BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Jim Tailor
Date: 15 Feb 05 - 09:54 AM

I wished a pox on both houses but only expressed what bothered me about the Republican's stubborness. The thing that makes me irrate about what the Democrat talking heads on TV are saying is...

They have the gaul to suggest that we all should always have been contributing to private retirement accounts all along -- that SS isn't meant to cover our retirement.

All good and fine, except...

Those most inequitably sufferring from the current SS tax burden are VERY VERY unlikely to have ANY money left for their own accounts after "contributing" 12% to the Social Security tax. AND...

...then, on top of that, SS -- which is sapping the greatest amount of money from them -- a greater amount than housing, food, transportation, education, clothing -- is not going to have the funds to return even an amount that, by the Democrats own admission, would have been insufficient for their retirement.

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 11:10 PM

which would you rather do or ride a bike?

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 10:31 PM

????

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: mg
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 10:20 PM

True, but would you rather be a cook in a nursing home or work in a coal mine? They do bring money with them and provide jobs for people. And some people would rather work in a coal mine...but some would rather not. mg

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 08:02 PM

Okay. mary garvey, those are some thoughfull ideas. Just be sure that suggestion number 4 is voluntary, okay? I a way we allready do this since so many folks from the NE, who make more money than those in the south, end up retiring, being cared for and dieing in the South...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: mg
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 07:53 PM

Here are some of my tradeoffs:

1. Hostel type programs for drug and alcohol abusers. No cash except for toiletries etc.
2. Income limits before receiving SS.
3. Increased immigration if necessary.
4. Outsource some of us when we get old to other countries with cheaper living arrangements. Just wait, that will happen...
5. More community nursing, public health etc. Health care is too darn expensive.
6. Quit overmedicating seniors and having them use all their money for medications, some of which are not needed and some of which are harmful.
7. Hospice care and comfort care for some medical situations.
8. Better use of agriculture/food stamps so more money is spent on agricultural products rather than junk food, like say 90% of food stamps have to be spent on basic food products.
9. "make work" programs for those who can not find work on their own but could work with some support..elderly, handicapped, etc. There is plenty that needs to be done. mg

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 07:38 PM

First of all, Dougie, as I have stated over and over: I wasn't a Bill Clinton fan 'cause he was the purist Republican president since Richard Nixon...

Second of all, Dougie, Bill Clinton wasn't proposing attaching a leech to the SS system as the cure, as Dr. Bush has perscribed...

Third of all, Dougie, would you like to get into the conversation here that two polor opposites, me and Jim, have begun some dialogue on how to strengthen the system...

And fourth, Dougie, would you be willing to give up your SS? If so, what other program would you like to see developed as part of the trade off? This is a serious question, my friend. No tricks. It's okay to answer it.

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: DougR
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 07:23 PM

Hmmm. I wonder where you were, Bobert, Greg F., others, in 1998 and 1999, when the Democrats led by Bill Clinton and Harry Reid were making speech after speech decrying the fact that SS was in terrible danger of going bankrupt and HAD to be saved? They were preaching the same message Bush is preaching today. I guess it makes a difference who the preacher is, right?

Doesn't change the facts though.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 06:45 PM

While I can't support private accountds I certainly could entertain greater tax incentives for 401K's. Maybe that is an area for compromise.

Also, I suggested that some folks might be cajoled into other changes in the program such as eligibility citeria. Age, race, sex are vatiables. Also continued employement. I know there are regulation on employment but maybe there is some area in there that can be tweeked. But, most importantly, I'm sure that most middle class folks would entertain benefit changes if they were couple with a catastropic health insurance program since, because of unexpected illneses and injuries are driving a middle class family into bankruptcy every 30 seconds. ("Sick and Broke", Elizabeth Warren, professor of law, Harvard University).

How do you feel about these proposlas, Jim?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Jim Tailor
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 10:26 AM

Just clarifying, Greg. You said "total crap, completely bogus". Taking you at your word (a word you were not compelled to share if you had nothing to add to the discussion), I am trying to find out exactly why you don't find ANY of it that you can agree with. That's all part of finding middle ground. Or so I thought.

You admitted that you actually found it less than "completely bogus" when you admitted that you did find useful potential in removing the ceiling.

I'm puzzled that you think that life expectancy is not increasing -- it is one of the biggest obstacles in addressing the SS problem.

It also has never been a "savings account" as it continues to be sold to us -- though, interestingly, as it approaches a 1/1 ratio of those paying in to those drawing out, it is becoming one -- though an underfunded one.

I'm not asking you to tone down the abusiveness. I just don't think it's asking too much for more clarification.

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 10:14 AM

Give the sophistry a rest, Jimmy.

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Jim Tailor
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 09:59 AM

Then you don't accept that life expectancy is going up?

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 09:53 AM

so, I take it you would be against removing the ceiling then?

See post 09 Feb 05 - 10:02 PM, above. That's the only part of your post that isn't BS. Paying their fair is no "burden" on the wealthy, not now, not then, and I'm tired of them- and you (unless them IS you?) styling it as such.

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 08:23 PM

I usually don't find much with your posts, Jim, that I can agree with but I respect yer above post. Hope it didn't hurt yer head. Jus' Funnin' wid ya, but there was a lot of substance and thought that went into it and though I am way over on the other side politically, this is the kinda dialogue we need...

Removing the cap would go along ways toward shoring it up. Yes, if asking the super wealthy to participate in this middle class program hurts them to the point that they are shutting down plants they own over it than, yeah, we need to look at that.

And, yeah, the program was designed to keep out old folks, which hopefully all of us will one day become, from living in poverty. If there are folks out there who don't *need* to collect from it, then why should they? Hey, millionaires get it whether they need it or not. What's that about? I will be perfectly willing to forgo an SS benefits if when I'm 65 I'm comfy, which I hope to be. Not rich, mind you, but comfy... There should be a reversed sliding scale thing put in place on elegibility...

But good work, Jim...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Jim Tailor
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 08:01 PM

so, I take it you would be against removing the ceiling then?

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 06:26 PM

Man, I can sure be full of shit sometimes.

Amen to that, Jim. Amen. Only sometimes?

Question is, do you actually believe the shit?

I've hardly ever seen such an exposition of total crap.Completely bogus.

Also just curious: have you ever talked to anyone- other than to say hello- that lived through the Hoover administration and the Depression?

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Jim Tailor
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 06:16 PM

This has become one of those "pox on both their houses" topics for me, if ever was.

I think that, at some point or another, we need to "pay the piper" for a system that was poorly set up -- mostly to expedite its possibility of ever being instituted in the first place.

And so, what we have is a system, sold to us as a sort of "retirement package" into which we place our money, and, like any good savings account, renders us financial security in the end.

But that's not what it is – and it never had a chance to be that. It is, as any entitlement, the decision we made as a republican democracy to collectively vote ourselves something we thought to be in the public best interest – a way of caring for elderly who could not care for themselves – just as we voted ourselves a highway system, just as we voted ourselves a standing miltary.   We collectively decided that…

…We could afford to pay for our elderly so that those elderly who had either poorly planned, or fallen on hard times despite good planning, would not suffer needlessly. We obviously further thought that, though magnanimously voting that for those in need, in reality we were voting it for ourselves as well.

But at the time in which it was first instituted there was a more pervasive work ethic in our country wherein more people believed more strongly in the notion that those who refuse to work had no inalienable rights to partake of the hard labor of others.

So the wise folks who set up Social Security sold it to us as the retirement plan, the illusion that many still believe in today. Many still believe that the money we will (do) draw from Social Security has some sort of direct correlation to the money that had(s) been withdrawn from our paycheck for years.

When the Democrats (they were the majority then – it would probably only be a matter of time if the Republicans had been a majority – they'd have done the same thing if in power) "raided the Social Security Trust Fund" ha ha ha ha ha! …in a perverse manner, they really did us a favor – they helped remove the illusion that SS is anything but the same kind of entitlement voted ourselves for any number of reasons. It just had a more justifiable cause.

Now we know that all the tax revenue is essentially pooled – and SS is no more secure than the stability of the Fed Gov't.

As a "retirement plan" it is in DEEP shit. But it always has been because that illusion – the illusion that made it possible (by deception) to set up SS in the first place – perversely allowed perhaps the biggest tax scam in our entire history – a scam that we have to make right in some manner or another. The scam…

…is that, though I am against a progressive tax structure – I am at least equally against a regressive tax structure. IN THIS MATTER the wealthier haven't even come close to "paying their fair share". The guy who makes $1,000,000 a year pays no more than the guy who makes $90,000 (but looking at this with a broader history – it's more like the guy who makes $50,000 – because the ceiling has been raised within the past ten years).

But revenge almost always costs the avenger more than it costs the target. It's just true. The more you try to get back at someone for a perceived inequity, the more likely that you'll be paying double for your trouble…

…because NOW, in order to get even with those who had the free ride for so long, you risk hurting the employability of those upon whose backs you can least afford to put the public burden.

Knowing that, I think that the one way (and I know this is impossible because the whole mess is a VERY effective political tool wherewith to terrorize the masses on both sides) to correct it MAY be a sort of "coming clean" type policy, whereby a joint congress addresses the American people thusly:

We are in as deep a shit as you think (congress may be able to word it a bit more delicately). If we do nothing, the manner in which older people expect to get a monthly check is not going to happen because we will not have the real means to finance such a huge expenditure. We spent all your money.

But here is a plan for recovering at least some of it…
For a three year period there will be no ceiling on Social Security. We all benefit equally from the program and we should have been paying in equally all along. We have not been.

We are aware of how adversely this is likely to affect employment, and we wish there were a better way, but...

1. We are virtually begging the well-off among us to make the sacrifice. The middle class – those for whom the existing system has been an unfairly inequitable burden have born their huge share and will continue to do so through this process. See if it isn't possible for you to maintain the level of employment that you currently have so that the burden may be distributed to those who can most take it. Be patriots, damn it!

2. Accept that our life expectancy is going up, and our general well-being with it. Retire when you need to, and don't take SS if you don't need to. It never was your money we were "saving". WE LIED FROM THE BEGINNING. Those who were the architects of the deceit are no longer in office - mostly not even alive, so there's nobody to charge with high crimes. Get over it. Be patriots, damn it!

3. We will continue to make private retirement accounts attractive by making them tax-deductable or deferred – your choice as always.

4. After these initial years we will re-evaluate where it stands. We must be able to find out how adversely affected the poor will be by so burdening the wealthier, and we have to be able to determine how much, in real financial terms this is really gaining us. If it looks as though the Government can actually maintain a retirement system then we will do so. If we cannot we will be replacing it with a two-pronged system – welfare for those in need, and laws that require minimum savings.

Man, I can sure be full of shit sometimes.

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: mg
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 12:50 PM

Well you go after them. And I am all for an income level above which social security benefits are not obtained. And these alcoholics and drug addicts, tragic as they are, are costing us way more than their personal keep. There is a ripple effect that is destroying whole communities, the whole family structure. Especially the drugs, especially now the meth. There has to be a culture that says don't do this, it hurts people, rather than says, well, OK, if you really want to go ahead. And that is what people are doing. Enabling them. Coming soon to your neighborhood. Your mother's neighborhood. In Oregon they are saying 90% of the crime is related to meth. It sounds very high to me, and perhaps it is more like 50%. But think of what could be done with the money that would be saved from not fighting that crime. Think how people would sleep better at night, worry less about their children, not watch their property values tumble if this drug behavior were stopped. Alcohol for various reasons is a bit different. Just think of the drugs for now. And think how by jumping on everyone who wants to point this out is leading to their continued presence in our lives.   mg

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 12:18 PM

Don't let people get away with behavior that costs other people money, or endangers them

People like George Bush & Co. whose behavior daily endangers people's lives at home and abroad, individuals with million-dollar incomes that still collect SS (some several times over), companies like ENRON, behavioirs like polluting the environment, perchance? Then I'm with ya.

Each of these cost the taxpayer FAR MORE money than ALL of the unfortunate people you stigmatize as,"drug addicts and alcoholics", Mary.

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: mg
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 02:51 AM

There's a limited amount of money and we can pour it down the drain to evermore greatly festering social pathology or we can wise up and have more money to spend on education, medicine, alternative energy etc. And I believe that people who either encourage this behavior or passively accept it are a big part of the problem, and are having their surrogates engage in antisocial behavior for them. mg

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 10:24 PM

Major thread creep, mg....

This is about "Social Security", fir gosh sakes, and not some 15 year old *harmone-ized* girl who gets pregnant by sneaking out of the house...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Susu's Hubby
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 10:22 PM

here, here, MG.


(We'll get 'em outnumbered yet!)

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 10:03 PM

Sounds good to me..the catastrophic medical plan. I am confused...is it only 4% of the beneifts BUsh was talking about privatizing? If so, I can't see it is a huge deal. I vote for sliding benefits and I vote for a flat tax above a certain limit..or maybe two..10% between 20 and 40 k maybe and 20% above..

What I want is to quit giving ss cash to drug addicts and alcoholics. They should get shelter in a barracks of some sort, and they should get food, and $20 a month for toiletries but no cash period. They are not just destroying themselves, but the neighborhoods they live in, particularly the meth users.

And everyone has to quit jumping everyone else who talks about changing some social behaviors as blaming the victim. If someone has brain damage from a disease, it is blaming the victim to blame them. If they have brain damage from using illegal drugs, they are not the victim (oh of course you could argue they are in some ways) but the perps. Likewise if someone was raped and got pregnant, she is a victim. If she defied her parents, snuck out of the house to be wtih an abusive creep that got three other women pregnant the same year, she is not a victim (assuming normal intelligence etc.) but she is one of the perps. Don't let people get away with behavior that costs other people money, or endangers them, and all of a sudden you will have huge amounts of money available to take care of no-fault problems in society. mg

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 10:40 PM

Well, Frank... Think about this... Rather than just throw up out arms and say "what crisis?" which I'll admit to havin' done myself, why not use this as an opportunity to improve the system to protect America's working class aginst bankruptcies from medical bills and loss of jobs as a result of gettin' sick?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: jaze
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 09:33 PM

Amen to that, Frank

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 10:43 AM

Democrats don't want to raise taxes. They want the upper class to pay their fair share. Many of them don't work very hard for their money.
Many working poor people work a lot harder for their money. Democrats want a fair and equitable tax system that doesn't reward the rich at the expense of the poor.   Paying taxes is the price for living in a decent society. Tell these so-called conservatives that they need to stop borrowing and putting our country into more debt and inevitable bankruptcy. Iraq is the financial 800 pound gorilla in the room.

The Bush government wants to regulate how you invest your private accounts, anyway, so they offer not much of a choice in privatization.

Social Security is fine the way it is. It's worked well for decades. Don't let Wall Street steal it away from poor elderly people who have paid into it. Bush can't improve on FDR.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 10:46 PM

"We're the kids who agree
To be social without security
We're Barry's Boys"

recorded by the Mitchell Trio

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 10:16 PM

Now, Rap, you know that I loves ya', sniff.... But I can't go with a flat tax unless yer willin' to boost the taxable income up to, oh, about 10% tp 20% 'er so over the poverty line. Ten grand ain't what it used to be, especially if yer a single workin' mom with three kids...

How's about 20% over the poverty line?

Come on, in the big scheme of things it won't amount to nuthin' more than a drop in the bucket....

Whaddayathink?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 10:03 PM

I am, myself, a flat taxer: set a rate, say 15%, for ever dollar earned over, say $10,000. No exemptions. And EVERYBODY pays: churches, the Red Cross, the guy with 12 kids, everyone. You make $20,000, you pay 15% on $10,000. You make $20,000,000, you pay 15% on $19,990,000.

It's a graduated tax and it's fair.

Not only that, but I think that it should be payable -- in cash if you wish but not in coin -- at any federally insured saving institution.

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 10:01 PM

Ahhhhh, askin' Dougie, 'er one of any of the Budshites is like askin' a dnaged brick, jaze.... They ain't gotta a clue... Why? Well, seems that this time Bush's PR folks haven't finished their assignments on time and the Bushites are now left impatiently awaiting some bumper sticker lenghth answer to your question...

Problem is... Some problems require a little more thought than can be explained on a bumper sticker...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: jaze
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 09:40 PM

No one to explain how taking money OUT of SS helps it? DougR?

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 10:02 PM

"the need to penalize those that have actually been blessed enough to make enough money..."

Having them to pay the same rate as everyone else is penalizing them?
Man, Hubby, have you got your head wedged firmly up your a$$.And "blessed" by whom? Are you suggesting some sort of divine sanction for the filthy rich?

And Dougie's regurgitating BS as usual- point is, there IS NO "CRISIS".

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 09:52 PM

Amen, Rap.....

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 09:48 PM

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 09:31 PM

Taking money out won't do anything except turn the nation back in the direction is was in before Social Security...

But seriously, I've been giving this a lot of thought and here are a few thing that I'm thinking.

It is called "Social..... Security", isn't it... So here are a few of my ideas.

1. Benefits should be figured on a sliding scale. One retired guy making $500,000 a year off his stock options, shouldn't collect anything. The fact that he has had to pay into the system is his dues for living in a society that affords him the luxary of retiring with $500,000 year income. This would save the system billions and billions of dollars. I think the cutoff could be around between $5000 and $7000 a month. Heck, most folks by then allready own their homes, have no mortgages, no kids at home (if they are lucky) and don't need a bunch of money. I'd be willing to for go any benefits if I had like that kind of money coming in...

2. From the savings from (1.) we can fund a "Catestrophic Ilnees Insurance Plan" that protects folks, mostly middle class, from the fear of bankruptcy if they should get sick, loose their jobs and/or loose their health insurance... Throw in a patient's "Bill of Rights" preventing health insuers from dropping sick folks and, all of a sudden, the middle class hard working folks now don't have to live in fear of loosing everything they have worker for all their lives...

3. Like I mentioned eatiler, reduce the SS with-holding to 5% for the employee and drop the $90,000 cap. This would mean that the guy earning $120,000 and the guy making $27,000 would both benefit. Self employed folks will benefit. Small businesses will benefit and maybe use a portion of the saving to restore health car benefits that they haven't been able toafford to provide their workers... This is win-win for Amnerica... Maybe not for the super wealthy but, hey, like have pointed out on other threads, if it weren't for the labor of the middle class, they wouldn't be wealthy...

Yeah, those ate just some of my thoughts... fir now...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: jaze
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 08:29 PM

I haven't heard it explained how taking money OUT of SS will help it.It seems to be just a ploy to eliminate it.

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: DougR
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 12:41 AM

Well, Bobert, I guess we will just have to wait and see, right? I don't believe the Democrats have offered ANY solution to the SS problems have they? If so, the news has escaped me.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 11:21 PM

Now, don't forget that Bill and Melinda Gates have given to libraries both in the US and overseas, and that the Gates Foundation is giving away money to eliminate malaria. Ted Turner gave a bunch to the UN.

But I'd sure like other folks who "have" to realize that they have the obligations that Carnegie points out -- and act accordingly.

That goes for Social Security, too.

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Teresa
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 11:04 PM

They don't make rich men like that anymore. Leastways, you don't hear about them.

Teresa

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 11:03 PM

Ya' got me that time, Rap. Marx and Rnglres was gonna be myt seconf guess...

Btw, Yolu read Olver Goldsmith's "Deserted Village"? He's like a hundred years before Marx and sayin' thre same stuff...

Greed been around a long time...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 10:57 PM

Nope, Bobert, not Lincoln. Just your standard Communist I guess, like Karl Marx or Friedrich Engels. Yes, sir! This here commie's essay, entitled "Wealth" can be found under the name of Andrew Carnegie, founder of U.S. Steel. If you want to read the whole thing, go here.

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 10:50 PM

Heck, her could have been qutoing Amos from the Old Testament 'er Jesus from the New....

Yeah, Rap, who are ya' quotin'? Lincoln? If so, I gotta a bone to pick wid ya'....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Teresa
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 10:36 PM

Who did you quote?

Teresa

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 10:30 PM

Consider this, written over 100 years ago:

Poor and restricted are our opportunities in this life; narrow our horizon; our best work most imperfect; but rich men should be thankful for one inestimable boon. They have it in their power during their lives to busy themselves in organizing benefactions from which the masses of their fellows will derive lasting advantage, and thus dignify their own lives. The highest life is probably to be reached, not by such imitation of the life of Christ as Count Tolstoï gives us, but, while animated by Christ's spirit, by recognizing the changed conditions of this age, and adopting modes of expressing this spirit suitable to the changed conditions under which we live; still laboring for the good of our fellows, which was the essence of his life and teaching, but laboring in a different manner.

This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and after doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community -- the man of wealth thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.

We are met here with the difficulty of determining what are moderate sums to leave to members of the family; what is modest, unostentatious living; what is the test of extravagance. There must be different standards for different conditions. The answer is that it is as impossible to name exact amounts or actions as it is to define good manners, good taste, or the rules of propriety; but, nevertheless, these are verities, well known although undefinable. Public sentiment is quick to know and to feel what offends these. So in the case of wealth. The rule in regard to good taste in the dress of men or women applies here. Whatever makes one conspicuous offends the canon. If any family be chiefly known for display, for extravagance in home, table, equipage, for enormous sums ostentatiously spent in any form upon itself, -- if these be its chief distinctions, we have no difficulty in estimating its nature or culture. So likewise in regard to the use or abuse of its surplus wealth, or to generous, freehanded coöperation in good public uses, or to unabated efforts to accumulate and hoard to the last, whether they administer or bequeath. The verdict rests with the best and most enlightened public sentiment. The community will surely judge, and its judgments will not often be wrong.

Earlier, the same man said:

The growing disposition to tax more and more heavily large estates left at death is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutary change in public opinion. The State of Pennsylvania now takes -- subject to some exceptions -- one-tenth of the property left by its citizens. The budget presented in the British Parliament the other day proposes to increase the death-duties; and, most significant of all, the new tax is to be a graduated one. Of all forms of taxation, this seems the wisest. Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for the public ends would work good to the community, should be made to feel that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life.

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 10:19 PM

Yeah, hubby, you do the math and you'll see that folks individually making under around $110,000, maybe $115,000, a year will benefit and the program will be solvent forever...

Small businesses will benefit... Self employed will benefit and no one will have to be forced to work longer ot face reduce benefits... The big looser, of course, will be those folks whoes incomes are obscene.... Like Dick Cheney's, for example... Like how many steaks can you eat????

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Teresa
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 10:12 PM

Paul Krugman's Op-ed Piece in the New York Times, no less.

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Susu's Hubby
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 09:59 PM

you know.......I just got through filing my taxes for the last year. Both Susu and I didn't make anywhere close to a million....for that matter.....we didn't make anywhere near a hundred thousand. We were just barely lucky enough to scrape together fifty grand between the both of us. With that being said....I still do not see the need to penalize those that have actually been blessed enough to make enough money that his wife and kids didn't have to work.

That is what your plan is doing, Bobert.

It unjustly penalizes the "haves" and makes them have a mandatory responsibility for the "have nots." Why should they have to pay for someone else's retirement when they have worked their butts off and caused themselves to not have to depend on Social Security?

Now, I may be stepping beyond my bounds here but I'm going to assume that we can agree on one thing. That one thing is that both you and I have used some "worst case scenarios" in trying to prove our points. I with my "crack whore with six kids on welfare" statement and then you with your stereotypical analogy that all rich people are just like the CEO of the Pillowtex Corp. I think that the real people that we are talking about falls somewhere in the middle of these two. Therein lies the dilemma.

I believe that both the Republicans and the Democrats (not all but some) have swung a little too far to their respective sides. In order for the truly needy to get the assistance that they deserve to get back on their feet, the Democrats tend to cast the net to cover everybody, at the expense of everybody else, (by raising taxes on all) whether it be the "crack whore" or the truly needy without a plan to eventually wean everybody off of the system at some point. It's the same with our kids. We raise, protect, and feed them for probably the first 18-20 years of their life. But we, eventually, want to see our kids get out of the house and make it on their own. It makes us feel proud and have a little sense of personal responsibility when our own kids make it on their own. I believe that can go for our fellow man as well. If they need the help, then lets give them the help but let's give it to them in ways that will actually lift them out of the situation that they're in and then stop the assistance once the crisis has passed and let them practice their own personal responsibility to make their lives better. Now….. the Republicans (again not all but some) have swung too far to the right by letting the religious right sometimes drive their agenda just a little too far. So I'm not saying go right or go left but we need to do what's right or get left BEHIND. Now……what's right? I think that penalizing one for the needs of the other is not right. Taking away what is rightfully owned by an individual and giving it to someone who has not worked that hard is pure socialism. (Distribution of wealth) Let's start this with Social Security.

Let's make it to where EVERYBODY can decide on what they want to do with a portion of their social security investment. This way, by allowing people to invest in the financial vehicle of their choice, they can have a chance to live better in their retirement years that they did during their working years. If they don't have this choice and have not been lucky enough to work for somebody that let's them divert a portion of their income into a 401(k) then they are destined to live a retired life of just barely getting by. Let's stop the heavy taxing of corporations so that they will have incentives to stay in the US instead of moving overseas to take advantage of cheap labor.
Just a rogue thought here but I hope that you realize that sometimes a corporation is set up by an individual in order to protect their personal assets that they have already amassed and want them protected in the event of bankruptcy. Not all corporations are set up in boardrooms by cigar smoking, golf shirt wearing fat men with the intention of screwing the "little man". Probably more than half of all the corporations set up in the United States today make less that a million per year in sales, services, and/or profits. So increasing the taxes on these in a lump sum type of belief system is very unfair to the small corporation……..I'll continue my thoughts tomorrow but I'm interested in knowing what you think so far.

By the way……..just caught your last post…….interesting idea……..sounds good on the surface but will have to give that one some thought.


Hubby

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 09:45 PM

Works fir me, Rap... Might of fact, I like the plan... But I'd go one step further and dedidtrict the entire nation to in sure that each congressional district was competetive, as opposed to the 90% which are no longer competitive... Heck, I don't care if a Repub wins in a competetaive district 'cause guess what? If he or she wants to win next election then he or she is gonna have to do a lot of listenin' to the other sides arguments...

Yeahm if we had such a sytem in place the US would certainly be a modal of democracy rather than thr corrupted version we have now...

Now back to Social Security...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 09:16 PM

You want an alternative? Here's mine:

Decentralize the Federal government.

Here's how:

Spend the money to build a super information infrastructure -- we can do it, right now, it would take absolutely NO new technology. Then require that every Senator and Representative live in their state or district, telecommuting to work -- again, this would take NO new technology and is done by many people right now.

This accomplishes many things: it makes lobbying damned difficult, it puts the lawmakers back among the people they represent, it strengthens the government because Congress is spread out across the country instead of sitting on one big bulls-eye.

The Legislative Branch taken care of, at least one Department or Federal office of the Executive Branch into each state. Move the Presidency itself -- the White House -- to the town nearest the geographic center of the US, Belle Fourche, South Dakota. Leave the Judicial Branch in DC, which reverts to Maryland and houses museums, the Supreme Court, etc. and is used strictly for ceremonies.

Okay. The Congressfolk are then paid the average prevailing wage in their home district. Each year the voters of their district vote the percentage above that the Congressperson would be paid. Naturally, the governemtn picks up the office costs! And here's the kicker -- the secretaries, assistants, and so on make the same money they do now, they have the same benefits, etc. -- but they ALL must fall under Civil Service! (Congressfolk have three weeks paid vacation, the same medical benefits and other benefits as the average person in their district -- including retirement benefits.)

Costs go way, way, down. We can keep an eye on our government. Those who do the work are paid for good work. Belle Fourche, SD gets a nice shot in the economic arm.

All it would take is the will to do it. The money is not a problem.

Subject: RE: BS: *Strengthening* Social Security...
From: cool hand Tom
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 09:06 PM

And me as a communist wonders if the revolution is near...

   Regards Comrades.