<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; font-size: 17px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; ">Remember when Bush and friends tried to privatize Social Security?</span><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br></span></font></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; ">Total Social Security benefits paid in 2007 were <a href="http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/TR08/tr08.pdf">$585 billion</a>.</span></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br></span></font></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; ">Cost of bailouts to Wall Street are now at <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/26/news/economy/where_bailout_stands/?postversion=2008112615">$7 trillion and no end in sight</a>.</span></div><div><br></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">One way of seeing these amazing numbers is that the folks on Wall Street managed to cut in front of a bunch of retirees after all, pocketing huge amounts of cash without much of a fight at all.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br></span></font></div></body></html>