DUMP THE FED
GREENSPEAK'S NIGHTMARE
By: Ed Henry
Most Americans fail to realize exactly how much of their retirement money the government is stealing and how easy it would be to put this same money to work for retirement instead of yielding nothing but debt.
We already have Alan Sloan, Financial Editor of Newsweek Magazine pointing towards the investment of Social Security's surplus in home mortgages, and reminding us that the government is already in the business with its Ginnie Mae accounts held by the Federal Housing Authority (FHA). What's to stop us from taking it a few steps further?
The next thing to stop are all the childish and ridiculous fears about investing the surplus in the stock market when we don't need to invest in the stock market anyway. Who needs to invest huge sums in stock someone else already owns, not going directly to companies, especially when we're talking about more than $100 billion a year and even if Social Security could afford its own seat on the exchange and pay commission to no one. The bug-a-boo people tell us Wall Street is salivating over commissions on the possible investment of the surplus, so let Wall Street keep its commissions where they belong and go on charging the small investor.
Social Security could make loans directly to American corporations, companies and even foreign industries and nations. This would be a powerful stimulus to bigger and better capitalism. Companies could expand, invest in new tooling, new product development, higher wages and hiring, and all sorts of good things. And wouldn't that be a kick? We'd have a socialist system pushing capitalism up from the bottom.
Once we've got mortgages and large loans under our belt, we would already be dealing in at least two of the major functions of banking. What's to keep Social Security from becoming the largest bank in the country, maybe the world?
If you don't think Alan Greenspan has seen this coming a long time ago, think again. The man is no fool. And Henry Morgan is probably turning in his grave. And if you think the Beltway Bandits are now yelling and screaming about privatizing the third rail of politics, wait until they see the People's Bank staring them in the face. It would shatter their grand plans of world banking and a New World Odor under their control.
Let's retire the Federal Reserve to the archaic 1913 methods of the last century. Replace the Creature from Jekyll Island (title of Edward Griffin's book) with a bank run by and for the people. We could call it the People's Bank of America or something like that. We could even have our own "open window" and regulate other banks and interest rates.
We are definitely not talking about running this bank from within the government. We should know by now that we cannot trust the government with money. The poor souls haven't the slightest clue of how to handle it. The fact that we've been giving them real money and they've been investing it in debt should be proof enough of that.
The not-for-profit federal government has no business in the private sector or in deep liaisons with free enterprise. All we need is for the U.S. Treasury to turn over all surpluses to the People's Bank in the private sector. Each American worker would have a share in this bank and the amount of their investment would be determined from IRS records just as it is now with Social Security. We would begin building a real pension system instead of throwing our surplus payments down the drain at the rate of more than $300 million a day. And all we privatize is the surplus. Put it in the hands of trustees we can hold accountable and are not above the law.
Be advised that this year, right now, as of July 31, the Social Security Trust Fund is over the top again with two months still to go in the government's fiscal year. The US Treasury's monthly report for July shows the Social Security Trust Fund standing at $1.160 trillion. That's an increase of $153 billion over the close of fiscal 2000 when the trust stood at $1.007 trillion. We've already topped the $152 billion rise of fiscal 2000 with two more months to go, one-sixth of the year still to be reported.
The July figure puts the Social Security Trust Fund at 20.2 percent of the National Debt which stood at $5.718 trillion on the same date. At the close of fiscal 1997, the Social Security Trust Fund accounted for 11.7 percent of the debt.
That means that Social Security's share of the national debt has increased 73 percent in the last four years.
Does the working public or the watchdog media need any more clues in order to know that something is very wrong? We don't need the man who manages the accounts, Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill, a member of the President's Cabinet and one of the six trustees of the fund, to tell us there is nothing but debt in the debit black hole that your government labels as a trust fund.
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