Wake Up Ralph!

To All Federal Politicians

Boy, you guys are in a pickle.

For starters let me say I maintain that MediCare and Social Security are not legitimate, authorized Constitutional functions of the federal government, Supreme Court rulings to the contrary notwithstanding.  That was true when they were instituted and it remains true today in my estimation.  Whether you agree with me on this or not frankly I don’t really care, my opinion is firm on the question.

Having said that, the reality is that we are stuck with them for the foreseeable future.    And boy that is a real problem for you guys.  These programs are actuarially unsound, insolvent and unsustainable.  An honest assessment concludes that they are no different from the Ponzi scams that Bernie Madoff is imprisoned for propagating.  The ruse that there is some lock-box, some personal account with my money in it earning interest for my retirement or medical needs is old, tired and totally untrue and discounted.  We all know that current tax dollars pay current benefits, there is no invested money.  This is nothing more than a welfare transfer payment.  These pyramid scams work great on the way up, when more people are coming into the program paying fewer people already at the top receiving benefits, but on the way down when fewer people are coming in at the bottom trying to pay more people receiving benefits at the top; the whole house of cards collapses.  With the baby boom bubble now starting to enter retirement and high medical needs years in greater and greater numbers, we are perilously poised at the top of that cliff.  This huge baby boom bubble is followed by much smaller cohorts of taxpayers.  In order for these fewer taxpayers to pay the committed benefits of the boomers they will be subjected to astronomically higher and higher tax rates with fewer people paying the medical bills and retirement benefits of more and more recipients.  At some point the camel’s back will break and they will scream, “No more!”  These unfunded out-year social welfare mandates top $100 trillion, a figure it’s hard to get one’s head around.  We cannot and will not be able to pay these, period.  

So what to do?  Wake up Ralph.  A diesel tanker truck driver is taking a verbal exam from the DMV instructor.  When given a hypothetical scenario of impossible proportions his reply was, "Well, in this particular situation I would wake up Ralph."  When asked who Ralph is, he replied that Ralph is his relief driver sleeping in the rack behind him.  "OK," replied the instructor, "fair enough, so why would you wake up Ralph?"  The driver replied, " 'cause Ralph ain't never seen a wreck like this before in his life!"  Good luck!