Social Security must be expanded
Over the years I have blogged a lot on Social Security. Many of my articles / blog posts included fact based researched. This piece is mostly a rant that I hope you all heed. I am writing in my insomniac state. Educate yourself and disregard the wards of the plutocracy who would tell you we do not need to nor can we afford to expand Social Security.
Recently my blood pressure has been rising with some difficulty in keeping it under control. I swear it has to do with two things. The first is watching the speed with which a calculated assault is being effected on Americans by mostly unscrupulous Republican politicians. I won’t give the Democrats or the media a pass. They are enablers by timidity or acquiescence. The second is the writing of boldface lies cloaked in fake research by purported experts. These give what would otherwise be considered draconian policy suggestions a semblance of responsible compassion.
The Los Angeles Op-ed titled “We can’t afford to expand Social Security — and we don’t need to” by resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Andrew G. Biggs is a case in point. To be clear, AEI is a Right Wing Think Tank that is but a precursor to the organizations inspired partly by the Powell Manifesto. The intent of these organizations is to prevent the empowerment of the poor and the middle-class as they starve the government from effecting programs and policies to maintain a humane society as opposed to a society governed by capital and the enrichment of a few.
The article attempts to make a case that upon further study, Americans for the most part do not need an increase in Social Security. One of the paragraphs that almost caused me to blow a gaskey follows:
A 2014 report from the Rand Corp. concluded that “about 71% of individuals ages 66-69 are adequately economically prepared to retire, given expected consumption.” A scholar at the Brookings Institution and two economists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that roughly three-quarters of the households in a large sample “had accumulated sufficient resources in 2004 to maintain pre-retirement living standards in retirement.”
What in the hell does “adequately economically prepared to retire” means. Does it mean after working to enrich the plutocrats, the unfettered capitalist, that you won’t starve? Maybe a diet heavy on rice and beans? Have any of these writers ever done their due diligence? Have they ever been to middle or lower middle-class neighborhoods? Have they gone to churches, synagogues, and mosques and listen to the problems of those retired or contemplating retirement in those communities? I have.
Empirically based on my experience, the article is a bastion of distortions. I have tagged many of my previous Social Security articles above so I won’t go into technicalities here. If you need convincing just read some of those posts. Suffice it to say that given the aggregate numbers, income stagnation for those below the 10% percentile and the average American disappearing ability for wealth accumulation, the article is but an attempt to convince even the affected that they may just be the exception.
Americans must not fall for this crap. We built this country. Most of the spoils went to the titans of finance. It is time that one’s political choices reflect their needs, wants, and what they are justifiably entitled to. Do not fear the attacks that will claim that if Americans demand what is theirs that business will go elsewhere. Where the hell will they go. They are already ripping off all those that have allowed them to do so. As decimated as we are in many areas, we are still their most profitable market. Moreover, given that it is the military of “we the people” and the society we provided them that allowed their success, nationalization of any company that attempts to extort should be the answer their attempt to go elsewhere. Corporations are artificial legal creations to serve us, not to rule us. But we will talk corporations and their original intent in another blog post.