Social Security not a cause of, and not a solution to, national debt
It’s not, or at least it shouldn’t be, about Social Security.
Social Security is neither the cause of nor the solution to our nation’s financial problems.
Nonetheless, a bipartisan presidential commission looking for ways to reduce our national debt is making noises about dragging Social Security into the squabble. The Republican co-chair of the commission, former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, fed that impression in an email last month when he referred to Social Security as “a milk cow with 310 million tits.” Simpson also argued in that email that Social Security is in trouble unless it can be made sustainable and solvent over the long term.
Fortunately, that is an exaggeration of the program’s condition. The facts are as follows:
1.) With no changes in taxes or benefits, Social Security can continue to pay 100 percent of all promised benefits between now and 2036. It can do so by tapping a $2.5 trillion trust fund created precisely to cover the retirement years of the Baby Boom generation.
2.) Beginning in 2037, and for every year thereafter, Social Security would be able to pay recipients only 76 percent of promised benefits.
3.) That post-2037 gap could be closed with relatively minor fixes. For example, raising combined SSI payroll taxes from 12.4 to 14.4 percent would cover the bill entirely. A combination of a slight payroll tax increase, applying the tax to earned income above the current tax ceiling of $106,000 and adjusting scheduled cost-of-living increases could also eliminate the gap relatively painlessly.
If those are the kind of fixes that Simpson envisions — if his goal is to fix Social Security solely for the purpose of fixing Social Security — then that’s a discussion worth having.
However, if Simpson and others are after larger game — if they hope to tap the $2.5 trillion owed to Social Security as a way to address the nation’s larger fiscal problems, for example — they’re going to have an all-out fight on their hands.
Take a look at the chart above, from Stephen Goss, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration. It documents, as a percentage of GDP, the amount of money collected each year in Social Security taxes above and beyond what Social Security paid out that year.
Note the year 1983. That year, a commission appointed by President Ronald Reagan recommended significant increases in Social Security payroll taxes in order to make the program actuarially sound. The idea, embraced by Congress, was that the additional revenue would be used to build a surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund so that when the Baby Boom generation began to reach retirement age, the money would be there.
Today, that surplus would amount to $2.5 trillion. But notice that word “would.” For more than 25 years, while working people were told that they were paying extra taxes to ensure their retirement security, that surplus tax revenue was actually being siphoned off to run general government operations. In effect, higher Social Security taxes were being used to offset revenue that had been lost to the government when Reagan cut income and corporate taxes, disguising the true fiscal impact of those cuts.
Today, technically, a surplus of $2.5 trillion now sits in the trust fund, ready to be used for Social Security. In reality, the trust fund contains government IOUs that taxpayers today and tomorrow will have to redeem, probably through payeing higher taxes. So here’s the question now before the body politic:
Will taxpayers — and politicians — honor the $2.5 trillion debt that is owed to Social Security and those who paid into it? Or, will they breach that trust by claiming that the debt is too big to be repaid in its entirety, and that benefit cuts will be required?
There’s no question that the nation’s longterm financial crisis is serious. Eventually, it will have to be addressed both through cuts in spending — including entitlements — and through tax increases. However, as long as it is made actuarially sound, Social Security ought to be exempt because it has been and continues to be a self-funding program, requiring no input from the general treasury other than repayment of what the treasury has borrowed.
To repeat, Social Security is not to blame for our financial problems. And it should not be treated as a piggy bank to be raided and not repaid, at the expense of those who count upon it.
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670 comments Add your comment
Matti
September 7th, 2010
8:54 pm
Hey B,
P.S., not that it’s any of my business, but “starting a family” is not going to fill that hole. Based on my observations, you’ll never bend enough to understand children… (who are almost exactly like people, only they’re smaller, they smell funny, and they’re really needy.) But that “almost” means you cannot mislead and betray them (like regular people do to each other every day) without doing serious damage. Break the cycle, man! Rescue bunnies, repentant strippers, whatever cute & fuzzy things trip your trolley, but…. the Daddy thing isn’t for everybody (or you) — and that’s OK! (Advice worth exactly what you paid for it.)
Bruno
September 7th, 2010
8:54 pm
Hey, Matti. Columbus, GA. I’ve always said, next time I move, it will be further south.
I know our hurts come from different places (kind of), but we’ll always have that understanding. Which is why I can never stay mad at you.
Bruno
September 7th, 2010
8:56 pm
Matti @ 8:54–I know you’re right. Just trying to talk myself into it. No reason to keep passing the hurt on.
Matti
September 7th, 2010
8:56 pm
Columbus GA? Lawdamercy! Lotta things to rescue there. LOTS!
josef nix
September 7th, 2010
8:59 pm
BRUNO
I’ll disagree…kids, wherever the come from, are a blessing and we wouldn’t take anything for the stork’s wrong address!!
Matti
September 7th, 2010
9:00 pm
Bruno,
This is an oft-covered song, but I like this version. Hope you feel it too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpRA3HQe1fE
OK, enough with the overtime already. Time to shut down and take the pupster out for a trot!
josef nix
September 7th, 2010
9:01 pm
Time to check out for a while…take care all…g’night and G-d bless….
Bruno
September 7th, 2010
9:02 pm
Some Scorpions for you, beautiful:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w17×5hNnqVY
hind tit
September 7th, 2010
9:05 pm
i wonder if there is a record kept of the people that’s died or killed before they reach the age to draw and the amount of money paid in by these people plus interest. i say the amount would be staggering and shocking to the people of this country. you can look at it any way you want to it and it still amounts to flatass stealing. this money belongs to the families of the people who died. can i get an amen on that.
getalife
September 7th, 2010
9:11 pm
“We are proceeding with the community center, Cordoba House. More important, we are doing so with the support of the downtown community, government at all levels and leaders from across the religious spectrum, who will be our partners. I am convinced that it is the right thing to do for many reasons. ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/opinion/08mosque.html?_r=1&hp
Hillbilly Deluxe
September 7th, 2010
9:14 pm
hind tit
My Grandpa died in the 1940’s before he’d worked long enough under the system to qualify. My Grandma, left a widow with 5 kids, never got a dime.
@@
September 7th, 2010
9:15 pm
A family trait, Bruno?
Peddling the ol’ “It’s not you, it’s me”, eh?
Puhleeze! Maybe you should try dating an intelligent woman. A woman who wouldn’t let you “get away” with your excuses/baggage in tow.
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”–Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
I hope you’ll be very happy in Columbus. Not a fan, but to each his own.
Bruno
September 7th, 2010
9:22 pm
HD–Thanks for the Waylon tune. Gonna pack it in early tonight.
Maybe you should try dating an intelligent woman.
An intelligent woman would know to stay away from me. It’s not worth the trouble. Trust me.
Soothsayer
September 7th, 2010
9:24 pm
Obama and the Democrats will get slaughtered in November. This will happen not so much because of the socialist crimes they are alleged by the right to have committed – which are of course utter nonsense – but simply because of what they have not done, which is to solve the country’s problems. Yet, because of the socialist, big-spending, freedom-crushing narrative that regressives have successfully fomented and that the administration (including – Hello! – paging COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR DAN PFEIFFER!!) has been completely inept about countering, and because the other post-election option of actually getting it right would appear to be (and would be vociferously made to appear to be, by Republicans) an act of spiteful spitting in the public’s eye, the administration will have no option after the election but to tack yet further to the right in the ensuing two years.
That will be disastrous for Obama, for Democrats and for the country. (I could care less about the first two, who deserve it, and frankly I’m leaning that same way for number three on the list as well.) Like Clinton before him, Obama will try to placate voters and Republican monsters with their sponsoring oligarchy by moving to the right. Of course, there is absolutely nothing there except tax cuts for the wealthy (he is already proposing tax cuts for the bottom 98 percent). The Republicans have no other solutions for the economy (or anything else, for that matter), though these dam-busting boondoggles for the fiscally obese are, of course, no solution either. And, like Clinton before him, Obama will be relentlessly hounded by congressional investigations into every manner of bogus scandal that the fevered minds of the closeted perverts on the right can dream up to keep the administration reeling.
I sincerely hope that the Republicans gain control of both the House and Senate in 2010 and the Presidency in 2012. Then, it will be up to them to solve our Country’s problems Good luck! Then their ineptitude will be apparent for all the world to see just like when the Chimpster was president.
Doggone/GA
September 7th, 2010
9:45 pm
“Then, it will be up to them to solve our Country’s problems Good luck! Then their ineptitude will be apparent for all the world to see just like when the Chimpster was president.”
Except the greatest likelyhood is that they won’t. They’ll do what they’ve done this time…kick the can down the road, and then castigate the D’s for not doing the solving.
Paulo977
September 7th, 2010
9:45 pm
Josef .. just p***** me off how teachers keep trying to prepare kids for the next grade instead of dealing with what they can accomplish at their developmental stage!!
RW-(the original)
September 7th, 2010
10:13 pm
Bruno,
Just a little friendly advice, but please try to be sure no prospective employer ever gets wind of your blogging life. The mood swings alone would have them sending you on your way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Cubs have to have added 50 years to their bad karma by pawning Derrek Lee off on the Braves. The D-Lee curse until something better comes along.
Sorry HD
Hillbilly Deluxe
September 7th, 2010
10:15 pm
RW
D Lee was a fine player, key word, was. Still a good fielder, though.
clanmack
September 7th, 2010
10:24 pm
Any of you complaining about how much of your money put into SS (that you won’t get back) checked the forms you get in the mail every quarter? It lists your contributions every year, the totals and how much you are likely to get monthly upon retirement. Considering a 10-20 year retirement, you get a lot more back than you put in.
RW-(the original)
September 7th, 2010
10:32 pm
Hillbilly D,
He can still field and he’s a class guy, but I felt the need to vent. It’s time to toss Freddie Freeman in there though and let him start living his future.
Hillbilly Deluxe
September 7th, 2010
10:37 pm
RW
Yeah, they took a gamble and doesn’t look like it’s going to pay off. Freeman looks like he has the tools but time will tell.
I hope the Cubs can unload Ramirez, Zambrano and Soriano this winter.
RW-(the original)
September 7th, 2010
11:00 pm
Congrats to Trevor Hoffman on 600 saves.
fitzgerald
September 7th, 2010
11:20 pm
Am I the last one on this blog? Could be. I worked for a city that opted out of social security in 1983. Thanks goodness for that and I retired in 2008 with 30 years of service for that city. I also had the required 40 quarters before 1983. What am I saying? My retirement check is far greater than it could ever be if the city I worked for had stayed with social security. I still received a small social security amount, but it is drastically reduced because of my main retirement check.
TnGelding
September 7th, 2010
11:21 pm
Speaking of Social Security, did you notice that Nathan Deal and his wife had $33k in taxable SS benefits while he was drawing his pay in Congress? Have they no shame? I’d sure like to see his itemized deductions. He must have a magician for his tax accountant. I’ll vote for Roy based on his investment income alone.
Fang1944
September 7th, 2010
11:25 pm
Scout
September 7th, 2010
11:25 am
#1) Snopes is not the final word on anything as they have been wrong before.
#2) Throw out the false and opine about the truth.
#3) The last thing libs. should be talking about is truth.
————-
Everything in the Snopes article can be found on the SSA’s website: same story, same debunking.
Allen W. Smith, Ph.D.
September 8th, 2010
12:18 am
An Open Letter to Jay Bookman—Part I
Dear Jay Bookman,
I want to thank you so much for reporting the truth about the Social Security trust fund. I first discovered the Social Security scam more than ten years ago while doing research for my first Social Security book, “The Alleged Budget Surplus, Social Security, and Voodoo Economics.” I was outraged, and I wanted to tell the whole world so they would be outraged too, but nobody wanted to listen.
On September 27, 2000 I appeared on CNN to discuss the newly published book. I tried my best to convince anchor Lou Waters that the government was routinely spending Social Security money for non-Social Security purposes. Waters would not take me seriously, and he finally asked me, “Are you a voice crying in the wilderness?” As it turned out I was a voice crying in the wilderness in 2000, and I remained such a voice for an entire decade despite my relentless campaign throughout the decade to alert the public to what I consider to be the greatest fraud ever perpetrated against the American people by their government.
I thought I was going to get the message out in 2004, when my second book, “The Looting of Social Security,” was released by a New York publisher. After favorable reviews by the Boston Globe and the American Library Association’s Booklist, the Washington Times carried a lengthy article denouncing both me and the book. The article appeared to be a red flag to the conservative community that a book was about to come out that was not in the best interest of the conservative movement. A few weeks later, someone, or some group, managed to get the book pulled from the market. It disappeared from bookstores, nationwide, and was listed as “unavailable” by Amazon.com at a time when I knew that thousands of copies were setting in a warehouse. I tried to get the rights to the book back so that I could publish it elsewhere, but the publisher refused. So, for the next three years, a book that would have clearly exposed the Social Security scam was not available to the public. When I finally regained the rights to the book, I began work on “THE BIG LIE: How Our Government Hoodwinked the Public, Emptied the Social Security Trust Fund, and caused The Great Economic Collapse.” In order to avoid the same thing happening to this book as happened to the previous book, I chose to self publish it under my own imprint of Ironwood Publications so that I could make sure that it would remain available to the public.
I have experienced much organized resistance to my attempt to expose the Social Security scam. Journalists learned a costly lesson about reporting stories that the government did not want reported when Dan Rather was fired for antagonizing the White House. A few months ago, I was told by a lawyer, who once worked for the New York Federal Reserve Bank, that Tim Geithner, and Ben Bernanke would not want to see the message of my book go public, and he suggested that it would be difficult for me to get the cooperation of the mainstream media for that reason alone. He may have been correct. I discovered the following explosive statement in the 2009 Summary to the Social Security Trustees Report when the report first came out about 15 months ago.
“Neither the redemption of trust fund bonds, nor interest paid on those bonds, provides any new net income to the Treasury, which must finance redemptions and interest payments through some combination of increased taxation, reductions in other government spending, or additional borrowing from the public.”
As soon as I found this single-sentence statement, I saw it as the “smoking gun” that I had been seeking for so long. It is a clear admission by the Social Security trustees that neither the interest nor the actual redemption of the so-called “Social Security trust-fund bonds” yield any new income to the Treasury. Over the past 15 months, I have done everything possible to publicize that statement because I suspected that it that it would be deleted from the 2010 report. That is exactly what happened! But I had managed to get the statement into the hands of Allan Sloan in time for him to make it public in his August 10 Washington Post column. An excerpt from that column is reproduced below.
“Let me show you in two different ways how useless the fund is. The first is a quote from the introduction to the 2009 Social Security trustees report, the second is the graphic by my Fortune colleague Robert Dominguez that accompanies this article.
Allen Smith, economics professor emeritus at Eastern Illinois University and author of “The Big Lie: How Our Government Hoodwinked the Public, Emptied the S.S. Trust Fund, and caused The Great Economic Collapse,” spotted the 2009 quote, and it is telling.
It says: , “Neither the redemption of trust fund bonds, nor interest paid on those bonds, provides any new net income to the Treasury, which must finance redemptions and interest payments through some combination of increased taxation, reductions in other government spending, or additional borrowing from the public.”
In other words, the trust fund is of no economic value.
This sentence wasn’t in the 2010 introduction, released last week. Treasury says that it stands by the statement but that the Social Security trustees decided not to include it this year because it reiterates the obvious.”
(to be continued)
Allen W. Smith, Ph.D.
September 8th, 2010
12:19 am
An Open Letter to Jay Bookman—Part II
Allan Sloan’s courage in telling the truth about the trust fund opened the door, and the long-kept, dirty secret finally became public. I had hoped that other journalists would follow Allan’s lead, and that seems to be happening. On August 19, Eric Schurenberg from CBS Money Watch wrote,
“Doesn’t the Social Security trust fund cover that? No, silly. All those years of surplus in Social Security were recorded in a book entry dubbed the “trust fund, but the non-marketable special Treasury bonds that make up the fund don’t represent any assets that can be cashed in to pay benefits.”
Yesterday, on September 6, Terry Savage of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, a column entitled, “Your payroll taxes go into a bottomless hole.” She wrote,
“So where did all that FICA money go? Down the drain of federal spending on everything. It’s certainly not sitting in an account waiting to pay your retirement benefits.”
Finally, today, you join the growing group of journalists who are apparently concluding that the American people have a right to know that their Social Security contributions are being looted and used to pay for other things. You wrote, “For more than 25 years, while working people were told that they were paying extra taxes to ensure their retirement security, that surplus tax revenue was actually being siphoned off to run general government operations…In reality, the trust fund contains government IOUs that taxpayer today and tomorrow will have to redeem probably through paying higher taxes”
By my count, you are the fourth major journalist to verify that the trust fund contains no real assets that can be used to pay future benefits. I thank you, and I thank Allan Sloan, Eric Schurenberg and Terry Savage for being pioneers in opening up the media gates so that the big, dark secret that our government has kept from us for the past 25 years, will finally become pubic knowledge. It strikes me that a good name for what has taken place might be “THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY.”
I would like to send you a complimentary copy of my book, “THE BIG LIE,” if you will email me your mailing address. Also, now that you have publicly stated what most journalist should have been reporting for the past decade, I hope that you will continue to write about this issue so that the deficit commission in not able to sweep the evidence of the crime under the rug.
Allen W. Smith, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics, Emeritus
Eastern Illinois University
Website: http://www.thebiglie.net
Email: ironwoodas@aol.com
Phone: 1-800-840-6812
I Report :-) You Whine :-( mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
September 8th, 2010
5:43 am
Alaska’s Murkowski says she’s no quitter -Urinal
We know, she got beat like a dog, just sayin…
I Report :-) You Whine :-( mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
September 8th, 2010
5:47 am
TEHRAN, Iran — The international crossfire over Iran’s stoning sentence for a woman convicted of adultery intensified Tuesday with a top European Union official calling it “barbaric” and an Iranian spokesman saying it’s about punishing a criminal and not a human rights issue. -Urinal
Aahhh, the AJC, putting scare quotes around the word “barbaric” as though being buried up to your neck in the sand and having a bunch of 7th century savages pummel you with rocks is not barbaric, and of course, giving the savages a platform from which to defend this depravity.
Almost as though they speak for them.
sick
I Report :-) You Whine :-( mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
September 8th, 2010
5:51 am
Community Bank got lax on its lending policy, report says-Urinal
The dummycrats tell you to lend money to the deadbeats or else, the deadbeat doesn’t pay back the money, duh, you go out of business and the dummycrats blame you for the failure.
Fascism?
Real Scooter
September 8th, 2010
6:26 am
Allen W. Smith, Ph.D.
September 8th, 2010
12:18 am
Thanks for this post Doc!
And,thanks for this thread Jay! This is the most informative and educational thread I have ever seen here.
Real Scooter
September 8th, 2010
6:29 am
Good morn to y’all.
larry
September 8th, 2010
6:35 am
Parnell’s legal limbo comes amid a congressional debate over a bill that would give the FDA more power and more money to inspect food manufacturers, trace illnesses back to their source and take action against unscrupulous food manufacturers. The House passed the bill last year, but the legislation has stalled in the Senate and few measures are expected to be signed into law before the November elections.
And the big suprise is………………………………………
Those darn regulations getting into businesses way.
USinUK
September 8th, 2010
6:38 am
g’morning Scooter – where ya been?
USinUK
September 8th, 2010
6:40 am
whiner – aw, your asininity always helps me start my day with a smile.
encouraging banks to broaden their lending does NOT mean that they shouldn’t verify income, require proof of past taxes, etc.
nice try. but, as usual, FLAIL.
USinUK
September 8th, 2010
6:54 am
ah, yes … the classy GOP strikes again
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/07/nrcc-press-aide-tweets-staffers-home-addresses_n_708379.html
buck@gon
September 8th, 2010
7:00 am
Now for something from the scare-mongering corps of the media-wing of the Obama administration.
Mr. Bookman, you do your job well. We need to get more readers, and we need to hone our message. Studies show that polls show that our message is not getting through and that more and more people don’t believe us. To this end, we need to accomplish two objectives: 1) we need to call all conservatives racists and divide the country. (Ms. Tucker is already doing this quite well). 2) we need to find all the dirt we can on republicans. Your oblique reference to Alan Simpson qua Republican is fine, but we need hard dirt here, Jay. Rocky dirt even. Let’s go out there and get inspired troops! Less than two months to election day.
We’re counting on YOU!
Del
September 8th, 2010
7:03 am
Dr. Smith hasn’t provided any revelation regarding Social Security. Raiding the trust was initiated by LBJ and the Democrats. The Republicans have joined in as well. Government IOU’s given the deficit that Obama now continues to grow are just worthless paper.
I Report :-) You Whine :-( mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
September 8th, 2010
7:08 am
In one of the first book-length scholarly studies of ACORN, Organizing Urban America, Rutgers University political scientist Heidi Swarts describes this group, so dear to Barack Obama, as “oppositional outlaws.” Swarts, a strong supporter of ACORN, has no qualms about stating that its members think of themselves as “militants unafraid to confront the powers that be.” “This identity as a uniquely militant organization,” says Swarts, “is reinforced by contentious action.” ACORN protesters will break into private offices, show up at a banker’s home to intimidate his family, or pour protesters into bank lobbies to scare away customers, all in an effort to force a lowering of credit standards for poor and minority customers. According to Swarts, long-term ACORN organizers “tend to see the organization as a solitary vanguard of principled leftists…the only truly radical community organization.”
Wear your ignorance proudly, UStink, just sayin…
Real Scooter
September 8th, 2010
7:19 am
Hey USinUK! I’ve been working again. Whew!
I have a friend that was lucky to win the bid on a large construction job. He couldn’t find anyone he trusted to run the job so called and asked for my help.The job is complete and I’m back on “easy street” thank goodness!
B.Madoff Inmate 4333005-2
September 8th, 2010
7:22 am
Of course you will have to raise taxes and cut benefits.
I didn’t get this option. It was against the law for me to extort money at the end of a gun.
Not so the state.
Alas, If I had only gotten into politics.
jt
September 8th, 2010
7:28 am
“Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) — An Iraqi soldier opened fire Tuesday on a group of U.S. soldiers in northern Iraq, killing two and wounding nine others, the U.S. military and the Iraqi military said.
They are the first American deaths in Iraq since the U.S. combat mission officially ended last week.”
F you Obama. And every other slime-ball politician that tried to score political points out of some “combat-troop” withdrawel. AND every officer that went along with this farce.
USinUK
September 8th, 2010
7:34 am
whiner – “Wear your ignorance proudly, UStink, just sayin”
no one … and I do mean NO ONE … wears it in bright, spangly neon like you do, whiner. you do yourself proud every single day.
expanding loans does NOT mean dropping or ignoring prudential requirements (verifying employment / income, copies of past tax payments, credit checks on mortgage / rent history).
quoting an NR article criticizing ACORN? that carries about as much credence as me quoting Daily Kos criticizing Cheney.
Normal
September 8th, 2010
7:35 am
Great Wednesday morning to all y’all…especially to you Scooter, welcome back!
…and keep the Government out of my Social Security! Heh, heh…
USinUK
September 8th, 2010
7:35 am
Scooter – well done, you!! did you enjoy the project? what’s next on the horizon??
USinUK
September 8th, 2010
7:37 am
hey Normal!! so??? did you get yourself a bike? was it a bike from Orange County Choppers?
stands for decibels
September 8th, 2010
7:42 am
book-length scholarly studies
oooh! Andy! does it gots footnotes like Ann Coulter’s scholarly studeez?
Normal
September 8th, 2010
7:44 am
USinUK, Yes I did…
Wish I could send a picture…slim frame, cool lines…crankin’ style…and the bike doesn’t look bad bad either…
stands for decibels
September 8th, 2010
7:45 am
Everything in the Snopes article can be found on the SSA’s website: same story, same debunking.
Yebbut the SSA is run by librulz. Scout has an unsourced email that proves it.
Bob
September 8th, 2010
7:47 am
Social Security is a pathetic plan. The problem is with democrats because they could care less about ownership or return. Dems like to scare old people so they can hold onto power. It does not surprise me that a party led by Pelosi cannot let people have a choice to participate.
USinUK
September 8th, 2010
7:47 am
One more time, for the cheap seats (or the terminally stupid, like whiner)
A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis took a look at data on subprime — referred to as “high-priced” — loan originations and performance at CRA-regulated lenders and their affiliates and institutions not covered by the law. Here’s one of the central findings:
In total, of all the higher-priced loans, only 6 percent were extended by CRA-regulated lenders (and their affiliates) to either lower-income borrowers or neighborhoods in the lenders’ CRA assessment areas, which are the local geographies that are the primary focus for CRA evaluation purposes. The small share of subprime lending in 2005 and 2006 that can be linked to the CRA suggests it is very unlikely the CRA could have played a substantial role in the subprime crisis.
This report doesn’t represent the first time the Fed has tried to bat down the notion that the CRA played an important role in the subprime mess. Late last year, then Fed Governor Randall Kroszner, a University of Chicago economist and former Bush administration official, echoed the findings of the report saying only about 6% of all subprime mortgages to low-income households trace back to banks that had to meet CRA standards. (Although this Investor’s Business Daily editorial is skeptical.)
http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2009/05/29/did-the-cra-cause-mortgage-market-crisis-nope-says-fed-report/
so, no, whiner … it wasn’t ACORN and it wasn’t CRA …
but, you just keep on keepin on with the stupid and I’ll keep batting it down …
Mick
September 8th, 2010
7:47 am
Good afternoon usinuk – another day, another mosque issue – how are they taking this on your side of the pond?
Normal
September 8th, 2010
7:48 am
By the way…today, 1974…Ford pardons Nixon…feel better Andy?
USinUK
September 8th, 2010
7:50 am
Mick – um … how are they taking what?
Normal – get OUT!! you got a chopper??? dude, your grand-munchkins are going to think you’re the coolest grandpa on the PLANET
Bob
September 8th, 2010
7:54 am
Since this plan is for losers, lets let those that benefit the most pay the most into it.
Doggone/GA
September 8th, 2010
7:59 am
“lets let those that benefit the most pay the most into it.”
Apparently logic isn’t your stong point…but do you HAVE to come here and display that lack for everyone to see? You might take this advice to heart: “It is better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt” Abraham Lincoln
lynnie gal
September 8th, 2010
8:01 am
Republicans have been chomping at the bit to destroy Social Security since it started in the ’30’s. They figure now is the time to finish the job since they have their base and over half of independents scared to death of muslims, hispanics, blacks, gays and liberals, scared of Obama, of Americans getting better health care, of ending wars, and ending tax breaks for the wealthy. If they take over Congress next year, that’s their platform–to destroy what is left of safety nets for Americans. If Americans vote Republicans back in office after giving Dems less than 2 years to fix the mess they made of America, then I guess they deserve what is coming. Unfortunately they will take everyone down with them.
USinUK
September 8th, 2010
8:01 am
Doggone – 7:59 – I dunno, I thought the “since this plan is for losers” gave the game away …
Mick
September 8th, 2010
8:04 am
I have never seen so much hostility against social security as I do today. My parents lived during the depression and are still alive today – they are just as confused as I am as to why so many have ill will towards this great safety net. Remember, capitalism and the free market are great but it takes living through a “depression” or a “great recession” to understand that no system can guarantee prosperity forever. Social security is the safety net for those americans that get caught up in the daily costs of just surviving, All you great investors out there, good for you. As for the others, at least they’ll have something to fall back on when they grow old and tired.
Doggone/GA
September 8th, 2010
8:04 am
“If they take over Congress next year, that’s their platform–to destroy what is left of safety nets for Americans”
Ain’t gonna happen. They would need veto proof majorities in BOTH houses, and while they may gain some ground they aren’t going to gain THAT much ground.
If they gain enough ground to get control of both houses, there’s still Obama to deal with. Doesn’t matter how many bills they pass, he would still have to sign them. And IF he signed them, then the blame would be HIS and not theirs.
USinUK
September 8th, 2010
8:07 am
“great safety net”
Mick – you answered your own question. these people don’t believe in safety nets – they believe in boot straps. they believe in “personal responsibility”. ironically, they believe in economic Darwinsim despite the fact that they want to teach Creationism in schools. they think that government has no right to impede the market or help the poor – helping the poor is for churches.
Retirement Joe
September 8th, 2010
8:16 am
Stop calling it a tax! It’s not a tax. It’s an involuntary retirement fund. You put a portion of your income into the fund and you get it plus more back when you retire (unless you die before collecting all you put in). The problem is people are living longer now than they were when SS was first started that and the fact that well off people stop paying into it when their income rises above a set level (currently $106,000/year). Raising the maximum income level to say $500,000/year to contribute would solve the projected shortfall without forcing people to retire later in life. It’s our money that we put into our retirement fund. I want to get my contributions back when I retire just as any other retirement program would allow.
Get Real
September 8th, 2010
8:17 am
If they just removed the cap on paying out of the social security tax, they could lower the tax rate across the board. They could make it pay full benefits at age 62, make social security benefits non-taxable and people would retire and free up thousands of jobs for the younger generation that’s struggling to find jobs when they get out of school!
This would fix social security and help the economy!~
stands for decibels
September 8th, 2010
8:21 am
My parents lived during the depression and are still alive today – they are just as confused as I am as to why so many have ill will towards this great safety net.
I think the key word here is “net.” as in, “open net.” as in, Democrats haven’t felt they needed to defend the bleedin’ obvious. Apparently they do. Now.
And to make it plain, the reason for the “Now” at the end of that sentence, the reason I get so exasperated over the Catfood Commission is that Obama has signaled to one and all that he’s willing to hear out the other side on cutting SS in order to preserve tax breaks for billionaires. We’re wasting time on this [excrement], and there’s absolutely no reason to be, that I can ascertain.
Mick
September 8th, 2010
8:25 am
usinuk
I remember one time before getting on a train in the uk, I had some small talk with the jolly clerk at the window and out of nowhere he said don’t let what thatcher did to us, happen to you, with your social security, thats a great program – you need to protect it. That stuck with me because it was so expensive for everything. We made a joke about how we kept getting pounded by the pound.
Get Real
September 8th, 2010
8:58 am
Amazing to me that the hard working Americans that are now drawing Social Security didn’t get a cost of living adjustment this year and medicare went up, unemployment is at record highs, people are having to take pay cuts to stay employed, most people are not getting a pay raise, people are being forced to take furlough days but the Scub Bags we have sitting in Congress can vote themselves a big pay raise! I would expect them to lead by example but that’s where the problem lies…we have elected people that are not LEADERS including the President!
Bob
September 8th, 2010
9:02 am
Retirementjoe, It’s a tax. It’s called FICA tax and it’s a rip off. But it’s the best dems can do. It’s like the dept. of Ed., America sends money in and gets less of it back, what a deal.
Bob
September 8th, 2010
9:05 am
Get real, have you no shame ? Lets just take other people’s money and we can all retire at 62. In fact, lets remove the cap and increase the tax to 20% on income over 100k, then we can retire at 55 !
Don't Forget
September 8th, 2010
10:03 am
Allen W. Smith, Ph.D.
September 8th, 2010
12:18 am
Thanks for the post. Unfortunately it exceeds the attention span of most Americans.
Fix-It
September 8th, 2010
10:33 am
Let’s do something real stupid, spend less than we take in. Leave SS money in the SS fund to be used ONLY for SS…