Matthews Was Against Calling Social Security a Ponzi Scheme Before He Was For It
September 10, 2011 No Comment
As NewsBusters previously reported , MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Thursday admitted that Social Security is technically a Ponzi scheme. Less than 24 hours earlier, in numerous post-debate discussions, the “Hardball” host criticized Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry for saying the same thing (video follows with transcript and commentary): If you enjoyed this video, help make more possible by supporting NewsBusters . Go here to donate (there's also a PayPal option on that page). Without the support of our readers, NewsBusters would not be possible. RACHEL MADDOW , MSNBC: But there’s much more to say tonight about this debate. We’ll begin with our friend Chris Matthews, who is live from Simi Valley. Chris, what’s the headline for you here tonight? CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST, “HARDBALL”: Well, you know, I thought about halfway through, Rachel, that it was and still may be the Ponzi scheme reference you pointed you. The fact that Governor Perry backed up an earlier charge on his list of attacks on the establishment, the fact that he did so strongly, calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme, using other words — I think that’s the lead in “The New York Times” tomorrow, I would bet. I think he’s no doubt the leader of the discussion tomorrow morning. He will be the lightning rod for the Pelosi wing of the Democratic Party, the core liberals. They’ll go after him on that, it’s an easy one. It’s about constituency politics. They’ll simply defend Social Security, it’s basically 101 politics. MATTHEWS: Let’s go to the key issue, what I think is the headline. I think all of us agree it’s probably going to be the headline of the major papers tomorrow, and of the “Today” show, “Morning Joe,” and everybody, this issue of calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme. Also, if you listen to Lawrence O’Donnell, who really knows the derivation of this, it goes back to calling it a criminal active. Do you think that’s what he meant? Do you think that it going to hurt him? CONGRESSMAN MICK MULVANEY (R-SOUTH CAROLINA): No, I don’t think it’s going to hurt him. Because, again, what it means to me and what it means to a lot of folks who are my generation is that a Ponzi scheme is where we take money from people who come into a system, any system, and promise that we’ll give it back — (CROSS TALK) MULVANEY : It’s not an investment. We’re paying the current recipients with the folks who are buying into the system right now. The only plan for the people who are my age is to hope there is somebody around 20 years from now to pay for it. That’s the Ponzi scheme aspect of it. And I think — MATTHEWS: But that’s always been the heart of Social Security. It’s a currently funded program based upon worker bees paying for retiree bees. What’s wrong with that if it works, if the formula’s right? “What’s wrong with that if it works, if the formula’s right?” Ironically, it was Matthews himself that explained why the formula's wrong less than 24 hours later: MATTHEWS: The genius of Franklin Roosevelt, who was a great president, maybe one of the greatest two or three, I think, was that he figured out that Social Security had to be for everybody, no; means test, you pay for it while you work. When you retired and have no other form of income, this will help you out. In fact, a lot were impoverished in the old days without Social Security. It's a great anti-poverty program. Then people started to live past 65. Even the great Franklin Roosevelt didn't make it to 65. In those days, if you made it to 65, you were lucky. You got a few bucks on Social Security. Today, lots of people fortunately make it past 65. They live into their 80s and 90s. They're still getting checks. TODD HARRIS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: OK. MATTHEWS: The system doesn't work that way anymore. It's not as healthy as it once was. So, how's the Republican deal with the fact it is a Ponzi scheme in the sense that the money that's paid out every day is coming from people who have paid in that day. It's not being made somewhere — HARRIS: That's absolutely right. Quite a switch in less than 24 hours, don't you agree? Of course, Thursday's version of Chris Matthews was either the more honest or the wiser one, for as I wrote that same day, in purely technical terms, the structure of Social Security is indeed quite similar to a Ponzi scheme. What seems to be tripping up people like Matthews is the implication of criminality which folks like Perry and me aren't suggesting. When someone calls Social Security a Ponzi scheme, it is not to suggest that laws were violated and people should be thrown in jail. This is despite Roosevelt threatening a huge change to the Supreme Court if they didn't rule his plan Constitutional. With Social Security starting to pay more in benefits than it received in contributions last year, it should be critical that presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle including the current White House resident be able to discuss the finances of this program without being criticized for doing so. One would have hoped that was the case Matthews was making Thursday. Unfortunately, that iteration of the “Hardball” host vanished overnight, for on Friday he was back to challenging Perry's assessment saying, “He needs to deal with some of the language of his book like calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme.” Will the real Chris Matthews please stand up?
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Paying for your mobile internet data can be such a drag on the wallet. Luckily, there are Android apps like Smozzy that’ll get you away from the pricey tiers, and onto the information highway via text — no data plan required. You’ll have to be a member of the Magenta brigade to use it, and you’ll need an unlimited messaging plan, but after that, it should be smooth sailing and a little bit of extra wait time. So far, the well-reviewed app is still wearing its beta tag, and has only been tested on the Nexus S and T-Mobile G2. Don’t let a little wireless experimentation stop you from enjoying the loophole-exploiting internet access. Something tells us this workaround might not be available for long. Hit up the source link below to test drive the SMS’d net for yourself. Smozzy dodges T-Mobile data plans, delivers mobile web over text originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Sep 2011 14:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …A new study suggests that parents who lose a child in the first year are more likely to die early themselves, reports the BBC . Researchers at York and Stirling universities found that such moms and dads are four times more likely to die within a decade. It’s not clear why…
Continue reading …NASA’s not done with the moon yet. It plans to launch two unmanned spacecraft today (Grail A and Grail B) to study the lunar gravitational field and interior, reports Space.com . The $496 million mission has an interesting twist, notes the PopSci blog: a MoonKAM that will allow students to…
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Many people feel as though the BCS is a ridiculous and flawed system. And this video shows exactly that. What if everything worked like the BCS? What If Everything Worked Like BCS: The Spelling Bee from sanjeev tandle on Vimeo . Please follow Sports Page on Twitter and Facebook . Join the conversation about this story » See Also: SPORTS CHART OF THE DAY: Boise State Continues To Dominate Ranked Opponents… Broadcasting platform : Vimeo Source : The Business Insider Discovery Date : 08/09/2011 03:08 Number of articles : 4
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Charity chief says that planned £500 weekly limit on amount families can claim will have huge human and social cost The government’s benefits cap could make more than 80,000 children homeless and push many thousands more into poverty, says the Children’s Society. In a devastating critique of the plan to limit the amount even the largest families can claim in benefits, Bob Reitemeier, its chief executive, said there would be a huge “human and social cost” if the reforms went ahead. The welfare reform bill, which proposes a £500 a week cap on the amount families can claim for housing, childcare and sustenance, is set to return to parliament in the House of Lords on Tuesday after making unsteady progress through the Commons earlier this year. The society says 200,000 children will have their lives affected by the changes to the amount their parents can claim and 27,600 adults and 82,400 children could be made homeless. While supporters of the benefits cap claim it would simply mean families would be forced to move into cheaper accommodation, government figures suggest 70% of those who will be hit are already living in social housing. Reitemeier said changes to the proposed legislation were urgently needed. “The reason we are so concerned about children is that three in four of the people that are going to be affected by the benefits cap are children and I don’t think that’s publicly understood”, he said. “There are some main concerns: one is that the children will be made homeless, possibly 80,000 children, which would be a significant change to their lives. “Secondly, what we think could happen is that those children already in poverty, below 60% of the median income line, will fall into severe poverty, less than 40% of the median income. This has a very human and social impact on their lives.” The Children’s Society also believes that children, who are nine times as likely as adults to be hit by the cap because of the prevalence of large families among those claiming benefits, will experience lower levels of wellbeing. It says it understands the element of unfairness in people who are on benefits having large families catered for, but that the government should ensure children do not suffer for their parents’ decisions. The £500 cap is based on the average annual household wage of £26,000. The charity proposes that instead the government should work out the level of the cap – the universal credit – by basing it on the average household income of working families with children, which would include in-work benefits. “Ideally we would say reverse the cap, but if it is a political agenda going forward then our view would be that the government should use average income, including in-work benefits for working families with children, to calculate the cap,” Reitemeier said. “That would change the cap from £500 [a week] to a higher amount.” It is understood the charity’s concerns are shared at the highest levels of the coalition government, particularly among Liberal Democrats. Last night Karen Buck MP, the shadow minister for welfare reform, said she could not understand why the government was moving ahead with its policy. She added: “The household benefit cap will punish children disproportionately and increase homelessness with all the human and economic costs that implies. Worse still, cuts in childcare reduce the capacity of families to make work pay and so avoid the cap. “We saw from leaked warnings this summer that the housing department fears that Department for Work and Pensions cuts will increase homelessness and now this is being confirmed. What is the point of policies which cost more than they save?” A spokeswoman for the DWP said that additional take up of benefits due to the simplicity of the new system would actually take half a million people out of poverty. She added: “Someone in work should be better off than someone on benefits – this is at the heart of our welfare reform. There must be a clear incentive to work. No one will be worse off as a result of Universal Credit.” Welfare Children Liberal-Conservative coalition Homelessness Child benefit Daniel Boffey guardian.co.uk
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President Barack Obama and first lady Michele Obama visited Arlington National Cemetery, on Saturday, where they paid tribute to members of the military killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and met with a family of visitors. (Sept. 10)
Continue reading …Nikki Haley Wants Drug Testing for Jobless Benefits and Makes Up Stats to Support Them
September 10, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Gov. Nikki Haley (R) told the Lexington Rotary Club Thursday that she wants South Carolinians to undergo drug screenings before they can receive unemployment benefits. “I so want drug testing,” she said. “I so want it.” “The problem is that I’ve got to make sure the numbers work… It’s certainly not off the table for me. It’s something that I’ve been wanting since the first day I walked into office, but we do have not make sure it’s not politically popular, it’s actually a good feasible thing to do.” The South Carolina Republican recalled a story about the high rate of drug test failures at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory. “Down on River Site, they were hiring a few hundred people, and when we sat down and talked to them — this was back before the campaign — when we sat down and talked to them, they said of everybody they interviewed, half of them failed a drug test, and of the half that was left, of that 50 percent, the other half couldn’t read and write properly,” Haley explained. But Department of Energy spokesman Jim Giusti told The Huffington Post’s Arthur Delaney that the failure rate was far lower than Haley had claimed. “Half the people who applied for a job last year or year 2009 did not fail the drug test,” Giusti said. “At the peak of hiring under the Recovery Act, we had less than 1 percent of those hired test positive.” He added that job applicants are not even tested at the River Site until after they have been hired.
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In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you’d like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with “Insert Coin” as the subject line. We’ve seen the Arduino platform used to do some very, very cool things . You can pick up one of these incredibly versatile contraptions for well under 100 bucks , putting it within reach of the entire gamut of advanced hardware developers. But as simple as it may be to use for the technically inclined, there’s still quite a bit of programming required, and you’ll probably need to know your way around a soldering iron as well. The Teagueduino sets out to simplify the process, replacing intimidating code with simple drop-down menus, which you can adjust in realtime, giving you instant feedback as you make adjustments to your ‘coding’ handiwork. The second piece of the puzzle is the Teagueduino board itself, which includes snap-enabled inputs and outputs (yes, that means you can leave the finger-melting soldering iron to the pros). The hardware/software duo first made an appearance this spring, but it just popped up on Kickstarter, which means the Teagueduino could be making its way to a DIY project near you in the not-so-distant future. Unfortunately it’s not cheap — you’ll need to pledge $160 to get a fully assembled kit, while $260 adds extra I/O terminals. The Teagueduino is nearing the halfway point of its $22,000 funding goal with 27 days left to go, and if all goes according to plan, you should have your kit by November. Jump past the break for an overview with the designers. Continue reading Insert Coin: Teagueduino solderless electronic board Insert Coin: Teagueduino solderless electronic board originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Sep 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …The Script Kiddies have struck again: Hackers with the group got into the NBC News Twitter account and sent a series of fake tweets about a terror attack in New York City, reports the Naked Security blog. The FBI is investigating. The first tweet went up yesterday evening: “Breaking News!…
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