Demagogy is free

Great Debates
21

december, do you really believe your own bullshit? I mean, come on:

Or perhaps I can conclude that your smiley was intended to denote that this hyperbole was self-referential.

Just a quick check, here in my neck of the woods. From the Saxby Chambliss website, who is challenging incumbent Max Cleland (D-GA) in the upcoming election:

How long would it take me to find similar comments about other incumbent Democratic Senators in other states, from their current Republican challengers?

Under certain assumptions, the SS Trust Fund would have lost over 40% of its value. The fact that the ad didn’t clarify the assumptions, or that the assumptions don’t reflect reality, may indeed be “hyperbole”, which makes it par for the campaign commercial course. There’s at least a smidgen of truth, which is all either side seems to need in these things.

This continual reference to Clinton is downright tiresome. Bush campaigned promising that reforming the SSF would be a top priority. Within the last two months, Paul O’Neill said that Social Security privatization will be at the top of Bush’s domestic agenda next year. Whatever Clinton discussed has no relevence to this election, and represents an effort on your part to distract readers from issues. The fact is, the administration continues to press this point. Which makes it fair game for the Democrats.

What if the ad had said, more accurately, “if less than 17% of new SS taxes received since 1/1/2000 were diverted to an S&P index fund, the SS Trust Fund would have $68 Billion less than it actually has today”

OR

“if less than 17% of new SS taxes received since 1/1/2000 were diverted to an S&P index fund, the return on investment of the diverted funds would have been 30% lower than it actually is today”

OR, and this is the one I can’t believe they actually missed:

“if less than 17% of the new SS taxes received since 1/1/2000 were diverted into the equities of companies like Enron and WorldCom, the return on investment would be …”

22

If you don’t even try to make a ghost of an arguement against me, does that mean you concede?

—Maybe the historical success of the market over, well, virtually forever is just a fake. Now you’ll tell me that long-term investing is a Ponzi scheme.—

Long term investing isn’t. Investing in the market, and demanding that others do so, beyond any reasonable guess of expected return, is. Ponzi schemes rely upon enriching the previous round with new people, who in turn cannot see a return on their investment unless they can get yet another round in behind them. The stock market isn’t ordinarily like this at all, because the general rule of thumb is that people invest until a stock is pretty close to the best expectation of its value. But when people start talking up stocks, selling books like Dow 90,000!, telling people that more and more investment in the stock market is a sure fire way to success, that’s exactly what it becomes. That’s a bubble, and that’s exactly what we’re going through: a glut of overinvestment come home to roost in an unfortunately painful way.

Markets are all about creative destruction, and it pays to remember the destruction part sometimes.
Yes, everyone knows that the long term trend is almost certainly going to be up: but that’s near useless as information: the problem with investing is not the general direction, but rather the paths that it will take to get there (what corporations will take us up, and which will be left behind), what bumps along the way it’ll experience (and when) and so on. It seems like a nice idea to invest in the “market” for the future: but that neglects the reality that the successes of the market in the future may not even exist as investments that can be bought today.

—Gosh, this (paraphrasing) “past history is no guarantee of future returns” analysis is new to me. Of course, I’ve lived in a van down by the river for the last 20 years.—

Seems like. Cus you were pushing just the opposite idea. Of course, that’s not QUITE as stupid as dollar-cost averaging, but still…

—If you think that “buying low” is bad advice, ah, that explains your dislike for the equities markets a lot. Stick to money markets, or something you can understand.—

It’s not just bad advice, it’s incredibly STUPID and pointless advice. It’s like saying “wherever you go, there you are!” Of course you’d like to buy low compared to the future: everyone would. But the “low” you are talking about is only a comparison to the past. And that’s just useless. What you’d want to know is what companies are going to lead us forward, and which are going to be left behind. But looking at past performance, you DON’T know that. If “buy low” was ever useful advice, I should have bought up lots of Enron stock after the initial drop (before it really tanked).

I don’t have an dislike for equities. But I do have dislike for people who push ridiculous ideas about them, just as I don’t like astrologers who try to make people try to live their lives by the stars, instead of sound judgements based on their actual situations here on earth.
I have a big distaste for people that push dollar-cost averaging, which is a terrible strategy against just about any story you want to tell about stock prices. You probably think that the fact that stocks appreciate faster than real estate is really significant too. Sheesh.

23

I’m shocked! Shocked to find negative campaigning going on here! Even more shocked to find december reporting it.

I am so dismayed to find that the Republicans are being tarnished with being against social security and Medicare and seniors! Shocked I tell you!

Well, I’m personally not shocked at december’s demagoguery post. I’m a liberal Democrat, and here is me, a liberal Democrat, lying about benefits for seniors”

“Well that we remember how hard Republicans fought to bring us social security and Medicare, how hard they have fought over the years to maintain and expand those benefits for seniors against all the scurrilous attacks of the wicked, wicked and demagogic attacks by the Democrats over the years. Don’t those senile seniors know that the Republicans have never voted against extending such benefits or increasing them, have always voted against cutting them back in any way? Don’t those senile seniors know that the Democrats opposed social security and Medicare from the start, have never defended the benefits, and always sought to cut them back? Oh, woe is me!”

That’s right, the above is a lie. Switch Democrat and Republican, and you have the truth. These are Democratic Party programs, introduced, passed, defended and extended by Democrats over the never ending opposition of Republicans who have done everything they can to eliminate these programs because they consider them to be welfare type programs. In fact, it is the Republicans who lie about being in favor of benefits for seniors: they say one thing and do another. It’s called compassionate conservatism. A non-wealthy senior voting Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders: stupid.

24

And, since the money paid to seniors is taken from working people, anyone under age 65 voting Democrat is just as stupid, right?

25

Excellent Smithers. That states the real intent of the Republicans is that if you are under 65, you will soon not be paying for old folks, backhandedly admitting they think that social security is a bad thing they will eliminate.

But since I am under 65 by a bit yet, and planning on living a lot longer after I retire, I’m thinking that it might be a good thing.

But there are also several other flaws with the above logic. It assumes that “social security will run out”, the argument that Republicans have always used to try to first prevent and then end social security. Over the long term, (not taking short dips or rises into account) social security has become more secure over the years, currently, there are no problems for at least 30 years, and the actuarial methods used are very, very conservative, by about half.

And the next incorrect assumption is that there is a traditional “trust fund” where the money is separate. It isn’t. While Gore did poll 500,000 more votes in 2000 running on the “lock box” platform, we got an administration that first openly supported investing social security in the stock market, companies like Enron, WorldCom etc. so that instead of the government having a responsibility to pay it, Ken Lay, Ken Skilling and other Bush buddies would be responsible for making good on it. Back in 2000 they proudly called their proposal “privatization”, now they still support the same result, but refuse to have enough honesty to call it “privatization”. Why is that?

No, social security payments come out of the general fund, and the general fund owes social security trillions. Back when we had a surplus, this money looked like it might get paid back, but the Bush crowd, fearing that the surplus would in fact go to paying off the debt we were foisting on our children and grandchildren, gave most Americans a very tiny tax cut and huge tax cuts to the very wealthy funded by borrowing money in what are now our huge deficits, passing this debt onto future generations.

Republicans complain about how awfully government runs things, and then gets elected and proves it. Markets and economy always do much better under Democrats. In breaking with SDMB tradition, I offer a cite: http://slate.msn.com/default.aspx?id=2071929

“We must make the pie higher” – GWBush

Here is the pie to be made higher: http://www.davidchandler.com/lcurve/ rest assured, the pie will be higher, you need not see results yourself.

GW Bush:
"If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator."12/18/2000. As broadcast on CNN and available in transcript on their website. http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0012/18/nd.01.html

26

—the Bush crowd, fearing that the surplus would in fact go to paying off the debt we were foisting on our children and grandchildren, gave most Americans a very tiny tax cut and huge tax cuts to the very wealthy funded by borrowing money in what are now our huge deficits, passing this debt onto future generations.—

This is pretty misleading. Sure, we pass on our debts to our children… but we also pass on the savings and other benefits that weren’t taxed away from us in the first place. One might prefer one financing option over another, but there’s no a priori reason to claim that not taxing us now to pay off our large debt hurts our grandchildren. Blame the original spending that created the debt, sure, but don’t get all worked up about how we pay it off.

27

IAS, I’m afraid you have a lot of misconceptions about SS. I will point out a few.

The Republicans do not want to eliminate SS. They have made many statements saying the opposite. You cannot provide a cite, so please withdraw the statement.

This seems too good to be true. Let’s see[ul][li]Oldsters should support SS because it gives them money. []Youngsters should support SS because it will give them money some day.[]So SS helps all of us. Yet, SS creates no wealth. It merely moves money from one group of people to another.[/ul][/li][quote]
Over the long term, (not taking short dips or rises into account) social security has become more secure over the years, currently, there are no problems for at least 30 years, and the actuarial methods used are very, very conservative, by about half.
[/quote]
I am an actuary, and none of this makes any sense to me. At one time, SS was deemed to be solvent if it wouldn’t run out for 75 years. It no longer passes that test. It’s not more secure; it’s less secure.

I have no knowledge of “conservative by half.” On the contrary, the key assumption in evaluating SS solvency is wage inflation less cost of living inflation. That’s because income goes up with wage inflation and outgo goes up with cost of living inflation. A few years ago, the assumed difference in these inflation rates was optimistic. I have a book by former chief SS Actuary Hayworth Robertson making this statement. Other prestigious actuaries disagreed. Hpwever, the debate was between those who thought the estimate was optimistic and those who thought it was accurate.

I’m afraid the remainder of your post is also invalid. but I’m too tired to go on. I suggest you look up reliable sources of how SS actually works.