I tend to comment on various other sites and don't have the time to blog on my own site.

Here is a perfect example. I'm commenting on this topic about the Social Security Trust fund. The Motley Fool article is titled "5 Huge Myths About Social Security". It's actually very good and quite accurate, which is why I like the Motley Fool. They are honest and accurate observers of the economy, the market, and government.

Anyway here is my response to a plethora of insanity. It wasn't the only defender of the truth. The others are also worthy, but you have the screen out the nonsense. Fortunately they are usually obvious.

I know I'm wasting my time, but please ignore 95% of the commetariat. They are trolls and/or ignorant fools. The author of the main article knows that which he speaks. The commentariat have an agenda to confuse the public. Plain and simple.

Someone faulted the Social Security Trust Fund for not investing in the private sector. You should go back and read the historical discussions about why the current method was chosen. Which companies should the funds invest in? Who decides? What if this becomes political? Do you want your government choosing which financial instruments to invest and which not?

Thinking of the last 10 or 15 years alone, that would be a very bad idea.

The Social Security Trust fun is used as an accounting mechanism to shore up the budget, but that doesn't take away the from the fund. It's just assets - liabilities. The assets are still assets. If the government wants to play games with accounting and every pretends that's okay, the assets are still assets. The value of the fund doesn't diminish.

It just means our political leaders will eventually won't be able to use the assets in the trust fund as means to conceal how much money is actually being spent.

It's really that simple.

This is not much different than if someone includes the value of their house as part of their net worth. Your liabilities are expected to paid out on a monthly basis not different than any business, or government.

Assets minus liabilities doesn't negate either one. Assets are still assets. The money doesn't get spent because they aren't cashing in the assets.

Just like when you take a loan out on your house. You're paying off the loan doesn't result in the diminished value of your house. Your house is an asset not any different then the Social Security Trust Fund.

The government sells loans call bonds and dollars everyday and everyday people buy them because they retain value for a long period of time. Using the Social Security fund as an asset to secure these loans is no different than a customer using their house as collateral.

It doesn't mean the Social Security fund is being spent, no more than your house got sold when you used it as collateral. The government pays the interest without any problem, so there is nothing to worry about except stupid politicians and person's with hidden agendas.

And it's an insurance system people.

You think you are so smart and saavy that you can make the right choices and invest in the right companies at the right times. All while making less then 30, 40, 50 , 70, 100 thousand a year.

Go for it. Many have tried. Too many have failed. And so we base are entire retirement system on these percentages. Are you so willing to believe that you will be in the win bracket and avoid the financial shocks that happen once or twice every decade?

Social Security Insurance guarantees a minimum floor of retirement. Otherwise we'd have 30% or more of our older citizens liveing in abject poverty.

That's why the system evolved from the Townsend Committees in the 1930s. The shock of so many old people living off of scraps and out of garbage cans by the restaurants. All over the United States.

Oh how we do forget the past.

I tend to comment on various other sites and don't have the time to blog on my own site.

Here is a perfect example. I'm commenting on this topic about the Social Security Trust fund. The Motley Fool article is titled "5 Huge Myths About Social Security". It's actually very good and quite accurate, which is why I like the Motley Fool. They are honest and accurate observers of the economy, the market, and government.

Anyway here is my response to a plethora of insanity. It wasn't the only defender of the truth. The others are also worthy, but you have the screen out the nonsense. Fortunately they are usually obvious.

Just making sure

I want to make sure

Okay so I fixed the deprecated code. All should be well. It took 2 minutes. I just procrastinate.

Okay so I fixed the deprecated code. All should be well. It took 2 minutes. I just procrastinate.

Sorry about the lack of blogging. Notice the "deprecation" warnings. Obviously I have to update my code. I'll try to get to this before Thanksgiving.

I got this from a commenter at The Big Picture Blog

“Don’t be deceived when they tell you things are better now. Even if there’s no poverty to be seen because the poverty’s been hidden. Even if you ever got more wages and could afford to buy more of these new and useless goods which industries foist on you and even if it seems to you that you never had so much, that is only the slogan of those who still have much more than you. Don’t be taken in when they paternally pat you on the shoulder and say that there’s no inequality worth speaking of and no more reason to fight because if you believe them they will be completely in charge in their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the world under the pretence of bringing them culture. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them they’ll send you out to protect their gold in wars whose weapons, rapidly developed by servile scientists, will become more and more deadly until they can with a flick of the finger tear a million of you to pieces.”

— Jean-Paul Marat

I got this from a commenter at The Big Picture Blog

“Don’t be deceived when they tell you things are better now. Even if there’s no poverty to be seen because the poverty’s been hidden. Even if you ever got more wages and could afford to buy more of these new and useless goods which industries foist on you and even if it seems to you that you never had so much, that is only the slogan of those who still have much more than you. Don’t be taken in when they paternally pat you on the shoulder and say that there’s no inequality worth speaking of and no more reason to fight because if you believe them they will be completely in charge in their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the world under the pretence of bringing them culture. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them they’ll send you out to protect their gold in wars whose weapons, rapidly developed by servile scientists, will become more and more deadly until they can with a flick of the finger tear a million of you to pieces.”

— Jean-Paul Marat

“Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse, the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To depart upon any occasion from those rules, in consequence of some flattering speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it.”

In case you don't know, next year Major League Baseball will do two major changes.

In order to have an equal number of teams in each league -- 15 AL teams and 15 NL teams (instead of 14 and 16) -- Houston will move to the NL West. Since each league now has an odd number of teams, there will have to be an interleague game every single week.

At first sight, this appears horrible. But the more I think about the implications, I actually think this is a good idea.

The Houston Astros already suck, and they might as well go to the only 4 team division. Now each division has only 5 teams. And when you think about it, the playing inter-league games every week doesn't necessarily mean every single team. If it is done well, one team from the AL can play two other teams from the NL on one week; followed by one team from the NL playing two teams from the AL another week. And the two teams can be set up so that they play two series against the opposing league back to back and then wait their turn 14 teams later. It's not really any different then what is already happening.

However there is one glitch that I see. Since there are twenty-six weeks and 15 teams each league. 26 divided by 15 is less than 2 which basically means some teams will play inter-league less. This will probably be ameliorated by the fact that a few teams already have natural competitive regions -- Yanks vs. Mets, Angels vs. Dodgers, Marlins vs. Rays, A's vs. Giants, Reds vs. Indians, Nationals vs. Orioles, Cardinals vs. Royals. These natural regional competitors could play twice and the rest of the teams can be rearranged appropriately.

Here's how I would do it. First determine how many teams will be playing. You need 3 teams a week, or 3 from each league every two weeks, or 6 per two weeks. Half of 26 weeks is 13, and 6 times 13 is 78. So you need 78 teams, 39 per league.

There are 14 (7 per league) natural regional competitors(NRC) and 16 (8 per league) other teams(OTHER).

If the 14 NRC teams play each other 2 times plus 1 other team, that is 42 teams. 72 minus 42 equals 30. So you got 30 more teams necessary from the other 16 teams.

Is it fair to expect the 14 NRC teams to always play the opposite league 3 times? Probably not.

Some teams will play the other league twice. Other teams will play three times.

The 14 NRC teams will always play each other twice, so that leaves 78 minus 28, or 50 teams left. The other 16 teams play twice, so that leaves 50 minus 32, or 18 teams. These 18 can be determined randomly every year.

Furthermore, the inter-league games also can only be 3 game series. Which means only 6 games a week. So that means a Maximum of 9 games and a minimum of 6 games per year.

During the regular season, 162 games are played over 26 weeks. 78 teams times 3 games is 234 team games. In the regular season you have 162 times 30 team games. This is 4860 team games. Subtract the 234 inter-league games and you have 4626 that you also need to play in 26 weeks.

Seven times 25 is 175. Six times 25 is 150. Three games plus 24 times six is 147 games.

Teams that play only two opposing league teams will have 162 minus 6, or 156 games left for the remaining 25 weeks. Teams that play three, will have 162 minus 9, or 151 games left for the remaining 24.5 weeks left.

The distribution of seven or six game weeks will be up to the league, but you also have to take into a account the 3/4 day All-Star game stint here. Probably each team will have 7 game weeks about half of the year.

Anyway, the point is that at a maximum, 9 inter-league games per team is only about 5.5% of the games. Ten would only be 6.5% of the games. Even assuming a team would play 12 inter-league games, the percentage is 7.4% of the games.

It isn't going to ruin the game. But it will enhance the finances and in my opinion make the game more interesting.