Thursday, June 14, 2012

SmartCards: Pensions Converted To Food Stamps


State versus Federal venues, we have been stuck with massive pension plans without the funds. We must change it, or we are back at war for resources. U.S. has the money, yet the U.S. does not have all the money printed. When the U.S. lacked resources to print money, we have warred with some other country for their resources. If we can use some other medium for printed money then, we can avoid those war. That is one key point for smart-cards, and it is not just another plastic card, especially when it is equal to legal tender.

Pensions are not legal tender by itself, as these funds are backed by either State or Federal venues. These venues have not mixed. People acted like they do mix as they complained to the Federal agencies about their State funded pensions, and vice-versa. Maybe you realized by now what all those bailouts were about and where they were suppose to be applied, yet they got spent on funds other than for pensions of either venue. Once the Big Banks printed the money, you know how convenient legal tender is for anonymous transactions.

Nobody wanted smart-cards because too many people said they were not anonymous enough. Maybe they were told that for technophobia. The smart-card varied in more uses than access to your money, and they are smart enough for anonymous transactions. When people earned their pensions, they wanted complete liberty with that money, which meant anonymous transactions.

We know people buy food, so why go to war for anonymity over the fact that everybody needs food. At some point, people must bend, and accept budgets, in their total pension package, that are meant for food transactions and not for such anonymity. That means we know you need an amount of money for food, not that we know each food item you buy.

[Note: Consider “Whitehouse leaks” and situations where that means somebody else is aware of each item beyond its mere classification as food or not food.]

That food transaction versus anonymous transaction is where “food stamps” are good in such comparison. We do not need war for food stamps, as they are obviously not legal tender. In fact, the States have replaced the actual “stamp” material with plastic cards much like any bank card. The EBT system, electronic benefit transaction, is not anonymous anymore as every transaction has that extra governance over other bank cards for food. EBT works without Federal venues, so that is quite an advantage for the State if every citizen had EBT instead of other forms of money transactions.

The main issue is where pensions are backed by Federal venues that do not easily transfer in anyway to State venues. There is no Federal EBT, as the closest thing to that is the stricter credit card (the “government card”) that still required complete payback. It is almost like temporary printed money. The government card obviously has global access besides than limited usage within one or more States.

Let the smart-card decide when it acts like an EBT card, gift card, debit card, or government card. We have that technology available now. The problem that held us back is illegal usage of the card number, especially towards transactions that the card holder never wanted. Big Banks manipulated other financial institutions, so that they cleared, balanced, or resolved such illegal usage of credit card numbers. The idea behind the smart-card is that such number is not useful without the security components of the smart-card, which makes it like printed money except the amount varies. The other idea behind the smart-card lets it work similar to the “smart” aspect of your smart-phone.

[Addendum: There is much more to smart-cards, especially in the consolidation of technologies, and it lets us leverage politics instead of leak more details than needed...]

When all pensions work easier through EBT, we then have the “smart” Congress we need, finally. It probably means an end to Republicanism at the Federal level because of its core values (and said “corp values”), yet those values included war for resources despite newer technology available. I don't blame Republicans, yet I know that those core values are more suited as the personification of the State instead of an individual that holds public office at either State or Federal levels. Republic corporations are every way the same as communism under some different label. Republic States, however, do not have such rich shareholders that may or may not “trickle down” their economy, and Ronald Reagan exploited that fact on non-republic States, as he was from one Republic State, California. When Congress said “trim food stamps,” California simply declared larger debt (or deeper deficit).

Now, that's trickled down: quick and smart!

You know how much that simply saved California compared to the other States that went ahead and physically changed each of their food stamp agencies, made changes in law code, lost people, and every other manual change that costs other States more than its match of the gross amount for the trim. Of course, in non-agricultural States it is not so easy, as they have paid more for such manual adjustments rather than grow their own food. What we need now is the smart-card that handles such inter-State agricultural transactions, like some federal security component on the card itself, that makes it legal tender.

Either that or let the other non-agricultural States apply for EBT from the agricultural States. Sounds good, like socialism, yet back to what we really need is reassembly of the pensions away from Federal venues, like with cards backed by funds that have already trickled-down, secure from illegal usage, and that are more smart about its food transactions than be all anonymous.

[Addendum: I wondered if smart-cards would also help end the prejudice in the workforce over benefits and usage of them, especially in the employment process. Also note how many wars started because of dealers that hoarded printed money and never spent any of it.]