Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We meet at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E—some of us show up a little early to sample from the terrific menu.
Tonight’s theme song is from The Clash’s album Cut the Crap….“Dirty Punk”.
If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally . Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.
News from the War front yes the troops are winning without any help from the home front.
Desert Battles are unfolding in hidden and faraway places. Bullets snap through air, then slap through flesh and men fall. Bodies crumple onto the desert, a fly lands on the lip of an open mouth, fingers twitch as the flesh dies and the winds kick up and dust settles on unblinking eyes. The dry earth drinks their sticky blood and they are forgotten. Their families do not know they are dead. They came to kill Americans and innocent Iraqis. Instead, they were killed themselves. In a desert landscape, sometimes the color of a war can bleed out into black and white.
Few things in life are black and white. The colors of a war.
http://www.michaelyon-online.c.....;Itemid=55
Maybe you would rather read something that you can not read in the Seattle fish rappers.
Al Qaeda is still trying to spin Iraq into civil war, but whereas in 2005-2006 al Qaeda was succeeding, today al Qaeda is being shredded.
An Iraqi officer near Sinjar told me that recently a group of perhaps twenty “jihadists,” many of them foreign, descended on a Nineveh village. The Iraqi officer said the terrorists killed some adults and two babies. One baby they murdered was 15 days old.
Until recently, such terror attacks inside Iraq could have coerced the village into sheltering Al Qaeda. Yet this time, the “jihadists” got an unexpected reception. Local men grabbed their rifles and poured fire on the demons, slaughtering them. Nineteen terrorists were destroyed. Times have changed for al Qaeda here. Too many Iraqis have decided they are not going to take it anymore. Al Qaeda in Iraq is still fighting, and they are tough and wily, but al Qaeda Central seems to realize there are easier targets elsewhere, perhaps in Europe, where many people demonstrate weakness in the face of terror.
http://www.michaelyon-online.c.....;Itemid=55
hey darryl, did you guys podcast last week?
Now Hillary can’t pay the health insurance for her campaign workers. We need national health care now!!!! The democrat campaign workers and their families depend on it.
Hillary the Liar:
http://www.northstarwriters.com/dc163.htm
5
She is unelectable. This is precisely why I am voting for her in Pennsylvania. roof roof
Ryan,
Yes…we did podcast last week. The digital recorder died while writing the files. I managed to get only three of the five tracks. But, I was able to edit the whole thing down to something shorter and sensible.
We’re back in business for tonight, and I think Goldy will post a double header tomorrow.
The Pentagon authorizes all kinds of nutty research, but thought this might be of some interest here.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/1/headlines#6
Military Considers Recruiting & Hiring Bloggers
In media news, new questions are being raised over the relationship between the Pentagon and bloggers. Wired.com has uncovered a 2006 study written for the US Special Operations Command that suggests the military should clandestinely recruit or hire prominent bloggers. The report stated, “Hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering.” The report also suggested the Pentagon hack blogs that promote messages that are antithetical to US interests. The report went on to say, “Hacking the site and subtly changing the messages and data—merely a few words or phrases—may be sufficient to begin destroying the blogger’s credibility with the audience.”
YellowPup says:
The Pentagon authorizes all kinds of nutty research, but thought this might be of some interest here.
http://www.democracynow.org/20 08/4/1/headlines#6
Military Considers Recruiting & Hiring Bloggers
Funny you just found out about it from some left wing blog. This has been going on for years and it didn’t cost them a dime. They don’t have to destroy the blogger’s credibility the blogger’s is his/her own worst enemy. All that’s’ required is to apply common sense and the rest just fall in place. Maybe the Socialist Democrats needs to get some new information to talk about. The enemies of this country are within our own borders and they don’t look like bin Laden but support his ideology.
And once again Cheap Labor Liberals whine about the working class, but refuse to hold their event in a Union establishment. Once again, I ask; How many of your DL members arrive driving AMERICAN UNION made cars (That would mean supporting the middle class and working pensions) versus driving Foreign company cars made by non-union labor? How many of you hypocrites have never paid Union Dues at all (You King Goldy brags about never paying or being apart of a Union)?
Look, I have no problem with you driving a Toyota Prius, because you somehow believe that the damage done to the earth mining the components for the batteries is offset by the decreased CO2 emissions. But at least have the stones to admit your own hypocrisy.
Prius Envy: Have heard that the hybrid TP is the only eco car that is more enviro-friendly than a Hummer, when all costs from mining to disposal are factored in.
I wonder if any right wingers will show up to tell us why we should vote for Sheriff Big Hair?
IAFF Fireman,
The days of pensions are pretty much over; defined contribution plans have repalced pensions. The old deal of working for a company for 30 or 35 years and drawing a pension for a few years before relining for the “dirt nap” is finished.
You firemen may have it pretty well if you have a pension. I’d say you guys are paid fairly well if that’s the case. Eventually, even the firemen’s union won’t be able to keep the old defined benefit plans.
Most people don’t realize how important it is to participate in the 401k or 403b, especially if there’s any matching funds from the employer. People should alos do IRAs, if they can afford to. The social security payments one will receive in retirement will possibly cover one’s electric bill but not much else.
Watch the drinking and driving tonight, lads & lassies. DL ain’t important enough to get a DUI arrest over going to have a few at the tavern.
Moonbat quiz: Who makes the most money from oil company operating income:
1) Gummint
2) Shareholders
3) “Fat cat” executives.
Answer later.
Dumfuckingshits…
@10 – A Prius may save the air, but they are some REALLY heavy vehicles, which in turn cause road wear and tear worse so than regular gas vehicles. Don’t ever try to push a Prius, you’d have better luck pushing a full size Chevy truck!
Dickless @ 11- “have heard” from who? Seems like a rather stupid reptition of talking points. Lok at shear mass alone, and the Hummer has more impacts, independant of fuel source.
But, if that’s what you want to believe, go for it.
“Tonight’s theme song is from The Clash’s album Cut the Crap….“Dirty Punk”.”
Is this a musical tribute to our Republican friends?
Roger Rabbit is unable to attend tonight due to a recent illness. He is still recuperating.
@1 “News from the War front yes the troops are winning without any help from the home front.”
I don’t know about “winning” — that may be an exaggeration — but they sure didn’t get any help from the home front. Our GOP government refused to buy helmets, body armor, and vehicle armor; tried to eliminate their combat pay; warehoused the wounded in moldy tenements; and cut veterans benefits. The only support the troops get from Republicans is a lot of fake-patriotic hot air.
IAFF “Fireman”
I swore off Ford, Chrysler, American Motors, and GM shit a LONG time ago. It is foreign-made cars ONLY for me. Is that bad?
Also…as far as I know I’ve never been in a “union bar.” Is that bad? Why would I want to patronize one versus, say, a small family-owned joint?
@2 Maybe you should put quote marks around it so we know you didn’t write it, moron.
@3 Just what this blog needs — another lying wingnut pretending to be a “liberal.” After spending 30 years demonizing the term “liberal” all the wingnuts now want to be “liberals.” Amazing.
erratum
@4 not @3
@9 “They don’t have to destroy the blogger’s credibility the blogger’s is his/her own worst enemy.”
That’s certainly true in your case.
@10 Speaking of cheap labor, this group of peasants has had enough of working without pay. http://news.aol.com/business/s.....3109990001
Quote:
Schlitz made Milwaukee famous. Well, Cook County is the county that made election rigging famous.
You have to have King County in there for vote rigging… come on.
@3 Just what this blog needs — another lying wingnut pretending to be a “liberal.” After spending 30 years demonizing the term “liberal” all the wingnuts now want to be “liberals.”
Where are conservatives running away from conservatism???
Liberals only pretend not to be liberals when it comes to election time. Just ask Obama.
Speaking of cheap labor. When are those donk candidates going to insist paying their volunteers….. Oh that is right, democrats are hypocrites. Nevermind. roof roof.
@13 “The social security payments one will receive in retirement will possibly cover one’s electric bill but not much else.”
Bullshit. Social Security is the ONLY inflation-adjusted retirement income most people will ever have. My father, the Great Papa Rabbit, is almost 100 years old and his pension is still the same as it was 30 years ago, and Social Security is his main source of income now. When I start getting SS later this year, it’ll be about half of my pension, but eventually it will be several times my pension because of inflation. If you think you can retire on your IRAs and 401(k)s after the stock market gets through with you, all I can say is Lots of Luck ‘cuz you’re gonna need it. But you’re gonna need SS even more. Thank God for FDR and Social Security!
@14 You got something against the world’s richest corporations paying taxes? You can’t even pay a $100 gambling debt. Moron.
@14 But, to answer your question, anyone who properly timed his purchase of oil stocks 3-4 years ago has seen his investment triple, so the capital gains being reaped by shareholders vastly exceed the piddling 35% nominal* tax rate paid by oil companies.
* I say “nominal” because nobody actually pays the retail tax rate. That’s what they employ all those tax lawyers and accountants for.
@22 Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Roger. Not everyone wants to be a liberal. Some of us still have pride!
Redneck thought he was going to snare someone with a trick question but the joke’s on him — the petroleum industry as a whole pays only about 1/3 of the nominal 35% rate, and many energy companies pay no taxes at all. How’s it feel to get bit in the ass by facts, Mark? Pay your fucking gambling debt, deadbeat!
http://www.eriposte.com/econom.....elfare.htm
http://www.ctj.org/itep/corp00pr.htm
@32 Unless you posted #4, I wasn’t talking to you or about you.
@15 Is this an argument to buy a full-size Chevy truck instead of a Prius?
@20 Why does Wingnut Fireman hate family businesses?
@26 Repeating a lie 10 million times doesn’t make it true.
@35 Then you were very imprecise. You said “all the wingnuts”. One would not assume that such a statement would pertain to one individual, since you used the plural form.
@26 If vote rigging happens in King County, how did the GOP manage to spend $2 million on the best lawyers money can buy to have 4 fraudulent votes subtracted from their own candidate’s total by their own hand-picked Republican judge in their own hand-picked Republican county?
@27 I think you’ll find Obama proudly putting the word “Democrat” on his yard signs and bumper stickers. To find a politician who doesn’t want voters to know which party he belongs to, you have to look at Republicans like McGavick and Dan Satterberg, both of whom tried to pretend they were running as “non-partisan” candidates.
@28 I’ll gladly work free to elect Democrats. It’s about saving America from Republicans.
@32 I fail to see what there is about being a wingnut that any rational person would take pride in. That’s sort of like a rapist bragging to other inmates about how many women he raped.
39 If there was no fraud what did the Acorn workers go to
jail for?
Republicans like McGavick and Dan Satterberg, both of whom tried to pretend they were running as “non-partisan” candidates.
04/01/2008 at 10:40 pm
You mean how the queen ran as an “anti tax and spender” and then proposed some of the biggest tax hikes in Washington state history??? You mean that “pretending”??
Roger Rabbit says:
@27 I think you’ll find Obama proudly putting the word “Democrat” on his yard signs and bumper stickers.
He won’t be calling himself liberal that’s for sure. The word liberal is kryptonite when it comes to getting elected. McCain is already calling himself a proud conservative, too bad he will have a hard time convincing his base of that.
re 38: “I-Burn”? Not fast enough to suit me. The only thing burning on you is your methane-filled bunghole, which is — conveniently enough for yourself — fully plugged by your 16 pound head!
Go for the glass belly-button surgery. It’s less invasive and you’ll be able to see — albeit through a glass darkly.
This election is for McCain to lose. If the Christian right does not come out and support him he will lose. Of course it is that way with every election. roof roof.
Roger Rabbit says:
@32 I fail to see what there is about being a wingnut that any rational person would take pride in.
Well you being a guvmint leech that doesn’t surprise me one bit. roof roof.
Speaking of guvmint leeches.. Hi Lucy.
The last liberal who called himself a liberal when running for president was Dukakis. He fared as well as the two previous democrat candidates. Why can’t we have truthful democrats running again… it was so easy.
@46 Wow, guess I should feel honored – being the target of brainless lucy… er, sorry…headless lucy. So tell the truth. Are you really a cross-dressing castrato? Or do you just play one on HA?
Roger at 29 said:
“When I start getting SS later this year, it’ll be about half of my pension, but eventually it will be several times my pension because of inflation.”
If social security makes up half of your “pension,” Roger, you must be one frugal motherfucker. Social security might be a nice additional source of income, but you sure can’t live off of it. It’s absolutely imperative that people develop several sources of retirement income, be it from a pension (a dying animal, to be sure), IRAs, 401k’s, 403b’s, SIMPLES, Keogh’s, etc. You and others who blindly believe FDR is gonna rise from the grave and save everyone in retirement do society a great disservice: there are actually people that believe as you do and are waltzing into old age poverty without any other source of retiement income except your “glorious” social security.
Well, I guess the plan will be for those folks to vote into office politicians that will force the rest of society to pay the tab for poor planning and blindly believing that FDR will save them. In a way those folks are right because they’ll just seize what they want from others through the tax code.
“If you think you can retire on your IRAs and 401(k)s after the stock market gets through with you, all I can say is Lots of Luck ‘cuz you’re gonna need it. But you’re gonna need SS even more. Thank God for FDR and Social Security!”
Let’s turn that around: if YOU think you can retire on social security without IRA’s, 401k’s, etc., all I can say is Lots of Luck ‘cuz you’re gonna need it.
@ 18
“Roger Rabbit is unable to attend tonight due to a recent illness. He is still recuperating.”
Why don’t you do everyone a faovr and just drop dead?
Great Horsey cartoon today, again.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....sp?id=1739
(no guarantee this link will work beyond today’s date).
PI @ 52: I’ve been in a 401(k) for quite some time. But I have my doubts about it being any more secure than the “horror stories” about the future of Social Security. Right now I’m putting my new contributions in foreign funds. Here’s why:
I was born exactly at the peak of the baby-boom era. That means half of the baby boomers are going to retire before I do. Do you think those baby boomers are going to be continuing to put money into 401(k) plans and funding a further expansion of the stock market after they retire? Of course not. They are going to start cashing out of stocks and converting to bonds, and slowly begin the process of drawing down their portfollio balances in order to live while in retirement.
Less buyers of stock, and more sellers of stock, means that the value of stocks will begin to decline. Sure, there will be new workers funding their own 401(k) plans, but the “echo boomers” don’t nearly match the same numbers as the “baby boomers”. So macro-economic indicators suggest that unless there is substantial foreign investment in the U.S. markets, the U.S. financial markets will be declining over the next half-century or so.
It also doesn’t help any that over the past ten years, the rush to “outsource” has left most of U.S. industry to being composed of “shell companies”, who don’t actually make anything but act more like a trading company or financial services group – they buy low overseas, and sell for a profit here. On a small scale, there’s nothing wrong with that. But when it gets too big a portion of the economy, and when it lasts too long, you end up with a loss of manufacturing capacity, technology, and skills which can take decades (and huge investments) to restore. This doesn’t portend well for the long-term financial future of America (as Warren Buffet so clearly pointed out in his fund’s annual report, a year or so ago).
But Asia (excluding Japan) has a different demographic picture. I’m hoping that by diversifying in the international markets, there will still be some value in my 401(k) by the time I retire.
Hey, I just read about a great retirement plan. It’s called the 401(keg) plan:
http://www.bobrivers.com/onthe.....de=article
PI @ 53: Well, that says a lot about Republican “compassionate Conservatism”, doesn’t it?
@15 Hannah:
Here are the weight specifications for the Prius and some other cars off their official specifications for curb weight (only in lbs, not kgs) – where are you getting your info – the Prius is lighter than most cars including the Camry and is way lighter than (by half or more) than the Hummer or the suburban. So the road wear argument that soemhow a small Prius is worse than a truck is bogus. They do weigh a bit more because of the battery – but not that much. They are still substantially lighter than a Camry, by over 700 lbs.
Prius weight: 2921 lb
Hummer weight: 6400 lb
Suburban weight:7000 lbs.
toyota camry: 3680 lbs
Some trucks are prety light because than have no back….but compared to a comparable car…..the Prius is not that heavy.
@50 Stupid dog – Bush was supposed to be a compassionate conservative – but instead he is an incompetent, right wing warmonger.
Liberal is starting to sound good to most real americans after the last 7 years of mismanagement, corruption, lies and economic malfeasance.
PI- gee – what happened to all the idiot conservatives who wer arguing that SS should be abolished for private investments – well – how is the stock market doing right now?
Freekin’ idiots – the whole point is security. the stock market goes up and down all the time (well, just down with a republican President spending all my taxes on an unecessary war and unecessary private no-bid contractors).
@58 – yes the new Prius’ have lowered in weight since they found a substantially lighter battery pack, but when they first came out, a friend of mine bought one, and it was heavy as hell! And his mpgs? About 40….my old 95 Honda Civic I used to have got 40mpgs and it was light as a feather. Toyota did the right thing by reducing the weight via lighter battery packs. Wonder what will happen to the battery packs as they need to be replaced over the years?
McCain is jumping on the newest “recovery plan” for the imploding credit market. Instead of accepting the obvious fact that the Bush Administration completely punted on it’s oversight responsibilities over the past 7+ years, McCain, Steve Forbes, and others are blaming, in effect, “over-regulation” for the disaster.
Specifically, McCain is following a former Reagan supply-sider Paul Craig Roberts and Steven Forbes in blaming the sub-prime market collapse on an accounting rule which requires financial firms to regularly report on the “market value” of their assets. The point of the rule, called “market-to-market” is obvious – it gives investors the information they need to evaluate the soundness of their investment.
But because the market for the “sub-prime mortgage backed securities” is relatively new, the market price for them has recently been subject to some wild swings – it’s anybody’s guess how far the market price could fall. With the lack of oversight and regulation under the Bush administration, no one really knows how sound the assets are which underly those securities.
Steven Forbes is leading the charge to simply ignore the rule. He wants the financial entities to simply pick a number out of thin air – such as 15% below book value, and call it good, at least until the market stabilizes. He blamed the current meltdown on the impact of the rule.
Source: http://www.newsweek.com/id/130029
Of course, once such a rule is put into abeyance, there will be considerable pressure to keep it there for a long time – until it becomes more convenient for the financial community to go back to arguing that the assets are worth more than their market value.
But as Daniel Gross commented in the above-cited article:
“The language is technical, but the arguments here are simple and really quite silly—especially coming from folks who value market indicators over all else. These folks are saying that when markets are volatile and irrationally pessimistic, it’s just not fair to force people to act as if the market prices are real.
But you’ll notice that they never made that argument back when markets were irrationally optimistic, as they were from 2003-2006. No hedge fund manager ever told a bank that it should lend him less money because the value of the collateral he was putting up was clearly a product of unwarranted optimism or that he shouldn’t collect management fees based on the assets under management because their value was clearly inflated. Nobody ever complains about the market’s ruthlessness and inefficiency when it’s making them money.”
The sub-prime mortgage situation is a problem, to be sure, but it is best dealt with at the homeowner level. Fix the basics, and the rest of the problem works itself out. The Republican answer, as usual, is to allow those at the bottom of the food chain (the homeowner) to bear the brunt of the risk, and reward risky behavior by the financial institutions by bailing them out in a huge corporate welfare scheme, financed by the very taxpaper dollars of the homeowners who are facing foreclosure. Talk about paying twice, or even three times!
I guess that’s what Republicans mean when they say they are in favor of “individual responsibility”. The individuals (the great majority of U.S. citizens) bear the responsiblity for risks taken by the Republican corporate high-rollers. If things turn out well, the corporate high-rollers rake in the profits. But if things turn out poorly, it’s the American taxpayer who is expected to foot the bill.
For duelling footnotes on Prius v. Hummer, go here:
http://www.google.com/search?h.....urces+cost
Word on the street (and make up your own damn citation) is that of all eco-crap cars, only Prius is more environmentally ‘sensitive’ and ‘sustainable’ than a Hummer.
Think about it: We’re pounded by the Left with nightmare stories about the disposal of our rechargeable AAAs. Read what Hannah wrote about the dead weight of a Prius — all those batteries — then go to your room, go to a corner, sit down, turn around facing the wall, and ponder.
The late great Alfonso Jackson’s explication of the subprime meltdown makes more sense than the effluvia of rhp666. Gay Urban Professional Guppies are responsible for the mess we’re in: They kept buying bigger and bigger homes (with less and less down) to warehouse their Judy Garland collections, and were then surprised to find themselves upside down. Apparently assumed that their preferred capital-gain-of-choice could only go up and up.
A crisis du jour of the Gay 90s was red-lining in blue states. Lenders were denounced for not being sufficiently predatory in sniffing out and bankrolling home buyers who couldn’t afford to buy homes. So lenders responded to coercion and changed their ways by letting anybody in on the bubble. Gays, speculators, gay speculators, and Goldstein rushed in to cash in on the new improved liberal lending rules, and the rest is misery.
Because I’ve come out as a progressive, I blame my gay bros and sisters for none of this. I blame Bush. By not blowing up the Dept of Education he allowed our NEA schools to continue passing on left-behind children without teaching them to read their parents’ contracts with ‘predatory’ lenders, the contracts that used two big words: Adjustable. Rate.
Roger Rabbit says:
‘Roger Rabbit is unable to attend tonight due to a recent illness. He is still recuperating.’
Wow, thats the usual. Maybe it’s because his oxygen tank can’t come along. Poor grotesque disgruntled old geezer.
65: Gosh, that’s priceless. The mortgage crisis is being caused by gays? With that kind of logic and economic smarts, you could become a millionaire very quickly. All you need is to start out as a billionaire first.
Got that gay thing from Stephanie Miller this morning, so it’s gotta be true. She said that Jackson said that gay Guppies caused the crisis. So there.
Air America, which conveys Miller to the masses, gives me hives, but AA does something very well on Saturday eves: Peter B. Collins. Was so despondent at not having KIRO Goldstein to kick around any more (as if Too Rotten to Rot replays are an improvement), and stumbled on Peter B. by mistake. He’s sane. Most of his callers are sane. Even some of his guests are sane. Something new at AA.
Collins did say that Air America had just been whacked in Sacramento, and was long dead in many other Blue State venues, so Seattle’s the end of the line. When AA dies here, it’ll be as flatline as Luke Burbank.
(The high point of Saturday eve radio was, of course, Art Bell’s Cattle Mutilation Dreamland. Not because of rerun Bell, but because Love Her Madly was the intro. Played from pretty start to perky end. Thought radio could use only c.20 seconds of a song before the meter started to tick, so hope Ray Manzarek had his ears tuned and his green eyeshade on.)
cnr @ 61,
I’m not arguing for the abolition of social security. I’m arguing for choice. If we’re forced to participate in social security, why can’t we have control and ownership of our money, the part that comes out of our paychecks? (Let’s leave the portion contributed by our employers with the current Ponzi scheme: that should make you happy.)
The way I envision social security is to allow workers to have a choice. The default choice (i.e., no other option is specified) is the current government-run plan. The other choice is to let the worker decide where his or her retirement funds go. That choice might be into CDs, a perfectly safe investment because it’s insured by the FDIC. Or the choice might be into an annuity with a good insurance company, or a mutual fund or two.
So, my plan says keep social security, but allow us to decide where the money is invested and have ownership of those funds. Lower-paid, less sophisticated workers can stick with the safe but meager current government-run plan whereas wealthier, more sophisticated workers can invest to have higher returns over a 40 or 50-year career.
What’s not to like about that? The poorer workers get the minimum they would have gotten anyway, and the richer workers have the chance at some real growth and ownership of their retirement money that goes to social security. Sounds like the neo-socialist crowd gets what they want and the Wall Street crowd gets what they want. It’s win-win.
Or could it be that social security, as viewed by you “progressives,” is just another way to re-distribute wealth and letting workers have control would undermine that socialist goal?
69 – You’re full of crap. Social Security is support for folks in their retirement. Not an investment scheme.
Social Security is a popular program that does its job with a tiny overhead.
With your stock market scheme, a bunch of Wall Street wolves are waiting in the wings to skim off the top.
Bush was treated like a fart in an elevator over changing Social Security.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. The bigger problem is Medicare.
Both Social Security and Medicare are broken. Both need to be fixed or axed. Medicare (which, like SS, promotes its provision of services with low overhead) is indeed more broken than SS by orders of magnitude, but that’s an utterly bankrupt defense of SS.
YLB @ 70,
I ain’t sayin’ abolish social security: I’m sayin’ give people more choices. Keep the payroll deductions under the social security umbrella, but let the individual decide where his or her dollars earmarked for retirement go.
Keeey-Ryst! Why can’t you people understand that it’s OK for people to have choices? It’s their individual rights and their individual responsibilities. If they don’t choose to invest outside government plan, then fine, they stay with the current system as it now exists. If they have the means and risk-tolerance, why can’t they make some investments (under the umbrella of their social security account) for a better retirement? If the stock market scares ’em, then invest in CDs (FDIC insured).
Hay-soos, you people are thick when it comes to letting people have choices! If you like the current system, then stay with it. If you want to do better, then take a look at other options other than the government’s plan. It’s that simple and that’s all I’m saying. Nowhere am I advocating the abolition of social security.
Carnation Instant Bitch is right though: Medicare is a lot more worse off than social security. It will fail first.