Doug,

There is too much ready capital. Venture capitalists are returning investors
money because there are not enough good investments. There is so much
capital to invest that real rates of returns are negative (a way to reduce
excess capital). The problem is there is not much good to invest in, there's
not many creating wealth. How many donut and bagel franchises do we need?
How many more electronic gadgets do we need?
Let the dumb foreigners buy up the debt. They are the ones holding the risk.
If you owe the bank thousands of dollars the bank owns you. Owe the bank
tens of millions of dollars and you own the bank.They are buying debt in
currency that becomes worth less (worthless) as time goes by.

If the gloom and doom happens what can one do? It's best to be self
sufficient, have no debt. Living on a farm or aboard a sturdy blue water
cruiser are your best options. Make sure you have plenty of ammunition.

Gilligan

"DSK" wrote in message
...
Vito wrote:
Well, I found one statement that wasn't an lie. SS will start paying
out
more than it takes in in 2018.

I'm sure that was an oversight

.... But he forgot to mention that that is
exactly as planned! SS is a pay-as-you-go program. Normally, there is
no
surplus - everything that comes in goes out as benefits. The rates were
increased and benefits cut in 1982 (IIRC) to create a surplus in
anticipation of the "baby boom" generation retiring.

Nah, there has been a SS surplus for a long time... invested in
Treasuries. It's been used to mask the size of the deficit for decades.

... "Boomers" will retire
in a few years and use up that surplus exactly as planned. The surplus
will
last until about 2048 then the system will go back to pay-as-you-go mode
like it worked since Roosevelt. But by then the boomers will be largely
dead
and payouts will shrink. THERE IS NO EMERGENCY!


Ah, but there *is* an emergency! There is a huge source of wealth for
Republican campaign contributors, and it's going untapped! They *must*
loot the Social Security Trust Fund while there's still enough there to
make it worth while. Think about it, if all the Wall St types who profit
from getting their paws on workers SS payments turn around and kick a
percent back to the Republican Party, then the Republican majority will
be locked in for a few more election cycles!


Are individual accounts a good idea? Sure. I have several - in addition
to
SS.

As does any sensible person with an ounce of fiscal smarts.

... If the NeoCons are hell bent on a subsidy for their stock-broker
supporters then pass a law requiring everybody to have one - seperate
from
SS.


And leave the SS funds unlooted? Hey, that's not the American way!

The real question I have is, with a huge deficit, huge imbalance of
trade, an economy that depends on ballooning consumer credit and thus no
savings rate & no ready capital, we are already dependent on the
Japanese (those quaint little Emperor worshippers- maybe we can get them
to worship Bush?) and the Chinese to buy up excess Treasuries. They're
already at their limit, hence the nudge upward in interest rates. Now
what happens when Social Security bows out of the Treasuries market...
who is going to buy up all that already-existing debt along with the
rapidly increasing new debt? Hmmm?

The worst-case scenario for this picture is really terrible. I hope it
doesn't happen.

DSK