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Tag: fiscal cliff

  • Robert Redford Talks Government Shutdown

    What do you call a person who uses belligerent language and demagogy to demonize and stigmatize the opposition while contributing zero ideas to solve the tsunami of American debt?

    What do you call a person who lectures the 99% to cough up more of their hard earned money to finance the parasites in Washington DC, while sitting on a cool $170 million?

    You call this person Robert Redford. Just when you thought the actor could not say something more inflammatory, Redford doubled down on his own venomous tirades on CNN today on the causes and consequences of government shutdown:

    According to Redford, bigotry and politics of personal attacks against President Barack Obama have paralyzed the U.S. government, not the determination to protect future generations from dollar crisis and hyperinflation.

    So when a bipartisan group of lawmakers want to stop the White House campaign to bleed and bankrupt America by inaugurating new wars to support Sunni Islamists in Syria, Turkey and Yemen, it is nothing but tea-party bigotry. When a bipartisan group of tea-party and progressive lawmakers want to Audit the Pentagon, Audit the Federal Reserve, despite intense hostility against transparency by White House, that is all bigotry and hate.

    According to Redford, women and young people will solve all the problems in Washington, if they are given the reins. “Give them the reins…I think they can do better than we have,” said Redford. Of course, the hypocritical actor did not offer to give the reins of all the $170 million he is hoarding, to poor people, struggling women and needy children.

    This is exactly why many who oppose the size and power of Federal Government are so disgusted at holier than thou celebrities who masquerade as moral judges over the 99% masses, while hoarding all their wealth in off-shore accounts to avoid paying taxes they vociferously support.

    Redford pontificated further on the events surrounding the ongoing tussle in Washington over government shutdown:

    “It’s so divided now with the people that are so narrow and so limited that they would take us back into the past…And I was trying to figure out, why are these people behaving so stupidly? Why are they behaving so horribly that it’s crippling our whole country? …And I think it has to do with fear. I think it’s a group of people that are so afraid of change, and they’re so narrow-minded that some people — when they see change coming — get so threatened by change, they get angry and they get terrorized, and then they get vicious. I think that’s who these people are. They’re so afraid of change that they’re behaving miserably.

    Obama is “a compassionate man who can’t function. It is so decrepit, it is so paralyzed, and the worst of it is it is paralyzed by intention…There is a body of congressional people that wants to paralyze the system. I think what sits underneath it, unfortunately, is there’s probably some racism involved, which is really awful…because their determination was to destroy this person…They wanted, if it meant destroying the government, anything to keep him from succeeding…I think just the idea of giving credit to this President, giving him credit for anything, is abhorrent to them, so they’ll go against it. Never mind that it’s the better good of the people, never mind that they’re supposed to be in office representing the interest of the public. They’re representing their own self-interests, which is very narrow and in some cases bigoted.”

    To polish his image further, Redford ranted again,

    “Susan Collins, who is a Republican (Senator from Maine), is saying: ‘Enough of this. This is not the job I signed up for. I’ve got to do something,’ …So she’s bringing a bipartisan group together of women. I think the future should belong more to women and young people….a lot of men that were in control were behaving stupidly…I mean, sometimes you say: ‘Can we actually be this dumbed down, or am I actually hearing what I’m hearing from some of these people? Are they really, is that really happening?’ It’s sad.”

    [image from youtube]

  • Social Security Increase Lowest in Decades as Inflation Ravages US Dollar

    Millions of Social Security recipients and disabled veterans will receive the smallest benefits increase since 1975, when automatic increases were adopted to offer a shield against price inflation, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

    The benefits will increase by roughly 1.5 percent, against price inflation of almost 10%, when measured using more forthright methods employed by the Federal Government itself, until 1980.

    However, consumer prices, when measured according to dubious modern methods might enable Federal Government to justify the meager raises next year.

    The precise extent of the cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) will be determined using inflation data released by the US Labor Department. In the midst of all the uncertainty surrounding the government shutdown, both parties and White House are quarreling over entitlements and debt, while almost 58 million Social Security recipients have been left in limbo.

    With real inflation almost crossing the 10% threshold, prices are doubling every 7 years, and disabled veterans, children, women and seniors are staring at grinding poverty. If government raises these benefits by 1.5%, the typical monthly payment would rise by $17, equivalent to two Chinese take-out dinners, on an average monthly check (or direct deposit) of $1,162.

    The COLA increases since 1975 have averaged 4.1% per annum, but never managed to keep up with real inflation. Millions of seniors on fixed incomes are feeling robbed and helpless in the face of Federal Reserve’s power to inflate ad infinitum. Among those hardest hit are 3 million disabled veterans and at least 8 million poor dependent on Supplemental Security Income.

    “I’m not one of those folks that’s going to fall into poverty, but it is going to make a difference in my standard of living as time goes by…I live in a small apartment and I have an old car, and it’s going to break down. And no doubt when it does, I’ll have to fix it or get a new one,” said David Waugh, a retiree from Maryland.

    In the aftermath of 2008 financial crisis, there was no COLA in 2010 and 2011, since the government deemed price inflation to be too low.

    Remarkably, despite the misery wrought on the seniors, AARP estimates the COLA to be between 1.5-1.7%, in agreement with government claims.

    Efforts to privatize Social Security have been drummed out of all public debate, despite the phenomenal success of the Galveston Plan, named after Galveston County of Texas. The Galveston Plan was enacted after county employees withdrew from Federal Social Security system, and invested their retirement funds into private accounts managed by the conservative First Financial Benefits, the company that manages the accounts. http://youtu.be/hnfiYh8Xv_Y?t=6m56s

    Despite the central role of inflation in determining the purchasing power of dollar, it has never attracted the vigorous national (and international) debate it deserves. And that is the slow motion tragedy unfolding in America, with every passing day.

    [image from wikipedia]

  • Here’s President Obama Tweeting from the White House [VIDEO]

    Earlier this week, President Obama took to Twitter so answer a few questions about the so-called “Fiscal Cliff” that has Republicans and Democrats throwing barbs in Washington.

    And today, the White House posted a behind the scenes look the Q&A session on their YouTube page. If you think that the President wasn’t really tweeting out his answers, well, here’s some video proof. Although I’m pretty sure that any attempt to make it seem like Obama wasn’t answering specific, carefully selected questions is misleading at best. Just like the reddit AMA, Obama and his team know that when taking questions from the internet, you have to be careful and answer the ones that lets you get your message across.

    Either way, it”s fun to see the leader of the free world talking hashtags.