mck@ratex.UUCP (01/30/85)
The lines from Welsch's original article are indicated with '>>>'; lines from my response are indicated with '>>'; lines from his return comments are indicated with '>'. >>>The main reason social security was formed was to provide protection for >>>all the hard working folks who worked their asses off being good citizens. >>Social Security was introduced as a political move to capitalize on the >>popularity of the Townsend Plan (which you can read about in *After* >>Affluence* by John Oliver Wilson). >I don't disagree. Almost everything the President and Congress does >can be characterized as a "political move to capitalize on the popularity >of" some idea or concept. I have read "After Affluence" by John Oliver >Wilson. However, both you and he miss the real point of why it was good >politics. See my original posting above. Your original posting says 'The main reason social security was introduced was to provide protection for all the hard working folks'; if your going to change this by admitting that it was not, but claiming that it was nevertheless a good idea, have the personal integrity to acknowledge the change. >>But the Depression was caused by government manipulation of the >>money supply, tariffs, and government interference with wage-adjustments (see >>*America's Great Depression* by Murray Newton Rothbard). >This is a fascinating rewrite of history. I was so surprised I went to >the Encyclopedia Brittanica where I confirmed my beliefs. Immediately >prior to the Great Depression, Calvin Coolidge was president of the United >States. (I always felt sorry for Hoover who inherited Coolidge's legacy) >Coolidge was known for his "non-interference" policies. Strangely enough >it was the interference in the economy by FDR and later WW II that brought >us out of the depression. Of course government interference in the >economy is relative. It's just that Coolidge had so little compared to >Wilson or FDR, that it seems odd to blame the depression on government >interference. If, instead of reading unsubstantiated claims in the encyclopedia, you were to go dig up the facts and figures, you'd learn a great deal. Whatever the rhetoric of the age, there was substantial government interference during the administrations of Coolidge and Hoover. Between Jun 21 and Jun 29, the money-supply was pumped-up by 62%, distorting interest-rates and thus patterns of investment. To protect domestic interests, tarrifs were increased and expanded, choking-off international trade. When all of this got to be too much for the economy to bear, the Great Depression began. The money-supply began to contract, driving down the price-level. Hoover (and later Roosevelt) thought that keeping wages high would keep demand high, and that this would induce increased production; so Hoover (and FDR) took steps to keep wages at pre-Depression levels. Since prices were dropping (and since demand does not create supply), the real wages of workers were increased. This could not be sustained, and companies went bankrupt. Rightly, Hoover sought a balanced budget; stupidly, the budget was balanced with a tax increase (instead of spending cuts); more businesses bit the dust. You may have heard of the Depression of 20-21; then again, you may not have. When it hit (also caused by manipulation of the money-supply, &c), Herbert Hoover was unable to convince President Harding to intervene -- and it lasted for several months. When, later, Hoover got his hands on the economy during a Depression, it lasted several YEARS. >>I'm no more responsible for inflation than I am for the Depression, so >>don't tell me to pay! >I do not understand this argument. Taxes, government, and the draft are a >little bit like the weather. You are not responsible for the weather, but >you still get rained on and you enjoy the benefits of a sunny day. You >sound a lot like some war protestors I remember who said, "Its not my war, >why do I have to go?" You pay for inflation whether you caused it or not. >That is a fact of life. A mom-and-pop store in New York has to pay protection money to the local mob. In exchange for this, the mob does not destroy their lives or property AND protects them from other gangsters; this is a fact of life too. However, you were not simply arguing that we have to pay for Social Security as long as the government forces us to; you were arguing that we SHOULD pay for Social Security. So whether I caused the problems facing the elderly is QUITE relevant. And when you try to confuse the two issues (what IS and what OUGHT TO BE), you are, in effect, lying; try to develop some personal integrity. As to your reference to war protestors: I thank you for the comparison; I consider myself in good company. >>>Now for some kickers. Banks are still failing, and not all banks are FDIC >>>insured. Also to get 10% on your money you have to use non FDIC insured >>>form of investment. Or another words people have to RISK their savings >>>just to maintain a decent return. >>Okay, but just when did I cause that? I'm not responsible, so don't tell me >>to pay! >No one said you did cause it. However, if you make a "sound" investment >and then through circumstances beyond your control and lose your shirt, then >don't the same rules apply? People do lose money on sound investments due >to circumstances beyond their control. Who should pay for it? When misfortune befalls some one, payment should come from one or a combination of three parties: the victim, the guilty, and those third persons who VOLUNTARILY help. Innocent third parties who have no desire to help, should not be dragged into the matter. For example, if you lose your wife or girlfriend, thru no fault of your own, then you have, unfairly, lost access to sex; this does not give you the right to kidnap and rape. >>>What social security needs is not to be disbanded, it should be >>>strengthened. >>Great! Get the parasites to suck faster! >This line scares me. To think of older people as parasites, makes me >think of Hitlers' death camps. What do you propose we as a society do >with older people? Well, forget my recommendation that you try to develop more personal integrity! That you would use a despicable argument like the above shows that honesty is beyond you. First of all, a parasite is a harmful organism that lives by draining another organism without the consent of that organism. Those on Social Security are just such organisms; if they were not living off other people, SS would have no need of money; if those that they were living off had consented to the arrangement, SS would be funded voluntarily without taxes. Secondly, you should be made aware that the Nazis also used pyramid schemes to dupe people. I don't propose that we as a society do anything with older people. To begin with, almost nothing is done by we as a society; it is done by subclasses of society. SOCIETY doesn't want Social Security; a SUBCLASS does. I suggest that those of us who want to take care of the indigent elderly do so, leaving the rest of society out of it. I also recommend that nobody subsidize the rest of the elderly (those who are not indigent), but this is only my recommendation; I won't forcibly stop people from wasting their money. >>Why should I have to pay your parents' bills? And why would my obligation to >>do so grow with my productivity? >You are under no obligation to pay any of my parents' bills. You also >seem to think that personal income is directly related to productivity. >It is not. I am indeed not obligated to pay your parents' bills, nor those of anybody else's parents, nor those of childless people. While there is no hard and fast correlation between productivity and income, generally speaking, people are compensated according to MVP. And the main point that I was trying to make is that you have given no reason why obligations to Social Security should increase with income (if you chose to try, don't bother trying to again confuse the issue of what IS with the issue of what OUGHT TO BE as you did above). >>MONETIZATION OF GOVERNMENT DEFICITS IS THE PRINCIPLE CAUSE OF INCREASES >>IN THE PRICE LEVEL! >Sounds like it could have come Walter Mondale's campaign. And? Are you implying that Mondale was always wrong and therefore I'm wrong? Or are you implying that Mondale was once right and was therefore always right? Or are you trying to demonstrate what a clever rhetoritician you are? In any of these attempts, you fail. >>And clearly Mr. Welsch has no more understanding of economics than I have >>of combinatorics. >I therefore take it you hold a PhD. in combinatorics? :-) A person who thinks that the soundness of the Social Security System is indicated by the presence of its trust fund, that inflation is a cost-push phenomenon, or that studying tertiary sources (like the encyclopedia) is the path to cliometric truth, would have difficulty in passing a remedial course in economics. >>Yet Mr Welsch SPOUTS-OFF anyway. >You should speak? Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black. Squealing "I'm rubber; you're glue!" proves nothing. You've made a number of economic pronouncements which are patently false, and you have made them as if bringing forth the obvious truth; it is quite appropropriate to label this 'spouting off'. I can't demonstrated to you that I have an understanding of economics, because you insist upon remaining belligerently ignorant. That fact notwithstanding, I know what I'm talking about. >>Mr Welsch, how do you sleep at night, after condemning the innocent and >>freeing the guilty? >What gives me trouble sleeping are the veterans freezing to death in our >capital, or the mass starvation in Ethiopia. Somehow, you having to pay a >pittance in taxes to help these people doesn't bother me in the least. Well, I never had any hopes of teaching you morality. My real objective was to make things more clear to those readers who sincerely want to know the truth and do the right thing. And to these people I will point out that people behind the Iron Curtain, and in Third World countries like Ethiopia, are miserable (and often far worse than miserable) because of government policies (for example, the Ethopian government forbid farmers to save food for time of drought; they called it 'hoarding'); and programs like Social Security are bring us towards the same kind of misery. Waiting for it to roll back down, Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan