Surveillance photo of "the Geezer Bandit". Is this the face of the elderly future - after Repukes succeed in cutting Social Security benefits by 50% and turning Medicare into a voucher program? Maybe - because most able-bodied seniors won't just toss themselves into ditches and die, or belabor stressed charities.
The year is 2045. From 2040, major cuts to Social Security and Medicare (thanks to uncaring Republicans driven by rabid, deficit hawks) have resulted in millions of the elderly either dying from lack of care or living hand to mouth on the streets. After the landslide election of Sarah Palin in 2016, and the GOP takeover of both houses of congress, all future Social Security benefits for recipients born 1964 or later were slashed by 50%, unless the monies were placed into private accounts subject to stock market brokerage control. Worse, the age to receive full benefits was postponed until 75 and Medicare was replaced by a voucher system, allocating no more than $2,000 per year for all medical care for those 70 or over.
The result was more than twenty million people becoming part of the long term unemployed, since - as in the early decades of the 21st century - businesses, corporations still wanted nothing to do with anyone past 60.
A less widely circulated result was that hundreds of thousands of elderly were forced to become criminals: bank robbers, embezzlers, or other small time thieves, or simple shop-lifters for their various groceries needs....and drugs!
The image of the typical Geezer robber? Take a peek at the surveillance image (from FBI files) of the one currently making the rounds and going by the name, "the Geezer Bandit".
So far he's robbed a Bank of America outlet just outside LA, and is suspected of 11 other robberies in San Diego Country, starting in August, 2009. Could this character be the face of the not so nice senior future? One in which the elderly able are forced to choose between starving at the hands of a brutal, uncaring predatory society or....taking what they need to survive?
Who knows? But the signs and portents appear to be moving in the direction of aggressive geezer robbers, if Peter G. Peterson and his crew of clowns from the Peter G. Peterson "Fiscal Solutions Tour". Their ungodly shtick has been to incite the public against deficits and the national debt and to win support for measures that would impose drastic cuts on Social Security and Medicare.
The "usual suspects" in this mix of eficit hawk reprobates, includes: Robert Bixby of the Concord Coalition, former Comptroller General David Walker and the veteran economist Alice Rivlin, whose recent distinctions include serving on the Bowles-Simpson Deficit commission. They came to Austin on February 9 to stir the pot further, and beat the drum louder to deprive seniors and the needy of their benefits.
Bixby began by describing the public debt as "the defining issue of our time." It is, he said, a question of “how big a debt we can have and what can we afford?" A notable feature of Bixby’s presentation were his charts, one of which showed clearly how the public deficit soared at the precise moment that the financial crisis struck in late 2008.
This is not suprising since this juncture marked the precise instant when enormous bailouts and stimulus packages began to rescue the bond rating agency AIG, then other banks. Nearly $780 billion was approved under the last months of the Bush mis-administration. Months later, an $858 additional billion was approved to provide a demand stimulus because all bank and private money lending had seized up. Total deficit thus far: $1.68 trillion!
Did Social Security have one thing to do with any of this? NOT AT ALL! But see, because most of the populace remains too blind, ignorant or comatose on financial matters, they think it does - once the lie is repeated often enough. Such as by Peterson's deficit band wagoneers.
To his credit, Gen. Walker acknowledged that the level of our national debt is not actually high. In relation to GDP, it is only a bit over half of what it was in 1946. And to give more credit, the number Walker used, 63 percent, refers to debt held by the public, which is the correct construct -- not the 90+ percent figure for gross debt, commonly seen in press reports and in comparisons with other countries.
This position echoes the take published in a recent issue of In These Times (January, 2011, p. 21):
"The deficit grand opera plays out as a variation on a discordant theme. The financial meltdown - viewed two years ago as a crisis of capitalism requiring massive state intervention - has somehow (and so conveniently) morphed into a crisis of government. The villain in this mainstream media fantasy is the welfare state. It is a crisis that demands sacrifice from average citizens.
Underlying this blame-the -government meme is a drumbeat to unleash the rule of the market- in healthcare, in education, pensions and everything else. It is as if the collapse of 2008 taught no limits about the limitations of markets".
But getting back to the precursor of the 2008 financial meltdown, it was also Greenspan, the erstwhile disciple of Libertarian guru Ayn Rand, who insisted that “good speculation will cut the top off the market peak” (Financial Times, August 11, 2008). Later, Greenspan came clean and apologized for his own role in the financial meltdown fiasco – since he created the original bubble by lowering interest rates to ridiculous, deflationary levels making money cheap as dirt. Much the same as Fed Chair Bernanke is doing now with his "quantitative easing part 2".
And by the way, is anyone even remotely aware that Bernanke's quantitative easing AND the recent $858 billion tax cut package represent a SHIFT of nearly $1.5 trillion of private debt TO public debt? Anyone?
Anyway, Walker concluded his sermon by calling for action tied to an increase in the debt ceiling; specifically for a hard cap on the debt-to-GDP ratio with "enforcement mechanisms," which could include pro rata cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits and tax surcharges.
He didn't spell out what these specific pro rata cuts might be, but projecting ahead to the conditions in 2045 one might imagine they could be quite severe. Meanwhile, Alice Rivlin merely offered some stale platitudes : she favors "serious tax reform" and "restructuring Medicare" (which likely means a limited voucher system along the lines already proposed by Paul Ryan, tea bagger favorite and poster boy).
Why is Peterson and his Foundation so intent on spooking Americans and getting them to agree to cut "entitlements'? Well, because it would mean the money saved can be plowed into more tax cuts and benefits for himself and his wealthy pals. More importantly, it will secure their future plundering of the nation since cost-strapped seniors with minimal benefits will no longer have the luxury or time to attend to political issues .....they will (in 2045) be too pre-occupied with their survival. Unless, of course, they take to robbing banks to make ends meet and garner their medical needs.
What do the plutocrat predators have to fear? A lot, if they continue down this sordid path of economic anarchy. To see more, go to my earlier blog:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/01/global-plutomy-can-world-afford-it.html
No comments:
Post a Comment