Though Americans are increasingly turning to savings in 401(k)-type accounts, Social Security remains the most reliable and equitable system of retirement savings.
The R-Word. Pete Seeger remembers his late wife Toshi. Global terror warning. Cultured beef. Making Social Security secure.
We want to save Social Security
“Although this showdown is likely still several months away, we must remain vigilant against any proposed cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. We will not allow far right politicians to hold our vital benefit programs hostage to their irresponsible threat to shut down the government.”
"Union struggles reflect on all jobs," said Jane Smith, 30, a data scientist from San Francisco. "Unions won the struggle for a 40-hour workweek, and we are all benefiting from that still. Unions also fight for higher wages, which translate to higher wages for all Americans." The BART strike is a symptom of "the income and wealth inequality that is plaguing our nation," she said. "I can't believe that people are missing the point."
A recent “Spreadsheet Scandal” has rocked the economics world. It has eliminated the last remaining technical argument in support of the President’s “chained CPI” Social Security cut. Earlier this year the IMF admitted they had made errors in their modelling of expenditure multipliers. Now, the darlings of the austerity cultists – Rogoff and Reinhart – has been exposed for errors in spreadsheet coding. Who is ever going to take responsibility for these travesties?
Self-righteous critics have portrayed Social Security as the profligate monster borrowing from the Treasury and sucking the life out of federal government. It's the other way around. The Treasury has been borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund for 30 years, and the debt to beneficiaries now totals nearly $3 trillion. The financial barons and their media collaborators would like to get out of repaying the debt by cutting benefits over and over again. Count on it.
First, a terrible jobs report, then a Democratic President offers a budget that proposes cuts to Social Security and Medicare. What they actually heard was Austerity 2013 - U.S. style. President Obama's offering up a cut in Social Security (make no mistake, that's what it is) contravenes promises he has previously made about not undermining the program and a recent flat out pledge by Vice-President Joe Biden that it would not happen.
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