In which I expound upon things
So I had to get cash in preparation for the hurricane, and what should the ATM give me but...
Yes, one of each sort of twenty. Interestingly enough, the oldest one, on the bottom, shows the opposite side of the white house from the two newer ones. The old one shows the side with the round porch, while the newer ones show the side with the square porch. Intriguing. Nearly as intriguing as the fact that Andrew Jackson, the original the-central-bank-is-out-to-get-us yahoo (a group I tend to sympathize with) ended up getting his picture on the instrument Americans use most often in their interactions with the Fed. The irony is so delicious that I want to make a cake out of it. Mmm.
On to more pressing issues (and it will be brief because everyone I know despises my politics), picking Palin was either a stroke of genius or a fit of madness, or probably both--it was that absolutely brilliant. Not that I completely approve (she is crazy in some of the right ways, but also in many of the wrong ones), but it was one shrewd move all the same. Point A: it's all people can talk about. Thunder has been stolen. Even if its just talking heads saying she;s a bad pick, that's time they aren't spending declaring Obama to be the second coming of the messiah. McCain need headlines if he once to win, and this was a big one. Point B: she is, on many levels, his exact opposite, which reassures everyone who has noticed that McCain has all of the personality of a dead fish. I've seen him live. Conveniently, most people forget that the VP is typically irrelevant, so she covers his faults. They remember enough, though, that her baggage is irrelevant. In short, if McCain didn't scare me to death (the fascist [look up the definition, then ponder the phrase "country first"]) this would be, perhaps, the most incredible political move I have ever witnessed. As it is, it's still amazing. Not that the alternative is any better--socialism is essentially the same as fascism, really. And, seriously, Biden? The man is pod person. Or a robot. And not the fun kind of robot. Don't blame me, I'm voting for Paul/Goldwater.
Yet another letter to the editor that was not published. I must be offensive or something. I could really use another Confederate History Month Flap for some amusement :).
While the McEntire column on Social Security may have been misleading, Ellis’ letter on same topic is misleading as to the nature of the misleading. The original column is misleading in that it seems to take a variety of conflicting positions and fails to establish a clear thesis. Ellis, however, far more sinisterly, attempt to deceive the readership as to the best solution to the impending crisis in social security.
Ellis provides several examples to establish that privatizing Social Security would be wrongheaded, citing Enron and No Child Left Behind as examples of instances where the government has transferred commonly held assets into private hands. While both of these episodes are regrettable, Ellis misplaces the blame. The problems in these examples arose not because of privatization but rather because of excessive government (especially federal) meddling and regulation. The major flaw of NCLB, for example, is that it created a wasteful federal bureaucracy to regulate education funding rather than allow local bodies to spend according to the needs of the community. A good rule of thumb should be that all decisions should be made at the lowest level of government possible. What is good for, say Hoople, ND, is not necessarily what is good for Phoenix, AZ.
I am willing to concede Ellis the point that Social Security Should not be privatized. However, this does not mean that I agree with his second conclusion that Social Security should be maintained as-is. Social Security should not be “privatized” because, like in the airline industry, privatization really means that the government is still running the show, albeit in a less obvious way. Instead of directly providing service, “privatization” generally means that the government establishes requirements and regulations that define exactly what it wants and expects private companies to provide them. This would be wonderful, but it is flawed for the same reason the Soviet Union collapsed: economic calculation is impossible without the price system of the free market. Any version of the command economy is doomed to fail because it replaces the laws of supply and demand and the price signals that allow people to respond to economic conditions with government fiat. Trading Social Security for what the government would give as “private” Social security is a six-of-one-half-a-dozen-of-the-other proposition.
If Social Security should not be privatized, then how should we resolve the pending crisis? The answer does not lie in ostriching our heads in the sand and maintaining the status quo. Ellis maintains that we should ignore the crisis because Social Security was created as a necessary “lifeline” for people. Poppycock! The SSA is actually a vast communist boondoggle designed specifically to foster the belief that citizens are the “children of the state”; that the government should take care of a citizens every need, replacing traditional and more functional community and family systems. People retired and had hard times before the SSA, and they seemed to survive. People relied on family, benevolent societies, mutual aid societies, churches, social aid and pleasure clubs and the like. People forget that the original purpose of groups like the Elks was to be a kind of social security/welfare for members. Such a system, I would argue, actually functions better than what we have now. The reason we now have so many problems with fraud is that it is easy to steal from the faceless taxpayers; it is much harder to steal from a group that one can attach faces to. Wealth transfer programs are just that: theft writ large.
To fix Social Security, we should end it. Today. No more payments in. Anyone who has already paid Social Security taxes should be assigned a benefit commensurate with their contribution. Current beneficiaries should be grandfathered in. No new beneficiaries or payers should be added. Americans are the most charitable people in the world. People will get by. Just like they managed to get by from 1776 to 1933.
And I have fenders on my bike. Yay!
Yes, one of each sort of twenty. Interestingly enough, the oldest one, on the bottom, shows the opposite side of the white house from the two newer ones. The old one shows the side with the round porch, while the newer ones show the side with the square porch. Intriguing. Nearly as intriguing as the fact that Andrew Jackson, the original the-central-bank-is-out-to-get-us yahoo (a group I tend to sympathize with) ended up getting his picture on the instrument Americans use most often in their interactions with the Fed. The irony is so delicious that I want to make a cake out of it. Mmm.
On to more pressing issues (and it will be brief because everyone I know despises my politics), picking Palin was either a stroke of genius or a fit of madness, or probably both--it was that absolutely brilliant. Not that I completely approve (she is crazy in some of the right ways, but also in many of the wrong ones), but it was one shrewd move all the same. Point A: it's all people can talk about. Thunder has been stolen. Even if its just talking heads saying she;s a bad pick, that's time they aren't spending declaring Obama to be the second coming of the messiah. McCain need headlines if he once to win, and this was a big one. Point B: she is, on many levels, his exact opposite, which reassures everyone who has noticed that McCain has all of the personality of a dead fish. I've seen him live. Conveniently, most people forget that the VP is typically irrelevant, so she covers his faults. They remember enough, though, that her baggage is irrelevant. In short, if McCain didn't scare me to death (the fascist [look up the definition, then ponder the phrase "country first"]) this would be, perhaps, the most incredible political move I have ever witnessed. As it is, it's still amazing. Not that the alternative is any better--socialism is essentially the same as fascism, really. And, seriously, Biden? The man is pod person. Or a robot. And not the fun kind of robot. Don't blame me, I'm voting for Paul/Goldwater.
Yet another letter to the editor that was not published. I must be offensive or something. I could really use another Confederate History Month Flap for some amusement :).
While the McEntire column on Social Security may have been misleading, Ellis’ letter on same topic is misleading as to the nature of the misleading. The original column is misleading in that it seems to take a variety of conflicting positions and fails to establish a clear thesis. Ellis, however, far more sinisterly, attempt to deceive the readership as to the best solution to the impending crisis in social security.
Ellis provides several examples to establish that privatizing Social Security would be wrongheaded, citing Enron and No Child Left Behind as examples of instances where the government has transferred commonly held assets into private hands. While both of these episodes are regrettable, Ellis misplaces the blame. The problems in these examples arose not because of privatization but rather because of excessive government (especially federal) meddling and regulation. The major flaw of NCLB, for example, is that it created a wasteful federal bureaucracy to regulate education funding rather than allow local bodies to spend according to the needs of the community. A good rule of thumb should be that all decisions should be made at the lowest level of government possible. What is good for, say Hoople, ND, is not necessarily what is good for Phoenix, AZ.
I am willing to concede Ellis the point that Social Security Should not be privatized. However, this does not mean that I agree with his second conclusion that Social Security should be maintained as-is. Social Security should not be “privatized” because, like in the airline industry, privatization really means that the government is still running the show, albeit in a less obvious way. Instead of directly providing service, “privatization” generally means that the government establishes requirements and regulations that define exactly what it wants and expects private companies to provide them. This would be wonderful, but it is flawed for the same reason the Soviet Union collapsed: economic calculation is impossible without the price system of the free market. Any version of the command economy is doomed to fail because it replaces the laws of supply and demand and the price signals that allow people to respond to economic conditions with government fiat. Trading Social Security for what the government would give as “private” Social security is a six-of-one-half-a-dozen-of-the-other proposition.
If Social Security should not be privatized, then how should we resolve the pending crisis? The answer does not lie in ostriching our heads in the sand and maintaining the status quo. Ellis maintains that we should ignore the crisis because Social Security was created as a necessary “lifeline” for people. Poppycock! The SSA is actually a vast communist boondoggle designed specifically to foster the belief that citizens are the “children of the state”; that the government should take care of a citizens every need, replacing traditional and more functional community and family systems. People retired and had hard times before the SSA, and they seemed to survive. People relied on family, benevolent societies, mutual aid societies, churches, social aid and pleasure clubs and the like. People forget that the original purpose of groups like the Elks was to be a kind of social security/welfare for members. Such a system, I would argue, actually functions better than what we have now. The reason we now have so many problems with fraud is that it is easy to steal from the faceless taxpayers; it is much harder to steal from a group that one can attach faces to. Wealth transfer programs are just that: theft writ large.
To fix Social Security, we should end it. Today. No more payments in. Anyone who has already paid Social Security taxes should be assigned a benefit commensurate with their contribution. Current beneficiaries should be grandfathered in. No new beneficiaries or payers should be added. Americans are the most charitable people in the world. People will get by. Just like they managed to get by from 1776 to 1933.
And I have fenders on my bike. Yay!