This is Good! So true...

Originally posted by mwm1331
Drfunk - this is my field so trst me when I say that putting side 5-10 dollars a week, strting when you re young by the time you re 55-65 you will have enough to not only live the rest of your life but to leave a sizable nestegg to your chldren. I cannot count how many people mking less than 20k per year I have helped set up private pensions for who, if they keep contributing, will retire millionaires. It doesnt take as much as people think it does. The problem is that government funded pensions will never be able to do the same. First of all the beuracratic structure means that anywhere from 10-30% of the money is wasted. Second the government can not take advantage of the same vehicles a private person can.
With an extreemly conservative investment strategy and 5-10 dollars a week starting as late as 30, anyone can retire a millionaire. even if yo start at 35 40 it would only take 20-30 dollars a week which is one dinner at a medium to low grade resturant.
Koka what I meant about your mothers medication is where do you think the money to develop that drug came from? Who paid for the R&D? I guarantee it was not the government.
The point I am making is that in the long run, you stand to gain far more by not being taxed and acting responsibly with your money than being taxed and relying on the government.
There is NO excuse for someone to not be able to provide for thier own future.

Sorry mate a simple excel spreadsheet will show you are quite mistaken $20/week saved with a very generous 10%pa compounding weekly gives you a handsome $333000 after 35 years, but certainly NOT a mill. needless to say 333000 in 35 years will have a buying power equivalent to around 80k if you're lucky.

Another interesting phenomenon in this thread is the way the US participants are happy with the initial premise, which I personally find has an offensive disregard for those less educated, less informed, less fortunate, less healthy.
I'm sorry lads, health care and education should be given rights in a civilised society. If you don't believe that you must be freakin uneducated Americans.

I think what we are all saying, is that people can't be trusted with their own futures.

Since we can't trust people to make smart choices, plan, save, work hard, etc (although many do) then the government must provide it for them by taxing them.

Well I for one am tired of paying for the overhead. Perhaps those in other countries aren't aware of the rediculous amount of taxes we pay already, and that is without college and healthcare paid for.

You guys make it sound like humans can't be trusted with charity as well. We must force charity upon people because they wouldn't give or help without it.

I know 78 people in Washington DC alone, who would have died had they not been fed three hot meals a day from a van paid solely from contributions from people who want to help and money from churches in the area.

We care, and we help, but we need to encourage people to help others rather than tell them we don't trust them.

As for healthcare, if you have a full time job, you have health coverage (more or less). If government did get involved, I would say the best bet would be to work out a plan to lower healthcare costs to lower insurance rates so that all could afford it.

There are many nuances of the American system that those outside do not see or understand. But heartless we are not.

We would like to stop paying for the incompitence of the federal government, not stop helping people.

I think the sentiment of not having children if you can't afford them is perfectly valid. Why should I pay for someone to keep having kids? It can be avoided, and in many circumstances SHOULD be. I work for a construction firm, and I see these guys come in here all the time trying to beat the system. They work long enough for the court to find them and start garnishing them for child support, then they quit and move along to another place where they can scam their way out of it for awhile. So the cycle never ends. The payroll people have to process them and get them on the payroll, which takes time and money. Then the courts track them down and file paperwork with payroll so now that's more time and money spent on this jagoff who doesn't want to support his children. Then he quits and we have to process him out, meaning more time and money. All the while his children's mother is collecting assistance and trying to hunt him down too.

Or they work only a certain amount of time so they don't go over the limit they're allowed to make and still stay on assistance. The hours are available. The guys who do it could work, it's not like the hours aren't there. They could work 50 or 60 hours some weeks when the weather is good and make some overtime, even. But they'd rather just not show up and then have our payroll people fill out a form stating how many hours they worked so they could prove they still "need" assistance to live. We're hurting for help so badly that we keep these useless cons because even the little work we get from them is SOMETHING.

I wouldn't deny a child anything. And I'd stop at nothing to stop someone from being abused or hurt. But the people who put themselves in these positions, that's another story. How many times can you shoot yourself in the foot and expect people to rush to your aid and pay the bill to do so?

The Bill of No Rights, by Lewis Napper

We, the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid any more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt-ridden, delusional and other liberal, commie, pinko bedwetters.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that a whole lot of people were confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim that they require a Bill of No Rights.

ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen color TV or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone�not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc., but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy. Learn to be more careful.

ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.

ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we�re just not interested in public health care.

ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim or kill someone, don�t be surprised if the rest of us get together and kill you.

ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don�t be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won�t have the right to a big-screen color TV or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII: You don�t have the right to demand that our children risk their lives in foreign wars to soothe your aching conscience. We hate oppressive governments and won�t lift a finger to stop you from going to fight if you�d like. However, we do not enjoy parenting the entire world and do not want to spend so much of our time battling each and every little tyrant with a military uniform and funny hat.

ARTICLE IX: You don�t have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have one, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities in education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

ARTICLE X: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to pursue happiness�which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an overabundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

I have to chime in with some compromising points. While it is true that its unfair for others to work everyday so that others don't because they've had kids they can't support, it is necessary and the civil thing to do to make sure they have food and shelter. Notice I didn't say designer clothing, SUVs, cell phones, or even computers.

I recall hearing a story about a congressman in the early government who was the lone vote against giving money to a widow of a great war hero. It wasn't because he didn't think she deserved it, it was because the constitution didn't then, and still doesn't now, give congress the right to spend tax payer money on anything other than what True Lies posted in the first post. That was never to be a function of government. The newly elected congressman did however, commit to donating a months salary to the widow and called for the other senior members to do so as well. Since they were all wealthy and he was fresh off the battlefield, he thought if he would do it, it would surely be no problem for the rich. There were , however, no takers.

Look, nationalised publicly funded health care can't work in the US. If it could have, you can bet Bill Clinton would have gotten it through. The cost for the beaurocratic administration is too great alone before we even get into the cost of the program itself. I do agree that government should stop giving corperate giants hand-outs and favors. That isn't a legal function either.

As for welfare, I regret that its an inescapable necessary evil. Not because its a legal and valid function of the government but because so many have had it for so long. Our interpretation of our governmental system has become so skewed since its inception that you could not get most to accept an interpretation that limited govt. powers to the basics True Lies listed but , in fact, she is correct..legally.

I believe if we had less govt. involvement, we would have less need for such programs to begin with. What I'm saying is that high taxes and pure and simple glutonous waste contribute more to the very issues government has now given themselves the right to fix than the solutions they apply can resolve.

So, to those who always look for someone else to educate them and provide free drugs and to those who are so damn tired of working to do it, all I can say is that, this is the best its going to get for either of you. Socialist aren't going to get a free ride by totally enslaving the working population and the working population might as well resign to paying for welfare and public education. I can only hope that in the case of the latter two programs, we can see the need for new ideas on how these should and could work better instead of just throwing more money at and dysfunctional plan.

I think we can all agree that if welfare is merely to help support somone through a trying time, a 5 year time limit is acceptable. I also think our education dollar would be better spent if schools returned to teaching the core sciences and arts and forgot about social programming. We, the parents will take care of values and morals. You all teach them to read, write, add, and subtract.

Do you remember?

"Boy, the way Glen Miller played.
Songs that made the Hit Parade.

Guys like us, we had it made.
Those were the days!

Didn't need no welfare state.
Everybody pulled his weight

Gee, our old LaSalle (a car) ran great.
Those were the days!

And you knew where you were then!
Boys were boys, and men were men.

Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.

People seemed to be content.
Fifty dollars paid the rent.

Take a little Sunday spin,
go to watch the Dodgers win.
Have yourself a dandy day that cost you under a fin (five dollar bill).

Hair was short and skirts were long.
Kate Smith really sold a song.

I don't know just what went wrong!
Those Were the Days!"

===============================

And for you people out there that call this true conservatism, it isn't...
Actually if you reserach true conservatism, you will learn that,

Once upon a time, round about 200-300 years ago there was a group of men, originally in Holland, then in England, then in America, who called themselves "liberals" or, in some cases, "Old Whigs."

These guys had this idea that having Kings rule everyone on every issue was a bad idea.

That maybe people could make their own decisions about what to think, what to say, where to work and at what, what to do with their money and who or what to worship. [Ridiculous isn't it.]

The opponents of these guys were known variously as Tories or Royalists or Conservatives or merely as Supporters of the Right And Good As Embodied In King And Country.
More
Here's a good point (I post this because this dude said it best... and well, you all know by now i'm not such a good explainer of things lol)
======================================

Things went along like that for awhile. But over time both the new liberals and the new conservatives lost most of their original principles as their "representatives" and "leaders" lusted for more and more personal power and were willing to tell any lie necessary to achieve that goal.

And here we are in the happy world of today, where there is really no more division. All sides agree with the old tory position and no one really has any truck with that silly "individual freedom" idea any more.

===============================

(me)
[Ridiculous isnt it?] of the idea that if things go wrong in every aspect of american society it's automatically the governments fault...... I guess when you start relying on government to control every aspect of your life that would happen.
If you hand all the reins of power over the guy who wanted to control your life in the first place your leaving the door open for trouble. Social, economic, health, foreign, education, ect...

Government wasn't designed to regulate everything, control everything, and kiss all the boo boo's in your life good bye, thats your job. It's our job to make sure these things are operating well, whoever said schools do much better when government gets in the way?

=====================
(LP) ----->We need to roll back the size and cost of government, it's gotten way too out of hand and this needs to be realised before the ball starts rolling.
And it won't happen until people pull their brains out of the frying pan...

"That government is best which governs least" Jefferson.

=====================LP STANCE ON ISSUES================

Imagine an America

Imagine an America where police work, swiftly and fairly, to protect your family from violent criminals, instead of aresting people whose "crimes" harm no one but themselves.


Imagine an America where the worst polluters who dump radioactive waste in drinking water and sewage in national parks are brought to justice for their crimes, and for forced to clean up their environmental devastation.


Imagine an America that is respected around the world as a beacon of opportunity and freedom instead of being seen as meddlesom and arrogant.


Imagine an America where the government can't decide what personal decisions you are allowed to make, which books you can read, or what you can do with your property


Imagine an America where tolerance is a way of life, and where no one uses the power of government to discriminate again, or show favortism to and racial, ethnic, or religious group.

Imagine an America where the federal government is small and effective, because its activities are are limited to the few functions the constitution says it should perform . And where power is decentralized, not concentrated in the hands of a few politicians.

It all boils down to choice and responsibility.... Holding yourself accountable for these things instead of playing the blame game... If you can't do this, then move back in with your parents, responsible people want to hold themselves accountable not the government...

No matter the issue, ask yourself "who decides"? Should you make the decisions that are important to your life?
Or should politicians make them for you?

===========================

Ending corporate welfare and government WASTE

Take McDonald's for example... 30,000 restaurants in 121 countries w/ an earning of $40,000 billion/year in revenue.

But even as they rake in massive profits, it's also cashing welfare checks from the government. A few years ago, politicians gave the corp $1.6 million to help it advertise Big Macs in Europe .

This was part of the U.S Dept of Agriculture's market access program
which takes TAXPAYERS' money and funnels it to wealthy corp in the name of PROMOTING American products...

McDonald's isn't theonly one:

Campbell's soup got $300,000
IBM got $1.4 billion
Ernest and Julio Gallo Windery got $4.9 million
General Electric got $671 million
California Raison Bread $3 million.

It's called corporate welfare, and it's how democratic and republican politicians enrich their big business friends- at taxpayer's expense

There are more then 100 corporate welfare programs on thebooks, costing taxpayers $87 billions/yr

And corporate welfare is just the tip of the iceburg.

The federal bureaucracy is too big, programs are too big, or I should say wasteful programs cost too much,

Layers upon Layers of federal administrations have proliferated in recent decades, abuse and unaccountability have become the norm.
Source: Book: The Government Racket: 2000 and Beyond.

Martin L Gross estimates that the government wastes about $375 billion per year

A smaller, more focused gov would have fewer opps to squander OUR MONEY.
================

Education:

Average cost for each student at a private school is $6,857


A school NOT run by the government is $957/yr, thats it!
There is zero gangs, zero drugs, zero pregnancies, zero violence, zero guards, zero metal detectors, and this school is in the inner city cleveland.
(St. Adalbert school)
This school scores a zero in cetegories parents care about most.
The secret? It's not run by the government.

Compare this to gov schools, the worse they do, the more money politicians pour into the system.

For example: American high school SAT scores fell by an average of 50 points between 70 and 95. During the same time, federal education spending nearly doubled from $19 billion to $35 billion.

In other words, private schools are rewarded when they succeed. But government schools are rewarded even when they FAIL!

We aren't getting our money's worth from the government run school system.
You need to get the gov our of education
===================================

CRIME

Protect the right to self defense. Americans will use guns appx 2.5 millions times a year to stop crime- in most cases without a firing a shot.
It works.

IE/ Law abiding citizens in Fla have been able to carry concealed weapons since 1987. During that time, the murder rate in Fla declinded more then 20% faster than the national rate.

Police spend billions of dollars a year to arrest people for victimless crimes like drug use, gamblind, and prostitution... As a result, prisons are filled beyond their capacity, often corcing the early release of violent felons. Police resourches should be redirected to focus on criminals who prety on innocent Americans, not people who commit "crimes" that harm no one but THEMSELVES.

=======================

Environment

The federal government is the biggest environmental villan not exxon dupont or gm...


This criminal has leaked radioactive waste into drinking water
dumped sewage into national parks
poured pcb's into rivers
and contaminated 61,155 sites around the USA.

According to the Bostons Globe:
"the federal government has become the worst polluter in the land"

The cost of cleaning up the damage done by federal agencies and the military could exceed $300 billion.

That's five times the cost of environmental harm done by all private businesses combined.

What's worse is many federal agencies are exempt from environmental laws; individuals bureaucrats are immune from criminal prosecution; and congress even passed a law that protects the military from having to pay environmental fines


The boston globe says

" As a result, the federal government has a license to pollute"

====================

WAR ON DRUGS

The federal government spent $18 billion in 2001 to fight the war on drugs.

More then 19,000 state and local police officers worked full time on drug cases.
Despite all this money and firepower, 82% of high school students say getting marijuana is very easy. A number that hasn't budged in 20 years.

In 2000, 734,497 Americans were arrested on marijuana related charges.
That same year only 625,243 violent criminals were arrested for murder, rape, robbery, or aggravated assault, according to fbi figures.

In other words, the war of drugs isn't making your family safer, it's making it less safe because police spend their time arresting marijuana smokers instead of apprehending brutal thugs.
=====================

LIFTING AMERICANS OUT OF POVERTY


A myriad of regulations, licensing requirements, taxes, and fees keep thousands of poor Americans from starting small businesses and lifting themselves and their families out of poverty.

Since Lyndon Johnson declared a "war on poverty" in the 1960s the US gov has spent $5.4 trillion on programs to help the poor.

DESPITE this outpouring of cash, the official poverty rate has been stubbornly stuck at about 14% for the last 40 years.

However well intentioned these programs may have been, they failed in their most fundamental task: to list americans out of poverty

A job is always better than a welfare program. Yet to start a business you need a battery of lawyers to deal with alphabet soup of government agencies:
OSHA, EPA, FTC, ECT.

Zoning and licensing laws also throw up barriers to starting a business.
It's time to repeal any government regulation or tax that cuts the bottom rungs off the economic ladder, and makes it more difficult for poor people to find jobs and start businesses.

Americans are the most generous people on earth, contributing more then $125 billion annually to charity. We'd give even more if the government offered dollar for dollar tax CREDITS for contributions to charities that provide social welfare services. For every dollar you contirbute to effective groups like Habitiat for Humanity and the Red cross you would be able to deduct a dollar from your tax bill.
Vibrant compassionate private charity works better than ponderous government buraucracies. Private charities are more likely to offer counselling and one on one follup rather than simply mailing a check. And private charity tends to provide short term emergency assistance, rather than long term dependence. Thus, private charity provides a safety net, but not a way of life, and helps break the cycle of welfare dependency and hopelessness.

I think i'm going to take this to the Election Issues thread...

Originally posted by Romeo
I'm sorry lads, health care and education should be given rights in a civilised society. If you don't believe that you must be freakin uneducated Americans.

If i'm not mistaken, doctor's fee's aren't free... I don't think they spent all that money going to school for 8+ years so you can have your god given health right.

In Canada, where I used to live, health care was socialised medicine. It doesn't work... There are many problems with the health care sytem, doctor's and nurses are leaving because they don't get paid # to what they do here, they don't care about there work like they do here, waiting lists are long, machines are older, doctors aren't allowed to buy their own machines because then that takes money away from the government, equipment is short supplied, Waiting for a government paycheck to get new things takes time and you can't get it ifyour a doctor because the gov doesn't like it.
I don't know how many times i've sat in "emergency" waiting room for a sore throat... My family doctor is closed at night time... People like me take up the doctor's time the doctor has more serious cases to deal with, he's stressed, he's not wanting to be there, so he doesn't do the job he could be doing.
So people wait for hours sometimes to get in, short staffed, docs don't care...
People bitch because the wait is long, and they also bitch because they know someone close to them that got left alone while cut open on waiting tables and died.. My ex bf grandfather had that happen to him too..
It's messy, and it's not a right.

Val Venis was a wwf star had to travel to the US to get hip surgery, but he was entitled to FREE HEALTH CARE in Canada (because she was canadian born)Venis crossed to get "prompt" high quality [/] health care he could only find in the US. In Canada, he would have to wait months (or even years) for the "non-critical" surgery that would allow him to walk again without pain.
And many canadian hospitals don't have the state of the art equipment their U.S counterparts do.
So Venis chose to pay for his surgery, rather than settle for slow questionable care...

Through regulations and mandates, reps and dems are trying to mimic Canada's failed system. In doing so, they are damaging what was once the best health care system in the world.

As recently as the 1960s low cost health insurance was available to virtually everyone in America, including people with existing medical problems. doctors made house calls. A hospital stay cost only a few days' pay. And charity hospitals were available to take care of families who couldn't afford to pay for health care.

Then the federal government moved in.

With medicare, Medicaid, the HMO Act, and tens of thousands of regulations on doctors, hospitals, and health-insurance companies.
Medicare regulations alone run more then 100,000 pages.

Today, more then 50% of all health-care dollars are spent by the government.

Health insurance costs are sky rocketing, and government health programs are heading for bankruptcy.

Rather than roll back the government obstacles to affordable health care, politicians continue to pile on more regulations.

To fix this you have to draw on the strength of the free market... (oh yes, I agree with this)
Establish medical savings accounts, deregulate the care industry, and remove barriers to safe, affordable medicines... (oh yes I agree with that too)

Not socialized medicine!! :bash:

a bachelors has become the new high school diploma . you should not have to start in debt just to get a career. you go to school for 13 years just for the right to pay to go for another 4 and start out life in debt. I think this time should be utilized more efficently. otherwise all you do is lower overall youth maturity and create more of a strain on the budget.

this effect is also like captialism. the more people that go to college, the more its required and therefor the more the rates will go up.

Originally posted by drfunk
44 million people without healthcare? that's awful, its a joke. I can't believe that a lot of people in the US actually agree with this crap how can you call yourselves human beings.

Can you explain what happens to those 44 million people when they get sick and have to go to the hospital?

[edit on 2-9-2004 by TrueLies]

What about public Schools, Social Security, Healthcare, Housing and Food Stamps?

Answer: Gov't should NOT be involved in any of these things, these are the responsibilities of INDIVIDUALS. If you can't afford to have children - DON'T HAVE THEM! Your retirement is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY! So is your healthcare! The best way to guarantee homelessness is to get the Gov't involved in housing! If you can't afford food - STOP BUYING DRUGS & BOOZE!

Any other questions?

Wow, Truelies, that's a very conservative viewpoint. . Join me, joiiinnn mee!! muahahaha

Originally posted by specialasianX
The US is nothing but a capitalist-fuedalistic dump design to keep the 'upper class' rich folk right there, and to make sure the kids who had rich parents and never had to work a day in their lives stay rich too...

# it... any country with Ideals ike that is not morally superior in any way and really should just be nuked right now before they do any more damage...

How did the rich get rich in the first place? The U.S. is famous for its "rags to riches" and "riches to rags" stories; some of the most famous Americans had little, or nothing, when they started their lives here, and ended their lives here as some of the most powerful, richest people on the planet. Also, you can only keep your fortune here as long as you're willing to work hard to earn it and keep it -- and if you inherited it, work hard to keep it. Capitalism is a great economic system because a person does get rewarded for their hard work -- otherwise, why work at all?

Captialism and fuedalism are divergent philosophies... That's like saying someone is a violent pacifict. Speaking of which, it's not the liberal philosophy to advocate the destruction of anyone who doesn't agree with you...

I think the truth of the matter is, the best society is a combination of conservative and liberal philosophies. Some conservative ideas (like small, limited government, and an upwardly mobile society) are good, and some liberal ideas (like helping those in need, and equal opportunity for all -- no nobility, for example) are good. Most of the arguments between those that aren't extremists on either side are really about where to draw the lines, no whether or not there's a line at all.

Originally posted by ThunderCloud
That's like saying someone is a violent pacifict. Speaking of which, it's not the liberal philosophy to advocate the destruction of anyone who doesn't agree with you...

Hehehe, funny, to me... However, I doubt he would understand that subtle little jab...

The Rich's kids get rich because capitalism is, or at least strives to be, a free business market. Of course, if parent's are rich, their children have a higher chance of being rich, because the parents will usually give the child a head-start. (Grant of money, high place in their busines...). Do you think that shouldn't be allowed? On the other had, I have stories of my own.(I'm deathly tired, excuse any spelling or gramatical errors). My moms parents are millionairs. My mom moved out, married my father who came from an EXTREMELY poor family (And I do mean EXTREMELY.), and we are now upper-middle class (Depending on who you ask). See? The rich kid became poor..er, the poor kid became richer. My dad's brother, who of course came from the same dirt-poor family created a business out of NOTHING and now has 20 million dollars to spend as he pleases. Interesting, huh?

Originally posted by Herman
The Rich's kids get rich because capitalism is, or at least strives to be, a free business market. Of course, if parent's are rich, their children have a higher chance of being rich, because the parents will usually give the child a head-start.

True, the kids of rich parents get a head start (isn't that one of the reasons the parents worked so hard to earn that money in the first place?), but if the kids are corruptible idiots, all the head starts in the world mean little. The corruptible idiotic kids of hard-working parents take fortunes and squander them once their parents are gone. It happens all the time! Even if you inherit a business, or money, or whatever, you have to work as hard as the people you inherited it all from to keep it; otherwise, it'll vanish before you know it... The kids of rich parents that are hard-working people figured this out, and are still rich.

they have to PAY for their healthcare! and many can't afford the treatment so they die because the corporations would rather deny them an HMO because they are "cost cutting" so they can get bonuses and a new house.

thanks,
drfunk

Romeo - If I had been talking about a static 10% annualy you would hve been correct. However I was discussing putting the money into tx free IRA through a direct dividend reinvestment program into blue chips such as coca cola. With a DDRP you can invest into the companies stock without going through a Broker (thus avoding commissions) and set up a drip account whereby you invest a given amount per week, month year etc, and have the dividends automatically used to purchse more stock. between the captol appreciation and the reinvestments it is a quite simple matter for even the most low income of people to afford a nice retirement.
Btw even at 333,000 invested into municipal bonds, (which are exempt from federal income taxes) the income would be 26,640 per year which is the same or greater income as when the person used in my example was working 40 hours per week. Being able to retire at the same level of income you had when you were working is the definition of a successful retirement.

playing with people's superannuation on the stock market is dangerous and by doing so you can make their retirement impossible or very uncomfortable. That is why the state needs to be able to provide for the elderly just incase capitalism fails the person/s.

thanks,
drfunk

And pray tell Dr funk, where will the government come up with this money?
No investing on the stock market is not dangerous depending on your strategy. If you are smart and ignore the hype it is very easy to make money on a consistant basis. Look at warren buffett.

ahh the "american dream" once again shows through. Playing the stock market is very dangerous and there are numerous companies out there that have lost many good people their chance to retire.


I keep telling you my friend that the money comes from doing work which goes to taxation which in turn pays for such things.

A game played by fools, invented for the work shy rich who don't like to earn their wonga.