics, or actuarial tables.

Therefore, my claims are false.

So therefore we need to stay the course and privatize.

Huh?

It’s a tactic that completely sidesteps the issue. But in the age of the sound byte, it works.

I have an idea.

Let’s do away with Social Security and Medicare altogether.

In other words, let’s let people take ALL the money they pay in Social Security and Medicare, and invest it themselves…, in their own 401(k)s, IRAs, health insurance, short and long-term death and disablity, and long-term care insurance.

Of course, we’d have to pay people back for all the money that they’ve put into the system. We’ll just do it by selling a bunch of bonds…

After all what’s few trillions here and few trillions there? It’s chump change.

After all, “We’re the United States.”

How would we explain it? Let’s just say: “The New Deal was a mistake.” “The Great Society, too.” “Sorry.”

Then we can go back to the old way of doing business: Empire, Cronyism, and Largesse.

I have another idea…

Let’s create a big escrow account for all the money we pay in State and Federal taxes, with a mechanism for it to be released when we start getting some decent representation, i.e, our so-called leaders start listening to us.

Because we really need money for poverty, hunger, illiteracy, homelessness, joblessness, the lonely, the aged, foreign aid, a plan for alernative energy, and so on…

And the reason we send these so-called “representatives” to Washington in the first place is uphold the consitution of the United States, and to act in the interests of us — the American people.

For one, our government should be working for us to solve real problems, not to invent fabricated crises.

And they are paid to represent us — the American people.

Not the Banks. Not the Insurance companies. Not Wall Street. Not the Utilities. Not the Credit Card companies. Not the Department of Defense. Not the Oil companies. Not foreign countries. Not lobbyists.

Us. The people. Main Street.

I thought we were a society that cared about ideas, a society that cared about our neighbors, a society that was a “Beacon on the Hill.”

There’s one word that will solve our problem.

“Respect…”

Respect for elders. Respect for our neighbors. Respect for the other guy. Respect for ourselves. Respect for the truth. Respect for our world.

Let’s do it then…

And let’s start by completely removing Ad Hominem as a tactic to quash any thoughtful discourse.

Everyone would learn how to recognize it in their middle-school civics classes, and would know it when they see it…, and then they’d call out the perpetrator whenever the tactic’s used, like you do in bullshit bingo.

“Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Ad-Hominem Bingo.”

The Respect Ordinance

We could create a new law: “The Respect Law”; it’d be a codified ordinance, and it’d be the same as getting a speeding ticket from one of those traffic cameras.

It would apply to all of our public officials, and anyone paid to report news on television. If someone, or someone working for them is caught “in Flagrante Delicto” of Ad Hominem, they’d be fined…, let’s say $1,000 to start out. With the fines getting progressively worse for repeat offenders.

Also it’d be a “progressive fine” meaning that the more money you have and the bigger the lie, the more you pay. It would be a type of “real reality” television that would become a segment and a staple of our nightly news that would be overseen by an independent authority; maybe Mark Burnett (the producer of “Survivor”).

Offenders would have to pay for their fines out of their own pockets, and wouldn’t be able to use any PACS, campaign, or slush funds.

The Advertising Industry currently has a system in place to create affadavits for all the national and local spot advertising; to ensure that a paid advertisement runs the way that it should.

We could take advantage of an infrastructure that’s already in place, and the independent authority, let’s call it the “Administration of Correctness” (as opposed to “Political Correctness”), would be compensated from a per-incident fee from the fines.

What about [the first amendment]?

I can hear people now saying: “What about the First Amendment?” You know, the right to free speech?

Well maybe we should amend the amendment to protect the people from leaders with a penchant for prevarication. Amend the First Amendment to read: “Congress shall make no law […] abridging free speech as long as it’s not a material lie…” [emphasis added]

There would be no exemptions. It would apply both domestically and internationally, including national speeches which are based on faulty intelligence.

And all the money generated from “The Respect Law” would go directly to pay off our national debt.

This is a great idea, because based on the way things are going, we’d be able to pay down the debt in no time.

Seriously, we have some serious problems.

For one, the foundations of Social Security, our system that ensures that average workers and their families are not left penniless, is under attack.

Are we a society that leaves those who cannot help themselves out in the cold? I don’t think so.

Beware of the Hegemon

And all of this is really moot, because I took the bait. A red herring is a fallacy meant to distract us from the real issue:

America’s hegemonic position as the world’s reserve currency is at risk.

One thing’s for sure, if we don’t find an alternative energy source, all of the assumptions the accountants and actuaries are making in their tables are going to be completely invalid — as invalid as the “intelligence” leading to the War in Iraq.

Our entire economy depends on the availability of cheap gas. And if gas prices continue to rise, we’re going to start to see inflation. We need to do something to replace oil; we should have done something about it starting in the 1970’s.

If you add inflation, caused by 25% increase in gas prices, to our current account deficits and national debt, and we’re going to see devaluation of the dollar like we’ve never seen it. Then so much for the dollar being the world’s reserve currency.

Berkshire Hathaway’s Chairman Warren Buffett announced last year that he took positions against the United States dollar, which he described as being “massive,” in the expectation that we are headed for a crisis.

“Our country’s net worth, so to speak, is now being transferred abroad at an alarming rate,” he said. “In effect,” he warned, “our country has been behaving like an extraordinary rich family that possesses an immense farm. In order to consume 4% more than we produce [that’s the trade deficit] we have day by day, been both selling pieces of the farm and increasing the mortgage on what we still own.”

Hmmmm…, if Warren Buffet’s worried about it, then maybe we ought to worry about it too.

Working together, let’s take responsibility for our problems (and our budget), and develop practicable ideas that will build the foundation for a society that cares about our world and the people who live in it, and for real sustainable growth.