The Attack of the Real Black Helicopter Gang: The IMF is Coming For Your Social Security

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.truth-out.org/the-attack-real-black-helicopter-gang-the-imf-is-coming-your-social-security61291

A few years back, there was a fear in some parts about black UN helicopters that were supposedly taking part in the planning of an invasion of the United States. While there was no foundation for this fear, there is basis for concern about the attack of another international organization, the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Last week, the IMF told the United States that it needs to start getting its budget deficit down. It put cutting Social Security at the top of the steps that the country should take to achieve deficit reduction. This one is more than a bit outrageous for two reasons.

First, the IMF deserves a substantial share of the blame for the economic crisis that gave us big deficits in the first place. The IMF is supposed to oversee the operations of the international financial system. According to standard economic theory, capital is supposed to flow from rich countries like the United States to poor countries to finance their development. In other words, the United States should be having a trade surplus, which would correspond to the money that we are investing in poor countries to finance their development.

However, the IMF messed up its management of financial crises so badly in the last 15 years that poor countries decided that they had to accumulate huge amounts of currency reserves in order to avoid ever being forced to deal with the IMF. This meant that capital was flowing in huge amounts in the wrong direction. One result of this reverse flow was that the United States ran a huge trade deficit instead of a trade surplus.

The trade deficit in the United States was a big part of the story of the housing bubble. The trade deficit cost millions of workers their jobs. This was one of the main reasons that economy was so weak coming out of the 2001 recession. This weakness led the Fed to keep interest rates at 50-year lows, until the growth of the housing bubble eventually began to generate jobs in the fall of 2003.


More at the link --

[1776Forever]

1. With the huge help of Peter G. Peterson chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations...

Peter G. Peterson

http://www.piie.com/institute/peterson-bio.cfm

Peter G. Peterson is senior chairman and co-founder of The Blackstone Group. He is founding chairman of the Institute for International Economics, chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, and founding president of The Concord Coalition. Mr. Peterson was the co-chair of The Conference Board Commission on Public Trust and Private Enterprises (co-chaired by John Snow, former secretary of the treasury). He was also chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from (2000–04), chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers (1973–77), later chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb Inc. (1977–84), and chairman and CEO of Bell and Howell Corporation (1963–71).

.......................................

Peter Peterson Wants to Cut Social Security
Tuesday, 11 May 2010

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/pete... /

That could have been the title of this CNNMoney.com piece that touted the idea of "fixing" Social Security. The peice begins by quoting Robert Bixby, the director of the Concord Coalition, an organization that was founded by Peter Peterson and is still partially funded by him. Mr. Bixby described fixing Social Security as "low-hanging fruit" when it comes to deficit reduction.

The piece then went on to Mr. Peterson himself:

"While a Social Security fix would cure only a small part of the country's long-term fiscal shortfall, it could pay big dividends in terms of the U.S. standing internationally, deficit hawks say. 'It would be a confidence builder with our foreign lenders,' said Pete Peterson at a recent fiscal summit organized by his foundation, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

That could lessen the risk of a big rise in interest rates and buy the country more time to handle other debt-related issues, such as tax and budget reform and further changes in Medicare."

(more at link)

[Birthmark]

2. Frankly, I'm beginning to think...

...that practicing economics should be a crime punishable by substantial prison time. Ok, that's a bit extreme, but it's getting closer to being justifiable all the time.

Economists, over the last few decades especially, have hurt rather than helped society; they are consistently wrong in their predictions; they (or their theories) are consistently anti-social; they (or their theories) are consistently amoral or even immoral.

They are delusional...and they are coming for us.

[1776Forever]

3. I couldn't agree more with you. They only see black & white - Not the rainbow of quality of life

issues. They see $$$$ signs and bottom lines, not human life stories and middle-class values! Sad, so very sad that our country is turning from these safety nets to save billionaires wet dreams!

Damn them!:grr: