Why is it that I feel a personal slight at receiving this information? After all, I have never made any social security contributions. I am retired now. When I worked as an attorney self-employed persons were not required to make contributions. The Social Security Board will never have to advance one red cent to me. None of my personal funds are invested in Social Security.
Yet I feel more than slighted: outraged, soiled, and dirtied even, at this information.
Am I right to feel instinctively that, no matter what the circumstances, this is a breach of trust by the Board? Or, is it just that there is something wrong with me, and I am being super sensitive?
While we are dealing with section 7 of the Constitution and government’s power to confiscate private property let us spend a few minutes looking at the question of government “borrowing” money from Social Security.
This is absolutely astounding! After getting us to vote for him by promising "no more borrowing," Hubert has been secretly looting our old age pension money as if it were a bank he was the Chairman of! This is the kind of crap we read about a few years ago in Lester Bird's Antigua. We just shook our heads and thanked God we live in Anguilla where things like that just couldn't happen because we have higher ethical standards than other islands.
ReplyDeleteI struck!
When you can not meet the payroll you must reduce your expenses and staff until you can meet payroll without borrowing. Business 101.
ReplyDeleteOur ministers and civil servants are to blame for not getting this equilibrium correct.
To borrow money from social security immediately throws a red flag as it means that the banks will not lend or you have reached your borrowing limits, either way you are a bad risk.
Social security must know that the government is a bad risk so why they agreed to lend i can not understand unless it was a way of them getting paid.
Perhaps Ministers and civil servants think they have a right to get paid no matter what the deficit is.
Being allowed to take money from social security for payroll Knowing you can not pay it back sounds tantamount to stealing to me.
In my opinion this borrowing / lending should never have been allowed to happen and with strong leadership it would not have.
If the governor knew this was happening he should also be held accountable, although, all the british know is to increase taxes print money like there is no tomorrow and still go bankrupt so we should not follow them.
Is anyone in government, ministers, civil servants thinking what is best for Anguilla instead of thinking how can i keep this gravy train going?
The AUM government and civil servants have lost all credibility with me. If lenders listen to their broken campaign promises they would not lend them one penny. The word of the AUM government can not be trusted in any circles.
ReplyDeleteBeware any lenders, you can not get paid back as we have no money hence the need for borrowing to pay the payroll. Tell Anguilla to get its fiscal house in order, pay only reasonable salaries no huge salaries we can not afford it.
Make it a constitutional law that Anguilla governments can not take social security money ever.
All voters should call their minister and demand that they vote no to any new taxes in the house and they must present a balanced budget even if they have to introduce a 4 day week to accomplish this.
This government should not make any major policy decisions about taxes to be imposed on Anguillians without a referendum which will show the will of the people. You can not be trusted as you have gone against your main campaign promises.
Governments the world over rob their social security funds. It really should be expected. After they rob it they then call it an "unfunded liability". Then they say they must increase the social security tax since it is about to fail. The social security tax is very regressive. It is much harder on poor people to lose 10% of their wages than some rich guy who might not lose anything because he is not working or only a small amount if he has a large paycheck since only the first part is taxed.
ReplyDeleteWhy do people trust government with their retirement money? Government is run by politicians who are famous for an ability to lie much better and more often than the average human. While it is sad to have it happen in Anguilla, the US has had a very similar lie of "read my lips, no new taxes".
I think if a politician promises something and then clearly goes against that promise after we gave him a job we should be able to fire him and then lock him up for fraud. I am sure that if this was part of our constitution it would help with "good governance".
While on paper, Anguilla's "Social Security" scheme is almost as sound as the ones run by places like Singapore (though without the outright privatizing features of the much better plan in Chile), one constantly hears not only about "Social Security" doing stuff like this, but also "investments" in publicity stunts, sports teams, jazz concerts, plantings of potted plants, charitable events that only rich people go to, and other erstwhile well-meaning "non-profit" boondoggles of various kinds.
ReplyDeleteI could never figure that out. Even the most profligate Ponzi-scheme ever invented, the "Social Security" scheme of the USA, could never get away with that.
What the US "Social Security" and Anguillian "Social Security" schemes *now* have in common is "investments" in the debts of their nation-states. Imagine that.
Unlike (ostensibly at least) Anguilla, the US scheme is not a "trust fund" for retirement, but merely a general tax on the population. The Roosevelt administration said so in the Supreme Court, immediately after it was taken to court for, heh, forcing the population to buy insurance -- in direct contravention of the US Constitution.
It's starting to seem like the same thing has occurred in Anguilla, behind the people's back.
Remember boys and girls, a "prince" is merely a bandit who doesn't move, no matter how many sashes he drapes himself with, or fine hats he puts on his head.
The simple solution to this is to privatize Anguilla's "Social Security" scheme, and to de-regulate the Anguillian retirement services market to permit actual competition therein. The "loan" window will immediately close, and gov.ai will be forced to live within its means.
To lift, heavily, from P. J. O'Rourke, giving money and power to *any* government of Anguilla is like giving rum and car keys to teenage boys.
From the ANGLEC shares back in 2003, "I think". This should have told everyone that they can do whatever the want with the fund, I've been paying into it since I was a teenager and I don't expect to get anything out of it. I would love to see how much of "our" money is left...
ReplyDeleteGood news. Social Security has financial and accounting regulations that are in addition to the Social Security Act. They can be found here:
ReplyDeletehttp://ssbai.com/regulations/S045-Financial%20and%20Accounting%20Regulations.pdf
Heh, sorry, it says "Page not found." I wonder what's in these regulations that they don't want me to see.
How much of "our" money is left? Well, their Financial Statements are on their website. Alas, the most recent one is four years old, but in 2006 "we" had assets of EC$160,520,209. That was before they gave money to Smith Barney and Joe Brice. I heard Joe had his bail revoked recently, is that true?
ReplyDeleteI digress. At the present rate of borrowing to make the payroll, I estimate that $100 million of this will be gone by the end of the year -- just six months from now. So our financial genius who read economics at Oxford will have spent 62.5% of our trust funds this year!
This is serious disaster. Our Governor just sits there in ExCo and watches all this, like the ineffective former Governor did in TCI?
It has long been known that the best way to rob a bank is to own one.
ReplyDeleteI am not in the least appalled by this news,in fact I have spkoen out about it in previous post here on this blog.Anguilla social security and its adminsitrators are down right crazy whit the way they are spending our money.It seems as if they really do not understand the reason we cotribute to this fund.i laugh hartily when I hear things like 'we've had a good year and our financial status is in a surplus".How can social security funds experience a surplus?Tim and his boofoones need a neurologist to examine their heads and a caridologist to check for their heart cause their heartless.Gov't been bleeding this gravy train for so long .ie. both past and present,that they think it is ok,but it not they robbing us lawd what we gonna do ?
ReplyDelete