My latest column from The Progressive Populist is available on line.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Author: hankkalet
Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.
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Hank Kalet 
Herb, Herb, Herb, what are we going to have to do to convince you that the \”great program\” of FDR is nothing more than an inter-generation Ponzi scheme that steals from everyone while transferring funds from poor minority men to rich white women? As you know I have no use for either big government socialist party. But you can\’t just chastise Bush and Kean Jr without mentioning that the other side of the aisle won\’t do any better. Menendez refuses to even admit there\’s a problem. Any Presidential candidate from either side of the aisle worth their salt will promise to \”save\” it without any details.But not to worry, nothing either side of the aisle is going to do will prevent the eventual crack up of Social Security Insurance, Medicare, and the vaunted prescription benefit with the doughnut hole. Ask any young person about Social Security and they will tell you that they aren\’t counting on it. Good! Because it has always been a demographic time bomb. It\’s just a socialist welfare program that will evaporate of its own defects as they tinker increasing the age, raising the taxability (Remember the promises that it would never be taxed!), and lowering the \”benefit\”. Eventually it will just be welfare for old folks. It\’s not insurance. As is often said, if an insurance company executive did what the government did, then all of the executives would be in jail. Assuming that the various socialists can\’t possibly let people save for their own retirement, then we should have true privatization like Chile did in the 70\’s. Recognize that for the poor, their \”social security insurance\” forced savings might be their biggest asset. That\’s why this fraud is so wrong. So fraudulent. So un-american. They are forced to kick in money that they really need, only to have it stolen from them.Note, I want Chilean privatization, not the Republican ersatz privatization that leaves the government with the keys to the \”lock box\” (You remember that fiction!). The interesting example of Chile is that it was done with an illiterate uneducated population with similar deficits and unfunding. You would think, with our First World government educated literate population, we could do as well. I, on the other hand, think we will allow the politicians and the press to fool us into thinking that one side or the other of the aisle cares enough to solve the problem. Like most children\’s tops, the system will eventually go to a lower energy state. That is flat on the table. Woe to any who have to depend on SSI. It\’s a government fraud!Sorry, but I think you are engaging in \”wishful thinking\” at best, or blatant political bias at worst. Either way, social security insurance is a Katrina style disaster in the financial dimension. The only question is how much death, physical / emotional pain, and civil unrest that we will have to endure.It\’s a national disgrace.
Herb? Who\’s Herb?