Day: July 24, 2015

Social Security: A Public Service Message

I try to keep my readers up-to-date on things that I think will effect them…….NOTHING is more important to us seniors than Social Security……

We old farts when the subject of Social Security is mentioned our ears perk up and we take notice…….I mean the GOP has got more ideas how to screw the elderly than I have hairs on my butt.

Unfortunately senior citizens seem to get the worst screwing every election……the really sad part is most of them vote for the very people that bend them over……apparently we are slow learners…….

I read an article that predicted a cut of possibly 19% to Social Security and just had to see where it lead……..

Our annual report on the state of Social Security and Medicare was issued yesterday, and from a 30,000-foot view, the AP sees Social Security’s financial health as having grown no worse in the past year. In fact, the program’s retirement trust fund is projected to be able to pay full benefits through 2034; in last year’s checkup, the prediction was 2033. But for 11 million Americans, there was bad news: Unless the dwindling disability trust fund is replenished in short order, their benefits will automatically be cut 19% late next year. That’s because as of Q4 of 2016, revenues would cover only the remaining 81%, reports the New York Times. What that looks like: Instead of an average $1,017 monthly check, disabled workers would get $824, reports the AP. That’s $9,888 per year; the Times notes that beneficiaries’ average salary before disability was $42,000.

The looming insolvency sets the stage for a potential battle between President Obama and the GOP. The president would like to see a portion of the payroll tax revenue earmarked for the retirement trust fund shifted to the disability one. That adjustment has happened before (in both directions), but only with congressional approval. Congress has indicated it’s unwilling to repeat the move without some changes, such as adjustments to the program to cut down on fraud and help the disabled re-enter the workforce. Program trustees painted the “reallocation” as needed but not a long-term solution. The report also indicated there would not be an annual cost-of-living adjustment at year’s end, though that could change. If it doesn’t come to pass, it’ll be only the third year without one since 1975.

All we can do is keep our chin up and vote for those that will protect what little benefits we seniors receive……

Feel The Bern!

Trouble Brewing Across The Border?

Thanx to Trump you would assume that I am referring to our Southern border with Mexico, right?

Well you would be mistaken…..you see there is a problem brewing on our Northern border…..you know the one with Canada…….

It appears the the US and Canada are standing off about ………lobsters.

This might be news to Americans who don’t make their living catching lobsters, but the US and Canada have been arguing for decades now over who owns two islands in the Atlantic between Maine and New Brunswick. They’re called Machias Seal and North Rock, and the islands themselves aren’t of much use to any creatures other than puffins, explains Maclean’s. The problem is that the water around them, called the “gray zone,” is flush with lobsters, and tensions are rising between lobstermen from the two countries. It’s been especially bad lately because lobster prices are rising. “Somebody is going to get killed,” says the chair of the Maine Lobster Zone Council. “We’ve had bad years in the past and got lucky, but this is the worst year I’ve ever seen.”

Both Maclean’s and the CBC explain that locals on both sides of the border have mostly kept things under control for years. (In one high-profile exception, an American lost his thumb in equipment eight years ago while “jostling” with a Canadian over territory, notes Maclean’s.) This year, however, outsiders from Nova Scotia have moved in to fish the waters, too, and they’re reportedly ignoring long-held rules about who gets to work when. “When you’ve got Canadian guys feuding with other Canadian guys, on top of us—that’s a flare-up, too,” a Maine lobsterman tells the CBC. Both governments claim sovereignty, and neither seems willing to budge.

Could this turn into a Blood Diamond sort of thing?  Will our fave luxury become known as “conflict lobsters”?

This could dispel the old saying that Canadians are too polite for their own good?

Can America afford yet another conflict it must fight?

The battlefield will contain a couple of bureaucrats from both having an old fashion slap fight…..but will it make the nightly news?

The US Hand in the Syrian Mess | Consortiumnews

There is a mounting evidence that the troubles in Syria has American hands all over it……

Is it possible that all the suffering that is being lived by the Syrian people could be on the hands of the US?

Of course this is something that will never make it to the MSM………for that would be actually reporting the news instead they prefer to regurgitate whatever the government tells them to do…..

Americans will not ever know the truth of things unless they are willing to do some searching for that truth…….and truth should be our only concern…..no matter what it reveals……

 

The US Hand in the Syrian Mess | Consortiumnews.

Preventive Wars: The Antithesis of Realpolitik | The National Interest

In my studies of conflict management there always comes to a situation called “A preventive war”……the term has always fascinated me…….and at the same time confused me.

To me it it is a oxymoron…….2003 Bush used the concept to invade in Iraq to prevent him, Saddam, from achieving his desire for WMDs……it was a lie then….it is a lie now……

Maybe this article will help my readers to grasp the concept of “a preventive war”…….

 

Preventive Wars: The Antithesis of Realpolitik | The National Interest.