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August 25, 2009
Third Rail Gives Seniors a Jolt
Anyone foolish enough to want their healthcare in the hands of Big Government might want to think again in light of Social Security benefit cuts.
Millions of older people face shrinking Social Security checks next year, the first time in a generation that payments would not rise. …
By law, Social Security benefits cannot go down. Nevertheless, monthly payments would drop for millions of people in the Medicare prescription drug program because the premiums, which often are deducted from Social Security payments, are scheduled to go up slightly.
Due to the moribund economy, inflation has been negative, even in the face of the mountains of money our reckless rulers have been printing. Consequently there will be no cost of living increase. But…
Advocates say older people still face higher prices because they spend a disproportionate amount of their income on health care, where costs rise faster than inflation. Many also have suffered from declining home values and shrinking stock portfolios just as they are relying on those assets for income.
The whole program continues to take on water:
The retirement program is projected to start paying out more money than it receives in 2016. Without changes, the retirement fund will be depleted in 2037, according to the Social Security trustees' annual report this year.
Anything bureaucrats give you, even if it was already yours, they can take away. One thing they can never give you is security. According to Rasmussen, many of us have figured that out:
Sixty percent (60%) of voters are not confident that the Social Security system will pay them all promised benefits during their lifetime, with 36% not very confident and 24% not at all confident.
Meanwhile, the Obama regime is pushing through massive new entitlements that clearly cannot be funded, in a transparent attempt to collapse the economy and pave the way for communism, per the Cloward-Piven strategy.
On tips from TED and Henry.
Posted by Van Helsing at August 25, 2009 7:53 AM
Comments
Due to the moribund economy, inflation has been negative, even in the face of the mountains of money our reckless rulers have been printing.
Not to nit-pick, Van, but this is actually deflation. Despite our rulers...err...elected leaders...efforts to keep us from actually defaulting on all our bad debt and forcing zombie banks to die, our economy is deflating. It has to. We've been pulling demand forward for years with credit and now our credit has run dry.
Sadly, this short-term bad news is actually the good news in the long term. As the dollar is devalued while the system is literally forced to purge itself, we come out on the other side with an absence of bad debt and a mind-boggling amount of liquidity (there's that printed money!) running rampant. And then bread shoots to $50/loaf and we wake up in Zimbabwe!
Are you guys still getting your supplies in order?
Posted by: cowlove at August 25, 2009 8:10 AM
Bread in Zimbabwe wasnt $50/loaf - closer to $50 BILLION per loaf. Since then they began using the US dollar - ironically.
http://tipd.com/Currencies/zimbabwe-introduces-the-50-billion-dollar-which-buys-a-loaf-of-bread/
Zimbabwe Introduces the $50 Billion Dollar, Which Buys a Loaf of Bread
Posted by digitalfever 224 days ago, popular 224 days ago (http://www.money.co.uk) View profile
Category: Currencies | Tags: currency economy inflation money
The country's central bank has today released the new note into circulation in their attempt to battle hyperinflation. According to today's estimates the $50billion note will trade at $1.25 US dollars on the black market and have enough purchase power to buy just two loaves of bread or three newspapers.
Posted by: Ghost of Mugabe at August 25, 2009 8:32 AM
For about 10 bucks you can be a trillionaire!
Posted by: cowlove at August 25, 2009 8:35 AM
No cost of living increase? Tell that to federal employees who are expecting a 2% increase in pay next year.
If you asked federal employees to take a 2% CUT in pay, I guarantee you that 99% would still keep their jobs.
So what's stopping us? Reducing the size of government isn't on the socialist agenda.
Moonbats with power. God help us.
Posted by: Mooseknuckle at August 25, 2009 8:45 AM
The devaluation of the dollar is not a good thing; it's theft. Dollar devaluation is, very simply, redistribution of wealth, from those that have it to those that don't, or put another way, from those who've lent their money out, to those who borrowed it. If one is a borrower, then it doesn't look too bad. But who are the lenders? The propaganda from Obama and co. is that these are brutal, unethical hedge funds and shady financiers. The real truth is that this money is largely the net worth of older people, who live (or try to live) off CDs, treasurys, Fannie Maes, municipal bonds, etc. Destroying the dollar means taking those peoples' wealth and forking it over to all sorts of people - those who feel they need new jet skis this year, the real estate speculators, people gambling on the next bubble in the stock market on margin, etc. It's insidious theft, and it blows my mind that there's no one left to speak for creditors, i.e. the millions of people who SAVED their money, as the rug is pulled out from under them.
Posted by: mega at August 25, 2009 8:45 AM
Spot on, mega. The only thing I would add is that long-term hyper-inflation makes this redistribution irrelevant.
It's almost as if Obama is trying to turn the U.S. into a collective...
Posted by: cowlove at August 25, 2009 9:03 AM
It serves the old farts right!!
For decades we kept telling them what was going to happen and the greedy asshats kept reelecting the promisers. The chickens have come home to roost.
The unfortunate part is that guys in my age bracket are soon slated to join these old fools in the bread lines as our retirement will be toast along with theirs.
In the mean time, I lost my job just after the 4th of July along with over 600 of our plant employees. How's all that hope and change workin' for you guys? Toothless butt biscuits.
Posted by: chuck in st paul at August 25, 2009 9:05 AM
Due to the moribund economy, inflation has been negative, even in the face of the mountains of money our reckless rulers have been printing.
You have it backwards.
Due to the mountains of money our reckless rulers have been creating from nothing inflation is skyrocketing.
Inflation is an increase in the money supply. Rising prices, which people mistakenly believe is inflation, is the result of inflation.
Our fiat currency is being debased at a rate faster than ever before, made worse by the suicidally low interest rates being maintained by the Fed. There is a lag time before the effect is felt and it's going to be beyond the imagining of anyone who didn't live through the Great Depression.
Posted by: single stack at August 25, 2009 9:06 AM
single stack, your definition of inflation is, of course, entirely correct. The current situation is markedly different from the typical, however. The money we're printing (cough...quantative easing...cough) is currently balancing the drag of our toxic debt, in the short term. This is why, for example, we can print no less than $250 billion in the past month yet see a steady decline in the PPI. It doesn't make much sense, until you consider the money we're printing is only allowing the Fed to place all that toxic debt on its balance sheet. Once that debt is marked to market? Well, that's when the long-term hyper-inflation takes over. Bye bye dollar, we had some good times.
Posted by: cowlove at August 25, 2009 9:32 AM
