Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Mechanic
Pop is 93, retired from Civil Service at 55, last year they (parents) made easily over $100K. Pop jokes about living as long as he can to get more money from the govt so he can leave it to his survivors. At 23 he flew the first Mission by the 8th AAF over Berlin as the pilot of a B17. Everyone told him he should work for private companies when they were paying twice what a govt job paid until he retired in 1975. All of those people are dead.
His mother barely made the 40 quarter requirement for Social Security eligibility and paid 1% of her wages. She drew SS for 28 years. I calculated it once and for me to recieve the same benefit to paid in ratio I would have to live to the age of 545 years!
Cutting anything is political suicide and sadly we have subsidized poverty and childbirth by those who are less fortunate to the point where they are now the majority and I feel like the death sprial has begun and it's going to get real ugly. Think Weimar Republic in post WW1 Germany, when inflation peaked at something like 1000 percent a week. Germany solved the problem by going back on the silver standard, while we did the reverse in 1964.
Inflation is a tax on everyone but especailly those of lesser means. Computers were supposed to relieve us of drudgery but they have made us fat, unemployed, self absorbed, and weak. Sure they have done some things that are magnificent, but they also have reduced the need for jobs. GM has 1/20th of the employees they had when I was a child. How is 1 going to pay the retirement benefits for 20?. In the 60s the federal govt raided the social security fund by writing IOUs and we all know how good their IOUs are, right, just write another larger IOU and on and on.
SS is also not allowed to legally specualte with funding, of course they have no money to invest.
regards
Mech
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I remember when Richard Nixon and the the congress of that time decided that "revenue sharing" was a good thing. Who would be against "sharing"? Only cruel, mean spirited people would oppose "sharing". We will all benefit from
sharing, right?
The populace was gullible enough to accept that BS, and Social Security funding became part of the federal budget spending scheme (read: deficit). Government raided the piggy bank, took and spent whatever assets were there, and replaced them with political promises.
As for inflation: the government and their finance ministers under Presidents Bush the Elder, Clinton, and Bush the Younger decided that the cost of food and fuel would be no longer included in the inflation index.
Voila! No more inflation! I can remember engaging in discussion with and hearing arguments from members of this list who insisted that THAT was not REAL inflation, just "price inflation". Nowadays only the market price of big ticket items like houses and cars are monitored for inflation - not the cost of buying food and buying fuel to heat your home or run your car. Inflation is now officially a mere figment of your imagination...
And on top of it all there's the new healthcare tax. Everyone thought they would come out ahead of the game, and they approved of it by voting.
As usual, our political leaders fooled us again - including Supreme Court Justice Roberts who smiled in approval, tipped the scales of justice, and called it merely a tax.
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
It's the rape of the middle class. Both political parties are in on the scheme. We're screwed no matter which way way we vote.
Your post was very well stated. I wish I could thank you twice.
