Stimulating Dead People: It's Funny, but it Smells

More reports coming in that dead people are receiving the $250 Social Security stimulus checks.

Antoniette Santopadre of Valley Stream was expecting a $250 stimulus check. But when her son finally opened it, they saw that the check was made out to her father, Romolo Romonini, who died in Italy 34 years ago. He'd been a U.S. citizen when he left for Italy in 1933, but only returned to the United States for a seven-month visit in 1969.

Of course it's funny, in the glorification of incompetence sort of way that Americans are accustomed to laughing at their federal government, but there's also something this time that doesn't seem quite right.

What database did the Social Security system link into in order to send out these checks? This is their excuse:

The Social Security Administration, which sent out 52 million checks, says that some of those checks mistakenly went to dead people because the agency had no record of their death. That amounts to between 8,000 and 10,000 checks for millions of dollars.

That's up to $2.5 million, to be specific. Doesn't it also raise the question, why this time? Why isn't the Social Security administration sending out regular checks to these same dead people if they have no record of their death?

It doesn't wash. The mystery deepens:

The feds blame a rushed schedule, because all the checks have to be cut by June. The strange thing is, some of the checks were made out to people -- like Romonini -- who were never even part of the Social Security system.

Never a part of the Social Security system?

Again, I must ask, what freakin' database is being tapped here? What extra names were pooled into the system, and are there more checks going to places we don't know about ... for a reason?

Someone with investigative powers ought to be asking the same questions and demanding some answers.

Obama & Co. Try to One-Up Magical Trevor

The bad news on Social Security/Medicare was released yesterday. That should tell you something.

First, was there anyone with half a brain left that didn't know the news would be bad? Except for the 1930s and '40s, when the program was new, the outlook for Social Security has been unremittingly bleak, but no one did anything about it because it was FDR's sacred cow. (In truth it was more like Magical Trevor's cow, but that's another story.)

Second, if the Obama administration doesn't wait until Friday to release this report, then you know that it's part of the news they want you to see. All truly bad, embarrassing news is released on Friday or even Saturday when no one is paying attention. If they want you to notice this report, it's because they are using it to score political points, to advance an agenda. So, therefore, you must ask yourself ...

... What is the agenda?

Health care.

Forget the obvious horse manure about how the "recession" and "falling tax revenues" are killing Social Security and Medicare. That's the administration spin, via Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Treasury's Tiny Tax Cheat Tim. You'll find it admirably spun, in lap-dog fashion, by Reuters today.

You want the truth? Can you handle the truth?

Social Security and Medicare are zombie programs, living off of today's tax receipts. Medicare is already upside down, meaning it pays out more than it takes in. Social Security revues are, for the moment, adequate to handle expenses notwithstanding the economy and unemployment. What is not happening, and what has never happened, is that there is a Social Security Trust Fund where the government has been storing up all those billions of dollars of excess contributions over the decades.

The money was put into Treasury bills. For us simpletons, that means the government spent the money!

The T-bills are paper. IOUs.

So when Tiny Tim says that the "liquidation of Social Security assets" will begin sooner than expected, in 2016, seven years from now, he's a lying bastard. There are no assets to liquidate, unless he's referring to the IOUs which are not assets, but government liabilities. This lie is bad enough, but the agenda requires more!

New HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, recently of Kansas where she raked in campaign cash from Tiller the Killer, declared that she and President Obama can save Social Security and Medicare.

"The only way to truly slow Medicare spending is to slow overall health-care spending through comprehensive and carefully crafted legislation," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, another trustee. "This report makes it clear. Reform can't wait."

Backers of the health overhaul effort agreed.

"We cannot solve the problems in Medicare without addressing the crisis that plagues our entire health-care system," said John Rother, the executive vice president of AARP, an influential group that represents older Americans.

Do you see the agenda? Now understand the lie:

Between Social Security and Medicare, there are unfunded liabilities -- projected future debts -- of over $90 trillion. Not billion. Trillion.

Yesterday we were told that the Obamatrons could squeeze $2 trillion in health care savings over a 10-year period by implementing such measures as the use of health information technology, care coordination, disease management, and “evidence based” medicine (whatever that means). All we have to do is "trust" them by rolling over for universal health care, which we are told, will require more taxes and more control. Also certain limitations on the types of health care available to the infirm and elderly.

That $2 trillion is a long way from $90 trillion.

According to the Heritage Foundation,

Spending on Social Security and Medicare already totals more than $1 trillion annually, and accounts for more than one-third of the federal budget. Recession or no recession, entitlement spending is on track to double by 2050 and tax rates for all Americans would have to double if the programs are not fundamentally reformed.

To his credit, George W. Bush tried to reform Social Security during his presidency. The Democrats said no way, and he gave up trying.

Now the Democrats are saying, give us total control of the health care industry and we'll solve all of Social Security and Medicare's problems.

They know this is impossible, but they think we are stupid and desperate. And gullible.

Please prove them wrong.

The Problem With Ponzis

By Benedictus

While Chapter One of the Bernie Madoff [rhymes with Made Off ... with your money] scandal wraps up, with what should be multiple life sentences, one cannot help but ponder a plethora of teachable moments.

On the one hand, we can explore the perverse psychology of an individual so cunning yet so morally bankrupt that he was able to literally bankrupt hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals … of whom many were his friends. And, while it is tempting to preach on the evils of greed in a country plagued by Wall Street fat cats, self-indulgent aristocrats and unapologetic CO2 emitters [insert sardonic tone here], I cannot help but feel that the market on this train of thought has already been cornered.

Not to say that I condone greed and fraud on a $65 billion dollar scale, yet I get tired of hearing pundits approach this five-month-old story repeatedly with the same angle. To put it bluntly, we get it: Madoff was a twisted crook who among other things deserves to spend the rest of what's left of his natural life in a cell illuminated with Al Gore’s twisted light bulbs, and may the Lord have mercy on his soul.

Yet, on the other hand, we can take a path far less traveled by (at least by those in the mainstream media) and consider the moral ramifications of Madoff’s actions, as opposed to the intentions behind them. Many have noted that, in the traditional liberal mindset, actions in and of themselves have no moral bearing; rather, the intentions behind them determine whether they are commendable or reprehensible. I would simplify this concept by using the terms right and wrong, yet most liberals would argue that such language is passé due to its implied objectivity. In the enlightened progressive mindset, morality is based on consensus rather than consistent value-based judgments.

At the risk of sounding sympathetic to Madoff, one could argue that he had high aspirations for his clientele and had little reason to believe that he was putting them in serious financial risk. Consider Madoff’s political history: as a high-profile Democrat who has spent large sums of money on congressional campaigns through several decades, one can reasonably conclude that he believes in traditional liberal economic philosophy (which, simply put, states that if something works for now, or at least appears to, don’t jinx it by thinking about the future).

If such is the case, then Madoff was merely a proud part of the coalition that has gambled, politically and economically, on the continual operation of Social Security. It is not a mental stretch to propose that Madoff had no reason to doubt the validity of his own modus operandi. After all, it is believed that Madoff had persisted in this activity for almost 50 years, which far exceeds any of his predecessors in crime, including Charles Ponzi himself.

However, in spite of his scheme’s complexity, it would seem that Madoff did not take the Ponzi hubris into consideration. Mainly, if the funds withdrawn at a given moment greatly exceed those deposited, there will not be enough money to satisfy investors’ demands.

While I am certainly not the first to note the parallels between Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and Social Security, it is mind-boggling to consider that the U.S. government perpetuates, through the legal coercion of force, an endeavor that is highly illegal for private citizens. The difference is that the government takes it from your paycheck before you ever see the money. Madoff's "investors" voluntarily signed up.

The untimely and inevitable collapse of Madoff’s system should serve as a lesson to us all, perhaps even a Divinely sent foreshadowing, or warning, of Ponzi collapses yet to come. But, as usual, the people in charge aren’t paying attention or even slightly interested in learning lessons. It saddens me to note that most Americans haven’t been able to connect the dots in the face of this glaring paradox: Social Security cannot succeed unless population continues to grow. If population slows, and the ratio between recipients and donors begins to invert itself, the program is doomed to collapse.

Conservative economist Walter Williams once noted that "Social Security is unsustainable because it is not meeting the first order condition of a Ponzi scheme, namely expanding the pool of suckers.” A few days ago, I had a discussion with a friend of mine who is an accountant and, incidentally, proudly displays his Obama ‘08 refrigerator magnet. He stated that Madoff “had to know” that the scheme would eventually fail, yet he was involved so deeply that it was impossible to stop the charade ahead of its collapse.

Perhaps we, too, are so committed to the ongoing fraud of Social Security that we cannot escape the oncoming collapse. Indeed, Social Security has made suckers of us all.

Once upon a time, using traditional population growth models, it was argued that the pool of donors would increase with each new generation of Americans. But to succeed, the scheme would require that the rate of births should always increase geometrically while the rate of deaths should only increase arithmetically. Of course, many advocates of social insurance refuse to acknowledge that the ratio between the younger and older population has inverted over the last several decades. Part of this is good, as improvements in technology and health care has increased the average lifespan. Much of this is tragic, as more than 50 million Americans have perished since the legalization of abortion in 1973. Fifty million is a daunting figure, considering that it exceeds the population of our largest state.

While there are other factors to consider regarding our reproductive slowdown, (now below replacement level without the impact of immigration), such as the ongoing decay of the nuclear family in American culture, it is extremely negligent to ignore that much of America’s greatest resource – its people – has been flushed down the drain. God's word tells us this is evil. His faithful have told us this is evil, and both contend there is a price for our selfishness and greed, in this world and the next.

For all this, I pray that God has mercy on all of our souls.

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[EDITOR'S NOTE: Benedictus is joining the Oklahomily staff as a regular contributor, and Anthony and I are glad to have him along. As they say, "Misery loves company." Seriously, Benedictus brings another voice of what we hope is reason, freedom and faith to our contributions to the civic discourse.]