Day: August 27, 2009

Elderly Get Screwed ……Again!

Everyone is talking about the “death panels” or the “death book” and how the health care reform will effect them either for the good or for the bad….but little was said about a new attack on the seniors in this country.

Msnbc.com is reporting:

The news that Social Security benefits will likely be frozen next year dismayed many older Americans, who said they feared that rising expenses for medication and other necessities would drive them into retirement poverty.

But with the economy in a deep recession, there’s officially no inflation for the program to keep up with, said Dane Partridge, a management professor at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville.The problem is that senior citizens, who make up most of America’s 50 million Social Security recipients, pay a disproportionate amount of their income on health care — which isn’t reflected in the Consumer Price Index, the main measure of inflation that’s used to calculate the annual Social Security increase, Partridge said.

That means a freeze in Social Security payments will translate into a drop in real purchasing power for many seniors, said Jo Wiejahn, a senior citizen in South Bend, Ind.

Because premiums for the Medicare prescription drug program are expected to increase, checks for Americans who have their premiums deducted directly from their Social Security payments will actually be a little smaller.For Americans on fixed incomes, which includes many retirees, that will be particularly tough, said Tricia Gorden, director of community resources at REAL Services, a nonprofit service agency for the elderly in South Bend.

As the economy keeps sliding…..in reality not the fantasy world of the investor…..the elderly will be hit harder than most…..people living on a fixed income will be hit a bit harder by the recession than others and that means seniors will be in jeopardy yet again.  So the cost of living for the elderly will get a little more expensive.

More Good News On The Economy….NOT!

I was told that by Bloomberg.com:

In another sign the worst of the U.S. recession is over, a gauge of current conditions showed the economy steadied last month.The Conference Board’s coincident index was unchanged in July after falling in 17 of the 19 months since the contraction started in December 2007, figures from the New York-based private research group showed yesterday. The more closely watched gauge of leading indicators, which shows the outlook for the next three to six months, climbed for a fourth month.

The coincident index tracks payrolls, incomes, sales and production, which — combined with gross domestic product –are the same measures used by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based National Bureau of Economic Research to determine when contractions begin and end. The NBER announced the current recession, the deepest since the 1930s, had started one year after the fact.

Do any of you buy this crap?  I mean does you life seem to be getting better?  We keep getting good economic indicators and all the pundits want to call the recession over….but I have a problem with the so called experts and their opinions.

To me we have a statistical recovery at best……but there is no recovery inreality.  By reality I am talking about the indicators like forclosures, unemployment and consumer confidence these are no where near recovery levels.

Unfortunately for us on Main Street…we are forced to live in reality and reality is telling me that our short term future still sucks!

In case no one is paying attention:

When 2008 census data is released next month, it is expected to show a dramatic increase in the number of Americans living in poverty and without health insurance, according to Rebecca Blank, undersecretary of economic affairs for the Commerce Department.

The number living below the official poverty threshold increased in 2008 by 1.5 million people to 38.8 million, a number equivalent to 12.7 percent of the population, the census is expected to show.

The poverty rate is telling, but it is far from the only measure of the impoverishment of broad sections of the population. According to the Center for American Progress, between June 2007 and December 2008, personal wealth declined in the US by nearly 23 percent, the sharpest decline on record—far more than the 12 percent decline triggered by the oil crisis of 1973-1974. Family wealth declined by a similar proportion, wiping out some $15 trillion.

Just another indication of how bad reality is on Main Street…….thanx to Tom Eley of wsws.org.

A Win For Bloomberg

Recently our government, first under Bush and then with Obama, gave the financial sector a ton of flipping money to help them avoid a crash and burn….money by the way was from the taxpayers…and when they, the Fed was asked to tell the taxpayer where their money had gone, the Fed declined and in turn Bloomberg sued them for that information.

The Federal Reserve must for the first time identify the companies in its emergency lending programs after losing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ruled against the central bank yesterday, rejecting the argument that loan records aren’t covered by the law because their disclosure would harm borrowers’ competitive positions.

The Fed has refused to name the financial firms it lent to or disclose the amounts or the assets put up as collateral under 11 programs, most put in place during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression, saying that doing so might set off a run by depositors and unsettle shareholders. Bloomberg LP, the New York-based company majority-owned by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, sued on Nov. 7 on behalf of its Bloomberg News unit.

“The Federal Reserve has to be accountable for the decisions that it makes,” said U.S. Representative Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, after Preska’s ruling. “It’s one thing to say that the Federal Reserve is an independent institution. It’s another thing to say that it can keep us all in the dark.”

The case is Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 08-CV-9595, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

I am sure that there will be an appeato the ruling…but for now….the taxpayers have a win in their column, not that it will do much to help them with their economic struggles, but maybe we can see who got what and why.