Presuming that he would have been a better candidate, other states could well have voted for him during the primary season. Don't blame Iowa because the Democrats in the rest of the states are like sheep and played follow the leader this year.
we could have come out with a better canidate (one with fewer 'negatives'), but Kerry was real agressive in Iowa, and that's who they picked.
Each state had the opportunity in selecting the candidate. Iowa comes first because its a small state (candidates can meet the people that they are trying to win the votes of) and ad time is relatively cheap. Winning Iowa != winning the nomination in many cases - George HW Bush beat Ronald Reagan here in 1980.
There may have been a better candidate, but I'm not sure that he (or her) was running this year - or that they could have won the nomination.
I doubt Microsoft can just arbitrarily hike the prices up because Dell grows a spine.
But they could if a clause in the contract specifically does not allow for the installation of alternative browsers.
Isn't that one of the issues that Microsoft got in trouble for during the antitrust suit - disallowing OEMs from selling alternative software with the machines?
Just because the retirement age is raised doesn't mean that you can't retire before then. Right now, old people have a choice between retiring at 63(?) or waiting until they're 67 - the difference is in the monthly benefits that they receive. There is a definite incentive to continue working, but it is the individuals choice (and will likely continue to be that way).
I know plenty of people who are "retired" but continue to farm while receiving their social security checks - not a big deal either. I think that the point of retirement is to at least slow down and enjoy life when you get old. I also think that if you cut out work cold turkey it will "turn you old" and will actually have adverse consequences on your health.
I enjoy my work and, God willing, will do it as long as possible, but to each his own.
The fact that it started as a pyramid scheme in the 1930's and continues to be one doesn't help either. I see that you left Clinton out of your statement - was the situation magically better when he was in office?
The answer is, of course, things were better because the economy was moving right along (but not because he was President or he did something to fix the crisis), and because of the tax inflows as a result of the stock market bubble.
Had the Social Security system been seeded with general funds in the 1930's - 1960's, and had the actual payroll taxes been really saved (instead of used to fund deficits), we would not have this problem.
We already have been raising the retirement age 1 month/year for the last couple of decades (I think - it doesn't matter to me because I'm nowhere near old enough to think about it). But, you can retire at like 63 now and get a certain amount or you can retire at 67 and get a much greater amount. If they raise the retirement age, it will take that form - a matter of personal choice.
I live in a small town and am a volunteer firefighter, as is my 65 year old father (so there!) Granted, we don't get many fires, but the point is that people still can and do work past 65 - he's not close to retiring. We also have many farmers in the area that are still farming well into their 70's and 80's.
And I meant what I said about getting old when you retire. My wife's folks are about the same ages as my parents, but are in worse physical shape. They've retired and got old - and I think that the retirement is the cause and not the effect.
Assuming that the Social Security system is taken on its own. Right now, the bulk of the "assets" of the system are in the form of Federal government debt. The real crisis will be when the Federal government has to start paying that back - and that will happen a lot sooner than 2078.
Perhaps some small changes now will stave that off, perhaps not. I'm young enough that I'll supposedly be drawing social security before 2078, probably old enough not to live that long, but I'm not counting on it being there for me.
I don't know that it will last that long, and I don't think 2% or 3% will fix it. Combine that with a steep increase in the retirement age and you might be able to do something.
The problem is that Social Security is a pyramid scheme that works ok when you have several people paying for each retiree. That's been trending down for quite some time and will cause major problems if it continues (standard breakdown of society, riots in the streets, dogs and cats living in sin kind of stuff).
The 2% I threw out is the chunk that is proposed to go into the personal accounts (that you would OWN and be able to pass on if you died before drawing social security). The other 1% I figure is the cost of what it will take to get Congress to go along with the partial privitization of the system. Ideally, as time goes by and old people die, the percentages shifted into the private accounts would go up while the percentages in the existing system would go down - but that would probably take 50 or 60 years (hey - there's you 2050!)
If you're younger than 40 and believe that Social Security, in its present form, will be there as the full ride retirement program that we have today you're wrong. The baby boomers are starting to reach retirement age and we don't have enough young people replacing them (it won't be long before we are begging for immigrants to fill jobs).
That being said, it wouldn't take too much to change it. Combine raising the retirement age with increasing the payroll taxes would do a lot to take care of the issue.
Raising the payroll taxes is just plain punitive though - especially for low income earners and the self employed. Raise them enough and you'll see a lot more tax planning to take advantage of the Sub-S corps like Edwards did or less reporting of that kind of income (a loss either way for the treasury). Raising the phaseout for payroll taxes (currently around 83K or so) would also help, but not as much as raising the payroll taxes.
"Means testing" is another option - if someone was wise enough to save for retirement we can penalize them for doing so. This probably wouldn't fly because one of Social Security's selling points is that if you pay in, you get to draw out. Remove that lock in and you'll loose support.
Probably the best bet is to raise the retirement age. We're already seeing people who are retired for as long or longer than they worked, and it's also not uncommon for people to work well into their 70's. The retirement age was initially set so that most people die before drawing it because most people were doing hard manual labor. These days, the nature of work has become more safe (desk jobs and even factory jobs are safer) and people live longer. I think that retirement age is currently at 67 or so. That could probably be raised. (Besides, you don't get old until you retire - look at the people you know and you can see it happen!)
Sorry to write so much. I don't know that there is a good answer. What will probably happen is that Bush wants to allow people to take a portion of their 14% Social Security tax and place it into a "private account", so he'll probably be able to get it by raising FICA 3% or so (split between the employee and the employer - the only ones who would really see this are the self-employeds).
Perhaps the downturn in jobs is a consequence of the downturn in IT innovation?
Or it is the real Y2K bug. Remember the late 90's had lots and lots of companies feverishly attempting to fix old codebases and hardware. Equipment and software was upgraded ahead of the normal schedule (helping to lead to the boom times). Alongside of this, the internet started becoming commercially applied.
After Y2K passed uneventfully, and after the internet bubble burst, all of these companies were running hardware and software that was basically good enough. Most of it still is.
At some point, we're going to see another large demand bubble as companies start upgrading their Y2K hardware in their normal cycles or once again rewrite software to fit in the "next big thing" paradigm of programming.
Which set of people? The non-Americans sending the letters? The truly undecided voters? Those voters who registered as "Independents" so that they wouldn't get solicitations from either party?
Do you really think that the clergy changed the minds of any undecided voters this year? And if so, which way? Catholic, Methodist, and Lutheran clergy seem to be firmly in the Democratic camp while Baptists seem to be mainly Republican.
It was a well-crafted, devious plan that worked. And I say that as someone who voted for President Bush.
And those measures were put on the ballot in those states thanks to the mayor of San Francisco and the Mass. Supreme Court making declarations on same-sex marriages last spring. Had those things not happened, these measures (while perhaps still on the ballot) would not have drawn out those voters.
There's no need to have a devious plan when your oppenents do poorly thought out things - and that cuts both ways.
That's niether funny nor flamebait - it's the truth. In America, the surest way to change an "undecided" voter's mind against what you want is to tell him or her how to vote.
Gotcha. But the Al Gore signing the treaty for US has no more weight than it would if I, TykeClone, signed the treaty. It doesn't matter until it's ratified.
That's not fair - a well thought out response to a very clever joke that I made about lawyers.
For what it's worth, I agree that a tool (be it a protocol, a program, a knife, or a gun) is just a tool until it is used for something bad - but then it is the individual or group wielding the tool that is committing the crime and not the tool itself.
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Presuming that he would have been a better candidate, other states could well have voted for him during the primary season. Don't blame Iowa because the Democrats in the rest of the states are like sheep and played follow the leader this year.
In many states, you can change your party affiliation when you walk up to the caucuses or primaries. That's not an impediment.
Each state had the opportunity in selecting the candidate. Iowa comes first because its a small state (candidates can meet the people that they are trying to win the votes of) and ad time is relatively cheap. Winning Iowa != winning the nomination in many cases - George HW Bush beat Ronald Reagan here in 1980.
There may have been a better candidate, but I'm not sure that he (or her) was running this year - or that they could have won the nomination.
I wasn't sure if it was "Thou shalt not sell any other OS" or "Thou shalt not install an alternative browser" that got them in trouble.
But they could if a clause in the contract specifically does not allow for the installation of alternative browsers.
Isn't that one of the issues that Microsoft got in trouble for during the antitrust suit - disallowing OEMs from selling alternative software with the machines?
I know plenty of people who are "retired" but continue to farm while receiving their social security checks - not a big deal either. I think that the point of retirement is to at least slow down and enjoy life when you get old. I also think that if you cut out work cold turkey it will "turn you old" and will actually have adverse consequences on your health.
I enjoy my work and, God willing, will do it as long as possible, but to each his own.
The answer is, of course, things were better because the economy was moving right along (but not because he was President or he did something to fix the crisis), and because of the tax inflows as a result of the stock market bubble.
Had the Social Security system been seeded with general funds in the 1930's - 1960's, and had the actual payroll taxes been really saved (instead of used to fund deficits), we would not have this problem.
I live in a small town and am a volunteer firefighter, as is my 65 year old father (so there!) Granted, we don't get many fires, but the point is that people still can and do work past 65 - he's not close to retiring. We also have many farmers in the area that are still farming well into their 70's and 80's.
And I meant what I said about getting old when you retire. My wife's folks are about the same ages as my parents, but are in worse physical shape. They've retired and got old - and I think that the retirement is the cause and not the effect.
Perhaps some small changes now will stave that off, perhaps not. I'm young enough that I'll supposedly be drawing social security before 2078, probably old enough not to live that long, but I'm not counting on it being there for me.
God. It's God's own motherboard.
The problem is that Social Security is a pyramid scheme that works ok when you have several people paying for each retiree. That's been trending down for quite some time and will cause major problems if it continues (standard breakdown of society, riots in the streets, dogs and cats living in sin kind of stuff).
The 2% I threw out is the chunk that is proposed to go into the personal accounts (that you would OWN and be able to pass on if you died before drawing social security). The other 1% I figure is the cost of what it will take to get Congress to go along with the partial privitization of the system. Ideally, as time goes by and old people die, the percentages shifted into the private accounts would go up while the percentages in the existing system would go down - but that would probably take 50 or 60 years (hey - there's you 2050!)
That being said, it wouldn't take too much to change it. Combine raising the retirement age with increasing the payroll taxes would do a lot to take care of the issue.
Raising the payroll taxes is just plain punitive though - especially for low income earners and the self employed. Raise them enough and you'll see a lot more tax planning to take advantage of the Sub-S corps like Edwards did or less reporting of that kind of income (a loss either way for the treasury). Raising the phaseout for payroll taxes (currently around 83K or so) would also help, but not as much as raising the payroll taxes.
"Means testing" is another option - if someone was wise enough to save for retirement we can penalize them for doing so. This probably wouldn't fly because one of Social Security's selling points is that if you pay in, you get to draw out. Remove that lock in and you'll loose support.
Probably the best bet is to raise the retirement age. We're already seeing people who are retired for as long or longer than they worked, and it's also not uncommon for people to work well into their 70's. The retirement age was initially set so that most people die before drawing it because most people were doing hard manual labor. These days, the nature of work has become more safe (desk jobs and even factory jobs are safer) and people live longer. I think that retirement age is currently at 67 or so. That could probably be raised. (Besides, you don't get old until you retire - look at the people you know and you can see it happen!)
Sorry to write so much. I don't know that there is a good answer. What will probably happen is that Bush wants to allow people to take a portion of their 14% Social Security tax and place it into a "private account", so he'll probably be able to get it by raising FICA 3% or so (split between the employee and the employer - the only ones who would really see this are the self-employeds).
Or it is the real Y2K bug. Remember the late 90's had lots and lots of companies feverishly attempting to fix old codebases and hardware. Equipment and software was upgraded ahead of the normal schedule (helping to lead to the boom times). Alongside of this, the internet started becoming commercially applied.
After Y2K passed uneventfully, and after the internet bubble burst, all of these companies were running hardware and software that was basically good enough. Most of it still is.
At some point, we're going to see another large demand bubble as companies start upgrading their Y2K hardware in their normal cycles or once again rewrite software to fit in the "next big thing" paradigm of programming.
You mispelled "it's much more broke"
Social Security, as it is now, will not survive the baby boomers retiring.
The cold makes the data move faster through the cables.
Which set of people? The non-Americans sending the letters? The truly undecided voters? Those voters who registered as "Independents" so that they wouldn't get solicitations from either party?
Do you really think that the clergy changed the minds of any undecided voters this year? And if so, which way? Catholic, Methodist, and Lutheran clergy seem to be firmly in the Democratic camp while Baptists seem to be mainly Republican.
And those measures were put on the ballot in those states thanks to the mayor of San Francisco and the Mass. Supreme Court making declarations on same-sex marriages last spring. Had those things not happened, these measures (while perhaps still on the ballot) would not have drawn out those voters.
There's no need to have a devious plan when your oppenents do poorly thought out things - and that cuts both ways.
That's the spirit! Just make sure to use the secret double-reverse psychology on them!
Those drones are remote-controlled by people - so it's not really a inhuman robot air force - it's more of a cyborg thing that they've got going.
That's niether funny nor flamebait - it's the truth. In America, the surest way to change an "undecided" voter's mind against what you want is to tell him or her how to vote.
Gotcha. But the Al Gore signing the treaty for US has no more weight than it would if I, TykeClone, signed the treaty. It doesn't matter until it's ratified.
Not to argue, but it doesn't count unless it's ratified by the Senate - so the US isn't a signatory.
I don't think that they pay federal taxes so they don't get votes in the electoral college. DC does and should get electoral college votes.
For what it's worth, I agree that a tool (be it a protocol, a program, a knife, or a gun) is just a tool until it is used for something bad - but then it is the individual or group wielding the tool that is committing the crime and not the tool itself.