GREENSPAN URGED Congress to deal with the deficit by cutting Social Security benefits for future retirees rather than by raising taxes.
* * *
Existing-home sales fell 5.2% in January, an industry group reported. Economists attributed much of the drop to bad weather and noted that sales remained historically high.
* * *
Insurance funds of $1.3 billion to cover the World Trade Center's destruction have been spent, including a $125 million payout to leaseholder Larry Silverstein.
The main beneficiaries are lawyers, lenders and real-estate developers.
-------------------------------------------
Greenspan Supports Cuts
To Social Security Benefits
Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan urged Congress on Wednesday to deal with the country's escalating budget deficit by cutting benefits for future Social Security retirees rather than raising taxes.
In testimony before the House Budget Committee, Mr. Greenspan said the current deficit situation, with a projected record red ink of $521 billion this year, will worsen dramatically once the baby-boom generation starts becoming eligible for Social Security benefits in just four years.
He said the prospect of the retirement of 77 million baby boomers will radically change the mix of people working and paying into the Social Security retirement fund and those drawing benefits from the fund.
"This dramatic demographic change is certain to place enormous demands on our nation's resources -- demands we will almost surely be unable to meet unless action is taken," Mr. Greenspan said. "For a variety of reasons, that action is better taken as soon as possible."
Mr. Greenspan said that the benefits now received by current retirees should not be touched but he suggested trimming benefits for future retirees and doing it soon enough so that they could begin making adjustments to their own finances to better prepare for retirement.
But while Mr. Greenspan urged urgency, Congress is unlikely to take up the controversial issue of cutting Social Security benefits in an election year.
no shit!!
-----------------------------------
NEW YORK -- About $1.3 billion in insurance money to cover the destruction of the World Trade Center has already been spent, even before major reconstruction has begun, and the main beneficiaries are lawyers, lenders and real-estate developers.
Among the notable payouts, according to court documents and people familiar with the situation: the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the 16-acre site, has quietly agreed to return all of the $125 million in equity that New York developer Larry Silverstein and his low-profile group of backers originally invested to buy the 99-year leases on the office portion of the complex in July 2001. The full details of that transaction, which closed in December, haven't been released to the public. But the deal effectively eliminates the Silverstein group's capital risk in the project, while allowing the group to retain control of 10 million square feet of office space, the people said.
Another $100 million has gone to Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, the New York law firm that has billed at a rate of about $4 million a month to press Mr. Silverstein's and the Port Authority's case against Swiss Reinsurance Co. and a dozen other insurers, the people said. Lawyers for Wachtell didn't return telephone calls seeking comment. |
