Posted on 04/17/2002 5:56:30 PM PDT by ATOMIC_PUNK
My answer to the lead question is No. The dorks in D.C. all think THEY can bandaid Soc Sec until they get their retirement and leave the mess to the next shift. With as little effort as possible, including NOT going against NRA.
That's what they all have been doing, and getting away with, since Soc Sec started.
IMHO
Tim
Control the firearms control the people for americas sake i hope this never see's the light of day and some of these laws we have now .....get jerked and burned
Especially when we get the "prepare for arrival" stuff and I power this thing down.
Oh please let it last at least 10 more years.
By then I'll have gotten out all I paid in and be living on the baby boomers.
In the mean time, I'll buy more guns from private citizens, and BLOAT, BLOAT, BLOAT!
The Global Crisis of Social Security
In "Can the Second Amendment and Social Security Coexist?" we looked at the situation only in the U.S. But in fact, the social security crisis is larger and far more dangerous than that.
The social security crises is global. Virtually every country has a social security system. Nearly all the industrialized nations face the same aging crisis the U.S. does. Many of them face mounting debt, unstable currencies, and other dangerous financial problems, as well.
If social security is a time bomb, then there are actually dozens of bombs, planted throughout the big, industrialized countries. The one that goes off in the United States will be a little different than the one that goes off in Germany, Japan, England, or France. Each will explode at its own time. But as they go, the chain reaction will be catastrophic -- and scarcely a government on this earth is going to want guns in the hands of peasants who might "destabilize" an already perilous situation.
But even that isn't the ultimate danger.
Social security, two "population bulges," and global destabilization.
While developed countries face aging populations and a coming social security crisis, the so-called developing countries -- including the highly volatile Arab world, Mexico, and Indonesia (the fourth most populous country in the world after the China, India, and the U.S., and not known for its political stability) -- are heading for a population bulge the opposite of ours. While we're aging, they're producing hundreds of millions of children.
At the same time, their economies are stagnating. Even where an economy appears strong, often the riches are going into the coffers of the elite, while the average person barely ekes by, worse off than his father or grandfather was. Young people are growing up angry, unemployed, and without hope. (This is a bigger factor in the rise of Muslim fundamentalism than most journalists ever mention.)
Who shall live and who shall die?
You don't have to look far beyond today's headlines to glimpse the potential chaos that could result from this. For instance, according to Dr. Daniel Goure, deputy director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the average age of a Palestinian is 14, the average age of an Israeli, 28. Those angry young rock throwers you see on television are the vanguard of a global trend.
According to Dr. Goure's report, "International Security and the Aging Crisis," at the very same time these conflicting population dynamics are setting the stage for worldwide instability, the military capabilities of the Western nations are decaying.8
Soon, it will come to a choice between putting money into the military and struggling to keep money flowing to "unproductive" old people. A possible scenario goes like this:
What do you think happens next?
If the Center for Strategic and International Studies is correct, down comes not only the U.S. house of cards, but a global house of cards. And with it, perhaps, comes war.
War could come as it came to us on September 11, 2001, when men desperate to the point of fanaticism struck murderously. Or it could come as Western governments "wag the dog" -- making war to divert citizens' attention from domestic problems and turn citizens' growing skepticism and discontent into "my country right or wrong" jingoism. Both motives for war could strike at once.
Worldwide instability: If the dominoes fall.
Perhaps what we've spelled out is a worst-case scenario. But even if you merely look to the more limited economic crises that have struck countries in recent years and how governments have responded to them, what you see isn't pretty.
As we write this, Argentina has most recently been in the news. Just before Christmas, 2001, with its currency drastically overvalued, taxes soaring, and employment burgeoning to depression levels, Argentina collapsed into chaos that, toppled a president, killed 28 people, sent millions out on a general strike (blocking highways and disrupting transportation), and brought the country to the brink of civil war. Among other moves the government made: freezing all bank accounts and trying to force citizens to make every transaction (including such small things as the purchase of a newspaper) using traceable bank debit cards.9
All that happened just 10 years after the country had seemed to be headed for renewed economic health after earlier years of inflation and recession.
When Argentina ultimately defaulted in $155 billion in debt, according to Martin Weiss' Safe Money Report, it was the world's biggest default. And yet, "Brazil's debt is twice as large as Argentina's. Columbia's is $38 billion with unemployment close to 17 percent. Venezuela suffers from the same kind of overvalued currency, the same kind of recession, and the same potential for an explosive public uprising. Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Philippines are sinking fast. ... All suffer from ailments that are similar to Argentina's"10
Earlier in 2001, Zimbabwe astonished world business and financial markets when it decreed that 75 percent of all export income must be paid directly into its central bank -- on the very thin excuse of paying the costs of its offshore embassies. The move, according to The Financial Times in a February 10 article, "foreshadowed devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar as well as the imposition of selective currency controls."11
In Sao Paulo Brazil, we can see a direct example of how a bloated retirement system can lead to public chaos. While everyday life in most of the rest of the civilized world has been becoming less violent, violence in Brazil, and Sao Paulo, in particular, grew throughout the 1990s. When Jose Vicente da Silva and Norman Gall looked into the causes, they found what they termed "perverse incentives" -- that is, "devices of law and custom rewarding behavior that undermines the stated purpose of institutions." For example, in 1999 when they conducted their study, nearly two-fifths of the budget of Sao Paulo's Department of Public Security went not to public safety, but into police pensions. In the military police alone, they found 14,000 retired first sergeants and only 1,400 active ones, 1,000 retired colonels and only 53 in service. The result was not only fewer law- enforcement agents on the street, but a perception of "parasitism, impunity, and bureaucratic privilege." Extending the police problem into other areas of government, they concluded, "[W]e can understand why Brazil suffers recurrent fiscal and currency crises."12
In 1999, Ecuador, like Argentina, suffered a financial crisis that led to chaos in the streets. Inflation hit 50 percent, the national currency lost a quarter of its value in a single week, and a nationwide strike forced the resignation of the board of directors of Ecuador's central bank. Police arrested hundreds of people and dispersed crowds of protestors with tear gas.
Ecuador's president Jamil Mahuad also responded by closing all the nation's banks and announcing a plan to jail tax evaders and impose new taxes on the "rich." In an Associated Press article, Mahuad was quoted as saying that Ecuador's better off citizens should accept the duty to pay more taxes and "give thanks to God that they have to money to do it." Mahuad also proposed to restrict the amount of money that people could withdraw from their bank accounts, increase the sales tax from 10 percent to 15 percent, and nearly double the price of a gallon of gasoline as an "emergency measure."13
No crystal ball can give a perfect glimpse of the future -- and certainly not on a global scale. But the signs on instability are everywhere. And so are the signs that governments will take the most ruthless measures, including disarmament of their populations (an effort the United Nations has been spearheading for years) to protect themselves against their own citizens
Heading out back with shovel and uh....some stuff.
It's just a fantasy though, honestly....
(((sigh)))
Claire is a real woman- smart, elegant, sharp as a razor-blade... WOW.
And, considering what I've learned with my current studies (advanced macroeconomic theory), right on track...
Too bad. Keep your powder dry, your weapon in a ziplock (and hidden from prying eyes), and wait to see what happens.
FReegards,
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