As the Limits to Growth set in and the pool of "treasure" shrinks, we should probably not be surprised to see more of this.
The answer to your question is, of course, that the Social Security system is not a "trust" in the sense that it's a place where money is put and retained for the future benefit of the enrolled members.
It's a place where money is placed and then spent by the government on current retirees and general obligation funding. By which I mean it is spent.
When it's spent, the US Treasury has the good graces to at least replace those funds with special US Treasury bonds, which some people mistake for being a real asset. That is, cash is swapped for debt. Good deal huh?
This is the equivalent of you putting money in a savings account, but then spending it…and writing yourself a check for the spent amount and stacking up those checks in the bottom drawer of your desk. It's just not possible for an organization to borrow from itself, spend those fund, and not be digging a financial hole.
In other words, there's no trust fund there. Just a pile of debt from the Treasury.
So, yes, the 'entitlement' programs are both badly named and a huge, enormous looming liability.
Trump is the American Putin
Einstein Pacifist
Meet Alexander Dugin, Putin’s political advisor and master puppeteer. The Rasputin behind the fascist movement growing out of Russia, sweeping into Europe in the form of Brexit, and now arriving into America with the election of Trump.
His broadcast are heard around the world, as he explains what Trump is thinking and what he is going to do next, as if he already knew. Filling in his listeners who are about to receive the new world order they have been waiting for.
Read below on how Trump is the American Putin:
Dugin says that Putin and Trump never hide their fondness of each other and that they had identical goals.
But considering both ran on the slogan of making things great again, one wonders what their goals for making everything great again might really involves.
Dugin goes on to say that Trump is getting ready to make America great, like Putin made Russia great.
Trump has already followed his first orders from Putin and Dugin. To call off America’s attack on Russia and putting its immense power into developing its own country, instead of trying to take over the world all of the time.
Dugin declares Trump and Putin are united to his worldwide followers and explains their working arrangements, “Putin style.”
Simple: discuss differences, achieve common goals jointly.
Now that the liberal globalist are defeated in America, Dugin explains that the next step will be to chase the liberals out of Russia who he thinks are useless.
Dugin hates liberal globalist, he thinks they are a dangerous virus, and is elated that the liberals in the United States are now considered intolerable too.
Boy, he sure hates liberal globalist. How do you suppose fascist like him intend to get rid of these intolerable liberals they consider to be a dangerous virus?
Dugin also reveals what Trump has in store for the American dollar. It’s no longer going to be the world’s reserve currency. Trump is just interested in it becoming national currency so that Putin can create another currency for trade in Russia China, Turkey, and China.
Trump hasn’t told us yet, but he is a continentalist like Putin, not a globalist like the liberals.
In the end, if he keeps his promises to Russia, he will become the American Putin, eventually in charge of the North American continent.
Dugin proclaims that the conservatives have now won both continents, with Putin in Eurasia and Trump in America. And they are looking forward to when there aren’t so many liberal globalist around to have to cooperate with, and the conservatives rule.
In closing, Dugin again expresses his optimism now that the globalist elites have lost.
Tells his readers to look at his directive list for more details on what to do next.
Then gleefully signs off,
= = = = =
Meanwhile on air, Dugin is congratulating Alex Jones for his viewership on Infowars suddenly jumping to 20 million since the election. Trump also called Alex Jones to thank him for his help, saying that he couldn’t have done it without him.
Dugin also congratulates his American spokes piece, Alex Jones, whose viewership on Infowars just swelled by 20 million after Trump’s election.
Listen to Alex Jones explain how the media establishment is scum (including Fox News)
and how he is their new replacement
Now watch Alex Jones rant how the liberals are just begging to be murdered, like Dugin wants them to be too.
Click here for one of many Alex Jones rants
So, if you don’t want a crazy gun nut like Alex Jones showing up unexpectedly seeking revenge after Trump gets elected and Bannon releases Dugin’s Alt Right minions to reek havoc, and you suddenly don’t think Trump’s America is so “great” anymore, now that you have discovered what “great” really means. White, without the liberal globalists around asking for compromises.
Fortunately the founding fathers put a clause in the constitution that delays the vote of the Electoral College until December 18th, in case it was discovered that someone was about to betray the country. We need a nation wide campaign to appeal to the members of the Electoral College to vote no for Donald Trump, before he destroys the United States of America and replaces it with Trump America .
To stop these Dugin/Alex Jones apocalyptically driven gun nuts from finally getting their day, urge all members of the Electoral College to vote no for Donald Trump on December 18th!
…and he chooses Shinzo Abe of Japan (Source). Didn't PP run an article a while back about how Abe may be involved in a secret and fairly extreme Japanese nationalist and ultra-conservative group? Either way, it's an interesting choice of a first meeting, and should provide some clues as to how entrenched Trump will be in his core campaign promises regarding making Japan pay for the U.S. military umbrella. Ultimately, though, if the stories about Abe are indeed true, wouldn't he would love nothing more than to use the withdrawal of US military support as an excuse to re-militarize Japan and allow it to change its constitutional limitation on the deployment of Japanese troops outside the Japanese home islands? If this comes to pass, it raises the chances of military confrontations in east Asia rather than lessens them. I get the argument of forcing our allies to shoulder more of their burden and I agree with the notion that we can no longer be the world's police or shield, but I also think these policies could have some equally destabilizing unintended consequences as "messing" with Russia would.
While we here at PP have focused on the threat that a war with Russia poses, let us not forget that armed conflict with China would also be less than desirable. I don't much care what nationality the nukes falling on my homeland belong to…I just want to avoid having any nukes fall anywhere.
I fully admit I may be over-reacting to this, or seeing bogeymen where there are none. My fight-or-flight instincts are in full-alarm mode these days - still not sure why - so I'm relying on cooler heads here at PP.
Thoughts?
Where are you getting these presentations?
What do YOU want?
What do you value?
How would YOU like to see history proceed from this point?
US Spy Chief James Clapper Resigns; Trump To Fill Vacancy (Zerohedge)
[quote]Clapper has long promised to leave his job at the end of President Obama’s term in office, so his resignation was expected. Still, the formal resignation brings the longtime intelligence official’s government career to a close and leaves a key vacancy for Trump to fill.
Clapper took the helm overseeing 17 intelligence agencies in 2010, and served throughout the majority of Obama’s presidency. His tenure was marked by the revelations of Edward Snowden, whose leaks about U.S. intelligence shook up the community like nothing in a generation.[/quote]
Clearly no relation to the 17 agencies that held Russia to blame for hacking the DNC…
Sand_puppy, good questions. I wonder if they will respond, or abscond.
Probably something along these lines…
How does one contact an elector? Is there a directory somewhere?
Oh, how fun would things be if the Electoral College actually overturned election results? Dancing in the streets, for sure, only with guns and less dancing.
Clapper's on my list for prison (along with Hilllary) once the new Attorney General gets his/her office supplies and family pictures unpacked in DC.
How about this as a likely scenario (one of several):
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/what-i-saw-at-the-coup/
dup.
Pursuant to your tale posted above, which was interesting by the way, plausible…it's hard to see this next news story as not fitting in to that tale of government overreach and hubris:
The UK has just passed a massive expansion in surveillance powers, which critics have called "terrifying" and "dangerous."This is not a fantasy tale by some novelist, this is reality. You might ask yourself just how the UK slipped this far down this rabbit hole,. but you'd be better pressed to ask how long it is before your own country joins them. This is the direction of the Deep State.The new law, dubbed the "snoopers' charter," was introduced by then-home secretary Theresa May in 2012, and took two attempts to get passed into law following breakdowns in the previous coalition government.
Four years and a general election later – May is now prime minister – the bill was finalized and passed on Wednesday by both parliamentary houses. Civil liberties groups have long criticized the bill, with some arguing that the law will let the UK government "document everything we do online."
It's no wonder, because it basically does. The law will force internet providers to record every internet customer's top-level web history in real-time for up to a year, which can be accessed by numerous government departments; force companies to decrypt data on demand – though the government has never been that clear on exactly how it forces foreign firms to do that that; and even disclose any new security features in products before they launch.
Not only that, the law also gives the intelligence agencies the power to hack into computers and devices of citizens (known as equipment interference), although some protected professions – such as journalists and medical staff – are layered with marginally better protections. In other words, it's the "most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy," according to Jim Killock, director of the Open Rights Group.
(Source)
This is what Trump should combat if he's to have any sort of real impact at all. But I rather doubt he will or can.
At any rate, the UK has just voted Stasi-like powers to its security apparatus (not that they didn't already have it, now it's just 'legal').
You can't clean house by doing only half the rooms.
We're taking "Short-fuse fiction" and commenting on its plausibility now? From a site sporting a confederate flag and confederate soldier as the prevailing images that greet you upon arrival?
I'm open to seeing things from multiple points of view, but that seems to diverge from PP's adherence to provable facts. It's a freaking fictional story.
Now the article Chris posted, that's terrifying. And verifiable.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2016-2017/0066/17066.pdf
I would like to see some more specifics on where this new law puts the UK (or should I just say England and Wales?). I do know that Iceland and Estonia are #1 and #2 on the chart. The good ole USofA is nearer the bottom than the top of the freedom listing.
https://freedomhouse.org/report-types/freedom-net
Too much hype in that comparison. I know some Russians and also Americans who have lived in Russia. The Russians like a really strong leader and have a huge sense of nationalism. I don't know many Americans who are like that. Most are happy with a bold leader who manages to keep the government out of their business as much as possible.
As for Trump being like Putin–Trump is the most like an elephant in the room of any Republican I have ever seen. Putin is more like a big cat. You see him when he shows up but you are clueless of how he got there. I don't see Trump sneaking up on America. We should have plenty of time to pitch whatever kind of hissy fit is needed to ward off a crazy plan he might have. Congress is by nature more weasely.
Too much hype in that comparison. I know some Russians and also Americans who have lived in Russia. The Russians like a really strong leader and have a huge sense of nationalism. I don't know many Americans who are like that. Most are happy with a bold leader who manages to keep the government out of their business as much as possible.
As for Trump being like Putin–Trump is the most like an elephant in the room of any Republican I have ever seen. Putin is more like a big cat. You see him when he shows up but you are clueless of how he got there. I don't see Trump sneaking up on America. We should have plenty of time to pitch whatever kind of hissy fit is needed to ward off a crazy plan he might have. Congress is by nature more weasely.
I find that fiction is an awesome way to imagine how things might go.
Really good stories involve a bright intuitive author reading the currents and imagining into a possible future. It lets us "live into" various scenarios. We learn.
It is like studying the openings of the great chess matches. Ten moves past the opening, you and a fellow chess club member sit down to continue the game.
Especially helpful are stories of people and factions that are very different from us. They let us walk in the shoes of different personality types and see the world from their angle. Since some of your neighbors undoubtedly DO see the world in that way, it might be good to know how they work.
How does the RED Meme warlord work? What strategies and words might he use? Should you consider an alliance with him? How stable might an alliance be?
How will the various BLUE Meme ethnocentric groups act. What will they "see" when they look at you? A valuable human being or a cockroach?
The disaster capitalist ORANGE crowd. How will they try to make the most of collapse and get rich off the situation. Will they employ RED Meme hitmen, agent provacateurs, arsonists, etc. Will a system of slavery be developed? Or economic slavery (CHS's neofeudal serfdom)?
GREEN tends to "see the good" in people and believes (mistakenly) that ALL others feel and think the same way. This is awesome when it comes to establishing trust and neighborhood teamwork. But GREEN says: "I refuse to believe that anyone would do such a terrible thing!" As a result, GREEN completely misunderstands his sociopathic (4% of population) and psychopathic (1%) brethren.
Getting out of a city in collapse. (Anyone who lives in a big city needs to read this story!) Living in the mountains and woods during a collapse. The suburbs. and here. Reading a novel or two breaks this open. It is all in the stories.
“There was an old sailor who offered me the line, “the sea lies in wait for the unwary, but she stalks the reckless.” It’s reckless not to be prepared – not to know what the commitment is to deliver on what you say.” ~Eric BestBy Catherine Austin Fitts
Scenario thinking is a form of strategic planning that creates stories about the future, called scenarios, to simulate and to test with adaptations. … Each year in the Solari Report Annual Wrap Up, I use four scenarios to describe the outlook for the global economy. I apply probabilities to them to help me allocate investments of both time and money and to look for opportunities in the unexpected.
Instead of our listening to experts predicting our futures, I recommend we invest time in preparing to emerge into our multiple futures, even to invent our futures.