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 As we know, privatization of debt collection at the IRS has been pushed by the administration and has now been approved by a majority of congress. Common sense appears to have succumbed to the steamroller known as taking care of the special interest, taking care of the folks who help you get re-elected time after time.
The re-election rate for members of the House of Representatives was an astounding 98% on November 2nd. The burden of running every two years for reelection has turned members of congress into perpetual fund raisers, and the money men from American business and special interest groups are more than willing to oblige their needy lawmakers. Corporate America and special interest groups control Washington D.C., but they want more than to influence government. Now they want to own government.
How does an industry with the highest negative rating, as measured by consumer advocates, and some of the worst business practices around manage to chip off a large chunk of new business for itself, handling a sensitive government tax duty? Give lots of cash to the right people. From their perspective, it's the best investment they can make. It's high-margin, profitable, largely non-competitive business. They don't have to develop a new geographic market, or invest in research and development, or market a new product.
The risk-reward equation, the mantra of the free enterprise system, can be renamed the all-reward, take no risk system. The new “private” government workers will work for low wages and Walmart-style benefits. The lion's share of that 25% commission on collected money will go into the pockets of the handful of people who run the company, who will in turn grease the palms of even more politicians with those profits, influence more outsourcing deals, get more government work, and so on. We are full-blown in the golden era of “capitalism meets representative government”, and capitalism is winning.
Unlike the stealth effort mounted to capture the IRS business, the campaign to take over and demolish Social Security will be a loud and raucous affair. Most ordinary Americans find something troubling with turning over a large part of America's most successful social program to the financial services industry and their scandal-of-the week standard operating procedure. Many hourly worker Americans have family members or friends who have relied on, been saved by, or look forward to the benefits of the Social Security system.
In its simplest form, it's a system that forces people to save. Yes, it's true, some people have trouble saving money for their retirement, or unforeseen disability, or the premature death of a family wage-earner. They are not necessarily bad people; they just don't manage their finances well, or more accurately, they don't have enough finances to manage well. Should we force them out into the cold and make them live in cardboard boxes when they can no longer land a job at McDonalds?
The White House marketing machine has a lot of people to convince. Get ready for the smoke and mirrors, the usual cast of dubious characters appearing on the cable TV news programs and talk radio. My guess is that most expert commentators will have undisclosed ties to the financial services industry and are loading up on Merrill Lynch stock options.
Many noted economists see no crisis at all and have expressed their opinion that the current crisis is manufactured for political motives. Meanwhile, Wall-streeters are salivating at the prospect of millions of young, inexperienced investors sending them cash every payday. Forget that the Social Security administration handles the entire shebang for about one percent of what they get, including benefit administration. The Wall-streeters want to handle just the investment side for their usual twenty percent or so, mostly hidden in multiple layers of fees, transactions costs, spreads on trades, administrative costs and so on.
This is the same industry that won't allow computers to handle trading transactions because of the revenue hit to floor traders and other middlemen. This is the same industry that paid the head of their trading exchange one hundred and eighty million dollars in severance pay. I haven't noticed any career social security administrators who walked away from their job with a one hundred and eighty million dollar retirement package. From any distance, the scandal-plagued financial services industry, largely unregulated, under-prosecuted, ethically challenged and cavalierly unrepentant when caught trying to screw the small investor on a seemingly weekly basis, begins to resemble a new form of organized crime.
Yes, over periods of many years stocks have outperformed government bonds by a couple of percentage points. However, stocks have also had twenty year periods when they returned essentially zilch. Common sense is not the driver behind social security privatization. It's greed, with the familiar return contribution to the political party, and it's also ideological. It's that damned word “social”, as in “socialism”, that just pisses off a lot of people. And let's face it, if we don't get it first, it will ultimately destroy all of America! Just like it totally screwed up those Scandinavian and European countries with their sky-high standard of living and long life expectancies.
Personally, I'd rather risk the fate of America to an evil-inspired socialistic system like social security if it means throwing a few bucks to some desperate old people who otherwise would be crawling around in dumpsters looking for something to eat. There is no way in the world I want to contend with a bunch of desperate, end-or-their-wits senior citizens. They are way too knowledgeable and experienced and capable of launching a massive wave of crime on the rest of us if we push them to the brink of survival.
As long as the powers-that-be want to do away with anything that appears remotely socialistic, it's time to take a serious look at the Pentagon. Besides being an inherently socialistic structure, the Pentagon is also hugely wasteful and laughably inefficient, on a level the IRS and Social Security Administration can only contemplate.
Let's see, the Pentagon was formed for the common good of the populace, collects huge monies (more than a third of our country's budget), and then doles out benefits selectively in the form of sweetheart contracts, silly research projects, preemptive warfare and death. Sounds like socialism to me. Better privatize it. Fast.
Imagine the huge savings to the American taxpayer if America's defense and war-making was handled with the cold-steeled efficiency of American business. No more “Oops, we forgot to plan the aftermath of the invasion,” or “yes, most of our decisions are made on a wildly ideological basis.” Instead, when the top thinkers at the White House issued an order to invade and take over a country, it would be handled with all the efficiency and planning that goes into the launching of a new SUV model, with contingency plans, what-if scenarios, truthful research and good old American common sense. Best of all, the new Pentagon could benefit from American business's great ability to recognize the obvious, as in: “If we don't guard those 350 tons of plastic high explosives, the bad guys might get them and use them on us!”
I don't mean to ruffle any feathers; I have the deepest respect for all the Americans who have served their country, past and present. It just seems like it's time to turn over the fighting of wars to the private sector. They're basically doing it now. The big war money goes to private industry; it's just that the guy or girl out there on the front line stopping bullets is the only non-corporate part of the picture. Those soldiers should be highly-compensated and highly equipped and have rock-solid benefit packages. Just like the people who work for American corporations. It's time to bring in the Halliburton Marines, the Boeing Air Force and the GE Navy.
We could just about abolish taxes altogether if we turned American business loose on defending us and fighting our wars. When these highly effective corporate forces conquered a country, they would be compensated with the spoils of war, much like the Roman generals were compensated when their legions secured a large swath of real estate. Kind of like the incentive system for the IRS debt collectors.
Of course, the contractor armies would also be paid handsomely through franchising of the new territories to other multi-national businesses for marketing rights to the newly vanquished consumers. You'd see headlines like “Burger King Nabs Iran Contract Over Wendy's.”
Yes, privatization is a good thing for America, if done right. Privatize the bloated, wasteful, corrupt parts of government. When news stories break concerning the torture of prisoners, or incredibly stupid plans, or incompetent leadership, we could have built-in contract provisions where the contractor would have to apologize to everyone and forfeit some of their profits.
Yes, the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the Pentagon should be privatized. But let's leave Social Security the way it is, redirect some of that Pentagon multi-trillion money into our safety net for old people if it's needed, and for God's sake leave the IRS alone-get out of their way and let them do their job.
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