Blogcritics: Comments on Postcards from the Edge

Comment by Dept of Education

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 16:47:09 EST

Just what is transparent on the internet? an ip address? most of the people here do not use their right name. I remember one blogger who posted here had her name swiped and use on a triple x site (against her will). I don't think it would be wise to let that happen. Much better to post under an assumed name.

Comment by Eric Olsen

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:25:37 EST

"Yes it is true I post under different handles....so what!" I guess that would depend upon why you use different "handles" (breaker breaker), how you use them, and what you say when you use them. Anything that obscures transparency is open to question

Comment by Dept of Education

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 09:53:10 EST

You've caught me out! Yes it is true I post under different handles....so what! I would have posted my comment under the handle 'Big Bri' but it was already taken. Just what is your point? My comment "Love her or munch her" is more relevant than 'wanna talk about brotherly love'. Just what does that have to do with the resignation of the PBS chief?

Comment by Eric Olsen

Fri, 18 Feb 2005 14:00:50 EST

other senses indeed

Comment by DrPat

Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:42:42 EST

Eric, that does explain a similarity of, um, authorial flavor? from their postings. Or perhaps the similarity is more obvious to a different sense than taste...

Comment by Big Bri

Fri, 18 Feb 2005 11:12:57 EST

Me thinks it's "W" himself...

Comment by Eric Olsen

Fri, 18 Feb 2005 11:08:05 EST

Interesting that Dept of Edu, Smegma, Rip Van Winkle, and Don't Come Through the Back Door all use the same computer - very busy with all those people coming and going

Comment by Dept of Education

Fri, 18 Feb 2005 10:47:12 EST

Do you mean...Love thy sister or munch her?

Comment by Big Bri

Fri, 18 Feb 2005 10:42:23 EST

I am sure somehow the person who serves as the replacement will have been the head of a major corporation that contributed to the Bush campaign. Wanna talk about what love thy brother really means?

Comment by Dept of Education

Fri, 18 Feb 2005 10:13:54 EST

I see where the chief of PBS, Pat Mitchell will resign in june. Coincidence?

Comment by Dept of Education

Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:07:36 EST

Great! Just Great! My boss doesn't care for carpet munching farmers and for that you guys think she is daft. Great! Just Great! I suppose the next thing will be hermaphrodites competing as women in sports? Just what is this world coming to?

Comment by Maurice

Tue, 8 Feb 2005 18:08:50 EST

bhw - Thank God you at least acknowledge that you get less than you put in to SS. I take your point well about the uses for SS but no matter how it is used it should not have a stagnant value. Also, no matter how you slice it sooner or later it does go bankrupt. It costs a certain amount to fix it now (2T?) what will it cost 20 years from now.

Comment by Jim Carruthers

Tue, 8 Feb 2005 17:12:41 EST

Gosh, if your newly inducted Education Secretary can get y'all fired up over insurance because of the proprietors of a Vermont maple sugar bush, what's going to happen when PBS does a show about schools and box lunches?

Comment by bhw

Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:49:56 EST

if you are sincere about making up your mind about the SS debate, consider this. You will receive 75 cents for every dollar you 'contribute' to SS. Nobody would willingly (maybe Roy?) make such a lame investment. Social Security is NOT an investment. It's a tax program to provide a safety net to workers and the disabled. That's the problem. Bush is trying to get people to think it's an investment when it's not. One of the reasons most people pay in more than they get out is because they're paying for disability and retirement payments to people who don't put in as much in their lifetime as they're going to receive. We're making sure that all Americans, regardless of how much they're able to earn during their lifetimes, have some sort of guaranteed protection from living in complete and utter disgrace if they become disabled or when they retire. Get over it. You are paying for yourself and others.

Comment by Brian

Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:40:34 EST

You can read about the Social Security Trust Funds on the Social Security Administration website: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/fundFAQ.html#n1 There are trust funds indeed. (And yes "department of Education, I am calling your boss daft.)

Comment by Maurice

Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:29:25 EST

Eric, if you are sincere about making up your mind about the SS debate, consider this. You will receive 75 cents for every dollar you 'contribute' to SS. Nobody would willingly (maybe Roy?) make such a lame investment. Over the life of your 40 year career there will be many up turns and down turns in the economy. When you invest for the long term you will come out ahead. As Dave pointed out earlier there is no losing 75 year streak. There are peaks and valleys but overall growth. One last point. THERE IS NO SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND. It is more like a non-interest baring checking account and has been frequently abused.

Comment by Eric Olsen

Tue, 8 Feb 2005 12:50:53 EST

yes, she is daft. nice one Jim, one of your best enjoying the social security debate, even learning a fair amount, but I am not one eyelash closer to amking up my own mind - it all seems to turn on philosophy rather than economics, which is just a dismal branch of philosophy anyway. And re Buster, didn't catch the Maple Lesbos ep, but I did see the Kurds of Nashville over the weekend and found it quite engrossing and humane, am guessing the Parents Without Testosterone ep was similar

Comment by Dept of Education

Tue, 8 Feb 2005 11:40:34 EST

Even my boss thinks same sex couples are vile. She wants PBS to return the money they used in the production of this show. Are you suggesting she is daft.

Comment by Maurice

Tue, 8 Feb 2005 09:24:07 EST

Jim, you are funny as hell. Your reference is one of my favorite and is from 'Take the Money and Run'. Dave don't waste your time with Roy. If you check my earlier posts you will notice I already explained the same things to him about mutual funds growing over ANY 40 year period of time. Roy read one negative article and is basing all his posts on what the writer (not an economist) claimed. Also, his 'talk button' is pushed so anything you post is not received by him. He will post about divdends (which are irrelavent). I have tried to help him understand the disconnect between mutual funds and the economy (all my current mutual funds are foreign). He also thinks that growth of the economy will help social security. I already explained that SS takes in $5000 bucks a year per person no matter how much you make. I feel like feel like I am am repeating myself.

Comment by Dave Nalle

Tue, 8 Feb 2005 01:36:24 EST

It doesn't matter which it is, Roy. If the growth rate is high then private accounts would return so much more than the current system that there's no justification for wasting money on what's basically just a big slush fund for porkbarrellers to loot and provides no return on investment. If the growth rate is moderate, then the market account will still return enormously more for the future retiree and the system will also fall apart. The key thing is to act now so that if the worst case scenario comes along we're not left holding the umpty-trillion dollar bag. Plus the longer we wait the higher the cost of scrapping the old system and moving to a privatized system. Dave

Comment by Roy Smith

Tue, 8 Feb 2005 01:15:46 EST

The catch-22 for the privatizers is that if the economy grows fast enough to support 6.5% return in the market, it also grows fast enough to keep the trust fund fully solvent for the foreseeable future. The social security administration bases its projection of going broke on a GDP growth rate of 1.9% per year over the next 75 years. This is a significant slowdown from 3.4% for the last 75 years. So which is it?

Comment by Dave Nalle

Tue, 8 Feb 2005 01:12:10 EST

I considered watchning the episode, but I figured it would be too dull for my 2 year old who's used to watching the 24 Hour Spongebob Gayloving Review. Big Bri:Not sure how you can stop the system now without adding another 2 trillion big ones to the defecit. What people seem not to be aware of is that the longer we take to actually put money in the fund or replace it with something else the more it will cost. It's $2 Trillion now. Down the road it could be as much as $60 trillion. And did I really see someone say that they couldn't find an economist to commit to a 6.5% market return over a 75 year period? Pick a 75 year period in history - any one including the period of the depression - and you have that good a return or more per year. No reason to expect 3 or 4 full scale depressions in the next 75 years - which is what it would take to break that pattern. Dave

Comment by Roy Smith

Tue, 8 Feb 2005 00:43:37 EST

Maurice: A 401K (that includes a self-directed brokerage account as one of the options), IRAs for myself and my wife, two mutual funds outside of IRAs and oh, yeah, a brokerage account for the past five years (since before the dot.com meltdown/general bear market). Yes, I do pick individual stocks, and I have gotten fairly decent returns even through the rough times. I am a buy and hold investor and refuse to try to time the market. The reason there is a connection between mutual funds and the economy: GDP=value of all goods and services produced in the US=value of all goods and services produced by businesses in the US. If GDP growth is low, then the aggregate growth of all businesses in the US is correspondingly low. If you have a very broad based mutual fund (such as proposed by promoters of the privatization scheme), the value of the underlying stocks will not grow appreciably faster than the economy over the long term. The value of underlying stocks may grow faster in the short term, but there are two main reasons for this: either companies are reinvesting profits in the business rather than distributing them as dividends (which may either be good - the company (and ultimately GDP) grow faster - or it may result in overinvestment, but which it is depends on the particular company and economic circumstances - in any event it won't go on forever); or, the Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio has gotten out of whack, which is indicative of a bubble and means a correction will come sooner or later. Just before the dot.com meltdown, many of the high flying stocks had a P/E ratio of 50 or higher, which is over three times the historical average (somewhere around 15). Stock market yields over the long term will be somewhat higher than GDP growth, but that is because of profits, which is why dividends are important in thinking about overall return of the market over the long term. Although it makes sense for some companies at some times to not pay dividends and reinvest profits in the company, it most definitely does not make sense for all companies to reinvest profits all the time. Bottom line: aggregate stock market yields over the long term are equal to growth of value of stocks (=GDP growth) plus profits paid out to shareholders (i.e., dividends - damn those pesky things keep coming back into this discussion). Since GDP growth is one of the two components that drive long term stock market yield, if GDP grows more slowly, then mutual fund yields will be lower. Therefore, any projection of mutual fund yields over a long period must make an assumption about GDP growth.

Comment by Jim Carruthers

Mon, 7 Feb 2005 22:06:54 EST

And the worst part is how innocuous it seems. Starts with a couple of math lessons on compound interest, then they're doing actuarial tables, because all the other kids are, and the next thing you know, you're trapped in a tin shed under the hot sun, in the hole, with nothing but stale bread, water and an insurance salesman.

Comment by Jim Carruthers

Mon, 7 Feb 2005 19:13:14 EST

So, the conclusion to be drawn is that children's programming on PBS won't turn your children into clam-lapping, pagan, donut-bumpers, but economists. Scary.