The Office of the President deserves RESPECT!!! Except, y'know, not NOW that Obama is in....
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 13:24
VIEWED: 13349
PAGE 8 of 22
Quote:
...sleeping thru Enron
Didn't the bulk of that deception go on during the Clinton administration, and the bankruptcy occur early in Bush's administration?
It is not those who use the term "Islamo-Fascism" who are sullying the name of Islam; it is the Islamo-Fascists. - Dennis Prager
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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Quote:Wake up. WAKE UP!
Originally posted by AURaptor:
You need not hate on your former liberal self! Extremes are common in youth, coming to the middle takes time. But to dismiss the beliefs you had entirely is simply to banish your true self to the other end of the spectrum as a survival mechanism.
Let it go, AU.
Let go of your hate.
I sense the good in you, the conflict.
The Jediisall
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A word into the flames about one issue that most of the left does not get at all, and that is the disaster called social security.
Social Security is probably one of the worst conceived economic plans of all time. It has two defenses, so let me attack them independently:
A) Social Security as long term investment.
The total payout on social security as an investment is 33 cents on the dollar of what's put in, with no interest or appreciation. Relative to other fixed income investment, it's 3 cents on the dollar out, with no interest or inflation adjustment. *
No one would ever willingly invest in such a plan.
So this concludes that it must be B) a welfare plan:
B) As a welfare plan, Social Security is terrible on both ends:
1. 1/3 of all checks, and 2/3 of all $ go to households with net assets over a million dollars. My mom, who is poor, gets $300/mo, her ex-husband gets 1,000, and her brother, $1750. The latter two both fall into the "over a million" category.
2. The payments are covered by incoming entitlement taxes, which are extremely regressive. The rate starts at 12.4% of your income for the poorest americans, and decreases to 6.2% for the full time employed, up to 90,000, after which you could opt out. The top 1% of american earners, on average, should they pay in, are taxed at an average of 0.37%
3. The social security money is held in a special account, the social security trust, which is routinely raided by presidents of both parties and has been for decades. Most of the money that goes in will be taken out to use on some military supplemental or other such expense.
So, it robs from the poor, and gives to the rich?
Stupid bitch.
The Dennis Moore school of economics would have to evolve to lose 2/3 of the cash along the way.
Virtually anything would be better. No program at all, for example, would be a vast improvement.
*(Furthermore, the system does not differentiate as to when dollars were put in, so 10 years out of 40 worked last is valued several times as much as the same job worked the first 10 years. Many people don't work full time for 40 years, but only for some of those.)
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Quote:It's hard to say where the serious accounting fraud started, but Wikipedia traces it to Nov 1999 with the creation of EnronOnline with actual bankruptcy in Nov 2001. However, it was Wendy Gramm, Phil Gramm's wife, who was on Enron's Board, and Phil Gramm who pushed thru laws which allowed "deregulated" energy futures trading (previously illegal) which would become the source of Enron's phantasmal wealth and one of the reasons for the latest meltdown. This bill was pushed by republicans and buried in a larger bill and passed during Clinton's last few Xmas days withou examination or debate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_20
Didn't the bulk of that deception go on during the Clinton administration, and the bankruptcy occur early in Bush's administration?
00
As an FYI it was Phil Gramm who also pushed for bank deregulation, undoing the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 in 1999.
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It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.
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DT, there are all kinds of ways to remake Social Security, but the Bush way wasn't it.
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It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.
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Bah, Soc Sec is a Ponzi scheme, and everyone knows it.
What's worse is that if you ask around, all the folk currently paying into it to support the dickheads from former generations who spent all our money before we were even born - have NO expectation whatever of that money being there when they retire, or the Gov holding up their end of the agreement.
Not to sound especially cruel, but given that THEY saddled US with a massive debt load before we were even concieved in order to maintain a cushy standard of living during their own lifetime, I got little issue with cutting them off and letting them starve, to hell with respecting one's elders when they have set you up from birth as slaves to THEIR debt, fuck em.
I know that sounds really mean - but look at it from the point of view of an independant contractor who's BASIC tax rate has at times neared 70% and that's not including sales tax, state and local, excise tax, fuel tax, telephone line tax, utility taxes, tax tax tax on top of tax.... *hisssss*
And be damned if I care for the thought of US delivering the same treatment upon future generations, giving them even more cause to quite rightfully hate us.
The only compromise I'd be willing to accept is to refund the input of everyone not on it who's paid into it, cut off any further inductions to the program, and continue payment of those already on it till they expire, then end the program entire.
But believe me, workin my ass off and not being able to put food on the table after those goddamn taxes sometimes is quite enough to leave me absolutely, utterly NO pity or mercy for the folks who shovelled that tax debt upon me from birth, none whatsoever.
And if that makes me an evil, hateful bastard, so be it.
I've no respect for thieves who rob mere infants of their earnings for their entire life, till they're old enough to join the ranks of those parasites, if they survive that long.
-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it
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Quote:
Bah, Soc Sec is a Ponzi scheme, and everyone knows it.
A-damn-men!!!
Freedom, Responsibility ... and What? Social Security Reform - An Explanation
Social Security funding, as a plot device, makes for a languidly paced political thriller. The president discovers a ticking time bomb that's been sitting in plain view for seventy years. It must be disarmed, either with mildly risky partial privatization or with somewhat hazardous tax and benefit adjustments. Cut the blue-state wire? Cut the red-state wire? Only thirteen years to decide before Social Security starts paying out more than it takes in. Or thirty-seven years, if you wait until the accumulated surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund runs out. Then the damp squib goes off, giving ever querulous Generation X something else to complain about.
The pundits who deny that the crisis exists are as shrill as the prophets of doom. The liberal economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman claims, "The people who hustled America into a tax cut to eliminate an imaginary budget surplus and a war to eliminate imaginary weapons are now trying another bum's rush. If they succeed, we will dismantle Social Security, a program that is in much better financial shape than the rest of the federal government."
In thirteen years every aspect of the universe can change — ask a thirteen-year-old. And "much better financial shape than the rest of the federal government" is hardly a reassuring statement. But the political side-taking on reforming Social Security is suddenly, urgently bitter. Maybe this is a sign of health (not to mention longevity) in our democratic system. Politics is — once in a while — a forum for serious debate about political philosophy. http://pjorourkeonline.blogspot.com/2005/04/freedom-responsibility-and
-what-social.html
P J O'Rourke Online
It is not those who use the term "Islamo-Fascism" who are sullying the name of Islam; it is the Islamo-Fascists. - Dennis Prager
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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Frem,
I wouldn't go that far. If people grew up in a system that promised them the support, then they should have it. But the system has to go.
Remember a couple of things:
1. The old people now on it *also* paid into the system, 3x more than they are getting out, on average. (Much more, inflation adjusted)
2. The raiding of the trust is the reason that the current taxed are paying for the current recipients. No one should ever trust the govt. with money, esp. a giant bank account.
Ergo, the system is insolvent, but it was the retirement plan of a generation. I say:
Cut the wealthy out, only pay out to the poor, that will save a bundle. Welfare to the rich is a moronic idea. Use the money already in the fund to pay that. Then let the system die. That would probably balance out. If it doesn't, let the govt. programs that took from the fund suffer the budget cuts.
Notice how govts. spend money and run up deficits? Bush spent about twice what he took in, ran us up -$1T/y? Obama has already added -$900B. Just like the SST, banks love this. Big accounts that can be lent out, margined, etc.
Govt. promises a pension, it has to deliver, just like a company. It should be a primary responsibility, but it shouldn't make that promise if it can't keep it.
You're right, no one expects to get anything out of it, except for those people who worked the 40 years already, and need it to survive. Cut them off and you create chaos.
The new old homeless won't just suffer in silence, they'll move in and become an economic drag on their kids, etc. If you want to remove the burden on the next generation, and future ones, you have to not create that situation.
But it's not something that justifies the current system. Nothing does.
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Quote:
Govt. promises a pension, it has to deliver, just like a company.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, yeah, right.
And just how many ways to they dodge that bullet when it finally comes up, like the auto industrys habit of spinning off a "deadweight" section, saddling it with those obligations and no budget, then declaring it insolvent, bankrupt, and dumping those obligations off while re-absorbing any useful assets left over ?
Please, pension plans lasted one generation, ONE, and 401k was a ripoff to begin with, in fact the only reason Fremgirl owns a house is the *ONE* time she really did listen to me, and rolled it into a home before the 401k bubble popped and the housing market crashed.
(if you plan to live there, the lower value is a net benefit by cutting your tax assessments)
So she owns a house, while all those who believed those bullshit promises own useless paperwork.
It's a scam, and as long as we're playing around with Bills of Credit and "money" not really worth the paper it's printed on, backed with the trust of the most untrustworthy enterprize ever (that being Government) it's prolly gonna stay like that.
http://www.rogershermansociety.org/caveat.htm
-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it
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FREM,
No %^&* sherlock, that wasn't my point. The problem is that these people did buy the promise, and you ditch them, and they'll go be a direct drain on their kids, rather than a theoretical one.
As for housing, here's a better plan: Build. We should have built out of town, that's better. After that, become the local govt. The control the taxes. Some places, the assessment is the last sale. Here it's figured, but you can keep mum about it a lot. If you take out a huge mtg, they notice.
But, yes, always pay cash, never believe in promises, etc. My grandad gave me this talk when I was 6, and it stuck. Somewhere in the middle he said "don't eat food that has flies on it." Also sound advice.
A little side note to this. Everyone laughs at me when I say I'm independently destitute, but I'm serious. I'm far better off than a lot of people that I know that have a lot of income. My bennies are: Freedom to do whatever I want, no expenses, no taxes, freedom to travel, work or not work, etc. And, oh, no boss breathing down my neck.
Personal rules: There is no such thing as credit. Just like there's no new game button on freecell. I make a lot of self limitations, it helps a lot, why I have no TV, there's no such thing as TV :)
But my position on Soc. Sec., which is pretty far right, I'm a dyed in the wool 'let them eat caker,' is based on realism, not what people *should* do, what they've already done. As for future people, as you said, they know the rules. There are no promises. A lot of promises had to be broken for the people to wise up to that. I just hope that Obama isn't about to create a new generation of dependents.
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