The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.
Chinese proverb
America's Got Talent: Silhouettes Top 10 Performance
I'm in love with this group. Every week I see them on the show, and I want to hug each and every one of these beautiful, adorable girls. And that was before hearing the vignette at the beginning of this video talking about the physical challenges faced by some of the young ladies. The final 4 performance is Tuesday. I'm not a dance fan in general, and I'm not sure how this works as a Vegas act--but I would buy tickets locally to see them in a show. I cast 3 separate votes Tuesday (Poplyte, Murphy), all which made the final 4. With all due respect for the remaining contenders, I think it's the Silhouettes to lose; I hope they choose something uplifting in the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy anniversary. The arrangements have been so spot on and flawlessly executed, I don't see how they lose Tuesday, and I would encourage my readers to vote for them.
LA Times Editorial
Campaign 2012: Cheney and Rove vs. Rick Perry on Social Security:
Thumbs DOWN!
When my Illinois Congressman Harris Fawell (R-13) retired in 1998, the GOP primary attracted a number of candidates, including probably my favorite boss over my work career (my former Coopers & Lybrand boss is a close second). What I recall specifically about his campaign--I wasn't involved because I was commuting to an Oracle Consulting project for the City of Oakland--is that his key signature platform position focused on the preservation of social security. I have issues about this, because social security, as policy exists today, given existing actuarial trends, is unsustainable; it has been in net deficit since last year and will continue. Not to mention the fact that the Congress has been engaging in payroll tax cuts (including Obama's ineffectual jobs initiative this week), which pushes entitlement programs even further into the red. Kryzston, Cheney, Rove and Romney have been trying to tactfully deal with the "third [electric] rail" issue of social security, i.e., "touch it and you die". To a degree I understand: I've been paying into social security since I was a teenager, some years the maximum. I am vested in the program; it's factored into my retirement income plan. It's called a "tax" but it's really a mandated government retirement plan.
What I expect Republicans to say is that it is every individual's responsibility to plan for his own retirement--not depend on the government. What is the confidence on this government expansion of its presence in the financial services sector, the health care sector, etc., based on? The spectacular successes in government spending in inner cities and public schools? The remarkable successes of government micromanagement of the economy that has left the labor participation rate at its lowest point in almost 30 years? If you ask me what I feel better about leaving my primary retirement savings with--the private sector, which can't afford, unlike the public sector to borrow in order to cover a 40% hole in the budget, or the public sector, already $10T in public-held debt and will likely double that over the coming decade, far beyond the size of GDP? We need to be talking about cutting the public debt to from $10T to $5T. Obama is talking about $1T cuts over the coming DECADE; do the arithmetic, people! That is $100B a year while the ANNUAL deficit will likely exceed $1T PER YEAR. What part of borrowing AT LEAST another $900B a year to an existing $10T public debt don't people get? You need to save over $1T per year just to keep the public debt from growing up even more. (The full debt, of course, is closing in on $15T; the difference is social security trust and other reserves.) When Obama is talking $1T over a decade, keep in mind he should be talking $10T over the decade. All he's talking about is effectively a DOWN PAYMENT ON NEW DEBT.
The LA Times wrote a subtly misleading, superficial analysis; I'm not going to argue every line of the editorial, because I've written many commentaries on this issue already and don't want to be that repetitive. But there's this paragraph I find particularly annoying:
That Social Security isn't a Ponzi scheme isn't just a matter of opinion or belief; it's a fact. The program is sound enough to pay benefits well beyond the 75-year planning horizon, although in about 25 years they'll have to be cut by 23% unless more revenue is brought in. Besides, it's not an investment program that grows or shrinks based on the fortunes of the market; it's insurance that pays a predefined benefit.Okay, a system that started off with some 16 or so workers supporting each retiree on a pay-as-you-go system down to roughly 3:1, just as the largest generation of workers has only started to retire, is not a viable program. The modeling they are referring to here makes growth estimates which are highly unlikely given a much more competitive global economy, globally uncompetitive US tax and regulatory policies (thanks to Obama and Democratic cronies), and slowing labor force/participation rates. Current retirees will receive, over the expanded life expectancies, more than they put into the system. The idea that you can have your cake and eat it, too, is not a sustainable business practice. The government is promising more than they can deliver. Also, the LA Times doesn't question the ability of a government to finance public debt as not only we are piling on trillions of new debt but having to finance the liquidation of social security trust fund Treasuries just to meet today's checks. As the Times points out, this is a wash in terms of total debt, but it raises the ratio of public to social security debt: why in the world is the rest of the world going to "invest" in Obamanomics?
When, in the history of our country, have we been running trillion dollar surpluses to pay off Barack Obama's $4T in new net debt? It's one thing if we had NO publicly-held debt at the beginning of Obama's reign of fiscal terror, but Obama has grown the debt to deadbeat country status: the country is now seeing debt equal the size of the economy, the typical "credit limit", and with a straight face, his idea of fiscal discipline is making the minimum payment on a credit card bill while demanding a higher credit limit? What credit card issuer really thinks a guy whom wants to double his credit limit while just making minimum payments is ever going to pay off his debt? All you're doing is aiding and abetting fiscal irresponsibility.
According to Wikipedia, "In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss." What's the contingency in a person reaching the age of 65 of possibly dying from old age? What's the risk taken here? Only by the government: it has to ensure if a man lives to, say, the age of 80 versus an average age of 78, it is able to fund 2 more years of social security payments. What's it doing to do this? Is it trying, like an insurance company, to invest a large percentage of premiums in profitable investments, to offset beneficiary payouts?
No, the LA Times wants you to know it's not a "traditional" textbook Ponzi scheme. It doesn't lure in with seductive but unrealistic returns on investment, which in effect are skimmed off a second level of investors. Well, of course, we don't have to be lured into social security with false and misleading returns; that's irrelevant: the government confiscates our payroll taxes, regardless of financial risk it's undertaking. But the idea that you can maintain indefinitely a system where beneficiaries consistently on average make more than they pay in IS Ponzi-like.
This is the TRUE fact of life the LA Times really skips past: the idea that with one of the largest pools of voting retirees in history, the government is going to allow beneficiary checks to drop by over 20% in 2036 (probably earlier unless we see serious economic growth which is NEVER going to happen under Obama) is NEVER going to happen. Not one federal politician is even considering cutting, say, 3% of the average social security payment today; heck, Nancy Pelosi is still holding onto decades-old eligibility criteria decades after actuarial factors changed. The fact that the LA Times is attempting to rationalize no change despite the facts that the factors affecting viability of social security have changed tells you all you need to know.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Air Supply, "Making Love Out of Nothing At All." Eighties music didn't get better than this...
