ELF News Archives
March 2004- Nursing Homes Cited for Abuse -
Elderly people were abused in nearly one-third of the nation's nursing homes in the past two years, suffering such serious injuries as hip fractures and even death
Matten Law 3/30
- World Health Organisation (WHO) Quality of Life of the Elderly -
The WHO is developing an instrument to measure the quality of life of the elderly. This is an international collaboration involving 23 research centres from around the world.
Univ of Melborne 3/30
- Outside View: What about private accounts? -
Tax hikes punish work, prevent saving, and depress economic activity. Increases in tax rates reduce economic growth. In short, higher taxes mean fewer jobs and lower wages.
Many of the world's most socialist nations have been waking up to these realities and are now beginning to rely on personal saving rather than taxes to bolster retirement security.
Washington Times 3/30
- Will Work for Less,
An Economic Lesson in Livelihood and Quality of Life -
A worker’s wages are only important insofar as they provide the means to purchase the things he needs to improve his quality of life. Laborers trade their time, skills, and energy for money, yes, but money is merely a medium of exchange which makes the transfer of wealth possible in an advanced economy. All the paper money in the world won’t make people better off, for it is the desire to gain wealth, represented by goods and services such as food, clothes, cars, houses, computers, health-care, education, and leisure, that motivates people to trade.
American Shareholders 3/27
- John Kerry, Enemy of Self-Reliance and Individual Control of Retirement -
The study examines the Democratic Party’s nominee for President, Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) record on investor related issues during his nineteen years as a U.S. Senator.
The result of the study finds Kerry consistently opposed investors during his tenure as U.S. Senator, with consistent opposition to capital gains tax reduction and Individual Retirement Accounts.
American Shareholders 3/27
- MEDICARE
A SYMPTOM OF THE DISEASE -
For years, and especially since 1983 when payroll taxes were raised to their 15.3 percent level for every worker in the country, the federal government has been stealing a healthy chunk of this retirement and health care money. The Beltway Bandits have been spending that money wherever they pleased.
Of course, they don't admit to theft, embezzlement, or malfeasance. That would be a crime. Like any common criminal, they claim innocence. They tell you that they merely "borrowed" the money, calling it "off budget" revenue. That's why they put these bogus bonds in an equally bogus trust fund.
Ether Zone 3/26
- Social Security This Week -
2004 Trustees Report: Social Security Financing Worsens; Snow Says Individual Accounts Key to Social Security Reform;
Cato's 6.2% Plan Endorsed by Seniors Organization; Kemp on ARP vs. AARP
Cato Institute 3/26
- U.S. social security system going broke -
Snow said the program's cash flow will be in the red in 2018 and the program's money will be exhausted in 38 years and "neither of those dates have changed since last year's report. Part of the growing problem is the 76 million baby boomers who will be retire and file for Social Security in the next couple of decades.
MENFA.COM 3/25
- Skyrocketing Medicare Costs Cause for Alarm -
In addition to ever-increasing cost estimates, the drug benefit would encourage private employers to move retirees into the government program, which would end up providing inferior coverage and raising costs overall.
Competitive Enterprise Institute 3/24
- Medicare Going Broke -
Medicare (search) will have to begin dipping into its trust fund this year to keep up with expenditures and will go broke by 2019 without changes in a program that is swelling because of rising health costs, trustees reported Tuesday.
Fox News 3/24
- Opponents of 2003 Expansion of Drug Benefits Address New Report on State of Medicare -
Medicare is really an entitlement for the health care industry, albeit one with low prices, lots of rules, caveats and strings attached and literally over 100,000 pages of regulations. There is no guarantee any beneficiary will actually get a specific medical treatment under Medicare.
National Center For Public Policy Research 3/24
- Social Security This Week -
Cato Plan Touted as Viable Option; Penny: Nonpartisan Voices Prove Need for Reform; Organizations Announce New Pro-reform Alliance
Cato Institute 3/22
- How the Democratic Party Has Affected Social Security -
Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years.
Email Forwarded to ELF 3/20
- RFID chips watch Grandma brush teeth -
Tiny computer chips that emit unique radio-frequency IDs could be slapped on to toothbrushes, chairs and even toilet seats to monitor elderly people in their own homes.
New Scientist 3/19
- Social Security Choices for the 21st-Century Woman -
By failing to keep pace with the changing nature of American families, Social Security's outdated benefit structure results in single women and dual-earner couples subsidizing the benefits of wealthier single-earner couples, which creates a sharply regressive element to the current benefit structure.
Cato Institute 3/19
- On Social Security, Politicians Offer Slogans, Not Solutions -
While presidential candidates have chosen to denounce Greenspan’s statements and pretended that Social Security's problems don't exist, women should heed his warning.
Women disproportionately rely on Social Security because they live longer than men and have fewer opportunities to save for retirement during their working lives. Social Security's fate is thus critically important to many women's retirement security.
Independent Women's Forum 3/19
- Saving Social Security Through Privatization -
Social Security reform cannot be put off. In less than 15 years, the national retirement program will begin to run a deficit, spending more on benefits than it takes in through taxes. Overall, the system is more than $26 trillion in debt...
National Center For Policy Analysis 3/19
- Examining the 2004 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports -
"Today’s deficits are tiny compared to the long-term debts of Social Security and Medicare"
National Center For Policy Analysis 3/19
- The Immorality of Social Security
An Economic View -
...the system is, as Alf Landon described it in 1936, “a cruel hoax.”[4] Social Security raises revenue by taxing worker incomes, then uses it to pay benefits to retirees, disabled persons, and other beneficiaries. Any money left after paying benefits and administrative costs is lent to the Treasury in return for special interest-bearing government debt, which can be redeemed as needed for money to pay benefits. Social Security, then, is a welfare program redistributing money from taxpayers to beneficiaries.
Foundation For Economic Education 3/18
- A Trail of Broken Promises
Pension Rights -
Recently, employees from some major corporations highlighted some of the tricky ways these bosses are betraying the people who made their companies perform and profit. Under the name of the "Ad Hoc Coalition to Restore Retirement Security," five broken promises were described.
Counter Punch 3/18
- Forum: Social Security: a women's issue -
The chairman of the Federal Reserve ruffled political feathers when he stated the obvious: The government can't pay all the benefits it has promised under Social Security.
Washington Times 3/17
- Outside View: Saving private savings -
The president's budget calls for the creation of Retirement Savings Accounts, Lifetime Savings Accounts and the consolidation of numerous employer-sponsored retirement instruments into simplified Employer Retirement Savings Accounts.
Washington Times 3/15
- Remapping the 'Road to Serfdom'-
What we haven't seen is fundamental reform in Social Security to give individuals ownership rights to future benefits by allowing private accounts. Moreover, Republicans have failed to contain government spending: Nondefense discretionary spending increased 41.3 percent over the last four years.
Democracy, if not limited by what Hayek called a "constitution of liberty," will have government redistribute rather than protect private property and wealth. Politicians on both sides of the aisle seem more interested in equal outcomes than in protecting taxpayer's property rights and freedom.
Washington Times 3/15
- World pension problems growing -
Japan's pension problems of the last 10 years are a good indicator of what other aging countries will be facing in the near future.
Washington Times 3/14
- Social Security This Week -
Kerry Attacks "Privatization;" Tanner Criticizes Response to Greenspan; Cato Senior Fellow Alan Reynolds: Alan Greenspan Was Correct about Social Security; and much more!
Cato Institute 3/12
- The Social Security Crisis—Solved! -
A Democratic economist's miraculous plan.
This is the fantasy of every Washington politician: You wake up one morning, and the Social Security crisis has vanished. Who knows where it went? Maybe a kind old wizard made it disappear. Who cares? It's gone! The magic solution—a Social Security fix with no tax increases and no benefit cuts—is the dream that will not die.
MSN MoneyBox 3/10
- Six Social Security Myths -
Alan Greenspan got a lot of people talking about Social Security last month by pointing out that future funds won't be enough to fund future obligations. What a surprise! What is far more surprising, however, is how much the continued fallout exposes our collective ignorance about Social Security.
The Motley Fool 3/10
- Social Security This Week -
Grassley to Bush: Make Social Security Campaign Issue; Investor's Business Daily Backs Cato's 6.2% Solution; Gokhale and Smetters Make the Political Case for Reform; and much more!
Cato Institute 3/07
- Medicare reform gone bad -
...we have learned that the Bush Administration knew the drug bill would cost $534 billion over 10 years, instead of the $400 billion Congress thought it was voting for. According to press reports, the administration suppressed its cost estimate in order to allow the legislation to pass.
Town Hall 3/05
- Greenspan speaking the unspeakable -
When Alan Greenspan recently revealed unpleasant truths about Social Security, he was widely misinterpreted as having merely recommended cuts in retirement benefits, as though this was simply his personal preference. What Greenspan was really doing was warning younger workers that, in the absence of serious reform, they will end up paying much more for Social Security and getting much less.
Town Hall 3/04
- The Job-Killing Tax -
Payroll taxes this year will account for 41.1 percent of total federal revenues, just short of the amount raised by individual income taxes, 41.9 percent. That is a cause for concern, but the situation could get much worse over the next decade as the nation grapples with funding the retirement programs of the baby-boomer generation. As Congress has shrunk the tax base and shifted the burden onto the payroll tax, there will be increased pressure to rely on this tax to fund government shortfalls.
Thomas Paine 3/02
- ECONOMIC SYMPTOMS -
More interesting is the next year, fiscal 2001, when we had the "second largest" surplus in U.S. history—a surplus of $127.2 billion. And guess what, at the same time we had a $33.5 billion deficit—shortfall in personal income and corporate tax revenue. The only thing that made a surplus possible was that $160.7 billion was stolen from entitlement overcharges with Social Security leading the pack at $98.7 billion. Subtract the $33.5 billion deficit from the $160.7 billion entitlement surplus and what do you get? (See: Deficits)
Ether Zone 3/02
- Medicaid rolls grow despite predicted cuts -
Government-subsidized health insurance for the poor covered a record 42.4 million people last year, contradicting predictions that financial problems would force states to slash 1 million people or more from Medicaid.
USA Today 3/01
- Better benefits for older workers upheld -
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that employers can give older workers better benefits than younger workers without committing age discrimination.
Washington Times 3/01
- Better benefits for older workers upheld -
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that employers can give older workers better benefits than younger workers without committing age discrimination.
Washington Times 3/01