"You didn't get there on your own"

[regent]

Yeah yeah I can just hear the scoffing that will follow...Received the following from Dick Morris...

​

A more accurate caption would be, "The pharoah didn't build these himself, the Egyptian people did."
More evidence that what Obama said is correcct.

An even more accurate caption would be, "Neither the Pharoah or any Egyptian entreprenour built these themselves. Egyptian slaves did."

I think the slave thing has been pretty much discounted.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

.A partisan ideologue's biggest enemy is not another partisan ideologue. They're easy. A partisan ideologue's biggest enemy is someone who chooses to think for themselves

Jefferson, the first partisan Republican, did think for himself?????
If not please try to explain or admit as a liberal you lack the IQ to do so??

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Social Security is not a 'Ponzi scheme', it is an insurance program.

too stupid!! There is not an insurance commissioner in any state who would not prosecute a company run the way liberals run SS.

If if you get benefits they are 10% of what you'd get if you had saved 15% of your income in a private account. Capitalism made all Americans rich, but liberal stole the money. Liberals are so stupid they accept the dog food money from the government because they don't know any better.

 

[boedicca]

Social Security is not a 'Ponzi scheme', it is an insurance program.

too stupid!! There is not an insurance commissioner in any state who would not prosecute a company run the way liberal run SS.

If if you get benefits they are 10% of what you'd get if you had saved 15% of your income in a private account. Liberals are so stupid they accept dog food money from the government and don't know any better.

Insurance companies are required to have reserves to cover future claims based on actuarial analysis.

All SS has is a "lock box" stuffed with IOUs from the Federal Government (i.e. promises that future tax payers will pay more taxes). That's pretty much a Ponzi Scheme.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

All SS has is a "lock box" stuffed with IOUs from the Federal Government

The Feds are good for it. They are only $16 trillion in debt.

 

[freedombecki]

So, business should thank government for not taking more of what isn't theirs in the first place?

And just who is paying for this "labor and effort of others"?

I think you just exposed an Obama political lie spoken to make a power grab.

 

[Bfgrn]

By no possible amount of stretching does Social Security fit the definition of the term "insurance." It's a Ponzi scheme where the new "investors" provide the cash to make good on the promises to the original "investors."



Those payments are spent the minute they are recieved. In a true insurance program, premiums are invested in instruments that can produce a return. The people who pay the SS "premiums" are being defrauded.

Social Security is a social insurance program. It fits every criteria of an insurance program.

A Ponzi scheme is a short-term criminal enterprise. Social Security is a rock-solid social insurance program that protects millions of Americans.

Social Security is insurance. Contributors don’t want to get rich quick; they want coverage when they retire and die, and in case they become disabled. Like other insurance, benefits are paid from premiums and returns on trust funds. By law, Social Security inflows and outflows are always balanced with adjustments to benefits and contributions. Social Security has never missed paying a monthly benefit in 71 years.

The only thing that could transform Social Security into a Ponzi scheme would be a scoundrel president and Congress ending the system.

Oh -- you mean like -----???

I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.”

— President Obama, July 12, 2011

Both an admission that by BFgrn's standards --- he IS a scoundrel AND that there are no funds of ANY VALUE in the Trust Fund. New debt -- which adds to the debt ceiling must be added to pay current recipients today -- because OBAMA is stealing the FICA premiums to look like Robin Hood handing out $20 bills.. A photo-op completely devoid of economic impact, but DEVASTING to a SS Program hitting crisis 10 years early..

Good move to call him a scoundrel..

I will let the father of Reaganomics explain it to you...

Wall Street Targets the Elderly
Looting Social Security
by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Hank Paulson, the Gold Sacks bankster/US Treasury Secretary, who deregulated the financial system, caused a world crisis that wrecked the prospects of foreign banks and governments, caused millions of Americans to lose retirement savings, homes, and jobs, and left taxpayers burdened with multi-trillions of dollars of new US debt, is still not in jail. He is writing in the New York Times urging that the mess he caused be fixed by taking away from working Americans the Social Security and Medicare for which they have paid in earmarked taxes all their working lives.

Wall Street’s approach to the poor has always been to drive them deeper into the ground.

As there is no money to be made from the poor, Wall Street fleeces them by yanking away their entitlements. It has always been thus. During the Reagan administration, Wall Street decided to boost the values of its bond and stock portfolios by using Social Security revenues to lower budget deficits. Wall Street figured that lower deficits would mean lower interest rates and higher bond and stock prices.

Two Wall Street henchmen, Alan Greenspan and David Stockman, set up the Social Security raid in this way: The Carter administration had put Social Security in the black for the foreseeable future by establishing a schedule for future Social Security payroll tax increases. Greenspan and Stockman conspired to phase in the payroll tax increases earlier than was needed in order to gain surplus Social Security revenues that could be used to finance other government spending, thus reducing the budget deficit. They sold it to President Reagan as “putting Social Security on a sound basis.”

Along the way Americans were told that the surplus revenues were going into a special Social Security trust fund at the U.S. Treasury. But what is in the fund is Treasury IOUs for the spent revenues. When the “trust funds” are needed to pay Social Security benefits, the Treasury will have to sell more debt in order to redeem the IOUs.

We constantly hear from Wall Street gangsters and from Republicans and an occasional Democrat that Social Security and Medicare are a form of welfare that we can’t afford, an “unfunded liability.” This is a lie. Social Security is funded with an earmarked tax. People pay for Social Security and Medicare all their working lives. It is a pay-as-you-go system in which the taxes paid by those working fund those who are retired.

Currently these systems are not in deficit. The problem is that government is using earmarked revenues for other purposes. Indeed, since the 1980s Social Security revenues have been used to fund general government. Today Social Security revenues are being used to fund trillion dollar bailouts for Wall Street and to fund the Bush/Obama wars of aggression against Muslims.

Having diverted Social Security revenues to war and Wall Street, Paulson says there is no alternative but to take the promised benefits away from those who have paid for them.

Republicans have extraordinary animosity toward the poor. In an effort to talk retirees out of their support systems, Republicans frequently describe Social Security as a Ponzi scheme and “unsustainable.” They ought to know. The phony trust fund, which they set up to hide the fact that Wall Street and the Pentagon are running off with Social Security revenues, is a Ponzi scheme. Social Security itself has been with us since the 1930s and has yet to wreck our lives and budget. But it only took Hank Paulson’s derivative Ponzi scheme and its bailout a few years to inflict irreparable damage on our lives and budget.

Had Social Security been privatized, I doubt that Wall Street would have been permitted to deregulate the financial system. Too much would have been at stake.

After the latest crisis brought on by Wall Street’s dishonesty and greed, trusting Wall Street to manage anyone’s old age pension requires a leap of faith that no intelligent person can make.

Wall Street has got away with its raid on the public treasury. Now, pockets full, it wants to pay for the heist by curtailing Social Security and Medicare. Having deprived the working population of homes, jobs, and health care, Wall Street is now after the elderly’s old age security.

Social Security, formerly an untouchable “third rail of politics,” is now “unsustainable,” while the real unsustainables–a pre-1929 unregulated financial system and open-ended multi-trillion dollar Global War Against Terror–are the new untouchables. This transformation signals the complete capture of American democracy by an oligarchy of special interests.

more

 

[Listening]

By no possible amount of stretching does Social Security fit the definition of the term "insurance." It's a Ponzi scheme where the new "investors" provide the cash to make good on the promises to the original "investors."



Those payments are spent the minute they are recieved. In a true insurance program, premiums are invested in instruments that can produce a return. The people who pay the SS "premiums" are being defrauded.

Social Security is a social insurance program. It fits every criteria of an insurance program.

A Ponzi scheme is a short-term criminal enterprise. Social Security is a rock-solid social insurance program that protects millions of Americans.

Social Security is insurance. Contributors don’t want to get rich quick; they want coverage when they retire and die, and in case they become disabled. Like other insurance, benefits are paid from premiums and returns on trust funds. By law, Social Security inflows and outflows are always balanced with adjustments to benefits and contributions. Social Security has never missed paying a monthly benefit in 71 years.

The only thing that could transform Social Security into a Ponzi scheme would be a scoundrel president and Congress ending the system.

Oh -- you mean like -----???

I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.”

— President Obama, July 12, 2011

Both an admission that by BFgrn's standards --- he IS a scoundrel AND that there are no funds of ANY VALUE in the Trust Fund. New debt -- which adds to the debt ceiling must be added to pay current recipients today -- because OBAMA is stealing the FICA premiums to look like Robin Hood handing out $20 bills.. A photo-op completely devoid of economic impact, but DEVASTING to a SS Program hitting crisis 10 years early..

Good move to call him a scoundrel..

Isn't BFgrn's admission simply a good example of what the OP is about ?

Makers

Takers.

As Swallow would say: It's that simple.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

."You didn't get there on your own"

and BO is generously standing by to accept payments on behalf of those, living and dead, who he decides have helped us get there. What a great man!!! His bold liberal meglomania is in the tradition of Hitler Stalin and Mao.

 

[Mac1958]

.A partisan ideologue's biggest enemy is not another partisan ideologue. They're easy. A partisan ideologue's biggest enemy is someone who chooses to think for themselves

Jefferson, the first partisan Republican, did think for himself?????
If not please try to explain or admit as a liberal you lack the IQ to do so??

Since I lack the IQ, and since you're clearly the vastly superior intellect, I won't ask you to lower yourself. I just want to thank you for allowing me to even communicate with you.

What an honor. Truly.

.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

.A partisan ideologue's biggest enemy is not another partisan ideologue. They're easy. A partisan ideologue's biggest enemy is someone who chooses to think for themselves

Jefferson, the first partisan Republican, did think for himself?????
If not please try to explain or admit as a liberal you lack the IQ to do so??

Since I lack the IQ, and since you're clearly the vastly superior intellect, I won't ask you to lower yourself. I just want to thank you for allowing me to even communicate with you.

What an honor. Truly.

.

Translation: as a liberal I lack the IQ for democratic debate, but still sure I'm right, so I'll change the subject and hope no one notices.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Exactly!

Tell the government that though!!!

It LOVES spending all that money it's suppose to be banking.

Wonder how much of it is tied up in the military budget right now?

Not as much as there would be because our Fearless Leader has been raiding the defense budget to offset some of his other schemes. He doesn't have any intention of paying down the debt or even reducing the deficit obviously, but we would probably be amazed at where he is directing various departments to send our money.

But then he doesn't see it as our money does he? He made that perfectly clear with his "If you've got a business, you didn't build that" line. He sees it all as one big pool of money with him annointed our king charged to distribute and spend it. And still his adorers and worshippers reject any notion that his doctrine has strong Marxist leanings with ever bigger and stronger government until the government has it all and can then create utopia.

Unfortunately, in no instance EVER has a government that achieved that kind of power ever voluntarily given it up.

Of course, we can't cut the spending of taxpayers money used to kill and maim men, women and children to save people lives. That would not be 'Christian'.

Obama put the cost of the wars IN the budget, something Bush was too timid or dishonest to do.

Under Obama government outlays are rising at the slowest pace since 1950s. Obama has put a freeze on government salaries and pay.

Here are the facts, according to the official government statistics:

• In the 2009 fiscal year — the last of George W. Bush’s presidency — federal spending rose by 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. Check the official numbers at the Office of Management and Budget.

• In fiscal 2010 — the first budget under Obama — spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.

• In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.

• In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.

• Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion. Read the CBO’s latest budget outlook.

Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%.

There has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.

Why do people think Obama has spent like a drunken sailor? It’s in part because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the federal budget.

What people forget (or never knew) is that the first year of every presidential term starts with a budget approved by the previous administration and Congress. The president only begins to shape the budget in his second year. It takes time to develop a budget and steer it through Congress — especially in these days of congressional gridlock.

The 2009 fiscal year, which Republicans count as part of Obama’s legacy, began four months before Obama moved into the White House. The major spending decisions in the 2009 fiscal year were made by George W. Bush and the previous Congress.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is how the laws Democrats passed will affect the debt, and what will happen to the debt if Republicans are able to repeal the Affordable Health care Act and repeal the ending of the Bush tax cuts.

Here is the 'rub'...We are on The Extended-Baseline Scenario trajectory Obama and the Democrats put us on. If Congress does nothing the Extended-Baseline Scenario is already in place.

IF the Bush tax cuts don't expire and the AHA is not fully implemented or repealed the The Alternative Fiscal Scenario is the trajectory Teapublicans will take us if they gain enough power.

the CBO lays it out perfectly clear...CRYSTAL.

Federal Debt Held by the Public Under CBO’s Long-Term Budget Scenarios
(Percentage of gross domestic product)

The chart shows 2 scenarios. For all practical purposes, you can call the Extended-Baseline Scenario the Democrat scenario and the Alternative Fiscal Scenario the Teapublican scenario.


The Extended-Baseline Scenario adheres closely to current law. Under this scenario, the expiration of the tax cuts enacted since 2001 and most recently extended in 2010, the growing reach of the alternative minimum tax, the tax provisions of the recent health care legislation, and the way in which the tax system interacts with economic growth would result in steadily higher revenues relative to GDP.

The Alternative Fiscal Scenario
The budget outlook is much bleaker under the alternative fiscal scenario, which incorporates several changes to current law that are widely expected to occur or that would modify some provisions of law that might be difficult to sustain for a long period. Most important are the assumptions about revenues: that the tax cuts enacted since 2001 and extended most recently in 2010 will be extended; that the reach of the alternative minimum tax will be restrained to stay close to its historical extent; and that over the longer run, tax law will evolve further so that revenues remain near their historical average of 18 percent of GDP. This scenario also incorporates assumptions that Medicare’s payment rates for physicians will remain at current levels (rather than declining by about a third, as under current law) and that some policies enacted in the March 2010 health care legislation to restrain growth in federal health care spending will not continue in effect after 2021.

Your facts are wrong.

FY 2009 included the $800 billion stimulus, that is all on Obama. In addition, Obama signed a $410 billon "massive. imperfect" spending bill on 11 March 2009. That, according to Obama's own words, makes him responsible for $1.2 trillion of the 2009FY. That would make Bush's last budget $2.32 trillion, and make Obama's first budget an increase of $1.2 trillion over Bush's budget.

 

[boedicca]

He's also neglecting the fact that the temporary TARP outlays were charged against the 2009 spending levels, even though these were mostly repaid in subsequent periods. What the stimulus did was to take the temporary bulge of TARP spending, and make it permanent.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

He's also neglecting the fact that the temporary TARP outlays were charged against the 2009 spending levels, even though these were mostly repaid in subsequent periods. What the stimulus did was to take the temporary bulge of TARP spending, and make it permanent.

Hence the $1.2 trillion increase in spending, which makes Obama look good to idiots when he cuts a couple of million off the top.

 

[Foxfyre]

Yup, Islamic radicals are absolutely threatening to take the pyramids down, but haven't quite mustered the cajones to order it done yet:

According to several reports in the Arabic media, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the demolition of Egypt’s Great Pyramids—or, in the words of Saudi Sheikh Ali bin Said al-Rabi‘i, those “symbols of paganism,” which Egypt’s Salafi party has long planned to cover with wax. Most recently, Bahrain’s “Sheikh of Sunni Sheikhs” and President of National Unity, Abd al-Latif al-Mahmoud, called on Egypt’s new president, Muhammad, to “destroy the Pyramids and accomplish what the Sahabi Amr bin al-As could not.”http://frontpagemag.com/2012/raymond-ibrahim/muslim-brotherhood-destroy-the-pyramids/Morsi

Here in the U.S., radicals, not necessarily Islamic ones, are more subtle about taking down the symbols and monuments of American culture. It starts with attacks on patriotic traditions like the Pledge of Allegiance, moves to make it politically incorrect to teach protocol and respect for the flag while making it a social necessity to accommodate the culture and traditions that have been imported, and now our President is attacking entreprenourial efforts and American accomplishment.

I just wonder when we the people will get frustrated and angry enough to say 'enough!'

Ouch, you're going for kicking some liberal butt today, foxfyre...

Not just liberal butt, Kaz, but the whole disgusting, corrupt system. Whether its pro-activeness on the part of the liberals or passiveness on the part of the conservatives, it is still destructive to our American culture, our economy, our quality of life, and our freedoms. And if more of us don't start saying so and saying it loud and often, I think we'll soon be so screwed there will be no way out.

 

[Bfgrn]

Social Security is a social insurance program. It fits every criteria of an insurance program.

A Ponzi scheme is a short-term criminal enterprise. Social Security is a rock-solid social insurance program that protects millions of Americans.

Social Security is insurance. Contributors don’t want to get rich quick; they want coverage when they retire and die, and in case they become disabled. Like other insurance, benefits are paid from premiums and returns on trust funds. By law, Social Security inflows and outflows are always balanced with adjustments to benefits and contributions. Social Security has never missed paying a monthly benefit in 71 years.

The only thing that could transform Social Security into a Ponzi scheme would be a scoundrel president and Congress ending the system.

Oh -- you mean like -----???

I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.”

— President Obama, July 12, 2011

Both an admission that by BFgrn's standards --- he IS a scoundrel AND that there are no funds of ANY VALUE in the Trust Fund. New debt -- which adds to the debt ceiling must be added to pay current recipients today -- because OBAMA is stealing the FICA premiums to look like Robin Hood handing out $20 bills.. A photo-op completely devoid of economic impact, but DEVASTING to a SS Program hitting crisis 10 years early..

Good move to call him a scoundrel..

Isn't BFgrn's admission simply a good example of what the OP is about ?

Makers

Takers.

As Swallow would say: It's that simple.

Please tell me who the 'takers' are?

 

[Listening]

Please tell me who the 'takers' are?

Anyone getting more out of the system than they put into it.....if they put anything at all into the system.

Simple enough.

 

[Dr Grump]

and now our President is attacking entreprenourial efforts and American accomplishment.

He did no such thing....

 

[boedicca]

Yes he did. His Roanoke comments demonstrate his contempt for the private sector.

 

[Dr Grump]

Yes he did. His Roanoke comments demonstrate his contempt for the private sector.

Total utter crap. Context is everything.

If you want to be a partisan hack about it, have at it, but please don't piss on my shoes and tell me it's raining..

He was quite clear in what he said.