Say Anything Blog

Hillary would like Americans to start putting aside $5,000 for every baby born in the country . . .

What is this, a massive incentive program for still more illegal immigrant mothers to have their children born here?

Gee… When President Bush suggested gradually privatizing Social Security along similar lines a couple years ago, Democrats adamantly refuse to even sit down and discuss the subject.  (So much for bi-partisanship, working together, and the common good that Democrats love to prattle on about.) It will sure be interesting to see how the arithmetically illiterate liberals react to this proposal from Hillary.

Of course, Hillary would leave the government in control of the money, I’m sure, rather than leaving it under private control.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

Funny, the way Hillary takes other people’s ideas and claims them as her’s. First Romney Care and now the California Child Education Initiative. Is anyone going to take her to court for this? Theft of intellectual property is theft in the eyes of the law.

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Has every one lost their minds? The national debt is now 27K per person in the U.S. Lets just tack another 5k onto that...That money won’t come from Hillary’s pocket. It comes from the tax payers pocket. There is no where to pull it from either by cutting somewhere else.
This is just another example of Hillary’s Socialist/Communistic beliefs and desire to move our country toward. She is in effect BRIBING the poor and middle class in this country to buy the office of President.
Would everyone please come to their senses in this country? The government in Washington DC is detached from the U.S. citizens and have their own agenda not matching the peoples.
I am requesting for the next 6 years whenever everyone votes, be it local, state, or federal elections, VOTE AGAINST THE INCUMBENT! Let’s turn over every power hungry personal agendist out of office.

"Full retirement” for “Social Security” is age 67 for those born after 1960.

The government raised the requirements because the Ponzi Scheme is falling down.

Thanks a lot Democrats. You idiots.

Rob, you’re forgetting completely about inflation… $5000 invested now for 65 years isn’t going to be enough to retire on, and it isn’t going to be any better than social security returns now…

To get “real dollars” on your return, you need to outpace an average of roughly 3% inflation every year.  So your REAL return on that money isn’t going to be 6%, its going to be more like 3% (and you have to use your conservative number because you’re never going to get government investing retirement money is higher-risk investments even for the long-term).

If you put $5k under your matteress 65 years ago, it’d only be worth $400 or so today given inflation.

http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

I think Rob hates me… I mean, just look at the pic he took of me!

"Baby Bonds” would replace food stamps as the new currency of “da’ hood.”

Hillary should use her own money to fund this boondoggle.

I don’t know why this bothers me, but I don’t like the idea of requiring the person to finish high school before they can access the money. I like incentives, that is, rewards for good behavior, but this is taxpayer money and the government is saying the people can only access the money they invested if the recipients meet two requirements (18 + High School diploma); but knowing the government what is to keep them from adding more requirements over time, which all force every citizen wanting access to that money to adhere to a long list of socialist principles?

No, I don’t like the government running this or any other social program. Perhaps the general idea is laudable, but when the government is involved it all gets perverted into being a civil right with innumerable strings atttached. Sorry Rob, it may be a good idea but add government involvement to the plan and to me it suddenly becomes a bad idea.

No matter the age or state of health, for a military man it is always glorious to tilt at windmills, rescue a fair Dulcinea and be a gallant knight in armor in a glorious cause.

Perhaps the general idea is laudable, but when the government is involved it all gets perverted into being a civil right with innumerable strings atttached.

Would you give Shaquisha, Juanita, Jugdish, Mohammed, or Dre down at the Gov’ment office your $5000 to invest and watch over for you?

The idea of giving criminal, liberal government bureacrats [and their “celebrate diversity” minions] more billions of our hard earned dollars to misuse, squander, and steal is unacceptable.

The trust fund for Social Security will go broke in 2041 — a year earlier than previously estimated — the trustees reported Wednesday. Trustees also said that Medicare, the giant health care program for the elderly and disabled, faces insolvency in 2020.

“The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes.”—The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”

...not to mention the millions of mexican illegal aliens that’ll have their hands in the cookie jar.

“The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes.”—The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”

Would you give Shaquisha, Juanita, Jugdish, Mohammed, or Dre down at the Gov’ment office your $5000 to invest and watch over for you?

NO!

No matter the age or state of health, for a military man it is always glorious to tilt at windmills, rescue a fair Dulcinea and be a gallant knight in armor in a glorious cause.

Aaron, I think you’re crapping on this prematurely.  Touche on the interest, I should have addressed that, but former Treasury Sec. Paul O’Neil proposed a plan similar to this where the government would contribute $2,000 for each of the first 18 years of a child’s life.  Now I’m not sure we could go that far, but I’m willing to wager that the government could add to that initial $5,000 investment on a regular basis in such a way as to offset inflation and we’d still both a) give Americans a better return and b) spend less money than we’re spending on Social Security.

Dave, don’t think of this as additional spending.  Think of this as something to replace Social Security spending.  Something cheaper and less complex to administer.

Personally, I’d just as soon the government not tax us for our retirements, but if we’re going to have something like that we may as well do it in an efficient way that maximizes our benefits.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

When I read stuff like this and read the opinions of a few of the commenters I am amazed. How in the name of heavens can anyone take these ideas as valid or serious ? Do people have any idea of the greed and appetite the Washington bureaucracy has for your money, your freedom and your blind allegiance ?
A program like this would be so prone to manipulation and abuse it would bankrupt the country in a decade. It is a throw away idea to make Democrats seem somehow compassionate, WITH YOUR MONEY.
There are not enough building materials in America to fence out the millions of illegals trying to bear their childen in America . Automatic citizenship and $5000 in the bank. Whadda deal! Whadda country!
What a bunch of morons!

Wow, the second Say Anything post this week that’s advocating redistribution of wealth.  What’s up with that?

If you put $5k under your matteress 65 years ago, it’d only be worth $400 or so today given inflation.

It would still be worth $5000.

Media uncovers more Palin stories in one weekend than Obama stories in two years. Still no bias detected

Obama: more experienced than Bristol Palin

Wow, the second Say Anything post this week that’s advocating redistribution of wealth.  What’s up with that?
Dave on September 29, 2007 at 10:26 pm

What’s gotten into you Rob?

“I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time, so that when that young person turns 18 if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to make that downpayment on their first home,” Hillary said.

Empty, unrealistic, bullshit promises!!!! Like social security, it’ll just turn into another “income tax” and very little or none of the money will find it’s way into the bank accounts of the intended [deserving] recipients.

...and it’s marxist to boot!

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. Karl Marx

In Hillary’s health care proposal, she speaks of how health care is the right of every “American” — but she has a rather expansive definition of “American.”

In 2005, Hillary co-sponsored legislation in the United States Senate to offer free health insurance, under the State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to the children of illegal immigrants who have lived in the United States for five years.

So, those who have dodged the immigration cops for five years successfully would be rewarded not only with legal status and a path to citizenship, but with immediate free health care for their children.

[and health care is “not” a right]

When Democrats and liberals speak of the 50,000,000 uninsured Americans, more than one fifth of those are illegal immigrants.

Thus, about one in five of the beneficiaries of her program for universal health insurance are illegal aliens. (Illegal immigrants are a disproportionately large segment of the uninsured population because legal immigrants and citizens who live in poverty are eligible for Medicaid, but illegal immigrants are not.)

And...Hillary’s program, as she freely admits, would require health insurance as a pre-condition of employment. Not having health insurance would be a violation just as driving a car without automobile insurance is illegal.

Rob, are you proposing that we give $5000 to 10 million illegals?

Trying to avoid paying this Dem Jizah tax to illegals would be like trying to separate the tequila from the lime juice after the Margarita’s already been shaken.

“The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes.”—The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”

.... she made the suggestion during a forum hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus.

Trying to “purchase” Black votes!!!!!!!!

Hillary said “it would help people get back to the tradition of savings that she remembers as a child,”

Awh, shucks....how sweet!! Tadition she remembers???
This is disingenuous verbiage supplied to her [after polling about the black vote] by her six figure ad-man [handlers].

She argued that wealthy people [translated=white people] “get to have all kinds of tax incentives to save”

Divide and conquer!!!! Like the Breck boy’s “two Americas"…

the suggestion during a forum hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus.

“and the proposal was met with enthusiastic applause”

Enough of this pandering to blacks!!!!!

Since the passgae of the Civil Rights Acts and the advent of the Great Society in 1965, trillions [that’s thousands of millions] of dollars in transfer payments have been made to African-Americans in the form of welfare benefits and racial preferences (in contracts, job placements and educational admissions)-all under the rational of redressing historic racial grievances.

The source of these continued attempts at extortion is the Reparations movement where it is said that reparations are necessary to achieve a healing between blacks and other Americans.

Bullshit! If trillion-dollar restutions and a wholesale rewriting of American Law (in order to accomodate racial preferences) is not enough to achieve a “healing,” what is?

“The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes.”—The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”

I’ve read the proposal and I have a counter-proposal: how about parents take the money they would otherwise pay into this plan (along with the money they’d pay to have government bureaucrats manage it) and pay for their kids college educations themselves?

The best part about my proposal is that we’re already doing it.

The best part about my proposal is that we’re already doing it.
jvon on September 30, 2007 at 03:55 am

Right on, Jvon!!!

4,000 babies times $5,000 is er...uh...2 billion a year?

..and with a minimum 20% overhead [cost of doing business], the bureaucrats add [at a minimum] $40 million just to manage the accounts!!!

“The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes.”—The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”

I left off three zeros****** should have read 4,000,000 babies times $5000- that’s twenty billion in principal and 4 billion to administer-sheesh- so many zeros!!!

“The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes.”—The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”

So the minimum cost of doing business alone, for the first 4 million babies over 18 years at 4 billion a year, will be 72 billion dollars in administrative layouts.

Of course the “ineffectual” bumbling and dishonest administration of the program will reach inefficient critical mass within the first few years of operation and then we’ll have to start multiplying using exponents.

That’s $18,000 per baby....hmmm....$18,000 each to get them a $5,000 benefit...that’s about right for the guv’ment.

“The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes.”—The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”

It sounds like a good idea. Its not too different then what only one State in this country has. Alaska has the Alaska Permanent Fund which was created in 1976. Every year it pays out to every Alaska resident an annual dividend check. The Permanent Fund is currently valued at $40,000,000,000 and next week on October 3rd I along with every other Alaskan will have $1654 more in their bank accounts. Since 1982 the Alaska Permanent Fund has paid annual dividends. Here is the breakdown by year........
2007 $1654.00
2006 $1106.96
2005 $845.76
2004 $919.84
2003 $1107.56
2002 $1540.76
2001 $1850.28
2000 $1963.86
1999 $1769.84
1998 $1540.88
1997 $1296.54
1996 $1130.68
1995 $990.30
1994 $983.90
1993 $949.46
1992 $915.84
1991 $931.34
1990 $952.63
1989 $873.16
1988 $826.93
1987 $708.19
1986 $556.26
1985 $404.00
1984 $331.29
1983 $386.15
1982 $1000.00

There should be something along this line at a national level. How can childern learn about saving and investing unless they have a personal stake in it. This has worked for Alaska. Everyone up here has a personal stake in learing about the Permanent Fund and children from day 1 have some sort of savings provided their parrents dont spend it.

I think this is a great idea and one that should be seriously considered. If Alaska can set something of this nature up...and if Iraq can set up an “Oil Revenue Sharing Program” based on the Alaska Permanent Fund and Dividend program then we as a nation not only can do it for children of the future but I would submitt we have a responsibility to do it. Is it likely that those in the Lower 49 have the ability to have the common sence to do as we have done...I doubt it but anything is possible.

I forgot to add in my above post. Alaska has NO State income tax, No State sales taxes, and No State property taxes. The Alaska Permanent Fund is funded by a portion of the revenue generated by natural resources and market growth. This country has vast ammounts of natural resources that belong to the nation. There is no reason why a small portion of the revenue generated from the development of those resources cant be saved for future generations as we have done at the State level. Our success in our State Constitutionally protected Permanent Fund is what led Iraq to develope the same concept. The town I live in also has its own “Permanent Fund”. There are practical examples for this concept. Alaska is the best one that I can give.

A1, were the States and Federal Government to follow Alaska’s example I would not have any problem with this. They won’t. Not ever. Therefore it is a dead issue. This is yet another Marxist Societal Deconstruction ploy, and I have had all that shit I am willing to accept. Period.

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Alaska has so much money; it has no state income tax or sales tax.

Instead, it gives its citizens money from something called the Alaska Permanent Fund. ...

Shortly after oil from Alaska’s North Slope began flowing through the Trans-Alaskan pipeline, Huge revenues started flowing into the coffers of the state of Alaska.

And just as quickly, this Money flowed out of its coffers into the favorite projects of state politicians.

Over $900 million disappeared from oil revenues in the first year.

To protect oil revenues for the citizens of the state, a state constitutional amendment was passed in 1976.  It set up the Alaska Permanent Fund to receive and invest proceeds from the sale of Alaskan oil.

In 1980, the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation was established to manage the assets of the Alaska Permanent Fund and other state funds.
The Alaska Permanent Fund was set up with two goals:

•to set aside a share of oil revenues for the benefit of future generations of Alaskans after the depletion of the oil reserves, and

•to keep the oil revenues out of the hands of politicians, who could be counted on to rapidly spend it on wasteful government and extravagant capital expenditures.

The fund since then has paid a yearly dividend to all Alaskan residents. The dividends are managed by the Permanent Fund Dividend Division of the Alaska Department of Revenue.

Over the years, annual individual dividends have ranged from $300 to $2,000 and are currently running around $1,000. The fund balance is currently about $38 billion.

The Fat Finger

On a fateful day in July, 2006, a computer technician working on a disk drive at the Department of Revenue mistakenly deleted the oil fund database, including all of the currently outstanding applicant information.

This was not a big problem because the data also existed on a redundant backup disk.

However, under the pressure of the moment, the technician also managed to reformat the backup disk.
Not to despair.

Like all good data centers, this data was backed up on magnetic tape. The only data that would be lost would be those transactions entered since the last update.

The tapes were retrieved from storage. Only then did the magnitude of the disaster become apparent. The tapes were unreadable.

The triple redundancy that was built into the system was not enough.

Each level of redundancy had failed. 800,000 scanned images representing transactions over the last nine months were lost.

Over the next several days, employees of the Permanent Fund Dividend Division and the Department of Revenue, along with consultants from Microsoft and Dell, tried vainly to salvage the data.

The terrible truth finally had to be accepted. The last nine months of transaction history had been lost. This included 800,000 scanned images of paper applications mailed in or filled out over the counter and supporting documentation such as birth certificates and proofs of residence.

Fortunately, there was a fourth level of backup – the paper documents themselves, stored in over 300 cardboard boxes.

Each of the 800,000 documents had to be rescanned, sent through quality control, written to the database, and linked to the appropriate person’s account.

It took 70 people working nights and weekends almost two months to complete the recovery, but complete it they did.

Lessons Learned??????????????????????????????????????????

“The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes.”—The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”

How can childern learn about saving and investing unless they have a personal stake in it.

Have you learned anything about investing from that stupid letter Social Security sends you every year?

Touche’, Radish.

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

Wow, the second Say Anything post this week that’s advocating redistribution of wealth.  What’s up with that?

I’m advocating a “less bad” situation.  We’re already redistributing wealth with Social Security, and doing it in a terribly inefficient and expensive way.  Since nobody wants Social Security to go away, we may as well do it more efficiently.

Not that you’re bright enough to grasp this concept, Davey.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

What’s gotten into you Rob?

I second that.  Don’t turn all socialist on us, Rob.

Seductive idea but like so many it will only really work if it’s done by individuals under their own initiative.

If the politicians want us to put aside money for our kids, they can start by cutting our taxes.

We pay too many taxes.

http://www.atr.org/content/html/2002/nov/110101taxfacts.html

Nice blog, Kirsten. You may want some pics of the old East Brady Bridge, across the Allegheny River. From what you said in your post on bridges it was a Burr Truss Bridge. I’ll see if I can dig some up. You can find me here most days, there is a wood shed out back. I’m usually in it. (wink)

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OH! And you are correct!! We all pay way too much to government at all levels.

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The reason Hillary’s idea is so pathetic is that it’s a drain on taxpayers in 2018 so NO ONE GETS HURT NOW. Which means she might get some votes! It’s a BOND, 4 million people born in 2008, so 4 million IOUs put in a drawer in Treasury, saying IOU $5k plus interest to 2018.  The taxpayers THAT year have to cough it up.  So it’s an income transfer payment from the workers in 2018 to young adults to the tune of about $40b that year........just for being born in 2008.  Terrible idea, and there’s NO POINT in promising it now, except to BUY VOTES from young voting age idiots now who are thinking of having babies soon.  And maybe illegal aliens!  Yikes.  Please, everyone, stop Hillary from stealing money from everyone for several generations to come!

Rob:  the only way your $5k investment per person in 2008, going into the stock market could work, is if the Dems agreed to offset other spending cuts in ‘08-’09 by $5k x 4m newborns and use this cash with no net change in the federal budget (not raise taxes), and use the accumulation for each baby when they’re age 62 as an OFFSET to SS retirement benefits by the regular formula.  This would help solve the crisis for newborns, but not recipients in 2018 when cash flow turns negative.......but there’s not a snowball chance in hell that Hillary or other Dems would agree to tinker with the grand social security system, so any reasonable idea is DOA.

And who here believes that in about 18 years the rules will not have been amended to keep those with family incomes over (insert the then-accepted evil wealthy 1% amount here) from claiming their baby bonus?

Any talk of an actual investment account is dead in the water, because it would necessitate someone somewhere on Wall Street perhaps making a little money, and the Democrats will NEVER permit that form a government program, not even if the plan will make us all billionaires. (Heck, especially then).

Plus, it would necessitate people participating somehow in the scary financial markets, where, as any Democrat-voter will tell you, they will naturally gamble away all of their money.

Stupid idea.  Currency is only a proxy for actual capital goods.  Printing up $5000 per child will not increase the capital goods in the country and will therefore not actually result in the imagined investment upon which these children will retire on.  All it will do is cause inflation and transfer wealth from those who have earned it to those who haven’t.  Why not just let every person in the US counterfeit $890,854.61 when they reach retirement age.  Same effect.

What do you know, an idea from Hillary that makes sense on the surface. The devil is in the details though.

Again,"California healh insurance” is a spambot.

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