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State of the Union
travis slack writes "President Bush used his State of the Union speech to press home key domestic and international agendas. At home he promised to reform Social Security for future generations. Looking overseas, Bush vowed to spread freedoms around the world while continuing the war on terror, and he pointed to Iraq as a symbol of change."
I guess your still bitter and disgruntled.
I thought that slashdot was supposed to be news for nerds. You know have a tech/geek spin on stuff. I can get this news anywhere. At least the voting machine articles were on topic.
ciao
Silly. This IS a tech topic, because Bush ....once played a videogame! Yeah, that's it!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Sorry, but I became much less interested in what Bush had to say after he wrapped up his social security segment. Two lines, in particular: ...we must pursue change with diligence, courage, and honesty
...our children's future is more important than partisan politics!
Translation: If you oppose SS reform, you are weak, a coward, and a liar.
Translation: If you oppose SS reform, you're playing politics, nothing more.
That was more than enough for me.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5211218.ht ml
One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.
Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.
Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."
Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true -- one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index.
That's right -- the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the "Left Behind" series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious-right warrior Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.
Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon.
As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to Heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.
I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed -- an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 -- just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter Heaven and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.
So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer -- "The Road to Environmental Apocalypse." Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destr
I have an idea. How about you stop taking money out of my paycheck for something that will hardly provide a living-return under any circumstances and let me save that money myself.
Really, just because some idiotic baby boomers can't comprehend "save some cash for later in life" doesn't mean the rest of us who have a fucking clue should be forced to hand over our cash.
He is still trying to "protect the scanticty of marriage". I still find it disgusting that people buy into this bullshit. It would seem that most voters think a leadership who undermines and attacks a segment of the population is a legitamate and compassionate leader.
I had decided before to give him a pass on last time and see if he had learned anything since the election. Unfortunatly I was wrong. Bush may have a new suit and a few more fans, but it is still the same brain damaged monkey running around and throwing shit.
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
Black comedy perhaps
"We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that she will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations. Such is the logic of patriotism."
-Emma Goldman (1869 - 1940) writer
cL0h
I've been tracking the number of times President Bush uses the words "free" and "freedom" in his last three major speeches. Here are the results:
First 2004 presidential debate: 38 times
2005 inauguration address: 34 times
2005 state of the union address: a "mere" 27 times
Two things worth pointing out:
First, he almost never defines these terms. The only time he even comes close (in the inauguration address) he (or his speechwriters) equates freedom with making money.
Second, he often uses the words in relation to Iraq - like Pavlovian dogs he (or his speechwriters) wants to link the two concepts indelibly in people's minds. To oppose this administration's policies in Iraq is to oppose freedom itself.
a world in progress...
They could promise TODAY to vote NO on any budget that mixed the SS trust fund with the general fund. They won't. They like spending our money too much. They will leave the problems until it is a crisis, but most importantly, somebody else's crisis. Just like they always do. This SS ponzi scheme is just a slush fund for over-spending politicians. And they like it that way.
Keep counting. If you correlate these numbers with the counts of "umm err" in the debates and the number of smirks in press conferences, the numeric relationships can be used to decode the mysteries of the universe.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Since the politics section opened, this was the editors vehicle for Bush-Bashing and getting Kerry elected.
Now that one of their objectives failed, is this story a sign of what we're going have this section become? There's a lot of politics going on in the world, yet slashdot ignores almost all of it unless it involved those evil, nasty Republicans or corporations. It's funny how lopsided the coverage here is. I see plenty of the elephant icons, but rarely the jackass icons.
It's time to get over losing the election, and close this section. It's pretty much dead weight, and shows how utterly pathetic the left is.
The only parts of the speech dealing with IT were two separate sentences, floating around in thousands of political slogans. One sentence was pie-in-the-sky "hydrogen fuel" promotion. The other was more IT for medical records:
"improved information technology to prevent medical error and needless costs"
So our privatization president wants to spend more public money subsidizing doctors, hospitals, pharmacos and insurance companies. The free market works great, but not when life, death and billions in profits are motivating corporations to invest in competence and efficiency.
Meanwhile, the president sees a rosy economy, while the American IT sector shrinks. All those trillions of dollars he's spending in his budgets (which he complains is "the spending appetite of the federal government" that must be restrained) were collected during the tech bubble. He's so far from interested in recovery in our industry that he ignores it entirely, while bragging about a fictional general prosperity. While remaining obsessed with hundreds of billions of dollars for the war technology that's keeping us winning hearts and minds in Iraq.
--
make install -not war
such a pity i stopped drinking last weekend. the following are all taken from this CNN article.
Bush said Social Security, on its current path, is "headed toward bankruptcy,"
liar, per:
Social Security actuaries project the trust fund will last until 2042. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office puts that date at 2052.
let's exagerate the facts to fighten the public. but let's also ensure today's seniors can support your social security bankrupting plan without fear of reprisal:
"I have a message for every American who is 55 or older: Do not let anyone mislead you. For you, the Social Security system will not change in any way."
how nice. gotta love this part:
"conservative mix of bonds and stock funds."
"conservative" and "stock funds" do not go together. though i'm sure his supporters have forgotten about the bubble that burst just a few years ago.
"Here is why personal accounts are a better deal: Your money will grow, over time, at a greater rate than anything the current system can deliver," Bush said.
after all, he obviously has.
"We must make Social Security permanently sound, not leave that task for another day," Bush said.
yes, by stopping him from farking it up or at least slowing him down. and now on to the most "amusing" parts:
Bush called for a bipartisan effort to restrain "the spending effort of the federal government" when he presents his 2006 budget next week.
gee, considing he's the one who flushed the surplus down the toilet, enlarged the federal government more than any president in history, and is digging future generations into the hole forever with the "war" for his oil buddies, i don't really think he's the man for the job.
oh, and for those who are ignorant enough to be impressed with the election in iraq meaning victory nonsense, here's a bit of history for you. it meant nothing then, it means nothing now. wake the fark up.
"My budget substantially reduces or eliminates more than 150 government programs that are not getting results, or duplicate current efforts, or do not fulfill essential priorities.
if that were true, we wouldn't be flushing billions of dollars down the "star wars" sinkhole, now would we? liar.
Bush also said he continues to support a constitutional amendment to "protect the institution of marriage" and would work with Congress to make sure that human embryos are not created for experimentation or to grow body parts.
i.e.: now that the election is over, it's time to cater to religious zealots to the detriment of homosexuals and our economy. newsflash: the rest of the world is going to run right over us in biotech while our scientists labor with corrupted stem cell lines and anti-science policies and they don't. moron.
He urged Congress to pass his energy plan and called on Senate Democrats to allow up-or-down votes on his judicial nominees.
and i likewise call on barbara boxer and any other democrat who cares about this country to do everything your power to stop or at least slow down this lying, incompetent lunatic.
The Bush White House intended ideas for Social Security reform (and very quietly, health care reform) is half baked, when considering, he's fiddling with an institution that will be able to 30 YEARS from now provide 80% of the benefits it's supposed to. Knowing that, one would think "ok let's make allowances for the other 20 percent, maybe add money to the Social Security trust from other areas.
Instead his solution is is private accounts. And it's promoted the same way this administration does anything: fearmongering. "LOOK! Young people, Social Security is melting down! It's not gonna be here! Everybody's gonn retire and the crush is going to ruin things! You're gonna be out on the street with no one to take care of you!"
That alone should make young people suspicious. Couple that with with the fact that I don't fully understand how social security is funded. But they don't vote, so it won't matter til 45 years from now, or until we elect someone who may try to undo this. And God help that administration, because once Social Security has been privatized there will be no getting it back. Too much of a boon for the private sector; rolling dice with your money.
What's also disturbing is that some of my tax cut happy Bush supporting co-workers (ironically divorced bitter fellows for the most part) absolutely are drinking this Kool Aid. I've even heard one or two spouting, "what's wrong with YOU paying for you? I'm tired of others getting my money." For the life of me, I can't think of any Western country without a form of SECURED government provided pension, and as far as I'm concerned, it's a lynchpin.
Just wnother thing that scares me about this guy. And I won't get started on the health care account plans... BTW: Our defense budget seems to be in good shape, and QUITE solvent.
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
Calling Bush a brain damaged monkey is not insightful in the least.
It's flamebait.
Look up the FAQ, this kind of name-calling doesn't deserved to be modded up. The moderators should know better.
I find this paragraph troubling. He starts talking about fostering small business. Fair enough. But then he somehow twists this into a gripe about asbestos lawsuits. Whaa? Now, let's see, why does Bush consider hindering asbestos lawsuits important? Let's make this one multiple choice:
Why is Bush against asbestos lawsuits?
A. Most small businesses use asbestos in their daily operations.
B. The victims knew the danger and purposefully breathed in asbestos dust anyways.
C. Halliburton paid $4.2 billion to settle such a lawsuit in 1998.
D. Asbestos is a good source of vitamin E.
I think you can guess which is the right answer.
Unknown host pong.
marriage didn't start to 'be an issue' (or rather, -divorce- didn't start to be an issue) until the government took over all marriage licensing in order to protect its tax revenue.
..) marriage was something pretty much for two people to share, with whatever 'registered minister' they chose, for record-keeping.
.. its got nothing to do with gay/anti-gay, that is just the media front to keep the argument unsolved .. and thus, the government perpetually ensnared in the issue.
.. its only because people are ignorant to the fact that this is *ONLY* about tax revenue, that they get all snarled up in the straw-man issues being promoted as part of an agenda of obfuscation.
.. right now, however, too many fake arguments are being proferred in order to keep the real fires burning while everyone is chasing embers ...
before the 30's (i think the marriage act was passed during the depression
but now, marriages have an impact on the governments tax revenues. this is the only -real- reason behind why the gov't is perpetually screwing with peoples relationships
if people, either way, just say "whatever, i don't give a fuck if you're gay-married or straight-married, just as long as you're not registered with your fascist dictatorship government", then the issue would go away
repeal the laws which government -any- say whatsoever over marriage, and while your'e at it, get rid of your criminal income tax laws, and the U.S. might have a chance in the 21st Century
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Just because other countries do it, does it mean it is a good idea for the government to forcibly micro-manage the retiremen finances of everyone, especially those who are not indigent or needy? Is that really necessary?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Too bad they're completely wrong! ;)
For sake of argument, I'll accept your correlation, but I find it very hard to accept your causation. I think divorce rose merely because (a) women became more financially independent and (b) it became more acceptable.
Secondly, your government paranoia dismisses the fact that the majority of Americans support laws forbidding homosexuals the ability to marry one another. These people (and I'm not one of them) don't support these laws because they'll give the government more control or more money, and at least some of them are not doing it out of hatred towards gays either. Some of them support these laws because their religious beliefs tell them that homosexuality is a sin (and some of them truly hate the sin, but not the sinner) and see no constitutional problem with laws that eliminate such sins. (After all, we have laws against and our attitudes against that are supported by religion.) I'm definitely not trying to convince you to change your beliefs, merely pointing out that you are drastically missing the reasons behind the FMA. If you don't understand those reasons, you won't be able to successfully fight them.
Having said all that, I support the idea that we should keep the government out of marriage, at least to the extent that they keep out of other contracts. (Judges will still need to get involved during some/most divorces, etc.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
There is plenty of unproven religious dogma on the environmental side. The right may believe that God will sort things out after we fuck up, but many in the environmental movement appear to have a knee-jerk reaction against GM foods, irradiated foods, nuclear power, CO emissions and over-consumption of resources that has no basis in science. Many have been saying it is already too late for decades, the environmental apocalypse is nigh.
Conflict of Interest: Two men, whose family and business associates and friends have extensive investments in global oil businesses, are president and vice-president of the entire U.S. government.
Using dishonest means, these men convinced U.S. taxpayers to pay for killing people in Iraq. What has been accomplished there? The killing under Saddam was less than the killing under George Bush.
One thing that has been accomplished, however, is that the profit from oil contracts involving Iraq has been shifted from Saddam to U.S. companies. This was accomplished while minimizing the support for U.S. troops.
Visual Aid: Iraq Body Count Visual Aid. Many people can't look at this without becoming so overloaded that they become irrational.
The U.S. government is now far more in debt than ever before: Debt Clock. If you are a U.S. citizen, you are expected to pay. Those who want corruption in the U.S. government want the government to borrow. The corrupters find ways to transfer the money to their pockets.
The U.S. government has fought 24 wars since World War II. The system of violence works by creating fear so rich people can profit.
How to understand U.S. violence: For reasons beyond the scope of this comment, the mental illness called anger has been increasing in women in the United States. In general, men in the United States lack the social skills necessary to deal with this anger, so they do not provide a counter-balancing force. It is the general increase in anger and the general breakdown of U.S. society that has caused many people in the U.S. to look for outlets for their anger. Anger is easily re-directed by leaders with simplistic rationalizations that are presented as logical, and doing so has been quite profitable.
It is a characteristic of angry people that they don't think clearly. Another characteristic is that they look for ways to avoid knowing they are angry. Many people in the U.S. believe that they are superior people who should be allowed to kill because that is the only way of improving the world.
was Cheney's attire
That comment was my state of the union speech which shows that Bush's views are unacceptably far from reality.
"That's not enough! We demand more asbestos!
More asbestos! More asbestos! More asbestos!"
'Tis a tale told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury signifying nothing."
Unlike his coronation speech which had lots of somewhat subtle biblical references, he had none that I could perceive in this speech. So I'm gonna add one that the missed. With regard to making the tax cuts permanent and cutting the deficit in half, he left out Manna from heaven.
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" -- Dr. Strangelove
No manna needed. All you need to do to cut the defecit in half is to cut waste spending. Hiking taxes would clobber the economy and cause worse defecit problems. However, as many said, Bush "spends like a drunken sailor", so he has (to say the least) not been a help to the defecit problem. (Kerry would have been even worse, as his budget called for even more spending).
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I've heard that one from a few of my coworkers as well. I'm not opposed to those who are "not indigent or needy" (wait 'til you get to be 70 after this administration is done, you might be more likely to be one of the two) OPTING out of the system. If you make enough money and think you can do a better job of it, sure.
I don't think though, that's what most people are thinking. The thought seems to be "I'm tired of PAYING for the poor or elderly." at times it smacks of selfish greed. Social Security is equated as a tax for welfare. It's not. It's a form of pension. In principle, it's not much different than drawing a pension from a company. A certain amount of current wages go INTO that pension plan to pay the retirees.
That's the way the system is. Today's workers pay the pension of yesterdays workers, as tomorrow's workers will pay the pension of ours. It's not a tax. Besides, what protection to people who DON't have big fat 401k's and IRA's and are working for next to minimum wage have?
Add to that the fact that Americans are notoriously poor savers, so now you're going to force people who full may not understand the dynamics of money, and in some cases don't make enough to save to plan for a retirement future? Everyone in society isn't going to grow up an be a millionaire.. Society requires people to perform different duties at different levels of compensation. Social pension makes sense when you consider that.
My grandmother worked in a steel mill in the midwest, and for TRW, only to watch her pensions
evaporate. In her later years she had to depend on cleaning the homes of those who sure as hell didn't have to worry about retirement to supplement her income from SS. Otherwise she'd have been working til she was 80, or to death just to live.
Those are the fears I have, that the latter will become much more common not by the insolvency of SS, but by privitization.
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
Actually, this is a fundamental flaw inherent in any organization where decisions are made by a group of people. There are definitely people who are just plain bigots. Then there are those who want to criminalize extramarital sex, sodomy (inside or outside of marriage), etc. And of course there are people who belong to both groups. My point was just that there is a significant (though probably a minority) number of people who are pro-FMA only because they see it as strengthening the role of God in our society. These same people will quickly point out such things as how religion has been involved in our government from the beginning, and that the separation of Church and state only goes so far as to prohibit the establishing of religion or the free expression of religion. It does not guarantee that religious beliefs won't form a basis for how laws are written. (I, myself, will quickly acknowledge this is a slippery slope - I'm just paraphrasing many of the arguments I have heard.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I know. Sometimes, I think it should be replaced with something that is the first, but not the second.
"Today's workers pay the pension of yesterdays workers, as tomorrow's workers will pay the pension of ours. It's not a tax."
Regardless of these details, it is by definition a tax, since the government is forcing you to give it money.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Is this country really that divided? I mean there's no question the situation in iraq is dead serious.
And on social security privatization there are waay too many smoke dischargers working. If you want the facts available you should look here.
If we have a common ground on the facts, only then you could argue wether the solidarity system currently in place is worth to be saved for the price of for example one percent of your income our if you want your lifesavings to be donated to the good cause of lockheed martin.
The level of calling-each-other-asshats is just amazing and ultimatively helps noone.
Code is Speech. No to Censorship.
I am not going to read any of the posts here because I can summarize them very quickly.
/. allow it to cloud their judgement. Remember most of the problems Bush explained were brought up in the campaign by both sides at different times.
"Bush is Liar"
Simply put there is so much Bush-Hate that too many people posting on
The key issue here seems to be the words "Trust Fund". There is no such as a trust fund. The current beneficiaries are paid from the general fund. This "run out of money" issues that some claim will not occur until 2042 is what happens when we cannot tax our way out of it.
The Social Security problem is two fold. First there are too many drains on the money. It pays for things that it should never have and to people who should never qualify. The second is that it is on the backs of twisted and failing tax system.
There is no guarantee written anywhere that you will receive benefits. The worst part is that most Americans don't realize that not only do they pay 6.2% of their income to this scheme but their employer does as well. This means that you are paying 13.4% of your income into a plan you have no guarantee of receiving payment from. If you die before you can withdraw none of your survivors benefit. If this were a private organization it would be shut down immediately as it violates so many laws its not funny. If you read the tax laws you would be surprised at the fact that even if you hit max payments with one employer the moment you switch employers you start all over on the deduction count.
The proposal to allow younger tax payers to devote a portion of their SS payments into private accounts puts some of the responsibility back to those who will benefit. There is no plan for 100% privatization. There is no plan to deny benefits promised to those who receive them. The key issue is to provide some means for younger Americans to realize a retirement and should they fail to live to collect it something to pass on to their survivors. The government will still abscond with the majority of the money.
What assails my senses is the fact that so many people just don't care. they argue that the time of failure is too far away to matter. These same people freak out over issues like running out of oil in 50+ years but don't bat an eye on Social Security reform.
Face it, Social Security is really Politician Job Security. They don't care how they end up paying the benefits they just want to make sure you rely on them to do so. When you get old and gray and need the money they will frighten you that someone trying to fix the system is really out to steal it from you. They rely on your GREED and LAZINESS to promote the system as it is and too keep it as it is.
It is your money you are tossing down the rat hole. Speak up! I loose over $9,000 dollars a year to this non-investment. If I die before I can collect nothing will come of my "investment" for my family. Do you really want to tell your kids 20 years down the road that they are Shit Out of Luck because you didn't want to act simply because you could not get over yourself?
GROW UP. It is not going away. I fully expect reform to be part of the political discussion in 08 and beyond. Will you support it then? Or will you let it drag on till your collecting and just comment "its their problem, not mine".
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Okay, what about your reality distortion field? Projections are at 70-80% now. Presumably, at one time they were at 100%. Someday, Democrats will be telling us that we should be happy with the 40-50% that we can expect? Or that we can drain other programs and/or hike up taxes to cover it? The program is huge--trying to fill the hole would suck us dry.
Whatever you want to call it. but at the crux of what I said is this:
" Add to that the fact that Americans are notoriously poor savers, so now you're going to force people who full may not understand the dynamics of money, and in some cases don't make enough to save to plan for a retirement future? Everyone in society isn't going to grow up an be a millionaire.. Society requires people to perform different duties at different levels of compensation. Social pension makes sense when you consider that."
So essentially your thought is... let them fend for themselves?
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
But I'd have a hard time believing that most people think that hard about the government's role in marriage. I understand your premise, I just don't believe your conclusion. By the same logic, would it make sense to claim that people don't take murder so seriously, because the government does? After all, there has been an increase in murders (at least in the absolute sense) ever since the government first got involved in them (whenever that was).
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
If you think Hussein was that bad then you've fallen for the propaganda. Pol Pot made Hussein look like Santa Claus, yet we didn't invade and remove him from power. There are several dictators that were far worse than Hussein that we politely ignored. You've also forgotten that we've killed more civilians in Iraq than Hussein did, so what's your point? Oh yeah, the only difference between Bush and Hussein is one of scale.
There is no such as a trust fund
Yes, there is.
The current beneficiaries are paid from the general fund
No, they're paid from the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund.
If you read the tax laws you would be surprised at the fact that even if you hit max payments with one employer the moment you switch employers you start all over on the deduction count.
On the assumption that the employee only has one employer. I can think of tons of reasons this makes sense. Illegals sharing ssn's, for instance. The Trust Fund gets to keep all the money since if you don't report the excess tax on your federal forms, you don't get it refunded. What if a prior employer didn't actually pay those taxes? Better to have the individual on the hook than the government _and_ the individual.
The key issue is to provide some means for younger Americans to realize a retirement and should they fail to live to collect it something to pass on to their survivors.
Ah, because the 401k's, 403b's, Roth IRA's, traditional IRA's, etc. we currently have are not available to young Americans and are not transferrable to heirs. Thank God Bush is finding a way to solve that problem.
I loose over $9,000 dollars a year to this non-investment.
I don't even want to get into how much I lose to the Defense Department non-investment every year, or at least every year since January 2001.
If I die before I can collect nothing will come of my "investment" for my family.
Except by dying, you DO collect. Looks like in 2003 over $25 billion was paid out in just such circumstances.
GROW UP.
Get educated on the issues. Stop listening to whoever's filling your head with these falsehoods.
Were you trying to self-fulfill your prophecy by providing material to legitimately anger them? Seriously, do you have any evidence whatsoever for this ludicrous speculation, or was your plan to just throw that out there as fact and hope we all look the other way? Here, let me try one:
In general, men in Europe lack the social skills necessary to accept their irrelevance in the new world.
I made that up on the spot, just as you did your quote about American men. If my statement isn't flamebait, then how on Earth could you justify yours not being the same?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Pol Pot made Hussein look like Santa Claus, yet we didn't invade and remove him from power.
Surely your not suggesting that one inaction warrants further inaction. We can all agree that Pol Pot was bad. What I can't agree with is the notion that since the world ignored him they should ignore all future tyrants.
The world needs some housecleaning. Sadly the U.N. isn't up to the task as evidenced by history.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
I can see both sides here. On one side, there is "let them fend for themselves", even if they wreck their own lives. On the other side, there is the idea of having the government do all this for them whether they like or not. Some will scream about the "nanny state!". Just one little quibble: call it "government-controlled" pension instead of "social pension". It sounds more honest that way.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Why am I happy? Because it takes drastic measures for the proles to wake up. Maybe in 2084 we'll see some positive change.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
You can call Bush a chimp, a liar, a baby-killer and get modded "insightful", but dare to criticize his critics, and you get modded into oblivion.
Gotta love the zero tolerance here. This is place is worse the DU.
Just Some Guy, I've been investigating this for over 30 years. My guess is that you thought about it for less than 30 seconds.
Here's a test. If you are close to some women in the U.S., really close, ask them if they feel anger. When I do that they say yes. That's what counts.
As I said, men in the U.S. generally lack the social skills to know what their women are thinking and feeling. So the fact that you don't know they are angry is typical. (Women in the U.S. suffer from very serious depression at twice the rate of men. Those facts are connected.)
Then try the same experiment with women in Brazil or Italy, for example. They will give very, very different answers.
There's no troll in that remark.
Yes, there is.
NOT! You need to better understand the URL you are posting and the text therein.
I'm willing to check out your data, but I rather imagine that you don't have any.
My guess is that you thought about it for less than 30 seconds.
Guilty as charged. You made a rather out-of-the-ordinary claim with no mention of supporting evidence, and I summarily filed it under "not very likely".
If I ask my wife if she's angry, then I'm leaking to hear a rather long explanation of why insurance companies suck, and why malpractice insurance sucks, and why trial lawyers suck, and why people who want to raise taxes suck, and why people who use words like "income divide" suck. She's angry because a lot of external forces are conspiring to make our lives more difficult than they need to be.
Yet, somehow, you seem to think that the anger is the problem, rather than the tidal forces ripping at our society. If everyone started taking mood elevators tomorrow, those forces would still be there - we'd just be less responsive to them.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Shouldn't this be filed under 'funny'?
No, NJ politics should be filed under 'funny'
Please, just turn your television off. Or if you leave it on, please avoid any channels which are owned by a gigantic corporation...wait...thats pretty much all of em. Yeah, better leave it off. At least for the next few days.
Why should you turn the TV off? Well, for numerous reasons, but the main reason being that the next week will be a neverending stream of propaganda to give you the impression that it's a miraculous, historic, unprecedented turnout of Iraqis who are experiencing freedom for the first time. There will be shitloads of rhetoric, incessant self-fellating and praise about the red, white, and the blue...
This is all bullshit.
Here are facts you will never hear come out of Aaron Brown's mouth...never uttered by any Faux News commentator...never scrolled across the screen in between Robert Blake trial footage and the interview with the teacher that had sex with the student...
We have killed at least 15,000 innocent Iraqis. This is a fact.
In perspective...5 times the amount of people we lost on 9/11.
And Iraq had absolutely ZERO involvement in the 9/11 attacks. So how can any of this be justified?
How can you expect the families and friends of these innocent Iraqis to just "forgive and forget?" Would you ask the 9/11 victims to forgive Osama?
Open your fucking eyes people...we all have blood on our hands.
We can't keep draping ourselves in the flag and shield ourselves from the reality of our government. We can't put ourselves on this pedestal and demonize those who kill, and at the same time kill just the same.
According to figures recorded by the Iraq Ministry of Health, from July 2004 - Jan 2005, 3274 civilians have been killed. Out of those civilians, 1233 were killed by insurgents. 2041 were killed by coalition forces.
Who is the bad guy? Who is the enemy? Please someone, answer the fucking question.
Why are we better?
This election is complete bullshit. You can not force democracy with the barrel of a gun. Democracy must not be delivered by a foreign hand. It ceases to be democracy. This is Empire. Why is this not bothering anyone??
Where is the fucking dissent? Where are the voices of the other side..the reality based community? Where have all the hippies gone? When did the spirit of this nation get replaced with a bunch of complacent, detached, ignorant, apathetic FOOLS?
Have you ever heard of Al-Jazeera? Well, they are a news channel in the Middle East, and they are very controversial as they spin their news towards a certain viewpoint of the world. Specifically, they gather their facts and present the news in a format which is construed as "propaganda." They believe that a foreign nation does not have the right to invade another, force it's government upon it, and kill thousands of innocent civilians in the process. Because of this belief, they show footage of dead and maimed Iraqi women and children, and other videos you will never see on any channel you can reach on your remote. They believe that if people are in a war, then simply broadcasting the results of the war should be not only allowed, but encouraged.
Why does our media not feel the same?
Why can we let our government kill others in our name, and yet seeing the murders is "propaganda" and "anti-American?"
Americans are so fucking detached, but pictures make a difference. 9/11 proved that. In perspective, 3000 people, while serious grief is felt for those who fell, is not that many people on the grand scale of things. Many more people die of many more causes for many more preventable reasons.
But the point is, the pictures inflated the trauma. If the movies of the plane crashes, the jumping people, the screaming, crying families...if the pictures were not available the sense of grief would have seriously diminished.
And now this quagmire in Iraq. We have killed 15,000 innocent civilians...yet...let me pose to you a question...
When is the last time you saw a movie of an Ir
And it's promoted the same way this administration does anything: fearmongering.
Second Post:
My grandmother worked in a steel mill in the midwest, and for TRW, only to watch her pensions evaporate. In her later years she had to depend on cleaning the homes of those who sure as hell didn't have to worry about retirement to supplement her income from SS. Otherwise she'd have been working til she was 80, or to death just to live.
Those are the fears I have, that the latter will become much more common not by the insolvency of SS, but by privitization.
Well, I guess your second post shows you know how to fearmonger well enough to be credible to make your first post statement. It also shows your hypocrisy.
... often go awry.
I was one of the "idiotic baby boomers" that you speak of. Illness and unforseen events have totally wiped out our savings.
So without social security, when I get too old to keep working, under your plan, I would have to resort to crime to make ends meet. There is no way that the consequences of poor decisions will accrue only to those who made the decisions. Eliminating social problems caused by the actions of those who are disenfranchised, either by their own poor choices or due to circumstances beyond their control, is the reason Social Security was created.
This system can be saved and continue benefitting society by using new technologies to increase the per capita economic output of workers, so that raising the withholdings from the paychecks of those still in the workforce will have no negative impact upon those workers' living standards.
You need to better understand the URL you are posting and the text therein.
Hardly. It's quite clear there is indeed a separate account, and the purposes for which that money is earmarked are quite plain. I think that you actually need to make a point if you're going to.
One involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication; the other involves a groundhog.
Even if social security will start running out of money in 2018 you will still have old people. If you don't want them starting fires in the subway tunnels you have to take care of them some how. This costs money. Where does government get money? From its hard working citizens. So, up go the taxes, old folks get their meager checks and hopefully productivity will be up enough and economy sound enough that no body has to give up cable TV or settle for 1GB/s internet connection
Imagine that there was an insurance company that sold annuities.
Today, they announce that they're sorry, but that money you put in isn't enough and they'll only be able to pay 80% of promised benefits.
Would you be:
(a) Grateful as heck that they could pay anything at all, the poor dears
(b) Storming their headquarters building with pitchforks.
How about if they implied in all their advertising materials that they were saving the money you contributed up for your future, but they were actually using it to pay current beneficiaries, and that's why their return on your investment was less than zero?
(a) You were happy that they forced you to save something just because then you might have something instead of zero
(b) Storming their headquarters with pitchforks and homemade atomic weapons.
Now, what if the government told you that you were REQUIRED to put your money into this bad insurance company, because They knew what was good for you, and you were just a pathetic loser who couldn't be trusted to invest your own money?
Would you be:
(a) Happy the Government was taking care of you
(b) FURIOUS that the government was forcing you into a lousy deal, with no recourse whatsoever?
I don't know about you, but when it comes to Social InSecurity, I'm selecting choice B all the time, and have been ever since I started paying SI taxes for the first time. (It didn't help that I was self-employed and had to pay HUGE SI taxes).
SI was a good deal for the last generation, because our population was growing. It's nothing but a giant Ponzi ripoff for THIS generation, because Mr Ponzi has no more investors; with slowing population growth, there are no more new investors to pay benefits.
Bush's proposal may not be perfect, but it's a lot better than what we have now. For that, President Bush deserves our sincere thanks.
I'm still disgusted by Social Security, but President Bush is at least trying to make it less of a ripoff, when nobody else has had the guts to do it.
D
Not really. I'm blessed right now. I have the ability financially to make a significant difference in my retirement circumstance. MY example was that of people who do not. I used that person, a person I knew well, as an example. I'm sure most of us have had someone rather recently pave the way, and work hard for virtually nothing to ensure you had a brighter future. Not in the amount of cash they could leave you, but by the example they set and the sacrifice.
My concern is for those people who are the bearers and do the "menial" jobs. They don't make enough to support this. I don't and won't make any apologies for being concerned with the welfare of my neighbor versus my desire to have a few more cents in my pocket.
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
First off, a little hisotry. SS was called SS and not a pention due to the bad blood towards pensions in the 30's
t ml#2 r es/socialsecurity/
Social Security gives a crapy ROI (Return on Investment) It gives 2% after inflation has been taken into account http://www.socialsecurity.org/reformandyou/faqs.h
someput it at worse. Here's an SS calculator:http://www.heritage.org/research/featu
I could get a better ROI at a bank using FDIC CDs than using SS.
To those that still don't want SS to be privatized (or eliminitated), let me ask for this compromise. Allow for me (make it optional, not mandatory) to invest half of what I pay to SS in any way I choose. I would still be paying into SS, but I would still have some control over the other half. If you want, you can stil put it all into SS, but don't require it.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Yeah, I wonder how long the current system would last if they had just took all the "Iraq" money and pumped it directly into SS...
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
Ok, first off, I am going to point out that I don't believe the following that I am about to post. But I am curious about numbers on it.
Hey, Correlation==Causation, Right? Divorce rate is 50% right? Well, 50% of people in the USA are Democrats! Sounds like liberals are the ones who get divorced and complain about how the sanctity of mariage no longer exists!
The above has been complete BS. And I wash my hand of it. That said, I am curious about the correlation of politcal views and those who get divorced. I seem to remember something about people in arranged marriages have a 2% (much lower, not sure if it is that low) divorce rate compared to the 50% national average.
Amount payed into Iraq/Afghanistan: under $500 Billion
Amount in SS Trust Fund: $5.7 Trillion. Answer, not much longer
Needless to say, the US forces left the South Vietnam Republic as soon as the elections were over and the South Vietnamese lived happily ever after. Err, wait...
And here's something to set you off: Condi in '08. Romney in '16.
And to our readers in Baghdad : Al Zarqawi in '08, Bin Laden in '12 ? All thanks to Dubya.
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
This comment is (mostly) spot on.
The reason Dems lose is they call people stupid, stupid.
Democracy is a popularity contest and you won't get people to like you by constantly calling them "bigots," "ignorant," or "rednecks." Dems alienate the voters they need.
Between this and bypassing a democratic votes with court cases and judicial edicts, it is obvious that the Dems consider themselves better than the voters and distain the voters. The voters (as dumb as you think they are) realize that this is the Dems opinion of them, and therefore don't vote for them.
The Dems in the 60s/70s had a vision of what they wanted America to be. Now they only hate America. They wait for others to come up with solutions and then merley complain about those solutions. They have no message aside from anger and hate.
No one has any reason to vote for them. At best they only have a reason to vote against the other party (Reps). That strategy did not work in 2004.
As long as comments like the parent and this get MODed down and ignored, the Reps will win election after election.
Keep MODing them down.
You did not do the math. You are comparing present value... but, there is not a problem right now.
So, we have to figure the future value of the money till the time that there is a problem.
$500 Billion
30 years (projected time till problems become apparent, conservative value)
3.5% interest (paltry, conservative value)
= roughly 1.4 trillion dollars
---
If we use the time estimate that is currently being thrown about of 40 years, and bump the return rate to 5%... we get roughly 3.5 Trillion dollars.
I don't think projecting any more "favorably" than that is rational. So, I'll leave the calculation of "market average" returns to the interested reader. (but the number is truly huge...)
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
BTW, you can also use these numbers to determine the "true cost" of the war.
Since it was "financed" thru deficit spending.
One day the bill will be due. This is how much.
Can you say: BIRTH TAX?
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
Wow, if I had mod points I would have modded you up but I'll just have to give you my agreement here.
That's exactly how I feel, and I wish people would realize that they had blood on their hands.
An article with some similar ideas, by Professor Ward Churchill, entitled Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens.
Support free speech, and support Professor Ward Churchill.
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
Privatizing social security, that's risking it. That's simple a gamble. It could very well make things a whole lot worse.
With nearly a half trillion being spent on so-called "defense" each year, I think it could be spent on better things.
"You've also forgotten that we've killed more civilians in Iraq than Hussein did, so what's your point?"
Your ignorance boggles the mind...
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
*Cough*
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
...until they come up with a flawless red heifer, and we know now that no animal is flawless.
Bush's proposal may not be perfect, but it's a lot better than what we have now. For that, President Bush deserves our sincere thanks.
I think I'll hold the applause for now. I'm not some kind of anti-Bush nut. In fact, you'll see me often on here defending Bush; not on this issue, however. I can't help but feel that Bush's plan, if successful, has some ulterior motives. Mainly:
(1): Increase investment into large, American public corporations, increasing their stock value. I'm sure some important campaign contributors just love that idea. In that suspicious part of my head, the words "pump-and-dump" just won't go away.
(2): Artificially create an image of strength in the American economy by increasing stock values.
(3): Since dividends are no longer taxed, thanks to last term, further redistribute wealth from the average person to those who need it the least--his self-termed "base" (Socioeconomic elites who mainly make their money off of investment.).
But, here's the real question: what happens when/if the economy tanks? Sure, the 70% returned scenario Bush laid out might be bad and understandably upsetting, but if my financial well-being is dependent upon a finicky stock market which decides to crash, what kind of returns am I going to get when I presumably need it the most?
I'm not much of an economics buff, but it seems to me that this whole idea is a strategy of running a nation's economy and social welfare on the razor's edge. Sure, if everything goes well it'll work great, but if it doesn't, well...
-Grym
Thanks for the link in your sig. :)
Actually, that is superficially correct. The women in Brazil use the same general language (after translating from Portuguese) as the women in the United States. But the actual severity of the symptoms is far greater in the United States.
A better indicator of the effects of social breakdown in the United States would be one about which everyone could agree. For example, people in the United States are the most obese in the history of the world, with the exception of some small island nations in which people subsist on coconut.
Why do people eat when they are not hungry? Because they are unhappy. The U.S. government has killed more than 3,000,000 people since the end of the 2nd world war. It is not possible to participate in killing other people and remain happy. Every citizen who makes no effective protest is participating.
That's why it's news for us.
Actually when you go bankrupt, you usually pay a percentage to what you owe to creditors.
If SS is paying a percentage of what it is owed, sounds like it will be bankrupt to me.
On a side note, SS rate of return is quite poor, the average worker would make more if they could invest directly in treasury bonds themseleves. (lowest 20% gets a 5% ROI, while the middle 20% gets 1-2%).
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Bankruptcy is a legally declared inability or impairment of ability of an individual or organization to pay their creditors.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy
While bankruptcy laws may force the sale of assets or the control of ones property through others, creditors are usually paid a % of their debts, and not necessarily the full deb owedt.
Paying 70% of what is owed sounds like bankruptcy to me. If a person or corporation tried to do that they would have serious legal problems.
My self personally, believe that SS should be paid into the general fund, and not as a loan to the government. This would lead to a true number approximating the budget deficit.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
"Too much of a boon for the private sector; rolling dice with your money."
Rolling the dice with our money? Tell me what is worse: putting money into a low-risk investment and getting a small return or giving the money to the government just to have them spend it immediately and never seeing your money again? That's what I thought.Creative Demolition
Just because certain groups benefit from a proposal doesn't mean that it doesn't make the broader public better off as a whole.
We have a choice in Social Security. We can do what we're doing now, spending SS money almost entirely on benefits. This has the advantage of not giving bloodsucking stockbrokers and other scum money. It has the disadvantage of not accumulating anything for the future.
Or we can give bloodsucking stockbrokers and other scum the money and have them invest it. Over US history, this has inevitably resulted in profits even under the worst circumstances. For example, if you had invested in the S&P 500 during the height of the 1920s boom, you would have a substantial profit today despite the depression.
In other words, the right thing for bloodsucking stockbrokers is not necessarily the wrong thing for you or the country. It's a good idea to overcome your prejudices in this regard, or you'll miss out on significant opportunities.
But there is another fallacy in your argument, which is the thought that government is immune from economic forces. If the economy tanks, the government will not be able to pay Social Security benefits to the extent promised, either. After all, the government simply depends on tax revenues, and if they fall, then bad things will happen.
People on the other side seem to feel Government is infallible. One look at how well the schools work in your town should tell you, well, it's not. In fact, Government has a dismal record of failure in virtually every task it attempts, from fixing the roads to helping the poor.
In short, I don't want to trust the government to run my retirement, or my "social insurance contract" or whatever else you might call it, because I simply do not trust them to deliver. Private industry has its flaws, yes, but it's managed to deliver pretty well on the aggregate.
So in the end, I would much rather be in charge of my retirement investments than have someone else in charge of them. And that especially includes Social InSecurity, which in my eyes is neither social nor secure.
D
Phase one: default on the General Fund's debt to the Social Security Trust Fund in order to make room in the budget (sort of) to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.
Phase two: Once that's done, Social Security doesn't have nearly enough revenue to cover currently promised benefits. The White House wants to resolve this through some unspecified level of benefit cuts. The idea is that promised benefits will now be brought into line with the (reduced) quantity of funds available. From here on out, Social Security's accounts will be balanced in a cash flow sense. The amount of money paid out each year will be equal to the amount of FICA collected.
Phase three: we divert one third of our payroll taxes into something resembling an account under the Thrift Savings Plan. Once we choose to do this, Social Security's cash flow will be messed up. Four percentage points of our wage income that were supposed to be going to pay grandma's Social Security benefits are now sitting in our private account. As a result, the government will need to borrow some money to pay grandma's benefits. The administration believes that that money can be borrowed at a 3 percent rate of interest. When we retire, our guaranteed benefits -- already substantially cut during phase two -- will be cut a second time. The size of this cut will be equivalent to the value of our total contribution to our private account, plus 3 percent interest per year. Thus, once we retire, we will have access to all of the money in our private account, but our guaranteed benefits will have been cut twice. Our little brother, meanwhile, who didn't put money into his private account, will only have his benefits cut once.
If that's too complex, try this:
Instead of saying that 4 percentage points of my FICA were diverted into a private account and then the government borrows an equivalent amount of money in order to pay grandma's benefits, say that...
1) All of my FICA goes to pay for grandma
2) The government lends me an amount of money equal to 4 percentage points of my FICA.
3) When I retire, I get the money in my private account, but I need to repay all those loans with an interest rate of 3 percent.
4) In addition to my private account (with the loan repaid) I then get to collect (reduced) guaranteed benefits.
My apologies to Matt Yglesias, from whom this analysis was stolen with minor reforming.
Luke, help me take this mask off
This means no one is going to insure me from an American invasion.... I mean, liberation. After all, my country is going to hell in a hand basket, gay marriage, relaxed dope laws, liberal policies.
a) is true because the greater number of people paying in per retiring worker benefits the people on top (ie the retiring person).
Except, there is no "person on top," and current retirees don't get any more money if more people are "at the bottom" paying in. Social Security surpluses are invested into treasury bills (by law), and are redeemed whenever the system runs a deficit.
The payments are benefited by bringing in more people into the system (having more children) to pay for the people on their way to retirement.
The system may benefit, but individual social security recipients do not. If you want to call this arrangement a pyramid scheme, well, I guess you'll have to say the same thing about insurance, banks, pension funds, the federal reserve, and a million other well-respected financial institutions. Right up there with Amway, doncha know....
b) there comes a point where this can't be sustained and the current workers (the people on the bottom) get hosed.
Uhm...no. Because benefits are not granted conditionally based on the number of people you bring into the system, you can't make the same argument that you would make for a true pyramid scheme. Contrary to duhbyah's rhetoric, there is no inherent flaw to the method of Social Security (well, not yet, anyway. He's working on it.)
sorry to burst your bubble.
No problem. You've practically made my argument for me. That's worth a bubble or two....
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Fuck modding. You've obviously got a sack enough to prove nothing. Why not try to argue a point? Worthless mother fuckers.
Ahhh!! fuck modding. You've obviously got a sack enough to prove nothing. Why not try to argue a point? Worthless mother fuckers.
To see the "iceberg", the president uses projections that show the economy will grow at an average rate of 1.8%.
However, his private accounts are projected to return rates of 6% to 7% year after year. Is this possible given the assumption that the performance of the stock market is somehow tied to the performance of the economy?
Also, he vows to cut the budget deficit in half by 2006. However, he does not account for spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, proposals to make his tax cut permanent or proposals to partially privatize social security.
His job creation numbers were way off.
He claimed in 1978 that social security would be bankrupt in 10 years.
His WMD claims were way off.
His post-war claims were way off.
His Iraqi ties to terrorists claims were way off.
His deficit prediction claims were way off.
How are we supposed to trust him at all on any of his projections? There is no record of success.
Spoken like a true unaffected bystander.
During Saddam's era, at least I could visit my in-laws without endangering them; now, they're afraid to be associated with my wife and I in case militants see them as collaborating with the 'occupiers'. I'm afraid to even write them a letter!
You can't be blamed for having such a short-sighted view of the conflict. The news is probably the only association you have with what is going on. Count yourself lucky, but spare a thought to those of us who have been affected in a negative way by this conflict.
Actually, they've been discussing ways to cut the amount of money that each people takes for years because of the decreasing ratio of people paying in to people being paid. Everything from increasing the retirement age to decreasing benefits. That covers poit A for the people.
B) When the system can't sustain itself, it collapses under its own weight like most pyramids. When it collapses, the payments stop.
Sorry to break it to you, but there is a flaw in the system. Basically, the people paying into it now are providing for the people who are retiring/retired now in the hopes that they will get the same benefits in the future.
There's a problem with this. It's called the baby boomers. We're looking at loosing a fairly large chunck of the current workforce to retirement in the not too distant future which isn't going to be replaced.
If it makes you feel happy, you can consider it a *modified* pyramid scheme since you seem to be stuck on rigid definitions (which tend to be fairly useless at times except to twist the truth to your point of view/reality. Remember that all of the companies that we decry do the same thing. "We're not doing anything illegal. This is *completely* different." It's not really different and the end result is the same. It's all just semantics and rhetoric.), but it still really is a pyramid.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
Bush sucks. Pouch rocks
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=aki mow&r=f
I recommend that we try George W. Bush for treason in a recognized court of law, with a jury of his peers. And do the same for Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. Do the same for Clinton and Bush, Sr, too. All traitors. Enemies of the people, and friends of the rich and the megacorporations. Try 'em all, and then if found guilty, punish them in the "old school" fashion.
Just my ever-humble opinion....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Actually, they've been discussing ways to cut the amount of money that each people takes for years because of the decreasing ratio of people paying in to people being paid. Everything from increasing the retirement age to decreasing benefits. That covers poit A for the people.
...and insurance companies have, since time immemorial, adjusted their benefits, their deductables and their rates to accomodate for demographic changes (read: things like the Baby Boom). And when they do, moronic conservatives do not flap their arms and scream that the insurance industry is Fundamentally Flawed and that we should all quit paying insurance and invest in Personal Risk Accounts.
I can make the same argument for banks, pension funds and a slew of other financial institutions. And do you know why I can make this argument? Because they are not pyramid schemes. Nor is Social Security. It is a guaranteed PENSION FUND, managed by the federal government, and secured by the Federal Treasury. It's not a matter of semantics!
If you can't see the difference between this and a pyramid scheme (Amway, "make money from home opening letters!", "lose weight now! ask me how!"), and why it's not just a "rigid definition" (facts are annoyingly non-relative, aren't they?), you truly are one of the Special People.
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Outside of this particular time and place, I don't think marriage has much at all to do with romantic love. It has always been primarily about responsibility for those other people who are your family. Marriage doesn't even have to be voluntary. It is nice if the people entering into a marriage relationship have a romantic interest in each other, it makes the bond stronger, but it is entirely optional. Frankly, the government doesn't care if you love each other just as long as you relieve the government of the burden of taking care of you, your spouse, or your kids. Some needs can be satisfied by the government, the marketplace, and other institutions, but quite a few people think marriage is better at it than such methods as government paying women so they can afford to stay home and have kids, or government deciding your course of medical treatment instead of your "next of kin", or government "disciplining" young men in correctional institutions because their fathers did not feel obligated to take on this task themselves.
I am old fashioned enough to think that fathers are better at some parenting tasks than mothers. Women may not need men, but children need fathers. But, then families are as diverse as individuals. What works for one family might not work at all for another. If they don't have fathers, they can have an extended family with uncles and grandfathers. That is what makes families so ideal for raising young people. Parents have much more in common with their kids both culturally and genetically than government bureaucrats. If anyone is going to understand a confused young person, it is much more likely to be his parent than a jailer or a social worker.
Individuals are not always able to do it all for themselves and free markets, governments and other such institutions don't always work as well as the family. Historically, parents are responsible for their children when young and children are responsible for their parents when old. Also, historically, people who enter into marriage assume certain responsibilities towards each other (and any children they may raise). These responsibilities can be considered a contract although different societies assign different legal interpretations to this contract. When marriages are weak, people must get their needs satisfied in other ways. Sometimes it's the government, sometimes it's the marketplace. I don't simply mean sex, I mean advocacy for someone who is not conscious, I mean financial support when one doesn't have their own income, I mean procreation and any other project that is better done with a partner than alone.
For extreme conservatives, government IS the family. The family is the oldest form of government, much older than monarchy, theocracy, and especially demococracy. A good family is a benevelent dictatorship, something that is very hard to achieve outside of a family. So conservatives are for anything that enables families to take care of themselves, leaving governments and other nonfamily institutions as a last resort. Many people recognize that not all families are very good at support of their more needy members. While conservatives might prefer that government fix the family (or allow the church to fix it), liberals think it is better for the government to step in and take its place. I, like most people, am somewhere in the middle. There really are some lousy families, but if you treat all individuals who need help as though they come from lousy families, people from good families might turn to outsiders when it might actually be better for everyone for them to get help from the family.
If outsiders make it very easy to go outside of the family for help, then the family has no need to exist and may go away. Likewise, for people who do not have a functional family, depriving them of a means to form one makes no sense either. In the issue of gay marriages, pro family and pro gay marriage advocates are on the same side if a more modern term such as civil unions can be accepted by all. This is not a liberal issue at all. It is just a new twist on the conservative notion of solving problems by encouraging the formation of strong family units.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
yeah... but check this link out http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=aki mow&r=f
ROB AKIMOW
2005
Hot!!
(2): Artificially create an image of strength in the American economy by increasing stock values.
To hell with stock prices--if all that money is invested in the economy, then it isn't an artificial image... the economy really is stronger.
(3): Since dividends are no longer taxed, thanks to last term, further redistribute wealth from the average person to those who need it the least--his self-termed "base" (Socioeconomic elites who mainly make their money off of investment.).
You're missing something: If my money is going into those invesments, I am going to realize those dividends, too.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Presumably, you do share my beliefs about homosexuality (or at least some of them). It's the beliefs I was describing that you don't share.
You are correct, that the laws would only forbid such behaviors and not eliminate them, and I believe all would agree with you on that point. Furthermore, you are also correct that bans on homosexual acts have been deemed unconstitutional - which is exactly why those who would ban homosexual acts believe they need a constitutional amendment. (By definition, a constitutional amendment cannot be unconstitutional. Although I'm sure many of us would believe that it could render the constitution into an inconsistent document.)
I was not away that "polls consistently show that a majority of Americans support the right of civil unions for gays", although I do know that percentage to be higher than those who support marriage rights.
Here are some links that suggest that statement to be not exactly accurate:
So, I wouldn't say it's consistent yet, even if 2005 shows a majority, but it does seem we're headed that way. FWIW, personally, I would not support any ban on gay marriage, even if it allowed for civil unions, as I think that it amounts to government sticking its nose where it doesn't belong.
P.S. If you re-read my original post, you'll notice that the whole point of my argument was that the reasons why people support FMA have little (or nothing!) to do with their support for government getting more involved in our lives in general.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Yeah baby http://akimow.urbanup.com/1039873 Rob Akimow
Explain how an unprovoked war can be an example for discontinuing the support of allied dictatorships.
Further, this sentence resembles a teacher's attitude towards his students. No existing nation is in a position to "start teaching" anything to another. It is plain old imperialism. Gone unchecked, this arrogant assumption will create hatred against Americans.
The United States has a right to protect itself.
For the context at hand (justification of the Iraq War), the statement is so far-fetched that it is misleading at best. To assume that the war was an act of self-defense ignores the absence of any credible threat. Even taking the doubtful naiveness towards "intelligence reports" at face value the indicators for a threat were so vague that no prudent observer deemed it necessary to pursue neither a hasty nor a drastic measure such as war.
Gone unchecked, Islamic extremists will continue to attempt attacks within our borders.
Tightening security and removing their moral support can solve this issue. While the former finds its limits in economical feasability and citizen's rights the second one involves reverse-psychology and appeasement. Also, the second path stresses a long term, incremental foreign policy by forgoing potential geo-political and economical advantages.
Time and again the US shows an afinity with the first solution path and seems to derive part of their ideological identity from rather making too few than too many steps on the second path. It may be part of its often touted Anglo-American culture, yet it blinds the sight for situations where this cultural approach is making things worse instead of better.
our strategy is to address the underlying cause in the region--disenfranchisement and poverty
Even if that would be the primary goal there are better ways to achieve this than by starting a war. Instead of destabilizing a region further why not solve the destabilized Palestine first? Peacekeepers in Westbank and Gaza would have been a start.
the invasion of Iraq was done with the ultimate goal of providing United States security.
Repeating this mantra does not establish a causal relationship. Feeding and eduacting the poor in Cairo could have a much better dollar/security ratio on top it would generate less hatred. Distancing from the Saudis and pressuring Israel for peace would have a tremendous effect on the region. The upside: more peace, security, taxpayer's money left.
The downside could be less short-term, regional power and control over less oil.
Is it risky? Sure.
Is it risky for US citizens? Sure, but they opted for it.
Is it risky for Iraqis? Even more so, it comes down to success or civil war. But then again no-one has asked them if they want to be in this situation or not. Who is Mr Bush to decide that shedding Iraqi's blood is good for them? And this causal relationship is by far more direct than any of the "terrorism" and "Iraq" analogies.
You and the Bush administration make two critical and false assumptions.
1. The US has a moral obligation/justification to impose peace/captialism/freedom/*yourfavoritebuzzword* on anyone they choose to.
2. For #1 the use of war/force is justifiable.
The great thing about a "Crisis" is that you can use it as leverage to do what you always wanted to do but couldn't before.
See: 9/11 and invading Iraq
Who modded this drivel up to 4/Insightful? Is this guy a White House plant with extra points? WTF?
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.