PROFITIZING SOCIAL SECURITY

We should not necessarily be privatizing social security. We should be profitizing it. There is no reason why the government can not run Social Security as a relatively profitable venture that pays for itself. A reliable plan can easily be implemented to allow the government to maintain the Social Security system indefinitely into the future.

Bush's plan to create private accounts? I don't see any benefit in it. Private accounts have three ENORMOUS liabilities. The first liability is that it is impossible to determine how much money will be necessary for the duration of one's retirement. If one retires at age 65, there is no way of telling whether one is going to live to age 75 or to age 105. A retirement account sufficient to finance a 75 year lifespan will be woefully inadequate for a 105 year lifespan.

And if one's Social Security account goes empty, then what? Will we have 95-year-olds standing on streetcorners begging? Drooling in their wheelchairs, covered with exrement, slowly dying of starvation, do we just walk by and pretend that we don't notice? I don't think that the American people are hard-hearted enough to tolerate that. Consequently, once the person's SS account goes dry, they will have to have to go on welfare, so what is the point of changing SS?

First of all, Social Security can NOT be any sort of savings account. SS is NOT a savings plan. It is a PENSION plan. The problem with savings is that it is totally impossible to calculate how much you will need for retirement, since you do not know how long you will live. A savings plan might make sense if you knew for sure that you were going to die within 10 years of retiring. But what if you live to 110? If you retire at 65, and live to be 110, you will need enough money to survive for 45 years. How much money do you need in your retirement account to take care of you for 45 years after retirement? How much money should each individual have in their retirement account in order to take care of 10 to 45 years of retirement? Individual accounts make neither practical nor financial sense.

The second liability is the "ownership" approach, where you can pass on your unused money to your beneficiaries. This makes the whole system ENORMOUSLY more expensive, and makes it virtually impossible to pay for itself. The people who die early, and do not collect their benefits are the ones who essential finance Social Security.

Social Security can only be profitable if it is run as a "lottery". If you live to be 105, you "win" the lottery, and you get 40 years of benefits. If you die at age 65, you "lose" the lottery, and your accumulated premiums go into the kitty for someone else to use.

I think that this is "fair" in the long run. Nobody knows who will live and who will die, so all of the participants have an equal chance of "winning".

To guarantee the long-term success of the system, payroll deductions should be progressive and should be indexed to income. The rich can afford to pay more, but they will get somewhat higher benefits. A formula needs to be worked out.

It is not feasible to make participation voluntary, since there is no way that one can be sure of one's circumstances in the future. What if one elects not to be part of SS at age 30, but then becomes a pauper at age 70, and lives to be 110? The government then has to take care of the freeloader for 40 years, even though he didn't pay into Social Security in the first place.

If you die at 66, or 56, then SS makes a nice profit. You have been paying into the SS lottery for 40 years and you get nothing in return. But then you NEED nothing in return, because you are dead. You are now God's headache, not the U.S. Government's.

If you die at 96, then SS takes a big loss. But this is why SS private accounts are impossible. Even if you got a large sum of money when you retired at 65, it is extremely unlikely that it will last long enough to support you for 45 years. Unless you are a multi-millionaire like our President. This is especially the case, since you may need expensive drugs or non-covered medical care.

ARE SMALL-TOWNERS DEVOLVING?

Perhaps the reason that small-town America hates evolution so much is because they themselves may be de-evolving. Evolution is making them increasingly less intelligent, less ambitious and more conservative.

Why do I say this? What happens when a bright, ambitious person is born in small-town America? Do they stay there? No. They go to the big city where they can reach their ambitions and exercise their intelligence. Few of the more intelligent and ambitious people born in small-town America remain there.

Hence, over the past hundred years, high intelligence and high ambition have been evolutionarily de-selected from small-town America.

On the other hand, conservatism and caution have been selected. People who are fearful to leave their town, fearful of change and fearful of big city ideas have been selected. They are the ones who remain in small-town America.

Hence, there is almost a new species evolving in small-town America. Less intelligent, less ambitious and more conservative. Hence, more likely to vote Republican.

There is also coming to be a conflict between two important American mythologies. One is the new salt-of-the-earth-wisdom mythology that has been pushed by Bushies. In this mythology, the small-towners are not as dumb as they look, but rather are filled with great Christian wisdom. They happily live their little Christian lives in their little Christian towns.

However, this conflicts with the great Horatio Alger mythology. In this mythology, one is born into a poor farm family but through great hard work, intelligence and ambition, one accomplishes great dreams. Ronald Reagan was in this category, and he once said that "America is too big for people with small dreams". So how does that jibe with the salt-of-the-earth-wisdom mythology?

POORLY-WRITTEN MOVIE REVIEWS

Just what the world needs: Another incompetent movie reviewer. Well, here I go again. (These are 2004 movies. I don't archive anything. -1/17/06)

MILLION DOLLAR BABY: This is my candidate for best picture. This movie is an intense emotional experience. That is most extraordinary considering that most movies nowadays convey nothing, and usually subsitute special effects for human feeling.

(NOTE: I GOT THIS ONE RIGHT! 1/17/06)

I favor it over the Aviator. The Aviator is probably superior in technical craftmanship, and in quantity of acting, but the Aviator did not make me feel anything.

CLOSER: I went to this movie mainly because it was directed by Mike Nichols. But it was kind of spacy. Julia Roberts wasn't bad, but was never happy, which is her main thing. She is very good at being happy.

The two guys were really gross. Don't male movie stars ever shave or comb their hair anymore? Do chicks dig this? I thought they looked like bums. I could hardly tell the difference between them. But it was a good enough movie so that I didn't walk out, which I usually do. I give it a 4 condom rating, since there were so many people having affairs with so many other people.

OCEANS TWELVE: I give this a 4 ice-cube rating for coolness, but only 2 stars overall. The main stars, like Brad Pitt, are very cool, but the plot is pretty much ridiculous. The action is also ridiculous, but its that sort of Jame Bondy type of genre where they do impossible things and get away with it. A good popcorn movie.

KINSEY: This was pretty much awful. Kinsey was presented as some sort of complete idiot nerd. I think that they could have presented his life in a more pleasant manner. I walked out after finishing my popcorn.

I didn't even give this movie a 1 condom rating, even though it showed pictures of a real penis and a real vagina. I don't really believe that any of the stars of this movie would be capable of having sex.

BEING JULIA: Not bad for a babe movie. Shows the difficulty of being an aging actress. Has a great craftiness skit at the end.

MEET THE FOCKERS: Turned out to be a pretty funny movie, after a focked-up beginning. The first 10 minutes kind of overdid Ben Stiller in his usual loser-idiot role. But Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand were really good.

BLADE TRINITY: Pretty kool testosterone film. I'm not too sure that I followed the vampire logic. A couple hot ladies in binkini tops as well as very good special effects. I give it 3 cheesecakes and 2 handgrenades.

SIDEWAYS: This was a good movie. I give it 3 bottles of expensive wine. It wasn't that rational, though, since the guy who was a wine-taster didn't have any money. But the other guy was entertaining.

SPANGLISH: A good movie. Adam Sandler showed that he's a good actor.

CONSTANTINE: This was rather disappointing. It lacked the mental stimulation of the Matrix, and basically substituted special effects and gore for any sort of plot.

I thought it was objectionable that the angel had her wings burned off at the end. Angels should not have their wings burned off in movies. There should be a law against that. This is even worse than burning American flags. Besides, angels have more power than Satan. Satan could not have burned her wings off.

This movie invented a new cosmology whereby the world was in a state of balance between people who are mostly-angelic and people who are mostly-demonic. Apparently pure demons and pure angels were not allowed in this physical world. Although I don't understand why the angel was there.

But there was a great deal of special-effect explosions going on as horrible demons disguised as swarms of bees invaded the physical realm. Then Keanu was some kind of chain-smoking, lung-cancer guy. He had some great triumph at the end, but I'm not sure what it was.

I generally find "spiritual" movies to be disappointing, because they are usually totally stupid. This is about consistent with most.



Draft 1: 1/10/05.
Draft 2: 1/17/04. I'm a shitty movie-reviewer.
Draft 3: 1/17/06

AN ALTERNATE CONGRESS

Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the US Constitution states: "The Number of Representatives [in Congress] shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand [people]..." So how is it that many Congressmen now represent hundreds of thousands of people, rather than the suggested 30,000 people?

I would argue that this discrepancy is at the heart of the current failure of democracy in America today. Because they have to represent too many people, Congressmen have become too distant, and for a variety of reasons, their small number makes them infinitely more controllable by special interests.

I therefore put forth the idea of an Alternate Congress that would have one representative for every 30,000 people. This requires about 10,000 representatives.

While it may sound strange, a body of this nature could actually be organized as an informal watchdog group and it could be funded by private, voluntary contributions. There is no need for a constitutional amendment immediately. It could be done privately and informally. The individual representatives would have no formal powers, but the body would have enormous influence and could exercise a great deal of control over corruption.

Districting would be done by a random computer algorithm. This avoids gerry-mandering of disttricts. Each voting district would start out as one zip code. If there were fewer than 30,000 in that zipcode, the next contiguous zipcode would be added. If there were more than 30,000 in the zipcode, it would comprise multiple districts. There is no reason for any human interference in this process.

The are many advantages of this system:

1. Resistance to special interest corruption. For example, Bill Gates has $40 billion. For $5 billion he could give every single Congressman and every single Senator a $10 million bribe. If these people would then pass a large tax cut for billionaires, eliminate the estate tax for billionaires and eliminate dividend taxes for billionaires, this $5 billion bribe would be a good investment.

However, with an Alternate Congress this would be impossible. Ten thousand representatives are simply too many to bribe.

2. True respresentative democracy. With a constituency of only 30,000 people, the Congressman and his people can directly interact. The Congressman could be immediately contacted whenever an individual had a problem, even if they weren't a billionaire.

3. The elimination of election by advertising revenue. With a small electorate, the bi-annual elections would take place mostly by word-of-mouth. Advertising would be ineffective because there could extensive interaction and frequent debates between candidates at local venues.

4. The body could be created and run on private funding. Elected officials could be paid by contributions from their 30,000 constituents, or possibly by a national revenue pool. Elections could be done by volunteers submitting paper ballots. With such a small constituency, the elections would frequently be unanymous.

I would suggest that people consider the creation of this body, since it could temper the current corruption and one-sidedness currently residing in Washington.

Draft 1: 1/7/05.
Draft 2: 1/9/05.

OHIO REPUBS FLUNK LIE TESTS

The debate over accepting Ohio's electoral votes. I was watching Congress on C-Span last night and I must say that the Republicans flunked my personal lie tests. They showed extreme deception. This raises my suspicions considerably. There is DEFINITELY something going on here. I smell SCANDAL big time!

Indications of Republican lying:

1. They had guilty expressions. Most of them would not raise their eyes from their prepared speeches.

2. When they did raise their eyes, their expressions were furtive and their eyelids fluttered.

3. When done speaking, they ran away with great haste.

Their arguments were almost amusingly invalid. It's like they took a textbook of Logic 101 and looked up all of the most invalid argument techniques and used them. Lets look at a few:

1. Bush won by 3.5 million votes, so he is the winner, get used to it. Answer: The popular vote is irrelevant. If the popular vote was relevant, then Al Gore would have been President for the past 4 years. Additionally, poll results elsewhere in the country have no bearing on Ohio.

2. Debating about the legitimacy of the November 2 election undermines our effort to bring about elections in Iraq. Answer: We are illustrating to the Iraqis how democracy settles election problems. In Arabia, Ohio would have been a cause for civil war.

3. Strawman argument 1: The Democrats are accusing President Bush of running a conspiracy in Ohio from the White House. How could he possibly do that? Its impossible. Answer: First, there is no need for Bush to be involved directly in an Ohio conspiracy. Secondly, since the objectives of the conspiracy are so simple, it is easy enough for local Republican operatives to carry out.

4. Scapegoat Argument 1: Blame it on Michael Moore. One Florida congressman, who looks like a Donald Trump clone, said that it was all Michael Moore's fault. He proceeded to present evidence that Michael Moore is an evil, horrible traitor, and since he is an evil, horrible traitor, everything that he believes is automatically false. Answer: It is not a question of who believes in this conspiracy. It is a question of whether or not it is true.

5. There is no evidence. Answer: There are tons of evidence. Approximate waiting times at polling places are known factors. Polling place workers can testify under oath to a ballpark waiting time at their particular polling place.

The number of voting machines used at a polling place, the number of actual voters and the number of registered voters in that precinct is a known factor. These ratios are known and are solid evidence.

The insecurity of no-audit-trail voting machines is a known vulnerability. This vulnerability has been testified to by experts repeatedly in the past 4 years. Using no-audit-trail voting machines designed by a Bush supporter is something that should be investigated.

The whole circus was accentuated by the "class warfare" appearances of the debaters. Many of the Democrats were angry black women. They were not very well dressed. Even the white Democrats were not that well dressed. But the Republicans definitely won the "best dressed" contest. The Republican congressmen all had their $200 ties and $1000 suits. They all looked like they just came from the hair stylist, or maybe even from a photo-shoot at Forbes magazine.

It definitely pays off to suck up to multi-billionaires. Bill Gates has $40 billion dollars. Bill Gates could give a $10 million dollar bribe to every Congressman and every Senator and that would only come to $5 billion dollars. He makes that back in tax cuts, and especially in an end to the estate tax.

Draft 1: 1/7/05.
Draft 2: 1/9/05.

AHNOOLD FOR UBER FUHRER!

Ahnoold. The man who single-handedly destroyed the Cohagen Oxygen cartel on Mars. The man who communicated with the ancient martian aliens in order to turn on the oxygen reactor and restore the atmosphere of Mars! The ultimate conservationist!

The man who single-handedly stopped a tenth-generation indestructable cyborg from killing the savior of the human race! So what if Ahnoold is a foreigner whose father was a Nazi! I say we should pass that constitutional amendment allowing non-Girliemen to be Fuhrer, along with the amendment to forbid homos from destroying the institution of marriage!

That's why Ahnoold was elected uber-Fuhrer of Collieforneyah, to remove all those San Francisco homo girliemen from power. They are single-handledly ruining the United States and preventing Jesus Christ from returning and saving everyone!

But you say "You are silly. Americans are the smartest people in the world. Certainly they can distinguish between movies and reality!" Unfortunately, we're talking about Californians here. And Red America isn't much better. They think that "The Passion" was videotaped live with the real Jesus bleeding actual blood. They think that it is evidence. But once and for all, I wish they could see that it was not the Hollywood Jews who crucified Jesus, but rather Roman Polansky.

Maybe Ahnoold will pick Holy Mel as his running mate! What a ticket! The ultimate triumph of cinematic fantasy over boring reality!

And Ann Coulter as Secretary of State! What a scene: Ahnoold is dressed in his black leather outfit from Terminator 1. Ann Coulter calls him a kraut traitor. Ahnoold picks her up, ties her to a bedpost and forks her all night long.

Then Holy Mel gets into His leather jacket outfit that he wore in his last good movie, Road Warrior. Then he forks her too. She's moaning in ecstacy and doesn't even say anything bad about liberals until dawn.

Yeah, what a scene.


Draft 1: 1/7/05.
Draft 2: 1/9/05.

ELECTABLE CANDIDATES GENERALLY ARE NOT

I got suckered in the last 2 Democratic primaries. I voted for the "electable" candidate, and neither of them got elected.

In 2002, in the Florida Democratic Gubernatorial primaries it was a choice between Democrats Janet Reno or Bill McBride to run against Jeb Bush. Everyone said that Janet Reno was "unelectable", and I agreed, voting for McBride. After all, she was a woman, the Cubans hated her, and she had Parkinsons.

Unfortunately, McBride turned out to be a complete ditz who didn't even know the issues. In the debates, Jeb Bush used him as a doormat.

At least if Janet Reno had been running against Jeb Bush, Bush might have still won the election, but he would have walked away from the debates limping and bleeding. You can be sure that Janet Reno would have KNOWN the issues. And she does not pull her punches, as was obvious at Waco or with Alion. She also has a bigger penis than Jeb Bush. You don't have to worry about HER being a fag!

As it turns out, Janet Reno might very well have been more "electable" than Bill McBride. She would have kept the focus on the issues, and would have put up a much better fight. For example, I still can not believe that no Democrats brought up the 2000 election fiasco during Jeb Bush's 2002 campaign. Many people are still seething about that one.

If I had been Democratic campaign manager in 2002, I would have broadcast ads showing the video footage of Governor Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris signing over the 25 Florida electoral votes to Jebbie's dumber brother. That's enough to make most Florida Democrats blood boil, even today. It might remind them of the REAL nature of the creatures that they are dealing with.

But on to 2004. Of course, we all voted for the "electable" John Kerry, rather than the "unelectable" Howard Dean. But in retrospect, Dean might actually have been more "electable".

Here are a few clues:

The rabidity of Republican talk-show jockeys should have been a give-away that the Republicans were seriously scared of Howard Dean. Talk-show jockeys are not going to give Democrats good info on who the nominee should be. Talk-show jockies want to do their utmost to get the Democrats to nominate the biggest loser possible. This is half the battle of winning the general election: Getting the other party to nominate a loser. That is why the talk-show jockies may have attached Dean so visciously, and made such a big deal out of the "Dean scream".

Did anybody make a big deal out of the fact that Bush was foaming at the mouth in the final debate? No. Nobody even mentioned it. I was the only one who was calling him "Mad Dog" Bush. But nobody listens to me.

Kerry also got nominated under rather false pretenses. Kerry was presented to the Democratic National Convention as a sort of Rambo with table manners. He was Mr. War Hero with all the medals. He had fought in Vietnam for at least 20 years, and that was why he looked so haggard. Democrats supported this not so much because they are warmongers, but because this would out-warmonger Bush. After all, Bush was valiantly defending Texas during the Vietnam war, betweeen drinks, and he didn't bother showing up for much of his National Guard duty.

But then, after the convention, it comes out that Kerry was the founder of Veterans against the War. Now personally I think that was impressive, but I knew that that would be disaster in Red America. What was the point of nominating a Rambo if it turns out he was a commie peacenik? Might as well nominate Howard Dean, and at least you get good one-liners.

In fact, for the period of Howard Dean's candidacy, he gave rebirth to an otherwise sleepy Democratic party. He had a lot more charisma than Kerry, and he could match Bush cliche for cliche. After all, elections are now won on cliches, not on intelligent argument.

Kerry came up with almost no cliches, and he usually looked uncomfortable delivering cliches. Dean defined most of the good cliches of the election: "Give Bush a one-way bus ticket to Crawford, Texas", "Ken and the boys", etc.

At the very least, Kerry should have picked Dean as running mate. Instead he picked a southerner who could not deliver a single southern state. Not that I dislike John Edwards, but he really didn't do squat for the ticket.

But you say, "Dean was too liberal". Did that matter? Kerry was painted as being farther to the left than Ho Chi Min. Facts don't matter to the right-wingers. No matter what you say, they're not going to vote for any Democrat, so why bother trying?


Draft 1: 1/6/05.
Draft 2: 1/6/05. Added reasons why we got mislead by Kerry. Made fun of Ahnoold, rambling on endlessly. Always a good thing to do as long as he's not around to beat you up.
Draft 3: 1/6/05. Deleted the section on Ahnoold, and made it into a new post.
Draft 4: 1/7/05. Added section on Jeb Bush & Katherine Harris signing over the 25 Florida electoral votes in 2000. Corrected a few typoes.
Draft 5: 1/9/05. Put title in all caps.