Warning: This post will have language that some readers may find offensive. Read at your own risk!
I am sure that during this season of silly slogans and lying a/holes you have heard the buzz from the Right about the possibility of a raise in the retirement age to help offset the problems that some think the Social Security system has built into it. The deficit is out of control, or so we are told daily by Repubs and their paid mouthpieces….and the only way to avoid a Greece like meltdown is for the American people to work longer and harder….this my friend is a piece of shit!
France is trying this and the result is anything but mild……this from a piece in wsws.org written by Alex Lantier…..
Workers and students are protesting Sarkozy’s planned two-year increase in the retirement age, with a corresponding increase in the pay-in period, contained in a pension “reform” bill passed by lawmakers despite overwhelming popular opposition. Polls show 71 percent of the population support strike activity against the cuts.
The expansion of the strikes and protests, far from being spearheaded by the unions, is being carried out overwhelmingly at the initiative of the workers themselves. In the face of this rising confrontation, prominent union officials are indicating that, once the bill is passed by the Senate, they will scale back or seek to end the strikes and protests. (shows whose side the unions are really on)
At least the French are not rolling over and playing dead for the government….okay this action may be extreme but at least they are doing something to show the pricks in office that they will not stand for the continuing fucking of the working people.
The US is serving the special interests…….special interests and big business get favor after favor and are treated like the Golden Child, while the middle class gets zilch! And then the Tea Party, the movement of the people (not now!….where is their outrage over the mistreatment of the middle class? Easy answer…it is controlled by big business and special interests…regardless of what the paid spokespeople say…you know those like Beck and Palin and Limbaugh and FOX News…….if you work hard then be prepared for the fucking coming and it will hurt!
Have you bothered to notice that most conservs blame the working class for all the problems that the country is having….it is SS fault…it is the unemployment benefits….it is the roads….it is Medicare….it is…well you get the point…..ALWAYS it is those who actually work that are the drag on the economy….nothing about the dick suckers on Wall Street that have done NOTHING but destroy the industrial base in this country….but yet they are somehow held up as the creme de la creme of America…..it you smell something offensive…it is the massive pile of horseshit they are force feeding to the American people…..how does it taste, douche bag?
Americans need to grow nuts and do something similar. Instead of waiting every couple of years and voting for the carbon copy asshole with some cute slogans and NO real plans……
Why should the American worker get fucked constantly while the pricks in the corporation get massive bonuses and the government holds their hands and assist their failing companies? Why should Americans put there retirement on hold while those dickheads on Wall Street have to give up NOTHING to save the country from financial ruin?
Why not make the retirement age 85 or 90 that way the poor bastards can work until they drop dead…and the government gets to keep all the cash to help bail out the scum bags on Wall Street?
The French workers are pushing the envelope a bit, but at least they will go down fighting for their right to retire on their terms and will not let the government continuously fuck the working class out of their right to retire and enjoy what is left of their lives……
If the American people are stupid enough, and it appears they are, to elect these motherfuckers, then they deserve everything they get and all their bitching will just help me laugh a little louder………..go ahead….piss away your chance at a real good retirement…one that you can actually enjoy…..go ahead sit on your collective fat asses and lose all that you have worked for at the hands of the buttfuckers you elect…….if you want to call me a socialist or a communist then by all means shoot your wad….I have been called worse by much better people……
By all means……vote your anger! Vote for the crop of mental midgets that have the media all a twitter……..vote for the goddamn boneheads that would not know good government if it bit them in the ass……By all means….vote your anger! And sit back and watch how pissed up you can make this country…..by all means….vote your damn anger!
Let’s hear it for Martin Mull……..”It’s hard to decide if TV makes morons out of everyone, or if it mirrors Americans who really are morons to begin with.” (could explain the popularity of Jackass, Dancing with the stars and all other reality TV and the Tea Party)
Afterword: If you were offended, then tough shit….you were warned!
I understand your anger and in general I agree with most of what you say.
However, the real problem is (as we have said before – or I have at least) that the State pension scheme has not been properly set up – it is a Ponzi scheme and, like all such scams, it is in the process of failing right now. What can the government (the CURRENT government) do about it? Not a lot I venture to suggest!
If I have understood the American system correctly, money has been taken from the state’s “pension fund” and used for other purposes – THAT in my opinion is fraud and should be prosecuted, but I dare say there’s some legal loophole that allowed the government to do what you or I would be imprisoned for.
Nevertheless, it does seem to me that a SMALL increase in retirement age, whilst not a GOOD answer, might in the short term at least be the only just about acceptable answer… It’s not as I say, good, but since the government is clearly NOT going to divert other funds to pensions (for all the reasons you quote), I guess it we may all have to put up with it. People are in any event living longer and something, somewhere has to change.
All that said, if, as in the UK, the payments INTO the fund were compulsory, then I believe they have both a legal and moral obligation to pay out what was promised. I think that what has been stated and what they have strongly implied over the years requires that they honour those promises regardless whatever it takes.
That said, to me the most serious problem is what to do about the FUTURE! Unless a new and properly organised system is to be put in place, the situation will worsen as the average citizen’s life expectancy increases (possibly exponentially in the near future!)
I’m not sure how you cope with such unknowns way into the future and they seem to me like pretty much impossible numbers to guess at, but then I’m not paid to foresee these things whilst others are.
If the current scheme had been properly set up as a self financing COMPETITOR to private schemes with only a minimum contribution made compulsory for all those with personal, private and larger (better???) schemes in place, then it could work – heck, it could have worked from the start if it was properly set up and financed and INVESTED!
But then again, NOTHING the government (any government) does works very well for long, does it?
The fact remains though that the ruling elites of all hues have made promises to the people and they have an obligation to make good on those promises. Will it be any better in fifty more years time? I doubt it because it’s all based on statistics – and you know what I think of that shit! Furthermore, the whole pension/insurance system in the US is a closed shop rife with protectionism and, looked at in that light, it is in my opinion one of the most corrupt systems in the world.
Once again…….it is all the working stiff that has to fix the system….by working I mean the poor bastard that has to sweat and dig for what little money they make……the money that has been siphoned off went to help the corporations and their minions…..which never have to make their ill gotten gains public…….okay take for instance the CEO of ….say Morgan…..makes a $6 million bonus….he does not pay FICA on that if he has reached his limit of $250,000 for the year…..but the bastard that makes $40,000 a year pays on every dime….but yet the poor bastard has to work until he is 70 and the CEO can go down at 62….or sooner.
BTW, I saw today that the UK is thinking of raising the retirement age also….will the Brits smile and be down with that or will they repeat the French reaction?
I know, but I don’t entirely agree. However, the UK… yes and why not? About a third of the population does f*ck all anyway!
I agree that if you are a lazy f*ck then F8ck you….but I am talking about the working poor that have been working for years and looking forward to a minimum retirement and they want to take it away from them….the average American worker works about 42.5 hours a week for a salary of 47,000 a year……they deserve everything they are owed…..
Yeah, well… America is different… but 2+2 still only=4 so something has to give (though I’m sure some of to day’s students can’t manage that level of arithmetic).
I agree completely….and they are doing something and I think they are wrong…..for instance….the privatization of SS will cost the government about $1 trillion……makes a good slogan but the reality is it is a dud……
Nothing new there then… 🙁
It is modern democracy….so ….nothing new….