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Democrats Get a Heads Up from Rock the Vote
August 26th 01:08:15 PM
Rock the Vote wants Democrats to be prepared for a "stealth plan" on Social Security, and compares it to the Medicare bill in 2003. They write, "The difference being that the Democrats didn't see it coming that time. The question is, will they see it coming this time, what will they do about it? What can the Democrats do about it?"
We want young people to be prepared to make their voices heard on reform. Young Americans want reform and ownership, we know that no political party can be trusted with our future.
Posted by Chris Schrimpf
Comments
RTV Repost:
Folks, as much as social security is a huge ripoff, ya'll should oppose bush's "privatization" plan too. Why? Bush's privatization plans insofar as he has any are to establish government accounts to hold government sanctioned equity funds possibly government managed. This would allow for all kinds of big government corruption and political interference in at least two ways:
1.) If the government controls the voting rights for the stocks in these funds or influences those who do, we will see business decisions decided by senators or government bureaucrats through control of this fund's voting rights. Any CEO who would dare exercise independence of thought and action would be voted out by bureaucrats who control majority voting rights of all public corporations by virtue of controlling the voting rights of the largest retirement fund in america.
Even if voting rights are delegated to the fund manager like in FERS*, the feds control which fund manager gets to manage the fund and so, they still control the rights.
* FERS or the Federal Employee Retirement System has its equity or 'C' fund managed and voting rights controlled by Barclays Global Investors but could switch to another should they not exercise their voting rights the 'right' way.
see http://banking.senate.gov/97_04hrg/043097/witness/mehle.htm
2.) Even without rights, legislators or bureaucrats could determine what companies are 'safe' enough or 'worthy' of being invested in and thus which will be allowed to receive an influx of capital from the largest equity fund in america, the hypothetical privatized ss fund.
No, as I've stated before the right kind of privatization is to simply allow people to opt out of the system or to allow people to put their forcibly set aside money in *any* FDIC insured bank CD or account they desire at *any* bank.
www.socialslavery.com
Posted by Noid on August 26th 04:01:43 PM
Noid,
I'm pretty busy here, and I don't have time right now to address everything in your comment. However, I don't believe that Bush's plan established "government accounts". In fact, the entire purpose of having a personal account is the fact that *you* own it, and the government can't mess with it.
Your comment about voting rights is interesting. I'm not familiar with the current proposals to know exactly what process would be set up to handle this. Do you have a link to some resources where I can read up on it?
Having said that, on paper your idea of opting out of social security and forcing everyone to invest in FDIC insured CD's is intriguing. However, as I have mentioned before, a huge influx of millions of people investing in CDs would push the interest rate through the floor. It would be great for businesses and those looking for loans, but bad for investors. Besides, any kind of blanket opt-out of social security ain't happening. Period.
Anyway, your viewpoint isn't one i've seen much before, and I'm gonna give it some thought.
Posted by Jeremy Tunnell on August 26th 04:33:22 PM
Noid, as fellow libertarian (as I assume you are? Let me know if I'm wrong) I completely sympathize with your points.
It would be terrible if by introducing personal accounts we only solved one problem (the Soc Sec rip off) by creating a much worse one (gov't control of financial markets).
Allowing the gov't to decide which stocks are 'safe' or which 'promote the public good' is a terrifying prospect straight from Atlast Shrugged.
However, I believe that the way the system will be designed will in the least mitigate, if not completely eliminate, the posibility of such government intrusion in the capital markets. Most of the (politically realistic) personal accounts plans out there are designed to mirror the already existing Thrift Savings Plan. As you know, the TSP allows gov't employees to buy various index funds - not indivual stocks - so the government doesn't have any opportunity to limit investing in particular equities.
In fact, if you look at the history of personal accounts in other countries (they already exist in over 30 countries) the overwhelming trend in those countries is towards increased liberalization - not regulation - of the market.
See http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st253/ for a substantive look at personal accounts in other countries.
You give people a taste of the market and they just want more!
Posted by Jonathan Swanson on August 26th 05:34:01 PM
QUOTE:
Your comment about voting rights is interesting. I'm not familiar with the current proposals to know exactly what process would be set up to handle this. Do you have a link to some resources where I can read up on it?
/QUOTE:
Well voting rights will either be exercised by a bureaucratic agency like the SSA or by the fund management company that gets the priviledge of managing the government approved equity funds (which is how the thrift savings plan works. see the link I posted in my previous post)
Either way, as I explained before the feds will get new power to screw with our public corporations.
QUOTE:
Thrift Savings Plan. As you know, the TSP allows gov't employees to buy various index funds - not indivual stocks - so the government doesn't have any opportunity to limit investing in particular equities.
/QUOTE:
Right but the fund management company, Barclay's Global Investors as of 1998 at least, could be fired at governmental whim and so since they control the voting rights, they have to vote in accordance with government wishes, particularly when their doing so would actually control such a large voting block that Bush style plans would allow for.
QUOTE:Having said that, on paper your idea of opting out of social security and forcing everyone to invest in FDIC insured CD's is intriguing. However, as I have mentioned before, a huge influx of millions of people investing in CDs would push the interest rate through the floor. It would be great for businesses and those looking for loans, but bad for investors. Besides, any kind of blanket opt-out of social security ain't happening. Period.
/QUOTE:
1) And as I said before, if the fed raised it's rates to compensate for bank CD investing, rates
would be fine. The difference would be that *we the people* would be benefiting from business loans instead of allowing the fed to inflate governmental budget deficits away.
2) By 'opting out' I mean allowing people under say 50 to divert a percentage of their payroll tax to bank CD's and the younger someone is, the great the amount they can divert. This way we still pay current ss obligations, though we'd probably have to pay for part of it out of the normal budget. But then we'd be making progress toward actually solving the problem and as a bonus, those yutzes in congress would have either have to do with less revenue or borrow money openly in the normal budgetary process instead of hiding their borrowing through fraudulent use of the 'trust fund'.
www.socialslavery.com
Posted by Noid on August 26th 06:55:51 PM
Oh, and another thing. I think the safety of FDIC insured accounts would appeal to a lot of people and make my plan an easier sell. This way people would also feel confident investing their 401k in all stocks in a manner they see fit since they already have 'bond' diversification in their government mandated private bank CD account.
Posted by Noid on August 26th 07:06:29 PM
Crock the Vote giving political advice to Dems -- how very interesting...:)
Posted by Adam Cahn on August 27th 01:15:56 AM
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