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"BUBBLES"
GREENSPAN
My name is not Peter and the wolf that I would like to warn you about won't be inviting you to dinner for a few years yet, but he is already starting his huffing and puffing. The author of the doctrine that bubbles cannot be recognized in real time recently had this to say: The Chairman is notably elegant, if not a bit obtuse and maybe a bit understated. His message confirms the Gokhale-Smetters conclusions with regard to both Social Security and Medicare. Under current law, the projected liabilities of Social Security exceed projected revenues, but not by a gap that could not be closed by some combination of tax increases and benefit cuts. Conversely, the same is not true for Medicare where the "shortfalls will almost surely be much larger and much more difficult to eliminate." And could there be a deliberate subterfuge in his use of a mixed metaphor describing Social Security as a program that is "largely defined benefit"? Completely unlike defined benefit pension plans, Social Security has no pool of savings that have been invested and compounded over time. Instead, Social Security is much more like an illegal Ponzi scheme where the defined benefits being paid to older qualified participants come from concurrent payments made by the newer and younger participants. There is no savings pool in Social Security at all and it is a political lie (fraud) to label the concurrently spent surplus Social Security tax revenues as a "trust fund". More recently, the Chairman had this to say in echoing his prior statement:
When the Chairman finally recognizes that the trends in these three graphs cannot be reconciled, even he will know that socialism is the bubble that has bitten him on the butt. Will it be too late for the rest of us little pigs when we hear the huffing and puffing from the Medicare and Social Security wolves at our door? If the Reagan Renaissance or something like it has not ended socialism in the United States, by 2014, give or take a year or two, barbecue should be a regular on the menu at the Lupine Cafe. Considering Congress's record of failures to manage federal budgets, would it be wise to allow Congress to continue to control your retirement planning or your health care? Considering the Federal Reserve's record of fostering the Great Depression and ninety years of inflation during which time the value of a saved dollar declined by 95%, would it be wise to allow the Federal Reserve to plan Americans' retirement or to figure out how to finance American health care needs? Perhaps, the Chairman has swerved into the truth: "This problem raises a more-general principle of public policy prudence." Government planning is a proven oxymoron. History clears says and every American knows, "If you want a job done right, do it yourself." As much as I would like to have the privilege of pricking the socialism bubble, alas, the honor is not to be mine. That great honor is going to fall to the White Knights who will be the new recruits to the Reagan Wing of the Republican Party. We must recruit and entice Constitutionally conservative citizen-statesmen to come forward to seek elected office against the "professional" politicians in both of our political parties. Our White Knights will present the arguments for Pro-Choice and the case against socialism to the public, first in their campaigns and then from the podiums of the offices they have won. We will be seeking candidates for office at every level of government from President of the United States to the City Council of Anywhere, USA. My role in this will be limited to the yeoman's task of arms bearer. I hope to have the honor of polishing their armor by finding the means to fund their campaigns so that they don't have to. By freeing our White Knights from the task of campaign fund raising, they will not have to engage in the frustrating, embarrassing or even humiliating and thankless task of constantly begging for money. Our candidates will be free to focus on presenting the Great Debate to the American public. It is my belief that this prepaid campaign funding mechanism is the carrot needed to entice many of the patriotic citizen-statesmen that would be willing to serve, but who otherwise would not be willing to run because of the onerous burden of campaign finance. And if our White Knights use some of the arguments raised in these articles, the privilege of sharpening their lances will be an honor indeed. To Be or Not to Be Thanks to the many readers who correctly called me to task summarized best by the first email reply, "The basic premise of our government is to protect our God given rights to life, liberty and property. Without life, liberty and property have no meaning...Of all the legitimate responsibilities of the General government in Washington, the protection of life is the most fundamental." The phrase, "From womb to tomb," is burned so deeply into my brain and my response so automatic that I failed to address the question of whether the federal government could have a role in answering the question, "When does an individual human life begin?" The Court's current answer in Roe is unsatisfactory to millions. Millions would also be offended if a different Court redefined the beginning of a human life at conception. The question that should be asked is, "Why should five judges on the Court be able to define for hundreds of millions of Americans the point at which a human life begins?" It would be indefensible to argue that the Federal government does not have the duty to defend the lives of persons within its borders. Read the Constitution, the dictionary, or any other source of your choosing and decide for yourself whether the Congress or the Court could extend the protection of the Federal government to the unborn. Irregardless of your conclusion, the political realities of the here and now, including the foreseeable future, dictate that neither Congress or the Court are going to extend the protection of life to the point of conception. Is anything in between a no man's land, perhaps better termed the province of God? Some of the emails I have received have stated that all who make the wrong choice will suffer the consequences of God's judgment. I do not disagree, but that does not provide a solution for the dilemma presently posed to millions of Americans. In a free Constitutional republic like our own, We have a duty (We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice... and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity...) to make some effort to resolve this dilemma created by judicial edict that does not set millions of Americans against millions of other Americans. In a world where God has given man the power of free will, and in the absence of a clear definition from God of the point of origin of life, there is room for different choices by different people. Each person making any choice bears his or her own risk of God's judgment for that choice. But it is up to We the people to define the point of origin of life for government so that there is a clear demarcation point where its duty to protect life begins. Under the Tenth Amendment the place where We exercise this duty could be through the States or as a Constitutional Amendment, but it is clear that the only responsible and rational choice is by an Amendment to the Constitution. And the Reagan Wing of the Republican Party should accept the responsibility of leading the effort to get this done and presented as a separate issue to be presented along with the Great Debate. This article marks the beginning of Phase Two of the Reagan Renaissance. Without a national spokesman and in the absence of a major media presence, only you can spread the word about the Reagan Wing of the Republican Party and the Reagan Renaissance it hopes to foster. You can make a difference. Contact your friends and family. Send a link to these articles to Republican office holders and candidates that represent your district. Inform them of your views on socialism and that you are Pro-choice. Please email a link to this article and one to the Reagan Renaissance Archive to your favorite conservative third party, web site, political analyst, talk show host or any other conservative organization that might have an interest in turning up the heat in order to melt the ice. One man standing on the dock pushing on the bow of the Titanic will eventually push the ship away from the dock. Avoiding the iceberg in our future is going to take a lot of hands on deck. And time is of the essence.
Chart Courtesy: The Grandfather Economic Report Author's
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