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May 20, 2005 It’s also very depressing to realize that these examples are very likely to be followed by even greater defaults by companies that are so large and firmly entrenched in our culture and consciousness that they were thought to be impregnable. Huge institutions like General Motors, Ford, and maybe even General Electric that are showing similar signs of being in serious trouble because they haven’t moved entirely out of the country, haven’t outsourced all of their production and suppliers, and may not have sufficient defense contracts to fall back on. These are not happy times, despite what the laugh-a-lot media tries to spoon feed you. It’s doubly depressing to realize that the general public is adopting the “there but for the grace of God…” attitude and retreating further into their “what can one person do about it anyway” world of shopping at WalMart, eating franchise junk, running up their credit cards, and generally trying to take care of their families while outsourcing the education and care of their children. All while ignoring what’s coming down on them like a sledgehammer from the lofty, isolated, unshakable, cultist spaceship of the federal government. A government that has told so many lies, fabricated so many false stories, and committed so many heinous deeds that they’ve frightened themselves into a form of paralysis that prohibits healthy corrective action. My God people, the $3.2 billion pension commitment United Airlines is weaseling out of, the less than one billion Kaiser is defaulting on, even the $300 billion in loans General Motors has that amount to about twenty times what the company's stocks are worth and make it ripe for takeover, all of these are nothing compared to what the federal government is doing to taxpayers daily. Uncle Scam has for years been pulling one of the greatest economic swindles the world has ever seen. It does this through trust funds that hold no viable assets and in fact are trusts in name only. Pretending to borrow or invest dedicated entitlement excesses, it deposits special bonds or markers in these trusts which in turn make up more than forty percent of the national debt, a debt that can be redeemed only by American taxpayers who in large part are the same people who provided the surpluses in the first place. That's not only the theft of dedicated entitlement money, it's also double taxation plain and simple with interest added at no expense to the pirates. And it's happening today, right now, not sometime in the distant future. The total involved in this fraud is today $3.2 trillion of which Social Security, the American worker’s supplemental/ minimal retirement insurance, is only one part. Currently standing at $1.7 trillion, this is the largest but not the only entitlement robbed. And Social Security is our one opportunity to expose the crime. It’s our chance to correct this injustice simply because it’s an issue put forward by the criminals themselves and only because of their greed for more. The surpluses generated by Social Security’s share of payroll taxes have steadily declined from a high of $98.7 billion in 2001 to $71 billion last year, fiscal 2004. To the Beltway Bandits, this dropping booty is cause for major concern. The evidence has always been before us. Not only in the contradictory stories and words the pirates make up, but in their own Treasury records. For instance, here’s the Monthly Treasury Statement (MTS) for April, 2005. This is summary table number eight:
In one month, Social Security loses more than six times what United Airlines employees lost in a working lifetime. You don’t hear these same United employees or their unions complaining about where a sizable chunk of their payroll taxes have been going do you? Why not? They’re victims of this $20 billion rip-off just as much as every other American worker. And we’re only talking about what’s happened in the last month here. That’s precisely what makes a scam work. The victims are oblivious to the fact that it’s happening to them until it’s often too late to do anything about it. What the people should be doing, especially as members of a democracy and leaders of the free world, is demanding an accounting of where this money is going. What is our retirement money being used for, by whom, and for what? Instead, they do nothing. They even believe that someone else is watching these things. I’m trying to be brief. I’m trying not to lose your attention with a subject that goes far beyond Social Security. Look at the other items in the same monthly “excess” column of the table above. Pay particular attention to those with a minus sign in front of the “millions” they represent. Where did the money to cover these negatives come from last month? Did federal employees miss any of their retirement benefits? Did the retired military? How about veteran’s life insurance at a $105 million withdrawal? And just what the hell is “Military advances” that doesn’t even have a yearly total? Is this some kind of petty cash drawer for the Pentagon? C’mon folks, the money to pay these accounts came from the General Fund of the U.S. Treasury just as it will someday for Social Security. And what’s in the General Fund comes only from one or some combination of three distinct sources: 1) Taxes; which is mostly personal income and payroll taxes but includes corporate taxes (about 10 percent of government revenue) and things like taxing insurance companies and banks to cover the mistakes of their competitors (the Federal Insurance Corp.) all of which is covered by insurance and banking costs passed on to the consumer. 2) Borrowing; which is constitutionally permitted as an “emergency” measure and involves selling a wide variety of U.S. Treasury securities to any nation, organization, or individual willing to loan America (we the people) money and is dramatically different from what makes up the second side of the national debt where “the scam” takes place (Intragovernmental Holdings which should be called stealing from “entitlements" with "perks” thrown in). 3) Budgeted Allocations; which is a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul by taking money from programs believed to be so essential the government had to plan to spend $2.54 trillion in 2006 when last year’s receipts had been only $1.89 trillion and there is not much reason to believe this year’s will be much better. Is there any doubt where huge deficits are coming from? (This category is "discretionary" spending as opposed to "mandatory" spending where entitlements exist and the pirates pretend to "borrow" chunks of that money. In other words, they can take money budgeted for education, agriculture, and so forth, and spend it on defense instead, but they are not supposed to take money from entitlements -- things you paid for, were taxed for, and are "entitled" to receive.) These are the only ways our not-for-profit pay-as-you-go budget-to-budget government can get its hands on money except, of course, just walking into your home and putting a gun to your head. And President Bush promises not to raise taxes even in a time of war and even though he’s raised payroll taxes every year he’s been in office. Instead, he’s put us on a rocket to the moon in option #2 while waving the Parkersburg Papers in the air and calling them “worthless” or “meaningless” and claiming he has “a lot of explaining to do.” Okee Dokee George – we’re waiting for the explanation. Or should we just chalk that one up along with the borders you didn’t close after we were attacked by “insurgents” that entered and trained in our country illegally, the “outsourcing” of industry and jobs you’ve encouraged, or supporting a dollar devaluing worldwide as a feeble excuse to increase trade for the companies still at home? Let’s take it one “current issue” step further. You could put any small group of five or six Americans together and ask them “why” they feel we need a federal government at all. The answer would inevitably come down to one single overriding phenomena – we need the federal government for defense. The primary, overall, generally agreed upon reason to have a federal government over and above the laws of our union of individual States is to provide for the common defense of the nation. Today, right now, as you read this, the Pentagon is announcing the closing and realignment of hundreds of military bases throughout the country. The propaganda tells us that this is being done as a better more responsible use of taxpayer money. Even that it will free-up communities to do better more creative and inventive entrepreneurial things with the abandoned properties that will help communities prosper. Isn’t that grand? You can finally build that WalMart you’ve been dreaming about, maybe even convert the PX. With more than 725 major American military bases spread throughout other countries of the world, there is not one mention of a closing or “realignment” of military forces in any of this Empire – not one, even with countries like Germany telling us to get our nuclear warheads and delivery mechanisms out of their country. The Germans don’t want them. And obviously, we still need Guantanamo to keep the Windward Passage clear of pirates and because Egypt doesn't have enough torture chambers. Besides that, doesn’t defense begin at home? If the Pentagon needs money, why aren’t we closing bases overseas and bringing our boys home where they could protect our borders instead of those between Iraq and Iran or whatever? Nobody really wants us in their country protecting our "national interests" while selling them "protection" in the same way the Mafia did it to small retailers when they started out in America. Would you want some other country coming to America to do the same? C’mon folks, I spent a good part of my life believing in you, plugged into a tape recorder listening to five or six of you at a time explaining why you valued this or that, how it played a part in your life, its price-value relationship with you and your family, your needs both real and imaginary, pleasures and discomforts, usage habits, and your reactions to various product ideas we set before you in one form or another. It was an interface that worked dramatically to “bring better things to life.” Don’t give up on me now. I know you’ve got enough common sense to see through this baloney. George W. Bush and his merry band of megalomaniacs are hell bent on shooting the moon to bring you their form of the New World Odor while you pay through the nose for it, not only in direct money contributions, but in the very lives and well being of your children now and in the future.
Visit Ed Henry's own web site! Send a message to your elected representatives. Click here to start. Be sure to send a copy to Ed Henry.
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$3.2 Billion A Day - $2.25 Million A Minute Go George Go - Keep Talking About Social Security Pipedreams Of Social Security Reform Open Letter To President Bush & Congress Parkersburg Papers At The Bureau Of Public Debt The Job Market Reflected In March Payroll Taxes Changing Direction On Social Security Reform Cacophony - Don't Feed The Animals Your Money - Gone, But Not Forgotten Another Confession, Like Pulling Teeth FERS - The Federal Employees Retirement System Complete Archives for Ed Henry | ||||||||||||||
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