Perhaps in another piece you can call out the lying politicians pervading both parties that promulgate this #%^* in exchange for bags of silver.

What these billionaires are doing is committing treason by trying to orchestrate a coup against the government. Ultimately they were behind the shut down and near default. They are funding the baggers and the plan to continue.

They deal in everything from petroleum to paper. We ARE still at war, btw. Why can't we do that? Hey, if nothing else, it's one way to pretzel-twist the republi-CONS into being against going to war (or staying at war), 'eh?

They fund the GOP almost entirely. And they own a lot of the media. So what do you do when they are using that money to extort, influence, lie, cheat and steal. Look at what they are doing in pushing the shut down.

the land. I believe these resources belong to the people for their welfare. Since the Kochs deal in oil and lumber, among their many enterprises, they are becoming wealthy on resources that belong to us.

Since it's obvious they are part of an attempted coup to overthrow our government, they should be investigated, put on trial for sedition and part of their sentence should be to turn over those industrial assets that should by rights belong to "we the people".

We have every reason to nationalize a lot of their power base. They ARE becoming wealthy exploiting natural resources that belong to ALL OF US. And they WERE/ARE part of an attempted coup to overthrow our government. Seriously, do we need any more evidence than the mountains of evidence, and the forests of evidence, and the earth and below-ground of evidence - a whole planet-full of that one! Hell, a whole planet-full of all those things!!!! They were part of, and underwriters of, an attempted coup d'etat.

WHY CAN'T WE GO AFTER THEM, AS SUCH????????? On MULTIPLE charges of sedition, attempted sedition, and conspiracy to commit sedition.

I think I feel like calling my Congressman... (Waxman, thank goodness!)

does he need Congress to ask him? If so I'll contact my Congresswoman too.

The labor of the people is making rich people richer.

on what they are paid.

The rich confiscate all the wealth and resources of the country and stash it in Swiss banks letting their republic's people and infrastructure rot.

is becoming one.

Dirty bastards are stealing from those who paid into these systems all their lives and who NEED them - all because of their own psychopathic greed.

I sent this on to my 15yo son who has been asking how he can best respond to his friends in high school who are already telling him that "Obamacare sucks for us." Amazing how fast the bullshit flies, isn't it?

Should be the end of that conversation.

He's a big picture kid and your article perfectly touched on what we had just been talking about-- Druckenmiller's campaign on college campuses.

Most of them, if not covered by an employer, would simply forego heath insurance. The benefit, then, is not $48k, but that they have health coverage. The problem is that kids in their 20s don't think they need health coverage.

Car accident? Surfing accident? That girl who lost an arm in a shark attack while surfing a few years ago - she wasn't exactly elderly, you know.

Did any of 'em get mono? Did any of 'em have an asthma attack? Any of their friends? They're young, alright, but they AREN'T immune. Our son had to go to the ER, last year at age 20, because he got hit in the eye by his guitar player's guitar head stock. Ripped open his right eyebrow and he needed six stitches. He's not exactly a geriatric.

Shit happens. Shit can and DOES happen. And it can and does happen to someone their age. Or, heaven forbid, THEM.

Is it mandatory that the parents keep their children on their insurance until they are 26 or is that voluntary?

cutting of fire fighting funds just prior to the monster fires of two years ago.

and we should discuss whether wealthy Americans should receive the benefits at all ... maybe it should be at a lesser amount when they reach a certain income level.

If the billionaires are using this as a talking point, let's take them at their word. It's a bad idea to pay SS benefits to those that don't need them. So... I wonder if cutting wealthy elders from the SS rolls would amount to anything significant?? Is there a way to find out?

As long as everyone shares in the benefits, the program is stronger. The first step to eliminating a social program is to means-test it. There is a cap on how much SS you can get, and the amount is not huge. Let the rich have that as compensation for paying in, just as we do.

...cutting all seniors' benefits. I do agree with what you're saying. I perhaps didn't make it clear here that I meant it more as a retort to the quote in the article.

Not to mention they will turn into a complete poverty program in the long run. e.g. If you have $20,000 in assets you are not qualified to receive it.

Means tests apply to programs that benefit the poor and the middle class.

Why should they not apply to the programs that provide superfluous benefit to the wealthy?

Student loans are means tested.

Food assistance is means tested.

Housing assistance is means tested.

Energy assistance is means tested.

And yet programs (Social Security and Medicare) that pay out to those who don't need it are not means tested.

You don't have to eliminate benefits for the rich. Instead of a cap, just have a very slowly increasing upward slope. Eliminating millionaires from benefits would have no detectable effect on total payouts because there are so few of them. If you are rich enough, why would you even bother to apply? Can you imagine Mitt Romney sitting around for a few hours in an institutional beige room after picking a number? You do have to apply in person--no underlings allowed. Their benefits wouldn't be worth the bother.

fund similar to any other insurance program that people pay into, you can't deny ANYONE who pays into it, the return they were promised. That would turn it into something other than what it is.

IF the cap is eliminated then everyone everyone pays in and everyone gets their promised return.

Initially though the theorists who wrote about it did conceive of a program which would help folks who "need" it. How do we define "need"? Do we "need" it because we have a million dollar home we want to pass down to our children (and we don't wish to prematurely sell it), or do we "need" it in that we have no resources and this is a safety net.

Here is what one theorist said --

One of the first American books on social insurance was by a Columbia University economics professor named Henry Seager. Seager explained the principle of old-age security based on social insurance in his 1910 book, "Social Insurance, A Program of Social Reform":

"As changing economic conditions are rendering the dependence of old people on their descendants for support increasingly precarious, so, on the other hand, new obstacles are arising to providing for old age through voluntary saving. . . The proper method of safeguarding old age is clearly through some plan of insurance. . . for every wage earner to attempt to save enough by himself to provide for his old age is needlessly costly. The intelligent course is for him to combine with other wage earners to accumulate a common fund out of which old-age annuities may be paid to those who live long enough to need it."

I liked this bit:

Gut oversight and you get credit default swaps with nothing in them. We all saw the results.

I won't forget what they, the GOP, did.

They certainly pulled out all the stops to deregulate the financial scene. You would do well to also remember how much assistance they got in that task from the leaders of our own party. Never forget.

One reason besides cost that I didn't retire in California, which I love overall, was not the earthquakes. You get used to those and learn to sleep straight through anything below 4 on the Richter scale. But those constant fires were too much to bear. When I was privileged to live out in the boonies, we had some big fire or other it seemed almost every other year. More than once I had to prepare to evacuate and that's not easy with horses to consider.

Anyway, we received some state help but all too often were left to fend strictly for ourselves. The last straw for me came when the few locals were busily following after the big planes to stamp out any hot spots. Just about everyone over the age of 10 turned out, we were so few. Then all of a sudden the volunteer fire captain got a radio call that the planes would not be returning again regardless of how bad the fire might get. They were needed for preventive measures to protect a wealthy enclave about 20 miles away.

We were on the verge of being wiped out, but those McMansions - many of them vacation homes for the wealthiest - had to be saved at all costs! I think we would've turned into real vigilantes right then if we'd had a guilty party within reach. Even my ex couldn't make me feel that abandoned and devalued.

Yes, there are more than enough problems where I retired, but burning to death is really low on my list of concerns here.

frackin'a bro, that totally kicks ass. Thanks!




You just cost me a few bucks to TO.

I have forwarded to a virtual coworker who is a volunteer firefighter in Australia (we send each other articles to keep up with the news for both of us); I have already warned him it is just a matter of time before Aussie conservatives have their own brand of "teabaggers"

Thanks for the thread, WilliamPitt.

Thank you for the insights. Well done.

Would love to see your take on how the GOP philosophy seems based on the thought processes of early adolescence. Grover Norquist came up with his anti-tax pledge when he was 12 years old. Ayn Rand, who was twelve at the start of the Russian Revolution, was emotionally and intellectually stunted by the impacts of the revolution on her and her family.

... although I started spitting and cursing when I opened up your OP and seen Pete Peterson sitting there.

Excellent article.

America! Fuck Yeah?

K&R

Up.

eom