This is the Dick Durbin who famously stated that the banksters own Congress, and who, last time I checked, had not signed on to the letter saying no to cutting Social Security. What a putz!!

That is a good thing if the Cat Food/Sovereign Default Commission can not reach a “consensus”

Messing with Social Security is almost a death wish. The People will never stand for it… think what France is going through right now. We can’t let this class Warfare be lost to the few rich assholes out there. We out number them 10000 to 1!
If the BO admin allows this to happen it will be the death of the party, the middle class will flee…. would be time for a party that truly has the People’s interest as it’s main tenants. And NOT big money’s. It can be done but it Will take a lot of work by all of us.

Hell, he also, albeit infamously, said “Bleeding heart liberals” would have to “have to open their minds to what it takes to inspire competition and economic growth in our economy and make real sacrifices”, namely cuts in entitlement programs. They absolutely love what is going on in the UK.

500 lb gorilla;

Because prices typically grow slower than wages, this change would result in steep reductions for middle-income retirees, and even steeper reductions for retirees with higher earnings.

that my friends is thanks to allan greenspan who believed and still believes “wage inflation” is a catastrophe he designed the prime rate to be based on whether or not there was wage pressure in the market, wage pressure going higher, prime rate goes up, wage pressure stagnant or going down, prime rate goes down

this is the reason we’ve had low prime rates for all these years, the american laborer is working longer, making less, paying more

THAT is one of the biggest problems with our economy

Why are we bothering with anything GOP-related when it comes to SS? It’s all a diversion to distract attention for the Catfood Commission and the Dems own in-house plan to rat-fuck seniors and future SS recipients.

Messing with Social Security is almost a death wish. The People will never stand for it

I would so love to agree with you, but with respect, I do not.

Citizens are braindead and easily distracted by bright shiny objects. Most won’t “get” what’s happened until it’s too late.

And believe me, T-baggerz are being carefully brainwased to believe that it’s sinful and evil to even want Soc Sec or Medicare. Pretty soon, just like in “Animal Farm,” the T-Party will be out there with their Hitler signs shrieking that Soc Sec is eeevul Socialism & demanding that all the money be given to the Kochs and the Murdochs and the Scaifes stat.

Think I’m losing it? Wait and see… may be exaggerating slightly but not much. Don’t count on US citizens to behave like those in France. Ain’t gonna happen… more’s the pity.

But with Pullosi Punch’s “opposition” it’s bound to prevail!

I would so love to agree with you, but with respect, I do not.

nor do I

they own the airwaves, they own the propaganda machine, here in my office to a man they believe social security is better “privitized”

they will win in the end unless we finally get a progressive leader, a progressive congress, a progressive senate

and that just ain’ta gonna happen

Have you read “Talking about a Revolution interviews with Michael Albert, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, bell hooks, Peter Kwong, Winona LaDuke, Manning Marable, Urvashi Vaid, and Howard Zinn” by the Southend Press Collective? Some might opine that it’s pretty appropriate for these times.

It seems a shame that it was originally published in 89.

Pick the low-hanging fruit first.

I watched the Durbin interview. Thanks for the cut, David. I don’t have a TV.

The narrative they are collectively driving is for a Reaganesque solution of increasing the early retirement age and the full retirement age and increasing the FICA cap to grab 90% of income for social security taxes (Durbin’s point). It is a grand bargain that does not have to be made. It is being hammered out in secret because it is immoral to steal wages from working people and therefore it is a crime and wrong. These cuts should bring shame and they know that.

Rich people do not want to pay more taxes. The military industrial corporations do not want to make less money. The Deficit commission does not appear to look to any other programs for cuts other than Social Security to make these cuts. There’s a damn good reason for that. Who will stand up for the people? The rich won’t do that. The corporations are not philanthropic and are completely self-interest bound. The politicians won’t stand up for the people what with all of the campaign money coming from the corporations.

Meanwhile, I think the MOTU have this plan as their cover: http://crfb.org/document/lets-get-specific-social-security

Messing with Social Security is almost a death wish. The People will never stand for it.

They will not touch current benefits.
Young people have been brain washed into thinking it will not be there for them anyway, why pay in?

This is supposed to be a deficit reduction committee !

Let’s refuse to play their game, and insist that S.S. has got nothing to do with reducing the deficit!
Let them cut the Pentagon Budget, that’s cutting deficits. S.S. is going beyond their mandate!

I also believe the general voting public will put up no fight on cutbacks in social security,medicare or medicaid. They won’t vote the perpetrators out of their elective offices; they do not raise a stink in the streets or in the mainstream press; and I expect they absolutely fear looking like the citizens of France! Mass resistance has not formed over habeas corpus, torture, bailouts, bogus wars—why would it form over seniors and social contracts?

Tangential–

From ‘An “In Your Face” Entitlement – FERS” (by Bruce Krasting, Oct. 21, 2010):

-FERS has a trust fund. Currently there is $775b of Special Issue Treasury securities in the fund. This is equivalent to 6% of our total debt and is therefore a very big deal. FERS holds as much of our paper as do the Chinese and the Federal Reserve.

From “Fed Withdraws $1.5 Billion In Liquidity Via Reverse Repo, Stocks Predictably Turn Negative” (by Tyler Durden, Oct. 21, 2010):

In confirmation that the market is nothing more than Fed liquidity game, the sudden drop in the S&P back to the red is driven by the just completed reverse repo. As this is the opposite of a liquidity ramp, the amount withdrawn is apparently directly impacting stocks. And today’s amount was a doozy (at least by historical standards): the $1.5 billion withdrawn may well be a record for recent reverse repo operations. The $1.5 billion was roughly equally split between USTs, MBS and Agencies. The weighted rate was 0.215% on USTs, 0.226% on Agencies, and 0.237% on MBS. Total amount submitted was $3.64 billion, implying a 41% hit rate. The only thing that matters is that the Fed actively withdrew liquidity today.

Looks like a large push of money into MBS. Is there an acceleration of monies collected in the tranches (citation: “Foreclosure Fraud: It’s the Tranches, Stupid,” by Cynthia Kouril, Oct. 12, 2010)? Anybody know?

Here’s a good rule to remember from the Center’s report on the Ryan plan: A rise in full retirement age of one year is a seven per cent cut in benefits:

” A one-year increase in the full retirement age is equivalent to a roughly 7 percent cut in benefits for a person retiring at any given age, whether a person retires at age 62 or works to age 70 and does not begin drawing benefits until then.”

From Mahoney’s report:

Here’s the best argument I could find against privatization.

It only benefits the top 20% earners in our economy who only rely on Social Security for 25% of their income. The rich are the main beneficiaries of government largesse in the form of untaxed income sitting in 401ks and in other investments.

80% of the People (who earn much less income) are likely to not have savings, 401ks, investment income, and Social Security will provide an average of 75% of their post-employment income.

thanks for the link to the committee’s report!

It’s that American Exceptionalism again: only the poor in other countries get shit on by the rich and powerful.

Wow, perris, I am really sorry about you having to work in that office! How frustrating for you!

I agree that the giant will probably remain asleep. I’m not 100% in agreement, though. I firmly believe that there has to be at least one thing, one incident, that could wake him up and get him into the streets.

Sometimes one feels proud to have been – and to be – an actuary. Those annoying ethics rules and protecting the public as a client concepts for the SSA actuary did him proud!

:-)

Maybe because people really don’t want their parents moving in with them after retirement?

I think Durbin is using the Ezra/Yglesias “never happen” distraction as a way to make people think they won’t do it. Rather than saying something like, you know, “I won’t vote for it.”

I stopped drawing conclusions from Dick Durbin’s BS long before he said this about the public option:

The question is no longer if we will have some sort of public option in the final health care reform bill, but instead what form it will take.
[]
If any member of the Democratic caucus thinks no one will notice the absence of a robust public option in the final health care reform bill, they have another thing coming.

And then, of course, he whipped against it.

I won’t even trust them if they do say “I won’t vote for it”. They said that about the public option as well. The President got on TV and said he wouldn’t sign any bill that didn’t contain a robust public option.

In the end they’ll claim it the best they could get and we can’t make the perfect the enemy of the good. Then they will send out people like Johnathan Alter to yell at us that we don’t understand how it works. Then they will all vote for it.

yeah. Just seems like a head fake to get them past the elections. I guess it sure would look like a big (lie) contradiction if they were to boldly admit their plans to gut Social Security while simultaneously accusing the other party of their plans to gut Social Security.

Kabuki.

“Hey look over there at how bad reps are, but shit, don’t look at me!”

It’s disgusting to watch their antics at this point. Like insects laying eggs or something. Yuck.

You forgot “there are some good things about it”

Another outside the outside group?
Rivlin’s Shadow Panel Using 1983 Tactic to Break Deficit Logjam

Making deals with our lives and most people don’t know about this at all. they are only concerned about the lack of a COLA last years and this.
But the people I’VE talked to who are aware do know this is Obama’s doing…or at least whoever is [Edited by Moderator].

[Mod Note: No more of the violent imagery. The point can be made without it]

Good link, though. Cripes she looks evil in that pic, I guess because she is evil.

I want the gov to put all the money back into the SS that they stole.

Rivlin sits in the President’s deficit commission and on the Peterson-Pew commission for Budget Reform directorship and sits in the Bipartisan Institute’s Domenici-Rivlin Debt Reduction Task force! it is worse than incest but it is all powered by Peter G. Peterson’s money! Even Rivlin admitted that there is no immediate crisis with Social Security, but they want to show ‘the markets’ that they can solve SS’s long term shortfall through raising the retirement age, lifting FICA and reducing benefits. It is ideological. It’s a power trip. Let me see if I can find her speech to the Bipartisan whatevers about Social Security.

Here it is: She’s giving a speech at the Brookings institute on July 21st, 2010.
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0722_saving_social_security_rivlin.aspx

Here it is:

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0722_saving_social_security_rivlin.aspx

See my #12 for a link to the crfb.org specific plan to **** Social Security.
Or go here: http://crfb.org/document/lets-get-specific-social-security

***Mod Note: Referencing violence even in jest is not condoned.***

I am sure Republicans will do what they usually do which is try their best to simply throw down the Credit Card with this and put it on the deficit for future Democrats to fix up

If not that, they will just cut almost all educational funds and claim that Democrats are super evil for forcing them to do this