The Truth about Social Security

By Bob Livingston

Another "most important election in our lifetimes" has come and gone. I've seen many of them over the years and all of them have something in common — politicians using Social Security to scare the people. This one was no different, with Democrats claiming that Republicans are going to cut Social Security. Retired people are very concerned about what the government will do to Social Security payments. So, politicians love to use Social Security to get in office and stay in office. What is the real truth about Social Security? I am going to tell you something you've probably never heard and never will hear if you listen only to the politicians and the mainstream propaganda media. There are three sides to Social Security. They are: the government, those who pay in (producers), and those who receive payments (consumers). All three have a different perspective and different goals. First, let's start with the government. The U.S. government has a serious problem with Social Security, and I hasten to add that the problem is not funding Social Security. Social Security is not funded, it has no trust fund, and it will never be funded. Government payments to Social Security recipients are no different from government payments for anything else. The government simply sends computer symbols to your checking account. You then spend the numbers by writing them on a paper check or swiping your debit card and passing them to somebody else. You don't have any money, only imaginary numbers called money. Just about anybody you talk to is worried that Social Security will go broke. Let's settle this nonsense once and for all. The only possible way to go broke is to have substance as money — such as silver and gold — and spend it all with no way to get any more. We just agreed that money is only numbers which represent absolutely nothing. How can the government run out of numbers? They can create numbers until the end of time. So, what is the serious problem that government has with Social Security? Government is concerned with the exponential growth of the retirement population. Our economic system will collapse if our population gets too top-heavy with nonproducing consumers. Take my word for it, only so much consumption can be allowed by nonproducing, consuming retired people. Modern governments are very sensitive about consumption. The reason behind it is simple. Government is the biggest consumer of all. In some poverty-stricken Third World countries governments have already consumed all the national wealth, so there is no one left to produce and no one to buy if anything is produced. The bottom line is that government will not, under any circumstance, let the Social Security system out-consume the government and the productive capacity of the country. Production must balance consumption. Since only so much can be produced, then it follows that only so much can be consumed. Consumption must be regulated, and this is the problem. What will the government do? The government long ago started taxing Social Security. What does taxing do? Well, the American people believe that their taxes support the government. This is absolutely not true. Taxes of any kind have nothing to do with supporting the federal government. The federal government creates money through the central bank, AKA the Federal Reserve. Remember the numbers we discussed above? Taxing is very important because it is a process of taking some of the numbers back. Taxes control consumption. When the government taxes your income or Social Security, it is cutting your consumption. The more government taxes the more it reduces consumption. The more the government consumes, the less it will allow the people to consume. So, government consumption goes up and your taxes go up to cut more of your consumption. Remember, there cannot be more consumption than production, and the government is certainly not going to cut its consumption. If anything, it will just increase. So, you can expect that the government will tax Social Security more and more. You will hear political rumblings about taking Social Security away from people "who can afford to do without it," also known in political parlance as "the rich." This discrimination will be expanded. Next those "more fortunate" who have made the extra effort in life will be taxed more or denied altogether what they have paid in. Consumption by the retired population will be cut and cut massively. The government will do what it has always done. It will engage in class warfare. It will play the "have-nots" against the "haves," those who have worked hard and saved. If you understand the philosophy of government and if you understand the economic system, what we have just said is easy to predict. You can count on it. The cuts will come outright, or through some fabricated national emergency and in other devious ways. But they will come as the monstrous government consumes the national wealth. And it will come regardless of whether your politician is a "D" or an "R." Another way Social Security consumption will be cut will be by raising the age for which people become eligible for Social Security, as is already being done. When Social Security began, people could receive benefits at age 65. But in 1935, when Social Security was created, the average life expectancy was 60 years for men and 64 for women. This means far more people were paying in (producing) than were receiving benefits (consuming). Many producers never saw a dime of their money. This is what government prefers because it allows it to consume more. Now the life expectancy is 76 for men and 81 for women. So, consumption is beginning to far outpace production. Raising the age at which benefits are available forces producers to be producers longer and delays their ability to retire and become consumers. So, the Social Security crisis has absolutely nothing to do with funding. From the government and the politicians viewpoint, the problem is how to reverse consumption from the fast-growing, nonproducing consuming people who get Social Security. Also, the welfare medical system is now consuming far more than will be allowed in the future. The propaganda mills are already grinding about waste and inefficiency in the medical industry, and laws will be passed to cut Medicare and restrict treatment options. Retired people will have to pay for more and more of their medical expenses, and some will become unavailable based on age and health status (death panels). Any time the government and the politicians "regulate" your consumption with new income taxes or Social Security taxes, their purpose is to increase government consumption. It does not matter which politicians are in power. This is the philosophy and the plan of modern governments that create money through central banks.

72 percent say media ‘dividing Americans,’ spreading ‘hate’

Exclusive: 72 percent say media ‘dividing Americans,’ spreading ‘hate’

by Paul Bedard

 | November 13, 2018 12:20 PM

 

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Nearly three-quarters of the country believes that the media is “dividing Americans” along political, racial, and gender lines, a stunning condemnation of the press, according to a new national survey.

What’s more, the Zogby Analytics poll provided to Secrets said that the media bias is sparking hate and misunderstanding.

And while Americans also blame President Trump for dividing voters, the survey analysis said the media is worse. Those surveyed, said Zogby Analytics, “felt the mainstream media spreads hate and misunderstanding, also felt that President Trump is responsible for the spread of hate and misunderstanding, but more voters overall, and in most sub-groups, blame the media slightly more!” 

Pelosi to Trump voters: Forget your wall

Posted on December 6, 2018 by Personal Liberty News Desk

President Donald Trump couldn’t get a Republican congress on board with building a border wall. Looks like he’s not going to fare any better with the Democrats.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday rejected the idea of paying for President Donald Trump’s border wall in exchange for helping hundreds of thousands of young immigrants avoid deportation, the Associated Press is reporting.

In comments after the House and Senate approved a stopgap bill to keep the government funded through December 21, Pelosi rejected making any link between the Democrats’ goal of legal protection for illegals that fall under so-called “Dreamer” status and Trump’s priority – and that of his voters – of funding a wall between Mexico and the U.S.

Trump has said he wants any future funding packages to include at least $5 billion for a wall. He’s threatened to shut down the government if he doesn’t get it – a threat he’s made before and not followed through with.

According to the AP:

Most Democrats consider the wall “immoral, ineffective, expensive,” Pelosi said, noting that Trump promised during the 2016 campaign that Mexico would pay for it, an idea Mexican leaders have repeatedly rejected.

Even if Mexico did pay for the wall, “it’s immoral still,” Pelosi said.

Protecting borders “is a responsibility we honor, but we do so by honoring our values as well,” she added.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (communist-N.Y.), said the $1 billion appropriated last year for border security that could’ve been spent toward building a wall was not spent, so budgeting another $5 billion in the next fiscal year “makes no sense.”

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Regulations Threaten to Limit Best Schooling Options for Children

Lindsey Burke  The Daily Signal

 

What is the measure of a good school? And who is best positioned to decide what works?

For decades, policymakers and education officials have attempted to bolster school “accountability” by increasing regulations on schools across the board—public, charter, and private. They have tried to do so at the federal level for half a century, with federal intervention in K-12 education hitting a high-water mark under the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind policy and the Obama administration’s attempts to pressure states into adopting Common Core.

Yet ever-increasing government intervention in schooling has had little positive impact on education outcomes writ large. Math and reading achievement outcomes have been largely stagnant since the 1970s for high school seniors, while graduation rates have seen only modest improvements (and even those figures may be artificially inflated).

About one-third of high school graduates have to take remedial courses in college, one-third of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, and 20 percent of high school graduates who want to join the Army cannot do so because they cannot pass the Armed Forces Qualification Test.

It’s no surprise, then, that families have been looking for alternatives to geographically-assigned district schools. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have begun to offer alternatives, enacting private school choice options such as vouchers, tax credit scholarships, and education savings accounts.

Although the education choice landscape is growing, government officials who take a heavy-handed approach to regulation threaten its long-term success. Instead of freeing traditional public schools from bureaucratic red tape that has tied the hands of educators and stifled innovation, some policymakers want to expand that top-down regulatory approach to the growing private school choice sector.

Take, for example, the Louisiana Scholarship Program, which provides vouchers to eligible families to enroll their child in a private school of their choice. In order for private schools to participate, they must adhere to a host of government regulations, including the requirement that all students on a scholarship take the same standardized test administered to public schools in the state.

Some private school principals have been concerned that regulations like this would drive school curriculum, thereby discouraging schools from participating. Indeed, just one-third of private schools in Louisiana participate in the program, and an experimental evaluation found that participation in the program had a negative effect on student academic achievement.

We are now beginning to better understand the way regulations affect private schools’ willingness to participate in private school choice programs. We are also seeing that Louisiana’s “accountability” measures had unintended consequences, and that could happen elsewhere.

Along with Corey DeAngelis of the Cato Institute and Patrick Wolf of the University of Arkansas, we recently released the first experimental evaluation of the effects of various regulations on the willingness of private school principals to have their school participate in a hypothetical voucher program. We randomly assigned one of three different regulations—or no government regulation—as part of school participation in a hypothetical voucher program.

We found that an open enrollment requirement (mandating that private schools take all students who apply as a condition for participating in a voucher program) decreased the likelihood that private school leaders in Florida were “certain to participate” in the voucher program by around 17 percentage points.

At the same time, requiring participating private schools to administer a standardized test to their students decreased the likelihood that private school leaders were “certain to participate” by around 11 percentage points.

Standardized testing requirements appear to depress private school participation in school choice programs, which could partly explain what has transpired in the Louisiana Scholarship Program. High-quality private schools, as measured by tuition and enrollment growth, may have decided that the regulatory burden exceeded the benefits of participating in the program, and as a result, remained on the sidelines of the Louisiana Scholarship Program.

Although a growing body of literature is demonstrating that regulations on school choice programs generally correlate with lower rates of program participation, testing mandates—which in the hypothetical Florida experiment reduced school participation by 44 percent—are particularly notable for what little value parents place in them.

EdChoice recently released the results of the largest survey ever conducted of participants in a private school choice program. Parents participating in Florida’s tax credit scholarship program were asked to list the top three factors that influenced their decision to have their child attend their chosen private school. Only two factors—religious environment and instruction (66 percent) and morals/character/values-based instruction (52 percent)—were selected by a majority of scholarship parents.

Thirty-six percent of respondents listed a safe environment among their top three priorities when selecting a school for their child. The least important factor was standardized test scores. Just 4 percent of respondents listed standardized test scores as one of their top three factors.

Not only were families overwhelmingly satisfied with the tax credit scholarship program—92 percent of scholarship families reported being satisfied—but it is clear that Florida parents are choosing their child’s private school because those schools offered what their public schools either could not or would not.

So what do all of these findings mean?

At the very least, they suggest policymakers must be humble in their assumptions about what parents want in their children’s schools, and about their ability to drive quality through regulations.

A growing body of evidence suggests regulations, including standardized testing mandates, can depress school participation in private school choice programs. At the same time, while such regulations can discourage school participation (limiting the options available to families), they do not rise anywhere near the top of the factors parents value when choosing a school.

Parents are much more interested in those intangibles that standardized tests cannot capture, but that are more important to the long-term flourishing of their children, such as religious and values-based instruction. And for good reason: As Jay Greene has identified, we do not regularly see a relationship between changing test scores and later life outcomes.

Indeed, what parents are looking for is something apart from what their child’s traditional district school offered. To condition private school participation in a school choice program on adherence to the public school formula—as the Louisiana Scholarship Program does—renders school choice less meaningful by reducing the number of substantially different options available to families.

Policymakers should avoid being like the proverbial drunk looking for his lost keys under the lamppost because “that’s where the light is.” Standardized tests shine a light on an important aspect of school performance, but sometimes the keys are not under the light.

Families prioritize aspects of schooling that are less measurable, but equally or more important. Families want schools that will form children of good moral character. They want schools that will prepare their children to pursue their life and career goals. They want meaningful instruction in a safe school setting.

Choice is providing them access to just that.

Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) filed a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America (BSA)

The Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) filed a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) over advertising concerns surrounding the use of gender-free terms like “scouts.”

The complaint was filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, NPR reported.

The complaint stems from the BSA using gender-free terms such as in the campaign “Scout Me In” and changing a program name from Boy Scouts to Scouts BSA.

A Boy Scouts of America (BSA) merit badge sash is pictured as BSA welcomes girls to join scouting. SHUTTERSTOCK/ Amy Kerkemeyer

GSUSA believes having “scouts” as a term by itself makes it seem like the two organizations became one, according to NPR. (RELATED: The Boy Scouts’ March To Inclusivity Is Over, And The Girl Scouts Aren’t Happy)

“Such misconduct will not only cause confusion among the public, damage the goodwill of GSUSA’s GIRL SCOUTS trademarks, and erode its core brand identity, but it will also marginalize the GIRL SCOUTS Movement by causing the public to believe that GSUSA’s extraordinarily successful services are not true or official ‘Scouting’ programs, but niche services with limited utility and appeal,” the complaint said, NPR reported.

BSA announced it would allow girls to join the Cub Scouts program in October 2017. The organization added that a scouting program would also be made available for girls that can help them earn an Eagle Scout ranking, the highest rank in the organization.

The scouting program will be known as Scouts BSA rather than Boy Scouts starting in February 2019, BSA announced in May.

Cub Scouts serves those in grades K-5 while the Scouts program is for 11- to 17-year-olds.

“Parents interested in signing up for Girl Scouts programs have instead mistakenly signed up for the new girls’ programs offered by BSA,” the complaint said, The Associated Pressreported.

BSA became aware of the lawsuit on Wednesday, according to NPR.

“Our decision to expand our program offerings for girls came after years of requests from families who wanted the option of the BSA’s character- and leadership-development programs for their children – boys and girls,” BSA said in a statement to The Daily Caller News Foundation.

More than 170,000 girls are registered in BSA programs and more than 62,000 girls joined the Cub Scouts program since the inclusion of both genders.

“The action Girl Scouts took are in keeping with standard practice in any field, and we did what any brand, company, corporation, or organization would do to protect its intellectual property, the value of its brand in the marketplace, and to defend its good name,” GSUSA said to TheDCNF.

The Lessons of the Failed Armistice of 1918

COMMENTARY BY

Victor Davis Hanson

The First World War ended 100 years ago this month on Nov. 11, 1918, at 11 a.m. Nearly 20 million people had perished since the war began on July 28, 1914.

In early 1918, it looked as if the Central Powers—Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire—would win.

Czarist Russia gave up in December 1917. Tens of thousands of German and Austrian soldiers were freed to redeploy to the Western Front and finish off the exhausted French and British armies.

The late-entering United States did not declare war on Germany and Austria-Hungary until April 1917. Six months later, America had still not begun to deploy troops in any great number.

Then, suddenly, everything changed. By summer 1918, hordes of American soldiers began arriving in France in unimaginable numbers of up to 10,000 doughboys a day. Anglo-American convoys began devastating German submarines. The German high command’s tactical blunders stalled the German offensives of spring 1918—the last chance before growing Allied numbers overran German lines.

>>> Watch Victor Davis Hanson’s talk at The Heritage Foundation on the lessons of World War I.

Nonetheless, World War I strangely ended with an armistice—with German troops still well inside France and Belgium. Revolution was brewing in German cities back home.

The three major Allied victors squabbled over peace terms. America’s idealist president, Woodrow Wilson, opposed an Allied invasion of German and Austria to occupy both countries and enforce their surrenders.

By the time the formal Versailles Peace Conference began in January 1919, millions of soldiers had gone home. German politicians and veterans were already blaming their capitulation on “stab-in-the-back” traitors and spreading the lie that their armies lost only because they ran out of supplies while on the verge of victory in enemy territory.

The Allied victors were in disarray. Wilson was idolized when he arrived in France for peace talks in December 1918—and was hated for being self-righteous when he left six months later.

The Treaty of Versailles proved a disaster, at once too harsh and too soft. Its terms were far less punitive than those the victorious Allies would later dictate to Germany after World War II. Earlier, Germany itself had demanded tougher concessions from a defeated France in 1871 and Russia in 1918.

In the end, the Allies proved unforgiving to a defeated Germany in the abstract, but not tough enough in the concrete.

One ironic result was that the victorious but exhausted Allies announced to the world that they never wished to go to war again. Meanwhile, the defeated and humiliated Germans seemed all too eager to fight again soon to overturn the verdict of 1918.

The consequence was a far bloodier war that followed just two decades later. Eventually, “the war to end all wars” was re-branded “World War I” after World War II engulfed the planet and wiped out some 60 million lives.

What can we learn from the failed armistice of 1918?

Keeping the peace is sometimes even more difficult than winning a war.

For an enemy to accept defeat, it must be forced to understand why it lost, suffer the consequences of its aggressions—and only then be shown magnanimity and given help to rebuild.

Losers of a war cannot pick and choose when to quit fighting in enemy territory.

Had the Allies continued their offensives in the fall of 1918 and invaded Germany, the peace that followed might have more closely resembled the unconditional surrender and agreements that ended World War II, leading to far more than just 20 years of subsequent European calm.

Deterrence prevents war.

Germany invaded Belgium in 1914 because it was convinced that Britain would not send enough troops to aid its overwhelmed ally, France. Germany also assumed that isolationist America would not intervene.

Unfortunately, the Allies of 1939 later repeated the errors of 1914, and the result was World War II.

Germany currently dominates Europe, just as it did in 1871, 1914, and 1939. European peace is maintained only when Germany channels its enormous energy and talents into economic, not military, dominance. Yet even today, on matters such as illegal immigration, overdue loans, Brexit, and trade surpluses, Germany tends to agitate its allies.

It is also always unwise to underestimate a peaceful America. The U.S. possesses an uncanny ability to mobilize, arm, and deploy. By the time America’s brief 19-month foray into war ended in November 1918, it had sent 2 million soldiers to Europe.

Had the armistice of November 1918 and the ensuing peace worked, perhaps we would still refer to a single “Great War” that put an end to world wars.

But because the peace failed, we now use Roman numerals to count world wars. And few believe that when the shooting stops, the war is necessarily over.

On the Street: Trump Rally Attendees Weigh in on Media Treatment of President

Genevieve Wood 

On Wednesday, journalists at the White House once again displayed their hostility to President Donald Trump. We asked Americans at a Trump rally recently their thoughts on the media’s behavior toward Trump—and they didn’t hold back. We took our camera “On the Street” to find out.

6 Big Moments From Trump’s Epic Press Conference on Midterms

By Fred Lucas The Daily Signal

President Donald Trump put a positive light on the split results of Tuesday’s midterm election, which saw Democrats win back control of the House even as Republicans made gains in the Senate.

Here are six key moments from Trump’s 86-minute press conference Wednesday, which included some fiery exchanges with reporters.

1. ‘No Love’ for Vanquished Republicans

The president framed the outcome, in which Republicans increased their Senate majority while losing their House majority, as a “tremendous success.”

Trump compared the results to those under his predecessor, President Barack Obama, who saw Democrats lose 63 House seats and six Senate seats during his first midterm election in 2010.  

“I thought it was very close to complete victory,” he said.

“This vigorous campaigning stopped the ‘blue wave’ that they talked about,” Trump said later. “I don’t know if there ever was such a thing, but could have been. If we didn’t do the campaigning, … there could have been. History really will see what a good job we did in the final couple of weeks.”

Trump said House Republicans who lost failed to embrace him during their campaigns. He called out by name Reps. Mike Coffman of Colorado, Mia Love of Utah, Barbara Comstock of Virginia, Carlos Curbelo of Florida, Peter Roskam of Illinois, Erik Paulsen of Minnesota, and John Faso of New York.

He also called out New Jersey’s Republican Senate candidate, Bob Hugin, who lost to Democratic incumbent Bob Menendez.

Of Coffman, Trump said, “Too bad, Mike.”

Regarding Utah’s Love, Trump said: “Mia Love gave me no love. And she lost. Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.”

“Peter Roskam didn’t want the embrace. Erik Paulsen didn’t want the embrace,” Trump said. “I’m not sure I feel happy or sad. But I feel just fine about it.”

“In New Jersey, I think [Hugin] could’ve done well but didn’t turn out too good. Bob Hugin, I feel badly because I think that’s something that could’ve been won, a race that could’ve been won.”

“Those are some of the people that decided for their own reason not to embrace—whether it’s me or what we stand for,” Trump said.

2. ‘Beautiful’ Deals With Pelosi

Trump said he supports House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., becoming House speaker again, even as many new House Democrats have pledged not to support her.

“If they give her a hard time, perhaps we will add some Republican votes,” Trump said. “She has earned this great honor.”

The president said those who thought he was being sarcastic, in an earlier tweet, about Pelosi deserving the speakership were wrong and that he was sincere.

Trump predicted: “We can do a tremendous amount of great legislation together.”    

He also predicted the possibility of a “beautiful, bipartisan type situation” between the White House and House Democrats, and “much less gridlock.”

“Now we have a much easier path because the Democrats will come to us with a plan for infrastructure, a plan for health care, a plan for whatever they’re looking at, and we’ll negotiate,” Trump said.

3. ‘Solution’ to Abortion Compromise

Trump, who has had a strong pro-life record since becoming president, said the two parties could reach a compromise solution on abortion, which is perhaps the nation’s most polarizing issue.

“I won’t be able to explain that to you, because it is an issue that is a very divisive, polarizing issue,” Trump said.

“But there is a solution. I think I have that solution, and nobody else does. We are going to be working on that.”

4. ‘Just Sit Down, Please’

CNN correspondent Jim Acosta asked Trump questions about the “caravan” of migrants headed to the U.S.-Mexico border and about the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

After a back and forth, Trump was ready to move on to the next question. When a White House aide went to take the microphone, Acosta clutched it.

This prompted Trump to tell Acosta: “CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn’t be working for CNN.”

NBC’s Peter Alexander, getting the next question, defended Acosta.

Trump responded: “Well, I’m not a big fan of yours, either.”

Acosta stood up to speak again without a microphone, and Trump said, “Just sit down, please.”

The president added: “When you report fake news, as CNN does a lot, you are an enemy of the people.”

When April Ryan of American Urban Radio, also a CNN contributor, tried to ask a question without being recognized, Trump told her: “Sit down, I didn’t call on you.”

5. Democrat Investigations Will Be Met With ‘Warlike’ Response

During the election campaign, House Democrats vowed to leap into exhaustive investigations of Trump’s tax returns, his businesses, the Russia matter, and other issues.

Some House Democrats have called for impeaching Trump.

Trump reminded Democrats in the Wednesday press conference that Republicans still hold the Senate.

“They can play that game, but we can play it better, because we have a thing called the United States Senate,” Trump said. “I could see it being extremely good for me politically, because I think I’m better at that game than they are, actually, but we’ll find out.”

Trump added: “If they do that, then it’s just, all it is is a warlike posture.”

6. Letting Mueller’s Probe Continue

Trump said he won’t interfere in the Russia investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, vowing that he will “let it go on.”

“I could fire everybody right now, but I don’t want to stop it because politically I don’t like stopping it,” Trump said.

“It’s a disgrace. It should never have been started, because there is no crime.”