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Stock Ideas Investors Daily Edge Social Security and the Angry Society
Stock Ideas Investors Daily Edge Social Security and the Angry Society 
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| Social Security and the Angry Society |
| Saturday, 17 May 2008 | ||||||||
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That was an interesting take on the problems of Social Security. At least you admit there is a problem, but the other problem is that just paying higher taxes won’t by itself solve the problem because the dirty rotten pols will just steal the increase as they have with what’s been done so far. The SS funds must be separated from the rest of the fed funds and invested With crimes of this size and importance, someone should go to jail… for a long time… but that’s another story. Repairing the faith and security of the system is much more important. But getting the pols to do that will be almost impossible since they all feed off it in the same way. The American people are being robbed blind and the pols and their finance industry buddies are doing something no outside power could do… destroying the greatest country in the world and all for greed and privilege. Thank you for letting me get this off my chest. David T. somewhat for a higher return, so hopefully it can grow into something real. There is no real trust fund since what’s there are just IOUs from one part of the government to another that can only be paid with taxes. And, that my friends is the prevailing view from America… or least the commonly shared view of the multitudes that responded to last week’s piece on the corrupted US program known as Social Security. There are more of your responses below. I am often pigeonholed as the ultra-liberal voice among IDE’s seven strong opinion makers. But your responses to last week’s piece show that no matter what we all believe about issues that don’t put a dime in our pockets – issues our politicians would rather we actually worry about – we all do share a fairly common concern about our personal financial health and the responsibility we feel to our kids.
The latter point is key, because no matter where we stand on some issues, I think most of us are very concerned about the world we are leaving our kids and grandchildren. This is not a real revelation to me, because I’ve always believed that the US’s citizenry is a compassionate lot. But, I wish I could share your views with other financial publishers – and politicians – because your responses reinforce my belief that Americans are not the overly self-centered, supremely greedy people that we are so often portrayed. For those of you who missed last week, I wrote that Social Security is in the tank – benefits are about to be cut and the eligibility age about to be raised – because all three presidential candidates have yet to peep a word about it. But there is an easy fix. To amplify on that a bit – and you seem to agree with this – the problem with the US’s leaders in Washington is that they don’t lead. Change only happens when they figure out how a program can benefit their real constituents, which are not you and me. So, until some big donor can benefit, there’s no real impetus in Washington to solve the Social Security mess. Even worse, as the majority of you wrote, there is the strong possibility that should Social Security raise enough funds to become solvent again, politicians would just find new excuses to raid the fund. For all my optimism about the US, I fear you are likely right. Because, our elected leaders in Washington are not for uniting us – in fact, that scares the crap out of them. They are about dividing us, because creating a polarized society perpetuates political incumbents… nothing more. Whose God is God… Who is more Christian than thou… Who has the right to kill Bambi with a howitzer or handgun… Who’s a patriot and who’s not… What’s patriotism and what’s not… Who gets to define who says what on TV, radio and CDs… Who does what in the privacy of their own bedroom… Who has the right to marry and who doesn’t… That’s all stuff that may be important to us as individuals – I repeat, truly important stuff to us as moral individuals – but it was turned against us in a mass propaganda effort to divide us. And not for our own good, but in a pernicious and deliberate manner that allowed Washington – with the help of its friends in the media – to camouflage its arrogant rape of US coffers. As people, we now believe that symbols are substance. Until we demand more of ourselves, we cannot change this utterly corrupt system. Now, let’s move on to more of your responses. Lock and load. Andy P.S. To let me know what you thought of today's article, send an e-mail to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
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