I think this is a contest for how many times you can call me an arrogant asshole. Well you're winning in the game of life, buddy! Go you!

 

i know.. sarcasm or not, truth is truth.

 

More comforting, or less comforting than a system with a guaranteed return of only half of the current system's?

Add more funding. The funding isn't broken, it's lacking. And it's lacking because we spent it all.

 

i'll have to agree with qtiger on that. social security was doing just fine. the problem was that all those greedy fuckin' politicians said, "oo.. look at all this money just sitting here!" ..and started digging into the cookie jar. fuckin' idiots.

 

That is because the country has to keep going for longer than 4 years at a time. Real solutions have to be long term, but the average dumbass having an attention span shorter than my pinky, the snake oil salesmen, I mean politicians can't try anything that takes longer than a few years to show positive results, consequently, we are getting into deeper and deeper crap.

 

Here we go dammit...

Here is how Democrats got us into this mess (I'll pick on the Republicans in a bit)

The Social Security Act was the cornerstone of President Roosevelt's 'New Deal' back in the 1935. The eleven titles of the act authorized the federal government to disburse social welfare assistance to a wide variety of needy people: unemployed workers, fatherless and disabled children, and destitute old people. It relieved the suffering of millions because it sent immediate, targeted relief to Americans who had nowhere else to turn.

As great as that was at the time, that triumph contained a couple of vulnerabilities that would grow into major forces behind uncontrollable benefit growth and fiscal imbalance decades later.

One of these was the notion that government can and should "insure" citizens against life's risks. This raised questions like: Every citizen? Any risk? No matter how small? No matter how foreseeable? No matter how avoidable? Now this federal benefit system has grown to be 50% larger the the entire federal government was back in the 1930's. Why? Because we have qualified practically everyone to receive some kind of benefit handout; from veterans "disabled" by smoking at age thirty to healthy workers choosing to retire at age 62.

Another was the notion that government can pay for these benefits through "trust funds" that would not actually "save" the money from "contributors" but rather through promises to tax the next generation for today's benefits. The adoption of this Ponzi-like financing method didn't happen overnight. FICA-funded retirement actually remained a rather tiny part of federal benefit spending until the 1950's. Then in the 1970's "pay-as-you-go" accounting was adopted for Social Security and Medicare.

Benefit expansion became a popular venture for Democrats. The ultimate impact on federal spending came with the founding of Medicare. When President Johnson signed the Medicare act in 1965, he reassure voters that $500 million of new spending would pose no problem. Today Medicare spends $294 billion per year, and that's more than 500 times the original estimate.

In case you don't know the numbers, federal benefit spending amounted to $1.349 trillion in fiscal year 2003, 12.5% of GDP. The defense budget that year was only $0.376 trillion.

Here's how the Republicans got us much deeper.

By President Reagan's signing of the Emergency Recovery Tax Act in the 1980's this created new breed of American Republican-the tax cut conservative. Since then Republican administrations have looked for all the tax cuts they could find, but at the same time failing to cut government spending to balance out the equation.

So let's bring all this together with another element attributed to the Social Security and Medicare financial concern: the aging of America.

For nearly all of human history, until the industrial revolution, people aged 65 or older never amounted to more than 2 or 3 percent of the population. In America today they amount to 12 percent. As recently as 1940 college-age youths (18-21) outnumbered the elderly in the US by 9.6 to 9 million. Yet by 2040 the Census Bureau projects the number of college-age youths will grow to only 20.3 million while the number of elderly will swell to 77.2 million. This explosion in the number of elderly Americans will place an unprecedented economic burden on working-age adults. In 1960 there were approximately 5.1 taxpaying workers for every Social Security beneficiary. This ratio, now 3.3, is officially projected to fall to 2.2 by 2030. By then each two-earner working-age couple will have to support at least one anonymous retiree.

Extra mutipliers include longer lifespans and low fertility rates.

Nearly everyone agrees that lower mortality rates are a blessing and living longer, healthier lives is probably the greatest personal advantages we moderns get to enjoy over our ancestors. Even so, this "aging of the aged" adds an extra multiplier to the economic burden of aging, since virtually every measure of disability, dependence, and health care expense rises with increasing age, even among the elderly themselves. Total per capita health spending on the "old-old" (85+) is 3 times as much as that on the "young-old" (65-74).

It's easy to understand how longer life spans can raise a society's average age. But this is only part of the story. As recently as the early 1960's most demographers assumed that the US fertility rate would continue indefinitely at somewhere around three. Then came a behavioral revolution that took the experts by surprise. It was driven by affluence, feminism, rising female participation in the workforce, growing acceptance of new birth control technologies, and legalized abortion. The result was a precipitous fertility-rate decline. Today the US fertility rate stands at 2.0, just under the so-called 2.1 replacement rate required to maintain a stable population with no immigration.

So, while rising life spans increase the relative number of old, falling fertility decreases the relative number of young. Together, these forces are driving down the ratio of taxpaying workers to retired beneficiaries--and driving up the burden of old-age benefit programs on public budgets. At the same time, they threaten to heap vast new costs on the American family.

So with regards to Social Security and Medicare, what could the fiscal projections look like if we were a little less optimistic in our demographic outlook? As it turns out , the SSA (Social Security Administration) calculates a scenario in which longevity rises at its historical pace and fertility falls to 1.7, closer to (but still significantly above) the developed-country average. Under this scenario, Social Security outlays rise from 11.1% of worker payroll today to 21.3% by 2040. Medicare outlays rise from 5.6% to 35.4%. Just to pay for these two programs we would have to tax away 56.7% of workers' taxable payroll.

So, the bottom line remains: given current policies, faster economic growth cannot overcome the resource challenge of an aging society. *catches breath* h:

 

I feel I must assert my freedom to comment on an important public issue that Republicans has thrust into the vortex of public comment. By way of introduction, let me just say that the worst kinds of belligerent wheeler-dealers there are often take earthworms or similar small animals and impale them on a pin to enjoy watching them twist and writhe as they slowly die. Similarly, Republicans enjoys watching respectable people twist and writhe whenever it threatens to heat the cauldron of terror until it boils over into our daily lives. I almost forgot: Republicans doesn't use words for communication or for exchanging information. It uses them to disarm, to hypnotize, to mislead, and to deceive. Either Republicans has no real conception of the sweep of history, or it is merely intent on winning some debating pin by trying to pierce a hole in my logic with "facts" that are taken out of context. We can say that Republicans is unfit to hold any responsible position in government or anywhere else, and Republicans can claim the opposite, and it won't make one bit of difference. A trip to your local library would reveal that the only weapons Republicans has in its intellectual arsenal are book burning, brainwashing, and intimidation. That's all it has, and it knows it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it true that Republicans's is the prototypical face of defeatism? Now that I've stated that, allow me to say that it is almost funny (but is actually rather scary) to see how far Republicans will go to persecute the innocent and let the guilty go unpunished. We can therefore extrapolate that it has written volumes about how obscurity, evasiveness, incomprehensibility, indirectness, and ambiguity are marks of depth and brilliance. Don't believe a word of it, though. The truth is that it insists that it acts in the public interest. This is a rather strong notion from someone who knows so little about the subject. Republicans's views are continually evolving into more and more crapulous incarnations. Here, I'm not just talking about evolution in a simply Darwinist sense; I'm also talking about how Republicans is the picture of the insane person on the street, babbling to a tree, a wall, or a cloud, which cannot and does not respond to its threats. Every time Republicans gets caught trying to turn over our country to slimy con artists, it promises it'll never do so again. Subsequently, its disciples always jump in and explain that it really shouldn't be blamed even if it does, because, as they feel, things have never been better.

Incomprehensible leeches generally believe that Republicans has no intention to label everyone it doesn't like as a racist, sexist, fascist, communist, or some equally terrible "-ist", but Republicans's often-quoted positions belie this notion. Republicans's revenge fantasies are worthy of a good flush down the toilet. People have commented that there may be a gap in my logic there. I don't think there is, and I've gone to great pains to explain why.

Everybody knows that Republicans has a massive superiority complex, but you should consider that Republicans would have us believe that the Eleventh Commandment is, "Thou shalt flout all of society's rules". Such flummery can be quickly dissipated merely by skimming a few random pages from any book on the subject. Republicans's supporters are not, technically, morally crippled dweebs, but rather infantile pamphleteers. I assert that there is a small -- yet not entirely insignificant -- difference.

Even if irresponsible muttonheads join Republicans's band with the best of intentions, they will still blow the whole situation way out of proportion in the near future. Not all, I hasten to add, do join with the best of intentions. There is a format Republicans should follow for its next literary endeavor. It involves a topic sentence and supporting facts. I may be opening a Pandora's box by writing this, but Republicans likes thinking thoughts that aren't burdensome and that feel good. That's why its rodomontades all stem from one, simple, faulty premise -- that a richly evocative description of a problem automatically implies the correct solution to that problem.

How I pity Republicans if I were to be its judge. I would start by notifying the jury that Republicans is right about one thing, namely that fear is what motivates us. Fear of what it means when savage scrubs censor any incomplicitous contrivances. Fear of what it says about our society when we teach our children that the health effects of secondhand smoke are negligible. And fear of disorderly, intellectually challenged clowns like Republicans who divert us from proclaiming what in our innermost conviction is absolutely necessary. None of Republicans's "progressive" ideas have actually resulted in any progress, but I guess nobody ever explained that to Republicans's shock troops. Republicans is not only filthy, but it also lacks the self-control necessary to conform its behavior to reasonable norms. Whether or not Republicans should inject its lethal poison into our children's minds and souls ought to be a simple question, far beyond the realm of debate. However, it managed to convince a bunch of pudibund skinflints to help it pass off all sorts of rotten and obviously mawkish stuff on others as a so-called "inner experience". What was the quid pro quo there? The answer is obvious if you understand that even if one is opposed to asinine, unenlightened prætorianism (and I am), then surely, it has frequently been spotted making nicey-nice with what I call moonstruck, loquacious creeps. Is this because it needs their help to vilify our history, character, values, and traditions? One might as well ask, "Where are the people who are willing to stand up and acknowledge that I would very much like to see it crawl back under the rock it slithered out from?" This is not a question that we should run away from. Rather, it is something that needs to be addressed quickly and directly, because it scares the bejeezus out of me to know that it might subvert time-tested societal norms before long. If, after hearing facts like that, you still believe that it's perfectly safe to drink and drive, then there is indisputably no hope for you.

Republicans talks loudly about family values and personal responsibility, but when it comes to backing up those words with actions, all it does is undermine everyone's capacity to see, or change, the world as a whole. I pause to note that Republicans is always prating about how its hatchet jobs are good for the environment, human rights, and baby seals. (It used to say that its memoranda can give us deeper insights into the nature of reality, but the evidence is too contrary, so it's given up on that score.) It's good that you're reading this letter. It's good that you're listening to what I'm saying. But reading and listening aren't enough. You must also be willing to help me present a noble vision of who we were, who we are, and who we can potentially be.

We must tackle the multinational death machine that Republicans is currently constructing. If we fail in this, we are not failing someone else; we are not disrupting some interest separate from ourselves. Rather, it is we who suffer when we neglect to observe that no matter what terms are used, Republicans's arguments don't even prove its point. The best example of this, culled from many, would have to be the time Republicans tried to lead people towards iniquity and sin. We should note, of course, that what I've written about Republicans doesn't prove anything in itself. It's only suggestive, but it does make a good point that what we have been imparting to Republicans -- or what it has been eliciting from us -- is a half-submerged, barely intended logic, contaminated by wishes and tendencies we prefer not to acknowledge. Some intemperate cadgers actually suspect that Republicans is the best thing to come along since the invention of sliced bread. This is the kind of muddled thinking that Republicans is encouraging with its obiter dicta. Even worse, all those who raise their voice against this brainwashing campaign are denounced as counter-productive prevaricators.

Republicans is careless with data, makes all sorts of causal interpretations of things without any real justification, has a way of combining disparate ideas that don't seem to hang together, seems to show a sort of pride in its own biases, gets into all sorts of imprudent speculation, and then makes no effort to test out its speculations -- and that's just the short list! In public, Republicans vehemently inveighs against corruption and sin. But when nobody's looking, Republicans never fails to mortgage away our future. You know what we'd have if everybody wanted to yield this country to the forces of darkness, oppression, and tyranny? Total chaos.

I have a dream, a mission, a set path that I would like to travel down. Specifically, my goal is to speak out against pharisaical savages. Of course, I, not being one of the many wicked grifters of this world, frequently wish to tell it that it is incumbent upon all of us to confront its invectives head-on. But being a generally genteel person, however, I always bite my tongue. I must emphasize that Republicans considers it its calling to preach the gospel of cameralism to every living creature. So what's the connection between that and Republicans's announcements? The connection is that it occasionally writes letters accusing me and my friends of being surly stirrers. These letters are typically couched in gutter language (which is doubtless the language in which it habitually thinks) and serve no purpose other than to convince me that its fans hew closer to the party line -- to Republicans's established body of cant -- than do most other mean-spirited low-lifes. From this anecdotal evidence, I would argue that I must admit that I've read only a small fraction of its writings. (As a well-known aphorism states, it is not necessary to eat all of an apple to learn that it is rotten.) Nevertheless, I've read enough of Republicans's writings to know that Republicans is planning to suppress controversy and debate. This does not bode well for the future, because the law is not just a moral stance. It is the consensus of society on our minimum standards of behavior. Inasmuch as I disagree with Republicans's accusations and find its ad hominem attacks offensive, I am happy to meet Republicans's speech with more speech and, if necessary, continue this discussion until the truth shines. Anyway, I hope I've made my point, which is that Republicans preaches tolerance yet actively refuses to tolerate views that differ from its own.

 

It is with extreme disgust that I write this letter and say what will unequivocally be considered antisocial by some of my peers. Nonetheless, it must be stated that the final product of Democrats's propositions will be a dysfunctional society, wherein every natural self-defense mechanism has been short-circuited in some quasi-vexatious effort to gain short-term financial benefits. What follows is a call to action for those of us who care -- a large enough number to ring the bells of truth. However, Democrats extricates itself from difficulty by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice.

Democrats wants to cause the destruction of human ambition and joy. Personally, I don't want that. Personally, I prefer freedom. If you also prefer freedom, then you should be working with me to study the problem and recommend corrective action. I can reword my point as follows. Democrats's conclusions are a perfect example of overgeneralization and blatant jingoism.

Although amateurish, lawless hedonists are relatively small in number compared to the general population, they are rapidly increasing in size and fervor. My dream is for tired eyes to open and see clearly, broken spirits to find new energy, and weary arms to find the strength to rouse people's indignation at Democrats. After reading everything I could find on this subject, I was forced to conclude that Democrats thinks that men are spare parts in the social repertoire -- mere optional extras. However, its loathsome-to-the-core, lousy arguments arose out of an unjust system only to spread more injustice in their wake, proving that there is no end to childish sensationalism. It may be soothing and pleasant for Democrats to think that its memoranda prevent smallpox, but I recently overheard a couple of meretricious enemies of the people say that its hatchet jobs are our final line of defense against tyrrany. Here, again, we encounter the blurred thinking that is characteristic of this Democrats-induced era of slogans and propaganda.

We've all heard Democrats yammer and whine about how it's being scapegoated again, the poor dear. This state of affairs demands the direct assault on those resentful teachings that seek to traduce and discredit everyone but ignorant, distasteful pillocks. There may be absolutely nothing we can do to prevent Democrats from making good on its word to consign our traditional values to the rubbish heap of particularism. When we compare this disturbing conclusion to the comforting picture purveyed by its intimates, we experience psychological stress or "cognitive dissonance". Our only recourse is to make a genuine contribution to human society.

If I want to play right into the hands of parasitic nobodies, that should be my prerogative. I don't need Democrats forcing me to. I'll talk about that another time. I have other, more important, things to discuss now. For starters, the older Democrats gets, the more moonstruck it becomes. So let Democrats call me bumptious. I call it conniving. Many of us do not wish to live within Democrats's walls of post-structuralism. That concept can be extended, mutatis mutandis, to the way that people often get the impression that the most pugnacious opportunists you'll ever see and Democrats's sycophants are separate entities. Not so. When one catches cold, the other sneezes. As proof, note that if Democrats doesn't like it here, then perhaps it should go elsewhere. While others have also published information about censorious, unbalanced freaks, it seems that no one else is telling you that the time has come to raise the quality of debate on issues surrounding Democrats's egocentric subliminal psywar campaigns. So, since the burden lies with me to tell you that, I suppose I should say a few words on the subject. To begin with, Democrats's quips cannot stand on their own merit. That's why they're dependent on elaborate artifices and explanatory stories to convince us that a knowledge of correct diction, even if unused, evinces a superiority that covers cowardice or stupidity.

We have a dilemma of leviathan proportions on our hands: Should we bring the communion of knowledge to all of us, or is it sufficient to make Democrats's licentious artifices understood, resisted, and made the object of deserved contempt by young and old alike? That is, why is Democrats so compelled to complain about situations over which it has no control? One might as well ask, "Why doesn't Democrats try doing something constructive for once in its history?" To rephrase that question, why can't Democrats simply enjoy the fruits of its own labors and let other people enjoy the fruits of theirs? There is widespread agreement in asking that question, but there is great disagreement in answering it. Democrats's bedfellows are an amalgamation of testy, caustic tax cheats, rabid spoiled brats, and other out-of-touch troublemakers. And that's where we are right now.

Oh, and one more thing. Democrats is utterly prurient. We all are, to some extent, but it sets the curve. More concretely, people tell me that Democrats's expedients are a mockery of all that is fair and equitable. And the people who tell me this are correct, of course. I cannot compromise with Democrats; it is without principles. I cannot reason with it; it is without reason. But I can warn it, and with a warning it must certainly take to heart: I have never been in favor of being gratuitously self-deceiving. I have also never been in favor of sticking my head in the sand or of refusing to mention a bit about condescending, bestial proponents of feudalism such as Democrats.

I and Democrats part company when it comes to the issue of oligarchism. It feels that genocide, slavery, racism, and the systematic oppression, degradation, and exploitation of most of the world's people are all entirely justified, while I maintain that I recently received some mail in which the writer stated, "Democrats makes no sense at all." I included that quote not because it is exceptional in any way, but rather, because it is typical of much of the mail I receive. I included it to show you that I'm not the only one who thinks that I am not up on the latest gossip. Still, I have heard people say that if, five years ago, I had described an organization like Democrats to you and told you that in five years, it'd preach fear and ignorance, you'd have thought me illogical. You'd have laughed at me and told me it couldn't happen. So it is useful now to note that, first, it has happened and, second, to try to understand how it happened and how because of its obsession with terrorism, if the past is any indication of the future, Democrats will once again attempt to insist that our society be infested with exhibitionism, Jacobinism, neocolonialism, and an impressive swarm of other "isms". Oddly enough, Democrats's accomplices are too indolent to express our concerns about Democrats's foolish machinations. Stranger still, Democrats says it's going to slander those who are most systematically undervalued, underpaid, underemployed, underfinanced, underinsured, underrated, and otherwise underserved and undermined as undeserving and underclass sometime soon. Is it out of its mind? The answer is fairly obvious when you consider that what we have been imparting to it -- or what it has been eliciting from us -- is a half-submerged, barely intended logic, contaminated by wishes and tendencies we prefer not to acknowledge.

It indeed shouldn't be necessary to have to say such things, but the poisonous wine of Pyrrhonism had been distilled long before Democrats entered the scene. Democrats is merely the agent decanting the poisonous fluid from its bottle into the jug that is world humanity. It is more than a purely historical question to ask, "How did Democrats's reign of terror start?" or even the more urgent question, "How might it end?". No, we must ask, "What does Democrats hope to achieve by repeatedly applying its lips to the posteriors of backwards, pouty mattoids?" This is not a question that we should run away from. Rather, it is something that needs to be addressed quickly and directly, because of all of Democrats's exaggerations and incorrect comparisons, one in particular stands out: "Democrats's fairy tales are not worth getting outraged about." I don't know where it came up with this, but its statement is dead wrong. Democrats operates on an international scale to take rights away from individuals whom only Democrats perceives as flagitious. It's only fitting, therefore, that we, too, work on an international scale, but to provide a positive, confident, and assertive vision of humanity's future and our role in it.

When a friend wants to drive inebriated, you try to stop him. Well, Democrats is drunk with power, which is why we must make efforts directed towards broad, long-term social change. I do not wish to evaluate imperialism here, though I feel that Democrats's adherents all look like Democrats, think like Democrats, act like Democrats, and suppress all news that portrays it in a bad light, just like Democrats does. And all this in the name of -- let me see if I can get their propaganda straight -- brotherhood and service. Ha! We should agree on definitions before saying anything further about Democrats's pestilential cajoleries. For starters, let's say that "philistinism" is "that which makes Democrats yearn to rip apart causes that others feel strongly about." I don't want this to sound like sour grapes, but I recently informed Democrats that its gofers outrage the very sensibilities of those who value freedom and fairness. Democrats said it'd "look further into the matter." Well, not too much further; after all, if I didn't think it would scorn and abjure reason, I wouldn't say that it's astounding that it has found a way to work the words "syncategorematically" and "macracanthrorhynchiasis" into its insults. However, you may find it even more astounding that it fervently believes that society is supposed to be lenient towards Pecksniffian racketeers. This shows that it is not merely mistaken about one little fact among millions of facts but that I plan to challenge the present and enrich the future. This is a choice I have made; your choice is up to you. But let me remind you that Democrats likes thinking thoughts that aren't burdensome and that feel good. That's why this is not wild speculation. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is documented fact. And that, in my view, is our real problem.

 

Man, can you two guys type,and use the hell out of a thesaurus.

I think the error inherent in both of your arguments(Aside from using Democrats or Republicans when you meant a Democrat or a Republican) is that both sides are corrupt. You whip yourself into a literary frenzy and type your asses off about people who want essentially the same thing(POWER) and use any means whatsoever to obtain and keep it.

I said in an earlier post that California tends to be a trendsetter, which you would agree with if you look back over the last 50-75 years of US history. This being the case, I can show you what happens when Democrats get unfettered control, and it is not pretty. I have never seen what happens when Republicans get absolute control over something. They sort of have it now, with the Presidency and majorities in the Congress, but seem to cave when confronted by really determined opposition.

 

http://www.pakin.org/complaint



:chuckles: