December 14, 2004
Welcome
Welcome to my blog. This is an experiment, and maybe it will fail, but I should at least give it a try. I'd like this to be a replacement for my old soapbox page, as that was difficult to maintain and has languished for a while. (The INS has been dead for over 18 months, and I think the Muslim detainees in LA have been released by now.)
So, read at your own risk and feel free to drop me a note if you'd like.
--Pat
Posted by Pat at 11:30 AM
Rant: US Postal Service
I had a meter-stamped envelope I wanted to mail via Express Mail so it would arrive tomorrow. To my dismay, the US Post Service was unable to credit me with the postage that was already on the envelope, and I had to pay the full $13.65 that Express Mail costs.
The USPS is turning BILLIONS of dollars of profit this year. Small wonder. Now if only I could get them to deliver mail to my home instead of returning it to the sender...
Posted by Pat at 11:33 AM
Questioning Existence
I've now had this blog going for just over a day, and already I'm questioning its existence. I've written one item for it, which amounts to a piece of drivel, even though the gripe is legitimate.
Honestly, I don't think many people reading this are that interested in hearing me complain about things, so I think I may have to end the rants. For the few pages I've posted in "Pat Says" (my old soapbox), I've given my readers somewhat more thought and value for their effort in visiting. Although the blog is a more contemporary format than the standalone web page for this type of piece, it's deserving of the same level of effort.
So with that, I'm now going to try turning up the quality level here and spare you, my reader, the complaints. Most of them anyway :-)
Posted by Pat at 09:44 PM
Social Security = Ponzi Scheme
Social Security has recently appeared in the news as George W. Bush considers making drastic changes to its inner workings. Most Americans have a fundamentally flawed understanding of the way Social Security works, and changes that are based on these flawed premises are not viable because they're likely to cause a fragile pyramid scheme to run out of money early.
People view the nation's Social Security system as a giant bank account, or a trust fund. In this model, money that's taken out of each working American's paycheck gets deposited, grows over time, then is paid back out. In effect, the government acts as a bank for the money, and when retirement comes, you get money back--not dollar for dollar--but based on Congress' social priorities at the moment.
If the budget really worked this way, there would be a huge asset consisting of cash and obligations owed to the uS somewhere on the United States Balance Sheet; and there would be a huge balancing liability in the form of money owed to the taxpayers. However, in reality we don't see any of this!
Instead, what we see is that the government budgets for Social Security income and expenses, and the current expectation is that income exceeds expenses. The result of this situation, though, is not a trust fund that grows in size, but rather a public debt that decreases in size. In other words, our tax money, whether from income taxes or from Social Security, goes into a giant pot and is meted out. As long as there's enough money coming in to pay the Social Security obligations, there's no problem; but once our age demographics become top-heavy, there will no longer be enough wage-earners to pay for everybody who's retired. This is a big concern that everybody's aware of, but the continual presentation of Social Security as a trust fund makes one scratch his head and wonder how the trust fund runs out of money. Good question. What we end up with is a pyramid scheme, and we all know that at some point there will be winners, and there will be those left holding nothing but losses.
The US government likes to present the federal debt as a number exclusive of other factors, including Social Security, with misleading numbers resulting. This is akin to an individual telling the bankruptcy court that all the money's gone, except for retirement money, but that you're not counting that because it's not politically expedient to tell your family that it has no savings. Same thing with Social Security.
I could write about this for a while, but in poking around to get some facts for this post, I discovered a great web page at the Congressional Budget Office. This is required reading for anybody wondering how a properly managed trust fund can run out of money, and where the disconnect is with Social Security.
Posted by Pat at 10:33 PM
December 20, 2004
Snowy Day
The first day of my winter vacation has turned out to be a snowy one in Boston. Surprisingly, although this storm was preceded by plenty of weather warnings, the City of Boston doesn't seem to be doing that much to keep the streets clear of snow.
I had to move my car to a more favorable location this morning and found streets that appear to be untreated and unplowed. While it's possible to drive safely, it takes a degree of patience and care that Bostonians haven't exhibited much of lately.
Given an examination of city services that may take place as a result of an impending residential tax hike, one thinks it might behoove the City to demonstrate its commitment to providing these services by keeping the streets clean.
Posted by Pat at 12:12 PM | Comments (0)