Saturday, August 28, 2010

Read this one, too

This piece by Grieder, about how the Federal Reserve has utterly fucked taxpayers, is a must-read, too.

Once again, the story gets botched

Um, I know that cable news and AM radio talkers keep insisting that Social Security is in trouble and has to be pared back, but that just isn't true. It is fully funded through 2037. No, really, it is.
William Greider, who has no peer when it comes to reporting on the U.S. economy and the utter folly of supply-side economics, recently explained the non-problem surrounding Social Security on the Nation's website:
Social Security collected this money from workers as their involuntary savings, better known as FICA deductions. Then the federal government borrowed the money from us and spent it on other things. Congress raised the FICA deductions 25 years ago on all working people to pay for the baby boom generation's copming retirements. The Social Security trust fund has since built up massive surpluses--$2.5 tillion now and growing to $4.2 trillion in 2023--and set it aside for the future. But, starting with Ronald Reagan, the federal government ran massive deficits on its own budgets and borrowed the savings from Social Security to pay for wars and military build-ups, regressive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, among other things.

This vast wealth belongs to the working people who paid it--not to the federal government or Congress. Naturally, many politicians would like to get out of paying it back, but that constitutes a massive bait-and-switch swindle of working people. Bai and many other reporters of the mainstream media have been assured by their sources it is impossible to pay back that money, but that is a political choice, not a fiscal requirement. It would make working people pay for Republican gravy that went to someone else.


Please go and read more Greider at www.thenation.com.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Finally

So, I finally landed a job in the Circle City. It's proofreading, light composition, etc. at a busy prepress outfit and the pay is much better than editing a small daily newspaper.
For those of you who know me personally, I haven't been ducking you since I returned home to Indy. I've been laying low. There's enough bad news around without you having to listen to me fret about being broke and out of work. Luckily for me, Josie has been a peach about the job sitch and the kids haven't missed a meal. And my mother has been great, too.
As much as the last two months of waiting has sucked, I do appreciate finding something good so quickly while the rest of the working class is desperate to find something, anything going.
I could start on a rant about just how desperately we need to bury all of this supply side bullshit and get back to the Keynesian management of the economy that produced 50-plus years of prosperity, but I'm tired and you would get bored after a few lines.
Thank you for all of the good thoughts and I promise I will get back to a more regular posting sked.