Monday, September 29, 2014

OBOF TYMHM & MORE Vol - 14 No 31


 


 


WELCOME TO OPINIONS  BASED  ON FACTS (OBOF)

&

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)

YEAR ONE

YEAR TWO

YEAR THREE

YEAR FOUR

 

OBOF YEAR FOUR INDEX
 
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-01
Jan. 02, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-02
Jan. 09, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-03
Jan. 15, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-04
Jan. 24, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-05
JAN 30, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-06
Feb. 06, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-06 EXTRA
Feb. 09, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-07
Feb. 13, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-08
Feb. 21, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-09
Feb. 27, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-10
Mar. 08, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-11
Mar. 13, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-11    EXTRA
Mar. 15, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-12
Mar.  21, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-13
Mar.  29, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-14
Apr.  03, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-15
Apr.  12, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-16
Apr.  19, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-17
Apr.  26, 2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-18
May  03,  2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-19
May  10,  2014
OBOF TYMHM PART 14-20
May  20,  2014
OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 21
May 28,  2014
OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - Ho 22
June 10, 2014
OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 23
June 20, 2014
noteOBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 24
July  04, 2014
OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 25
Aug. 04, 2014
OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 26
Aug. 25, 2014
OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 27
Sept. 03, 2014
OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 28
Sept. 10, 2014
OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 29
Sept.  14, 2014
OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 30
Sept.  21, 2014
OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 31
Sept.  29, 2014

 

 

 

 

 

Agenda

 

1.  NEW EVIDENCE - - Social Security Trust Fund

          This one is a real boom shell.

2.  Harvard Business School - - widening inequality.

3.  Make big bucks doing nothing.

 


 


The Great Social Security Robbery


NEW  EVIDENCE
By ALLEN W. SMITH
Published: Sunday, September 28, 2014

 

FROM: Floyd:
 
The internet is putting a bunch of nothings right after the heading "New Evidence.  I can't get it out so please ignore it.  Thanks.

 

I knew there was a reason for being so late this week.  It was so I could include this first article, which just came out

 

NOW, I have included a number of articles written by Dr. Allen W. Smith and they have all been good and told the results of 14 years of his life, researching to status of Social Security. 

 

However, what is in this article is really a boom shell.  It PROVIDES, BEYOND ANY DOUBT, what has happened to the Social Security TRUST FUND and it FURTHER PROVIDES CONFIRMATION OF WHAT DR. ALLEN HAS BEEN SAYING FOR 14 YEARS.

~

 

Page 1 of 2

The primary Social Security problem is that $2.7 trillion of the money that is supposed to be in the trust fund is missing.

If the government had not taken the surplus revenue from Social Security and used it as a slush fund for non-Social Security purposes, there would be no short-term Social Security problem today.  The obvious solution to this problem would be for the government to repay the Social Security revenue, which it embezzled over a 25-year period.

Former Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner, wrote about the slush fund in his book, "Stress Test." ­

Geithner wrote. "In treating Social Security like a slush fund, the federal government has borrowed, spent and vowed to pay back the $2.5 trillion or so ‘surplus' in payroll tax revenue it has siphoned out of Social Security.  The money has been spent, but the federal government has promised to pay it back."

As secretary of the treasury, Geithner also held the post of Managing Trustee of the Social Security Trustees.  He signed the annual Social Security trustees' reports and played a major role in determining the content of the reports.  Absolutely nobody has a better understanding of how Social Security has operated in recent years than Geithner.


By explaining the operation of Social Security in his book, Geithner has publicly stated that the federal government has: (1) "siphoned" the surplus payroll tax revenue "out of Social Security," and (2) the government has treated "Social Security like a slush fund." Geithner became a "whistleblower" when he included this important information in his book.

Why are we not hearing proposals for repaying the looted Social Security money in order to strengthen Social Security? The answer is that few Americans know anything about the $2.7 trillion debt, and the government wants to keep it that way.

Every member of Congress knows all about the looted money, and most of them participated in the looting.  It is not a partisan thing.  Republicans and Democrats are equally responsible for the quarter-century of misappropriation of Social Security money.  It has been a taboo subject for years, and most media people have just turned a blind eye to the crime.

The Social Security trust fund holds no real assets.  The IOUs that some call "trust-fund bonds" are not real bonds.  They are not marketable, so they cannot be converted into cash or used to pay benefits.  The IOUs are a pledge made by our government that we, the people, will pay enough additional taxes in the future to redeem the $2.7 trillion in government IOUs.

The $2.7 trillion debt must be repaid in order for Social Security to remain solvent in the short run.  Since much of the surplus revenue from the payroll tax hike ended up in the pockets of the super rich in the form of large income-tax cuts, those people who benefited most from the Social Security scam should be the ones who pay higher taxes to repay the debt.

The baby boomers have already paid enough taxes to cover the cost of their benefits.  They should not be required to pay twice, which is exactly what would happen if the repayment of the looted money is financed with an increase in the payroll tax.

Allen W. Smith has devoted much of his adult life to battling economic illiteracy and promoting economic education. He taught economics to college students for 30 years before retiring as professor of economics from Eastern Illinois University in 1998 to become a full-time writer. ]


~~~

Harvard Business School’s Role in Widening Inequality

 

 

Robert Reich

NationofChange / Op-Ed

Published: Sunday 14 September 2014

 

 

 

No institution is more responsible for educating the CEOs of American corporations than Harvard Business School – inculcating in them a set of ideas and principles that have resulted in a pay gap between CEOs and ordinary workers that’s gone from 20-to-1 fifty years ago to almost 300-to-1 today.

 

survey, released on September 6, of 1,947 Harvard Business School alumni showed them far more hopeful about the future competitiveness of American firms than about the future of American workers.

 

As the authors of the survey conclude, such a divergence is unsustainable.  Without a large and growing middle class, Americans won’t have the purchasing power to keep U.S. corporations profitable, and global demand won’t fill the gap. Moreover, the widening gap eventually will lead to political and social instability.  As the authors put it, “any leader with a long view understands that business has a profound stake in the prosperity of the average American.”

 

Unfortunately, the authors neglected to include a discussion about how Harvard Business School should change what it teaches future CEOs with regard to this “profound stake.” HBS has made some changes over the years in response to earlier crises, but has not gone nearly far enough with courses that critically examine the goals of the modern corporation and the role that top executives play in achieving them.

 

A half-century ago, CEOs typically managed companies for the benefit of all their stakeholders – not just shareholders, but also their employees, communities, and the nation as a whole.

 

“The job of management,” proclaimed Frank Abrams, chairman of Standard Oil of New Jersey, in a 1951 address, “is to maintain an equitable and working balance among the claims of the various directly affected interest groups…stockholders, employees, customers, and the public at large. Business managers are gaining professional status partly because they see in their work the basic responsibilities to the public] that other professional men have long recognized as theirs.” 

This view was a common view among chief executives of the time. Fortune magazine urged CEOs to become “industrial statesmen.”  And to a large extent, that’s what they became. 

For thirty years after World War II, as American corporations prospered, so did the American middle class.  Wages rose and benefits increased. American companies and American citizens achieved a virtuous cycle of higher profits accompanied by more and better jobs.

 

But starting in the late 1970s, a new vision of the corporation and the role of CEOs emerged – prodded by corporate “raiders,” hostile takeovers, junk bonds, and leveraged buyouts. Shareholders began to predominate over other stakeholders. And CEOs began to view their primary role as driving up share prices. To do this, they had to cut costs – especially payrolls, which constituted their largest expense.

 

Corporate statesmen were replaced by something more like corporate butchers, with their nearly exclusive focus being to “cut out the fat” and “cut to the bone.”

 

In consequence, the compensation packages of CEOs and other top executives soared, as did share prices.  But ordinary workers lost jobs and wages, and many communities were abandoned. Almost all the gains from growth went to the top.

 

The results were touted as being “efficient,” because resources were theoretically shifted to “higher and better uses,” to use the dry language of economics.

 

But the human costs of this transformation have been substantial, and the efficiency benefits have not been widely shared. Most workers today are no better off than they were thirty years ago, adjusted for inflation. Most are less economically secure.

 

So it would seem worthwhile for the faculty and students of Harvard Business School, as well as those at every other major business school in America, to assess this transformation, and ask whether maximizing shareholder value – a convenient goal now that so many CEOs are paid with stock options – continues to be the proper goal for the modern corporation.

 

Can an enterprise be truly successful in a society becoming ever more divided between a few highly successful people at the top and a far larger number who are not thriving?

 

For years, some of the nation’s most talented young people have flocked to Harvard Business School and other elite graduate schools of business in order to take up positions at the top rungs of American corporations, or on Wall Street, or management consulting.

 

Their educations represent a substantial social investment; and their intellectual and creative capacities, a precious national and global resource.

 

But given that so few in our society – or even in other advanced nations – have shared in the benefits of what our largest corporations and Wall Street entities have achieved, it must be asked whether the social return on such an investment has been worth it, and whether these graduates are making the most of their capacities in terms of their potential for improving human well-being.

 

These questions also merit careful examination at Harvard and other elite universities. If the answer is not a resounding yes, perhaps we should ask whether these investments and talents should be directed toward “higher and better” uses.

 

This essay originally appeared in the

 Harvard Business Review’s blog.


 

ABOUT Robert Reich

 

ROBERT B. REICH, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton.  Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century.  He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future;” “The Work of Nations,” which has been translated into 22 languages; and his newest, an e-book, “Beyond Outrage.”  His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause.  His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org. Robert Reich's new film, "Inequality for All" is available on DVD
and blu-ray, and on Netflix in February.

~~~

 


Make Big Bucks in Government,


 Do Absolutely Nothing


 

Authors: Michael Payne

 | NationofChange  Op-Ed

Published: September 28, 2014

 


 


 


At one point in time, Congress was for the people.  Now, most in Congress are interested in corporate money, power, and influence.


 


Want a soft, cushy job with a great salary and the best of benefits and lots of perks?  One in which there are no specific objectives to meet and you don’t have to answer to anyone; a job where you can come and go as you please and work whenever you wish?  Well, then the perfect job for you is to become a member of the United States Congress.

 

Where in this country could someone find a position with an annual salary of $174,000, one for which there are few if any qualifications or credentials required? Unlike most management-type jobs in America that call for an applicant to meet specific requirements involving education, past experience, or special skills, there is no such requirement in Congress.  Not only that but there is no one who will monitor your performance and demand that you meet and even surpass certain stated objectives

.

Sure, the members of this Congress must swear to uphold the Constitution, they are responsible for enacting legislation (what a + appointing federal judges, as well as other associated duties. But aside from meeting a few deadlines there is nothing that you must do to hold your job.  The only curbs on your actions and those of your fellow members occur when legislation is passed that is, thereafter, ruled to be unconstitutional.

 

What is it like to have no boss and answer to no one?  Well, the American people used to be the boss over Congress but that was before that government sector was taken over by corporate money and power and the system became so thoroughly corrupted.

 

So these politicians really have it made, they are living in a kind of political Utopia or political heaven.  Not a care in the world, just sit back, collect enormous salaries and when criticized or even condemned for their incompetence and lack of progress on this country’s critical problems they can just say, in the words of Alfred E. Neuman of Mad Magazine, “What me worry?

 

Qualifications for becoming a member of Congress:

 

No one under the age of 25 may serve in the House of Representatives, and no one under the age of 30 may serve in the Senate.

 

Members of the House of Representatives must have lived within the United States for at least seven years prior to serving in office.  Members of the Senate must have lived within the United States for at least nine years prior to serving in office.

In addition to being required to live inside the country, Congressional representatives must also inhabit the state that they wish to represent.

 

Must members possess a college degree?  No, absolutely not. Not even a major in Political Science or Law or Economics, as one might expect, is required.  And, believe it or not, members of this institution don’t even have to have a high school diploma.

Now let’s take a look at those generous salaries, benefits and perks:

 

Salaries of Members of the U.S. Congress

Members of the House and Senate – $174,000
Majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate – $193,400
Speaker of the House – $223,500A cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) increase takes effect annually unless Congress votes to not accept it.  It’s common knowledge that these politicians receive excellent health and pension benefits, generous allowances for expenses and travel, and can earn income from outside activities.  So, let’s say that these combined annual salaries of the 435 members of the House and 100 senators amount to about $95 million, plus their pensions and those perks.  Does anyone think that is money well spent?  It would be if they, collectively, did something of substance to earn it, but for this Congress you might do better to, instead, throw it down the toilet.
 
Now what about work days?
 
Congress in-session schedule for 2014 is as follows: the House will be in session a paltry 113 days and the Senate schedule is for 175 days.  That’s a lot of time off for those who don’t do much even when they are in session. And if anyone thinks all those days off are used extensively for meeting with constituents then think again because these politicians are really out there working hard to stuff more money into their campaign coffers.
 
Of course, it would be wrong to paint them all with the same brush.  There are two outstanding Senators, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders who do a great job trying to address and solve problems and work in the best interests of the American people.  And there are about 5 others who really try to earn their salaries; but after that the rest, based on the records, do nothing of any significance or meaning and just continue to draw their money for doing nothing.
 
The worst of them are what we might refer to as obstructionists, those that are determined to keep Congress in a state of gridlock.  And then there are those who may not be that bad but they just sit there, don’t create and promote any kind of meaningful legislation and contribute nothing to the process. They are just taking up space and cheating American taxpayers.
Warren and Sanders are like two voices crying in the wilderness because most of their associates in Congress are not listening.  These two senators are raising issues and making recommendations that Mr. Obama should be making, but he quite evidently has lost any interest; and, besides, he is very busy letting America slide into yet another Middle Eastern quagmire.
 
What are the key issues that these lazy, do-nothing “representatives of the people” are not addressing, let alone solving?
Job creation
Strengthening the economy
Immigration reform
Corporate and individual tax reform
Climate Change/global warming
New sources of energy development
National infrastructure repair and rebuilding
Minimum Wage
Gross Inequality of wealth and income in America
Campaign finance reform
Regulation and oversight of the banking industry
Appropriate oversight of the CIA and the NSA
Veterans’ health care
Highway trust fund shortfall
Long term unemployment benefits
Budget deficit, rising national debt
 
Every one of these issues is of vital importance to this nation’s well being and stability.  And, yet most of them languish on the backburner of this Congress, out of sight, out of mind.  As a result, they are all festering and growing worse each and every day?
 
We desperately need to create jobs for Americans but nothing is being done; Immigration reform is a complex issue but there are solutions if there were compromises; our tax code system for individuals and corporations badly needs restructuring but Congress looks the other way even as more and more corporations use “tax inversion” tactics as a loophole to significantly reduce their taxes.  Our roads, bridges and electrical grids are rapidly deteriorating; the problem is totally ignored.
Talk about honor, integrity and ethics; loyalty to your country.  This is a Congress in which the large majority of its members no longer adhere to those time-honored principles. Corporate money, power and influence rule the day in the halls of this Congress. Its appalling behavior represents a dark stain on our democracy.
 
What in the world can the American people do to get these members of Congress to do their jobs, to earn their salaries by working on legislation that is critically important to this country?  That’s a question that is very difficult to answer and it’s the main reason why this country is regressing so badly and in such a state of decline.
 
Would you like to be a member of this Congress, have this terrific job, a great salary, benefits, and perks and have to do absolutely nothing to hold onto it? Personally I could never do that because my conscience would let me know that I am betraying my country and its people by completely failing to carry out the responsibilities with which they have entrusted me.  I would feel dirty and ashamed at what I have allowed myself to become.

~~~

If the good Lord is willing and the creek don't rise, I'll talk with you again next week.

God Bless You All

&

God Bless the United States of America.

Floyd

 


 

 

No comments:

Post a Comment