New Angry Bear Post

[bruce....@gmail.com]

http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2009/04/vanishing-surpluses-yet-again.html

Well I am dangerous now. I found an easy way to convert a screen
capture to .jpg meaning I can upload anything on the web to my blog
posts.

In this case I took the SSA web application that reports monthly Trust
Fund data and uploaded screen shots from Dec to March. And they show
clearly what it took me and Coberly some tedious plodding through the
Treasury's Monthly Reports to find out: February is an
unrepresentative month in all years, using it as Biggs and Hassett did
to show a vanishing surplus was close to or over the line of
dishonesty.

Combined surpluses returned in March. In retrospect this seems to be
an artifact of it having three more workdays than February which for
people who are paid hourly means three more days of taxes hence more
revenue to SSA. On the other hand benefits are paid in equal monthly
amounts. I don't know how much covered employment consists of salaries
as opposed to hourly but in any event February would always get an
income/cost hit.

If we compare Feb with Jan we see that while the amount credited to
the TF from tax on benefits in February was $13 million it was $6001
million in January.

And if we compare either Jan or Feb with December we see $25 and $92
million respectively from Interest on Investments compared to $58
BILLION in December.

Did Biggs and Hassett just happen to single out the structurally
weakest month of the year to support their 'vanishing surplus'
narrative? In these things I am not much of a believer in coincidences.