What's stopping you....

[Rshermr]

Your daughter took the route that I would suggest to any High School Student today (Heine sights always 20/20). Congrats to you and your daughter!
Now heres where we may disagree. I understand 1979 was a tough year for the economy, but it did have a nice turn around shortly after. Now, for almost 35 years you have been putting into social security and medicare and all that good stuff that history books will be teaching my kids and by all rights you deserve what you have put in, it isn't your fault the government kept taking money out to fund every even short of pie eating contests .

What I am saying is that I understand you have been putting money into these programs that are currently dry. However, you cant expect me or your daughter to bear the brunt of the baby boomers three decade long retirements because, god willing, you will live well into your 80's. it is unrealistic. You left college found what I would assume was a decent job, worked hard, saved up and did everything people told you to do so that one day you could enjoy your life without working like a dog. The problem is your generation, coupled with modern medicine and the shrinking of the world that all combine to be a headache financially. We are just asking and soon will be telling baby boomers that you will need to work well into your late 60's and early 70's in order for us and our kids to have a manageable future.

Uh, dry??? What is dry, me boy. Yes, we have a ss issue, but not a big one. The biggest problem we have is all the births that happened after the war. That bubble goes away over time. In the interim, that is simple enough to fix. The biggest problem for ss, and medicare, is that both are hated by the very wealthy, as a general statement. I call it the Koch test. Those self righteous nut cases who think we should get rid of both, privitize both, and live happily ever after. Funny how that concept is financed by the very folks who would get rich if they could get the job done. The financial industry would LOVE to privitize ss. Cause, you see, they would be the ones who would run it. And they would make trillions as a result. And medicare??? If you pull your head out of your ass, and look at what has been happening there, you would discover that the private insurance companies have been raiding that for YEARS. Read a little. Find out who is paying the politicians to push the health insurance bucks their way. Try a little study of medicare part D, which you and I are paying for big time. Or medicare suplimental insurance plans.

IF you read, and stay with the impartial sources, you will find that there is no medical insurance in this country that is as inexpensive at providing insurance for those of that age as medicare. Far lower costs than the private insurance companies. But, our politicians, who are paid BIG bucks by those very same medical insurance companies, keep trying to tell us that medicare is bankrupt. And that any thought of something like the aca, or Obamacare, is going to bankrupt us. But they ignore the information out there that we have, outside of medicare and the VA, the most expensive medical insurance system in the world. And that we are the ONLY country among the 35 industrialized nations that provide our citizens with for profit PRIVATE insurance.

Funny how you blame the the problems of the nation on the less fortunate, like we are the only country in the world with such issues. Or on the elderly, again like that is unique to us. Get a grip. Study what you obviously missed in college. See what is going on in countries like Sweden, and Finland, and on and on. See why they are much happier than we. And no, it is not that our workers are lazy union bums. Our workers are the third most productive in the world. They simply do not get paid as well. And their health care costs have been eating them alive for years.

SS is dry though, its days are coming to an end. Medicare needs a serious revamping and that includes getting the insurance companies in line, but it also includes raising the age where you can start receiving medicare. These fucking insurance companies are the worst, but they are charging their asinine prices to people for the last twenty years of their lives because we allow them to. Imagine the money we would save if we just up'd the age of SS and medicare to 70. Millions if not Billions of dollars. Privatizing is not the answer, but we need to look at this logically. Get the insurance corporations in line, but also get the retirees in line too. You dont get to just work the majority of your life and not have to worry about the rest.

I dont mean to blame it on the less fortunate, but its their problem to deal with. America needs to reign it its spending and if that means some older folks need to hold on to their jobs a little longer or go find some other work than so be it. I will need to accumulate well over a million dollars and I mean well over in order to retire by 70. People retire today in many "best case scenarios" with 100,000 dollars and a prayer that the govt will keep you floating. did you know if you have 100 bucks in your pocket and no debt, youre better off than 25% of Americans? That is nuts. We need to get a clue, stop buying Jimmy Buffet Margarita Mixers, and start saving if we ever want to retire.

Sorry, ss is not in any real trouble. Simply increase the the maximum age to which ss is taken out of your wages, and no problem at all. As is, it will continue to pay out for the next 40+ years without a reduction in benefits, after which a benefit reduction would kick in. Simple to fix. Then, over a decade or two, the issue with the baby boomers goes away. It is not a long term problem.
Then, get back to me when you hit 65. Let me know how many jobs are out there that will even consider you. Let me know how it is to go work at that age. Because, you see, you now look incredibly silly, telling all those who have worked for years that they need to keep working for another 5 years. At your age, you have no clue.
Here is a link to a short article in Wikipedia, that shows retirement age in about 60 countries. Including all of the industrialized countries of the world. You will notice that NONE have a retirement age as old as you are suggesting. A couple go to 68 for a few selected occupations, but others allow retirement at as early an age as 52.
Retirement age - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Here is a major thing to consider, me boy. If you increase the retirement age, you immediately INCREASE unemployment. Lower the retirement age, you free up jobs and DECREASE unemployment. There are a lot of things to consider. Just saying that ss is broken, and/or going broke, is an ignorant statement. Read. Study. Think. And stop with the knee jerk rhetoric.

 

[oldfart]

Poor people may be happy, but they shouldn't be.

WTF? Who appointed you emperor of the universe? If you would rather be a moneygrubber than be happy, that's your choice. But you have no right to dictate to anybody else.

I work my butt of to pay for what they cannot. Go to college, get a better job and start acting like you want to be here.

So that's the bitch. You're just a whiny little bastard. If you are under thirty, there is a chance you will grow out of it. Otherwise you will find life's a bitch and then you die. Too bad you chose not to give your life any meaning when you had a chance.

Oh, right, I forgot. You went to college, got a job, and want to be here, and that makes you morally superior. What a fucking low bar!

Grow out of what? medicare? Social Security? College loans? I sure hope I do grow out of them. America wont though and the unmotivated will continue to scorn me for greed and narcissism while they sit back and collect whatever governmet aid they got in the mail today. Go back to playing the power ball and hoping things might work out.

Grow out of narcissistic personality disorder.

You know nothing of my life so making snarky remarks about your fantasy image of me as opposed to what I post just further reveals your mental disorder. Remember, your posts are all about you; why drag anyone else on stage with you?

Where in your posts do you evidence any concern about anyone other than yourself? Where do evidence any interest in anything but money? Like community, family, service, respect, or professional duty? Stop behaving like a little self-centered shit and I'll stop treating you like one.

 

[BillyV]

That’s a hell of a big chip to be carrying on your shoulders in search of your first entry level job; I don’t think I would bring it with you to your first interview. So the world has treated you unfairly because you have some college debt? Who forced you to go to college and spend $100,000? If the return on your college education isn’t worth what you paid for it, why would that be the fault of everyone over the age of 55?

My daughter just graduated in December; she spent two years in community college, and two years at a four-year state university. Funny, the degree only lists the university, not where she took English 1 and Sociology. She lived at home and commuted to classes, and because I didn’t decide that “money didn’t matter,” I was able to pay for her entire college costs so she wouldn’t have that millstone around her neck. But she didn’t go to “Private University” and spend four years in the dorms, or borrow extra money for “living expenses”; as a result, the cost was less than a third of your $100K. So even today, you don’t have to amass such high debt for a college degree, unless you are in a university that will clearly set you apart and make you instantly employable at the highest salaries (i.e. Harvard), a worthwhile investment if you can get in.

I graduated in 1979 into as bad (probably worse) job market/economy as you face today. My first entry level job paid $200/week and I had about $10,000 in college debt (in current dollars, that $5 an hour is about $16, and the $10K in debt is about $32K). Mortgage rates were close to 18%, unemployment was about what it is now, and inflation was close to 13%. The “misery index” peaked in 1979 at its highest level before or since. The feeling of malaise was palpable, and every news outlet proclaimed that America’s best years were behind her. I don’t remember blaming the previous generation for that situation. It sounds more like you have an entitlement problem than anything else.

According to the chart below, aside from a spike in entry level wages during the dot.com boom of the late 90’s, your real expected starting wage is still higher than ever. Buck up, get some experience, and after 10 years of being low man on the totem pole you will move up (assuming your work ethic is what you say it is).
As for “supporting a generation for 30 years”; I’ll just take back the money I have poured into Social Security and Medicare for all these years at a reasonable rate of return and be on my way.

Your daughter took the route that I would suggest to any High School Student today (Heine sights always 20/20). Congrats to you and your daughter!
Now heres where we may disagree. I understand 1979 was a tough year for the economy, but it did have a nice turn around shortly after. Now, for almost 35 years you have been putting into social security and medicare and all that good stuff that history books will be teaching my kids and by all rights you deserve what you have put in, it isn't your fault the government kept taking money out to fund every even short of pie eating contests .

What I am saying is that I understand you have been putting money into these programs that are currently dry. However, you cant expect me or your daughter to bear the brunt of the baby boomers three decade long retirements because, god willing, you will live well into your 80's. it is unrealistic. You left college found what I would assume was a decent job, worked hard, saved up and did everything people told you to do so that one day you could enjoy your life without working like a dog. The problem is your generation, coupled with modern medicine and the shrinking of the world that all combine to be a headache financially. We are just asking and soon will be telling baby boomers that you will need to work well into your late 60's and early 70's in order for us and our kids to have a manageable future.

Yes, the economy did ultimately turn up; however, the low point wasn’t reached until mid-1982. During that time we were told that our country no longer stood a chance against our main rival at the time, Japan; they were going to eat our lunch. What followed was the longest period of prosperity in history. My point in bringing up 1979 was not to pat myself on the back for enduring hardship; the point is there has always been, for each generation, a period of difficulty where faith in the future of our country comes into question. Back then it was the Japanese, now it’s the Chinese and Indians that will be the end of America. Well, we’re still standing, and I believe the future is brighter than you think. Yes, we have problems, always have and always will, but the system has managed to survive because we allow everyone the opportunity to succeed (or fail) by their own choices.

Now as far as Social Security and Medicare, there is about $3 trillion of intra-government debt related to those programs; obviously, the money is not sitting in a vault somewhere, it is supposed to be invested for productive purposes. We all, in some way, benefitted from the use of those funds, either from capital investments in roads, bridges and schools, from the investments in the military which secures our interests around the world or from social welfare programs that perhaps supported your ability to borrow the money to go to college. Yes, the money also went to the “Bridge to Nowhere” and other equally spurious boondoggles (and I’ll bet even a few pie eating contests), but such is the way with government spending; that’s why it should be minimized to only basic and necessary services. Having the “old folks” work another 5 years sounds like a good idea, and frankly I will continue working until health or economic issues force me to retire; however, I don’t know if that is in the best interests of your generation. That means you will be competing for fewer available jobs in an already difficult labor market rather than cycling people out of the workforce to make room for the young. If I were your age I think I would be more inclined to support means-testing and perhaps chained CPI rather than raising the retirement age as a way to reduce outlays. In any case, there are many other federal programs which should be shelved or curtailed first before deciding how to cut Social Security or Medicare; once that has been accomplished, if there is still a shortfall, I would have no complaint about reducing the benefits or increasing the retirement age, or some combination of the two; after all, we have to do what’s best for the country.

 

[rightwinger]

What is stopping someone from graduating High School and getting a job where they can get married, buy a three bedroom house, raise four kids and send them all to college all without their wife working?

My father did it

 

[Rshermr]

WTF? Who appointed you emperor of the universe? If you would rather be a moneygrubber than be happy, that's your choice. But you have no right to dictate to anybody else.


So that's the bitch. You're just a whiny little bastard. If you are under thirty, there is a chance you will grow out of it. Otherwise you will find life's a bitch and then you die. Too bad you chose not to give your life any meaning when you had a chance.

Oh, right, I forgot. You went to college, got a job, and want to be here, and that makes you morally superior. What a fucking low bar!

Grow out of what? medicare? Social Security? College loans? I sure hope I do grow out of them. America wont though and the unmotivated will continue to scorn me for greed and narcissism while they sit back and collect whatever governmet aid they got in the mail today. Go back to playing the power ball and hoping things might work out.

Grow out of narcissistic personality disorder.

You know nothing of my life so making snarky remarks about your fantasy image of me as opposed to what I post just further reveals your mental disorder. Remember, your posts are all about you; why drag anyone else on stage with you?

Where in your posts do you evidence any concern about anyone other than yourself? Where do evidence any interest in anything but money? Like community, family, service, respect, or professional duty? Stop behaving like a little self-centered shit and I'll stop treating you like one.

Funny. I keep collecting that gov. aid, as youngrepublican (the name tends to tell you what he is going to believe. Another of those who believe what they want to believe) says. Makes me a lazy old bastard, I guess. Funny. I paid in all those bucks over a period of over 55 years. Now it is gov aid. Thank god I have youngrepublican to set me straight.
Question is, if I had paid it to an insurance company and was getting the benefit from that private insurance company, would it be a bad thing in the puny little mind of youngrepublican??? I remember when I took a class from a proff that had been a Ford exec. Decided to pitch it and teach. Why??? Because he determined that the life that our youngrepublican is longing for was hollow. You know this, I am sure, in spades from your position, but sometimes it takes a while for these ignorant young clowns to figure it out. And many, sadly, never will. My observation is that those that do not end up as sad, unhappy old clowns. But they may have accumulated a lot of money. So, the question ends up being: Is being rich and sad better than being poor and sad? And the answer is obvious. It is not.

 

[Synthaholic]

I'm still waiting for Mrs. H. to go back to work.

Women: can't live with them, can't bury them in the back yard.

 

[Synthaholic]

When I was on the down and out, it took one full-time and two part-time jobs to keep me afloat.
I'm not shy about busting balls to pay bills.

These days I'm pretty much on cruise control.

It could all go south tomorrow but I could give a shit. I'm pushing 60 and I'm not above mowing lawns if that's what it takes. Whatever it takes I'll deliver.

Poverty and hunger are great motivators. I choose those motivations over Obama suck any day.

Now, see, I was right there with you until the last line.

 

[Sunshine]

All right sheep and whiners a simple question.

What is stopping you from improving your personal economy?

Tell me what exactly is preventing you from making an extra $50 a week, what's stopping you from saving a little bit more if at all ?

I think that is a good question. As one who worked as many as 3 jobs at a time during one period of my life, I often wonder the same thing. Anyone could pull a shift a week in some fast food store or wally world. I know a school psychologist who had 6 children ad she worked 1 shift a pay period at a local department store just to get the discount on clothes for her family. I know a social worker who worked a shift every week on a crisis line in addition to her regular job and she put all of it into her retirement account. People can do better. They just don't.

 

[Sunshine]

Complacency I suppose.

HG, if I recall correctly, you are working to better yourself, am I wrong?

 

[Sunshine]

Nothing. You'either a sheep or a wolf and in the words of the wise Gordon Gecko "Greed is good". Either get out there and be as productive an employee as possible or we no longer have much use for you. The world is a different place and those who cannot see that yet are already too far behind.

I know a psychologist who says that debt is good because it forces you to get up and go to worki. It has its down side, though.

 

[Synthaholic]

Suck on Obama, you pathetic Liberal whores.
Suckle the teat.

Or... mow lawns.

The choice is yours, bitches.

You are an offensive person. Are you representative of the modern right wing? If so, Republican chances of winning future elections will significantly decline.

Nah, he's just playing one on the internet.

Even the mostly moderate, sensible, non-wingnut Republicans seem to have this need to blurt out "Obama Hate" like they have Tourettes or something.

Like Spock's Pon Farr, it will pass.

 

[Mr Natural]

What is stopping someone from graduating High School and getting a job where they can get married, buy a three bedroom house, raise four kids and send them all to college all without their wife working?

My father did it

Something changed between then and now.

Wonder what it was?

 

[Sunshine]

Well, there it is. A thread showing the haves and the have nots and the reason they are what they are. Good thread topic, SP.

 

[Synthaholic]

http://www.usmessageboard.com/econo...-be-america-s-best-president.html#post7276878

 

[dilloduck]

laws against counterfeiting

 

[Skull Pilot]

What is stopping someone from graduating High School and getting a job where they can get married, buy a three bedroom house, raise four kids and send them all to college all without their wife working?

My father did it

Nothing.

 

[rightwinger]

What is stopping someone from graduating High School and getting a job where they can get married, buy a three bedroom house, raise four kids and send them all to college all without their wife working?

My father did it

Nothing.

Sure....millions and millions of High School students are doing just that

 

[Skull Pilot]

What is stopping someone from graduating High School and getting a job where they can get married, buy a three bedroom house, raise four kids and send them all to college all without their wife working?

My father did it

Nothing.

Sure....millions and millions of High School students are doing just that

It's possible.

All you have to do is work, save and do it.

Millions of people are fat slobs, does that mean it's impossible to be fit?

The answer is no it's not impossible they WANT to be fat because they don't do anything about it.

 

[rightwinger]

Nothing.

Sure....millions and millions of High School students are doing just that

It's possible.

All you have to do is work, save and do it.

Millions of people are fat slobs, does that mean it's impossible to be fit?

The answer is no it's not impossible they WANT to be fat because they don't do anything about it.

In my fathers day you could enter the service, serve your tour of duty and have a good job waiting for you when you got out

Looks like todays soldiers are just lazy doesn't it? What do you guys say? Looking for handouts?

 

[YoungRepublican]

Uh, dry??? What is dry, me boy. Yes, we have a ss issue, but not a big one. The biggest problem we have is all the births that happened after the war. That bubble goes away over time. In the interim, that is simple enough to fix. The biggest problem for ss, and medicare, is that both are hated by the very wealthy, as a general statement. I call it the Koch test. Those self righteous nut cases who think we should get rid of both, privitize both, and live happily ever after. Funny how that concept is financed by the very folks who would get rich if they could get the job done. The financial industry would LOVE to privitize ss. Cause, you see, they would be the ones who would run it. And they would make trillions as a result. And medicare??? If you pull your head out of your ass, and look at what has been happening there, you would discover that the private insurance companies have been raiding that for YEARS. Read a little. Find out who is paying the politicians to push the health insurance bucks their way. Try a little study of medicare part D, which you and I are paying for big time. Or medicare suplimental insurance plans.

IF you read, and stay with the impartial sources, you will find that there is no medical insurance in this country that is as inexpensive at providing insurance for those of that age as medicare. Far lower costs than the private insurance companies. But, our politicians, who are paid BIG bucks by those very same medical insurance companies, keep trying to tell us that medicare is bankrupt. And that any thought of something like the aca, or Obamacare, is going to bankrupt us. But they ignore the information out there that we have, outside of medicare and the VA, the most expensive medical insurance system in the world. And that we are the ONLY country among the 35 industrialized nations that provide our citizens with for profit PRIVATE insurance.

Funny how you blame the the problems of the nation on the less fortunate, like we are the only country in the world with such issues. Or on the elderly, again like that is unique to us. Get a grip. Study what you obviously missed in college. See what is going on in countries like Sweden, and Finland, and on and on. See why they are much happier than we. And no, it is not that our workers are lazy union bums. Our workers are the third most productive in the world. They simply do not get paid as well. And their health care costs have been eating them alive for years.

SS is dry though, its days are coming to an end. Medicare needs a serious revamping and that includes getting the insurance companies in line, but it also includes raising the age where you can start receiving medicare. These fucking insurance companies are the worst, but they are charging their asinine prices to people for the last twenty years of their lives because we allow them to. Imagine the money we would save if we just up'd the age of SS and medicare to 70. Millions if not Billions of dollars. Privatizing is not the answer, but we need to look at this logically. Get the insurance corporations in line, but also get the retirees in line too. You dont get to just work the majority of your life and not have to worry about the rest.

I dont mean to blame it on the less fortunate, but its their problem to deal with. America needs to reign it its spending and if that means some older folks need to hold on to their jobs a little longer or go find some other work than so be it. I will need to accumulate well over a million dollars and I mean well over in order to retire by 70. People retire today in many "best case scenarios" with 100,000 dollars and a prayer that the govt will keep you floating. did you know if you have 100 bucks in your pocket and no debt, youre better off than 25% of Americans? That is nuts. We need to get a clue, stop buying Jimmy Buffet Margarita Mixers, and start saving if we ever want to retire.

Sorry, ss is not in any real trouble. Simply increase the the maximum age to which ss is taken out of your wages, and no problem at all. As is, it will continue to pay out for the next 40+ years without a reduction in benefits, after which a benefit reduction would kick in. Simple to fix. Then, over a decade or two, the issue with the baby boomers goes away. It is not a long term problem.
Then, get back to me when you hit 65. Let me know how many jobs are out there that will even consider you. Let me know how it is to go work at that age. Because, you see, you now look incredibly silly, telling all those who have worked for years that they need to keep working for another 5 years. At your age, you have no clue.
Here is a link to a short article in Wikipedia, that shows retirement age in about 60 countries. Including all of the industrialized countries of the world. You will notice that NONE have a retirement age as old as you are suggesting. A couple go to 68 for a few selected occupations, but others allow retirement at as early an age as 52.
Retirement age - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Here is a major thing to consider, me boy. If you increase the retirement age, you immediately INCREASE unemployment. Lower the retirement age, you free up jobs and DECREASE unemployment. There are a lot of things to consider. Just saying that ss is broken, and/or going broke, is an ignorant statement. Read. Study. Think. And stop with the knee jerk rhetoric.

Im not saying you need jobs working the fields 8 hrs a day.. A library job, cashier, whatever you need so that you can stay off of SS a little longer. Ive read both sides of the story on SS, one says we need to kill everyone over 50, the next saying that we'll have it forever. No one really knows, but we do need to up the age. Unfortunately, in 40 years ill be 62 and who knows where I will be. I have done my research on SS and it is merely my subjective opinion, its why im on here to bounce things off people like you and I really do appreciate the humbling. I hope it doesnt run dry, but maybe my faith in the US government has just been shaken too badly. Gotta have faith in the country though