re: Back to Work, Gramps!re: "The payment back to any individual are capped at a max... let's say I make a $1Billion a year. I pay into GÇ£the systemGÇ¥ as you call my fair share. What happens when I retireGÇödo I get a bigger check? You completely side stepped that issue."
The program started out as an insurance program acting a safety net and morphed into an entitlement program. When it was created 1/3 of folks in poverty were senior citizens. Wealthy people don't need Social Security benefits. Therefore, part of the solution is a means test that breaks the wealthy off the nanny state's teat.
re: "I think the fix is much more simple.. Kill the system off entirely. LetGÇÖs get back to some individual responsibility instead of having the government takes care of us."
Going back to the 1930s isn't really a viable solution.
On the medical cost side of the problem, a bunch of individuals negotiating prices don't have any collective bargaining power. (Hence shenanigans like the recent prescription drug program set up by the pharmaceuticals.) Folks expect healthcare and doctors are bound by ethics to provide it to all so the reality here is somebody has to negotiate prices for the collective. When the corporation no longer provides this service folks will demand it from the government.
re: Back to Work, Gramps!So wealthy folks donGÇÖt need the SSI system?
So you are in favor of income re-distributionGÇöi.e. means testing?
Question backGÇöwhy penalize someone for doing ok in life? Why reward some one for doing poorly? Basically thatGÇÖs what you are suggesting.
Question 2 backGÇöSo you are in favor of the Government handling everything for youGÇöi.e. SO, where do we stop? Should the government bail out folks who made bad loan choices and bought houses they could never afford in the first place. Or were they all duped by bad loan brokers?
re: Back to Work, Gramps!re "All paid for by funny-dollars loaned to us by the Chinese, which itself was engineered by Richard Nixon taking us off the Gold standard."
Coupling the money supply to the amount of gold is silly. Better to go back to the use of indulgences. The money supply, which includes the velocity of money, being based on prices and productivity is rational. The challenge is measuring prices and productivity. When home prices go up this should be calculated into the price indices which didn't and doesn't happen.
re: Back to Work, Gramps!re: "So you are in favor of the Government handling everything for youGÇöi.e. SO, where do we stop?"
These are questions that have been debated for the history of the human existence. There is no answer based on an objective reality, at least not one that can be reconciled with 300M individual subjective realities.
I've noticed that many don't know the difference between me vs. us. Many think me and my wants exactly equal the wants of us. This is typically a projection of self onto a group. Now, once one learns that the needs of us and me are distinct, defining the us becomes the challenge. And does us include only those who share my beliefs? What about those not even born? Should they be considered at all (particularly in the challenging problems like the distribution of energy or communications infrastructures which will serve many generations.)
Well, I'll suggest that us is more than me but that's still not good enough. There is something larger. I call it the public interest. Defining and understanding that is critical to progress. Me, myself and I has the obligation to do so by my judgment.
An old man, going a lone highway, Came, at the evening, cold and gray, To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide, Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim; The sullen stream had no fear for him; But he turned, when safe on the other side, And built a bridge to span the tide.
"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim, near, "You are wasting strength with building here; Your journey will end with the ending day; You never again will pass this way; You've crossed the chasm, deep and wide- Why build you this bridge at the evening tide?"
The builder lifted his old gray head: "Good friend, in the path I have come," he said, "There followeth after me today, A youth, whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm, that has been naught to me, To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be. He, too, must cross in the twilight dim; Good friend, I am building this bridge for him."
re: Back to Work, Gramps!Let- me, myself and I all stand around in a circle and sing GÇ£kum-bye-yaGÇ¥ (sic?) ItGÇÖs always the same story. Everyone needs to pitch in a help to less fortunate, and society in general. Yada yada. People that promote those ideas/story always sayGÇöitGÇÖs just a little tax here or there for this good purpose.
Almost all the folks that I have met that hold those beliefs rarely stand up and volunteer their GÇ£ownGÇ¥ resources of time and money. They always want the GÇ£collective wholeGÇ¥ (the us/we-whatever you want to call it) to pay for these grand and I say noble ideas.
I have no idea where you actually stand, but the government is certainly willing to take an extra tax payment from you. Please feel free to include one next time. How much extra can we/usGÇöcount on you for to build that bridge?
As for me/I-----IGÇÖd rather go out and buy a new sport cars or ski boatGǪ. ;-)---I'd be glad to tow it over your bridge for a toll (oops I meant tax)
re: Back to Work, Gramps! yep, lets get rid of SS and let Americans take care of their own retirement.
Because if the last year has taught us anything: Americans TOTALLY know how to manage their own money perfectly. What? My mortgage payment is going to increase? How come nobody told me!?!?!
Plus, proposing elimination of SS, no matter how sound the argument, is political suicide for anyone running for office. Look how far Bush got with his proposed reform.
The cost of the War on Terror is going to easily cost us 2 trillion when you start figuring in the cost of replacing all the equipment and dealing with 200k injured veterans for the next 50 years. Or do you want to let them learn "Personal responsibility" and kick them off their benefits? If they were personally responsible, they should have never joined the military in the first place.*
-tsat
*People on this board often cannot spot sarcasm too easily. The above sentence is indeed sarcasm.
re: Back to Work, Gramps!Because if the last year has taught us anything: Americans TOTALLY know how to manage their own money perfectly. What? My mortgage payment is going to increase? How come nobody told me!?!?!
** So that becomes--my fault?
The cost of the War on Terror is going to easily cost us 2 trillion when you start figuring in the cost of replacing all the equipment and dealing with 200k injured veterans for the next 50 years. Or do you want to let them learn "Personal responsibility" and kick them off their benefits? If they were personally responsible, they should have never joined the military in the first place.*
** Who said I was in favor of the war? I don't recall saying that?
re: Back to Work, Gramps!So raising taxes is your solution? But think about who does that.
Listen, here's a non-republican conservative view (yes.. these do exist). Let you mom live w/you when dad dies (or vice-versa). Here is something so old fashioned it needs to come back to mainstream again. This can be done while vitong to reduce choke-hold taxing, and undendig off-shore wars.
I don't accuse everyone wanting to raise taxes of being elitests. The elitests are those who are too busy raising their toddlers at 40 and 50 and want their parents in a nursing home that their illustrius career might afford them. No, it's not your fault, but we built a wierd society that the baby boom turned on it's side. In the 60's youthful and inspiring calls for truth and justice, they dropped acid and turned inward often forgetting how to feel in the 80's. Some died, some profited greedily in the 90's. Neither seam available to mentor or run a boy scout troop anymore, ratehr they are on some narcisistic vacation to Hawaii, etc..
Those who never lost site of family values and maintain a sense of obligation to the main three (do I need to say it?!) pay and pay and pay (or live in a trailer and pay a little less).
Unfortunately, too many politcally adept (CEO's, republicans, whatever...) and their sicofants can use the F-V's sound bite locker like an endless hammer to be stored back in the tool box (per Grisham's lates spooky novel I finished last month).
This rant leads to another rant about enforcement and the lack of sofisticated policing in our society (I mean like well schooled cops in the SEC and war rooms, not policy writers ho-hum). Maybe that's my next essy...
The program started out as an insurance program acting a safety net and morphed into an entitlement program. When it was created 1/3 of folks in poverty were senior citizens. Wealthy people don't need Social Security benefits. Therefore, part of the solution is a means test that breaks the wealthy off the nanny state's teat.
re: "I think the fix is much more simple.. Kill the system off entirely. LetGÇÖs get back to some individual responsibility instead of having the government takes care of us."
Going back to the 1930s isn't really a viable solution.
On the medical cost side of the problem, a bunch of individuals negotiating prices don't have any collective bargaining power. (Hence shenanigans like the recent prescription drug program set up by the pharmaceuticals.) Folks expect healthcare and doctors are bound by ethics to provide it to all so the reality here is somebody has to negotiate prices for the collective. When the corporation no longer provides this service folks will demand it from the government.