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Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Let 'Em Eat 401(cake)

Although the short-lived Boxer Rebellion was duly inspired and would serve as a rallying cry to any non-corpse-like political parties, the shameful reality is that it's scarcely worth the time to indulge in conspiracy theories anymore. Not because there aren't conspiracies -- anywhere you find people with immense quantities of money and power, you will find concerted efforts to acquire more of the same. And if it happens that Joe Six-Pack never hears about it, it may or may not have something to do with said moneyed/powered interests owning the information sources Joe may or may not even bother to pay minimal attention to. And if he does happen to read up on it, well, then it's just coincidence.

It's that peculiar occurrence of the religious person finding agnosticism in one single instance; the otherwise intelligent-design-minded suddenly insisting that a tornado hit a junkyard and left a perfectly-assembled 747 in its wake.

Keeping this in mind, we turn to the shell game that passes for the debate on Social Security privatization. During his campaign, the oft-maligned John Kerry consistently pointed out that Bush planned to cut SS benefits between 30-45% as part of the privatization scheme. Bush, of course, did not bother to parry this with one his usual babbled non-sequitur ripostes. He didn't address it at all; even before the pre-screened, hand-picked crowds that he could bear to subject Himself to, he got no further than a few mumbled platitudes about "reform" and "crisis". And guess how much of a benefit cut has been initially put forth? 33%. Thank God we got all hung up on Swift Boat minutiae.

So Bush is now insisting that his 3% "mandate" has bought him a large amount of "political capital", and that it is his "style" to "spend" this capital. (Funny, I only got through a semester of Macro and a semester of Micro, but I could swear that capital is supposed to be invested, rather than spent.) And part of spending his capital apparently involves declaring something that was basically a non-issue during the campaign a full-blown "crisis".

This is unconscionable, but entirely in keeping with character. This is how they do everything -- cynically, and in bad faith. They sat on invading Fallujah for six months, then making sure the world knew exactly when it was a go: after the elections, of course. This not only enabled insurgents to use Fallujah as a base of terrorist operations for 6 months -- because even they knew Bush would not risk a bloodbath before Nov. 2 -- but then enabled them to disperse right before the invasion, because again, the timeline might as well have been advertised.

Cognizant of this across-the-board decision-making process, back to Social Security. So we have been bombarded with portents of crisis and doom well nigh, though the fund pays in full to 2042, then 70% to 2052. One can make a reasonable argument that some sort of reform should be worked out at some point, but why right now?

Well, Americans are famously checkbook-illiterate; the bankruptcy rate just goes higher and higher, and indeed a significant portion of the economy would just go belly-up if we suddenly decided to stop buying shit we don't need. And people are obviously skittish already; they're ripe for whatever spate of fear-mongering comes down the pike next. Undoubtedly there's at least a few people in Kansas wondering if they might be next on God's Tsunami Shit List.

So there's a crisis when there's really not a crisis; twenty-somethings are being told that the well will run dry by the time it's their turn, so they're all worked up now, and they have no idea why; and these guys are licking their chops and rubbing their hands for what would be a ginormous transfer of wealth from the public sector to the private sector.

The thing is, people don't save, so this constant masturbation over "owning" something is bullshit. There are already savings accounts. There are already 401(k) plans available. There are mechanisms in place to encourage retirement savings plans. Instead we get bromides about the "ownership society", and non-sequiturs about life expectancy for blacks being lower (thus not collecting SS).

Well, okay. Fine. What do you want to do about that? Well, no answer as to how "private savings accounts" (which, AGAIN, exist at these things called BANKS) would ameliorate this inequity. Okay, how about the estimated $2 trillion in transition costs? No plan for that, either. What about the stories coming out of Britain about how their privatization scheme has been undermined by exorbitant adminstrative fees, while SS maintains an amazing .6% operating cost? Still nothing. If this is such a great fucking idea, why do they have to lie about it? Really, you could ask that question about every major move this administration has made, along with one other important question -- when was the last time these guys were right about anything; hell, when was the last time they weren't totally fucked-up about anything?

I cannot imagine what rolls through people's brains sometimes. They don't trust the government to tax them fairly, but they trust them with things like the PATRIOT Act. They don't trust the "Ponzi scheme" of Social Security, so they'd rather turn over x% to the world of eight-figure CEO bonuses and golden parachutes. If you mention "Enron", they'll tell you how the system worked, because Andy Fastow will spend a few years at Club Fed, and Ken Lay is facing trial now. What they forget is that thousands of employees lost everything to the tender mercies of the marketplace, and they're fucked. And they won't get it back out of Kenny Boy's hide.

Maybe P.T. Barnum had a point when he opined that it is morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money. Forget the secret conspiracies; they're rubbing our fucking noses in it.

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