bloxy-moron

Oscar Chase I: Sideways

On a little spree to watch movies up for Oscars.  First candidate: Sideways.  This is a great movie.  It's a slice of life (no plot) type of movie that I always enjoy.  You literally go on a little journey through wine country.  For me, it was reminiscent of a wedding trip in Napa valley this summer.  There were at least a half-a-dozen very memorable scenes that made me laugh out loud. In three words or less, this a "guys chick flick".  I.E. a guys romantic comedy.  I highly recommend this to anyone who doesn't need plot and action to keep their attention. 

Social Security II: Privatize it?

Privatizing Social Security (SS) is a major waffle issue for me.  On the one hand, I believe in the market and think that it would be an efficient way to bolster retirement returns.

On the other hand, I find it extremely scary giving the government   power in investing capital in the free market system.  There are countless ethical questions that could be raised of how stocks/funds are invested.  Could the feds go after Enron knowing that retirement funds that they are responsible for could come crashing down?  There are many other well documented and valid points against privatization but that is not my point here.

I have two ideas of how to privatize SS.  My first idea is very simple.  Have the government give a dollar for dollar refund for the first $1000 given to an IRA.  This would privatize a part of SS but it would take away the government control of the investments.  If a person can not afford to put in a $1000 into an IRA and wait for their income tax return,  then they could set up the IRA and the feds could send the check directly to the bank or broker.  There could also be a %100 tax penalty for early withdraw.

Basically this system would give free money to everyone to invest however they like and there would be very little overhead and new bureaucracy at the Fed level.  This would force people to set up IRAs and then they may be more likely to contribute to them with their own funds.

Second idea was borrowed from an editorial I read in Business Week.  It said we should privatize part of SS, but instead of funding it by borrowing from SS.  We should fund it by raising the top income bracket back up to where it was prior to Bush's cuts.  At first thought, I am naturally against raising taxes to fund programs.  But since this money would go directly back into the economy through private investment, I don't see this tax hike hurting the economy. 

I see the combination of taking the investing out of the government's hands, funding from outside of SS, and need based payments could potentially secure SS and also take care of our retirement needs better.  In the 30 years with the privatized IRAs, retirees would not need as big a SS payment and therefore it would have less chance of bankruptcy.

My Plan for Social Security Reform

This is a post of why the libertarian in my believes we should fix the Social Security(SS) problem by not giving benefits to everyone.  Privatized SS will be a post for another day.

After reading Tax Shift, I firmly believe SS is the worst form of tax.  First it taxes income or productivity and secondly and it is regressive. If you make over a certain dollar amount, you don't have to pay SS.  This means it is a tax on the poor and middle class only. 

Let me take a step back though.  Yes SS is a tax!  It is not a retirement plan.  There is no guarantee that a person will get back what the put into it.  Therefore it is a tax!

I don't think that the premise of SS is all bad.  It is not realistic to think that all people will retire and still have an income that will support them.  Or if a breadwinner dies or is injured, then will be able to support a family.  So some type of social security net is necessary.  SS is what we have now and I am proposing how it might work better.  There are surely better systems to solve this problem, but that is not the point of this post.

There are two parts of the SS system.  One is collecting funds and second is distributing the funds.  It is a simple system and it will fail when funds distributed are greater than funds collected.  My first proposal is that all workers pay into SS.  This way the tax is no longer regressive. 

Secondly after lots of thought, I think payouts should become need based.  I think everyone who pays in should be guaranteed a fixed amount of monthly income, say $2000.  If a person has another retirement plan, then they may not receive all or any SS benefit.  If you have plan that pays you $1500 a month then maybe you will only collect $1200 in SS.  Or if your plan pays you over $4000 a month then you don't collect any benefit.

At first thought, this may seem unfair.  "I payed money into SS my whole working life so I deserve to receive a benefit!"  Well, the libertarian in me says wait "Do I want to depend on the government for retirement income?"  Hell no!  So, I would rather not receive benefits (unless something tragic happens to me of course).  So given the choice, I would prefer paying a smaller SS tax and not receiving benefits then paying a bigger tax and receiving them.  Because, this is the option.  It is a simple system either collect more or payout less.  I opt for payout less and I will attempt to save for my own retirement.

Propaganda Channel

This is a reactionary rant on a news snip-it about the new Pentagon Channel.  I have not watched a minute of this channel yet but I saw snippets of Rumsfeld being interviewed talking about the positive things going on in Iraq.  This infuriates me.  My tax dollars are being spent on a t.v. channel that tells me how great a job the military is doing.  To borrow an abused phrase "This is un-American." 

The premise of the station is to support the troops.  Now the troops everywhere in the US can get up to the minute military news. But does anyone think there will be realistic footage of what battle really looks like.  Will we see any funerals or shows on the fallen troops?  Oh, this negative information might hurt the troops?  I doubt it.  Our troops are extremely tough and brave.  They are also not stupid.  They know the realities of war much better than us civilians so I don't see the value in hiding the realities from the rest of us. 

By definition this is biased news.  Do you think if Microsoft created a channel to help developers that they would be promoting the values of Lynx?

This propaganda is going to be spewed to support warfare that I believe hurts my country's security and I am paying for it.  Can anyone say 1984?