I am writing this letter to cite a couple of articles by Daniel Amerman.
Mr. Amerman has a long list of published articles on finance.
One that I cite here was published on Aug. 8, 2017. The title is “How Planned Fed Rate Increases Impact the National Debt & Deficits.”
See it for yourself at www.financialsense.com and in www.seekingalpha.com.
What were his conclusions? In his lengthy analysis, and I quote, “the doubling of the national debt removed 26 years of safety margin for the Social Security and Medicare programs. If the debt had not doubled, then every dollar of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid payments could have been paid in full until 2043, and the nation still would have been in better financial shape for the entire time than it is today.”
In this article, there is a link to another article titled “The True Cost Of The National Debt For Retirees — 26 Years Of Lost Safety For Social Security & Medicare.”
Aside from that link, you can also see this same article at danielamerman.com/va/DebtSocialCost.html.
In this other article, Mr. Amerman states, and I quote, “What is missing from the dialogues on the national debt and retirement benefits is that those are not two separate issues — but are two parts of the same issue. The personal cost to you of the rapid doubling of the debt is the lost retirement security which you could have otherwise enjoyed in the 2020s, 2030s, and 2040s. The difference could end up changing your day to day standard of living and entire life during those decades.”
Now who do you think doubled our national debt in the previous eight years? Donald Trump?
Sorry, but no. It was that pathetic, economically illiterate, narcissistic, buffoon named Obama.
Good public relations and mainstream media obfuscations and lies will not change the numbers.
I’d like to clear the air, so I will now.
I describe myself as being conservative in social values, religious in a non-traditional way, and libertarian in economics.
I cannot stand the welfare state and wish its total demise. I think its institutions are evil.
The welfare state confiscates private property and redistributes it to those groups and institutions it favors.
The fact that the property of honest, hardworking, productive citizens can be seized and given to the unproductive, scheming, and shiftless citizens and illegal aliens is criminal.
The breadth of the corruption is incalculable; not to mention the waste of productive capital.
The Democrats/progressives/socialists/liberals or whatever other pathology you want to call them are all image.
They posture as heroes and heroines of the poor and marginalized.
Yet, they make no effort to stop the theft and the gaming of the welfare system.
By allowing the undeserved to take advantage, they subvert the benefits that would otherwise be available to the truly needy.
That allows me to conclude is that they feel the truly needy are there to be exploited, not helped.
Why do they do this? They get political power.
They can buy votes by being loose with the enforcement and credentials of the welfare claimants.
None of the above Democrats, progressives, etc. had anything to say about the path our government had taken over those eight years.
I would hasten to add, many of the Republicans went along with it for political reasons of their own. That is why Trump was elected.
People wanted the swamp drained. You can see what Trump is up against in the recent inability of the Republicans to overturn Obamacare. It is a very deep swamp.
Trump as enemies in both parties who are out to destroy him.
I have been complaining about the welfare state since 1978 after reading some books by a libertarian author named Harry Browne.
It was he that first opened my eyes to the danger of government power; danger from our very own federal and local governments.
Growing up in a Democratic household, I had never heard ideas like that before.
Interestingly enough, the late Andrew Breitbart had the same experience. He said he graduated Beverly Hills High School without ever hearing a single conservative or libertarian idea.
So I find it comforting that the implosion of the welfare state is nigh.
Unfortunately, a lot of decent, if unsophisticated, people will be hurt.
Those of you who expect to retire in 15 or more years from now have been scammed and suckered.
The inheritance you will be bequeathed will be that of debt and broken promises. I can apologize for what my generation has done to you but that won’t help you much. I do not know what else to tell you.
You will have to be very resourceful to make a future for yourselves. You will have to enrich your lives in very simple ways; so be creative.
Those of you who are retired and on Medicare now are enjoying a standard of living that is being paid for by milking the upcoming generations of the capital they could have used to generate their own standard of living.
Now they face penury.
I wouldn’t call that honorable.
All of you who supported Obama, wittingly or unwittingly, during those eight years are part and parcel of a most gigantic Charles Ponzi/Bernie Madoff scam.
I hope, in your case, that what goes around comes around.
Dr. Wayne Roth
Roslyn Heights
