Social Security, Social Security, Social Security

[Cammmpbell]

I remember when the first people began to draw a pittance from social security...about 1942, 43. The act was initiated about 1935 and guess what.......the Republicans screamed that it would cost jobs. They continued to scream until the act went to the supreme court twice before it was finally ruled constitutional. Republicans would like to see the poverty stricken back on county poor farms(poorhouses) A couple of acres and a basically empty house where a group of poverty stricken people lived and those who could still amble about would raise and can enough food to feed all of them. This country is lightly sprinkled with unmarked graves from those days.

Social Security is the only program in Washington that month end and month out pays it's own way.

I wish you people had a clue. I wish you could have seen west Tennessee during the depression. Unemployment reached nearly 50%. Grown men cried because they were unable to put food on the table for their families. Men would scrounge around looking for a days work on farms, 12 hours in the fields for $0.75 and their mid day meal. My dad worked in a box factory and ruptured himself lifting loads from a skid and the second day he missed they replaced him. There were no unions, no benefits, no vacation, personal leave, health insurance, workman's comp, etc. If a man could work he was paid...if he couldn't he wasn't.

When my dad got a job as timekeeper on the WPA that was the first regular paycheck he ever drew. He made about $6.50 a week. Believe it or not that was enough to feed us and afford a place to live. He would be sure that my mom kept a pot of navy beans warming on the stove so beggers who knocked on the door knowing we had no work for them could at least have a bowl of beans and a stick of corn bread.

My dad was lucky. When the war started he hired in at Procter and Gamble in Milan, TN where they were cooking TNT and turning out 500# bombs. He worked his way up from laborer to a line superintendent then when he heard they were hiring for a special project in east Tennessee he went to Jackson, TN, interviewed and landed a job working on the Manhatten project in Oak Ridge, TN. Our family did alright after that........all of us. Oak Ridge had over 700 PHD's. 10 times the national average for the population. Those people demanded good schools for their kids and my family was one of thousands who benefited from that. We were so lucky that looking back I have no clue what our fate might have been had we stayed in west Tennessee.

You folks need to get your shit together and your minds right.

 

[Chris]

We are the richest country in the world.

We should be able to take care of the old and the sick.

It's the right thing to do.

 

[Cammmpbell]

We are the richest country in the world.

We should be able to take care of the old and the sick.

It's the right thing to do.

Thank you for that. I'm an agnostic and don't even believe that hereafter bullshit but If I was a believer I would at least want to follow the rules. I've read the new testament no less than 10 times and there are a couple of messages in there which supercede all others, sell what you have, give it to the poor and the hell thing. If I was a Republican these days the least I would do is give up my Christian belief. I'm not that much of a hypocrite.

 

[Chris]

I have posted this before, but I think you might appreciate it....

The happiest place on earth - Denmark

Disney World claims the distinction of being "the happiest place on earth," but if you're really in search of human bliss, you'd be surprised where you'll find it.

Is there a place where people facing the daily grind of life are somehow nudged by their surroundings or their values or their government into being the happiest people on the planet?

You might expect that place would be a tropical paradise with warm sand and soft breezes. Or a Mediterranean village with sun-kissed vineyards. Or the United States -- land of the free and home of the brave. But if you use social science techniques, you'll find some surprises. A paradise like Fiji comes in more than 50 spots below Iceland in happiness rankings. For all its style and cuisine, France and Italy rank well below Canada. And while the United States may be the richest and most powerful country, when it comes to happiness, it is only No. 23.

For the past decade, social scientists and pollsters have given elaborate questionnaires to hundreds of thousands of people around the globe. Two of the largest studies that rank the happiness of countries around the world are the World Map of Happiness from the University of Leiscester and the World Database of Happiness from Ruut Veenhoven of Erasmus University Rotterdam. All the happiness surveys ask people basically the same question: How happy are you?

The answer you get is not only how they feel right now, but also how they feel about their entire life," explained Dan Buettner, who has studied happiness and longevity around the world through his Blue Zones project Buettner said that if you mine all the databases of universities and research centers, you'll find that the happiest place on earth is ? Denmark. Cold, dreary, unspectacular Denmark.

Denmark is a place where stoic locals wear sensible shoes and snack on herring sandwiches. Sure, they produce the occasional supermodel, but its most famous countryman may be the late entertainer Victor Borge.

Could the Danes really be the happiest people in the world? When ABC News anchor Bill Weir traveled there to find out, he asked random Danes to rate themselves in terms of happiness, on a scale of one to 10. Many people rated themselves at least an eight, and there were several nines and 10s. Finally, one grouchy Dane came along who said she didn't believe Danes were so happy. But then she quickly conceded that she herself felt rather content with her life, and said Danes in general had very little to complain about.

Danes do have one potential complaint: high taxes. The happiest people in the world pay some of the highest taxes in the world -- between 50 percent and 70 percent of their incomes. In exchange, the government covers all health care and education, and spends more on children and the elderly than any country in the world per capita. With just 5.5 million people, the system is efficient, and people feel "tryghed" -- the Danish word for "tucked in" -- like a snug child.

Those high taxes have another effect. Since a banker can end up taking home as much money as an artist, people don't chose careers based on income or status. "They have this thing called 'Jante-lov,' which essentially says, 'You're no better then anybody else,'" said Buettner. "A garbage man can live in a middle-class neighborhood and hold his head high."

Denmark: The Happiest Place on Earth - ABC News

 

[Cammmpbell]

I have posted this before, but I think you might appreciate it....

The happiest place on earth - Denmark

Disney World claims the distinction of being "the happiest place on earth," but if you're really in search of human bliss, you'd be surprised where you'll find it.

Is there a place where people facing the daily grind of life are somehow nudged by their surroundings or their values or their government into being the happiest people on the planet?

You might expect that place would be a tropical paradise with warm sand and soft breezes. Or a Mediterranean village with sun-kissed vineyards. Or the United States -- land of the free and home of the brave. But if you use social science techniques, you'll find some surprises. A paradise like Fiji comes in more than 50 spots below Iceland in happiness rankings. For all its style and cuisine, France and Italy rank well below Canada. And while the United States may be the richest and most powerful country, when it comes to happiness, it is only No. 23.

For the past decade, social scientists and pollsters have given elaborate questionnaires to hundreds of thousands of people around the globe. Two of the largest studies that rank the happiness of countries around the world are the World Map of Happiness from the University of Leiscester and the World Database of Happiness from Ruut Veenhoven of Erasmus University Rotterdam. All the happiness surveys ask people basically the same question: How happy are you?

The answer you get is not only how they feel right now, but also how they feel about their entire life," explained Dan Buettner, who has studied happiness and longevity around the world through his Blue Zones project Buettner said that if you mine all the databases of universities and research centers, you'll find that the happiest place on earth is ? Denmark. Cold, dreary, unspectacular Denmark.

Denmark is a place where stoic locals wear sensible shoes and snack on herring sandwiches. Sure, they produce the occasional supermodel, but its most famous countryman may be the late entertainer Victor Borge.

Could the Danes really be the happiest people in the world? When ABC News anchor Bill Weir traveled there to find out, he asked random Danes to rate themselves in terms of happiness, on a scale of one to 10. Many people rated themselves at least an eight, and there were several nines and 10s. Finally, one grouchy Dane came along who said she didn't believe Danes were so happy. But then she quickly conceded that she herself felt rather content with her life, and said Danes in general had very little to complain about.

Danes do have one potential complaint: high taxes. The happiest people in the world pay some of the highest taxes in the world -- between 50 percent and 70 percent of their incomes. In exchange, the government covers all health care and education, and spends more on children and the elderly than any country in the world per capita. With just 5.5 million people, the system is efficient, and people feel "tryghed" -- the Danish word for "tucked in" -- like a snug child.

Those high taxes have another effect. Since a banker can end up taking home as much money as an artist, people don't chose careers based on income or status. "They have this thing called 'Jante-lov,' which essentially says, 'You're no better then anybody else,'" said Buettner. "A garbage man can live in a middle-class neighborhood and hold his head high."

Denmark: The Happiest Place on Earth - ABC News

Fantastic.....Great post.....I would have never guessed even close to that. You reminded me that I was a teenager in the 1950's and those were my family's happiest moments. Guess what rich people were paying then.......anyone who earned more than $300,000 per year paid 91% of the excess to the IRS. Of course we were paying for WW2 but everyone seemed happier then....the rich people too.

 

[ScienceRocks]

We are the richest country in the world.

We should be able to take care of the old and the sick.

It's the right thing to do.

I agree, I don't have any problem with ssi. People worked hard putting money into it over there lifes. Our old, sick and vets deserve it.

Now do we have a debt problem. YES.

 

[WillowTree]

but obama keeps wanting to extend the payroll tax deductions holiday., every day that happens the social security pot is being depleted. I don't know who you'll whine about when the money is gone.

 

[Chris]

but obama keeps wanting to extend the payroll tax deductions holiday., every day that happens the social security pot is being depleted. I don't know who you'll whine about when the money is gone.

SS is solid for the next 25 years.

We just need to raise taxes on the rich to cover the baby boomers.

 

[editec]

but obama keeps wanting to extend the payroll tax deductions holiday., every day that happens the social security pot is being depleted. I don't know who you'll whine about when the money is gone.

SS is solid for the next 25 years.

We just need to raise taxes on the rich to cover the baby boomers.

No, the Baby boomer generation more than covered their future costs.

That's why the SS system is owed $2.5 Trillion by the Government.

We don't need to raise taxes for SS.

If we need to raise taxes, we need to raise taxes to pay for those services were are not ALREADY funded...like our 600 billion dollar a year Department of Defence, for example, or the interest on the debts we have outstanding.

Those UNFUNDED social services programs are what's breaking the bank, not SS.

 

[ScienceRocks]

We need to get out of the middle east and cut defense by about 200 billion per year. Cut foreign aid to all country's, ect.

 

[ba1614]

but obama keeps wanting to extend the payroll tax deductions holiday., every day that happens the social security pot is being depleted. I don't know who you'll whine about when the money is gone.

If we just raise the taxes on the rich all will be good.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Why is it that none of you sheep realize that if you had control over the money the government confiscates for SS that you'd all be better off?

 

[WatertheTree]

I wish you people had a clue. I wish you could have seen west Tennessee during the depression. Unemployment reached nearly 50%. Grown men cried because they were unable to put food on the table for their families. Men would scrounge around looking for a days work on farms, 12 hours in the fields for $0.75 and their mid day meal. My dad worked in a box factory and ruptured himself lifting loads from a skid and the second day he missed they replaced him. There were no unions, no benefits, no vacation, personal leave, health insurance, workman's comp, etc. If a man could work he was paid...if he couldn't he wasn't.

Sounds alot like life today for most people. They dont bring home seventy five cents a day, but they still are not making enough to live off of.

 

[kyzr]

Why is it that none of you sheep realize that if you had control over the money the government confiscates for SS that you'd all be better off?

You vote for the stock market ponzi scheme? Go ahead and put your money in the stock market and watch the hedge funds sell everything short and steal your retirement. Then what? Grow a brain. SS is the safest bet. If you also have a 401k, fine, try not to lose it.

SS isn't a problem. Its solvent to 2037. With a little tweak SS is fine. Medicare and Medicaid are the problems. They are all but bankrupt now. Then the stupid dems add 30,000,000 free-loaders into the system.

 

[Si modo]

Only a few years until it is completely insolvent. Woohoo?

 

[DaGoose]

I remember when the first people began to draw a pittance from social security...about 1942, 43. The act was initiated about 1935 and guess what.......the Republicans screamed that it would cost jobs. They continued to scream until the act went to the supreme court twice before it was finally ruled constitutional. Republicans would like to see the poverty stricken back on county poor farms(poorhouses) A couple of acres and a basically empty house where a group of poverty stricken people lived and those who could still amble about would raise and can enough food to feed all of them. This country is lightly sprinkled with unmarked graves from those days.

Social Security is the only program in Washington that month end and month out pays it's own way.

I wish you people had a clue. I wish you could have seen west Tennessee during the depression. Unemployment reached nearly 50%. Grown men cried because they were unable to put food on the table for their families. Men would scrounge around looking for a days work on farms, 12 hours in the fields for $0.75 and their mid day meal. My dad worked in a box factory and ruptured himself lifting loads from a skid and the second day he missed they replaced him. There were no unions, no benefits, no vacation, personal leave, health insurance, workman's comp, etc. If a man could work he was paid...if he couldn't he wasn't.
When my dad got a job as timekeeper on the WPA that was the first regular paycheck he ever drew. He made about $6.50 a week. Believe it or not that was enough to feed us and afford a place to live. He would be sure that my mom kept a pot of navy beans warming on the stove so beggers who knocked on the door knowing we had no work for them could at least have a bowl of beans and a stick of corn bread.

My dad was lucky. When the war started he hired in at Procter and Gamble in Milan, TN where they were cooking TNT and turning out 500# bombs. He worked his way up from laborer to a line superintendent then when he heard they were hiring for a special project in east Tennessee he went to Jackson, TN, interviewed and landed a job working on the Manhatten project in Oak Ridge, TN. Our family did alright after that........all of us. Oak Ridge had over 700 PHD's. 10 times the national average for the population. Those people demanded good schools for their kids and my family was one of thousands who benefited from that. We were so lucky that looking back I have no clue what our fate might have been had we stayed in west Tennessee.

You folks need to get your shit together and your minds right.

Throw in more tax cuts to the rich and it sounds like conservative heaven.

 

[The T]

but obama keeps wanting to extend the payroll tax deductions holiday., every day that happens the social security pot is being depleted. I don't know who you'll whine about when the money is gone.

If we just raise the taxes on the rich all will be good.

At the rate that this government spends? 6-9 months...then what?

 

[Cammmpbell]

but obama keeps wanting to extend the payroll tax deductions holiday., every day that happens the social security pot is being depleted. I don't know who you'll whine about when the money is gone.

SS is solid for the next 25 years.

We just need to raise taxes on the rich to cover the baby boomers.

No, the Baby boomer generation more than covered their future costs.

That's why the SS system is owed $2.5 Trillion by the Government.

We don't need to raise taxes for SS.

If we need to raise taxes, we need to raise taxes to pay for those services were are not ALREADY funded...like our 600 billion dollar a year Department of Defence, for example, or the interest on the debts we have outstanding.

Those UNFUNDED social services programs are what's breaking the bank, not SS.

Yeah...When Dick Cheney said, "The Debt Doesn't Matter, Reagan Proved That" somebody should have asked his foolish ass if the interest matters. When Obama took office the interest for that year was about $450 billion.

For comparison we spend about $100 billion on education and less than that on the infrastructure.

 

[Full-Auto]

SS is solid for the next 25 years.

We just need to raise taxes on the rich to cover the baby boomers.

No, the Baby boomer generation more than covered their future costs.

That's why the SS system is owed $2.5 Trillion by the Government.

We don't need to raise taxes for SS.

If we need to raise taxes, we need to raise taxes to pay for those services were are not ALREADY funded...like our 600 billion dollar a year Department of Defence, for example, or the interest on the debts we have outstanding.

Those UNFUNDED social services programs are what's breaking the bank, not SS.

Yeah...When Dick Cheney said, "The Debt Doesn't Matter, Reagan Proved That" somebody should have asked his foolish ass if the interest matters. When Obama took office the interest for that year was about $450 billion.

For comparison we spend about $100 billion on education and less than that on the infrastructure.

You clowns emptied SS. Then according to your stupid logic Congress bares no responsibility for the legislation that passes.

Why dont you write a few more checks.

 

[DontBeStupid]

SS is fine. All it needs is a slight tweak to help with the Baby Boomers. All you people screaming and crying about it running out of money or going insolvent are lying. In 20 years SS will still bring in money, just not enough to pay the same payouts we have now. Payouts would naturally go down, but there would be no bankruptcy and no end of the world as we know it. After the Baby Boomer generation dies out, things would go back to normal.

Seriously, read up on stuff before you freak out.