Social Security: Massive Ponzi Scheme

That Social Security is a decades-old, massive ponzi scheme that is reaching its foregone conclusion sounds pretty right to me. To quote a very interesting article on Bloomberg,

[Overwhelming debt] is what happens when you run a massive Ponzi scheme for six decades straight, taking ever larger resources from the young and giving them to the old while promising the young their eventual turn at passing the generational buck.

The article delineates the reality that our government is totally bankrupt, but that thanks to politically expedient obfuscatory financial labeling, government debts are bearing down on us under the radar.

The article concludes,

Herb Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under U.S. President Richard Nixon, coined an oft-repeated phrase: “Something that can’t go on, will stop.” True enough. Uncle Sam’s Ponzi scheme will stop. But it will stop too late.

And it will stop in a very nasty manner. The first possibility is massive benefit cuts visited on the baby boomers in retirement. The second is astronomical tax increases that leave the young with little incentive to work and save. And the third is the government simply printing vast quantities of money to cover its bills.

Most likely we will see a combination of all three responses with dramatic increases in poverty, tax, interest rates and consumer prices. This is an awful, downhill road to follow, but it’s the one we are on. And bond traders will kick us miles down our road once they wake up and realize the U.S. is in worse fiscal shape than Greece.

Hold on tight, this is gonna get rough.

Compassion by Compulsion

Allow me to interject some religious philosophy for a moment.

All you hear about in the news these last few weeks is the hubbub over the Democratic plan to socialize health care. The arguments against it are many and valid: debilitating cost to the taxpayer, loss of control of one's own health decisions, degraded quality of rationed medical care, the overall negative economic impact. The list goes on and on.

But there's an underlying violation dealt by socialized health care (and all types of government handouts, for that matter) that offends the very essence of what it means to be human: Agency.

Agency is the one thing that makes mankind unique in the universe. Self-directed thought, combined with the ability to act on that thought to a degree, is why we can rightly consider ourselves special.

Agency was a key concept in the movie The Matrix, illustrated when the computer program/virus Mr. Smith cannot comprehend the human hero's motivation to keep fighting regardless of his inevitable demise.

Agent Smith: Why, Mr. Anderson? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more that your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Yes? No? Could it be for love? ...You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You can't win. It's pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?

Neo: Because I choose to.

Back to health care.

The proposed health care legislation is yet another giant step in the ongoing slide into what is portrayed as a "compassionate" society. Every government program that gives out something for nothing is created in the name of compassion. But is it really compassion? Compassion by whom? The lawmakers?

What good is compassion when it's mandated by another person? It even defies its own definition. Compassion comes about only through a personal choice to sacrifice for someone else. Compassion is the result of acting on one's own agency to help another.

Social programs, like the proposed health care legislation, invalidate any human choice in the matter. It takes away one's freedom to choose compassion. If I have $10 to give to a cause, the government would prefer to distribute it rather allow me the opportunity to give it of my own accord--thereby diminishing my agency and the core of my very humanity.

Giant social handouts are not programs of compassion. They're programs of compulsion. And when we become a society of compulsion, we have truly lost our freedom.

Mitt Romney Maintains His Relevance

After losing a presidential election – especially a primary – candidates typically fade into the background and suffer a severely diminished sphere of influence. Not so with Mitt Romney. The Washington Post places him as the #2 most important Republican to watch.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, has the highest work rate of any modern politician we have observed closely. During his run for president last year, Romney's schedule would often be packed with six events a day, a stunning level of activity. He's keeping up that breakneck pace so far in 2009 -- using his Free and Strong America PAC to seed donations to up and coming politicians while penning editorials and providing counsel to congressional Republicans on economic issues. Another major advantage for Romney: much -- though not all -- of his political team has stayed in touch and intact , meaning that if and when he flicks the switch they will be ready to go from, well, day one.

Considering that the country will still be digging itself out of the cosmic-sized pit that Obama and Congress are leading us headlong into, Romney's economic credentials will be more relevant than ever.

Politics Always Trumps Economics

It's the sad and unfortunate truth, as explained in the article.

"I think (doing) nothing would have been better," said Ed Yardeni, an investment analyst who's usually an optimist, in an interview with McClatchy. He argued that the plan fails to provide the right incentives to spur spending.

"It's unfocused. That is my problem. It is a lot of money for a lot of nickel-and- dime programs. I would have rather had a lot of money for (promoting purchase of) housing and autos . . . . Most of this plan is really, I think, aimed at stabilizing the situation and helping people get through the recession, rather than getting us out of the recession. They are actually providing less short-term stimulus by cutting back, from what I understand, some of the tax credits."

...

Another reason that some analysts frown on the stimulus is the social spending it includes on things such as the Head Start program for disadvantaged children and aid to NASA for climate-change research. Both may be worthy efforts, but they aren't aimed at delivering short-term boosts to economic activity.

"All this is 25 years of government expansion jammed into one bill and sold as stimulus," said Brian Riedl, the director of budget analysis for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy research group.

You reap what you sow. And you deserve whom you elect. Bravo, America. Bravo.

Mitt Romney Quote of the Day

In the final analysis, we know that only the private sector -- entrepreneurs and businesses large and small -- can create the millions of jobs our country needs. The invisible hand of the market always moves faster and better than the heavy hand of government.

Taken from remarks to the House Republican Conference. Read the entire excellent excerpt.

Economists Against Stimulus Package? Impossible!

How in the world can economists discard the foregone conclusion that huge government intervention is needed RIGHT NOW to avoid financial catastrophe? Oh--because they understand economics, and don't turn a blind eye to history.

Here's an ad from libertarian the CATO institute castigating the Obama administration and its support of the proposed government "stimulus" package, signed by various faculty from hudreds of universities. Click on the image to read the entire piece.

So if reducing the government burden on the economy is Economics 101, why are all the leftie politicians so gung ho about the stimulus package? As White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel put it, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Yeah, way to put country first there, Rahm.