Social Security, Social Security, Social Security

[Unkotare]

It's why I'm no longer a Republican.

"no longer" .....

 

[JoeB131]

We're where we are because in the 1940's a corporate executive made about 12-15 times what a carpenter or plumber made. By the 70's that figure had grown to 50 times as much. Last year the average CEO made 550 times what an ordinary member of what used to be the middle class earned. This shit has to stop somewhere.

]

I think that's a corporate culture problem, I don't think that's the cause of our economic problems. I think the cause of all our problems is globalism. It isn't that a CEO is making too much, it's that it's too easy to take a manufacturing job or a customer service job and move it to another country.

Give you an example. I had to call T-Mobile for something. Now if this were the 1970's, I'd call a help line and get an operator who would have helped me. Today I have to go threw ten minutes of voice mail before I got to a gal in the Philippines who talked me through my problem by reading out of a book.

YOu could take everything those CEO's make and not fund the government for more than a few weeks. Government's hunger for money is just too great, where 6 trillion out of a 14 trillion economy is government spending.

 

[Cammmpbell]

It's why I'm no longer a Republican.

"no longer" .....

Lifetime Voting Record:

1956 Eisenhower
1960 Nixon
1964 Goldwater
1968 Nixon
1972 Nixon
1976 Did Not Vote
1980 Anderson(I)
1984 Reagan(wish I had this one back)
1988 Did Not Vote
1992 Did Not Vote
1996 Did Not Vote
2000 Did Not Vote
2004 Kerry *******
2008 Obama *******

******* Voted Against Spend And Borrow Republicans

The Republican party used to stand for balanced budgets, small government and individual rights. They've shown no sign of those convictions since 1981 When Reagan cut taxes and began to borrow from foreign banks to cover the shortfall. After he and Bush 41 finished we owed over $4 trillion dollars.

 

[Steelplate]

We're where we are because in the 1940's a corporate executive made about 12-15 times what a carpenter or plumber made. By the 70's that figure had grown to 50 times as much. Last year the average CEO made 550 times what an ordinary member of what used to be the middle class earned. This shit has to stop somewhere.

]

I think that's a corporate culture problem, I don't think that's the cause of our economic problems. I think the cause of all our problems is globalism. It isn't that a CEO is making too much, it's that it's too easy to take a manufacturing job or a customer service job and move it to another country.

Give you an example. I had to call T-Mobile for something. Now if this were the 1970's, I'd call a help line and get an operator who would have helped me. Today I have to go threw ten minutes of voice mail before I got to a gal in the Philippines who talked me through my problem by reading out of a book.

YOu could take everything those CEO's make and not fund the government for more than a few weeks. Government's hunger for money is just too great, where 6 trillion out of a 14 trillion economy is government spending.

The problem is... we aren't talking about funding the government. We are talking about MORE and BETTER PAYING jobs for the average worker. Those jobs went bye bye to slave labor countries...the RESULT of that is the CEO making 550x the wages of an average worker and massive profits at the expense of our own economy.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

I think you're the one getting paid...

I worked 41 years at the plant which produced the highly enriched uranium which was used in "Little Boy" You remember reading about that I'm sure. The bomb killed about 70% of the population of Hiroshima, Japan. For the first ten years I was there I was a process operator. I walked in that shit in my street shoes and tracked it home to the carpeting on which my infant children were crawling. Luckily I managed to transfer to the data processing facility in 1961 and get away from the actual process.

You were walking through enriched uranium?
Doesn't sound very smart.

 

[KissMy]

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........

Dude you are so old I bet you fart dust.

Isn't it about time you off yourself & quit burdening the system?

Respect towards our seniors, that is what everyone loves so much about you.

That's the kind of respect Obamacare shows old people. Forget whether you are a productive or disruptive citizen. Forget whether you paid into the system or sucked it dry all of your life. Those deeds will not be factored into whether you live or die on the Obamacare plan. The decision on whether you live or die will be made on a race & age quota.

 

[Cammmpbell]

I think you're the one getting paid...

I worked 41 years at the plant which produced the highly enriched uranium which was used in "Little Boy" You remember reading about that I'm sure. The bomb killed about 70% of the population of Hiroshima, Japan. For the first ten years I was there I was a process operator. I walked in that shit in my street shoes and tracked it home to the carpeting on which my infant children were crawling. Luckily I managed to transfer to the data processing facility in 1961 and get away from the actual process.

You were walking through enriched uranium?
Doesn't sound very smart.

See...this was back before OSHA or EPA...there were no state or government regulations for anything...especially on a top secret project. All the areas did not contain the high assay stuff but one whole mile long plant called the "U" because of it's shape did. The plant was evacuated and shut down in the mid 1960's but when they measured toxic and radioactive levels they began to monitor anyone who had to go into the plant for anything. Workers who were finally dismantling the equipment wore double impearmeable suits with an external air supply and when they got down to the concrete and steel foundation they discovered that the decades of operation had actually contaminated it. Now they are still in the process of breaking up the concrete into smaller pieces and scrubbing and burying it.

The "Safety Department" back in the early days consisted of ten or twelve employees whose salary was paid by the company and as far as I could tell never worried about anything except how many manhours since the last lost time injury and passing out safety awards once a year.

See....people take a lot for granted. As we speak the DOL has paid out more than six billion dollars to past employees and or their families in Oak Ridge who died of cancer or lung disease. This was back in the days when one of the most popular construction materials all over the United States was asbestos. In the 70's the areas which contained large amounts of it were modified or torn down and rebuilt.

Like I posted earlier...I was lucky to be caught in a reduction in force because of my seniority and relocated to the computing center where I worked the last 31 of my 41 years. My health is still good but I have helped four old timers collect their $150,000 by writing summaries of events we were involved in together, spill cleanups, operations emergencies, etc.. They had Melanoma, kidney and lung cancer plus a case of parkinsons.

 

[FA_Q2]

Sorry but you're not going to take my SS away from me by telling me I shouldn't expect it. I've paid for it, its an insurance policy, and it has nothing to do with "government taking care of me", it has to do with government paying the benefits of an insurance policy that I'm buying from them and is thus rightfully MINE. It will constitute one part of a multi-pronged retirement approach that also involves paying off mortgage, saving in long term bonds and in stocks, and seeking employment that I'll be able to continue to do in old age.

Laughable. When we remind you that the system is completely unsustainable then what? Are you going to be another one of those asshats that say all you have to do is raise the retirement age and cut benefits. I guess it is okay to gut MY social security as long as we don't touch yours huh. That is the complete hypocrisy in SS today. No one want THEIR bennies touched but everyone knows that there needs to be some changes. That's why I have always been behind a kind of soft privatization of the system. That way my benefits would not be an empty promise on a worthless piece of mail that I will never achieve. Instead, they would be concrete and real. Benefits that I would be assured I can draw.

See..the deal is this. A whole lot more of folks who earn in the upper half are Republicans because they don't want to pay their fair share, i.e. Ronald Reagan.

Care to substantiate that or are you talking out of your ass. Try to even define 'fair share.' I am sure you can. Never mind that everyone that has tried up to and including the president has failed miserable at a definition for 'fair share' but I am sure you can provide better....

The problem is... we aren't talking about funding the government. We are talking about MORE and BETTER PAYING jobs for the average worker. Those jobs went bye bye to slave labor countries...the RESULT of that is the CEO making 550x the wages of an average worker and massive profits at the expense of our own economy.

And? None of the points in this thread even come close to hitting that problem and its root cause. Let me give you a hint, taxes are not the problem here....

 

[Unkotare]

You were walking through enriched uranium?
Doesn't sound very smart.

Don't worry, it's not true.

 

[sealybobo]

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.

My Social security benefits are why I’ll never vote republican. They want to cut and end the program so I suspect they will bankrupt us to end or cut it severely

 

[Auld Phart]

no action for 6 years?

Thread closed