It is the weekend…..take a break from the mundane…….and now….for something completely different!
Ranting and Raving…the last refuge of a tired political observer……and anyone that spends any amount of time on Info Ink will know how I feel about Social Security…..and daily we hear from both parties that entitlements will be cut….entitlements? That implies something that I feel I am demanding for nothing…..SS is NOT that…it is the basic retirement fund of millions of Americans that have been paying into it for decades…….and that the fund will be broke by 2037…..well first of all, it would NOT be broke if we had NOT allowed our politicians to steal from it to pay for other programs….and second, at current income it will be broke……AT CURRENT INCOME….if you believe that then you are believing that the country will NEVER recovery from this recession…….
Beyond that…..all the media pundits that jump all over SS, both media and political, say that it is a necessary evil…..to that I said CRAP! It is all too easy to bad mouth the system when one is pulling down 6 or 7 figure salaries…..these people have NO idea what is going on in the middle of the country, regardless of the lip service they do…..
SS is the only retirement that most Americans have….why? Try juggling college, new house, new car raising food and other conditions and then tell me how much is left over for your retirement if it were NOT for SS…….
I issue a challenge to these people……let say $1000 a month is the average…..try living on that….stop partisan bullsh*t and go live where most of the country lives….from month to month….it is all so easy to condemn when you live on the Lower Eastside …..just once trying living on Main Street…..and please do NOT tell us that when you were growing up things were tough…..how nice for you…..now you live in the lap of luxury….that cancels out any statement about your past poverty…..so pick a spot, any spot, and try living like the rest of us….
I realize that this challenge will go unaccepted……and if so then my point has been made……these people are all talk….no one will give up the lap of luxury to see how the rest of us live…..and they are what they are…pompous asses!…….nice try Chuq!
I understand your point of view and I symapathise with most of it. However, I think in SOME ways, you and people like you perpetuate the prolem by your terminology…
To me (being a Brit and living with a defferent system) a PENSION is a pension and NOTHING to do with welfare! We admittedly pay for a state pension through the same system as we contribute to welfare (but that is simply convenient and cost effective), but if the politicians have got their sums wrong, taken money that should be the pension fund for other projects and failed to invest that fund wisely and safely, then that is THEIR failure and fault and, frankly, I’d prosecute them for fraud as would (or at least should) happen to any ordinary CEO whole stole from investors’ pension funds. Put another way – Bush and others should be prosecuted and jailed!
WELFARE, on the other hand should NOT be referred to as “entitlements”! To me, that implies the almost exact opposite to what you claim. An entitlement is something to which you are entitled – a right – and I don’t agree that such a term is a fair description of welfare. SS is paying into a fund to help you, or others (those less fortunate) when times are particularly tough for them – it is TEMPORARY assistance to get individuals over a difficulty – PROVIDED THEY HELP THEMSELVES and that means taking whatever work they can get to keep body and soul together until things improve again. In the UK, the WHOLE problem with welfare is that it is NOT seen in that light, but rather than as an entitlement – and that is wrong – it is little short of stealing from those of us who DO work!
Additionally, or rather as an extension of that, what welfare should NOT be used for is social engineering – to make the poor less poor and that is what our Labour party in the UK is about whenever they are in power. People are NOT equal! They never have been equal and they never will be and there is nothing whatsoever wrong with that! They should have equality of opportunity if they have the ability and drive, but although people who are poor are sometimes less able than the rich, or they have less advantage at the start, they are often (in some respects quite often rightly so from a decency point of view) prepared to do what it takes to become more wealthy. BUT THAT IS THE PRICE THEY HAVE DECIDED TO PAY FOR THEIR CHOICE of decency (or laziness, or whatever) – that is their personal choice and they COULD decide differently.
Of course, from a practical point of view, not everyone can be rich, but if labour laws are set correctly and the economy is maintained in a bouyant and progressive style, whilst at the same time preventing either employees OR employers from having unrealistic and excessive power, then the whole thing works well and is fluid and most can do well if they want to. If people will NOT join in and do what it takes to do well in THAT environment, then that is their choice and THEY must be prepared to suffer the consequences…
BUT, welfare is often used AND IS BEING USED NOW to prop up the majority of citizens who are unable to put much by for a “rainy day” BECAUSE and SOLELY because successive governments have f*cked up the economy and they should face CRIMINAL charges for doing so – they have failed abysmally in at least one of the four or five major things they are elected to manage – and that is not even from ineptitude, but rather from sheer neglect and stupidity.
I know we talk about this lots…..the entitlements will be attacked as a single issue encompassing several different programs….while I may agree with you about welfare…….but I also see that (at least here) that the government….in that I am talking about state admins……..have done nothing to help the economic life of the people….and there is where I have NO problem with some form of welfare…….governments are there to help and improve the people’s way of lifew and all they do is give-aways to business that helps NO one trying to keep a family together…….
But my major concern is that of Social Security……they will try to lessen the pay outs from the system……
There is no perfect system and, yes, struggling people (and others) will take advantage of any system that is set up to help people in need. Get over it! The monetary value of greed at the bottom is exponentially small compared to the money changers’ greed at the top. My family lives on my social security and a bit of a pension from years of working as a janitor. To those who support doing away with the systems of welfare and social security– take a look around, police states can only suppress for so long. When the fighting is over, and the privileged class wins (if they win), the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow can only be measured in Prisons and Fear. Word to the wise my friend, take care!
bwinwnbwi…..thanx for stopping by……first of all, the privilege class will always win, in one way or the other, look at the US…the privilege class won in the beginning and has NEVER let up….only the people can change things…..but the question is are they willing?
NO. The monetary greed at the top is from a small number of people whilst that at the bottom is from a very large number of people (many many more in the UK).
However, that is NOT the point I have made endlessly – if not properly controlled and administered (and what bunch of bureaucrats can administer ANYTHING properly?), it will result in a denedent society and THAT is a very devious and insidious form of slavery!
DEPENDENT – duh! Sorry…
I keep waiting for Palin to allow her husband to speak…does he know how “whipped” he looks stand there on the stage? But I guess when Mama has all the cash…you do what Mama says…..
THAT is the point I’m making – you CAN separate things that are different and that is the BASIC thing you need to get into people’s minds. All welfare is NOT the same and it should NOT be referred to as an entitlement. Pensions ARE entitlements because you have paid specifically into a pension fund. Much other (real) welfare is according to NEED!
You have also just repeated here the point that I frequently (endlessly) make – the GOVERNMENT and the ELITE are using welfare in order to patch up and hide the fact that they have f*cked up the economy and are doing NOTHING useful to correct the situation for most people.
You don’t need welfare – you need JOBS and a thriving ECONOMY and THAT is what we should all focus on because in such an environment we become much more SELF-SUFFICIENT, rather than more and more DEPENDENT on these assholes who WILL and DO manipulate us all using that dependency!
This comment above was in reply to you Chuq – god, I’m having a bad day 😆
Not enough coffee……coffee is always the answer….LOL Damn! I am out of coffee!
But we cannot focus on that!~ It is too damn important to kill health care and the such……I forget which prof it was that said that poverty was a necessary evil for capitalism to work properly…….I could expand on that but my fingers would bleed…lol……while I can agree substantively with you on welfare…every attempt to reform here has turned into a complete screwing of people that actually need some assistance….because politicians can make the abusers the poster child and that means everyone is abusing the system…….
I understand where you are coming from, but what you have to remember is that a small country called America is one of the few places in the developed world where it as bad as that – YOUR welfare systems are AWFUL!
However, it depends what you call welfare – in Europe (including the UK) healthcare would be regarded as an entitlement (like a state basic pension) and NOT WELFARE – which is exactly the point I’m making.
I will send you an email which might help you understand why many Brits can get so pissed by this.
we need to making thinking like the UK mandatory……to most conservs anything that the government provides for people is welfare and therefore EVIL…I look forward to the email……
Quin, you say that the email is more less accurate? Damn! pensioners are getting fucked hard!
Nothing new in that… Some pensioners do better (for several reasons and mostly because they paid in more over many years) but it’s still not good.
In case you have not seen these two stories….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12371994
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/07/david-cameron-multiculturalism-british
Yes, I have seen them and, largely, I agree with Cameron – the ultra politically correct, multi-cultural approach has failed abysmally thank god someone is prepared to stand up and say so!
But will the problem be handled? Spotting the prob and doing something are not necessarily the same…….
No, agreed, but at least they have defined the actual problem first. You can’t even start talking about solutions until you are certain you have identified the problem first. Most of these loud-mouthed know-nothings start with either what is, or what political correctness demands it should be, and then they try to fix what amounts to the wrong problem… that’s intelligent, isn’t it?
He sounds a lot like Clinton (post to come when I feel better)….keep in mind that some of the programs of Clinton and his group lead to outsourcing, financial collapse, among several…..identifying the problem is great but not looking at all the consequences can be deadly….
Sorry, I don’t quite agree – the two can be entirely unconnected. One can identify a poblem correctly and still choose to do nothing whatsoever about it. Trying to fix the wrong or a badly identified problem can indeed be absolutely deadly.
If the identified problem has a singular solution like the creation of more wealth for the chosen few then t it is NOT a solution, IMO…..(example only)…..once again watch for the post on the DLC…probably tomorrow….
Problems don’t necessarily have solutions at all… in fact, politically, most don’t!
Start over will be about the easiest……