It seems like all Congress does now is chip away at the conservative wish list, and they are doing pretty well, we still have austerity. They keep moving the goalposts to the right, and the dems keep following them.

... his immovable spot and will not negotiate with an entity holding a gun to Uncle Sam's head.

Will he, in a relieved rush of good will, and with a desire to show the world that he is always willing to negotiate, let these programs be further eroded?

I am betting that he will, but I REALLY hope I am wrong.

... as far as you can throw him.

Somehow I think you don't REALLY hope you're wrong at all -- you just want confirmation of the opinion you already hold.

When Obama himself has come out in favor of putting several items in those programs up for negotiation. And that's negotiation WITH THE SAME ECONOMIC TERRORISTS WHO ARE NOW HOLDING THE GOVERNMENT HOSTAGE. In "negotiations" with these people (and yes, this is AFTER they put the "gun" away) why do you think they are going to be more reasonable than they are now?

We'll see what happens, but that Shock Doctrine scenario is still a possibility.

Where did that term come from? I mean it. I don't know. Thanks.

your statistics show. If one has that kind of debt problem maybe they should consider delaying retirement a little longer. Maybe?

Retirees just need to make hard choices; Social Security was never meant to allow one to continue a high standard of living, just make sure you have some dignity in your old age and not be eating cat food, curled up under a bridge somewhere.

That sounds like debt for someone starting out life, just out of college, with a new job and a future ahead of them to pay it down. Please explain?
"as near-retirees owe an average of $102,000 on home loans and $18,000 on credit cards, according to Social Security Administration statistics."
Okay they got their debt, now they can retire......... No..... first you pay off your debt and debtors then you retire. That's what I did. If you don't like reality go live in your alternate universe. You think Social Security checks are going to pay off that kind of debt? Nice dream land you live in.

boomers were preparing to start saving toward retirement and paying off their mortgages after they helped their kids through college only to be called upon to care for aging parents followed by helping to educate their grandchildren. Meanwhile half of the people across these four generations did not have health insurance so medical treatment went on the credit card.

Are you retired military?

Social Security recipients will never be able to pay off that kind of debt. The minimum payments on those credit card bills. $18000 at 18% making minimum payments which start at $450/month it would take you 33 years to pay of the debt. How much do you think Social Security pays on average? The average monthly Social Security benefit for a retired worker was about $1,230 at the beginning of 2012. Now add in the extra $100K+ for mortgage and you have a disaster in the making. Keep working for a few more years.

You did not answer my question.

My husband retired. With his pension, Social Security and our savings, we manage fairly well even with a mortgage payment. It's all in how a retirement is planned.

handily found with a non-blue link http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3840337

I think the numbers are hype. That some people have debt, but that they also have assets worth much more than their debt.

Why keep the debt then?

Well, if your mortgage debt is costing you 4%, but your assets are earning 6% then it would be foolish to pay off your debt.

and I am very worried. Life has been such that my husbands Teamster pension is very small and while grateful it wasn't what we had hoped for. He became disabled so this is what we've got along with our SS. No great savings and every year it gets a little harder to hang on.

I declared a Chapter 13 bankruptcy many years ago as I was over my head in credit card bills. All my debt was paid off, when a year later I was laid off my job. I was already 71, so I decided to retire. I would still be working today if I could, but no one is going to hire a person in his/her 70s, and I am not about to be a Walmart greeter.

My sole income is Social Security, but daily living expenses are overwhelming -- rent, electric, cable, TV, Internet, food, etc. Luckily, I don't have to drive to work and back anymore, so I use very little gas.

The alternet piece links to an LA Times piece, claiming that backs up the idea of the Administration's "openness to revive 'grand bargain' talks with GOP radicals over future funding for entitlements like Social Security and Medicare"

Only problem? Well, I looked at the LA Times article it linked to, and I can't find that anywhere. Can you?

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-republican-senators-shutdown-solutions-obama-20131011,0,7305655.story

Then yesterday we had a thread full of awful-sounding hyperbole about how "Obama's putting Chained CPI on the table"... Really? Did someone actually SAY that? Who?

Uh, well, uh, um..

no, I mean, what was the actual administration quote or source?

Uh, well, uh, um...

turns out it was some chowderhead at the National Review. Sure, it sounds like a good idea to him. But he's not the Administration.

Whenever the GOP decide to stop throwing tantrums, they are going to get SOMETHING. They are probably also not going to give anything. Nearly all of the "negotiations" during Obama's term (and for the past few decades) have just been filled with goodie bags for conservatives and very little for anyone else.

As the president has flirted with these type of things before, it makes sense to wonder if he'd do it again.

I'd rather have a false positive in this case as well. These programs are too important to play with.

That's it in a nutshell. My questions would be what's to be negotiated with these terrorists even when they put the gun down? I feel sure it's not going to be single payer health care, lowering the age of Medicare, and increasing social security benefits so more can retire early and open up jobs for younger workers. THOSE items WON'T be on the table. The items negotiated will be the size of the CUTS to those programs.

There should be NO cuts to those programs. They should be expanded.

I don't think pre-emptively getting mad at the administration about an idea they haven't actually proposed, though, is really the way to go.

He coined the "Grand Bargain" term. It's wise never to say never on this one.

If you have kids today you know just how hard it can be for them to get any job at all and try to get a good job most of them were sent to china in order to line the pocket of the rich. Maybe you lost your job at 60 or had a lot of health problems or you own a business with worker and you are trying to not put the shaft to them! So yes I can see how many seniors could have a lot of debt

get jobs...the money to try to keep them going until they could.

Personally know so many who did this and they got the loans during the good days of strong housing prices from the 90's through to the 2006 disaster. That almost 15 years of this and in many cases the original house lost value after 2006 and the loans are still there.

Yes, there were many who bought vacation homes with the home equity loans during that time and they are in the same fix trying to pay back those loans because the markets are still not great in many areas for home sales.

Others had medical bills they used Home Equity Loans to pay for and with the poor job market it's hard to save.

and the Chained CPI is in President Obama's 2014 budget.

It is a constant with him.

This is one that Obama has pushed. But he calls it the Superlative CPI, which it is not.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023833863

We fund the government, pay our debts, and stop holding the American people hostage. End of negotiations.

Ain't it grand?

Actually my Grand Bargain would consist of raising Social Security payouts, paid for by removing the income cap, allowing more people to retire early and opening up jobs for younger folks. Of course then you'd have to institute Medicare for All, so all those new retirees healthcare would be taken care of.

Also we need to junk the corporate takeover embodied in the TPP treaty.

... go into ANY negotiations with ANY demands, even when they are holding ALL of the strong cards.

Only far rightie, tiny minority, wacko, nutjob, bullies get to define the terms and scope of ALL legislation.

we clearly have plenty of domestic work that needs to be done. I pity the party that tries to cut social security - those baby boomers paid in for years and I don't think they are going to be amused by such shenanigans. And they vote.

And we remember. Haven't missed a vote since 1972, myself, nor will I as long as I am converting oxygen to carbon dioxide. I will only vote for candidates that have the spine to stand up for us, having a particular letter behind their name has become meaningless. Want my vote and support? Work FOR us. If not, go pound sand.Period.

when we talked a little about politics last night the first thing my mom said was "they'd better not cut social security". She feels just as you do - she paid in ever since she started working (and she still works very part-time at 69 years of age because she likes to get out of the house a little). Social Security was never a give-away program - everyone paid in with the expectation that it would be available if they were lucky enough to reach retirement.

The politicians that "borrowed" that money for other business should be fired as far as I'm concerned. That should have been a lock-box account.

then the Chained CPI will seem like a reasonable compromise.

Welcome Back My Friends to the Show that Never Ends.....

Let the freak out commence!!!!

If it doesn't happen, GREAT! But somehow I don't think they're going to be negotiating on a "left" version of a Grand Bargain. Do you?

many many times in the last 4+ years.

Folks are sure Obama is about to cut SS. It's his evil plan ... He's going to cave bla blah blah.

It's an oldie but a goodie.

Ends the same way every time.

if the president had not appointed two anti-social security zealots to head up his deficit commission. And the President was the one that proposed Chained CPI to begin with. What are we supposed to think? Just take your word for it while we watch social security cut?

originally.

A change which has gone absolutely no where. A change which isn't going anywhere.

Prediction after prediction about how bad Obama wants that change to happen "this time". Predictions that have been wrong over and over.

There's no need to take my word for that. Its simply a fact.

And you know it. You are defending the indefensible.

We, the baby boomers, paid extra into social security so the fund would be there for our retirement. The Neo-Con, Chickenhawk, the criminal Wall street bandits, the filthy Fascists, big tax cutters and war profiteers think just because they stole the money the case is closed. It isn't closed. For all the billions of dollars worth of propaganda millions of us can still see through your bullshit smokescreen. We are on to your shit.

I'm mocking the Combustible Hair Club, who freaks out about cuts that aren't happening and have done for for nearly 5 years.

Oh ... I'm 50, and have been paying into SS all along as well.

we should ignore what the President proposes and what says and rely on his secret, unspoken plan to frame the Republicans? IOW, just shut the fuck up and let Obama handle it without speaking out.

My only answer to that is that I will NOT STFU for ANY President, whether D or R. I WILL speak out when he proposes something that I disagree with, nth dimensional chess match or not.

To demonstrate the totally unnecessary level of freak out found in your response to me.

What exactly WERE you recommending to folks that are concerned about a potential Grand Bargain? Because it sure seems like you're saying "Don't worry. Obama's got this!"

on fire is not necessary.

And there are a wide array of options between that, and doing nothing.

But I AM going to let everybody I can know about even the POSSIBILITY of cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

There's one simple fucking answer to all this talk about "cuts". RAISE TAXES ON THE ONES THAT HAVE THE MOST MONEY AND WEALTH. And if you don't have the votes for that, frame the issue in such a way that everybody KNOWS the one who DON'T want to raise taxes on the wealthy. It's not like these programs are going to be in trouble tomorrow, except for trouble from our "representatives".

Most of the deficit is from their spending during the Bush years. SS can be easily fixed by raising the cap. Medicare is a good deal for us and if they are cutting SS and we have to pay more where does the rest come from? Do we need to beg for food? Raise taxes on the wealthiest. They have pay their share and stop complaining.

NSA, Homeland Security, ongoing wars, etc. Offer to shut those down. It's not like the NSA has been improving the administrations public image anyway.

they already have the 2nd Republicans-but-with-weed party waiting in the wings

'Obama rejected latest House GOP offer'

and 'Obama and Boehner talks at a standstill'

Whatever gets web traffic I guess.

This is a fluid situation that doesn't require frequent articles with outdated information.

decoder ring. Then it all becomes clear.

The danger is very real; let's just say I work in a position to know. Again, take no chances.

I'd rather be accused of having my "hair on fire" than to wake up in a couple of months with cuts to entitlement programs (and yes by Lesus, they're entitlement programs because I paid into them and I'm fucking ENTITLED to them) or, what's more likely, some sort of Sequester II cutting and gutting programs for the working class and poor.

grand bargain talk

and don't match their primary sources. http://www.ssa.gov/retirementpolicy/research/debt-trend.html

Average household debt is about $100,000 and 80% of near-retirement households have debt?

Most people in this country simply can NOT afford $100,000 in debt.

Then think of a person buying a house - when they are in their 30s. So they pay on that house for twenty years and they are now in their 50s, nearing retirement and yet they STILL owe $100,000 on that house? Does not compute.

So I check their primary sources. Don't really find a category for "near retirement" although there is a lot of data there and I may have missed it. Looking at the 55-64 age group I find that only 53.6% of households have mortgage debt, and 41.3% have credit card debt and 40.7% have installment loans (mostly for cars).

But then checking table 6, I find that the median net worth for those age 55-64 is $179,400 and the average net worth is $880,500. That is NET worth, meaning assets minus debt. That number dwarfs the average debt. There are lots of very rich people pulling the average up, but even the median is pretty astounding. 50% of households ages 55-64 have net worth over $179,400!!

So yeah, 77.7% of them have debt, but for 50% of them, they also have assets worth much more than their debt.

It ludicrous to even think about. Just paying the credit card debt off at the minimum payment schedule it would take 33 years. Starting payments of 450 bucks a month.