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Obama - "I need a lever"
As a long time watcher of Social Security I was shocked (yes, shocked) at the recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report on America's largest entitlement program. CBO concluded that the long term outlook for SS deteriorated substantially over the last twelve month. (CBO link)
CBO revised its assumptions regarding mortality. This is a huge variables for SS. With people living longer, they will receive more checks; this eats into the solvency of SS over a long-term period.
CBO concluded that one option to 'balance' the solvency of SS required an "Immediately and Permanent" payroll tax increase of 3.4% (Wow!). A year earlier, CBO stated that a payroll tax increase of 1.9% was required to balance SS. The change in the tax increase required is 70% higher than that reported just a year ago!
SS's taxable payroll is equal to 36.3% of GDP. That comes to $5.8 Trillion for 2013. A 3.4% tax increase translates to approximately $200 Bn! A tax increase of this magnitude would absolutely sink the economy. There is no chance in hell that anything like that could (or should) happen. However, there are a variety of other alternatives to tweak SS that would not have the negative consequences of such a big tax increase.
Were it not for the fact that the country is managing its finances on a month to month basis, the rapidly growing problems at SS would be high on the list of problems that need attention. Clearly, the White House has read the CBO report. I wonder if the WH will use the rapidly deteriorating condition of SS as its "lever" in negotiating with Republicans over the budget and the debt limit.
Would Obama throw SS under the bus to achieve an extension of the debt limit and an end to the shutdown? Of course he would. Some things that might happen as part of a 'big deal' to buy a resolution of the immediate crisis(s):
I) Raise the cap on taxable earning- liberals love this.
II) Raise the retirement age - Obama has already pushed for this.
III) Means test SS retirement benefits - Republicans wanted this for Medicare.
IV) Change the COLA inflation adjustment. Liberals hate this, Republicans want it, Obama has pushed for it.
If all four of these steps were adopted, it would have Zero consequence to the economy for the next three years. Obama would love that outcome.
What's the most important thing for Obama? To end the debate over ACA. Would he trade ObamaCare for big changes to SS? In a New York minute.
As near as I can tell, there is currently no basis for a resolution to the budget impasse, and it looks like we are headed off the cliff on the debt limit. Something has to give. SS may be the lever that the Big O needs for a deal that saves his presidency. The Tea Party folks in the House will not vote for anything that allows ACA to continue, but there are a fair number of moderate Republicans who would trade SS for ACA. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) would puke at this result, so would Harry Reid (D-NV. But if they apposed a deal, then they would be the ones responsible for a national default (Republicans would love this outcome).
Would Obama push his pals off a cliff to get a deal? The answer is that he has no other viable options.
Note:
The "Non Partisan" CBO did not have to make dramatic changes to its mortality assumptions in September of 2013. The 5/13 SS Report to Congress did not have changes in its mortality rates, but CBO did. Why? CBO knew that it was teeing up SS with its revisions. Was the timing of the revisions related to the then pending crisis over the budget and debt ceiling? Who really has levers in D.C.? Technocrats?
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My SS money is held in a " SS Lock Box" Al Gore told me so.
Al said he'd put it in one, once elected.
He wasn't & Bush spent it on 9/11 instead.
Thus, had Al been elected, 9/11 would not have happened (nor the wars that followed) & SS would be fully solvent with the SS lock box.
But, the Lincoln Bedroom would be available on Expedia.com (subject to reserve pricing)
Al Gore was elected. The recount was halted because the hanging chads were in his favor. IDK if things would be any different though.
i am surprised after 8 years of Bush how many people HATE Al Gore, was Gore Sr the biological father or something? what exactly did Gore do wrong, win the popular vote by a million plus? the country was taken down the shithole by the wrong guy and we blame the guy who never had a chance? americans love a winner and hate a loser, Gen Patton. Bush just looked like a winner I guess. well he did look like a loser until 9/11, and then he blamed it on Al QAEDA. am certain the election was rigged (twice) because Americans just aren't that stupid or docile.
Algore was the controllers 'opposition' candidate. The 'election' got out of control.
Romney played the role in 2012. Romney was merely in it for show. Dear Leader obozo threw the second debate just to tighten things up and provide the illusion of a contest. The globalist tool McCain 'served' in 2008. His selection of Palin was prearranged to insure final defeat by a very well prepared 'media'.
We get the 'president' they pick for us.
This democracy thing has been an illusion at least since 1989.
I was amazed at the selection of Palin; and I actually think the same way you do; that this was a guarantee for electoral failure by our real "leaders"; the ruling class. It's difficult to find any other explanation.
"because Americans just aren't that stupid or docile." Really? One word retort: Obama. Twice.
Deadpan humor
Not as popular as it once was
What about legalizing Euthanasia? Legalize Heron and crack, remove all speed limits, let liberals run everything..., there are a multitude of options to lower life expectancies.
Please, let them smoke. Hand out smokes like USA government did in WWII.
Improve economic activity and lower life expectancy.
Well, they are starting to legalize smoking grass. Who killed smoking tobacco? We are a stupid society.
an EMP, solar or manmade is the nuclear option and would make quick work of a reset.
The alternative is simple. Obama caves on ACA and endlessly blames Repubs for that AND SS shortfall hoping it costs them the House next year. Blame is his only game. It's all he got.
Then he gets the whole enchilada.
Kind of a long shot.
He can never cave on ACA. It is the entire reason for his Presidency. Without it he has no legacy or purpose.
"It is the entire reason for his Presidency.".....wrong......... think REPARATIONS before this Obamination leaves office.
Not technocrats, Bruce, kleptocrats.
Washington and the banksters are the new Tyrant Class. There is no consent of the governed, and these scum have power thanks to government guns aimed at our heads, nothing more or less.
No mention of a bail-in surprises me
No mention of a bail-in surprises me
Once Obamacare is fully implemented, quality medical care will decline and life expectancy will drop. SS solvent again. Fund Obamacare! Problem solved!
and his sidekick Joe will come out and say to old folks, it's PATRIOTIC to march/wheelchair yourself to the death panels!
I heard he already has a lever over at DOJ.
I swear I think ZH baits us with these headlines on purpose
what is the purpose, if you don't mind me asking?
We still have those $1 trillion platinum coins we can put in a lock box.
Generation X, Y an d millenials are gonna just have to step up, suck it up and what other analogies are required.
Granny needs her Little Rascal scooter/cart to go to Vegas to play the slots.
Obama's Free Shit Army needs their EBT cards, spinner mags and endless other freebies.
Young whites can work second jobs.
Yeah, but have you ever tried to get change for a trillion dollar platinum coin? I mean, if you consider how hard it can be to break a C-note, you can only imagine the sour look on the cashier at Gulp-N-Go when you slide one of those coins across the counter to pay for your Burrito DeLuxe...
He threw his Grandma and Rev. Wright under the choomwagon, why not the intergenerational Ponzi known as SS?
Not to mention Obama's abandonment of his childhood nanny, now an elderly desperately poor gay prostitute
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1-page photo history of Barack Obama's secret hidden family background, 'President Psycho'
Emotional roots of how Obama became a sociopath drone-plane murderer of people everywhere, from Americans to Pakistani children
Significant photos and well-grounded facts in the long history of documenting the 'real' Obama
Generations of emotional trauma on Obama's maternal side
- great-grandmother suicide
- grandfather abandoned
- mother Ann Dunham repeatedly traumatised as a child
- Obama himself abandoned and traumatised, including by his mother
Obama's mother posed for nude porno photos by black Communist, Frank Marshall Davis, almost certainly Obama's real father ... Davis authored a book, 'Sex Rebel Black' under name Bob Greene, describes threesome sex with Obama's mother
Comparing photos of Obama and Davis, and Obama's claimed father ... it seems clearly to be Davis
Obama was cared for by a transvestite nanny 'Evie', now an elderly impoverished gay prostitute, abandoned by Obama
Obama himself became a teen-age pot-smoking, drug-using homosexual, a boy trying to overcome his demons with egotistical narcissism
Obama's gay male lovers, Larry Sinclair, Donald Young, Reggie Love, Kal Penn
Barack Obama joins the 'community organising' political stream following Saul Alinsky, who dedicates his book to Lucifer ... Obama himself becomes a Luciferian, willing to spill innocent blood for the feeling of 'power'
Obama suddenly made connections, he mysteriously gets a lucrative book deal, Ivy League 'credentials', suddenly a political 'superstar' tho for no clear reason
Obama - not seen with women - gets hooked up to marry Michelle as a 'cover' by Rev. Jeremiah Wright
Well-done Obama history with the photos ... the background of the crimes of murdering children and making wars, the ultimate result of 'Barack Obama'
http://www.tomatobubble.com/presidentpsycho.html
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Obama denounced with impressive passion, by America's most famous black preacher, Louis Farrakhan
« That's a MURDERER in the White House ! Who will say it? I will ! ... »
Very intense minute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCjX7KPfguI
Interesting article... shame about all the un-evidenced assertions and inflammatory rhetoric. Psycho! Deviant! Pervert! And the photos ('Dramatization'!) are laughable.
hey, you left out the hand grenade.
How does raising the amount of earnings that are subject to SS payroll tax have zero consequence on the economy for the next three years? Taking money from productive earners and giving it to the gov't has no consequence on economic activity?
Any changes that are made to SS would be phased in over many years.
The tax increase from raising the cap would amount to a few billion in the early years. So it is not zero, but inconsequential.
Just proposing this crap affects my planning and investments.
The Marxist thugs always assume stasis, that the rest of us will not react to their looting.
Ha, what a joke. The only people who assume stasis are the clowns who post on ZH assuming every trend continues to infinity sans interruption.
At least put the blame for stupidity where it belongs.
You are so out there. People whom assume stasis are those whom support a state.
Most of what I read on ZeroHedge is that the current state of affairs is UNSUSTAINABLE thus it will change. That is a DYNAMIC and not STAT-ic.
Stop transferring your myopic attitude upon us. When looking for stupidity perhaps you need start looking at yourself in the mirror.
Continually growth cannot be sustained in a limited resource environment. Thus your current Economic paradigm is fated to failure.
What a TROLL.
No, no, no. That is your fallacy.
You assume the unsustainability will go unperceived by everyone except the enlightened guns 'n gold crowd, who, because of their superior intellect and the ability to hurl "TROLL" at anyone who suggests otherwise, will dance a merry jig on the graves of the benighted socialists.
Oh, sorry, my apologies, I didn't realise...
You are a member of Greenpeace, my bad.
The unsustainability is exposing itself like a cheap hooker on meth - exponential math is an absolute bitch
Especially the limited foundation well of Trolls, eh?
Re: Taking money from productive earners and giving it to the gov't has no consequence on economic activity?
Taking money from productive earners and giving it to the OldFarts waiting in line for their 3rd hip replacement surgury has no consequence on economic activity?
Not sure if it sounds more or less evil that way.
Mint ( two ) Trillion dollar Coins... ?
Methinks the uncontrollable and worsening Fukushima radiation will eventually solve the entitlement problems of both SS and Medicare; within 20 years, few will live beyond 65. Within 5 years there will be cancer clinics in every California zip code and Hawaii will be a ghost island chain.
Limited to California and Hawaii? Sushi is as midwest now as meat and potatoes. Yummy California rolls with a Ce(sium)weed salad.
BTFDs in Genentech.
local aqua culture!
Hawaii getting karma for covering up for the illegitimate usupring Kenyan/Indonesian. Hopefully all those ***king volcanoes will blow too.
Nonsense and fearmongering. Impact of radiation is proportional to distance, squared.
Yeah, and the radiation has been pouring in for a long time and will continue to do so. Radiation is the slow killer. It's just a matter of time.
You might want to tell that to the plankton in the Ocean that is responsible for MOST OF THE OXYGEN THAT WE BREATHE. Without the Photosynthesis from the PLANKTON...well we will not have to worry about Cancer. Slow suffocation will be our destiny.
Oh and you THOUGHT that the Rain Forests create the World's Oxygen??? Well over 70% of the World is covered by vast Oceans. They have a plethora of Plankton. Plankton will DIE OFF from Radiation Poisoning as 99% of all Mutations are FATAL.
Most do not get this. Without the Oceans being alive Human Beings go EXTINCT.
So how is that Inverse Square Law working out for you? You are no competent Scientists. You cannot think it through to the dismal consequence.
And do YOU know how much radiation plankton can take? How much Fukushima is likely to expose them to? No?
Fukushima is unquestionably a very bad thing. Depending on what happens to the spent fuel pools, it could could become an even... badder... thing.
But without giving any evidence that plankton will be wiped out by it, such claims are just silly fearmongering.
Well, the distance being discussed here is ZERO, so your analysis is spot on, no?
Life will continue, but seafood does not obey 1/distance squared. The ocean is two dimensional, and your mouth is the top of a predator pyramid.
Correction, the oceans are indeed 3-dimensional, but bounded by the ocean floors and the atmosphere.
"Who really has levers in D.C.? Technocrats?"
Duh
"Who really has levers in D.C.?"
the NSA.
Obama will be reviewing each Congressman's file with them personally. That's DC leverage for ya.