End all social welfare programs immediately

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

bare what burden??? like I said, between those in my family who worked, paid into the system, and got nothing out of it, and me working putting into the system, well, I don't expect to live long enough to get that much out of it! so just what burden are you griping about? the fact that the gov't has been taken money out of it the funds so that the younger generations can have new schools and can eat in their cafeteria without having dust falling down on their heads from cracked ceiling like we did? or to pay for you oh so many kids in all those single parent households?

I happen to be older than BubbaJoe, spent most of my life walking wherever I went, used to walk a mile to one of those stupid resturant jobs I hated so much. even hurt, I was staying at the printshop until the jobs were out the door most days, seldom missing a day because I couldn't afford to miss a day! and I lasted as long as I could at them because I had to last at them so I could have the insurance so I could keep going to the doctor, so maybe, just maybe, they would diagnose the danged problem and provide me with some relief. I took so much ibprofen that I was crapping blood, but I still kept going. and since I was a mother of three boys, hey, most of the time I was running on four hours sleep.

give me a nice office job close to where I live, and I will work. but then, there's gonna be probably a hundred other people applying for that job, with experience, so how likely is that really to happen?

originally posted by: BubbaJoe

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: BubbaJoe
The ignorance is large in this thread. I would agree that corporate welfare needs to end, I would agree that fraud and corruption should end, but no one wants to address that. All of the problems this country faces are the fault of the poor, Koch brothers have got their message out.

All welfare is corporate welfare. Lets take the most visible example, food stamps. If people didn't have food stamps, they would purchase less food. That in turn means lower profits for the food industry, which decreases production, reducing the nations ability to feed itself, and reducing the number of farmers which also reduces our maximum output in a time of need.

As long as the welfare is being spent somewhere (and it all is), it's ultimately corporate welfare.

I will not disagree with this, I think the largest food stamp processor in the country is Walmart, and yet their employees need food stamps to survive. Is the system screwed, yes, is cutting all benefits the answer no. We need to logically fix the problem, not give in to knee jerk reactions, and assume all are committing fraud.

I don't think anyone thinks "all" are commuting fraud, or at least no one I've heard. I also doubt people are talking about folks who work hard and have like one arm missing.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

My dad used to say the same thing, that SS would be broken and useless by the time he was old enough to get it. He had the same reasons to worry about it that you probably do now.

Well, he's been getting SS for a very long time now, and it is justly his to receive.

What if, and just entertain the idea, it WASN'T going to be broken by the time you get to use it. What if, God forbid, YOU need disability someday and wow, it's there for you??? I have been hearing for decades how my dad's generation was going to get the shaft and instead, he gets benefits.

I think that the doom and gloom is a perennial fear, and yet, somehow, SS marches on.

a reply to: AboveBoard

I wont draw SS. I'll take care of myself until I cant, the way people have been doing for thousands of years.

originally posted by: AboveBoard
a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

The SS marches on.

For a second I thought you meant...



But never mind

...

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

What? As a matter of principle? That makes no sense. It is basically a type of savings account. Are you aware that SS is YOUR money?? It's like putting money in a back and then refusing to take it out because it was being held in a bank you didn't like... Seriously?? Ok then. But you are not being noble, you are simply giving away your hard earned money for whatever sense of pride that lends you.

originally posted by: stabstab
Easy there chief we have far too many people on those programs who would quite literally perish without them. No need to get all dictatorish on us about helping those in need.

Thats just the thing if we left it up to private individuals to take care of those in need it would never happen when it needed to happen.

The system is not perfect but it does function to a large degree.

I agree with the sentiment, but we couldn't go cold turkey. Need to slowly reduce the benefits until we weed out the people who really don't need the extras and keep helping the truly mentally and physically disadvantaged.

a reply to: AboveBoard

Yeah exactly give me my money and I'll make my own choices i dont need daddy to do it for me.

I want the responsibility of making my own choices and paying for them if bad or being rewarded for them if good.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

and what happens when you can't??
are you gonna slither under some rock and wait for death? rely on your kids? pray tell... just what happens after you can't?

a reply to: AboveBoard

Um no. Social Security is a scam. You may in, and they send you disproportionally small check every month. What isn't spent on retirees and disabled goes to government spending. Its all money that doesn't even exist. They are paying you with debt. And one day the loan shark are going to come collecting.

Social Security is a black hole.

originally posted by: AboveBoard
a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

What? As a matter of principle? That makes no sense. It is basically a type of savings account. Are you aware that SS is YOUR money?? It's like putting money in a back and then refusing to take it out because it was being held in a bank you didn't like... Seriously?? Ok then. But you are not being noble, you are simply giving away your hard earned money for whatever sense of pride that lends you.

More like a ponzi scheme at this point.

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: AboveBoard

I wont draw SS. I'll take care of myself until I cant, the way people have been doing for thousands of years.

Actually, the way it was done for thousands of years was that you took care of your children when you were young and your children took care of you when you were old. The western world and the US in particular doesn't have that type of family structure anymore.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Yes yes. Of course. And it's still from money that YOU paid, and therefore whatever they send you is literally your money. Perhaps you make enough that you can scorn it - other people can't.

a reply to: AboveBoard

The money you pay in is immediately disbursed to people who are receiving now. There is no lockbox with your money in it like there would be if you retained control of your money.

The trust fund was raided for general spending long, long ago.

That's why people call SS a ponzi scheme. You pay in at the bottom and hope enough new people jump in at the base to support you when you are at the top long enough that the scheme doesn't crash before you are done with it.

So between our downward population growth curve and our borrowing, today's kids are in for a world of economic hurt in order to try to keep the system afloat when their parents need it. It could very well be impossible. Eventually at the rate things are going it will be. It's only a matter of time. You can only attempt to cheat math for so long.

a reply to: dawnstar

I will save up my own capital for my future as I am currently doing. If I have to, I will work till I cant. Then that's it. My priorities are different than yours.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

actually, there is a bunch of treasury bonds in the fund, it wasn't till recently that social security was taking out less than what was going in, so the gov't is supposed to be making due on those bonds as needed, with interest... and that is supposed to hold us over. they can find the money when they want to start a war in some third world nation or bail out their buddies on wall street the idea that they can't make due on the debt they own social security is a joke in my opinion.. and I still hear the war drums being pounded, more war, more war! and, they come up with money to build bridges to nowhere and a million other stupid things. so, well, yes, I expect to get my social security. but heck, if they want to give me all that I've paid in, I'll take it!! I probably won't live long enough to get that much out in benefits anyways.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest
really, and just how do you know what my priorities are?

a reply to: dawnstar

Yes, treasury bonds. IOUs from the government. They spent our money and left an IOU in its place.

originally posted by: BubbaJoe
I will not disagree with this, I think the largest food stamp processor in the country is Walmart, and yet their employees need food stamps to survive. Is the system screwed, yes, is cutting all benefits the answer no. We need to logically fix the problem, not give in to knee jerk reactions, and assume all are committing fraud.

I would be in favor of cutting benefits if we replaced it with a basic income for everyone. That said, a basic income isn't happening any time in the next 20 years.

I think about this problem a lot, and the solution I've come up with is that the main problem is that not everyone has a renewable asset but that renewable assets are the key to sustainable welfare programs (this includes basic incomes, retirement, food stamps, and many others). The one activity everyone has which is renewable is an appetite for consumption. Using space for shelter, using food, entertainment, and so on.

So my thinking is, what if we monetize that with a digital currency?

Thanks to the internet we can create a currency which always has a fixed amount in the pool. When one person spends theirs, that expense is divided among the rest of society and added to their pools (so in a 100 person society, if one person bought a 50 currency item, all 100 people would get back .5).

Then we require non essential items to be purchased with good old dollars plus this currency (this is easily done using taxes, by charging a sales tax in that currency).

For the last step, we create a mechanism by which people could sell their unused bits for dollars in order to purchase necessities. This would allow a person lower on income to forego the ability to buy luxuries, but have a sustainable resource in order to buy food and pay rent while it would give a person who has a higher income the ability to directly subsidize the lower class person without the need for the bureaucracy of a government run redistribution system instead relying purely on market forces.

I don't know if this would work or not, but I know that if I were to go about trying to create a basic income system in the US, or even make our welfare systems more efficient, this is how I would try to go about it.

a reply to: dawnstar

You've already disclosed them. Social Security is higher on your list of priorities than mine.