Thursday, September 1, 2011

Miscellaneous 96

1) The progressives' solution to high unemployment - removes huge numbers of people from the labor force and pay them to stay home. Hm, yeah, that could work.............2) And, really, if having people retire at age 55 (and proceed to suck off the public teet for some 20-30 years, procuring much more in benefits than they ever put in in contributions) is such an awesome idea, then wouldn't having them retire at age 54 be even better? And 53 even better than that? What about 45? I mean, seriously, why don't we just go for the jugular and be done with it here?............3) Take 2 X amounts of money and invest one of them in Social Security for 45 years and the other in a no-load low to medium risk mutual fund for 45 years. I can guarantee you that you'd do significantly better with the latter. I mean, even if the country goes to hell, I would still put far more trust the private sector than a bunch of lard between the ears bureaucratic stumblebums in Washington.............4) The progressive vision for America; tax businesses to the point where they leave the country AND THEN put stiff tariffs on them so they can't sell their products here. The end-result; a bunch of mom and pop stores that sell a bunch of overpriced crap and a humongous, knuckle-dragging, repressive central government that can't even get out of its own damned way. I'm telling you, folks, if this collectivist (to the nth) crowd ever does take over, there WILL be an insurrection and, no, it won't be at all pretty. Pass me the ativan and gin, please.

12 comments:

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

This is a parody of wacky right wing blogs, right Will?


If not then please link or show us the plans and legislative proposals that will allow me to retire and live off the public teat the next 40 years. That's human years I hope.

Dervish Sanders said...

Will is simply to wrapped up in the corporate orthodoxy to be able to think outside the box. It's sad really.

Rusty Shackelford said...

raise the retirement age to 67 and be done with all the useless bullshit.

Jerry Critter said...

Will,
The ridiculousness of your arguments points to the strength of the progressive proposals.

It is like the rightwing response to the fact that an increase in the current top marginal tax rate will improve the economy. They say well why not raise it to 100%?

Mordechai said...

raise the retirement age to 67 and be done with all the useless bullshit.

Or double the upper limit the SS tax is assessed on,

Same result with out cutting off MORE people before they qualify by age for the benefit.

Added benefit when you do not raise the retirement age you do not make getting a job even harder because more people are hanging on longer.

dmarks said...

Jerry: "fact that an increase in the current top marginal tax rate will improve the economy..."

A rather dubious "fact", considering that such a move would have a dampening effect on investment and encourage people to move money out of the country.

It's something you do to improve the situation of the government, not the economy.

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

As usual, Dmarks is wrong. Just like Obama and Congress he is on the coprorate puppet strings.

Understand this Dmarks, Joe the plumber didn't buy the plumbing business for two reasons. One; he wasn;t a real plumber. And two; he was an idiot.

The more taxes you pay it means you made more money. Why do you think corporations don't want to make money?

Now come up with an anecdote about an imaginary friend of yours so I can expose you again.

Dervish Sanders said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dervish Sanders said...

Will: The progressives' solution to high unemployment - removes huge numbers of people from the labor force and pay them to stay home.

Will, perhaps you're blissfully unaware of it, but there ALREADY ARE huge numbers of people not participating in the labor force (people who would very much like to be participating).

The point of this proposal is to free up jobs for younger workers. People who should (right now) be building their careers -- working their way up the ladder. But they can't, because there are no jobs for them.

These people not being able to find jobs and gain experience doing those jobs is going to be a big problem in the future.

It is totally worth the cost of allowing some people to retire at 55 to open up these jobs. But Will is so shortsighted and unwilling to think outside the box that he just doesn't understand it.

Will: The progressive vision for America; tax businesses to the point where they leave the country AND THEN put stiff tariffs on them so they can't sell their products here.

No it isn't. The idea is to institute the tariffs RIGHT NOW, so business would know what would happen if they left... and they would decide not to.

Will: ...if this collectivist (to the nth) crowd ever does take over, there WILL be an insurrection...

Actually I think that there will be an insurrection (at the ballot box or in the streets) if the Progressives DON'T take over. People are slowly waking up to the fact that conservatism doesn't work.

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- we need another FDR-type president.... and I think it's inevitable that eventually the people will demand it (and I am very certain we are close to the tipping point).

Also, regarding point #3... As Jerry previously pointed out, SS is an insurance program, not an investment program. We already have IRAs and don't need a duplicate program.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Some of the best workers at my place of employment fall within that 55-65 age group. Hell, our best housekeeping worker is 70!......And, Jerry, really, why NOT 45? What's so magic about 55? Is it simply because that's the number that the great Thom Hartmann came up with?......And are you guys saying that the great FDR screwed up back when he made the retirement age greater than the actual life expectancy (during a period of even higher unemployment than we currently have)? ......And another thing, who in the hell would be able to afford to retire at age 55? People generally can't afford to live on Social Security alone as it is now. How are they going to be to do so any better when you're taking away (actually, you're not MANDATING that they retire at 55, are you?) 7-12 additional years of working and saving?......And then there's the whole life expectancy thing. If you make it to 55, chances are that you're probably going to live another 25 years. That's a lot of frigging benefits paid out.......I don't know, guys, this sounds like a pretty cockamamie idea to me..........And who in his right mind would want to fully retire at age 55? Work is something that gives us meaning and purpose. And society benefits as a whole from such industriousness. To frigging pay people NOT to work and giving them more than they've contributed, it sounds like you're really and radically redefining the American ethos here, and not necessarily for the better, either.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

And you're living in the moment, wd. Yes, we have a lot of unemployment NOW. But at some point, we'll eventually get back to conditions where full employment is possible (I mean, I should hope that we would). What do we do THEN? Try to get all of these 56-57 year olds back up off the couch? I mean, this is frigging nuts!

Dervish Sanders said...

Will: we'll eventually get back to conditions where full employment is possible...

Huh? How can we get back to somewhere we've never been?

Unemployment is probably going to stay high for the foreseeable future...

"When the Obama administration projected a 5.9% unemployment rate in 2015 falling to 5.3% by the end of the decade, the CBO chided it for excessive optimism. The Federal Reserve has been indicating that the long-run unemployment rate in America is likely to be between 5.0% and 6.0%..."