Are you for or against Social Security Reform?

Yes spliff, armed robbery. If you don’t pay your taxes, they will send nice men with big guns and big badges to your house to evict you out of it so they can sell it.

oh well, ya...thats life. you gotta pay taxes. i got no problem with that. i dont like it, but thats how I'll have money when I need it (hopefully).

wheres the money gonna come from?

Ummm.....oh, yeah. A job.

Originally posted by cavscout
Ummm.....oh, yeah. A job.

not money for me, money for the government...without our taxes, where does the money come from? my point is that its fine with me if i get taxed. because, WHEN I NEED IT, IT WILL BE THERE....DUH.

what angers me is people who think everyone who is on assistance is a leech. My point is that SOME PEOPLE NEED IT!! And, so, i will gladly pay into it, so long as when i need it its there

Regardless of how bad it is, I will collect some Social Security; after all, I will be eligible in two more years.

But If I were forty or younger, I would run, not walk, to the nearest exit. As a grown and reasonably competent adult, I think I am perfectly capable of deciding how to invest my own money, thank you very much.

And ignoring all the loaded words like "gambling your money" or "ponzi scheme" or all the conflicting "facts" and "figures", it boils down to one basic thing.

If you believe that people are too stupid to make their own decisions and you think that the government can do a better job because it is ever so much wiser...

...then you're in favor of the present system.

If, however, you think that you are able to decide your own fate ...

...then you're not.

[edit on 19-1-2005 by Off_The_Street]

spliff says:

"And, so, i will gladly pay into it, so long as when i need it its there."

That's the problem, spliff-mon. It's not there. All the money you pay into SS will not sit in a manila folder entitled "spliff's stash."

It will immediately go out to pay Off_the_Street his money.

Now what is your chance of actually collecting any money from Uncle Pig?

It shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

Figure your age (I'm going to assume you're 25)
Look at the census to find out how many 25-year-olds there are now.
Find out how many 5-year olds there are now (because those same five-year-olds will be paying for your social security when they're 45 and you're 65, right?)

Hey! There aren't that many of them, are there? Do you thnk that they -- when they're 40 or so, will like it when the government says they're going to raise their taxes 50% more just to pay for Old Grandpa Spliff's retirement?

I don't think so.

well i get ssi because i cant work so i depend on social security, as long as im supported, i dont care whats used to maintain it.

Originally posted by spliff4020
not money for me, money for the government...without our taxes, where does the money come from?

Government doesn’t need nearly as much as they get. Pull our military out of the 150+ countries we are in, there’s a big chunk of change. Get rid of public schools, seeing as they don’t even teach enough to read and write. Thats allot of money there. Privatize the roads, more money saved. The list goes on and on. You have been conditioned from birth to think that lumbering, inefficient government agencies are the only way to get things done, however there is a better way.

my point is that its fine with me if i get taxed. because, WHEN I NEED IT, IT WILL BE THERE....DUH.

Well, as I stated, if you were taxed less, you could save more for those rainy days and you wouldn’t need to have the government steal my money on your behalf. What, you don't trust yourself to save? "Please, IRS, don't trust me to be responsible with my own money, I'd probably blow it all!" Sounds like a personal problem to me, one that you should not drag others into.

what angers me is people who think everyone who is on assistance is a leech.

They are. Sorry to say, but what does a leach do? It sucks the life-blood out of its victim. What is the life-blood of our society? Currency. Just as a leach sucks its host's most valuable resource, so do social leaches suck our most valuable resources.

My point is that SOME PEOPLE NEED IT!! And, so, i will gladly pay into it, so long as when i need it its there

Look, I am all for charity, but I sure as hell don’t want to be "charitable" at gun point. Fine, they "need it." Whatever you say (there is a difference between wants and needs, BTW. They need food and water. They want money and more than a one room apartment for their family to live in.) There will always be private charities to make sure families are not out the street, temporarilly, just as there are now.

Sounds cold, huh? Well, getting robbed aint no fun, and I am damn tired of it. My family does just fine under the "poverty line." In fact, we are quite comfortable. No hungry stomachs, no holes in our jeans, nice cars, and a savings to fall back on for when we need it. All that below the "poverty line." Maybe Americans should lower our standards. Ever seen how some of the poorer countries live? Our "poor" are their middle class.


[edit on 19-1-2005 by cavscout]

Heres an example for ya: My sister-in-laws husband died last year. They have 3 kids. He worked a good job, and they needed no assistance from the governement what so ever. He was killed by a drunk driver, who was single and uninsured. My SIL is 42 and hasnt worked in about 20 years. Now shes left alone with a 15 year old, a 9 year old and a 3 year old. Not only is dad gone, so is the income. All the bills are still there as well. (not to mention aprx $80,000 worth of medical.

Hmmm, should she quit whining and go get a job at Mcdonalds? What is she qualified to do? Or wait, according to YOUR philosophy, its her own fault for not getting an education while raising them kids, right???

Actually spliff its both thier faults. Hers for not getting an education while raising kids. And his for not having the basic common sense to have a good life nsurance policy to take care of his wife and kids if something like this happened. You see spliff you just proved my point. Rather than planning for the future and having a contigemcy plan for worst case scenarios they just blissfully lived thier life assuming nothng bad would happen. Any man who has a family and doesnt have life insurance, especially if he is the sole breadwinner is so negligent that IMHO its damn near criminal. Why didn't your sister in law get n education while raising the kids? Dont tell me it cant be done. My own mother who was a single working mother supporting a very hungry and fast growing boy managed to work two jobs, raise me, and get an educaton all at the same time. Why not your sister in law? So yes it is thier own damn fault why should I have to pay for thier shortsightedness?

Im 26 years old, a high school dropout with no college degree from a single parent home whos income went from well below the poverty line when I was a kid to lower middle class by the time I was an adult. My mother was able to do this because she worked her ass off to make a better life for us. While I love my mother she is neither particularly smart, nor talented, yet she managed to do it. I have been homeless, I pulled myself out of the gutter with no help from my family or the government and while I wont say exactly how much I now make a year I pay over 100,000 dollars a year in federal income taxes.
So save your sob story for someone else I know how hard life is and I also know that if you are willing to take responsibility for your own life, stop whining and get off you ass, you can accomplish anything. If your sister in law and her husband didn't have the sense to plan ahead then they are getting exactly what they deserve. Hopefully her children will use them as an example of how not to be.

Who Are The Leeches???

"In physics, work is defined as a force acting upon an object to cause a displacement. There are three key words in this definition - force, displacement, and cause. In order for a force to qualify as having done work on an object, there must be a displacement and the force must cause the displacement. There are several good examples of work which can be observed in everyday life - a horse pulling a plow through the fields, a father pushing a grocery cart down the aisle of a grocery store, a freshman lifting a backpack full of books upon her shoulder, a weightlifter lifting a barbell above her head, an Olympian launching the shot-put, etc. In each case described here there is a force exerted upon an object to cause that object to be displaced."

www.glenbrook.k12.il.us...

So, let me get this straight. One of the jobs I did at my last job was print learning aids for children. Basically they were large magnetic sheets with letters, vowels, and combinations of letters and vowels that would make the different sounds used in the american language. There would be two people involved in the printing of these, two in the diecutting, and well, two or three in the packaging of them. We would move about a ton of these in a day, and well sometimes, I would assist in the printing one day, then be moved over to the diecutting to assist there, and then find myself in the finishing packing them. So, well, I have never bothered to figure out just how much work that was, but I imagine it was alot. It was enough to blow my feet!!!
My husband has spent over 40 years learning to bore holes and cut many different kinds of metal into the parts needed to run the machines businesses use. At his current job, he works on machines that are bigger than my living room. He moves peices of metal probably bigger than your car with the help of pullys and stuff as he positions them on the machine to be cut.
A salesman moves his own body around from place to place chatting with people conning them to buy products.
A CEO moves folders across his desk and the telephone to his ear.
And, well, who do you think does more work? The teacher, or the principle? The doctor, or the nurse's aide?
I've seen how much the company made on those little letter kits!!! I also know that those who were actually doing the work were making a very small fraction of the profit. The salesmen and managers well, they probably made 10 times that of those who actually did the work to produce them.
The salesmens and CEO are probably making over 10 times that of those who are actually doing the work to produce them.
Work burns calories!!! Which is probably why there is such a obesity problem in this country. There are too few real workers and a whole lot of leeches....CEO's, salesmen, ect.....leeching off so much of the profits so they can have all the food they want while they sit and push the next folder across their desk!
I'm sorry, but when I was going to school there was two curriculums that you could follow, one was for those who were of college caliber, and the other was for those who weren't. It was not expected that all go on to college. And, well, just where will this country be if the whole graduating class goes to college and gets their degree? Will yous still want the person taking you order at Mc Donalds to be able to understand you when you give your order in English? Who will machine the parts needed to keep your machines running? Who will be printing your sales liturature? Gee, if all have degrees, well aren't they now a dime a dozen....wouldn't this decrease their value a great deal. How can you be leeches, if there is no one to leech off of? And, well, just how much do you think you will be able to save for retirement as you struggle to pay that huge education loan, care for you aging parents, pay off that very large debt that Bush is running up, while you serve your next hamburg at McDonalds?

IF the leeches pull their money out of the social security system it will only force social security to cash in their treasury bonds before they have too, and then, dear people the government will be force to default on it's obligations.
But, hey, I bet machinists and printers will be in high demand!!

Nice try dawnstar. The fact is however the definition of work as used n physics is irrelevant. you see the salesmen and CEO did much more work than you did.
Want proof?
You got paid right? Who created the revenue which funded your check?
The salesmen.
Who kept the company running effeciently enough to employ you?
The ceo.
They did the work.

Nice try....
What's the salesman gonna sale?
What's the CEO gonna manage?
Heck, who's gonna fix your computer when the bugs shuts it down. The educated fools at in the school system were relying on my 15 year old son!!

[edit on 20-1-2005 by dawnstar]

But which is harder?
Which requires more skill?
You see dawnstar you could have been replaced by an idiot, a machine, hell even a trained chimp can run most industrial machinery etc.
The salesmen and the CEO could not.
Thats why they make more.
Thier skills are worth more.
Oh and BTW if you think sales is easy your on drugs. Anybody regardless of intelligence or lack of can run a machne, it takes a hell of lot more to make it as a salesman or executive.
Not to menton the fact that the executives do the hardest work of all, turning and idea into reality. You job can be outsourced to china becuase quite frankly you wern't that important to the company. If you didn't make the products they could have just as easily bought them off someone else, contracted another company to build it for them etc.
Without you and your division the company can still run.
Without the Ceo or salesmen it cannot.

Heck, my freind who sits all day stringing beads on a string and sells them in flea markets and shows would probably make more money than the salesmen in that print shop if all the printers in the world decided tomorrow that they would just go out and get a diploma and quit working. And, I love to see just how much money any salesmen would make if their sales literature were printed by chimps!!!
And, ya, he subcontract that work, but then he is still paying for someone's elses labor, plus the leeches managing them. so, he wouldn't be getting off any cheaper now would he? As far as buying the products from china? Well, what's gonna happen when China says hell with us, we don't want to sell to you? Or, they decide that their employees deserve to have the same lifestyle as americans do? And, well, when you expensive machine that you need to do your work breaks down, are how enthuised are you gonna be when you are laid off waiting for it to be shipped in from China?

By the way, chimps aren't allowed in hospitals, so, what about the nurse's aides, ect....

[edit on 20-1-2005 by dawnstar]

Look dawnstar I'm not insulting you just stating a basic economic truth. The abillity to run a printing press while a specialised skill, is not one which take great amounts of time, intellgence, or talent to learn. It is a skill which can be learned by anybody in a short amont of time. Therfore it has very little value.
The simple fact is most executives work longer and harder than those they employ, if you dont believe me start a business. You will work harder longer than any of your employees.
So you did some heavy lifting so what?
The simple fact is you were expendable They were irreplaceble.

No, you are insulting us by calling us leeches.

I am just pointing out the fact that they are just as necessary as ceos and salesmen. Therefore, they should be paid enough to be able to live on!!! Which if they were, the ceo's, the salemen, ect, wouldn't be making as much as there are, now would they??? A larger portion of the overall buget being used for salaries would have to go to the producers of the product, and thus more than likely would have to come from somewhere...more than likely, the higher paid salaries.
I would love to see the condition our country would be in if everyone in the country who wasn't making enough to live comfortably on decreased the time they spent working down to part time, took out loans for education, and were trained for these higher paying jobs!!! How many houses would be given back to the banks? How high would our budget for welfare go? And, just who would be doing the actual work in this country. Having our products made in China might be good for the business sector, but it isn't too good for the country as a whole is it? I mean, look at our trade deficit!
So, we are leeches for actually doing the hard work and producing the product! Thank you so much!!!

As far as starting a business goes...tell ya what, I'll do that before I will ever work for any corporation in this country. At least then, my pay will be based on just how hard I work, the hours I put in, and the value of what I produced. I won't have a bunch of leeches skimming so much off the top I can't afford to eat or have a roof over my head without having to rely on someone else. Although I will still have the biggest leeches of all feeding off of me...the government and their buddies!

So what you are saying dawnstar s that even though the job of ceo is harder requres greater intelligence, and more skill they don't deserve to get paid more?
The fact is dawnstar that the value of the work you do is not defined by how much physical effort you expend. The value of any given job is defined by
1) the supply of people who have the capabillity to do the job
2) the amount of responsibillity that comes with the job.
3) the level demand for people qulified to do that job.

As a printer you worked a job which anyone could do and which had very little responsibllity.
The ceo's job however very few people could do, in addition he was responsible for ensuring that you and everyone else in the company had a job.
And my reference top leeches was about the lazy bastards at most lower level jobs who want to get paid at the same level as the ceo for doing less work, entailing less responsibility. A printer factory worker etc. can be replaced immediately, its not a job which has a demand for any great amount of intelligence or skill, and for which there is a large supply of workers who have the abiility to do the job.
A ceo however is not easily replaced, has enormous responsibilities, and the supply of people who can do it is very limited.
Thats why they make more than you.
If you have a problem with that then educate yourself and find a job which can not be filled by the mentally handicapped.

I would love to see the condition our country would be in if everyone in the country who wasn't making enough to live comfortably on decreased the time they spent working down to part time, took out loans for education, and were trained for these higher paying jobs!!!

So would I. the simple fact is that jobs like the one you had just aren't that valuable. I for one wish this would happen. The better educated and more skilled the workforce the better shape the economy is in.

ya, right, that's why Bush is trying so hard to let a bunch of uneducated mexicans into the country to work, right???

go through the paper some day and see just how many jobs are paying under nine dollars and hour. I had gone over to the job bank data base and had some of them listed, but well, we lost our connection and it didn't post. i don't have the time to go through it again. so I'm not. I am going on the notion that anyone who wants to have a family should be allowed to have one. Since, well, just where will this country be if no one has kids? Okay, I don't believe that anyone making $9 an hour could supply all the basic necessities of life to their family, even if they have a spouse making as much money, and well, if two people are making under $8 an hours, more than likely their family will be covered by government programs in one way or another...at the least healthcare. There are alot of different jobs out there being advertised, many requiring a year or more experience that are being paid that low wage!!!
Now, here's where I have the problem. If any of these CEO's or salesmen are working for companies that are paying wages that it is impossible to meet the financial requirements that ANY of their employees may have to provide the basic necessities (including healthcare) are making even more than 25% than these employees, well, then the company more than likely has the money to pay all their employees at least enough so that the taxpayer doesn't have to. What, we have the superintendents of school systems making over a hundred thousand a year, and well, they are having trouble convincing people to train to be teachers. They aren't being paid enough to have the basic necessities and be able to pay off the loan. We have COE's making millions, while other employees are forced to run to the government so they can provide a roof over their head and food on the table. I'm sorry, but why should average joe taxpayer have to take on the burden of feeding their employees, providing medical care to them when they are sick, and a roof over their head so they don't freeze. Maybe I don't want to do that anymore. Maybe I think we should just stop doing it right now, today. Just what do you think will happen to the employees under that CEO? What will happen to the company after they all starve or freeze to death? And, just what do you think will happen to the company after that happens? Just how much will the CEO be making then?


[edit on 20-1-2005 by dawnstar]

So let me get this straight dawnstar, you believe that people should be paid more than thier jobs are worth, so they can have enough money to do what they want?
Rather than people who are dissatisfied with thier jobs going out and either educating themselves or learning new skills to be more competitive, they should just get paid more huh?

I mean its unfair to set a value on their work in the same exact way we set the value of food, gold, money, and every other thng in this world that money is exchanged for, is that it?


Everyone in America who wants a family can have one, whether they can afford to have one is up to them.

So basically it seems to me that what your saying is that instead of paying people based on what they do, and how much its worth as decided by supply and demand, we should pay people based on how much they need to have what they want?

Well if your gonna go that far why should you have to work at all I mean why cant someone just pay you for being alive?