This is an open letter to the AARP.
AARP
601 E Street N.W.
Washington, DC 20049
Dear AARP,
I would like to know more about your organization, and give you a chance to reply to what in my mind seems like an irreconcilable contradiction between the stated goals of your organization and what appears to be a complete indifference to the welfare of your members.
Your members are largely retired, and in some part dependent upon generating a fixed return from their life’s savings. This income is their paycheck, and provides in many cases necessities of life. That paycheck has been cut by more than 90% by the Federal Reserve which has forced interest rates down to help stabilize the global financial system.
In the last two years your members have watched their money market rates drop from over 5% to .07%. The percentages don’t tell the story of your members, though. The 85 year-old retiree who saved $30,000 through hard work has watched his paycheck drop from $1,500 to $21 by government fiat. Every year this person gets to loses $1,479 of things that they don't eat, children they don't see, and basics that they don't have. And for what: so that bankers can take millions in bonuses to their homes in the Hamptons.
Your organization seems OK with this pay cut to help the country. So I have to ask whether you took a 90% pay cut to help the country? Ben Bernanke didn’t take a pay cut, and neither did Geithner. But you are letting the government force a 90% pay cut on your members, who are now forced to rethink the basic needs of life. Frankly I have a difficult time reconciling the amount you are paid with the nothing that you are doing.
While every American is ready to do his part to fix our country, I am pretty sure that asking $1,479 per year from someone bordering on the poverty level is more than his fair share. Fairness is of course always debatable. Maybe you think that is fair. Is it fair to ask the elderly to bear the brunt of the burden for solving this crisis? Is it fair to ask why AARP hasn’t asked this question? I will tell you that it is fair to ask why AARP has been completely silent on the issue.
What isn’t debatable is the fact that the members of AARP had statistically the least to do with the causes of the crisis. Statistically, AARP members own their homes with no ARM leverage. They don’t flip homes. They didn’t originate, package, rate, or sell toxic assets to institutional investors. Punishing the elderly for the casino lifestyle led by others is no more sensible than kicking the dog when your kid brings home bad grades.
Your silence on the Bernanke policies is shameful and reprehensible. What should bother you most is that he is not even an elected official. He is a bureaucrat who has decided one group of people should benefit at the expense of the dues paying members of the AARP. And your organization does nothing to protect those who pay dues to you.
I am writing you so that I can be wrong. I would welcome hearing that you have engaged your lobbying team to protect your members. I would welcome hearing that you took a pay cut so that you could share in the pain of your community. I want to be wrong, and look forward to getting a letter from you explaining how I am wrong. Here is where I am not wrong - what our country is doing to people living on a fixed income is wrong, and no one seems to be doing anything about it.
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