No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for January 15th, 2010

Social Security crater – December 2009 preliminary edition

by @ 21:14. Filed under Social Security crater.

Earlier this month, I noted that the first set of December numbers for Social Security, the “investment” holdings, commonly called the “Trust Funds”, rose by a very-disappointing $24.153 billion in December. While the December Trust Fund Operations numbers are still not available from the Social Security Office of the Chief Actuary, the December Monthly Treasury Statement from the Department of the Treasury, which forms the basis of those numbers, is available. There is an interesting tidbit on the cover page – “Federal old-age and survivors insurance trust fund and Federal disability insurance trust fund benefit payments for January 3, 2010, were accelerated to December 31, 2009.”

That explanation of what I had hoped to be an anomaly is not entirely satisfying. First, I have to explain how I derived the numbers from the Trust Fund Operation time series – the “total income” and “total outgo” for a given month comes from the “income, outgo and assets” chart, while the “net interest” comes from the “income components” chart. The equivalent numbers on the Monthly Treasury Statement are, respectively, the “receipts” and “outlays” for each fund found in Table 8, and the “Interest Received by Trust Funds” for each fund found in the end of Table 5. While they are not 100% reconciled, the margin of difference is typically well under 1% (keep that statistic in mind).

Including the “accelerated” payments from Social Security, and also including the semi-annual crediting of “interest”, the “total income” was about $105.5 billion (of which about $58.5 billion was “interest”, in line with what was “credited” to the funds in December 2008), and the “total outlays” were about $87.7 billion, which should make the “net increase in assets” about $17.8 billion. Something is massively off, because that does not support the $24.2 billion increase in the “Trust Funds”. However, since I don’t have enough information to say what is off, all I can do until the Office of the Chief Actuary releases its numbers is note it and move on.

The total income estimate, which is 0.443% lower than it was in December 2008, is right in the ballpark of what is expected given the recent year-over-year history of the “Trust Funds”. In 2009, the 11-month average increase had been 0.271%, with the average year-over-year decrease over the prior 5 months being 0.446% and the average year-over-year decrease over the prior 3 months being 0.431%.

Accelerating a significant portion of the January 2010 payments to December 2009, which affects the total outgo of both months, makes apples-to-apples comparisons a bit “problematic”, with the December 2009 monthly change, the January 2010 monthly change, and the 12-month changes featuring only one of those months a challenge to estimate. However, calculating the recent average year-over-year change allows one to estimate what the outgo would have been without the acceleration. The average year-over-year increase in outgo was 9.648% in the first 11 months of 2009, increasing to an average year-over-year increase of 9.939% over the prior 5 months and an average year-over-year increase of 10.529% over the prior 3 months. Given that, my best estimate of the “December-only” version of total outgo is $58.1 billion.

Now it becomes possible to run a preliminary apples-to-apples comparison, with the caveat that at least one of these numbers may well be off. $105.5 billion in income (including “interest”) less $58.1 billion of “December-only” outgo and less $58.5 billion in “interest” leaves a primary “December-only” (or “unaccelerated”) monthly deficit of $11.1 billion, almost double the previous record of $5.9 billion last month. It also makes the “unaccelerated” Calendar Year 2009 primary surplus only about $3.5 billion.

Since I don’t have the usual numbers, I will not go further into analysis at this point. However, don’t be surprised if the panic button is pressed before April.

Friday Hot Read – John Hawkins’ “The Last Decade Of Liberalism In 40 Quotes”

by @ 9:44. Filed under Compassionate Lieberals.

This special from John Hawkins ties in so well with the NRE Dumbest Thing Said award. Just an unranked taste to whet your appetite…

“…I would further strongly urge Democrats who don’t believe marriage is between a man and a woman but who feel they ought to pretend to believe this in order to win elections (a plausible position) need to do a better job of pretending. I’ve heard a shockingly large number of politicians say things, in rooms where journalists are present, that make it perfectly clear that they think gay marriage is just fine but that the voters aren’t ready for it. That’s a sensible thing to believe, but you can’t go around saying it if you’re trying to win votes. If you’re going to lie, then lie — and lie convincingly!” — Matthew Yglesias

“Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.” — Rahm Emanuel

“It’s about time that we have an intifada in this country that changes fundamentally the political dynamics in here. And we know every — They’re gonna say some Palestinian being too radical — well, you haven’t seen radicalism yet.” — U.C. Berkeley Lecturer Hatem Bazian fires up the crowd at an anti-war rally by calling for an American intifada

Head on over to Right Wing News for where in the top 40 they rank, and for the rest of the infamous quotes.

A Simple Question

by @ 8:43. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Will Keith Olbermann say about Danny Glover:

“your life is not worth those of the lowest, meanest, poorest of those victims still lying under that rubble in Haiti tonight. You serve no good. You serve no god. You inspire only stupidity and hatred. And I would wish you to hell but knowing how empty your soul must be, for you to be able to say such things in a time of such pain, I suspect the vacant purposeless life you live now is hell enough already.

Yes, of course I already know the answer!

Are you ready for some fire?

by @ 8:21. Tags:
Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

The Racine Tea Party and Americans for Prosperity – Wisconsin are teaming up for an afternoon bonfire tomorrow between 3:00 and 4:30 at 4505 Highway H in Franksville. Since there is expected to be more people than parking, they’re going to run a shuttle from the Racine Area Soccer Association field at 9509 Dunkelow Road (also in Franksville) starting at 1:30.

The full list of speakers is quite long, so I’ll send you over to the Racine Tea Party’s site for them. The weather is even supposed to cooperate, with sun and 30s expected.

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