It seems that capitalists are quite willing to get their hands a little pink when it comes to getting some government bucks. LOL
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Yep. A lot of BIG capitalists sitting on Wall Street - a lot of users every which we we turn - sammieswife.
Tea Partiers Say They Would Absolutely Abolish Social Security
by sammielee24 108 Replies latest jw friends
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JWoods
We had a system completely without "socialistic" safety nets or interference a hundred and twenty years ago without any of the above. I guess you have to ask yourself if that's where you want to be again.
Well, at least that system was not bankrupt.
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mindmelda
No it wasn't. Things were going swimmingly until about 1929.
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JWoods
No it wasn't. Things were going swimmingly until about 1929.
Still going great after 1929 for people who did not overinvest in stocks on unreasonable margins. But a depression has nothing to do with the notion of government funded Social Security or Medical Care.
The current Social Security system is bankrupt - the only way to continue it with negative cash flow is for the government to borrow money against the deficit. The surplus funds from previous decades have been spent in the general fund and the government does not have cash value to repay the notes they made against it.
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mindmelda
I do understand that. But, um, you be the one who tells everyone that there won't be anymore Social Security after they contributed to it their whole working lives.
I'll be hiding somewhere in my basement until the riots are over.
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JWoods
I do understand that. But, um, you be the one who tells everyone that there won't be anymore Social Security after they contributed to it their whole working lives.
Not exactly. What I think will happen is that the government will go further into deficit spending to keep up Social Security for political reasons, and that this will eventually result in heavy inflation which will reduce the value of the SS payments to something pretty meaningless.
That may not result in actual riots, but people will not be happy campers.
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llbh
And who caused the deficit - George W Bush and the Banks, nothing to do with socialism or social secuity. Bush raised spending and lowered taxes and the banks spent other people's money, then asked for government to bail them out, as did General Motors
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JWoods
And who caused the deficit - George W Bush and the Banks, nothing to do with socialism or social secuity.
No. Social Security in the U.S. is a separate and independent system. It was supposed to be funded by FICA taxes to the future recipients and any surplus was supposed to be specifically saved for future payments. This worked as long as there were more people paying in more money than the group taking benefits out.
Except, of course, that the government borrowed the surplus for general funding.
And except, now, that there are more payments having to be made than money coming in because of an ageing population.
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mindmelda
It's true that when Social Security was founded back in the 30s, no one ever dreamed the average American life span would be about 76-78 years.
Damned modern medicine!
But, yeah, a definite lack of foresight in running this and several other government programs. And no one president or party is to blame, really. I don't look at it as a finger pointing party, but I can't see how disenfranchising the people who paid into it is exactly fair.
Oh, right...who said life is fair? We'll just tell everyone that. Sorry we spent your money, life isn't fair. Yeah, that'll work.