Or maybe he can get a real job for about fourty years and then talk about cutting Social Security.

jeb bush has lived in coddled elitist luxury for his entire life. There is no way on earth he could EVER understand what it's like to live from paycheck to paycheck, AND/OR what it's like to live in fear because either you don't even have that paycheck-to-paycheck reality, or you've just lost that paycheck and you still have a family to feed. He has NO CLUE. So he won't ever understand.

The republi-CONS say the answer is "get a job!" OR - "start a BIZZZNISS!" As if that "sacrosanct" "sanctity of the free market" crap is some magic wand that just fixes everything... Has it never occurred to them that maybe not everybody is cut out to start a business? Has it ever occurred to them that maybe a lot of these folks already have a job but it pays shit, so some of 'em have to go get a second job, and that one probably pays shit, too.

I think it would be lovely to figure out some way that a very rich individual would be compelled to learn a little bit about what life is like to live without all those privileges. Maybe write it into the tax code?

Then how 'bout this?

ANYBODY in the so-called investor class who wants to keep those luxuriously low tax rates they now enjoy - has to spend a full week, every year, living on food stamps and a welfare check. No chauffeured limo hanging out around the corner so they can run and climb in and hide out from their responsibility. No cell phone to call "the help" to bring some extra little doggie bags with the caviar and imported crackers. No NOTHING. And they wouldn't be hand-carried back to their estates at night, either. They'd be in some flop house or maybe on a bus bench under some newspaper. They'd be compelled by law to "earn" those lavish tax-cutting/minimizing/sheltering gifts from the American taxpayer by walking in the shoes of the least among them for a few days every year.

It'd be good for the soul.

I almost hope JEB! does get the nomination because I would like the opportunity to help fucking CRUSH that family.

How much will a broke 70 year old work for?

That's what the TPP will help us find out. When it's in place, then the Big Money gang will use it to squeeze out every penny they can. The gold medal of any overtime overhaul will be just some trinket that most working stiffs can marvel at while they wish it had real consequences for them.

See - you can't promote shit like this AND convince us at the same time that the looming trade agreements will help OUR (our as in the working stiffs) lot. This is like saying: "Look! I found some comfortable shoes!" When the truth is, you've bought steel-toed boots to kick labor with.

Explains the increase in cremation services.

Cremation and Burial Projections:

2014 2015 2020 2030
Cremation 46.7% 48.2% 55.8% 70.6%
Burial 47.3% 45.8% 38.1% 23.2%

Year Cremation Rate (%)
2013 45.1
2012 43.2
2011 42.0
2010 40.6
2005 32.13
2000 26.17
1995 21.11
1990 17.13
1985 13.86
1980 9.72
1975 6.55
1970 4.59
1965 3.87
1960 3.56

http://nfda.org/about-funeral-service-/trends-and-statistics.html

You know, those "no frills" cheap cremations. 50 years ago I would have cringed at the thought of cremation. Now, at 62, I'm looking for the cheapest price possible: no plot, no coffin, no headstone, no vault, no hearse, no eulogy, no flowers, no music, no food, no "friends" coming around to "view me" and say what a "great guy" I was.

Okay, okay, I might consider a bottle of Lagavulin--

--and Cuban modero cigars--


--for a few of my best, life-long friends to enjoy while telling anecdotes about me while listening to Chet Baker--


But no more!!!

How can the Bushes, a family of old New England wealth, have no sympathy/compassion/understanding whatsoever for millions of people who are looking at a retirement on subsistence income or less? The Kennedys, also a family of old New England wealth, have a point of view diametrically opposed, so it can't be just the money or the privilege.

It's amazing to me that two families in similar situations can look at an issue whose numbers tell the same story to both of them, and yet see such different results. Bernie has never been rich, so he knows instinctively. Bush has never been poor, but he has been governor of a southern state with plenty of poor people, so he can't NOT know.

Even that bastard Joseph loses out in the scumbag stakes to Prescott.

Too bad the Bushes appear to have won that war.

-- Mal

I just find amazing that two families in such similar situations could come up with opposite points of view on such a fundamental issue. Maybe if it had been a Bush that got shot down in 1944 and Joe Kennedy who had come through unscathed as a pilot hero?

Lot of what ifs and other questions.......

... the senior George Bush was shot down and became a pilot hero (as these things go), and Joe's son of course was awarded the Navy Cross.

Joe Kennedy was ambassador to the court of St. James. Well, until 1940, after which he became a wire-puller.

-- Mal

Shot down over the English Channel in 1944. The one whom the old man was grooming to be president (supposedly)

My apologies.

-- Mal

With all the Srs. and Jrs. and IIIrds you can't tell the bluebloods without a scorecard.

The loss of a child tends to make the parents more compassionate in many cases.

The loss of a child is perhaps the most cruel loss a person can suffer.

Lt. Joseph Patrick "Joe" Kennedy, Jr. (July 25, 1915 – August 12, 1944) was a junior officer in the United States Navy, a Naval Aviator, and a land-based bomber pilot during World War II. He was the eldest of nine children born to Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. (1888—1969) and Rose Fitzgerald (1890—1995).

He was the elder brother of future U.S. President, John F. Kennedy ("Jack&quot . As boys, their father wanted the best for Joe, making Jack envious. Joe had been expected to become president,[1] especially after his father's political exile for supporting the appeasement policy of Neville Chamberlain in the advent of World War II.[2] However, Joe was killed in action, and the high expectations then fell upon Jack.

http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Joseph_P._Kennedy,_Jr.

What do you mean by "became a wire-puller"? Please explain.

The Bushes, the whole lot of them are rather crass and insensitive to the needs and feelings of others. Thus, George II loved to pat men's bald heads. How rude, how crude, how insensitive. How crass. The entire family has a lot of money but is pretty limited on a human level I would say. Rude, crude and crass. Sums them up top to bottom.

... after that, he wheeled and dealed for his children. Nothing sinister.

Interesting thought about the influence of losing a child. While it may not have influenced Joe, it could well have influenced his brothers.

-- Mal

I'm not sure I can explain it without being ridiculed, since so many people have demonized/minimized bike riders. It takes a lot of energy to move yourself around. Meanwhile one is surrounded by a sea of people in cars who simply push on a gas pedal to blast themselves around. The sentiment is the same: there is very little care for that person who is working hard. Bikes are a nuisance. Drive by them as close as you can. We even have to breathe in the fumes. After many years of commuting by bike I see so many parallels between those who drive, and the conservative mentality, lack of empathy. Sometimes is almost feels as though they have a guilty conscience, and they want to take it out on us.

It's so easy to be divorced from the problem if you never have experienced the problem.

I'm was really tempted to delete this post. I seriously doubt anyone will get it except those who ride. But when you lose a friend to someone driving, it drives home just how serious it is. It's the same as the indifference we see with Jeb.

You don't have to convince me.

My wife's 88 year old mom has leg problems, can't drive at all, but she rides 6 km to her dentist and back on her bicycle. My wife is 5'10" by English measurements and weighs maybe 130, still has a model's figure at 63. She grew up in the rural flat farmland of northwestern Germany with her only means of transportation being a bicycle, still uses one to get around half the time. I am frequently over in the Netherlands (as in this morning!), and bicycles rule there.

In Los Angeles, bike riders just ignore the traffic rules. That is what elicits the resentment in drivers.

If you are going to use the streets for your skate boarding or biking, you have to ride predictably so that car drivers can stop their cars and make the streets safe for everyone. Following traffic rules is the first step in driving and biking safely. It is bad enough that bikes don't have rear view mirrors and tend to ride very slowly in front of cars, frustrating the driver of the car who is braking as he drives down the street.

A little courtesy on the part of bike riders would make the streets safer for everyone.

I see a parallel between what you said, and what I wrote above. I would bet anything that it goes right over most people's heads.

The system needs changing so that people who are using their energy can save it by not raising the retirement age. Or, changing our communities so that those who aren't using fossil fuel, or driving thousand pound vehicles, can avoid the cost of changing their momentum.

Angeles be made into bikes only with few stop signs and also allow cars only by permitted drivers. That would be great for bikes, but the bikers prefer to have the number of lanes on main thoroughfares reduced to two and then run stop signs and lights as they wish. The police don't enforce the traffic laws on bikes or skate boards it seems. I wish they would. But I like the idea of dedicating side streets where possible to mostly stop-sign, priority to bikes traffic and leaving the major streets with more lanes. I think that would be safer.

It's becoming clear that if you're not now from inherited wealth or already in the very well off top 10% Investor Class, there are fewer and fewer avenues to rise up or live a decent life anymore, unlike 20-30 years ago, unless things change dramatically to halt neoliberal economics, the global system bearing down with accelerated force worldwide now.

There are Americans that have to try and live on that amount, per month.

That's obscene while the 1% have made millions and billions on the backs of workers, live fat and happy in their retirement.

Oh ya...and then they're hoping that you'll die before you can get your benefits (that you paid into) at age 70 (because there will be thousands that can't work anymore and WILL die before 70).

Fuck this!

Fuck Bush and the 1%!

Fuck the Pukes and Baggers!

Around here is is a whopping $950.00/month.

I currently subsist on $839/mo. Have received a notice from the county that my home will go into foreclosure unless I catch up my back taxes. Taxes amount to about $200/mo. If I got $1328/mo, I would be in hog heaven. A home that I and my partner built new, but he died of pancreatic cancer before we could get moved in. We were doing just fine up until his death. Now, I am trying to live on just 1/4 the income as before. No more Clintons, no more Boooshes. I'm behind Bernie.

thousands of struggling repubs, knowing this bag of bush will be detrimental to them, will still vote for this clown. Amazing..

So the gubbermint can't go around raising taxes on the wealthy or anything like that! Gotta cut benefits so those lazy bums can go out and find a job and not rely on gubbermint!

With the unemployment rate for young Americans at roughly double that of the general population as is, what will happen when/if old farts like me have to work an extra five years? When the labor force includes people aged 65-70, that will mean there will be even FEWER JOBS for people in their twenties.

I can hear the Rethugs now, saying "WAITAMINNIT, you can't replace a guy with 40 years of working experience with a 22-year-old newbie!" Well, that's part way right - but you CAN replace your retiree with an experienced individual from within your organization, and move someone else into his old position, and that can ripple down through the workforce and create a beginner's job.

So - raise the wage cap, so a salaried employee making a half-million a year actually pays more into Social Security than someone who makes $118,500. Maybe we should extract some Social Security out of investment income, as well - say, nothing on your first 100k of investment income (so people who invest to supplement their salary income aren't penalized), but anything above is subject to the same FICA rate as any other income.

Why does America's Billionaire class believe that someone who makes a living moving other people's money around should be treated as superior to one who is actually involved in creating, building, marketing and/or selling a product?

Next!!!!

See Bernie says it so clearly. That is what the GOPers hate.

GO BERNIE!!!

economists....

(sorry mom). Her work has been incredibly stressful and there have been many changes where she works and will continue to be more in the future. She's just hoping to get out before those changes happen. Overall it's been a good job and she's worked there since the early 80's, but with the hospitals merging they have to do more work with less people.

No, "it bears repeating."

How/why did you change the original article, which correctly used the word "bears," not "bares?"

Other than that, great article and recc'd.

I did not even notice the change until you pointed it out.

dawg I hate those spell-check/grammar-check things. They make reading almost comical at times.

IDLE RICH BOY NEEDS YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY MONEY TO ATTACK IRAN, PLEASE HELP!

“Republicans have made it clear that they intend to pursue ‘entitlement reform,’ which is code for cutting Social Security and Medicare,” Sanders said in an interview. “This is their first step forward. Whether they will focus on disability, or cuts in the retirement program, I don’t know. But there’s no question that they intend to push forward and try to cut Social Security.”