29 Comments

In The Deficit Myth, you point out that much of the fuss about Social Security (and Medicare) stems from the perception that the trust funds out of which Social Security and Medicare payments are made are "running dry." You also observe that while the two trust funds for Social Security and one of the two for Medicare have provisions to the effect that benefits payments can only be made when the funds have a positive balance, the second of the two Medicare funds has no such proviso, meaning that the government commits to making payments from that fund regardless of the balance in the trust fund. The trust funds for Social Security were not necessary for payment purposes; rather, they were part of FDR's strategy for building political support for the program.

That suggests that, nearly ninety years later, it's time to change the laws governing the first three trust funds and to simply guarantee payment of Social Security and Medicare payments on a "full faith and credit" basis. Do you know of anyone who has drawn up or introduced legislation to that end?

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Hell, lift the income cap and SS would be solvent for many decades to come.

If Monica Lewinsky did nothing else for humanity, by keeping The Blue Gap Dress as a souvenir of sorts, it had the unintended effect of derailing the grand bargain that Clinton was working with Congressional Republicans.

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Well just imagine if all these politicians today listened to what Greenspan told Paul Ryan all those years ago. Sadly, its all a game here as they are indeed looking to benefit those on wall street who also lobby these gutless politicians to privatize Social Security so it gives them more money to gamble on via the stock market. I'm no fan of Dems, but if the GOP gets their way with the Senate and the Presidency in 2024, I guarantee you SS will be privatized. It's truly unfortunate.

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Not so sure the GOP has enough base support to pull that off. SS is untouchable.

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Thank you for confirming the fact that inflation is the key and biggest ECONOMIC problem we face and that changing the MONETARY paradigm with a 50% Discount/Rebate policy at the point of retail sale (and the rest of the new paradigm program) is inflation's empirical, mathematical, macro-economic and temporal universe solution. Thank you.

Doing the above will also enable the accomplishment of the goals of MMT, UBI, Public Banking, Steve Keen, Michael Hudson et al. while additionally resulting in spillover positive and beneficial effects in our social, political, psychological and ecological systems. That's why I refer to it as probably only the third Mega-paradigm change in the history of the human species.

Money DOES make the world go 'round...and Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Grace As In Gifting will finally make it serve us by enabling it to accomplish the Common Good.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PLNJLRN/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=wisdomics-Gracenomics&qid=1552358772&s=books&sr=1-1-catcorr

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Link to 2005 article is broken. Just pulls up PSU CEER HOMEPAGE

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I do get a working link, but the document is rendered in difficult-to-read fonts. Unfortunately, at some point in time the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability at UMKC closed up shop and its website vanished. L Randall Wray has acknowledged to me that quite a few of the articles originally published there are no longer easily available.

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Link broken to 2005 article. Will try YouTube

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Private accounts. Just look at how poorly American fund retirement accounts now. Private account just mean giving financial institutions another way to get Americans to pay for the privilege of retirement security. America should understand that SS is a base amount to keep them out of poverty and that they need to save additional money if they want to have a comfortable retirement.

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Social Security should Have been privatized decades ago.., so Americans can earn real returns . currently social security is about as “successful “ as Amtrak and the , Post Office..

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With a 50% Discount/Rebate policy at retail sale the purchasing power of your social security check is immediately doubled. Those that have paid into social security for many years should be able to entitled to continue to receive their checks so lets say you get $1000/mo. in SS check that gives you $2000/mo. of purchasing power. In the new monetary paradigm program you also receive a $1000/mo. universal dividend which is doubled giving every retired person at keast $4000/mo. in purchasing power. And remember, retail sale is the terminal ending point of the entire economic process and hence by definition the terminal expression point for all economic factors...like for instance inflation so a 50% discount to the price of everything forever ends inflation. We've never had 50% inflation y/o/y let alone moment to moment, and there are plenty of hard and fast tax incentives and disincentives to herd commercial agents into competing on price instead of just letting them willy nilly committ the economic vice of price inflation.

Time for a genuine paradigm change instead of 5 or 6 reforms that ryhme with the new paradigm but do not resolve its deepest economic problems.

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The policies of the new monetary paradigm destroy orthodoxies on the left and the right, enable the integration of the particles of truths in our normally opposed economic and political agendas. We need integration not further disintegration.

C'mon, who here is willing and able to embrace the vision which a new paradigm is instead of only being a critic who is caught up in the problematic dualism that Finance would love to have us argue over forever???

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Ponzi scheme scammer propaganda! Do you sell Bitcoin to? I have a defined pension program, IRA from former 401 K programs, investment property, savings, and SSI. The pension plan lost part of its value due to the 2008 GFC (wall street bank malfeasance) which continued to effect my pension accruals till my retirement in 2022 (same thing for millions of American worker). My IRA is down (stock market downturn). I'm fortunate that I don't need to draw from it (would like too). My investment property does well mostly because of my zip code. SSI payments is the rock that gives working people's ability to retire without being subject to stock market manipulation, corruption and malfeasance. Just another way of scamming hard working people out of their money. WALL STREET IS A PONZI SCHEME! GET A REAL JOB!

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Tweet is great

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You need more warriors, less thinkers

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After this Warrior rips Mearsheimer apart at the seams, then we implement a 20 or so human needs of today’s society

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Indeed, make war on the heart of the problem, the current monopolistic monetary paradigm by implementing its primary policy of a 50% Discount/Rebate policy at retail sale and you'll instantaneously have hundreds of millions of warriors whose purchasing power has just been doubled while ending both inflation forever and enabling an integration of the left/right political agendas that could create a coalition for progressive change much more powerful than FDR had.

Oh yeah, and because the new program is also so beneficial for every enterprise other than Finance you also have what Marx thought would happen with capitalism...a true revolt of the bourgeoisie....against the real problem again, Finance's monopolistic monetary paradigm.

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Feb 5, 2023·edited Feb 5, 2023

Clearly Paul Ryan did not understand a word that Alan Greenspan said. The problem with Alan Greenspan’s answer is that you have to know the economics behind his answer to fathom what he is talking about. You can see that it went over Paul Ryan’s head completely.

You have to think of the basket of goods and services that the economy must produce (or purchase from foreign sources) that will support the life styles we want to provide for all the people living in the country.

Can our economy produce this in a way that can be paid for with USA money? That is the issue to worry about. The Federal Reserve is capable of creating an infinite supply of USA money. Will that be enough to purchase what will need to be purchased every year into the future?

If there are politicians who are worried that this may not be available in the future, they need to explain what will most likely go wrong, and how they are going to fix it. If the politician cannot even imagine how it will go wrong, how can we expect that politician to figure out ways to prevent the calamity? Why do we need people who can’t figure this out to be running our country?

Have I presented the issue better than Stephanie Kelton has? If neither Stephanie Kelton nor I can get ordinary people to understand this, then ordinary people should be complaining very loudly that they need a better explanation. Any comments? Please speak up.

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John outlines it in the great delusion

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This shit is easy

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Thanks.. but you got enough of my free wisdom. This stuff is common sense. People can run their own lives crazy liberals & their silly economists think they can use numbers, formulas & crazy climate b.s. to manipulate people. Not much difference between China communist party and liberal demacrapts. All about controlling their citizens

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some folks like me believe anarchy will prevail, sooner or later ,a few germs from now:)

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no offense Michael, but were going to wipe up the floor with you

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The "debt limit crisis" disappears with the content of this article and supporting resources.

“There’s nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to someone.” ~Alan Greenspan

There's no law or anything else that requires the federal government to borrow to cover a deficit.

So- Pay all federal government obligations when due. If payment results in a deficit, don't borrow to cover the deficit if borrowing will exceed a debt limit.

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as long as your hanging here. my friend harold is ready to check out, any thoughts?

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