A Rational Solution

A Rational Solution

By

Monsieur Pierre-Olivier Pétain de Vichy

Translation and Forward by Ian McLeod

Forward:

Dear readers of American Nonfiction, my acquaintanceship with Monsieur de Vichy is quite recent. Despite the nascent nature of our friendship, he asked me to translate his essay, “A Rational Solution to the Economic Woes Which Threaten to Befall the American Way of Life in the Next 10 Years” and I agreed. It was quite a task, as he does not speak English, and I do not speak French (well, except enough to get me in trouble with female French majors.) In any case, thanks to the power of Babelfish and my own ability to write, I have successfully transferred all the pathos of Monsieur Pierre-Olivier Pétain de Vichy’s brilliant essay into the lingua franca, that is to say, English (it is a little ironic that English is the modern lingua franca, non?)

In my efforts, I found myself lost among untranslated words, as Babelfish isn’t terribly good at catching all of them; in fact, half of his original essay was unfathomable to a non-Francophone. Therefore, I decided to do what any good writer does and fill in the blanks with ideas I thought would work. So while this may read like something I might have written, I can assure you—nay, I swear on my copy of The Elements of Style, it is entirely the work of Monsieur de Vichy, and as an honorable writer, I can take no credit for his brilliant work; only for my own (admittedly neanderthalic) attempt at bringing French pathos into English.

There has been a minor problem: I sent Monsieur de Vichy my translation for approval, and his British girlfriend sent me a reply that called it a “travesty” and “completely missed the spirit of Monsieur de Vichy’s satirical tone,” but in a later message, Monsieur de Vichy decided the translation was “fittingly American” and gave me his approval, on condition that I changed his first name for sake of anonymity. I have not heard from him since.

Yours sincerely,

Ian McLeod, May 31, 2009

Introduction:

Dear Mr. McLeod, and any other readers: it is with some trepidation that your author presents this case to you. Some of you, indeed, may find it distasteful; others may cry “Hitler!” or other invective at me. Allow your author to assure you, where Hitler and Stalin and Mao singled out minorities such as Jews and Gypsies and Ukrainians and Nationalists, the following solution is perhaps the most egalitarian ever proposed for any nation’s economic and political crisis. No one can truly escape by virtue of sex, or political status, and no race is treated better or worse than another—all are equal by virtue of the simple fact of human inevitability.

Your author wishes to remind you that he himself came up with this plan through many grueling hours of study and contemplation, and only presents his case to you in hopes that it is adopted as national policy in your troubled country. Please email copies of this plan to your senators and congressmen, and bring this plan to the attention of President Barack Obama (Lady Reason shine upon him.)

Thank you for your kind attention and consideration,

Pierre-Olivier Pétain de Vichy

Paris, May 9^th, Anno Domini MMIX

Humanity often comes to the precipice of great disaster with no preparation. Indeed, we find ourselves standing at the edge of a canyon deeper than the Marianas void; we lack a parachute, and with enemies upon our heels, we have no where to go. Even with the forthcoming economic catastrophe, there are clear solutions to the problem of the Federal Government’s unfunded debt liabilities.

The present administration believes the promissory notes can flow forever from Washington, as the Mississippi flows forever into the Gulf. Sadly, the administration is incorrect: Social Security and Medicare will both be bankrupt by the end of the next decade, and only an across the board 86% tax increase will be able to save them according to one media report. In other words, every American, from the poorest to the wealthiest, will have to pay $1860 for every $1000 you presently pay in taxes.

America cannot afford this. Government will rapidly overtake industry in terms of GDP, robbing the nation of prosperity in favor of bureaucracy. Unfortunately, the powers that be believe that they can appease the people: indeed, many of the congressmen making their proposals today will likely be dead of age or retired by 2018 when all of the chickens come home to roost. In other words, they are foisting the problem—a problem many of them (as incumbents) helped create—on to the next generation. The Baby Boomers enjoyed unprecedented wealth and prosperity, and having squandered that, wish to squander Generation X, Y, and the Internet Generation’s prosperity as well before they shuffle off this mortal coil.

As one born (perhaps fittingly, as you will soon see) in 1984, your author resents this attitude of the Boomers towards our generation. There is but one solution, and I fear many may reject it on its face. I ask that, for the time being, you will calm your nerves with demon rum, a White Russian, vodka-on-rocks-sans-rocks, or whatever beverage you and your god agree is best for you. Once calmed, consider the following facts rationally:

The Baby Boomers are retiring at an increasing rate.

As Baby Boomers retire, they begin collecting Social Security.

No Social Security money exists in a bank: the entire trust fund has been squandered on other government projects, such as wolf breeding, $600 toilet seats, and unjust wars overseas.

All current Social Security liabilities are funded by working individuals who are currently paying into the Social Security system; i.e., Social Security is little different from Bernie Madoff’s recent scheme, except the amount of money your government has promised retirees (without the ability to repay its promise) is as follows: $10.4 trillion dollars. That is to say, ten-thousand four-hundred billion dollars. 10,400 billion dollars. Or, simply written: $10,400,000,000,000. Note the large number of zeroes. It is impossible for the human brain to comprehend that amount of money. But here is a number you can comprehend: if we were to divide that by every tax-paying American, the sum becomes a far more manageable (and offensive) $69,333.33 cents. Each tax-payer owes just under seventy-thousand dollars, just to cover unfunded liabilities. That is the amount you owe (by virtue of law), and you will never see a penny of it if you are currently under the age of 40. What could you buy if that $69,333.33 wasn’t being taken from you? And mind you, this is the current tab; the amount will only increase over time. This debt is interesting in that it never shrinks with your Social Security payments, it only increases. You owe this amount in perpetuity, and unless you are over 40, Social Security will have to be completely eliminated if the economy is to survive, and you will never see a penny. It is not an investment, it is a scam so large it makes Bernie Madoff appear a rank amateur. This is money being taken from you, from every paycheck (FICA), and given to someone else’s parents. It is not being put away in a trust fund and invested for you, it is being spent on those who have frittered away their paychecks to keep up with the Joneses.

As Baby Boomers age, they also get sick with increasing frequency. While great advances have been made in human medicine, and these advances have increased lifespan tremendously, they have also put a great burden on society. Health-care costs have increased exponentially as America has grown increasingly litigious. For all his flaws, Bush did have the right idea when it came to tort reform; and indeed, you should protect your doctors better than you protect your Congressmen. You must pass a law making doctors completely immune from lawsuits unless they are first found guilty of criminal neglect in their treatment of a patient. This would eliminate the need for malpractice insurance, as malpractice would only be a civil issue in cases where criminal neglect is first uncovered. It is the lawsuits that really make American health-care cost so much. It is not that hospitals are greedy, it is that a populace of ingrates sues the doctor if chemo doesn’t magically cure Granny of lung-cancer after her 70 years of chain-smoking. Yes, such a case will be thrown out, but the hospital must still incur the expense of hiring lawyers to defend against the frivolity.

The second solution, I will come ‘round to in short order, as it ties into the solution to the Social Security problem. Being a doctor used to be the highest professional calling: doctors receive preferential treatment all over the world, and rightly so: they have taken it upon themselves to save human life. America is so crass you sue them if something goes wrong. Doctors are humans, too, and make mistakes, but in the old days, their mistakes were easily forgiven because your culture was far more humble, and far less greedy. It is your avarice that makes health-care cost too much, because doctors must pay out as much as half of their income just to cover the insurance required to settle your vile lawsuits. This is not to say that a small percentage of doctors deserve to be sued, but you, America, are punishing everyone by litigating against medicine. It is like you declared financial Jihad on the very people trying to save your lives.

Doctors have had to raise their rates tremendously over the past 30 years, commensurate with the rising cost of malpractice insurance. They raise rates in order to maintain a standard of living that is worth the 48 hour workdays they must sometimes endure. If you were making $200,000 a year as a doctor, but had to pay $100,000 out in malpractice insurance, the remaining $100,000 a year for fifty 80-hour work-weeks somehow does not sound terribly rewarding. Hospitals must raise their rates for the same reason. Somehow, it is greed if a doctor provides a life-saving service and must cover his costs of med-school and maintain a decent standard of living when not on the clock, but it is not greed if you sue him for all he’s worth just because a treatment didn’t work, something went wrong, or – my God – he committed an error. Whenever you deal with a human being and you expect errors, you will not be disappointed so terribly often.

With the stroke of a pen, and at a cost of $0.00 to taxpayers, President Obama could reform healthcare just by making doctors immune from civil liability over actions taken in the course of their medical practice. They could lower their rates by at least 25-50%, and because of this, dramatically decrease the cost of health care, which then decreases the cost of medical insurance, which then means the Socialist health-care-program will no longer be needed, which means America can maintain first-class facilities without rationing. Do you really want to wait six months for third-rate treatment, as many do in Canada or Britain? Perhaps you should google the number of functional CAT scanners and MRI machines in Canada before you begin envying their health care system.

Instead, President Obama and others want to increase the largest government program in existence. Social Security is chump-change compared to Medicare and the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. The total unfunded liabilities of these monstrosities is in the neighborhood of $50 trillion dollars between now and 2050. Five times as much as Social Security. Your share of this cost is $333,333.33. What could you buy with $333,000 dollars? A Maserati perhaps? You could spend that money on alternative energy, or Maglev trains, or any of a number of other things, and make health-care very affordable if you just stop the lawsuits. Sadly, your President now wants to raise your taxes by imposing a Value Added Tax. Unlike the Republicans, some of whom wish to replace the income tax with a national sales tax, a growing number of Democrats want to impose a value-added-tax in addition to of the existing income tax scheme, just to fund health-care-reform. If you have ever wished to be a citizen of Europe, with repressive 50% taxes levied against the Middle Class, now is your opportunity, America. A VAT is incredibly harmful to business, as each step of production is taxed based on the amount of value it contributes to the finished product. These taxes are then passed along to you, the consumer, through radically higher prices at the checkout. This is a highly regressive tax, and will destroy the middle class. Even the Republican National Sales Tax (FairTax) plan has a monthly tax-rebate up to the Federal Poverty Level: the poor don’t pay taxes under the Republican system. No so with the Democrat VAT; everyone is harmed by the Democrat plan, even if they do eliminate the poor from income taxation (which is ironic, as the poor already do not pay income taxes, only FICA contributions for Social Security). Who’s progressive now? The Republicans, more Progressive than Democrats? Oh the bitter irony! This is what happens when you hearken to buzz-words like “hope” and “change” without studying what your candidate truly believes.

In any case, the VAT; it is being lobbied for by Rahm Emanuel’s brother, Ezekiel. Rahm Emanuel, in case you haven’t heard, is Obama’s chief of staff. The VAT is a gigantic middle-finger to the Middle Class. You voted for them, America. He did promise change: he did not say it was for the better.

How will we solve these problems, ladies and gentlemen? We see that Social Security and Medicare have put you in debt for over $400,000 over the course of your lifetime, for two gigantic services you will likely never get to use because they will be bankrupt by 2019. Just because the services go away, doesn’t mean your debt will, though. That debt is owed to foreigners, like China. Thank your congressmen. Thank Obama, Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt, and Herbert Hoover. Thank all of them for building up the Welfare-Warfare state, the kind of state that always bankrupts itself in the end regardless of what Utopians say. Thank your parents, your grandparents, your great-grandparents for electing all of these men who have put you on the hook for $400,000, in perpetuity, to foreigners, just so your parents, grandparents, and great grandparents could squander wealth on booze, McMansions and SUVs and say “when I retire, Social Security will be there for me.”

We can either thank them, or we can do something else:

It is here that your author wishes to remind you that he is trying to find an egalitarian solution to the entire problem of Social Security and Medicare. Time is of the essence, however: we must choose one or some combination of these options within the next three years in order to stave off the coming fiscal apocalypse. Hard times are still ahead even if we do act decisively, but we may be able to soften the blow if we act quickly.

We have two options. The first option is to make retirement a crime if an individual’s net worth is not greater than $1,000,000 (which is enough to sustain a retiree on a modest fixed-income up to the end of life: negating reliance on Social Security.) If the Baby Boomers do not retire, they will not receive Social Security checks, non? Those checks can then be sent to China to pay off the debt that otherwise would be your generation’s to pay in future taxes and inflation (the hidden tax.) The punishment for the crime of retirement without sufficient net-worth is the forfeiture of all assets and a life sentence to hard-labor in the Florida Gulag. Why Florida? Because, old people seem to like Florida, and making it a gigantic prison camp will make the punishment for retirement all the more severe. The first project in the Florida Gulag will be a make-work project, whereby the entire elderly populace of retirees will be forced to dig a canal across the state, connecting the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic through the state (and thereby cutting off most of Florida from the contiguous US: it would be like Escape From New York.) Your author will allow statisticians, coroners, and medical doctors estimate the cost in terms of human resources, but a steady diet of Ensure, pumpernickel bread, and Brussels Sprouts ought to maintain sustenance long enough for the completion of the canal within 10 years.

The second option, which your author does not endorse so highly but must present for your consideration, is the Expiration Date. In one of the most iconic American films of its time, Logan’s Run, the Expiration Date was the age of 30. That is, on one’s thirtieth birthday, one would be euthanized. This kept the population young and nubile. Your author believes there is some merit to age, so perhaps we should set the expiration date at 50. This eliminates the bulk of Medicare cost, and negates the need for the Florida Gulag. Social Security becomes unnecessary, as no one will live to 65 in order to collect. The debts to China and other foreigners will quickly be repaid, and most importantly, the young generation will be off the hook.

We could, of course, see how all this plays out without taking these radical steps. To do so invites a collapse of the American way of life and the prosperity of future generations, with yours being the first generation to live in the debt-laden, unstable Banana Republic of America. It is not fair that the burden of making such great decisions over human life falls to this generation, but the previous generations leave you no choice: you can either choose debt-servitude to foreigners forever and ever, or we can choose to eliminate those who are intermediate beneficiaries (and thereby, willing accomplices) to this fraudulent theft of your collective future. This is not cruelty. Indeed, there is nothing mean-spirited in any of the solutions. This is not an injustice—quite the opposite, we seek only to punish those guilty of the crime of Grand Theft on a generational scale, and to make an example of the wasteful Baby Boomers to all future generations.

These are weighty matters, and your author hopes that even if you do not at agree with his solutions, you will at least respect the merits of these Rational Solutions to the problems created by Boomers and their Statist predecessors.