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Klockwork:
That’s All I Am Sayin’ About the ‘Phantom Phund’
By
Joe Klock
Firstwife and I just welcomed our ninth and tenth Great-Grandbegats, a pair
of identical twin boys. (Hold your applause, that’s not what this rant
is about.)
As a birthday gift, each of them and each of their nurserymates received something
not bequeathed to American newborns of past generations.
It was a personal debt of $100,000 or more, a liability racked up by the peers
of their parents and their parents’ parents, as well as those of Firstwife
and this humble scribe.
Those latter groups, including all y’all in this-here readership, are co-responsible
for the fiscal irresponsibility which resulted in a national debt almost incomprehensible
in size and totally unmanageable in reality, if we continue to spend like black
belt shoppers.
Let’s agree that the secret of survival in business is to take in more
money than you pay out, and the business of government is in no way different.
It is a basic economic principle which is learned the hard way in family life,
but honored in the breach by our elected reprehensibles.
It is that principle which has prompted me on several occasions to columnize
the fact that our so-called “entitlement” to a Social Security payment
is no more valid than the sunny promises of Ponzi, Madoff and any number of Pyramid
Schemists.
My premise was, and still is, that — despite the admirable objectives of
Social Security — the solid reserves which were to “phund” future
payment of benefits were raped and pillaged by our aforementioned reprehensibles
and redirected for other unrelated purposes.
That is to say, the money was embezzled, squandered and is as gone as a Christmas
Goose and the wayward wind of pre-election rhetoric.
In place of those solid reserves is a stack of IOUs which will come due during
the lifetimes of our innocent and unaware Great-Grandbegats, when the can of
accountability can no longer be kicked down the road, and for long years after
readers of this opusette have kicked the bucket.
Thus, future “entitlements” should now be regarded as a form of welfare,
since they will be paid out of a long-empty purse.
Furtherthus: Social Security “benefits.” It should be paid only to
those who need them to survive, which would drastically shrink the bill presented
to future generations.
However, each time that snippet of Klockwork reappears in print (and it has been
widely republished), I am assailed by indignant geezers and geezers-to-be, who
howl about broken promises, betrayed trusts and the undeniable fact that “we
paid into that miserable program and we should get our dough.”
Mind you, I don’t denigrate the indignation of those who feel that their
trust has been betrayed here in the USA and that if the thumbscrew of denied
(or reduced) “benefits” were to be turned, they would be the screwees.
This was equally true of those who drank the Kool-Aid Kocktails served by Ponzi,
Madoff and the Pyramid purveyors — not to mention “beneficiaries” of
many failed pension plans.
Let me try to explain my position just once more, this time in scenario form:
Grocer to shopper: “You have a sign in the window offering broccoli for
one dollar a bunch.”
Grocer: “Oh, I’m sorry, but we’re all out of broccoli; that
sign should come down.”
Shopper (angrily) That’s not what the sign says, Mister. Here’s my
dollar and I say I want that damned broccoli.”
Grocer: “And I’m trying to tell you that the broccoli is all gone.”
Shopper: (furiously now) “I refuse to accept that answer, and I demand
that you give me the broccoli.”
Grocer: “OK, let me ask you this: If you take the straw out of strawberry,
what have you got?”
Shopper: “Berry, but that doesn’t answer my...”
Grocer: “And if you take the ham out of hamburger, what have you got then?”
Shopper: “Well, burger, of course, but I still insist...”
Grocer: “And if you take the phrigg out of broccoli, what’s left?”
Shopper: “Now, that’s downright stupid. There’s no phrigg in
broccoli.”
Grocer: “AHA!” (End of scenario. Any questions?)
My point is, simply, that many of those not in need who now receive or will later
receive Social Security checks will be drawing dollars from a long-gone “phantom
phund” and robbing the piggy banks of our two new Great-Grandbegats, among
millions of other innocent descendants — including yours!
That’s all I’m sayin’, pholks; what say you?
And about that “ph” thing. Just playing with words and, simultaneously,
striking a subtle blow against the excessive use of indelicate “f” words
these days.
Freelance wordworker Joe Klock, Sr. (joeklock@ aol.com) winters in
Key Largo and Coral Gables, Florida and summers in New Hampshire. More
of his Klockwork can be found at www.joeklock.com.
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