Revolution Watch----Retirement Funds

Here we are just facing the new year, the snow is soft on the ground, the birds are delightfully looting our feeder and my belly is full, not overly, but a nice meal of white bass, garden potatoes, beets and canned peaches is sure pleasant in my gullet.

Like all days, the local paper arrived and brought with it the latest on the fiscal cliff, which I suspect is nothing more than a little ramp of needed corrections of a bloated system that can, in itself, not be totally corrected by anything these believers of neoclassical economics could muster. I mean, how can we carry trillions of dollars in debt, debt that we are no more able to pay off than the country of Greece can pay. The only way we, or Greece, could pay it off is to have run-away growth. This has always been the pattern in this system. Take out debt and pay it with a growing business (personal or national) What if there is no growth? Oops!

So I have been watching this revolution for some time now and nothing is really changing except the slow decline in our standard of living. Now, I am not saying this is bad because it has to happen as we are individually and collectively living beyond out means. It is just changing, that is all.

Fortunately it is going slowly but it is painful to watch the legislators trying to find solutions when certainly many of them must be figuring out there are no solutions. Cut expenditures, sure, has to be done, but that will lead to fewer jobs and more drop in the standard. Raise taxes, particularly on the bottom 90% and that might also have a dampening affect on the sought after growth. All points in one direction. So far, so good because it would appear we have to go there. It will be a bitch.

Today, here was another reminder of the pattern. Retirees of Wisconsin employees will face a shrinking retirement account. That has an unpleasant ring to it. They get paid less but the price of food and fuel go up. Means they will spend less on discretionary items, thus a slower growth in the economy. I seems we have to adjust. Wonder at what point folks become really unhappy about this?