What happened? All these things you write about concern a (mostly) free market held in check by a strong central government. What happened is that Ronald Reagan began dismantling government regulations and his incompetent third cousin George W. finished the job. So now unregulated industries go bankrupt and take employees' retirements with them. Mortgage companies make loans to people they know can't pay them back, causing housing inflation, and then when the defaults begin the housing bubble bursts, and money is worth less, housing is worth less, stocks tumble, foreign currency advances against the dollar. This not rocket science. This is incompetence at the highest levels of a government, who thought it was best to let big business do whatever they wanted, and once again the American people are left to pick up the pieces.

'What happened? All these things you write about concern a (mostly) free market held in check by a strong central government. What happened is that Ronald Reagan began dismantling government regulations and his incompetent third cousin George W. finished the job.'

oh jeez. hide you money in the wall like in the old days then. people have more money than ever these days. they all have fat asses, cell phones, ipods, airconditoned cars, tattoos, spinning rims, gold teeth and plasma tv's.

the reason for the tremendous growth in personal wealth is because of conservative initiative like tax cuts, union busting, the 401k program, IRA's etc.

i remember the early 80's when they got that 401k thing through. the democrats were livid!!! haha! they same idiots that are there now like kennedy and byrd. they lamented like little communists every chance they could about how they were (what else?) 'tax cuts for the rich' when in fact the programs created more personal wealth for the average american that all their welfare programs combined.

that's why they were livid. they knew what would happen and it meant losing control over peoples money.

"people have more money than ever these days"

Basically, that is due to the fact that it is being printed faster than ever these days. All that other stuff you say the have (except the fat asses), they don't really have them, they just rent them from the credit card companies. Some of it (like the spinning rims, and much more which you apparently chose not to mention, like yachts and $8000 showercurtains), they don't even really need. There is a whole lot of futility out there, and a whole lot of waste, but it is inspired so much by saturation advertising that you need to blame the advertisers and the facilitators for it. Whenever people tend to acquire things with no reasonable value, you have to suspect that they have been talked into it by someone who wouldn't have ever associated themselves with the products if there wasn't money to be made.

'There is a whole lot of futility out there, and a whole lot of waste, but it is inspired so much by saturation advertising that you need to blame the advertisers and the facilitators for it.'

really! those poor, weakminded, easily led, easily manipulated, morons need our help! i gotta plan!! let's raise my taxes!!!

'Whenever people tend to acquire things with no reasonable value, you have to suspect that they have been talked into it by someone who wouldn't have ever associated themselves with the products if there wasn't money to be made.'

i think we should have a central committee to classify what has and what doesn't have reasonable value. of course i think you should be the committee chairman comrade califoniavich..

"i gotta plan!! let's raise my taxes!!!"

Well now! That may be the best suggestion I've heard from you yet. However, I favor on raising tax rates only on family income above $250,000, and lowering them for anyone with incomes below that level. I suspect that you and your wife are below, or in any case not much above, that level since you remember events in the '60s yet are still paying into Social Security. I would also vastly increase the number of levels in the tax tables. There are now 4, whereas I believe there were as many as 14 in the past, so the level immediately above $250,000 wouldn't change much in any case. I think it is necessary for taxes to be high enough to avoid the government having to borrow any money, ever again. I would like to see those US Treasury Bonds which are outstanding paid off in money which is collected as income tax, rather than money which is printed in exchange for new Treasury Bonds. Issuing bonds in order to redeem bonds is an admission of fiscal failure.

I have made further financing recommendations here, which I will repeat for your benefit: I believe that all the "Special Bonds" issued by the Treasury in exchange for funds borrowed from the Social Security Administration should be replaced with negotiable US Treasury Bonds with equivalent interest rates and redemption values (these differ depending on when the bonds were issued). The maturity dates should, of course, be staggered in some manner which relates to the rate at which the funds represented by the bonds will be needed by the SSA. The advantage of these negotiable bonds is that the SSA could then make its own decisions about when cash is needed (and about when the bonds become too risky or earn too little to hold!) and keep or sell the bonds as it sees fit. A key to implementing this change with a reasonable guarantee of workability is to restructure the governing board of the SSA so that no member of the federal government is on it - especially in a control position. I would suggest that the board be elected by participants in the Social Security plan - either contributors or recipients - and that elegability for a board seat be limited to long-term civil service employees of the SSA. Thus, the SSA would be turned into something like a mutual insurance company and insulated from political manipulation (to the extent that is ever completely effective).

I think you will agree that none of the above is other than a conservative view of fiscal policy - even if the so-called conservatives of today ascribe to such radical economic processes that they wouldn't know conservatism if it bit them on the ass. I have pointed out many times that I tend to be a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. If you wish to attack me on the latter, I am ready to cross swords.

you are correct comrade californiavich. the SS fund should have never been mixed with general revenue but that cat is out of the bag and has been for over 40 years. the system is heading for a train wreck.

that's why i think the bush plan for voluntary accounts was decent. i believe britain has a private account. i know chile does an most people are dong very well and the system is solvent.

moynihan actually wrote most of the bill in 1998 that they tried to get through in 2004 or 2005.

the gutless republicans cut and ran.

Useless, until he goes through Kool-Aid detox.

Reminds me of the SA fanatics who, despite obvious evidence of impending execution as reward for their loyalty, still gave the old stiff-arm salute and heartfelt "Heil Hitler!" as they were being lined-up against the wall during the Night of the Long Knives.

'I favor on raising tax rates only on family income above $250,000, and lowering them for anyone with incomes below that level'

nice! what if the economy stalls? you know how they are giving everyone 600 bucks? heck imagine how much better the economy would do of they let me keep 6000 bucks!!

I don't think a whole lot of the $600 idea. The money doesn't actually exist and will have to be "printed". Giving you $6000 would just mean printing ten times as much. I think that would make it a ten-times-as-bad idea.

If the government feels the need to do something, a nice usury law might be of some use. I think those $600 "gifts" are mostly going to go to banks raising their interest rates on already existing debts (lousy contract terms to allow that one) in order to make up for their losses in other gambits gone sour.

'I don't think a whole lot of the $600 idea. The money doesn't actually exist and will have to be "printed".'

it damn sure doesn't exist after they take it from me. pooof! gone in a flash! i pay quarterly. in advance. so i haven't even make the money yet and they take it!!

'That may be the best suggestion I've heard from you yet. However, I favor on raising tax rates only on family income above $250,000, and lowering them for anyone with incomes below that level.'

i say that we give everyone a 100% tax cut. no federal income taxes. zero, zip, nada. no FICA, no workers comp, no fed income taxes of any kind for anyone or anything.

go with HR25 fairtax. i would get to keep 100% as i live in a state with no income taxes. besides the nice beaches, it is the best reason to live here.

Irving:

you stated that everyone has more money these days and iPods, cell phones, cars, etc. b/c of conservative initiatives like tax cuts and union busting and 401k plans.

What about increased productivity and manufacturing efficiency. I am pretty sure the invention of computers and the advancement of digitization is why we have iPods, not because we gave someone wealthy a tax-cut who then bought a yacht.

If tax cuts for the wealthy are so wonderful for the economy(as opposed to actually balancing a budget first), then why is the economy, only a few years after Bush's big tax cuts fore the wealthy, in the crapper?

Your recollections are faulty. 401K's were passed in 1978, during the Carter administration, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. It went into January 1980, more than a year before Reagan took office.

I would just like to say please do not confuse Irving Chang me. I'm the one that's not deluded. That is all.