The guy on Cenk right now is a prime example of why democrats are failing IMO. n/t

:hi:

:)

not all of us are in front of TVs right now. A little detail might help.

social security and wanting to increase the age requirements than tax increases. His arguments were weak and apologetic. Cenk was really pissed with him. These guys are incapable of standing up to the republicans. They tuck in their tails and run. I'll post when I get some more detail for you.

for even considering the possibility of including raising the age limit slightly for SS as part of a comprehensive SS reform bill.

fortunate person over 65 who is still a) employed and b) health

Longevity does not mean freedom from arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, tremors, hip and knee problems, a bad back, poor hearing, poor vision or any of the other relatively common and maybe even minor problems that prevent older people from getting and keeping jobs. Of course, baldness, wrinkles and gray hair are also common afflictions that can make it difficult for a person over 63 to get and keep a job.

and there virtually no controversy at the time. Cenk is an idiot sometimes.. he reminds me of a liberal version of Rush Limbaugh.. big mouth with no substance.

And how old do you think is old enough?

Also, this could just be a temporary thing until we get through the baby boomer "crisis".

The age limit was raised before, and it has been very difficult for many people. This economy has forced a lot of people to take a lower monthly payment and retire early.

Once you are over 55, you have to be either exceptionally right for a particular job with a resume that is just amazing or you have to be exceptionally cheap. In any case you need to have health, a physical condition and appearance that are well above the norm.

In general, people over 55 are not believed to have the energy level that people under 55 have.

In fact in my experience, people over 55 have more life experience and better self-control and judgment about situations than younger people, but those are not the qualities sought by employers today. The employers want someone who looks attractive, is willing to please and quick.

The stereotypes about older workers are just too hard to fight.

Further, in many workplaces, employers think when they hire that they might keep the employee for a long time, so they prefer to hire people with a "future." (I was told this by an employer.) Of course, the reality is that they fire people right and left for utterly no reason.

I worked with an elderly woman who had a serious hearing deficit. She was a typist, and a good one, but the boss refused to deal with her hearing loss and eventually fired her. That is the reality today for people over 55 in the workplace. By the time you are 65, most people don't have a job. You read about the exceptions in the newspaper.

It isn't that we older people cannot work. It is that we are not wanted by employers.

And at times he wears it well. He's big into playing along with the Party line, then later doing the weepy apology. He's 'sorry' about the DOMA vote, but lethargic about making efforts to right his idiot vote.

people do all of the right things in life, are healthy, eat well, exercise and then suddenly SH** happens to their body. I've known painters, for example, in their 40's that have lots of physical problems from the stress of painting over the years.

There are lots of people in all sorts of jobs that have stressed their bodies over the years, and then many that have not, but stuff happens, sometimes all at once. Then, if one survives all of that, it's not like their are tons of jobs available under 65. And over 65 the jobs are really really scarce.

People need some type of plan that they can pay into and then expect a guaranteed return, and 401k's don't always hack it for that.

Cenk is right.

where there is a lot of assumption of what people do , think etc

root cause problems. For SS, because we try to run at this inane low tax rate, and Medicare because our cost structure is ridiculous. Cutting is just band-aids on a system that is failing. The root causes of problems are not being addressed.

pathetic. Cenk nailed him to the wall. :thumbsup:

The progressive purists will soon find themselves in a very lonely place if they continue to distance themselves from reality.

The oligarchy loves this, because it gets what it wants.

I am so sick of seeing progressive ideals and principles given away.

kind and sensitive than the bully sociopathic oligarchy. Hence, some progressives waffle a lot and they should not. That's just my gut level observation. But, that does not justify apologetic waffling behavior IMO.

Progressive, like all political labels, is a term of art.

I wish Cenk had argued that point with him. Just because people are living longer statistically doesn't mean that their years of productivity have been extended. If science can keep people from dying, it doesn't mean that they have found a way to rejuvenate the human body. We haven't discovered the secrets to aging. A 65 year old is just as old today as a 65 year old was on the day social security was first enacted. Maybe grandma can be kept alive on dialysis machines or heart and lung machines for more and more years now, but it doesn't mean she's better able to work past 65 than a grandma was 60 years ago (maybe even less, considering the terrible American diet and sedentary lifestyle of today). I'm not a scientist and maybe I'm wrong, but I would like this question to be addressed by a medical doctor or a biologist rather than a politician or a politician's lobbyist. Someone saying that since life expectancy has been increased that social security can be increased sounds absolutely stupid to me.

People with lower incomes aren't on average living these really long lives. So what they're proposing is upping the age without any consideration as to the type of work that people are doing. It is not at all reasonable to expect someone to work as a construction worker or in other positions which are hard on the body (including retail where apparently people sitting for more than half an hour a day is considered an anathema or something) up until 70 years old. This is a scam because they know people are going to end up being forced to retire earlier due to an inability to find work or an inability to continue to do the work they've been doing (and because of the whole inability to find work thing we know it's not like they can change fields) and as a result end up getting less money than they would otherwise be entitled to after paying into the system all those years.