The Market Coalition

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development issued a report Monday that pointed out that even though the US proposals will yield a system that reaches the poor in a more redistributive way than many other countries, the average pay outs of the government pensions are rather low at around 51% of a retiree’s previously earned salary as compared to over 70% in other OECD countries.

Only New Zealand and Ireland outperform the US in reaching its poorest nationals because they have simple flat-rate state pensions. The rather low proposed US pensions payouts will safeguard the wider economy from serious risks that economists have warned of for ages, yet it also shows just how serious the issue of funding pensions has become.

Some people are not quite convinced that all has been done to avert a disaster. IF nothing would be done, the system would prove insolvent by estimated dates between 2018 and 2040, and this would pose considerable dangers for the wider economy. “I believe that 2018 is in fact the time when the difficulties will begin [if nothing is done]. The reason is that the government securities held by the Social Security system are not any kind of actual asset”, says George Reisman, an economist professor who issued an article on the subject for the Mises Institute, which subscribes to the Austrian Theory of Economics (www.mises.org)

He adds that government securities as such are not the only investments held by the country’s institutional investor base, but pretty much a claim against the US Government to pay money that it does not possess. At a time that a negative gap comes into being, the US government will simply have to raise taxes taxes, borrow more from the public, or inflate the money supply to make ends meet.

“Probably, just as has been the case many times since the system was established seventy years ago, social security payroll taxes will be increased one or more times again between now and 2018, and that will provide the funds”, says Reisman.

Yet President Bush opted for as few tax increases as possible. In what is described as a rather Democrat-style move, the US leader has chosen to recast the 70-year-old retirement program under a ‘progressive indexation’ design. This means that the lowest income earners are not becoming any worse off but that the people with middle and high incomes will suffer a severe setback in income soon after they retire. Talk of the system becoming an ‘empty shell’ for the better off is resultantly fashionable.

The plans make US Social Security is one of the least generous public pension systems in advanced countries, providing an employee on average earnings a pension after tax of 51 per cent of pre-retirement income, according to a comparative study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development issued this Monday.

The average employee in an advanced country can expect a government pension of 70 per cent of his or her after-tax earnings at retirement compared with 39 per cent for an equivalent US citizen.

The sustainability of pension systems is a large issue worldwide and countries around the globe are generally drawing up rather similar systems to cope putting the burden with the private sector and with the workers themselves. The OECD says there is more variety in the pay outs and distributions of the systems per country, with improving fiscal sustainability overshadowing the attention they devote to pension adequacy.

Angelique van Engelen is an international writer, specialing in content creation. If you are interested in tailor made articles, content, brochures, features or news, contact her via angeliqueve@contentclix.com

Perhaps time and chance never caused our paths to cross so I’ve never had an introduction to Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. It may also be that relatively obscure gospel preachers like me and larger than life guys like Roberts don’t have much of a chance at meeting outside of being given four or five extra lifetimes.

Although I’ve never met Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, I did have a run in of sorts with America’s most notorious atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hare in the nineteen eighties. As I walked into a radio station to drop off tapes of my former radio show the DJ called to me from within his booth. As I entered the booth he said “we have a minister here that may be able to answer that question.” He pulled a chair up to the microphone and beckoned for me to sit. He whispered to me that it was a phone connection from somewhere in Texas and Madalyn Murray O’Hare was on the line being interviewed. My volunteering it seemed was already far underway so I acquiesced and listened to O’Hare’s questions. I calmly answered each question and the more I did the angrier she seemed to get. The final straw was when she asked me if I wouldn’t agree that all any minister was interested in was money. She said that even I was only doing ministry for the bucks. She missed by a mile when she asked that question. I told her that my present ministry was completely voluntary and I received nothing for my labors.

O’Hare was only a hair short of using four letter words in a wild retort that lasted so long I thought the DJ was going to cut her off. In fact only a few words later he did just that. I have been unable not to notice that in the cases of people I’ve met who were demon possessed that this same kind of anger always exists. They curse a lot and think nothing of blaspheming God. Also worthy of note is that the Bible says the last world leader who is completely possessed by the Devil cannot speak without blaspheming God or the people of God. Rev 13:6 KJV

I have been amazed of late that when I mention Madalyn O’Hare to anyone under twenty one years old; many of them do not know who she is. In 1964 O’Hare was said to be America’s most hated women according to Life Magazine. She was hated because she single handedly managed to get prayers removed from the American public school system. In the case of, Murray v. Curlet in 1963 O’Hare won a landmark victory which summarily removed prayer from our schools. She caught the churches off guard and the best of the clergy sleeping at the wheel. I have often thought that her complete victory that was done almost stealthily and with almost no resistance should be given much study. A comparison can made to the victories of Adolph Hitler who managed to swing a nation into the murky waters of the Third Reich, while the church debated theology, held rummage sales and generally slept until the water was too dark to see through at all. After that the responses of the church in Germany fell under the heading of…Too little, too late.

Perhaps like the turtle who through persistence and a bit of cunning finally took the lead in that famous fantasy race, Mr. Roberts may be America’s favorite to win as candidate for the Supreme Court. For the conservatives he is the top pick but even the most nervous liberals would have to back up a bit at Robert’s shining record. Now released to the Senate Judiciary Committee, is more than 5000 pages of material from the Ronald Reagan Library on the details of John Roberts government service. In a memo dated November 21, 1985 Roberts said he was critical of the decision to halt voluntary prayer in schools and that such a decision was essentially not mandated by the Constitution.

The race did not end twenty years ago in the minds of any Americans. The O’Hare grabbed the lead and if it were not for side issues in her life (much like the diversions of the hare) she may still be in the race. Rule are rules and side trips notwithstanding for the hare the turtle it seems is about to make a showing. Roberts can’t bring prayer back in single handed but he is the best scale tipping promise since the race began.

Will voluntary prayer in our schools heal all the problems our school system now faces? Of course it won’t heal all the problems. It may start to remove the insult given to the God that most of us worship. It may help to abate the insult of not acknowledging God to our most precious gift, our youth. It will also begin to balance the unwillingness we have had to even mention him against his willingness to bless us with goods and materials above any nation in history.

Our newest self appointed enemy, militant Islam doesn’t flinch when it comes to prayer. Several times throughout the day Muslims stop everything they are doing to pray. Whether we agree that the God they pray to really be God at all is another matter entirely. Their dedication to these prayers should be enough to shame any Christian, any American. The Senate hearings may be what lead to the final decision about John Roberts but I submit that there is at least one thing we can do to help the outcome of the hearings. It is something we can’t miss again like we did in the sixties. You guessed it…pray!

Come; share a wild Kuelap Bum’s sunny afternoon

I sit here, sipping my coffee and coke waiting for my pollo saltado

[Chicken with potatoes and rice),

And hear voices, cars pass: sounds, coming from iron motors
Like purring cats and roaring mice, with squeaky feet for tires, race

Racing around the café (El Parquetito, in Miraflores)) Lima)), Around the streets and park; the sun boiling overhead, as I’m

Reading Jack Kerouac’s: “The Dharma Bums,”I feel like one.

My date to return back into the Amazonian regionthis time to the

Andean-jungleis in five days. My mind is excited, here is
Where come my beautiful visions of grassy slopes, by the Nevados,

And there ahead in front of me, are the ancient ruins of Kuelap
I can even see the wild warriors of antiquity: the Chachapoyas,

Fight the Incas in the wild deep, deep Andean-jungles of Peru.

I like the incredible peace here, lost in a maze of thoughts, looking for

No certain highway I can sweat, drink my coke and coffee in peace, while I write and dream…and get ready for my next journey.

#1283 3/23/2006 Note by the author: I have been to the Andes and to the Amazon, and even to the Amazonas as they are known for their sections, ranging from Equator to Peru, and Brazil and Venezuela, of which I have been to all these regions or sections except one, the one I am dreaming about, and will go in five days to, to what is known as the Andean-Amazonian region, where elevation is part of the jungle equation, not so in the other regions. Thus, here is where the “Forgotten Fortress,” is located, similar to the ‘Great Enclosure,’ in Zimbabwe. The Forgotten Fortress dates back to about 800 AD.

See Dennis’ web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com