June 2008 Archives
I was 9 years old when I first started to read the newspaper daily. My parents had assigned me the chore of ensuring the paper was picked up from the driveway and placed in my dad's favorite spot by his living room chair before he woke up (rain or shine, 7 days/week), and I started using the 10-15 minutes of time before they were awake to find the comics page and when I could the front page. I became really good at listening to all the sounds in the house, and knowing exactly a minute before anyone else was awake.
By the time I was 12, I was learning how to read the entire paper w/o leaving any evidence that it had been opened/unfolded. By 15, I had advanced to sneaking a read of the mail before anyone in the house saw it. When the economist, new republic, aviation weekly, business week, scientific american, or psychology today arrived...I usually had about 90 minutes to steal, read, and return it to the mailbox before anyone noticed. Yes, all you young ones....we didn't have the Internet then, and weekly journals were the closest you could get to the blogging experience available today.
Perhaps my parents knew about it and looked the other way. All I knew was that once they got the journal or newspapers, they were either left unorganized or I never saw them again....so my only chance of getting a comprehensive and unbiased feed of information was to get it myself directly from whatever source was available before anyone else.
By 21, I was reading the front sections from 3 newspapers rather than just one because I didn't want to get biased coverage. Reading the news in the LA times was completely different than reading it in the Wall Street Journal. All of them made good points.
Why I am bring these events up now to an anonymous audiance? I guess it's become I'm genuinely annoyed at you all.
There, I said it.
What the hell are you all smoking?
I did all those things when I was young because I realized that knowing what was going on in my country and the world, in an unbiased and comprehensive way, was one of the key requirements of being an adult. I honestly don't care what the sociologists say, what seperates human beings from animals is not that we can talk, socialize, and form groups but that we take responsibility for our long term future. We open our eyes at the world and shout "Tell me the truth!" and we pay the piper when he comes or make those sacrifices that we know we should to make the world a better place for ourselves and our kids 10-30 years down the line.
That's also one of the differences between being a boy and a man, or a sheep and a man. Sheep are nothing but men who've given up on their responsibilities and refuse to plan for the future.
Honestly, I think the American leadership class in general thinks the populace is sheep. And, I can't honestly blame them.
Consider the following:
I first heard about the "future social security crisis" when I was 10 years old which was ~1982. It wasn't a made up problem...just obvious mathematics...families weren't having as many kids as they used to and some generations were going to be much bigger than the rest meaning that the original assumption of having 7-10 workers paying for each retiree wasn't going to work out. The ratio of workers to retirees is the whole financial backbone of the whole system, and anyone who claims there isn't a problem when the ratio falls to 5-1 or 2-1 as its currently expected just isn't being honest.
Now, as economists are happy to point out, long term economic problems are easier to resolve when tackled early. Social security, in particular, was so paramount and the picture perfect example of the "less pain the earlier you fix" ideal that it was extremely obvious that we could all solve the issue by simply adding 2 years to the minimum retirement age every 5-10 years to reflect advances in life expectency and everyone would have enough time to prepare w/o having to pay higher taxes.
There I was 10 years old, and I assumed that America was such a great country that we would have the problem solved by the time I had to start planning for my own retirement. Hah. What a sucker, I was!
Yes, some steps were taken but always in such a way that once every 10-20 years it would just enough to push the problem back by another 5-10 years so that the people in charge wouldn't have to make any hard decisions or cut their own retirement. Way to go.
Of course, during this time, as records now show, public companies were also starting to underfund and overpromise on pensions. So, the problem was in more than the public sector. Everyone just decided to lie their way out of the problem and kept on at it until companies and cities started to go bankrupt (I'm just astounded that our leadership class could have exhibited such cowardice over such a prolonged period. Bravo! Can I spit on them now?).
Of course, our leaders during the period did know what was going on and wisely decided to stop offering any pensions at all to their "younger" workforce. I guess they decided that the joy of making the next generation eventually pay much higher taxes while getting fewer benefits was too good of a "screwing" to pass up. The result of course is that the American currency is falling and we may see a return of 1970's stagflation where interest rates are in the double digits and everything costs tremendously more each year. It's pretty easy to see why doctors are now predicting for the first time in recent american history, the current working force generation is likely to live a shorter less-prosperous and healthy life than the generation that brought it into the world.
To make matters worse, Boomers apparently have the wonderful delightful gal to call "Gen X'ers" depressing in recent mainstream publications and media, including a the "60 Minutes" TV show which "documents the love and respect Boomers are showing for the new Millennial generation!"
I'm wondering if its genuine, or the Boomers are just happy to see anyone in their country who isn't disappointed in them? Who knows, perhaps its all a clever ploy to build trust before screwing over someone new.
OK. Now, I know you young guys/girls out there are chanting "right on" on the whole social security thing but are seriously turned off by anyone calling you "Easy to deceive" or anything approaching "clueless"...let alone writing a bleak article about people in general.
You've apparently got this thing for "change" right now.
News for you, change would be Americans facing reality, sacrificing benefits, reducing spending first, raising taxes as a measure of last resort....not the other way around. Nearly every year of the last 30-40, spending has increased faster than revenue...even during periods when taxes were raised sharply.
OK, time for some history. Hopefully I haven't totally lost my entire audiance yet.
Remember Perot? Maybe you don't...maybe all you know is that he was a wierd high pitched guy...but when us Gen X'ers supported him in 1992 much like 20 somethings are supporting Barrack now, we actually did make a difference. The period from 1994-2000 was probably the only period in the last 50 when the federal budget was even slightly balanced or some fiscal intelligence in Washington. The result was the huge economic boom during the dot com period and the innovation and companies that are still powering whatever growth there is in the US economy.
So, my point:
American's have tried raising taxes ...yeah, I know all young people have seen the last 10 years is hypocritical GOP arguments for cutting taxes to the rich and the wonderful experience that has resulted in for the middle class. Happy, happy...joy, joy.
I guess if I was still in my twenties, I might think the same thing. I'd probably be perfectly willing to do anything, even be an idiot or vote for one, if it kept those corrupt bastards out of power.
But honestly, we've tried raising taxes many times over the last thirty years to solve financial issues... When the democrats did it, the results were so bad that the public hated carter as much as they hate bush today. (BG Reference -- "All this has happened before").
The GOP of the 80's/90's was born as a reaction to Carter, much as Democrats have returned to power after Bush. The unfortunate truth is that the Democrats in power haven't changed since. The solutions are still the same. Carter said no to the military, and increased taxes whenever budget issues occured. There we go again. The lessons of Clinton's narrow win in 92 have been lost.
If the next American president imitates carter, the country is going to be in an even worse world of hurt.
Yeah, I know ..."The Iraq war".....it costs a lot of money. But, crap, the war is only a few years old and this problems with finance and facing reality have been going on for 30 years now so lets get some perspective. Politicians, of either parties, are not going to do what is in the best interest of the country unless we force them. Republicans on one side and democrats on the other just have too many blinders on.
Every time we raise taxes, our leadership class just puts off solving problems and actually spends more. I mean look at it, the current generation in charge, "the boomers", want to die before they've payed off their mortgages. They'd be happy with inflation to solve problems as long as their benefits are indexed for information. It doesn't matter to them if the dollar dies or if younger people have to work harder.
Similarly, cutting taxes is just absolutely stupid w/o cutting expenses/benefits yet that's what Bush has tried to do.
I say keep taxes where they are....maybe adjust them a little bit to be more progressive on the high end, but nowhere near the 10-25% increases that Mr. Obama's and others seem to have planned. We're going to be in enough pain as it is w/ cities and states also raising taxes and future entitlement benefits being cut during the next 20-30 years. Honestly, We're headed for deep shit.
So, democrat or republican, don't believe anyone who tells you the next 20-30 years are going to be easy or normal. Definitely don't support anyone who has an instinctive desire to raise taxes when facing a problem. We can solve problems if we face problems like adults and refuse to be sheep. If social security benefits are cut 40% 30 years from now, we'll make do. Maybe, we'll even come up with something better.
Cut expenses first, if we have to raise taxes or restructure things further...fine, but only after we've honestly tried to solve problems and not put them off.
Just whatever we do, America - open your eyes. I'm getting really tired to listening to crap and lies fron on one side or another of the political spectrum whenever anything important in the county is discussed. The future is too important to look the other way. The opinions of economic professionals and anyone who has seriously and impartially reviewed history always seem to be selectively filtered by either party.
It's been over 30 frigging years now. If we're not strong enough to honestly face our problems in that amount of time than lets just call ourselves what we are - sheep.
As for me, I plan to be vocal and be a Man about it, regardless of how annoying it is to others.
Note to myself: Next amendment to constitution should be a requirement for "generational accounting/equality" in social programs and taxes perhaps requiring that all future benefits be paid for in advance. Also, all federal references to GDP and economic growth should include ecological damage in the liability section (might take another 20+ years to figure that all out).
For the record:
My first vote when I was 20 was for Perot because Clinton gave off bad vibes on his character (Remember, I read newspapers).
Apparently, Perot scared Clinton enough that he became a balanced budget convert so I voted for his re-election 1996.
In 2000, I supported McCain in the primary since he was the only candidate in the race that seemed to care about Budgets and Defense while not being a stooge of the left or right. Bush at the time was obviously unqualified and Gore was scary in a different way so I left my general election presidential choice empty.
In 2004, I voted to re-elect Bush because Kerry seemed to be a horribly weak candidate and Bush seemed to be committed towards making congress at least discuss Social Security. Still, it was a narrow decision. Of course, Congress had its way with SS and refused to discuss any serious reform proposals and simply yelled "Bush wants to cut SS" whenever the topic was brought up. How adult of them. Of course it makes perfect sense when you realize that they didn't want to solve the problem unless it was on their terms....e.g. raising taxes, not cutting benefits. Obama is just perfect for them as he is popular and everyone can be distracted by Iraq while taxes go up and reform is ignored.
In 2008, I'm tentatively supporting McCain. I don't buy all the people who say McCain has changed from what he was in 2000. Too many people get their news from "The Daily Show" and "MoveOn.org, et al" which have tiltered totally leftwards over the last 8 years. Those who say McCain has changed don't realize that they remember him as being middle-of-the-road, but their perception of the middle has changed and not McCain's own policies. As Lieberman pointed out, the Democratic party left him...not the other way around.
