In case you missed the debate last week SNL brought us a great recap

Social security is not a socialist thing...If you don't contribute you get nada unless the person that contributed ...if either your parent ( if your under 18 ) or your spouse passes away... Then the spouse can collect when they are of receiving age or under 18 kids can get a support check... It's damn clear cut and it is what is...it has been managed poorly and it is in dire need of reform or it is going to go bust..Of which I at 67 am holding off receiving so that if I die my wife will get a bigger monthly check than if I started collecting last year...I'm going to wait to at least 70...If I make it that long... Hopefully she will get what I am truly due and not what they have to adjust it to because of their poor management.

Healthcare should not be free as without the carrott of "profit" dangled in front of the system there is no motivation to innovate or try hard...just do my job and take my paycheck... promoting mediocrity in an area where that is a dismal thing to have happen.

Welfare...hell no...Workfare hell yes.. There is no such thing as a free lunch in nature and there should not be be in our civilized world.... Certainly there are a minuscule amount of people ( less than .05%) that truly can't contribute because of health issues that need the "free lunch" and I'm OK with that...The rest...sorr...y off yer asses and come on down to the work center and we'll put you to work for a sustenance amount of pay...enough to let you live but also small enough to make you try and figure out how to get a better paying job.

I despise how much fraud is allowed to take place with EBT cards and workmen's compensation..I know a dude who is a drummer...His Dad left him a million dollar estate ...he hasn't worked in 10 years because he "hurt his back" ...he started collecting permanent workers comp...funny somehow he can go out and gig on the drums and load them up all by himself...still collecting that check...another guitarist living at his Dads house for free he has more toys, guitars and guns than almost anyone I know...permanent workers comp...yeah his back really is messed up but he could be put to work behind a desk ...I've seem him jam for hours no problem...These are just two of millions of people out there who should be put to work for the money they are receiving even if it's just answering phones..If they have to go to work everyday for that measley monthly check they'd for sure give it up and get better paying jobs but nope they and millions just like them are riding the socialist gravy train...because it fosters this kind of lazy ass mooching..

nail in coffin of my argument.... I'm sitting in a grocery store in line and here's this woman with a few kids loading up on food...paid for with the EBT card...and a second bunch of items like booze and cigarettes that she pays for with her money...They walk out and as I walk out I watch she and her husband loading their brand new $60,000+ Yukon with custom 22" wheels ...WTF! I'm driving a 12 year old vehicle and paying my way they are living in style on the working classes dime...Absolutely there are many families that need that card...They surely didn't.... and there are millions just like them...The system is screwed up and the solution is to make those that don't have and need helping hand suit up and show up to some kind of a job 5 days a week / 40 hours a week...unless they truly are incapable of it...not a note from some doctor but like when you go to enlist in the army...You want to enlist in the workfare program to get a a sustenance check you get checked out by a government doctor who deems you are either capable or not capable of working / not working and qualifying for a workfare check.... Having to show up and suit up 40 hours a week for a tiny sustenance check would eliminate 90% of this ridiculous systemic fraud that is currently happening.

By nature most humans take the path of least resistance....who wouldn't love to be able to just sit at home and play music , surf the internet, watch TV and have a check come each month and have my food and bills paid for ...

We gotta make the people getting the handouts accountable ..... and that is absolutely not being done currently....OK end of rant :D
 
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I have a neighbor..... occupation construction worker. (Under the table) Construction business here is booming from all the fires.

He don’t wanna work. Claims Coronavirus fears. Haha.

Now here’s the rub........ He has a tattoo gun. No business location, no business license, only a receipt for the tattoo gun.

Yet , his ‘Tattoo business’ is shut down because he’s not considered “essential”

Somehow he managed to wrangle a check for 10k out of the state!!!!!!!


Nationwide scams like this I’m sure are causing a strain on the system.

I’m also fairly confident they contribute to keeping this ‘pandemic’ going. Too many are profiting because of it.

A bunch of lazy mFers taking advantage of the ‘social safety net. Corruption from the bottom to the top.

And we wonder why we’re in the mess we’re in , and the powers that be just want to throw even more money at it.
 
A bunch of lazy mFers taking advantage of the ‘social safety net. Corruption from the bottom to the top.

And we wonder why we’re in the mess we’re in , and the powers that be just want to throw even more money at it.

I am aware of several stories like this I help oversee a K&B business for a partner....no pay just helping him...At one point we had to close down and the 2 employees had to go on unemployment...when it came time to reopen...The one would not come back because of "Covid fear" Truth is with the $600 extra a week supplement check the dumb asses decided to arbitrarily throw into the pot / plus regular unemployment insurance she was making about 25% more a week than she would have if she came back...rinse and repeat that 10,000 times over...can't get employees to come back and throwing money away to societal sponges. crazy times...
 
[MENTION=1094]TAE[/MENTION]

Locally I know a lot of construction guys, mostly older (40s to 50s)

They’re all complaining about how they can’t get the younger guys to come back to work. :)
 
[MENTION=1094]TAE[/MENTION]

Locally I know a lot of construction guys, mostly older (40s to 50s)

They’re all complaining about how they can’t get the younger guys to come back to work. :)

I just spoke with a good friend of mine who took over one of my old department jobs when I left it...and she says many of the people are saying they are too "afraid" to come back to work...and her partner (same guy who use to be my partner there)...he says he hopes the virus stick around for another 9 years...
...meaning he wants to stay home/"work" from home and not come back until he hits retirement.

I don't think he really wants the virus for another 9 years...he just likes not having to go in to work, and still getting paid for it.
Meanwhile...all those same people who are using the virus as an excuse to not go back to work...you can find them in the malls, the restaurants, the supermarkets...and even hanging out socializing...and for those things, they are not "afraid".

It's pathetic how the virus has created a lot of parasitic behavior...but at some point, even crazy Nancy knows the money will run out. The only reason she keeps putting up and passing all those high-priced stimulus bills is because she knows the Reps will reject them (because they are so excessive)...and she gets to look like the good person, while the Reps look like they don't care about handing out more money.

The pandemic has become a total scam-demic on many levels in both the private sectors and in government.
 
Obama did very well for the economy and he was a very popular President. He left office with a 65% approval rating.

See...you keep falling back on personal popularity as some measure of a good administration.

OK...if Trump was/is so unpopular...then why did he get elected?
It wasn't because people liked him as a person...it was because they didn't like what Obama did to the country for 8 years.
Trump wouldn't have won if Obama's legacy was strong...instead Hilary would have.

You can have a change in party and not have it be an actual rejection of the previous party administration.
Sometimes a candidate from the other party simply gives a compelling reason to be elected by what their platform is...and not so much that the party he replaces is being rejected as a whole.

When Obama won...even though some of it had to do with Bush's lack of popularity...it was mostly because he was black, and a smooth talker.
I've learned over the years that Dems/Libs are easily swayed by lots of lofty rhetoric...and lord knows, Obama was full of it for 8 years, but very short on substance.

Bill Clinton was another silver tongued devil... boy, I remember listening to some of his campaign speeches, and I found myself thinking, "hey, this guy sounds like he's a pretty good choice"...then we all found out what a BS artist Bill was, and his wife even worse.

I never thought GW Bush was all that great...but first Gore ran against him and then Kerry, and man, voting for them was like voting for driftwood.
 
:laughings:Call it my arcane sense of humour, but that was funnier than anything SNL could have come up with !















Going back to say, 1960 {I start there because it was during that presidential term that I was born} with one very slight discrepancy, the United States of America has, to any outsider observing, been Swing City Central. Yes, every election is different and there will have been a multiplicity of reasons why but the historical and unalterable fact is that America has swung at the end of each 8 year presidential cycle. '60~'68 Democrat. '68~'76 Republican. Swung again in '76 with Carter of the Democrats and then we have the slight discrepancy of a swing to Reagan in '80 and no swing at the end of his 8 years. But George Bush did a Carter and only served 4 years before things got back on historical swing city track again with 8 years of the Democrats, then 8 years of the Republicans then 8 years of the Democrats before the latest swing in 2016.
Virtually everyone I know and have heard commentate was surprised that Donald Trump won the election in 2016. I wasn't at all. The surprise would have been if he hadn't won. America is nothing if not historically consistent in its electoral cycles over the last 60 years. It's not like the UK where you don't get that kind of thing. It's been all up, down and aqua planing since 1960. 4 years Conservative, 6 years Labour, 4 Conservative, 5 Labour, 18 Conservative, 13 Labour, 5 Conservative~Liberal Democrat Coalition, 5 Conservative.
Obviously things change over a given period of time and in 2 of the presidential cycles, the VP had to take over, yet the country has been remarkably consistent in its habits and it seems to me that the system in which the POTUS gets a fixed 8 year maximum to strut their stuff is actually a better one than either those of places like Zimbabwe, Russia and North Korea where one person can rule for all eternity {:cursing:} or here in which a PM can conceivably go on ad infinitum and are not removed either by the people or the system, but by the long knives of their own comrades {as happened to Mrs Thatcher and Mr Blair}. That America goes from one party to the other every 8 years says something about the populus as a whole that isn't reflected in some of the political arguments that happen in prime time ! :D



That is more dependent on where you might live. Our roads are frequently being fixed where I live, the streets are not filled with rubbish and when rubbish does get on them, the mechanics are in place for swift removal and every so often, parliament has big debates/arguments about our defence deterrents, the armed forces and whether or not we can afford to or should be sending armed detachments to other regions of the world.

The reason it goes from one party to the other is, politicians promise the world and deliver very little. So, people get frustrated and the other party wins.

Trump has brought the best economy this country has seen in 50 plus years. But, his tweets get much more attention than his actions. If Trump didn't tweet, he'd win this election without a blink of an eye. The liberals say he's not transparent, but he never shuts up. He tweets about everything. There were years people complained how Obama wouldn't do a press conference, or tell the American people what he was doing. Of course he was doing nothing, so that might be the reason why.

What part of England do you live in? I've been to London, Stoke-On-Trent, Manchester, Brighton and wherever Stonehenge is.

 
See...you keep falling back on personal popularity as some measure of a good administration.

OK...if Trump was/is so unpopular...then why did he get elected?

Because Hillary Clinton was a shit candidate, and the electoral college overruled what the American people wanted. People's opinions on Hillary Clinton were set before Obama even became President. There is good data to back this up.

You desire for it to reflect on Obama because you are in denial that Obama is easily the greatest President since Roosevelt.

But if Hillary Clinton's election success reflects on Obama because she served as secretary of state for 4 years, then Biden's election success must also reflect on Obama because he served as VP for 8 years. (I don't personally believe this, but it's your logic we're discussing here).

So according to your logic - if it can be called that - if Biden wins you will come back to this thread and admit Trump's entire four years were rejected and Obama's legacy is far stronger than Trump's.
 
Social security is not a socialist thing...

Social security is abso-fucking-lutely socialist.

The Government decides how much you are going to pay in, the Government decides when you are going to pay in, the Government manages the money in a centralized collective pot - with centralized planning, the Government tracks social security earnings and benefits, and the Government approves or denies benefits applications. The Government decides when you can take money out and how much. You generally don't even have a choice to opt out. The Government is is full control of social security.

Maybe the USA's most popular programs are more socialist than you realize.
 
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Social security is abso-fucking-lutely socialist.

The Government decides how much you are going to pay in, the Government decides when you are going to pay in, the Government manages the money in a centralized collective pot - with centralized planning, the Government tracks social security earnings and benefits, and the Government approves or denies benefits applications. The Government decides when you can take your money out and how much. You generally don't even have a choice to opt out. The Government is is full control of social security.

Maybe the USA's most popular programs are more socialist than you realize.

No you miss the point. Social security and a National health service is an extra tax to pay for it which the majority of people may be in favour of if the tax is not too large of course. If it is Government run then what happens is the total tax take from all taxes is put into one big pot and then the different departments ask for the costs to be paid out of it. So you would have defence social security and everything else wanting a share of this large pot.

What happens then is a rubbish socialist Government gets in and to get votes they increase Social Security benefits at the expence of other departments. So then the Social Security budget becomes an out of control monster which cant be tamed. The reasons are that if you reduce benefits you are hitting the poor. So you can only increase them.

Social Security must never and can never be in the hands of the Government if it is to succeed. If it isnt and completely seperate, then if increases are needed for it to meet spending requirements. Then the tax for it can be increased to suit. If the taxes are getting high because of people claiming unemployment benefits then this is an indication of a failing Government.

Socialists and Liberals will never accept this type of Social Welfare because they can never manage an economy so unemployment is always high. So they want a system where it comes out of a big pot and their failings are hidden.
 
Exactly. And exactly the reason it never works in any country that the Gov controls it.

Social security has worked beautifully in the USA for almost a century now. It lifts tens of millions of elderly folks out of poverty and dramatically reduces the elderly poverty rate. It can be easily sustained for another century with minor calibrations.
 
Social security has worked beautifully in the USA for almost a century now. It lifts tens of millions of elderly folks out of poverty and dramatically reduces the elderly poverty rate. It can be easily sustained for another century with minor calibrations.

So why change something that works? Unless you want to buy votes with things which have been tried by others and failed or cost the earth?
 
Social security is abso-fucking-lutely socialist.
I disagree with you on this.

If it was a socialist thing every citizen would be able to receive it. It is totally capitalistically based. You put in, you get back ...you don't put in you don't get anything...You put in less than me, when it is your time to start collecting you get less than me...

In a socialist system...everyone would get the same amount of money and get it , like welfare and the likes whether or not you worked for it, contribute to it or not, anyone and everyone who is "down and out" gets its and get the same amount....proportionally
 
Because Hillary Clinton was a shit candidate, and the electoral college overruled what the American people wanted. People's opinions on Hillary Clinton were set before Obama even became President. There is good data to back this up.

You desire for it to reflect on Obama because you are in denial that Obama is easily the greatest President since Roosevelt.

But if Hillary Clinton's election success reflects on Obama because she served as secretary of state for 4 years, then Biden's election success must also reflect on Obama because he served as VP for 8 years. (I don't personally believe this, but it's your logic we're discussing here).

So according to your logic - if it can be called that - if Biden wins you will come back to this thread and admit Trump's entire four years were rejected and Obama's legacy is far stronger than Trump's.

How were people's opinions about Trump before the election...pretty negative according to your liberal media.

Look...if you're going to use popularity metrics...Hilary was way ahead in the polls before the election, driven by the same liberal media that's driving the Biden polls now.

Trump didn't win because of popularity pools, and the electoral college didn't "overruled" anything (you're really stuck on that popularity thing)...the electoral college voted how ALL the states voted...and not how just CA and NY voted.

Obama's 8 years are the only reason Trump won....and your comment about Obama being the greatest president since Roosevelt (I assume you mean FDR)...is about the funniest thing you have said.
He will be only remembered as the first black president...nothing more. FDR has a much bigger legacy than that.
As much as I was never a big Kennedy fan...he did more in 2 years than Obama did in 8 years. Heck...even Dollar Bill probably did more, though some of his stuff, like the trade deals, were misguided.
Obama has no legacy...other than Obamacare, which is going to get overhauled no matter who wins in November...because it sucks.
 
I disagree with you on this.

If it was a socialist thing every citizen would be able to receive it. It is totally capitalistically based. You put in, you get back ...you don't put in you don't get anything...You put in less than me, when it is your time to start collecting you get less than me...

In a socialist system...everyone would get the same amount of money and get it , like welfare and the likes whether or not you worked for it, contribute to it or not, anyone and everyone who is "down and out" gets its and get the same amount....proportionally

There is nothing in the definition of socialism that says everyone has to get the same thing. That's your construct.

You don't necessarily get back what you put in. You clearly understand that and carefully worded your post accordingly. You might die and get nothing. You might put in very little but live to be 120 and take out a fuck ton more than people who maxed their contributions for 35 years. Social security redistributes wealth accordingly.

Why not just admit that you - as with the vast majority of Americans - like this particular bit of socialism? Is it such a scary label?
 
Why not just admit that you - as with the vast majority of Americans - like this particular bit of socialism? Is it such a scary label?

We just disagree and I believe I am absolutely correct in saying Social Security Insurance is not socialistic...though it does have the word social in it...:D ..It isn't a FREE handout. You don't get to participate unless you contributed...What I deem "socialistic type programs" are where everyone gets to enjoy the FREE benefits of the program..Not so with SSI ....No contribution, no reward, the bigger contribution, the bigger the reward..sure some people die before they get to collect and some people live past 100 collecting..I'm OK with that as long as they contributed or their spouse or parent ( children under 18 ) did..But Carte Blanc hey everybody here's your free lunch it isn't..The welfare, workmens comp and the EBT systems are and they are fraught with fraud and hard working taxpayers money being irresponsibly spent. Surely there are good percentage of deserving / needing families that need the helping hand but because it is a bureaucratic cluster fuck billions are being stolen by greedy, lazy assed turds.. Thus my rant on why it should require a work / time donation requirement to qualify for any of the FREE Socialistic handouts...
 
Social Security is, at its core, a pyramid scheme. Start off with lots of contributors and few recipients. Eventually the % of recipients overwhelms the contributors.

Here are some statistics on the % of SS recipients vs US population (NOT the working population).

SSI.jpg

The program was under 10% for the first 25 years. For the first 20 years, it was primarily for "retirement". In 1954 they added an expanded disability program. The current program has nearly 20% of the total population being supported by 80%. The SSI tax has grown from 2% of income to 12.4%. Excess funds are used by the Federal Government for NON SSI expenditures. Until 2008 there are a gradual increase in the fund (income exceeded outlay). That has gradually dropped to the point that they are basically equal now. In 2016 income was $797B with expenses of $776B.

It the trend continues, it WILL become unsustainable without either a massive tax increase, or a massive cutting of recipients. Any guess as to which option the politicians will choose?
 
It the trend continues, it WILL become unsustainable without either a massive tax increase, or a massive cutting of recipients. Any guess as to which option the politicians will choose?

I think what will happen is one of a couple things, or some combination of both...because SS isn't just going to end in 15 years when the money runs out as projected, they have to keep it going, otherwise people will object to paying into it if there is nothing to look forward to.
So...you will possibly see a rise in the minimum retirement age...liberals keep pushing people not to retire until later...and some kind of reduction in benefits compared to what we see now relative to the cost of living index, so people will get less dollar for dollar, and that ramp up from early retirement to later retirement will probably be a lot steeper, pushing people to wait even longer...which means, most would be dead within the first few years of retirement, thereby saving the SS payouts.

I don't think they would attempt to reduce payments to people already on SS, because that would be too dramatic and force a lot of people on welfare or out into the streets because they're living mostly off SS, and any cut to existing payments would be hard to overcome.
When they phase in the cuts for people yet to start SS...it won't be as painful...assuming people will have enough time to plan for less SS to come.
 
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