Good evening, Jack! Jack Garrett wrote in response to Dave Laird...
> Social Security has and all ways will be a ponzie deal. Thats the way FDR > set it up and it has run that way all thia time. Now as in all ponzie > deals it has come to a head. None of the monies have beend put away or > invested all of these years, or has one penney of interest been earned. Jack, I was reading an article just a day or two ago, and your observations above just jogged my memory of that article. First, the author lamented that people just 'don't see' Social Security for what it really is, an insurance programme of last resort for those who may be down on their luck, or failed to prepare themselves for retirement at an earlier time. I believe CBS Evening News had a similar segment a few days ago. The problem with this first premise is that Social Security lacks any traditional or foundational qualifications inherent in ANY legitimate insurance account. By law even, Insurance Companies must maintain stringent accounting methods of insured clients, showing the balance of the account, and specifically under a contractual basis, the coverage guaranteed at the expiration of the account and its net worth. It doesn't take long to realize that under Social Security, there are NO accounts, or any written contractual basis for determining what a particular individual policy is worth. Since there ARE NO individual policies to begin with, this is a giant fraud on the part of the government and the Social Security Administration. If anyone believes that they really do have a legitimate insurance policy in Social Security, I challenge you to tell me who really owns the policy you believe is yours -- do you? Of course not. The policy that you might believe you own, has no net worth, no assets, and only shaby outlines of coverage that you might be entitled to under certain conditions. But those entitlements, which change from time to time, since they are not bound by any contractual agreement, are paid for by current SS taxpayers, and do not come from any growth in capital as a result of your Social Security taxes (not premiums). Second, legitimate Insurance Company's have people in charge, called CEOs and Directors, along with a paid professional staff to manage insurance portfolios and investments insuring that your policy will not only remain solvent, but that the insurance company's assets will continue to grow in order to pay for insurance claims, and at the same time ensure that capital is readily available to maintain the ingredity and net worth value of each account. Along with that, strict accounting and reporting standards are in place to safeguard against the possibility of fraud. CEOs and Directors, or any of the paid staff would find themselves in a penatentury for knowingly violating such safeguards. By these standards, the Administrators and Directors of the Social Security fraud would all be in jail and doing hard time for the foreseeable future for perpetuating such a giant fraud upon Americans over the years. You continued: > Born after 1970 social security as usual. > Thats it over with. But do you think the gov. will but out of social > security, think again... Which is exactly why the Shrub's latest pipe dream to 'privatize' a portion of Social Security is a fake and a fraud, since the government will still control which investments you might be allowed to make for your own retirement. Four years ago when Harry Browne ran for President, he had a much better and more practical way of phasing out both Social Security and allowing for a free choice system to be phased in over that same length of time. I don't recall now exactly how that time line went, but those who had already paid in to the current system for a given number of years, would retire at full benefits. In subsequent year groups, people would receive less than the full benefits, and be allowed to make up the shortfall with private investments and insurance of their own choice. Finally, at the very end of the scale, Social Security would become entirely voluntary, and recipients would thereafter get back only what was actually put back into a voluntary system. The only real major flaw that I observed in Harry's system was his misunderstanding of how to balance most of this by selling off huge chunks of government owned real estate to pay for it. He mentioned such things as National Forests lands, Bureau of Land Management properties, and several other catgegories of supposed U.S. government owned real estate. The problem with that is that by merely suggesting such a measure to compensate for the loss in SS revenue income, is that the US federal government cannot Constitutionally claim ownership over anything outside of what the Constitution allows the Federal government to claim ownership over. Such real estate allowed by the Constitution for Federal ownership is restricted mainly to military installations, plus perhaps some degree of ownership over federal court properties, and the District of Columbia. In the orginal 13 colonies, almost NOTHING is owned by the Federal government, since the States were recognized as the soverigns over their own territory. Under the 'Equal Footing Doctrine' all future states entering the Union would be afforded the same rights as the original States. With this understanding, and with the Constitutional restraints already mentioned, the Federal government owns virtually nothing outside of the District of Columbia. We have to be extremely careful here, since we should recognize that the US federal government DOES currently 'Administer' a lot of unappropriated land, particularly a lot of real estate outside of the original States. There is a huge difference here between 'Administration' and 'Ownership'. I sort of digressed a little from Social Security in the last couple of paragraphs, but only to show that some Libertarians such as Harry Browne offer solutions that are really piss poor ones at best. Harry had the right idea about privatizing unappropriated lands, but he had the wrong idea that any remuneration from the sale of such properties should go to the Federal government. If you believe Harry might have just made a simple error here, it gets worse friends, in fact much worse. This ought to scare the shit out of you. Observe pilgrim: I saw a highway sign the other day around here that scared the shit out of me. I can't remember exactly the exact wording, but it went something like this: "Welcome to the International Selkirk Community"... [I'll drive by the sign again in the next few days and take a digital picture so I can get all the wording right, just as it is...] For those of you outside of this region (northern Idaho), the Selkirk Mountains cross from northern Idaho into southern British Columbia, Canada. There is an ongoing push that is currently under way between the United States and Canada, of creating an international zone for a 'World Park' that would be transnational, encompassing a giant area in both Canada and the United States, and it would be administered through an international agency. This same area is also one of the UN's world sites. Well, all I can say at this point for all of those who refuse to believe that the UN is really a 'real government', is that considering whether the States or the Federal government have sovereignty over unappropriated land may soon become a mute point indeed. I understand that graphics (and hypertext in general) is frowned upon in USENET News, and as spk.liberty_nw, is part of that network, I will post only a 'click on' http site to view the sign that I will post there as a photo. Kindest regards, Frank _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list Libnw@immosys.com List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
