What did Bernie do? He ran vast Ponzi Scheme, and then ran off with the money and left his clients with their accounts worthless.

What does Obama want to do? He wants to convert the money set aside for Medicare into a fund to pay for his Healthcare scheme to benefit his ACORN friends and other very poor people.

This would transform Medicare into a vast Failed Ponzi Scheme in which money has been collected from people all their working lives, and now it is stolen at the last minute by Obama who runs off with it, so the Medicare beneficiaries are left with their accounts worthless.

It’s conversion of funds on a vast scale. It’s larceny by trick and device. And it will be very harmful. The Medicare beneficiaries who are about to retire — reaching age 65, after working at least 40 quarters, and paying into FICA their whole working lives, are going to need end of life care — nursing homes, hospitals, etc — the kind of thing that Medicare beneficiaries have been able to count on since the 1960′s.

Now comes Obama, the socialist, who wants to spread the wealth around, to his ACORN henchmen, and other street people and community organizers.

How does he even get a hearing in the House or Senate? Why isn’t his health scheme considered so outrageous, preposterous, and obviously dishonorable as to be dead on arrival on Capitol Hill?

Besides the stealing issue, and the breach of promise (nobody will ever trust the government again if Obama gets his way), there’s also a huge negative wealth effect created. If Medicare is not going to be there for the Baby Boomers, they are going to have to save a lot more. That means not spending. Economy is weak now. Obama-Care will kill it utterly. Nobody will spend a dime.

The Medicare insurance program was supposed to allow people to get old without worrying about their medical care or paying for it. Medicare is insurance against being old, sick, and unable to pay. Like most insurance it provided a huge societal benefit. It gave people freedom to live without worry.

Take it away — like in the Obama scheme — people will have to self-insure. They will do it with annuities, with TIPS, with other forms of dead-money no-risk investments, maybe gold, maybe land, whatever. Anyhow that cash won’t be around to sustain a vibrant retail sector economy. Forget it.

The ACORN people will get what they got in the USSR, in Chad, in Albania, in North Korea, in all the places where their "spread the wealth around" (quoting Joe Biden) ideas have been tried.

Obama is the first President in the history of the USA to become a "Lame Duck" in less than 6 months. Talk about blowing an opportunity, with both houses of the Congress, and 60 votes in the Senate, Wow, that’s some accomplishment.

The TARP was theft, The TALF was theft, the Stimulus did not work at all, and the Health scheme is theft — Bernie Madoff style theft!

Three strikes, you’re out pal!
Is it not likely that any politician on any side of the isle who supports Obama in mugging the Medicare beneficiaries will be signing their own "Pink Slip" from the Congress. People over 65 will soon figure out they have been robbed. About 100% of them vote. This is not a small robbery — this is Madoff style clean out your account robbery. Yes, there will a lot of people gone out of the Congress. Touched the "Third Rail" of American politics. Didn’t mean to. Didn’t think that’s what they were doing. It’s not what Nancy Pelosi told them. Too soon gone, too late smart. Messing with the Medicare is a real bad idea. Any fraud, waste, or abuse money found should go right back into the Trust Fund. When the cops catch bank robbers, the bags of money go back to the bank. They don’t go to the local mayor or to ACORN for community improvement projects. Medicare is for the Medicare beneficiaries.
Touch that "Third Rail" and you are GONE! Ta, Ta, so long, it’s been good to know ya. Happy trails

If you put up ,000 today in exchange for a 8.5 percent, 12 year annuity, what will the annual cash flow be?

I’m using a financial calculator, I am just having a problem setting it up as the annual cash flow bit throws me off…is it asking for future value then?

Money is a form of privilege, particularly when the money comes from just pumping oil out of the ground, and the rights to the ground were given to the Arab Moslems by the Brits and the Americans in the 1930′s. The Western powers set up and created the House of Saud and declared it to be the owner of the oil.

There are about 5000 Saudi princes. Only a few hundred are 1st generation decendants of the original King. The vast majority are second or third or fourth generation.

So far nobody in the second generation removed from the original King has become King. So, there’s a power struggle waiting in the wings.

But in the meantime, the conduct of some of the Saudi princes has been totally deplorable.

A few hundred of them routinely give huge amounts of the money to support the Madrassas movement around the world. These are schools in which very young people are trained so they are mentally ready to become suicide bombers. They must go on after the Madrassas to a Terrorist Training Camp, where they learn the operational techniques of killing Westerners with explosives and poisons.

Here’s what I think makes sense morally at this point. The Saudi Peninsula should be re-taken by the British and the Americans.

The several hundred Saudi princes that have actively supported the Madrassas movement should be put in Orange Jumpsuits and taken to Guantanamo, or maybe to a facility on Tristan de Cuna.

The remaining Saudi princes should get job training and career counselling. The women should get annuities so they have financial support that does not depend on any Saudi man.

All the the oil pumped from now on should be sold on the world market, except not to enemies of the USA and Britain (not to North Korea for example).

The cash should be used to create and set up Moslem Re-Education Centers all over the world to de-program people and if possible reverse the effect of the Madrassas movement.

Moslems should be taught that killing Westerners is not what Allah wants, that Allah will be angry with them if they do that. That it is not an automatic ticket into Paradise, in fact if innocent Westerners are killed, Allah will not permit that Moslem to enter Paradise.

It’s a U turn that’s required. And it should be paid for with money from the oil that is now called "saudi oil" — but actually is up for grabs, and we should grab it, and re-designate the use of the money it generates until the re-education process is complete, which I think would take about 75 years.

The Re-education Centers should be run by authentic genuine Imams who just happen to believe that homicidal lunacy is not acceptable conduct for Moslems, if any such people can be found.

If they cannot, then the major universities of the West should create Departments that are designed to investigate the Koran, and see if there is anything in it that would support a non-homicidal approach to Westerners. Imams can be generated, if the text of the Koran permits such an interpretation.

In any case, the very best possible people should be in charge of the re-education centers. They should have leadership qualities, and sermon writing skills and verbal delivery skills, so that they make a huge impact on the students.

Moslem nations should be told that the foreign assistance support they get from the West is entirely dependent on how many of their popualtion graduate from a Moslem Re-Education Center. This would be a four year program, leading to a Bachelor’s Degree in Non-Violent Islamic Studies.

Any students receiving such a degree would be entitled to two years of vocational training, and a year of job placement counselling.

This would all be paid for with the same saudi iol money that created the problem in the first place.

This would be a U Turn that fixes the problem.

Fixing problems is something we no longer know how to do, so any suggestion made in good faith, should be taken seriously, and considered by the Powers that Be.

Another 10 years and they won’t be powers anymore, if things keep going as they are. So it’s kind of a use it or lose it situation for USA and Great Britain. Solve the problem, or it will eliminate the present world order. Act or be passive. Live or die.

This is a choice that can be made by people who are not actually as smart as Albert Einstein. Even us!
For Maria:

Yes, I am talking about a worldwide moral code against first degree murder.

If you think this is part of my own personal culture, and that it would be wrong for me to impose my personal culture on the dear Saudi Royals, yes, then OK, I want to be wrong according to Maria.

We have to face a real problem, not an abstract moral dilemma about multi-culti psycho-babble. There are a billion people out there, and a very significant percentage of them have been brainwashed into the idea that Allah wants them to commit first degree murder on Americans and that if they do, they will go to Paradise.

You say I should value their culture as highly as my own. I say anybody that puts value on first degree murder is crazy, I don’t care what culture they come from — could be Saudi Arabia, could be American psycho-babble multi-culti High Schools.

It will cost a lot to de-program 1 billion people. Let it be Saudi money. So we need to take the oil, so the remedy can begin.
For Maria Part Two:

Yes, I would like to change their beliefs.

So instead of believing that Allah wanst them to kill Americans and they will go to Paradise if they do …

they now believe

Allah does not want them to kill Americans, or commit any other first degree murder against anybody else, and that if they do they will not go to Paradise.

You call this the Western Bandwagon. Why not just commit a couple of muders in Singapore, or Japan, or China — you will see that my idea is not actually the Western Bandwagon. It’s what all civilized people of very nation (except Saudi Arabia and their brainwashed Madrassas students) believe.

We have become so lost in value free multi-culti nonsense that our High School graduates are unable to muster the intellectual focus to stand up for the prepremptory norms of human conduct.

No culture anywhere acts like murderers and holds that a value except the Saudis.

I’m no cultural imperialist, just a regular person with values.

I was sold a Global Index Universal Life by Western Reserve Life. The index is a mixed bag of SP500, European Index and Hongkong Hengseng. high cap is set at 13.25%, and the bottom is set at 2%. When I ran a simulation for the past 20 or so years, I can expect a compounding annual return of 9% from the product. Comparing with the return of SP500 at the same period, the return is a dismal 6%. Investing in stock does not match the life insurance even I added another 2% of dividend from stock. Overall, in spite of heavy charges and expenses, this UL outperforms the scenario of investing the same amount of money in Roth IRA and a term life. Therefore, I am pretty attracted to it. The only uncertainty is that the insurance company can change the cap at its will, and so I am worrying about the probability that the insurance company will lower its cap. Some of my argument is
1) Can insurance company consistently makes more than those on stock market for a long long time, I mean, my life time? I know the money is not invested in stock, but on fixed-return investment and call options (learned from a website). I heard many times that 90% of mutual funds cannot outperform index fund for a 10 year horizon. and I guess some of the mutual funds use sophisticated strategy, which could include fixed-return investment and options. If these mutual fund cannot outperform index, can insurance company?
2) Of course, insurance company need not to worry about how much return they offer now, because they charge a heavy "per unit charge" (about 25% of target prenium) for the first 8 years (in the product I was sold). That is a reserve they keep for future uncertainties. Anyhow, the Equity-indexed life insurance is only around for 9 years, and the company I was sold may have the product for only several years. By that, I mean the possibility of reducing cap won’t be seen in the near term. But I will be locked in the product for life time (of course, I can surrender and pay tax, or transfer the cash value to another product, which is not a good idea either.)

3) I want to know some history of related products.
a) Whole life is indexed to the rate of saving account. Were there any decrease of returns in history? Are they big?
b) I heard on a website (forgot where it is exactly) that indexed annuities are offered earlier than indexed UL, and some of these annuities got into trouble, and the problem is spilled to EIUL now. Can anybody offer a little more insight on this?