IT HAS BEEN WELL KNOWN AMONG MANY FOR A LONG TIME THAT THE FED IS A PAPER MONEY SWINDLE SCHEME, AND ONLY SHORT TERM, SIMPLY IN PLACE TO CREATE A POWERFUL AND DEVIANT ELITE CLASS AT THE EXPENSE OF WORKERS WHO ARE NOTHING MORE THAN SLAVES ECONOMICALLY. THE SYSTEM HAS BECOME HYDRAULIC AND THIS IS THE FIRST INDICATIONS THAT THE ELITE, AS ALWAYS ARE GETTING READY TO HAUL ASS WITH THEIR ILL GOTTEN GOODS. EVEN THOUGH SOCIAL SECURITY WILL NOT BE THERE FOR YOU WHEN YOU RETIRE, DO NOT EVEN TRY TO STOP PAYING IT NOW, BECAUSE YOU ARE CARRYING THE LAST GENERATION. THE FED OF COURSE HAS ALREADY MADE OFF, THROUGH WAR OF ONE SORT ANOTHER, WITH ALLLLLL THE SOCIAL SECURITY AND INCOME TAX MONEYS OF THE LAST CENTURY. THEY ARE SAFELY CONVERTED TO GOLD AND IN VAULTS OUTSIDE OF AMERICA....
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GREENSPAN_SOCIAL_SECURITY?SITE=NHPOR&SECTION=BUSINESS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT Aug 28, 10:19 AM EDT
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
AP Economics Writer
JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) -- For at least the fourth time this year, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has touched the electrified third rail of American politics - Social Security.
He did it here in the shadows of the Grand Teton Mountains as Friday's leadoff speaker at a two-day conference about challenges that the global economy faces because of rapidly aging populations.
As he did first in February, during testimony before Congress, and several times since, Greenspan issued his warning that the White House and Congress need to come up quickly with a plan to trim the Social Security and Medicare benefits that 77 million baby boomers are scheduled to receive when they retire.
He said haste is critical. There is no way benefits currently promised can be financed by government, he said, and Americans born in the 20 years after World War II need to be put on notice so they can start putting away extra retirement savings during their working years.
Even under the most optimistic economic assumptions of growth and productivity, government resources will be inadequate to provide the baby boom generation with the level of benefits their parents got, he said.
"If we have promised more than our economy has the ability to deliver, ... as I fear we may have, we must recalibrate our public programs so that pending retirees have time to adjust through other channels," he said. "If we delay, the adjustments could be abrupt and painful."
The 78-year-old Greenspan, recently confirmed for a fifth term as Fed chairman, suggested a possible fix would be to increase the retirement age for receiving full benefits. It already is on schedule to rise from 65 to 67.
Greenspan, who chaired a commission in 1983 that rescued Social Security from a previous financial crisis, has suggested that Congress look at trimming the annual cost-of-living adjustment retirees receive because the current Consumer Price Index overstates inflation.
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Greenspan also has suggested in earlier comments that Congress should look at tying the age of retirement to future increases in life expectancies.
In his speech Friday, he cautioned against trying to close the funding gap simply by raising the payroll taxes that support Social Security and the Medicare programs, saying higher taxes would hurt job creation.
Other speakers at the Jackson conference, sponsored by the Kansas City, Mo., Federal Reserve, echoed Greenspan's comments about dilemmas that aging populations pose for government policy-makers.
John Helliwell, a professor at the University of British Colombia, argued that immigration will make only a small dent toward offsetting the problems of a shrinking labor force that must to support more retirees.
"Neither increased migration nor international transfers of savings is expected to offer much assistance in digesting the variety of demographic transitions expected over the next 50 years," he said in a paper he presented to the conference Saturday.
While the United States faces a major problem, the situation is even worse in Europe and Japan. Birth rates have declined further than they have in the United States, and the Europeans and Japanese have received less help in bolstering their labor forces with new immigrants.
Anne Krueger, deputy managing director of the Washington-based International Monetary Fund, said poor countries also will face serious problems with aging populations toward the middle of this century. She said countries such as India and Brazil must act now to firm up their fiscal positions to cope with rising pension costs.
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