Why It Matters: SOCIAL SECURITY

reply to post by Hefficide

Taxpayers saved AIG's insurance obligations. Do you judge them as harshly? Shall we demand that AIG quit doing business this instant?

We should not have bailed them or any other company out. They should have been allowed to fail so a better company could have taken their place.

Originally posted by DarthMuerte

Originally posted by popcornmafia

Other posters are being way to nice..

Don't give me that its for the children crap...
I'm sure this guy loves his kids and/or grand kids..
Stop trying to guilt trip this guy under the guise of
being real. This guy nor i or the rest of us in this thread
screwed up SS. We do our part the gov. needs to do theirs.
To try and act like they shouldn't ever receive it is sick...
lay off

Nice is not going to solve this problem. When reality slaps you in the face it hurts. Don't believe me? Ask the Greeks. Ask the Spanish. Ask the Argentinians. Open our eyes and see where uncontrolled social spending leads. Other countries are going over the financial cliff. Do we just continue to follow their bad example? Socialism does not work. That experiment has failed. Time to drop Keynesian economics. We need to wake the hell up and make the hard choices now. It will only get worse the longer we wait.

You first.
We had no choice at all in this matter.
No say every week they took our money.
Dont pit this on the people the good citizens of the usa.
Were awake most agree in this thread the gov spending
needs to stop so uncle sam can pay his bills to the citizens who were
FORCED into this scheme

reply to post by Hefficide

My response to your OP is on the first page. Did you read it?

reply to post by DarthMuerte


Of course I read it. I'm just trying to machete my way through the jungle of dogmatic thinking I am confronted with. We can't help the disabled, sick, and poor because it's too selfish of us to deprive our kids of a future. But apparently their future stops mattering when we discuss taxing the rich or regulating industry appropriately.

Free market insanity - My copy of "The Children Of Men" has a short documentary on it and somebody on it says that Americas economy has the same behavioral habits as a crackhead..

Denial is the number one symptom of addiction. And we are in denial. Reaganomics failed and continues to fail.

~Heff

if the gov't doesn't make due on those treasuries that are being held by social security when they are requested to, it will be just like the gov't deciding to not honor any other debt it owes to the other creditors....
it will be a $2.67 trillion dollar default... 19% of the debt!!!

Originally posted by Hefficide

So you only care about the kids if it doesn't inconvenience the rich?

The "rich" already pay most of the taxes. How much is fair in your mind? At what point do we recognized that the government spends too much? If we confiscated all of the wealth of the top 1% it would not be enough to make a dent in the debt. So tell me then, where should be the cutoff? The top 10%? The top 25%? How much is fair? Of course, it would all be moot if we dropped all other taxes and implemented the Fair Tax. Fairness is not the issue though. It never was.

reply to post by DarthMuerte


We're not talking about fairness. We're talking about urgency, necessity, and the kids. The kids of the future that you seem so impassioned with that you're willing to trample the sick children alive right now on the sacrificial alter of unregulated capitalism.

I'm just showing the insincerity of the argument. It's a straw man. It's not the future neocons protect. It's their wallets TODAY that they covet and love.

~Heff

Originally posted by popcornmafia

Originally posted by DarthMuerte

Originally posted by popcornmafia

Other posters are being way to nice..

Don't give me that its for the children crap...
I'm sure this guy loves his kids and/or grand kids..
Stop trying to guilt trip this guy under the guise of
being real. This guy nor i or the rest of us in this thread
screwed up SS. We do our part the gov. needs to do theirs.
To try and act like they shouldn't ever receive it is sick...
lay off

Nice is not going to solve this problem. When reality slaps you in the face it hurts. Don't believe me? Ask the Greeks. Ask the Spanish. Ask the Argentinians. Open our eyes and see where uncontrolled social spending leads. Other countries are going over the financial cliff. Do we just continue to follow their bad example? Socialism does not work. That experiment has failed. Time to drop Keynesian economics. We need to wake the hell up and make the hard choices now. It will only get worse the longer we wait.

You first.
We had no choice at all in this matter.
No say every week they took our money.
Dont pit this on the people the good citizens of the usa.
Were awake most agree in this thread the gov spending
needs to stop so uncle sam can pay his bills to the citizens who were
FORCED into this scheme

No say? No say at all? Who did you vote for? Did you even try to get politicians to stop raiding the so called trust fund? We got robbed, we got screwed. The money is gone and we are in way too much debt to put it back. That is the truth. Like it or not. The question becomes, do we now rob our children and their children so that we can buy the latest iphone? At a minimum, we need to institute means testing for SS, medicare, and all other programs. We sure as hell should not be giving away free cell phones. All of the social programs need to be scrapped imo. After we get our house in order, maybe we can reconsider but right now they need to end.

Originally posted by DarthMuerte

Originally posted by Hefficide
reply to post by DarthMuerte

 

So, if I were to suggest that we stop the Bush tax cuts on the rich and maybe even make businesses and the exceptionally wealthy help out a little more - for the sake of the kids. You'll agree with me?

~Heff

No. I would not. If you give the government more money, they will just waste it. Spending needs to be cut. Fiscal sanity, fiscal responsibility, needs to be embraced. The nation does not have a revenue problem. It has a serious spending problem.

Here's where your tax dollars go! Hell yeah make the rich pay more: that'll solve everything!
Haven't you heard its called a "Fairshare"
"Eveybody" get "Obamaphone"!!! keep Obama in president!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeesh@! yeah I want to give the govt. even more to blow.

In all fairness I think they did that up here too; the original idea was "poor unemployed" needed a way for employers to contact them without the stigma of appearing as "unwashed destitute masses".

reply to post by DarthMuerte

the social security fund owns the highest percentage of the US debt I believe....you can find numbers that say otherwise, let me know....
so, if we are just gonna decide to wipe away that obligation of the gov't...
why don't we go ahead and wipe away the obligation we have to the mutual funds also..
and the retirement funds,
or the banks (why not just call it even, after all, the gov't owes them a little over 300 billion, how much did we been given them since the economy went bust!!)
and no one in those oil exporting countries like us anyway it seems!!

it's not the social security fund that was flawed and failed!!
it was our gov't!!

so ya, taking out on the future elderly and disabled makes so much sense doesn't it??
if the elderly and disabled can pay the price than so can't the rest of our creditors, let's just do a total default and get it over with!!!

I'm in agreement with you, Heff.
Years ago, when I read "The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy" it foretold so much, so accurately. The end of SS just as the X Generation reaches retirement was one of those things they claimed was going to happen.
Just a repetition of what they"ve always gotten- the sh*tty end of the stick after the Boomers have insisted on their right to gobble everything up.

And as predicted we'll probably just suck it up and keep working until the day we die, because that is what we do.

I feel almost guilty at my own apathy as I watch the crowd here railing against you..... I guess I've accepted it.
This is the way the wind is going. Things will change eventually, after we're gone though.

reply to post by Bluesma


Gobble, Gobble!!!
social security was pretty much an investment we made for our future, so wasn't our IRA's, our retirement funds, not to mention our homes.....
those fine too big to fail bankers pretty much sacrificed the value we had in our homes for their hundred thousand+ bonuses...and as a member of the tail end of the boomers, I am pretty sure that my bigger brothers and sisters will have pretty much strained the IRA's and retirement funds beyond their limit long before it's my time....

so, well, all I can say to you gen x'ers is....
have fun supporting mom and dad in their old age...
if you've sat there and let the scam be carried out that defrauded so many, fully supporting the fools doing the scamming, guess you deserve to have your parents dumped on you!!!

wonder how many of yas will be shouting the battle call when they decide they need another war.

A civilised country will always have social security. Its not right to have lots of people living on he street.

I guess all of us approaching old age could die right now and I'm sure that would save all the pain future generations may have to go through to pay our future insurance claims. Barring that, I guess we are stuck with figuring out a solution. I don't appreciate being blamed for the fact that our social security was robbed from us. I would rather die than cause my children pain......but I'm not doing that. Those who robbed my insurance premiums are doing that. DON'T TRY TO GUILT TRIP US.

reply to post by Hefficide


Why It Matters: SOCIAL SECURITY?

I'll tell you why it matters to me: It is my current sole source of income in the form of a monthly disability check for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And I can tell you this: I'm not a lazy slacker. Not being able to maintain full-time gainful employment due to my condition has left me feeling somewhat useless and without purpose for the most part. And it really sucks. But... if it weren't for my Social Security income, something I've paid into all my life through having it taken out of my paychecks like everyone else, I wouldn't be sitting here right now with a roof over my head and a keyboard at my fingers. I'd be back out on the street - homeless. And twitching.

[/rant]

What amazes me Heff, is that the media NEVER mentions all of the IOUs that are sitting in the fund that was stolen and will never be payed back!!!

reply to post by seeker1963


That's are elected officials for you. You and I would be arrested and thrown in jail for embezzlement! Ooops, sorry we took your money, but since we can't replace it, we'll just have to take the rest of it from you. They've done the same thing with state pensions.

reply to post by this_is_who_we_are


I don't know if you are aware, but I too have PTSD and Bipolar. I have since I was 18. So I absolutely empathize with you - and you are a shining example of why I'm in this thread arguing against corporate avarice. Against the irony that the guys always talking about cutting the "fat" happen to be the fattest cats in the room - and they're never discussing their own beef. They want to trim everyone elses.



~Heff

reply to post by Hefficide


I'm glad someone on here can empathize. Conversely, I'm sorry that it requires having the condition in order to actually do so.

"I feel your pain"
- Sybok, "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier"

reply to post by 46ACE


It never ceases to amaze me that all it takes is for ONE person to say something inaccurate or, dare I say, stupid - and if it's recorded on media it can potentially become a meme.

Too bad the truth is that the PHONE COMPANIES are the ones not only PUSHING the free phones, but that are PROFITING from them as well.

Until 2008 the government simply subsidized between $3 and $10 of qualifying low-income consumers' monthly wireless bills as a way to assure their access to basic phone service; customers paid the rest out of pocket. (Uncle Sam offers similar subsidies for landline customers.) But since TracFone started offering totally free service in August 2008, paid directly by the subsidy, demand has soared. USAC's annual disbursements to telcos providing low-income phone service rose 52 percent, to $1.25 billion, between 2008 and 2010. Free wireless is the biggest reason for the increase, with the new market generating hundreds of millions of dollars for service providers.

A staffer at the Federal Communications Commision, which oversees carriers, says the agency may consider tightening oversight and cost management of the fast-growing program. Still, agencies that promote the free phones see growth continuing. "Anytime the boss tells you not to come back to work, the home phone is the first to go," says Sharon Goodson, executive director of North Carolina Community Action Assn., which has helped thousands apply for Assurance phones.

The bottom line: Wireless operators like Sprint Nextel are building a big business providing free cellular service to the poor. Washington picks up the tab.

Bloomberg Business Week

Huh, imagine that. An entire barely regulated industry two hands and elbow deep in the cookie jar - and who do we blame? The poor. And why? Because some reporter, somewhere, got a person to say something unfortunate.

Media has learned the truth. A picture does paint a thousand words. And if you are the photographer? You can make those thousand words say any damned thing you wish.

~Heff

Originally posted by dawnstar


so ya, taking out on the future elderly and disabled makes so much sense doesn't it??
if the elderly and disabled can pay the price than so can't the rest of our creditors, let's just do a total default and get it over with!!!

I agree. Total repudiation of all debt public and private. Complete reset.