J. K. Galbraith 2004 and 2011..scare campaign on Social Security from Greenspan to Obama.

[madfloridian]

James K. Galbraith has long been speaking out on the issue of the seniors and their safety nets. In this column for Salon, he responds to Alan Greenspan and a recent speech about how we could no longer afford these programs. Greenspan called for "abrupt and painful" changes required to both Social Security and Medicare".

From Salon 2004

Social Security scare campaign

More important, Alan Greenspan is again neglecting his day job to lend respectability to a scare campaign. Speaking at the annual Federal Reserve retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyo., last weekend, Greenspan noted the "abrupt and painful" changes required to both Social Security and Medicare, arguing that the 77 million baby boomers set to retire will simply pose too great a burden otherwise.

Greenspan said, "If we have promised more than our economy has the ability to deliver, as I fear we may have, we must recalibrate our public programs so that pending retirees have time to adjust through other channels."

Here is more from Galbraith about the terrible toll such ideas could take on those who are vulnerable in our nation.

Social Security and Medicare are not mainly about transferring resources from the young to the old. They are mainly about who among the elderly -- and who among the sick and the disabled and young survivors -- gets taken care of, and by whom. It is an issue of distribution and almost nothing else.

What does Greenspan think will happen to the 77 million baby boomers if Social Security and Medicare are scaled back? Does he think we will disappear? Well, we won't. We'll be around for a while. And those of us who have children will be a burden on them -- as our parents are for the most part not a burden on us, because they have Social Security and Medicare. Because they have it, we also have it. If we lose it, our children will pay not only for their own retirements but also for ours. You cannot imagine the cruelty of family life that is coming, in the day when Social Security and Medicare no longer take care of the old.

And what of the elderly who don't have children? Or those whose children are poor? Or those whose children have their own medical problems? Or those whose children just won't pony up? Social Security and Medicare take care of those elderly now, based on their histories of work. Under Greenspan's plan, they would be victims of a lottery based on fertility, psychology, sexual preference and family luck.

Unfortunately 7 years later, it is not just Greenspan anymore. Our own party has taken up the war cry against Social Security in a dangerous way.

Social Security and Medicare dodged a bullet in the debt ceiling battle, but beneficiaries still have plenty to fear from the next phase of the deficit reduction war.

..."But major benefit cuts seem likely to emerge from the second phase of this process. A 12-member Congressional committee must identify another $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, bringing the total deal to $2.4 trillion in cuts over 10 years. That group will have a November 23rd deadline to finish its work, which will then go to an up-or-down vote – no modifications allowed – by Dec. 23rd.

What’s more, if the committee cannot agree on at least $1.2 trillion in savings, or Congress rejects its findings, automatic spending cuts totaling that amount would kick in starting in 2013. Medicare would be subject to the automatic cuts, although Social Security and Medicaid would be exempt.

But under the chained CPI Social Security would be vulnerable, just as it is right now with the payroll tax cuts cutting its funding.

The most likely cutting tactic is the chained CPI measure of cost-of-living adjustments (COLA). This is the only way to get near-term savings from Social Security, since it reduces benefits for current retirees. By contrast, a higher retirement age would have to be phased in over many years. A chained CPI could be implemented as early as 2013. The chief actuary of the Social Security Administration estimates that the chained CPI will rise about 0.3 percentage points less per year than the inflation measure used now, the CPI-W. With compounding, that translates to a monthly benefit cut of 8.4 percent for a retiree at age 92 (calculated from age 62, the first year of eligibility), according to the National Academy of Social Insurance.

In fact things have gotten so bad that the think tank, Third Way, which is said to provide our Democratic party policy is headed by a man who in 1993 wrote an appeal to Grandma and Grandpa to stop being greedy seniors.


Jon Cowan. Pic from Politico's Agenda forum

1993 "An Appeal To Grandma And Grandpa" by Jon Cowan, now Third Way president.

Dear Grandma and Grandpa:

We write to ask for your help. We're in a financial mess, and unless everyone in our family gets together to fix the problem, we're heading for "economic and fiscal catastrophe." That's not a phrase we picked up on MTV-it's from a recent U.S. government report on the budget deficit.

This year alone America's budget deficit will be nearly $300 billion, which means we're spending $300 billion more than we take in. That's $300 billion on top of the $4.2 trillion debt we've already built up, enough to pay basketball star Michael Jordan's salary for almost a million and a half years.

..."We are not ungrateful. We respect and value the sacrifices you've made for our country and have no desire to take money away from those in need. But our generation is in trouble. We were educated in a collapsing school system. Our incomes and skill levels are lower than any previous generation-by the year 2000 over one-third of younger Americans will be living in poverty. And we will be the first Americans to inherit a lower standard of living than our parents.
We're not asking that your generation solve all our problems. And there certainly are many other programs that also must be cut to get the deficit under control. But Social Security must be considered, just like everything else in the budget."

I am thankful Galbraith has at least been speaking up for us while our own party has not been doing so.

In fact he is so angry that his latest column was written for Deutsche Welle on August 4 and it shows his frustration with the president.

Political news travels slowly, and in my casual observation progressive Europeans have held on to the myth of Barack Obama as a good man much longer than most progressive Americans did. How could a young black American from Chicago and Harvard be otherwise?

Over here reality has been evident for a while, thanks to the President's pattern of giving way to banks, lobbies, Republicans and right-wing extremists. Whether your prime interest is housing, health care, peace, justice, jobs or climate change, if you are an activist in America you have known for a long time that this President is not your friend.

Still, even on these shores disillusion often took a mildly forgiving form. The President was a “disappointment.” He was weak. He had “bad negotiating skills.” He had a tendency to “deal with hostage-takers,” to “surrender.” All of this fed the image of a man with a noble spirit, a good heart, the best intentions, but trapped by limited ability and the relentless and reckless determination of his foes.

Obama is no progressive

The debt deal will make things clear. The President is not a progressive – he is not what Americans still call a “liberal.” He is a willful player in an epic drama of faux-politics, an operative for the money power, whose job is to neutralize the left with fear and distraction and then to pivot rightward and deliver a conservative result. What Barack Obama got from the debt deal was exactly what his sponsors have wanted: a long-term lock-in of domestic spending cuts, and a path toward severe cuts in the core New Deal and Great Society insurance programs – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And, of course, no tax increases at all."

I never believed we would see a time when our own party would throw everything on the table like this, knowing we are dealing with extremists. And knowing there would be nothing in return for all these concessions.

I was wrong.

[indurancevile]

1. knr

[madfloridian]

2. ....

Thanks, just noticed your Janet Leigh avatar...I feel like screaming too these days.

Thanks for the knr, it's dropping pretty fast.

[hifiguy]

3. James Galbraith is a brilliant and insightful man.

Jon Cowan is a crawling shit.

That is all.

[madfloridian]

4. Agreed on both.

But look who has the ear of the administration. :shrug:

[slipslidingaway]

5. knr nt

[Octafish]

6. Bizzaro World

Act like a Democrat and you're a commie.
Act like a Republican and you're a Democrat.
The hell with that.

Thank heavens for Galbraith, his brother and their late father. You too, madfloridian.

[madfloridian]

8. I had never paid attention much about his father, but lately I have been.

I was just reading this at the wiki about him. We need more voices like that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith



"Political posts under Kennedy
Galbraith, first from left, as US ambassador to India, 1961

During his time as an adviser to President John F. Kennedy, Galbraith was appointed United States Ambassador to India from 1961 to 1963. His rapport with President Kennedy was such that he regularly bypassed the State Department and sent his diplomatic cables directly to the President.<10> In India, he became an intimate of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and extensively advised the Indian government on economic matters; he harshly criticised Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of British rule, for Mountbatten's passive role in the Partition of India in 1947 and the bloody partition of Punjab and Bengal. While in India, he helped establish one of the first computer science departments, at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. Even after leaving office, Galbraith remained a friend and supporter of India and hosted a lunch for Indian students at Harvard every year on graduation day.

Because of his recommendation, First Lady of the United States Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy undertook her diplomatic missions in India and Pakistan."

[Octafish]

9. JFK asked Galbraith to make peace feelers to Vietnam through Nehru.

Galbraith's boss at State, Averell Harriman, told him to wait. Then came Dallas, followed nine months later by the Gulf of Tonkin.

Papers reveal JFK efforts on Vietnam

PS: Harriman once was a close business associate of Prescott Bush.

[madfloridian]

11. Fascinating article. I also found this at your link.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6918706&mesg_id=6931252

There's a lot of good reading there. :hi:

[JDPriestly]

30. Was that the father or the son?

[madfloridian]

The father.

[Luminous Animal]

7. Kick.

[truedelphi]

10. It says volumes about the current Administration that

Galbraith doesn't hold even an advisory position.

While Bernanke and Geithner continue with the policies of Greenspan.

Today is the fourteenth day that the stock market has continued its decline. While the Compromiser In Chief is on vacation, along with all the rest of the Corporation Enablers (usually known as "Congress.")

[madfloridian]

12. They have a theory and will keep on doing it whether it works or not.

In fact there is no requirement that their plans work. They just keep on with them.

It's like the education reform...it's a mess and getting worse. But they won't stop because they have a theory that makes the billionaires happy.

And that is that.

[ooglymoogly]

27. The plan works

for those who it is intended to work...the top of the trickle ups, pugthugs and robber barons.

[desertrat777]

36. Re: They have a theory and will keep on doing it. . .

Well said. Whatever theory it is, it is above all a theory that shunts money to Daddy Warbucks and keeps the sails trimmed they way they always have been. It is a "Reverse Robin Hood" in that it takes from the poor and gives to the rich.

Because this lack of regard for the actual human citizens of this country now affects not only the Republican Party, but also now the Democratic Party, we are in trouble as a nation. But, as you say, madfloridian, they will just keep on doing it because it "makes the billionaires happy." And unless there is an intervention of some sort, this corporate fascist process will continue on.

In FDR's time, the high level of political activism has been attributed to enabling him to forward the New Deal. Today, corporate control of the media and legalized bribery in our politics act as an obstacle to democratic reforms that most Americans want. Recently I heard that several polls indicate that about two-thirds of Americans favor a tax increase. So much for the Tea Party's "taxed enough already" slogans.

Thank you for this excellent article and your other postings.

[defendandprotect]

19. True of so many excellent people, but Obama continues to take the low road --

in selecting those he surrounds himself with -- those who push corporate/fascism

and financial coups -- and other destructive programs -- i.e., privatizing public

education -- attacking unions -- !!


And always a new Repug fox for Obama to put in charge of the hen houses!!

[sabrina 1]

35. Yes, it does speak volumes that this administration's cabinet

is so rightwing while there were and are so many great progressive economists he could have chosen.

And it surely hasn't helped him. Their wrong policies continue and the country continues its three decades-long slide into third world status.

And I thought he was a really smart man!

[mmonk]

13. Galbraith must be a political rookie and idealogue and hang out with firebaggers.

[madfloridian]

15. Heh heh

Must be that.

:hi:

[defendandprotect]

20. We could use 100 like him in government -- !! I'd take him for president -- !!!

[EFerrari]

14. Kick

[DeSwiss]

16. Oh Alan, there's plenty of resources on this Earth of ''ours'' for everybody.....

...and that bullshit "scarcity" line you yours is just that, BULLSHIT. And to get at it all -- all we'll have to do is imprison your rich buddies who stole it from us to begin with. You see, it doesn't belong to them. It doesn't belong to you either. It belongs to all of us.......

- It is time for a new paradigm, people. Wake the fuck up.

K&R

"At the beginning of World War II the US had a mere 600 or so first-class fighting aircraft. We rapidly overcame this short supply by turning out more than 90,000 planes a year. The question at the start of World War II was: Do we have enough funds to produce the required implements of war? The answer was no, we did not have enough money, nor did we have enough gold; but we did have more than enough resources.

It was the available resources that enabled the US to achieve the high production and efficiency required to win the war. Unfortunately this is only considered in times of war. In a resource-based economy all of the world's resources are held as the common heritage of all of Earth's people, thus eventually outgrowing the need for the artificial boundaries that separate people. This is the unifying imperative." ~ Jacques Fresco


"The reality is that institutional establishments, institutions of codified thought, and institutions of societal influence and power, meaning philosophies, dogmas on one hand and corporations and governments on the other, each have a high propensity to engage in denial, dishonesty, and corruption to maintain self-preservation and self-perpetuation. The result is a continuous culture lag where social progress by way of incorporating new socially-helpful scientific advancements is constantly inhibited. It is like walking through a brick wall as the established power orthodoxies continue to perpetuate themselves for their own interests and comforts.

The profit mechanism creates established orders which constitute the survival and wealth for a few groups of people. The fact is that no matter how socially beneficial new advents may be, they will be viewed in hostility if they threaten an established financially-driven institution. Meaning social progress can be a threat to the establishment. So to put this into a sentence: Abundance, sustainability and efficiency are the enemies of profit.

Progressive advancement in science and technology which can solve problems of inefficiency and scarcity once and for all, are in effect making the prior establishment's servicing of those issues obsolete. Therefore in a monetary system corporations aren't just in competition with each other, they're in competition with progress itself. That is why social-change is so difficult within a monetary system. In other words, the established monetary system refuses to allow free-flowing change." ~ Peter Joseph

http://www.thevenusproject.com">The Venus Project

[PhoenixAbove]

17. Dear Jon Cowan...

My Grandmother did everything society expected of her. After WWII, when the men came home and kicked all the ladies out of their jobs, she became a wife and Mother. She was a Mother to my Mother and me and any god damn kid that needed a Mother. So now she's 85 and you just want her to die and get out of your way?

Sincerely with utter contempt,
Yet Another Enraged American

Oh there are things here that make me want say words that should never be uttered in polite company. These people are truly MotherFu**ers!

[JDPriestly]

31. My mom is very elderly and very worried by all this talk.

She grew up under Roosevelt.

This talk about cuts to Social Security are making elderly people sick with worry.

It's horrendous what these wingnuts are doing, and Obama is on their side. He is very sneaky about it, but he is. I wonder what his mother would say if she were alive. \\


And I will bet that Obama was relieved that his grandmother had full Medicare and Social Security in her later years. Thanks to those programs, Obama could focus more on his own wife and children and career.

Imagine you are in your 40s and your very ailing parents move in with you and your high school and college aged kids.

It is happening in families around us as older people have lost their savings and homes.

Obama does not seem to be in touch with the reality he is helping to create.

[defendandprotect]

18. James Galbraith would make a good challenger to Obama in 2012 -- !!!

So refreshing to actually hear someone not only speaking the truth --

especially someone from the Dem Party --

But I guess that because most Democrats don't know anything about Social Security

and RW lies about it!! :rofl:


Shall we imagine that Obama couldn't respond to the lies about Social Security either?

Is he in some kind of RW fog where so much smoke has been blown at him he can't see or

think straight? Or is he simply neglecting his duty to truth and the nation?

[unkachuck]

21. K&R....n/t

[tucsonlib]

22. My Favorite James Galbraith Quote:

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

[Octafish]

23. His father, John Kenneth Galbraith, wrote that.

Although, it is clear the message has resonated with the sons. We are all the better for it.

Sisyphus as Social Democrat: the Life and Legacy of John Kenneth Galbraith

Without his sons and good people who care about the truth, whhat John Kenneth Galbraith and the New Deal were all about woulde soon be forgotten, replaced by trickle-down and the Laffer Curve.

[leftstreet]

24. K&R

[emilyg]

25. kick

[girl gone mad]

26. k & r

"an operative for the money power, whose job is to neutralize the left with fear and distraction and then to pivot rightward and deliver a conservative result."

[Cherchez la Femme]

33. Sounds frighteningly familiar

:(

[ooglymoogly]

28. Excellent....Sparkling light, to hear truth above the

black, amorphous and cacophonous lies and propaganda KR

[madfloridian]

34. I find that I can almost not listen or watch regular news anymore.

Half truths and lies all we hear.

[JDPriestly]

29. Thank you madfloridian.

Galbraith is right.

Obama is not a Democrat.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[LongTomH]

37. I just hope JK Galbraith is health enough to be around for a future progressive administration......

to find him a cabinet post. I'm afraid it may be years or decades before we get such an administration.

[amborin]

38. excellent OP, thanks for posting

[sulphurdunn]

39. Third Person Royal

"If WE have promised more than our economy has the ability to deliver, as I fear WE may have, WE must recalibrate OUR public programs so that pending retirees have time to adjust through other channels."

I often wonder who the hell "we" is. I think it means me but certainly not he. :smoke: