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June 16th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda 
Paul Craig Roberts
Prisonplanet.com
June 16, 2012
When neoconservatives, politicians, and high ranking military officers speak of a 30-year war against terrorism, there is no discussion about its affordability or whether the one significant attack (September 11, 2001) that is attributed, perhaps incorrectly, to Muslim terrorists justifies an open-ended war against a dozen countries. There is no discussion of the burden on future generations of the massive increase in the public debt in order to finance today’s wars.
Affordability and intergenerational burdens are topics reserved for the discussion of Social Security. Conservatives and libertarians constantly assert that Social Security is unaffordable and decry the intergenerational basis for Social Security retirement.
Recently economist Walter Williams again made the argument that Social Security is not a retirement program, because the income earner’s payroll tax payments do not go into an account for the person paying the taxes, but instead are used to pay benefits for older people who have reached retirement age. Williams characterizes Social Security retirees as thieves who outvote those still in the work force and have the ear of Congress.http://lewrockwell.com/williams-w/w-williams128.html
This is an ideological argument that overlooks that Social Security is a pact between generations. The working generations provide retirement incomes for the elderly and in turn are provided retirement incomes by succeeding generations. Terminating Social Security for the elderly also terminates it for those who follow.
In other words, it is incorrect to describe Social Security as the elderly using the political system to steal from the young.
It is also not the case that Social Security retirees have the ear of Congress. The time is long past when Social Security was “the third rail of politics.” Since the 1980s Congress has been cutting back Social Security benefits in a number of ways. For example, the retirement age is being extended from 65 to 67, and the switch from a real cost of living adjustment to a substitution-based consumer price index results in the erosion of the real value of Social Security benefits, which was the reason for the switch. Up to 85% of Social Security benefits are now subject to income tax if the recipient has earnings or other retirement income above a minimum amount. The taxation of Social Security was another way that the political system reneged on the promised benefits.
In addition, during the 1980s Alan Greenspan and David Stockman accelerated the phase-in of payroll tax increases that the Carter administration had enacted. By causing the payroll tax to rise before it was needed to finance benefits, more than $2 trillion has been collected than was paid out in benefits. The government spent the earmarked payroll tax revenues (leaving non-marketable IOUs in their place) on other things, such as the wars of the 21st century. As none of this $2 trillion reached retirees, the real “theft” from those of working age was committed by Greenspan and Stockman for the benefit of other spending programs.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
None of this is to say that there are not legitimate criticisms of Social Security. One is that Social Security does not provide a personal nest egg that a retiree can either spend down or manage carefully, living off the investment income and passing on any remainder to heirs, thus building wealth in society. Moreover, those who die prior to reaching retirement age or soon after retirement do not receive any benefits. In an effort to address this problem, Social Security pays survivors’ benefits to widows and children, benefits that were reduced during the 1980s.
The uninformed blame President Reagan for these assaults on Social Security. However, the changes were demanded by Wall Street’s political minions, who backed Reagan into a corner with hype about “the Reagan deficits.”
In Chile part of the economic reconstruction from the chaos of the Allende era was the privatization of Social Security. Deductions from wages automatically go into personal investment accounts. Years ago when I examined the system, it was working, building wealth for Chileans and providing a source of savings for the economy.
It might have been possible in the Reagan years to phase in a transition to a privatized retirement system. With the Dow Jones at 1000 and the economy rising, such a transition might have succeeded, but few policymakers cared to be associated with the risk.
If the transition had been undertaken, it might have saved us the current financial crisis, which was brought on by deregulation. I doubt that Congress would have gone along with deregulating a financial system upon which the elderly were entirely dependent. Glass-Steagall would still be on the books, derivatives would not have been deregulated, the equity market would not have become a gambling casino dominated by high-frequency trading, and the need for stability in Treasury bond prices would have curtailed budget deficits and the explosive growth of the public debt in the 21st century.
However, to propose today to privatize Social Security is to ignore the two large stock market crashes of the 21st century that inflicted enormous damage to private pension plans. It is to ignore the Federal Reserve’s policy of attempting to stabilize a broken financial system with interest rates so low that Treasury bonds pay a negative rate of return. It is to ignore that income growth for most Americans has dried up and if properly deflated is declining, thus threatening the income base for retirement whether public or private, and that poverty, especially among the elderly, is rapidly rising.
Indeed, the debt and money creation associated with the ongoing bailouts of the large banks are threatening the exchange value of the US dollar and its role as world reserve currency. Values of dollar denominated financial assets can suffer large declines if the rest of the world moves away from the dollar as reserve currency.
Another problem facing future retirement incomes is the growing practice of corporations laying off or firing older employees in order to reduce payroll costs and the cost of employer-provided medical benefits.
What we have witnessed in the 21st century is a clear decision by political elites and the private interests that control them that gratuitous wars are more important than the elderly. In the budget deliberations it is not the trillion dollar annual budgets of the military/security complex that are seen as excessive. Instead, the focus is on cutting the sparse benefits for the elderly.
Decades of right-wing and libertarian propaganda against Social Security have hardened the hearts of political elites, media, and even it sometimes seems of AARP against the elderly, who are portrayed as an expensive burden. With the economy dying as a result of jobs offshoring and the concentration of economic activity into fewer hands, the elderly are not well positioned to compete for shrinking resources against the claims of powerful interest groups, such as the military/security complex and the neoconservative “war on terror.” Tax revenues are drying up not only from unemployment but also from the substitution of lower paying domestic service jobs for the higher income jobs that have been moved offshore. A decline in the dollar’s exchange value will push millions of Americans below the poverty line.
I have always thought that abortion had ominous implications for the elderly. Whatever the inconvenience of an unwanted child, it is small compared to the claim of Social Security and Medicare on society’s resources. A society comfortable with killing the unborn will lack the moral scruples to reject euthanasia.
It is not difficult to imagine the US government assigning a specified number of retirement years to citizens, and then you take a pill. The declining respect for life is also indicated by the fact that there is no move to impeach Obama for drawing up lists of people, including US citizens, to be executed without due process and by the fact that few Americans even blink an eye at the murder by their government of hundreds of thousands of Muslims in the name of a hoax “war on terror.” With society’s resources shrinking, the demonization of Social Security endangers the elderly.
This article first appeared at Paul Craig Roberts’ new website Institute For Political Economy. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His Internet columns have attracted a worldwide following.
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18 Responses to “Writing Off The Elderly”
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the elderly are “terrorists” is there no end to the bs ?
if you remove the word “terrorism” from any of the new laws you’ll see clear as day,
it’s just any excuse to put up camera’s lock-down a police-state, because of a buzz-word
this reminds me of southpark the seniors take-over create a curfue, so be warned …
RasmussenElisabeth Reply:
June 16th, 2012 at 7:27 am
my neighbor’s sister-in-law makes $67/hour on the laptop. She has been out of work for 5 months but last month her income was $12334 just working on the laptop for a few hours. Go to this web site and read more CashLazy.*com
remove the *
I would think the elitist want us to concentrate on the whole world, instead of our country. They talk about over population at 7 billion. As far as I’m concerned, there’s only 300 million in our country, so I really don’t give a damn of what their globalist views are. Look, since the U.N. has been established, we’ve been following their agendas and not our own country’s purposes. Let those people take care of themselves and leave us the hell alone !
Paul Craig Roberts,
I want to see an article on the current discriminatory hiring practice in vogue today based on age.
In case you have missed it, there seems to be a cut off of 50 in the systematic rejection by the human resources of verticle corporations from consideration for interviews and hiring. I believe it would dwarf those based on sex, race, legal status or ethnicity. I would love to see any statistics on the numbers or percentage of that cited group with bands for age of 20, 30, 40 and ’50 and above’.
Yes, it violates fair employment law and practices but in this market those types of choices are being justified as the postive “discriminating” when they are in fact the negative, illegal “discriminatory”.
The help of your staff to indentify the extent of this practice and it’s effects on the quality of life for pre-social security age middle class Americans would be so helpful and greatly appreciated.
unmentioned but true…
DC has approved poisoning the air-food-water-medicine for corporate profits.
hospitals want real estate for treatments not covered by their insurance buddies,
which ends up in the hands of the banksters and the state instead of being inherited.
insurance company policy is why everyone has to pass a urinalysis to get a job,
powderheads (coke and meth) can pass the test in 24-36 hours,
but they’re shaving decades off their own lives doing it!
productive-sloppy-dangerous when they’re wired UP
draggin azz-sloppy-dangerous when they’re coming down,
calling in sick, seeing doctors (at our expense) for their infections etc
drinking or popping pills to be able to friggin SLEEP…
gee, what could be better?!!
then look at all the government approved “liquid crack” 5hr energy drinks..
its a frontal assault, with backdoor sodomy too!
there wouldnt BE these problems if DC, Wall Street, big banks, corporates etc..
didnt all conspire to sabotage our economy making jobs scarce and wages low,
and they werent importing all the drugs to bust people for having doing and dealing,
(which they’ll also use as excuse to take everything of worth for).
how much social security do ya think inmate slave labor pays? (yeah add that in).
isnt this “service (SLAVE!) economy” wonderful?
there sould be a web site that looks into all the fucking out right lies these moneychanger scumfuck federal reserve crimes that have been inflected on the american people ….our country was given away by the scum gov of traitors to foreign moneychanger mangods of the religion that reject god and slaughter him ….and ever since then 1913 this gov has done nothing but terrorize the american people and the people of the world with there agenda of hell on earth to all but the mangod killers of christ and there temple of hell isreal …..the dcgov of of isreal is just malignant cancer and plague to the people of the world life killing smumfucks for there own pleasure ….you have to be total fool of blind selfishment to think that this is somehow a decent gov of any value what so ever ….this dcgov of isreal and racist choosen ones is the devil in the bible not some deceaved red suited greek tale deceotion to cover the fact the devil is the mangods that slaughter all other people of the world …not me …never …i think dcgov of isreal is the lowest of life humanity has to offer …rejectors of god and the rejector of all other people of the world …if your in the mind set of killing god people are nothing but garbage to kill and throw away like grandma and grandpa ….what fucking sickos
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Excellent article! “This is an ideological argument that overlooks that Social Security is a pact between generations. The working generations provide retirement incomes for the elderly and in turn are provided retirement incomes by succeeding generations. Terminating Social Security for the elderly also terminates it for those who follow.”
This is one of the reasons the corrupt philosophy of libertarianism has such appeal to the young: they escape their responsibility to pay back for all that they have been given: the entire infrastructure of this nation subsidized by those who have gone and are going before them. while I agree that the financial system needs an entire overhaul— the Federal Reserve needs to be abolished along with the IMF, World Bank and the BIS, it is not possible or desirable to return to the world as it stood in 1913. For one thing the average life expectancy was only about 50 years old. The New Deal programs are an outgrowth of our changing and improved fortunes.
I have worked for over 30 years. I doubt I will ever see any of what I paid into Social Security and Medicare what with the push to eliminate it both by the oligarchs and the young to avoid paying their societal debts. Nevertheless, I am glad to pay for it because I owe it. There’s something fundamentally wrong with people who think they should be given everything and pay back nothing.
Hermes Reply:
June 16th, 2012 at 6:40 am
You need to actually do some research into what the Social Security tax actualy is.
Your comments show that you are fundamentally uninformed about the the law, the actual basis for the law and it’s implementation.
You owe nothing.
wildcat Reply:
June 16th, 2012 at 6:53 am
When these social security systems were set up, they were intended for the young who were just starting to enter the jobs market. Everyone would save as they went along, and would be free to retire or keep working whenever they wanted. That would havehave worked if the funds hadn’t been diverted for other usea.
Private schemes would have worked too. (the UK had a private pension scheme that worked on the same lines. Deposit money into a company scheme, that money would be reinvested in the company shares and all dividends returned into the pension account).
This system worked until predatory multnational financial companies starteding out these companies just so they could plunder the pension ends and asset strip everything else. People who had worked 40 years suddenly found themselves with all their life savings gone, and the company liquidated.
Jobs for the elderly?
This BS argument about social security is another distraction. Social Security is another income tax enabled through the income tax law.
There has never been a “trust fund” as all revenue has gone into the general fund and has been spent immediately.
Social Security was sold to the American public as a retirement account supported by a trust fund.
That the US government and COn gress in particular have lied all along should surprise no one.
Walter Williams the neocon puke mouthpiece calling for cutting back on social security while (of course) increasing military budgets should surprise no one also.
You’ve worked a lifetime and saved, and believed all the lies your government fed you, and tried to plan for retirement, but you’re greedy and we need “austerity” measures because “we” over spent.
Blame the victim.
facts_n_fiction Reply:
June 16th, 2012 at 7:59 am
Hermes, I agree with you fully about the FACT that there has never been a “trust” fund or the illusional “lock box” that Al Gore referenced throughout the 2000 election. The social security system is pay as you go and its failure will totally be the by-product of socialism. Government grew much bigger than where it should have been due to social security as all the surpluses the Baby Boomers paid into over the last years were never saved (as a reserve) but were immediately spent on non-social security budget items.
Social Security is totally a PONZI scheme and if you were an actuary you would laugh endlessly at how pathetically managed this is. But, socialists are great at one thing – spending other people’s money. Good luck!
This is what happens when the parasite gets bigger than the host……. “Can’t be too safe”
“(September 11, 2001) that is attributed, perhaps incorrectly, to Muslim terrorists”
We Americans allowed this crime to have a fraudlent investigation…….
911, the Golden Fleece(ing) of America, by the MIC……….
Please inform me where in the Constitution does it say the federal government has the authority to create this Ponzi scheme. Another way to get Americans sucked into subservience. Get off the grid.
GetitGotitGood Reply:
June 16th, 2012 at 7:54 am
The same place that taxes your wages.
The same place that approves costly foreign wars.
The same that approves NDAA.
The same that approves government assassinations of citizens and non citizens alike.
The same that approves the criminalization of raw milk.
The same that approves 30,000 drones to spy on whoever.
ad nauseum….
So why don’t the pimps in Congress stop him? Oh there to busy sucking the cocks of their zionist handlers .
It is refreshing to hear the TRUTH about SS. The government blew away the excess reserves on its illegal foreign war campaigns and the MIC. They are now and have been trying to deflect this by attacking poor old grandma implying she’s now a unneeded useless eater.
Present day younger citizens clamor for the elderly to take care of themselves in a system that won’t hire them nor pay them a decent interest rate for their meager savings which is being decimated by inflation each passing day.
Check out the stats. You will notice the present younger crowd are saving less for their ‘golden years’ than the greedy oldsters accused of milking the system.
The real culprits here are the bought off politicians that stay in office from birth to death and of course the Federal Reserve.
I say to those that accuse oldsters of robbing them,,, let’s see your savings! Where are you going to invest? The great casino called the stock market controlled by the very robber barons that ripped us off via TARP and other Bail Outs,,, or maybe in Treasuries which at best will lose you 1-2%.
The thing most youngsters don’t seem to understand about this generational war they’re waging is they’re the next group of demon oldsters! What goes around…. comes around is the operative here.
THANK YOU PAUL ROBERTS.
Unlike Bill Bonner and the rest of the libertarian crowd you have pursued common sense and factual information rather than nonsensical political blather.