downgrading our credit rating

[JCricket]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

You give too many people too much credit for foresight, JCricket.

Haven't we watched people who work in manufacturing walk into stores and gladly buy up all of the cheapest foreign made stuff they can find, only to find THEMSELVES unemployed a few years later, and wondering what happened? I've seen it over and over again, all of my life.

How many people do you know personally, who decry things like SS and Medicare/Medicaid as "socialism"?....Then when you get them talking, you discover that they have NOTHING, nada, zip, zero planned for their own retirement? Aren't even trying.

Think about it.

Dave

Quit with the obvious and the facts already. Lets go back to the badgering on emotional impulse. It is easier to argue that way.

Seriously, you are correct. But, if it gets to the point where my mom or dad do not get the SS checks, then they will literally have nothing. I will feed them - literally.

This will pose a fair burden on our family - but so be it. I may be one of the stupid and shortsighted too, but having to feed my parnets is a whole new level. It becomes crystal transparent clear when something like this happens. Regardless of why or who is to blame, people, I think, would not forget this at election time - no way.

Both Obama and Boehner will be gone of this happens.

[CarlV]

There will not be any defaulting, period.

Carl

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by JCricket

Quit with the obvious and the facts already. Lets go back to the badgering on emotional impulse. It is easier to argue that way.

Seriously, you are correct. But, if it gets to the point where my mom or dad do not get the SS checks, then they will literally have nothing. I will feed them - literally.

This will pose a fair burden on our family - but so be it. I may be one of the stupid and shortsighted too, but having to feed my parnets is a whole new level. It becomes crystal transparent clear when something like this happens. Regardless of why or who is to blame, people, I think, would not forget this at election time - no way.

Both Obama and Boehner will be gone of this happens.

Both of my parents are gone. But, they had their own, Pop being a retired union man and all. Well, until Blue Cross/Blue Shield cut mom off of the coverage when she was diagnosed with Alzheimers, anyhow. Then she ended up on Medicare, because the $7,600 a month in treatments for her illness was way out of our reach. I suppose we should have done the "compassionate conservative" thing and put the taxpayers first....bullets are cheaper, after all.

My generations problems will be far, far deeper. You see, years ago a slick tongued actor and professional corporate shill convinced them that only pussies (And those foul and most foreign Europeans.) join unions or expect to retire someday. So pensions have been replaced by the much vaunted 401k.......which is fine, if you're on of the few that can actually afford to put anything in one. Then the infallible market crashes and takes your retirement savings down the commode with it anyways, so.........Well, that's when the imbeciles start babbling about being able to hunt for their own food anyways. I can't wait. It's gonna be awesome watching vast armies of 80-somethings with dementia and colostomy bags living off of the varmints they shoot in the vacant lots they hole up in.............

I, sure as hell, won't be forgetting any of this at election time.

Dave

[BlueStreak]

I'm more than a little drunk and jamming to the vinyl I scored today. Found a most excellent record store in Virginia Beach today---"Vinyl Daze". Came home with some Clapton, "Slow Hand" ($5), "461 Ocean Blvd"($4) and Alan Parsons, "Tales of Mystery and Imagination"($8) under my arm. He has an amazing selection of new and used vinyl. Sells turntables, (Music Hall, Rega) and cartridges (Goldring) as well.

Popped a bottle of nice Tuscan Sangiovese to go with the tunes................Perfect for a stormy night.

Dave

[JCricket]

That Alan PArsons is on my near and dear to my heart list. My copies is rough. My CD is fine, but it ain't vinyl. I haven't seen another copy of that in 15 years - in any condition. SCORE!!!!!!111

MAybe I'll go pop a beer and spin some vinyl. Been awhile since I did that.

till later.................

[flacaltenn]

I just love how anxious y'all seem to be to raise taxes and honor full guaranteed pensions at age 50 without thinking of the next generation.. NOTHING we can learn here to fix things for THEM?

I'm not anxious to pay AGAIN to cover the $2Trill in profit that Congress skimmed off the backs of the working poor and middle class with their Payroll Tax heist. But that's why we're fighting over raising taxes ain't it? Because in 2010, the crisis that we all KNEW was gonna hit -- came 6 or 8 early and the $120Bill surpluses that Congress used to suck off are now $46Bill deficits -- a budget effect of about $150Bill/yr right there. (Or as Congress likes to call it $1.5Trill over 10 years) The only way to coast thru this crisis wouldn't have been to not issue TONS of new debt and obligations like Obama Care or promising $$Bills to South America to drill THEIR OIL and create THEIR jobs.. But Bush and Pelosi-Reid and Obama went on a drunken spree right at the time we could least afford it..

And you think hiking taxes on the "rich" is gonna fix all this? The left can't even use the right tax tool to pummel the rich like Warren Buffett and his 17.7% marginal tax rate. Instead -- returning the upper bracket to 39% hits JIMMY Buffet , not WARREN Buffet right between the eyes. Ole Warren will see thousands of new Berkshire Hathaway clients stashing what used to be their salary income into cap gains.. That's why he's ALL for it...

And why not make sure EVERYONE pays their fair share --- Just like the Prez is ceaselessy nagging us.. Let's start by placing a 2% porch on the lower brackets just because it's fair. Taking in even a token $240/yr from 100Mill taxfilers now paying zero into Fed Income Tax would yield $24Bill/yr.. A nice contribution from folks who shout just as loud as I do about Libya, Iraq, ethanol, windpower, regulation, ect... Let's call it a "patriot participation fee".... The $240 is about equal to cost of maintaining a cat for a year -- but it's the Obama principle of "fair share" that I'm after here.

BTW: The fact that 49% are now excused from paying income taxes is largely Bush's fault. That old greedy defender of the rich excused more from the rolls than any recent Dem Prez..

As for the Norquist pledge, you're obviously not following this clown closely enough...

http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cha...ssive-loophole

WITH A HANDFUL of exceptions, every Republican member of Congress has signed a pledge against increasing taxes. Would allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire as scheduled in 2012 violate this vow? We posed this question to Grover Norquist, its author and enforcer,and his answer was both surprising and encouraging: No.

In other words, according to Mr. Norquist’s interpretation of the Americans for Tax Reform pledge, lawmakers have the technical leeway to bring in as much as $4 trillion in new tax revenue — the cost of extending President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for another decade — without being accused of breaking their promise. “Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase,” Mr. Norquist told us. So it doesn’t violate the pledge? “We wouldn’t hold it that way,” he said.

There's no rhyme or reason to "the pledge". And it's not stopping the GOP from "doing the right thing". In fact, the DEMS had 2 years to rescind the Bush tax cuts and they didn't. WHY??? Because they took a similiar stupid pledge when they became ObamaNoids to "not raise taxes on anyone making less than 250K/yr". Leaving them only the "class warfare" option of making the tax code MORE progressive and potentially killing the economy with any action on tax brackets. Instead, the warrior in chief actually stabbed Soc Sec in the back by refunding payroll taxes to EVERYONE at a time when the baby boomer tsunami was coming ashore..

We've had mental midgets running us aground for 35 years now. And soon -- you won't be able to pay ANYONE with an IQ above 100 enough money to serve in D.C. Because that city is drowning in incompetence and mismanagement.

And for the folks who expect to rescued by this flailing load of buttwads --- we're not gonna be discussing the SIZE of government soon. We're gonna be discussing the best way to dress-out and roast roadkill..

[merrylander]

Don't recall anyone talking about full pensions at 50, must have missed that bit. The Bush administration insisted that I take SS at 65 even though I worked up until reaching 73, where was the sense in that? I pay Medicare over $1150 per year for a flu shot and I don't believe I am alone. In my experience the biggest users of health care are working parents with children in daycare. We even have Coburn saying (about Tricare) that no one in the U.S. should be able to get healthcare for $250 a year individual, reasoning like that is inexplicable. Perhaps if most of our politicos would pull their heads out once in a while they might see what is going on.

[BlueStreak]

Are you angry, Larry?

Where do you get the idea that I'm trying to retire at 50?
Personally, I don't know ANYONE that retired at 50. My Dad was
an FDR Democrat, and a union man. He retired at 68.
And even then it was because his doctor advised him too
because of his degenerative arthritis.
Nope, don't know a single one. Not one.

Unless they were military. Then they retire before they turn 40.
And those guys tend to be right wingers.

I think you need to examine your mythology.

Dave

[piece-itpete]

Originally Posted by CarlV

There will not be any defaulting, period.

Carl

Agreed. But our finances are so ugly they might downgrade or credit rating anyway, which in my mind is awful. We already burned the world with our mortgages.

We start in on the rich, they will move. Not to say don't be fair, but we'd do well to be careful.

Pete

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by JCricket

That Alan PArsons is on my near and dear to my heart list. My copies is rough. My CD is fine, but it ain't vinyl. I haven't seen another copy of that in 15 years - in any condition. SCORE!!!!!!111

MAybe I'll go pop a beer and spin some vinyl. Been awhile since I did that.

till later.................

There were two releases, one in a green jacket that was pressed in Portugal and another that was released by Casablanca Records. I have both. The Casablanca version is way better. The Portuguese pressing is more common, but had warping issues.

Dave