Old age and the Far Right

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by ZeroJunk

What they should have done when they created these programs was modify them for life expectancy up front. Then there would not be the outcry when changes are made now. But, SS really is not the big problem. It is Medicare and Medicaid. Life expectancy has increased. But, medicine has advanced almost exponentially in effectiveness and cost. It is common and becoming normal that the government supports people for thirty years after retirement. Far from what was originally expected.

This is true. But, IMO, all this means is that the need is ever greater.

Dave

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by ZeroJunk

What they should have done when they created these programs was modify them for life expectancy up front. Then there would not be the outcry when changes are made now. But, SS really is not the big problem. It is Medicare and Medicaid. Life expectancy has increased. But, medicine has advanced almost exponentially in effectiveness and cost. It is common and becoming normal that the government supports people for thirty years after retirement. Far from what was originally expected.

There is the problem right there we have great healthcare methods but the delivery system is quite simply insane.

BTW my former employer will, in another two years, have been paying my pension for as many years as I worked for them but their pension system is still sound.

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by ZeroJunk

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.

Who has made any real proposals to "confiscate all of the money the rich have"?

[ZeroJunk]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

Who has made any real proposals to "confiscate all of the money the rich have"?

Nobody. The point was that there are people out there who have been led to believe that if the rich just pay their fair share all of this will be fine. It won't.

[Tom Joad]

Originally Posted by ZeroJunk

Nobody. The point was that there are people out there who have been led to believe that if the rich just pay their fair share all of this will be fine. It won't.

There are people out there that have been led by the right wing propaganda machine to believe that this country can not afford to maintain Social Security and Medicare at current levels. This has been done by repeating the same old lies over and over and over. It works pretty good on the Fox News audience.

However, if you try to spread that manure here on this forum you are not going to do so well.

[ZeroJunk]

Originally Posted by Tom Joad

There are people out there that have been led by the right wing propaganda machine to believe that this country can not afford to maintain Social Security and Medicare at current levels. This has been done by repeating the same old lies over and over and over. It works pretty good on the Fox News audience.

However, if you try to spread that manure here on this forum you are not going to do so well.

I'm not sure what you think I care about your dumb ass or this forum.

But, if you are under 50 you are going to find out just how well they are going to be able to maintain these levels.

[whell]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

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

"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.

[Tom Joad]

Originally Posted by whell

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.

You'd piss it away and when you got too old to work you'd cry to the Gummint to bail you out.

[whell]

Originally Posted by Tom Joad

You'd piss it away and when you got too old to work you'd cry to the Gummint to bail you out.

Been doing it all my life with what the gov't lets me take home and have been doing just fine, thanks.

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by whell

Been doing it all my life with what the gov't lets me take home and have been doing just fine, thanks.

Great! Me to. So, what are you always complaining about, then?

Dave