A Welfare State : Government ***Buy*** The People

[rightwinger]

I work in a tourist area where many people only work three months a year. I teach high school

LOL someone who teaches high school ridiculing those who work three months a year

Try working 12 months a year yourself

 

[Care4all]

I work in a tourist area where many people only work three months a year. I teach high school and still believe that education is the best way to improve one's circumstances. But when I speak to my students about continuing their education, traveling, and trying to improve their lives they look at me with a puzzled expression. They think their lives are pretty damn good.They see nothing wrong with collecting unemployment all winter and sitting around the house smoking dope and making babies. Living off the govt aint too shabby. Its a "career choice"

Well, when I was a teen, many, many moons ago, i worked in the summer full time in a resort town's privately owned dept store, and they laid me off or reduced my hours every winter and i was able to collect unemployment for the difference between the hours they worked me over the winter to the average hours i put in when working full time...

this was 20 some years ago.... the dept store brought me on full time or darn near it when they could, during busy seasons, like Christmas and Easter, but it was not until may that they could bring me on with more hours.

This dept store paid higher than normal unemployment insurance to cover the people they had to reduce hours on or lay off for weeks at a time.

The dept store did this to keep qualified, excellent employees from leaving them and going to work elsewhere...

Many times i managed to get other part time work, during nonseasonal periods, with other businesses, but not always and unemployment was handy, to say the least if i could not. I was a student...high school and my first 2 years of college when i worked for them and honestly, I don't feel a bit guilty over it!

care

 

[Thinman]

The availability of credit has ruined our economy. The bailouts by Bush and Obama were attempts to maintain the status quo when it was so obvious that we needed to scale back and tighten our belts.

We can get out of trouble, but not by spending, by saving.

 

[Contumacious]

Not only have the wealthy shipped jobs overseas, .

Yo Vern, do some research as to the reason job are shipped overseas and then repost. Stay away from socialist and ACORN websites.

TaTa.


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[Oddball]

"If we analyze the programs of the welfare state, we will find to a greater or lesser extent the elements we've been discussing: plunder, deception, and obfuscation. This is easily seen with the crown jewel of the welfare state, Social Security. The working generation is plundered for the benefit of the retirees. The government deceives the workers by implying that the money is being saved for them and that it will be there when they retire. In fact, the government just plans to tax the next group of workers. The whole process is obfuscated with talk about trust funds and employer contributions. This last is especially egregious. Workers are led to believe that employers are kicking in half of the "contribution," which is actually a tax. That makes the system appear to be a good deal. In fact, the employer cannot really contribute. Anything he appears to pay is really part of the workers' compensation. Without Social Security, that cash would have been paid to them. The market sets pay levels. If the government commands employers to pay into Social Security in behalf of their workers, regular cash compensation will be reduced. There is no way around that fact. But the appearance of an employer contribution is a clever act of deception and obfuscation."

The answer to this problem is to make social security a real pension fund. All states have a pension fund for their government workers. Other countries have real pension funds for their equivalents of social security that invests in stocks, bonds, real estate, private equity, commodities, etc. That is what social security should be.

Good idea.... in theory.

OASI is a prime example of how you cannot leave a big pile of money laying around within the reach of politicians, without them eventually using it to buy votes.

Best it be junked altogether and people be left to decide for themselves how to best save/invest/spend their money.

 

[Contumacious]

The problem, of course, is that those who have all the money will use their wealth to influence the law and the state to their own benefit, often at the detriment of others. .

Now I understand why you chose the pseudonym "toro" - there is a lot of bull in your assertions.


I have a right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness - how do that works to your detriment.


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[Toro]

The problem, of course, is that those who have all the money will use their wealth to influence the law and the state to their own benefit, often at the detriment of others. .

Now I understand why you chose the pseudonym "toro" - there is a lot of bull in your assertions.


I have a right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness - how do that works to your detriment.


.

A lot bull in my assertions? What fucking planet do you live on? Do you have any idea at all how politics and the real world works? Billions of dollars are spent on lobbying every year. They ain't spending it so you can have life, liberty and property. They are spending it to shape legislation to their own benefit. When companies do bad things, they pay lawyers and lobbyists tons of money to avoid penalties or laws to restrict their behaviors.

 

[Toro]

Good idea.... in theory.

OASI is a prime example of how you cannot leave a big pile of money laying around within the reach of politicians, without them eventually using it to buy votes.

Best it be junked altogether and people be left to decide for themselves how to best save/invest/spend their money.

That is generally not the case. People who have the choice of being in a defined contribution plan - where they can make their own decisions - generally do worse than those in a defined benefit plan - where the decisions are made by professionals and they are guaranteed an actuarial rate of return. There are a multitude of reasons for this that I won't get into here.

All states already have pension plans for their employees. There is a bit of meddling but for the most part, they are run professionally.

Pass laws that social security is to be run professionally.

I've never understood why Americans think they are so incompetent at government. Other countries do this quite well. I don't know why Americans are so confident about some things and have so little faith about themselves in others.

You can reduce much of the future liabilities of social security and Medicare by running the trust funds professionally. Compounding interest works wonders. The social security trusts compound at 4% per year. A typical government pension plan compounds at 7%. Over 50 years, at 4% a year, $1 million becomes $7 million. At 7%, it becomes $29 million.

 

[Contumacious]

The problem, of course, is that those who have all the money will use their wealth to influence the law and the state to their own benefit, often at the detriment of others. .

Now I understand why you chose the pseudonym "toro" - there is a lot of bull in your assertions.


I have a right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness - how do that works to your detriment.


.

A lot bull in my assertions?

Siiii.

What fucking planet do you live on?

The same as [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er5h_TXun6o&feature=related"]Daisy Girl.[/ame]

Do you have any idea at all how politics and the real world works?

No, actually I was waiting for you to tell me.

Billions of dollars are spent on lobbying every year. They ain't spending it so you can have life, liberty and property. They are spending it to shape legislation to their own benefit.

That's because we no longer have a Constitutional Republic- the US is now a democracy - An Aristocracy Of Pull" a fascist republic where the people only have those rights permitted by DC.

 

[Toro]

That's because we no longer have a Constitutional Republic- the US is now a democracy - An Aristocracy Of Pull" a fascist republic where the people only have those rights permitted by DC.

That's right. We should go back to the good old days, when women, blacks and people without property weren't allowed to vote.

 

[Intense]

That's because we no longer have a Constitutional Republic- the US is now a democracy - An Aristocracy Of Pull" a fascist republic where the people only have those rights permitted by DC.

That's right. We should go back to the good old days, when women, blacks and people without property weren't allowed to vote.

We are more an Oligarchy where the Few tell everyone else what to think and do. It was the Constitutional Process that did bring about Voting changes. Steps in a Positive Direction.

 

[Oddball]

That's because we no longer have a Constitutional Republic- the US is now a democracy - An Aristocracy Of Pull" a fascist republic where the people only have those rights permitted by DC.

That's right. We should go back to the good old days, when women, blacks and people without property weren't allowed to vote.

Nobody who doesn't own land (i.e. have any of that "skin in the game") should be voting.

Gentrified society?...Sure. But the free enterprise makes the ascension into the gentry a mater of merit, rather than merely a matter of being a member of the lucky sperm club.

 

[Toro]

Nobody who doesn't own land (i.e. have any of that "skin in the game") should be voting.

So you're not all that hot on democracy, I can assume?