The long-term destruction of Federal solvency accomplishes what they will fail to do with the privatizing effort.

Whether or not the FICA revenues can be looted by Wall Street, future retirees will find that their Social Security checks have already been spent on decades of military waste, fraud, and unjustified warfare, and no new borrowing is possible to replace them.

Today's Financial Times shows how the credit rating for US (and French, German, and UK) government debt will lose their prime investment grade ratings, leading to a snowballing of higher interest rates and inability to borrow.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/3460ab64-9982-11d9-ae69-00000e2511c8.html

Look at the graph, showing the drop-off at 2017, after which Social Security will need to draw upon income tax revenues.

Here's the big number that cinches it:

"The agency estimates that according to current trends US general government debt will soar to 239 per cent of gross domestic product by 2050, against 65 per cent today. "

Borrowing to pay the Social Security shortfall (paying back the borrowed Trust Fund) will become prohibitively expensive.

I may be listening to too much wonderful AirAmerica all day, with the intrusive AP or CNN news reports inanely repeating the same infotainment blah-blah over and over, BUT:

Didn't this week seem really, really OUT THERE?

Starting on Steroids, ending with Schiavo, Congress took on a manic pursuit of obfuscating SOMETHING?

Were we invaded by aliens -- and the populace needs to be kept extra-preoccupied by an extra dose of the usual inanities?

I thought it was DeLay's ethics investigations coming home to roost -- it may be that, too, but with all the extra players in this, Bush flying, Congress legislating, doesn't it seem to you like something really big and bad may be coming down the pike?

Article (pdf) today by Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy Research site (www.cepr.net)

Considering the cash flow realities of government finances when the SS inflow turns to an outflow, and the difference will have to be made up from -- oh no! -- INCOME taxes!

And, discussing that there may (Shocked!  I am really shocked! to hear this) be a class warfare element to the long-term Repub attack on Social Security.

Much of Bush's strangely-twisted rhetoric lately sounds like it is pointing us in this direction.

Why?  Baker, in another paper linked immediately below, from 2001, details the wealth benefit going to the upper uppers if the gov defaults on S.S. without taxing them to make up the difference.

http://www.cepr.net/Social_Security/defaulting_ss.htm

(Today's article follows.  I don't know about you, but I close down safely everything else on my 'puter before I open a .pdf)

http://www.cepr.net/publications/social_security_default_2005_03.pdf

From the Bureau of the Public Debt:

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm

we see that the National Debt has already gone up more ($2 trillion) in 3 1/2 Bush budget years than it did ($1.4 trillion) in 8 Clinton budget years.

And much (most?) of the Clinton debt represented the saving up of Social Security trust funds, not the dead waste of Bush's follies, putting a massive squeeze against the future availability of Social Security funds.

Anyone hoping to get cash eventually out of this nation's government is going to have to get in line behind bondholders.

What brings tears to your eyes, and inspires you through the day?

Who shows you a worse-than-impossible situation, but gives you that ray of hope to get through your own difficulties?

These people still do it for me.  And, yes, leave tears in my eyes.

May we not fall into their desperate straits.  But, whether we do or not, let us employ their courage in the struggle ahead of us.

http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/lerman/medal_award/shw_award.php?content=bielski

(And more at:

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005441

(sorry, haven't yet learned to do those colorful quotation insets)

Bielski Partisans

In December 1941, the Nazis murdered thousands of Jews in the Baranowicze region in western Belorussia. Among them were four members of the Bielski family: the mother, the father, and two sons. Four other sons survived: Arczyk, Asael, Tuvia, and Zus. They - along with 13 others - fled into the woods.

Here's my idea of "supporting" the troops -- supporting them in the moral way, in the way of a father, a counselor, a pastor.  Of helping them save their own souls, that is, the conscience they will have to live with all their days...

On March 23, 1980, Archbishop Romero made the following appeal to the men of the armed forces:

"Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brothers. Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, 'Thou shalt not kill'. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination. ...In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression."

The day following this speech, Archbishop Romero was murdered.

Thanks to link at http://www.silk.net/RelEd/ezineromero.htm

Today's thought flow -- early thoughts IN DEVELOPMENT and NOT organized as I would usually wish to do -- no stirring conclusion to wrap it up -- I'm wandering in this, too --, presented for your initial consideration/amusement/additions/corrections/flames (I`m working on thickening my hide):

(Like my friend b6, I'm not getting much work done, this first month here.  I wake up and leap from thought to thought, with 5 or 6 Kos windows open to different diaries.  It's all here.  My major interests here so far are heading off a US flare-up of fascist repression, and helping ideas for dKos re-design to allow groups to form ACTION CIRCLES.)

This morning I watched Tom Selleck's portrayal of "Ike", newly out on DVD, his planning and decision-making leading up to D-Day.  The weight on this man, and the idealism that a military leader can have before him, in a necessary conflict, was presented 100%; I recommend this film to all.  Removing Hitler: what more could one ask for as a military purpose?  The film sets a mood, and it reveals a time, that may be contrasted with our own.

We are not as alone as we feel sometimes.

(On the other hand, an awful lot of my political blogging seems to boil down to "I see dead people." ;)

But -- this guy left us a lot, and we need to use it.  It is our history.

Listen:

http://www.earthstation1.com/pgs/civil_rights/dos-MLK650325-MontgomeryCourthouse.wav.html

(I would appreciate if someone would recommend good sites for MLK, Jr. audio downloads.  Should become a regular Kos resource.  Certainly gets my motor runnin'.)