Trefoil, yea I worked at a bank too. You sound like you are trying to justify why robo signing is OK even though it is perjury to the court. I love this, you say that Soc. Security is the largest holder of Treasury securities...I call you on it and ask for a cite, then you admit that it is not true and then proceed to tell me that it doesn't matter, and then you start asking me for cites to prove stuff you realize that you don't know. Let me ask you this, how much accrued interest from treasury debt, do you think the Soc. Security has on its books...if its the same as treasury securities, then how much interest has accrued and is owing to Soc. Sec. in addition to principle? Was the interest paid timely every six months like it is on some actual trasury securities? Can you find it on their balance sheet? Can you find the interest owed on the Treasury's balance sheet?
Ron Paul USA Borrows 2 Trillion With CNN John King Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p11RLZFKYdw&feature=related
Hmm. I didn't know this was a point of ideological contention. First of all, I never said anything wasn't true. I said, as I recall, that your unsubstantiated assertion that there is no liability to the Treasury because it's a book entry doesn't correspond with my experience. Book entries record assets and liabilities, you know, so the statement makes no sense on its face and that's what I said. I stand by that. Just because you say it's not a liability doesn't make it so. I don't know where you get the nerve to come up with that. From the SSA:
Sounds like an argument at cross purposes. Whether SS holds Treasuries is a different question from whether or not holding those Treasuries has any tangible meaning or benefit.
Translation: The ponzi scheme will collapse without more money being pumped into the system to pay the bonds coming due. Madoff goes to prison for swindling several hundred people in his ponzi scheme, congress gets applauded in the media for swindling 300 million people in their ponzi scheme. Even the drastic spending cuts that TB mentioned would not close a $202 TRILLION gap.
I'm up now, and just to put the final nail in the coffin of this absurdity that the Treasury isn't recording a liability for the SS investments, we can mosey on over to the Bureau of the Public Debt, where, as we all know I'm sure, the debt is recorded to the penny. Current info here. Notice the breakout: debt held by the public vs intragovernmental holdings. Intragovernmental holdings are where the SS holdings are. Obviously, somebody knows there's a liability. As to the further issues of who pays for what when and why, that's all politics, not the legal stuff. Politically, if any of you think the Treasury would ever be allowed to default on securities held by SS for the purpose of paying out benefits, you can forget it. It will snow in San Juan PR in July before that ever happens. That will segue nicely into my next post coming later on today, when all of you will discover, to your horror I'm sure, that the Obama Admin has already cornered the right on this, in a very clever way. Working folks are not going to pay for future SS deficits. He's already made sure the folks getting the lion's share of the tax cuts - the plutocratic class - today will pay for SS in the future, regardless of how loudly they whine, moan, and squeal about it.
Looking at just the money/debt angle confuses things. If we are to pay off the social security, pensions, etc, the real issue is not salting away fiat money/cyber money but rather boosting REAL FUTURE WEALTH in the real economy. If in the future the goods and services are radically more plentiful and (in real terms) cheeper than currently, providing for the elderly and retired will not be so difficult. Current savings are valuable for the future in so far as delayed consumption is INVESTED in things that will increase real future productivity. However, if consumption is simply offset in one area and then spend on things that do not boost future wealth or output (most government spending) We will NOT have the future wealth to easily pay all the obligations. It is the difference between debt taken out to consume vs. debt taken out to produce. It is the difference between the poor and the rich. The paper money economy confuses things so bady! The real issue is the CREATION OF REAL WEALTH not accounting entries at the treasury and fed. We could salt away all the "accounting entity" wealth in the world, and if real wealth does not increase, it will amount to nothing.
Just like California. The bosses are not poor just mean. Great wealth has been the downfall of many people in the past