Centerfield

You don't even need a microphone if you only want to listen.

That's good, as I have previous on-line meetings that night. We will find out what the new computer can really handle for multi-tasking! How many open active windows before the crash?

FYI Rick I
d have joined in if possible, but I'm pretty sure my old at-home mac and dial-up won't be up to the task.

Yes. You probably do need broadband.

The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time

98. PEZ DISPENSER, 1927

92. POPEIL POCKET FISHERMAN, 1950s

70. ATARI PONG C-100, 1976

20. SWISS ARMY KNIFE, 1891

The Howard Dean vs. Richard Perle debate is scheduled to be aired on C-SPAN tonight. Carla and I were there and blogged on our observations if anyone wants to check that out.

I've heard that the incident of the guy who threw his shoe at Richard Perle was caught on tape. So, that should provide a certain level of base entertainment. LOL

Didn't the guy know that the proper procedure is to bang your shoe on the table while repeatedly screaming "Nyet!"? Not throw it?

ANSWER:

Scott,

Increasing the payroll tax to build up the "trust funds" simply gives the government more money to avoid fiscal reponsibility with NOW, while replacing it wwith more debt that must be paid in the future. It's giving a guaranteed line of credit to chronic overspenders--with no income to back it.

As long as the government borrows & spends SS surpluses by "investing" them in government bonds and putting the proceeds in the general fund, the net effect on the overall government revenue picture doesn't improve. It's the same as any other government borrowing, creating a future obligation to pay. Increasing the trust funds gives the government more money to spend NOW, artifically lowering the deficit by the surplus amount and reducing fiscal discipline, while simultaneously creating new debt that must be paid. So we get taxed twice--and that money not only gets spent, but we then get to pay it back as taxpayers. With interest. To the government, so the government can pay itself, so it can pay us!

Since SS is part of the federal government, "borrowing" from SS and calling the resulting IOU's an "asset" to SS is like "borrowing" your own retirement funds and replacing them with your own IOU's, and then calling those IOU's "assets" to you when you're the one who has to pay them.

This is the illusion of the SS trust funds. The money has been spent. It can only be paid back by the taxpayers. So the real "deficit" date for SS is when the tax revenue dips under the benefits payments in 2018, and not when the "trust funds" are exhausted in 2042.

Anyone claiming the "trust fund balances" make SS peachy-keen financially is either fiscally ignorant or intentionally misleading you. They are ignoring that the funding must come from somewhere, and that means from the taxpayers. The overall gov't revenue picture does not change one damn dime with or without the existence of the trust funds. The same amount of benefits still has to be paid, and the same amount of money still has to be raised to pay them, and it still has to come from the same sources.