Dick Cheney wants us to save more of our money, yep. I read that on the AP news feed on my little blog awhile ago. It caused me to run upstairs and mix the mother of all Bloody Marys.
I felt as if I had been slapped, actually I felt as if I were fifty million Americans who had been slapped.
Now believe me, if you’re taking a slap for that many people it calls for a stiff drink, or two. Excuse me a sec.. .....................OK, as I was saying Old Uncle Dead-eye, that pillar of Protestant rectitude, thinks that we should be more parsimonious in our financial affairs and that we Americans should start saving on the very first day of work, "Too often, workers are living paycheck to paycheck and are not saving sufficiently," Cheney said.
Cheney failed to mention that wages for most Americans have been stagnant during these last many years of Republican looting and squandering, that millions of jobs have simply gone away, and that the bright economic future promised by the budget surpluses at the close of the Clinton years have been sacrificed on the altar of tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.
The media reported that Cheney made these remarks at "a Washington conference."
The conference was the 2006 National Summit On Retirement Savings, held by The Financial Services Forum. Well being naturally curious I looked these birds up and here’s who they say they are:
"The Financial Services Forum was organized in 2000. It is comprised of the chief executive officers of 20 of the largest and most diversified financial institutions doing business in the United States. The purpose of the Forum is to promote policies that enhance savings and investment in the United States, and that ensure an open, competitive and sound financial services marketplace. The Forum's primary focus is on policy initiatives to advance the goal of open and competitive financial markets in the U.S. and globally."
Also speaking was former Secretary of Commerce Don Evans who left the department shortly after the 2004 election and became CEO of this Band of Barons in May of 2005. Evans said that a poll conducted for the lobby group found that nearly three out of five Americans between the ages of 35 and 49 are saving less than $10,000 a year. "For most, this will prove too little to support a comfortable middle-class retirement," said Evans.
Slap. Be right back..............I didn’t know it was gonna be a tag team.
Saving less than ten grand a year? Too little to provide a comfortable middle class retirement? Damn guys, a big chunk of these three out of five Americans are struggling to make ends meet and just don’t have ten grand lying around. The Plutocrats Want What The Oiligarchs Didn't Steal.
Besides being a former Treasury Secretary, who is Don Evans? Here, from a bio:
He’s been George W. Bush’s best friend since their early days in the oil business. Don Evans spent 25 years at Tom Brown Inc. a Denver-based oil and gas company. He was chairman and CEO of the $1.2 billion company and sat on the board of TMBR/Sharp Drilling, an oil and gas drilling operation. Evans still found time to help Bush's political career, however. He assisted Bush with his failed congressional run, his two successful bids for governor of Texas and, finally, his race for the presidency. As Bush’s national finance chairman in 2000, Evans raised more than $100 million, breaking all previous fundraising records.
Why, I ask myself, are twenty of the fattest of the fat cats in the world so skillfully led by the Prince of Darkness and one of Shrub’s long time oiligarch buddies so interested in our golden years?
Well Gandpa told me many times, (Grandpas tend to repeat themselves) that you don’t need a Harvard education to recognize bullshit, you just get downwind and sniff the breeze.
Then like a clap of thunder or a bolt of lightning or that last Bloody Vodka it hit me.
(Remember, I’m standing downwind now, my well trained sniffer poised in the air like a debutante.)
These birds didn’t come to Washington, stay in four star hotels, take time from their busy fat cat lives to make sure that I don’t eat cat food in my golden years, au contraire, they are after the 1.7 billion dollar social security trust fund again. They want to make sure that I eat discount cat food in my golden years.
The Financial Services Forum such a warm friendly sounding name for what may be the biggest bunch of arm twisting, campaign fund spewing, privatizing, thieves in this century. Hang on to your wallets. The smell of the commissions and fees involved in managing, mismanaging and stealing, nearly two trillion dollars in public funds wafts on the wind and draws these hyenas like the stench of a rotting wildebeest.
And Deadeye, having recovered from the pain and sorrow of his drunken shooting incident is there to bang the drum, to loyally walk point because Shrub is twelve thousand miles from home flimflamming in Asia and has already been spanked on this issue. The real players are in the game now.
It’s going to come fast and furious, legislation to protect us from all manner of retirement bogeymen, to protect us, to save our pension funds and to save Medicare. The enemy is at the gates, the entitlement wars begin anew. Bush said something in his Sorry State of Affairs Speech about appointing a bipartisan commission to study Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Well, Here it is. Keep a sharp nose on this "Commission" (wasn’t that a Mafia term)? Stand downwind and point like a bird dog.
Either that or stock up on discount cat food.
Bob Higgins
http://sawdust.eponym.com/...