Old age and the Far Right
 

If you support old age benefits because you think it's important to ensure that Americans, including yourself are at least somewhat secure in old age, you are supportive of a plan to "enslave" us all by "increasing dependency".

Silly me, I thought you enslave people and increase dependency by starving people and ensuring the only way they have to survive is to continue working until they drop dead? The point of programs like SS and Medicare is give them an out, so that when they become too old and sick to go on, they can stop and not have to worry about it. Does that sound like slavery to you?

I used to think that people who fell for this were the few and unintelligent. And, at the time, I was right. The problem is that the more intelligent have been steeped in a new line of thinking that places self interest above the common good. So long as they're good, they could give a flying shit about the rest of us. They believe it's "right" to be think that people are only poor because they want to be and that if you are poor, you deserve to be desperate. My parents generation, for the most part, saw the wisdom in trying to create security for the elderly, because after all....that's most of us forty years down the road. My generation doesn't give a fuck. They were raised in the 1980s. They think eliminating such programs will make them ALL rich enough to be financially independent in old age. Anyone with an IQ over 60 knows this isn't possible. We can't ALL become millionaires and billionaires. Some, perhaps. But ALL? That's the difference between the America I loved and the one we have now; An apathetic, avaricious bastard only cares about himself and his little corner of the world, fuck everyone else. The far right has tapped into that, legitimized it, advanced it, even made it a tenet of Christianity, ironically enough. God help us. (Pun intended.)

Dave

My parents and yours remembered the Great Depression and its aftermath. Younger people who have not experienced hardship like that are easy targets for the false debt crisis mantra/self-reliance mythos propagated by "faux" mavericks like Ron Paul and charlatans who should know better like Paul Ryan.

My plan is to go down swingin' but then I'm just a knot headed nail pounder. :p

Exactly.

When I was growing up virtually all the adults I knew had experienced the Great Depression and World War 2. In addition virtually every adult male was a veteran either of WW2 or Korea, or both.

It's much different toady.

Awesome post Dave. You nailed it.

Gentlemen I was born in 1930 and all I can say about the Great Depression is that it was not so great and was bloody depressing. Maybe Paul and Ryan et.al should look up the word 'entitlement' in Webster's. When I came here and stared working I was not asked "Yo Rob there is this thing called SS and FICA do you want in?" A contract is a contract, had I refused to pay FICA they would have taken my car, house and anything else of value.

I don't think anybody has a problem with supporting the elderly as best we can. The problem is that the promises made cannot be paid for. It is something like $150 trillion in liability and we are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar from the Chinese and others as it is. Some will say that the rich need to pay more and maybe so. But, if you confiscated all the money the rich have it would not pay this debt. The arithmetic doesn't work. Now you can devalue the dollar by just printing $85 billion a month out of this air. Put it off for a while. But, what we have now is going to crash. Might be a good idea to try and manage that crash.

It's not a Zero sum game.

A more even distribution of wealth will boost the economy to the point where we can easily support and even expand our safety nets.

It's the killing off of the middle class that is bankrupting us.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/...conomic-growth

"We all" don't want to become millionaires. It would be nice not to have to worry about money, but it's not a realistic goal. Most folks get that.

What I'd like is to have back the 6.2% in social security tax that gets sucked out of my paycheck every 2 weeks. Hell, I'd settle for 3.1% of it. For folks that are concerned about their ability to save for retirement, they can put their money into that system. For the rest that are reasonably confident that they can do better that Uncle Sam can with that 6.2%, let me invest it on my own. Social Security is the rough equivalent of a pyramid scheme. Its Bernie Maidoff all over again, except when the gov't does it, they exempt themselves from prosecution or fiduciary liability.

Doing better by investing with what, The Wall Street Casino? Ponzi hustlers acting as investment advisors? How about an underwritten agency with oversight and accountability.