Thanks to the snow day here in Spearfish yesterday, I was able to shovel my driveway and get back inside in time to listen to this conversation on Talk of the Nation about the federal budget and chained CPI. President Obama wants to tie Social Security cost-of-living adjustments to chained CPI instead of the regular Consumer Price Index. As NPR's Marilyn Geewax explains it, the government calculates CPI based on a standard market basket of goods. The CPI fails to take into account the fact that consumers may respond to price increases by changing what they put in their market basket.
Chained CPI assumes that when prices rise on the normal market basket used to calculate inflation, consumers find cheaper substitute products. Thus, while inflation may register at 2%, smart shoppers manage to keep the increase in their cost of living down to 1.7%.
That's great for a year or two. But eventually, you start running out of substitutes. Robert Reich notes this is particularly true of health care. We don't have infinite cheaper options that allow us to cheat inflation every year. Sooner or later, we face a choice between the bargain-basement product, doing without completely... or going back to the more costly quality item that works. Old, poor, unhealthy folks (i.e., the folks most dependent on Social Security) have probably already economized their way through most of the reasonable economic choices they have available.
Chained CPI cheats Social Security recipients because it assumes an impractical, impossible infinite regress. Let's not impose this double-whammy spending cut and tax increase on the folks who can least bear the burden.
There's some truth to the theory of chained CPI. When I go to the grocery store I often look for the deals, and will forego a higher priced item for a lower priced one in many cases. However, the lower priced item may not be the same quality. My brother calls the chained CPI theory as "shit drives out quality." Eventually you get such shitty product that you won't go lower. For me, that would be catfood, but some might go there. And that's what chained CPI is: "catfood price incentive.
It's that part about not being able to go lower that makes me question the wisdom of making this stat the ongoing basis for COLA increases. It seems destined to eventually fall behind the real cost of living for all but the hardiest skinflints who will dig for grubs rather than pay the price of grub at the grocery store.
I normally do not make it a habit to comment on people's blogs. However, as I've been a reader of this blog for a while now, it's a pretty well-written blog, and the author is a local who talks about local issues (sometimes) in an intelligent and thoughtful manner, I figure this time, I would share my thoughts on a particular article.
To say that an Executive of the Government (ANY Executive, of any party whatsoever) would lay hands on supposedly sacred, untouchable programs like Social Security or Medicare, as seems to be the case with this "Chained CPI" development, certainly comes as no surprise to me whatsoever. It was only a matter of time until someone in Washington laid their grubby little fingers on it. The GOP has been seeking to do so for years, but it's hardly surprising that it was a Democrat that finally did it. The top strategists in the national GOP are experts at getting their political adversaries to do their hatchet-work for them, after all, as history has demonstrated time and again, whether it be Carter beginning the GOP's programme of industrial deregulation late in his Presidency, whether it be Clinton's selling out of American jobs to other countries...sorry, I meant "Free Trade Agreements"...or whether it be Barack Obama's escalation of military conflicts abroad/continued erosion of civil liberties/and now this change in the Social Security cost-of-living adjustments. Sometimes it almost seems like the Democrats WANT to give in on core GOP objectives, they capitulate so easily...
And that's really the point, isn't it? For all the neutral, diplomatic language that those in the political blogging world use in their posts to try to maintain the image of objectivity and critical thinking, always giving the various Federal officials who do stuff like this the benefit of the doubt, as if politics is really more complicated than it is, are you not missing something very important that should be obvious by now?
What is so obvious, you might ask? It is this: The Federal Government is not, nor have they been for a very long time (if ever) interested in the plight of the poor, the elderly, the sick...and certainly not the disenfranchised. Why continue to act like these politicians in Washington (or, when we get right down to it, the politicians right here in Spearfish or other localities around the country) are these good people who are cornered into making terrible decisions that destroy people's lives. No politician enters the murky, sordid, and filthy world of politics without knowing the truth about that particular game: That it's all about advantage...personal advantage and the advantage of those who pay the bribes.
Why continue to be diplomatic about the reprehensible actions being committed every day in the name of the general populace of this country? Why continue to say stuff like "Mr. President, let's not ________", as if he or any of his cronies in the political game care one whit about your opinion? Unless you're offering the DNC (or their counterparts in the GOP establishment) a briefcase full of money or some sort of other non-monetary advantage of equal value, why on earth should they care what you have to say? If you have no bribe for them, then you have no say, and are disenfranchised. That's the way it works in a Plutocracy, and what we've got in place in this national society currently is exactly that: a Plutocracy.
I mean, I get it. Neutral language is supposed to bolster a commentator's credibility in the cultural mainstream. No one likes extremists and all that. I get it. But does it really not seem counterproductive, at this point, to keep saying stuff like "Mr. President, please don't do that!" as if it's going to at all change a thing?
But I digress, perhaps. Perhaps not.
At any rate, I would ask at what point, that is to say, after how many occasions of the same thing happening over and over, is a person justified in no longer believing that a reprehensible deed was just a mistake, or an accident, or an unfortunate cost of playing the game of politics? At what point does it become clear to other people that...well...the reason why the Federal Government dumps on the poor so very much is simply because...they do not recognize the basic, human, inalienable right of the poor to live a decent and at LEAST halfway comfortable life? At what point does the playing nice, the diplomatic language on the blog posts, and the attitude that the politicians are basically good people (if slightly incompetent) go away and the gloves finally come off?
I love reading your blog. I think it's great that there's an intelligent blogger actually bothering to sully his hands with the filthy realm of politics in this community. A lot of the people around here simply do not really get involved in politics at all, don't voice their opinions, don't really say or do much of anything about the horrible things done by politicians. I respect the hell out of you for using your voice here in the Spearfish area. I really do.
But come on, man. Is it not obvious that the entire point of a Government in a Hierarchical mode of society is precisely to KEEP people poor and ignorant? Poverty and Ignorance is how a Hierarchy maintains its very structure of inequality and exploitation, which are absolutely imperative for a Hierarchy surviving AS a Hierarchy. So when is it that people are going to start telling the plain, honest, and quite blunt truth here: That Government, any Government with absolutely any members whatsoever (doesn't matter what race, gender, creed, sexual orientation, or age they are) WANTS the poor to be overly burdened, and the middle class to be nonexistent. Why act like someone like Obama (or, for that matter, McConnell or Boehner) loses sleep at night over the fact that the poor get screwed? They don't. THEY'RE taken care of. Hell, even after they leave office, they're pretty much assured well-paying book deals. They'll never, ever have to worry about struggling through the same stuff that they dump on the poor, so why act like they're doing the best they can?
If they were doing the best they can for all the people of society, they'd probably dissolve the Government entirely this very moment. Of course, this is a dedicated Anarchist saying that, so grain of salt and all that. :p
Anyways, that's my thoughts on this. Hierarchy can only exist on the basis of poverty and ignorance, and therefore, the war against the poor isn't going to stop, ever, so long as Hierarchy is the way we do continue to do things, you know?
That said, keep up the good work. I enjoy reading your blog, and I think it's great that there's someone at least speaking out about this stuff here in Spearfish. There need to be far more people like you.
hugh: text me the number of your dealer: 605-484-7288
Heh. My dealer pushes some pretty awesome truth-serum. ;)
Larry, that's not the number you gave me regarding that other thing. Were you setting me up?
Mr. Mann, you are obviously much smarter than Mr. Kurtz and have a much more clear and real frame of reality. Where he wins is in brevity and insanity. You are not insaner than him but you need to be more brevit.
Chained CPI is nothing more than a gimmick to assist with structuring the inevitable inflation the government and its central bank seeks as a way to quasi-default on the debt.
Rarely have readers accused me of playing nice and using diplomatic language.
We bloggers on your sight are for the most part, Mr. H, very understanding of your softer and diplomatic side. I certainly am, sir.
@grudznick Yeah, I'm pretty long-winded. Hence the reason I rarely bother to open my mouth (or fingertips) on someone's blog. I get that "brevity" suggestion just about every time. I figure, though, if I'm going to go to all the trouble to make a point, I might as well make absolutely certain I get the point across. :p
@caheidelberger Well, I don't know that I would call it an accusation, per se. I don't think you wake up in the morning and say to yourself "Gee, I think I'll totally go soft on all the politicians raping everyone's future". But I do think that the political blogosphere, in general, seems to have that unofficial paradigm in place that says "You're not allowed to actually call these people monsters, even though what they do every day, as part of their job, is indeed monstrous". Know what I mean?
Feel free to insert other adjectives in place of "monstrous". "Incompetent" is a good one. Or "Morally bankrupt". That's another one that would work. Either way, the point would still be the same, with regards to the nefarious deeds of the Washington crowd.
Talk to anyone in their 30's or 40's and they will tell you that Social Security won't be available for their retirement.
MB, more pop-culture conventional "wisdom" that ain't, like Iraq has WMDs. They're just kids, what do they know? When they begin taking care of elderly parents who rely in whole or in part on social security their welcome call will change their tune, understanding, and they will be begin becoming "grown-up". Aging and caring for elderly parents is all consuming. Jane Gross's mom, "spent down" $900,000 - not uncommon and without goldplating. http://www.amazon.com/Bittersweet-Season-Caring-Parents-Ourselves/dp/030747240X
Republicans would rush us back to the bad old days of abject rural and senior poverty. There is a REASON the nation moved to a SS program; it's a necessary nuisance that we must revisit the reminder and issues. Yes, the program should be means tested; and, yes, contributions should not be capped.
Further evidence that the government, in cahoots with central banks, are out to inflate away the debt in lieu of outright default.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/interview-with-harvard-economist-carmen-reinhart-on-financial-repression-a-893213.html
Current interest rates are at a 45 year low. Basic math and history tell us this will not stand. Wthin the next year or so interest rates will begin their inexorable rise in the approximate 88 year cycle. It's hyperbole to say that savers will be wiped out - but they will be greatly hurt as they locked in 1-2% returns.