Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Noel de Leon who wrote (127839)	3/30/2004 3:04:31 PM
From: average joe	Respond to of 281500

Get Government Out of Social Security Clinton’s Proposal to Save the System by Investing in Stocks Entrenches the Very Cause of the System’s Insolvency: Government Control of our Savings By Richard M. Salsman In response to the growing recognition of the systemic problems with Social Security, President Clinton has suggested strengthening the program by investing over $700 billion of projected surpluses in the stock market. His plan, however — along with similar Republican ones — rests on two false premises. The first is that Social Security is a savings system; the second, that government can be a successful investor. When Social Security was launched in 1935, its backers promised a fully-funded pension system. The promise was soon breached. The money taken in was used to finance other government expenditures. Ever since, rising payroll taxes have been paid out immediately to an expanding retiree base. In 1945, 20 workers funded each retiree, and the payroll tax rate was 3%; today, there are only 3 workers per retiree, and the tax is at 12.4%. Demographic trends guarantee higher taxes and lower benefits — and eventual bankruptcy. Social Security is essentially a welfare program, deceptively packaged as an investment plan. Unlike private pension plans, the retirement benefits do not come from money previously saved and invested. Rather, the government simply confiscates a current worker’s earnings in exchange for a promise to repay him with more money taken from a future worker. Over $5 trillion in payroll taxes have gone to the Social Security Administration — not a dollar of it saved. (Had a private pension operated such a “pay-as-you-go” pyramid scheme, its executives would have been jailed for fraud.) As a result, workers do not get a market return on their “investment”; they may even get less money than they paid in. The unsustainability of Social Security comes from the fact that it is a political, not a financial, program. It is an arm of the government — which openly confesses to the system’s non-value by legally coercing its citizens to participate in it. Yet rather than phasing in a private, voluntary and actuarially sound investment program to replace the present, fraudulent scheme — Clinton wants to enlarge the government’s power. Under his plan, Washington would on average own 5% of the stock of major companies — more than enough to exert significant control. Corporate decisions will then be made not by objective business criteria, but through political horse-trading. Imagine the lobbying that will take place as Washington accommodates a vast range of activists — from anti-trade protectionists and anti-abortion religionists, to anti-technology environmentalists and anti-business Naderites — seeking to shape a corporation’s policies. This is not hypothetical. Many of today’s state-run pension funds deliberately take large positions in particular companies in order to influence their decisions. The clearest example is the biggest such system, California’s CaLPERS. Its corporate “guidelines,” for example, insist on greater “diversity” among board members. It urges firms to focus on “non-financial considerations,” rather than on maximizing profits. Its statement on “social responsibility” declares that “actions taken by [CaLPERS] as a share-owner can be instrumental in encouraging action as a responsible corporate citizen by the companies in which [CaLPERS] has invested.” This “socially responsible” investing translates into “politically correct” investing — which means: “investing” to achieve political, not business, ends. The inevitable effect of this politicization is to undermine investment returns. And, contrary to various self-serving interpretations of investment studies, calculations of total returns for pension funds show that most state-run systems under-perform private ones. This is the effect Clinton’s plan would produce — magnified many times, once the federal government was in charge of selecting your investment portfolio. Your retirement can become only less secure if Washington is picking the stocks, and influencing corporate board decisions, not by the standard of profitability, but by the standard of political acceptability. Many commentators endorse Clinton’s proposal as being “pro-market.” It is exactly the opposite. It entrenches the very source of Social Security’s insolvency: government control of our savings. By expanding the role of government, Clinton is taking a bad investment — and making it even worse. The stock market is not a means of rescuing Social Security. The fraud of a Ponzi “savings” plan cannot be mitigated by the added fraud of government-directed “investment” scheme. Instead, we should demand that Washington return to us, via tax cuts, any temporary “surpluses,” so that we can save and invest our own incomes. Then, we should insist that this dishonest system known as Social Security be gradually dismantled. This is the 65th “working year” of Social Security; its mandatory retirement is wholly justified. aynrand.org

To: Noel de Leon who wrote (127839)	3/30/2004 3:23:19 PM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

re: Capitalism: Do you think Government creates wealth??? Where does Government get its money in the first place??? Taxes. period. Notice in particular the capitalism and opposite of capitalism definitions: Pronunciation: 'kapi`tlizum Matching Terms: capitalisation, capitalise, Capitalist, capitalist economy, capitalistic WordNet Dictionary Definition: [n] an economic system based on private ownership of capital Synonyms: capitalist economy Antonyms: socialism, socialist economy See Also: free enterprise, laissez-faire economy, market economy Definitions of capitalism on the Web: Economic system in which goods and services are produced, exchanged and owned by individuals with minimal governmental regulation. www.thisnation.com/glossary.html Economic system in which property is privately owned and goods are privately produced.It is sometimes referred to as the private enterprise system. pittsford.monroe.edu/jefferson/calfieri/economics/EcoGlossary.html an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods by investments that are determined by private decision rather than by state-control, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market www.imuna.org/manual/app_a.html A socio-economic system characterized by private initiative and the private ownership of factors of production. In such a system individuals have the right to own and use wealth to earn income and to sell and purchase labor for wages. Furthermore, capitalism is predicated on a relative absence of governmental control of the economy. The function of regulating the economy is achieved largely through the operation of market forces, whereby the price mechanism acts as a signalling system which determines the allocation of resources and their uses. www.indiana.edu/~ipe/glossry.html economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. www.asset-analysis.com/glossary/glo_008.html A system of economic organization characterized by the private ownership of the means of production, private property, and largely market-based control over the production and distribution of goods and services. www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reak/eco100/glosslist.htm An economic system of private ownership of capital. In other economic systems, the government or other groups own some or all capital. <top> www.gcee.org/www/projects/smg/StudentGlossary.htm An economic system in which most of the economy's resources are privately owned and managed. www.agtrade.org/defs.cfm An economic system based on a free market, open competition, profit motive and private ownership of the means of production. The market determines the type, quantity, and price of goods. The government is to avoid interfering in the economy. The United States has a capitalistic system. (See COMMUNISM; SOCIALISM) members.tripod.com/~tutor_me/book/glossary.htm economic system in which private individuals own and control the production and distribution of goods and wealth in a country. web.isp.cz/jcrane/Glossary.html an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market www.opb.org/lmd/coldwar/berlincrisis/glossary/ An economic system in which the means of production are largely in private hands and the main incentive for economic activity is the accumulation of profits. (See 193, 354) highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072435569/student_view0/glossary.html The economic system based on the inviolability of individual private property, profit, wage labor, and the primacy of market exchange. www.ciaonet.org/book/opello/glossary.html capitalism is an economic system in which most of the production process is controlled by private firms operating in markets with minimal government control. The investors in these firms (called "capitalists") own the firms. lms.thomsonelearning.com/hbcp/glossary/glossary.taf An economic system where people own things. Some people have money; some don't. The idea is that what is needed more at the time is worth more. home.cwru.edu/~ngb2/Pages/Definitions_deficient.html a system of production of goods and services for market exchange in order to make a profit. In a capitalist system of production the means of production are owned privately, by the capitalist class (bourgeoisie). The working class (proletariat) sells their labour power to the owners of the means of production. Capitalism thus represents both an economic and a social system based on different social classes. www.trentu.ca/ids/glossary.html An economic system characterized by private ownership of businesses and marketplace competition. glencoe.com/sec/busadmin/marketing/dp/entre/gloss.shtml An economic system characterized by private ownership of the means of production, from which personal profits can be derived through market competition and without government intervention. www.sociologyessentials-2nded.nelson.com/glossary.html Genus: A social system Differentia: Based on individual rights including property rights, meaning that all property is privately owned Link: Article www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Dictionary.html An economic concept of civilization that is based on the private ownership (and control) of the means of production. Such an institutional situation permits and inevitably encourages the division of labor, economic calculation, capital accumulation, technological improvement and the voluntary social cooperation of a market economy in which mass production is designed for the consumption of the sovereign masses. Capitalism is the antithesis of statism, socialism and communism which are based on government ownership (or control) of the means of production. AC. 1-33, 48-112; B. 10, 18, 20-39, 67, 93, 105, 118-19; OG. 49-50, 284. www.mises.org/easier/C.asp The economic system which permits anyone with money to employ it as he sees fit, on the argument that the greatest collective good is obtained when individuals advance their private interests. www.offshorewealth.com/glossarya-c.htm an economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market. www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/curr_content/paasurvey/entre/Content/glos1.htm An economic system in which investments in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth. [W] www.sovedchurch.com/definitions.html An economic system in which markets decide what, when, and for whom to produce. wps.prenhall.com/ca_ph_ebert_busess_3/0,6518,224378-,00.html That organization of society, incorporating elements of tax, usury, landlordism, and tariff, which thus denies the Free Market while pretending to exemplify it. www.blackcrayon.com/library/dictionary/celine/ an economic system based on private ownership of capital www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

To: Noel de Leon who wrote (127839)	3/30/2004 8:03:30 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 281500

What an amazing question. Unfortunately any response would be very off topic here but there are a number of thread were we could debate it. A few that I participate in where it would be on topic Subject 52086 Subject 50472 Subject 53436 Subject 51915 If all you are calling nonsense is the idea that no government action at any time creates any wealth then its probably not worth debating but I think you mean a lot more then that. Tim