The Sound of Silence

In the days leading up to 9-11 United Airlines employees had amassed through an employee stock ownership program sizable portfolios of United Stock. Although they couldn't touch it until retirement, and there were no provisions for moving it to safer or more diversified investments many employees felt a company as strong, with assets like United's that the investment was secure. The average stock holding for employees was in the range of 40-60 thousand dollars. Little did they know that United had already squandered that money, and that the stock's value was on paper only, an abstract, a financial illusion. 9-11 was a godsend for the company. Management moved to declare bankruptcy, while still spending money wildly, and paying themselves huge bonuses and salaries, and then devalued the stock to zero. Overnight employees saw their retirements and assets evaporate. several years later they paid out small stock offerings to employees and thought that they were then owed a thank you. In fact, what they had done was rather like someone stealing your car, then returning six months later with the bumper and saying, "so we're square now, right?

This is a microcosm of what politicians and wall street are attempting to do with Social Security. In their religion of money they have formulated a scheme to get their greedy little hands on your social security dollars. it is little more than corporate welfare, paid through your pocket to the market. When the market was up several years ago they felt secure in appealing to all of our inner greed, wishing and hoping the market would simply go up and up and up forever. But the market doesn't go up forever. It expands and contracts, rises and falls as much over predictable factors as emotional and irrational ones. For those on a fixed income, living off gains in the market-as this plan implies, contractions in the market would be disastrous.

Are their problems with the current social security system? There absolutely are, but for seniors and the disabled, trading fixed income for speculation would be a humanitarian nightmare. A war, a sudden spike in oil prices, recession, and act of terrorism, or another Katrina could negatively affect the market decimating the real-time incomes of millions.

But money is the real religion of the nation, so no wonder the ushers of that religion, the corporate media have not addressed this point. Of course, have you noticed how quiet those who were pressing for investing social security monies in the market have become. Now that the market has lost all of its gains from last year. Imagine if all those living month to month on those fixed SSI incomes had had half their income in the market? It would have been a nightmare.

The problem with SSI reform is not handing it to Wall Street and money hungry corporations, but in reforming the way business is done in Washington. let's build that lock box Al Gore was talking about. Modern business and American society is built around the concept of debt and borrowing. It is the basic principle behind the the stock market. It has fostered a culture of short term gain while ignoring long term responsibility. In short they don't want to pay the bills, but to fix this one might cost us all dearly.