Income Redistribution

[StruckingFuggle]

You seem to know very little about the realities of farming. These programs are in place to keep farmers farming, so that we CAN feed ourselves. Alot of farmers would go out of business without them, leading to a national inability to feed the country without importing food. No doubt the programs need some slimming and trimming, but elimination of the programs would be a mistake bordering on the national crisis magnitude.

[s]National[/s] Global* crisis.

World's largest exporter (in a good year, KANSAS ALONE > #2 national exporter) of food, and all...

He also referred to Hillary as Hildawg.....? WTF did that come from....?

South Park. I think.

Did you just call Giuliani a quasi-fascist?

"We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do. You have free speech so I can be heard." - Rudy Giuliani, March 1994.

Similarly, "Giuliani has expressed that he believes the President has the authority to arrest U.S. citizens with no judicial review, but that "he would want to use this authority infrequently"."


And then there's the whole "broken windows" thing.

[Deacon]

You seem to know very little about the realities of farming. These programs are in place to keep farmers farming, so that we CAN feed ourselves. Alot of farmers would go out of business without them, leading to a national inability to feed the country without importing food.

That's not at all true. Instead, to maintain current profit levels, the price of goods produced on US farms would increase, so you would generally being paying more for food, more in line with Europe.

No doubt the programs need some slimming and trimming, but elimination of the programs would be a mistake bordering on the national crisis magnitude.

That, on the other hand, may well be true, depending on how hard the price hike would hit.

[Deacon]

Also, Fuggle, I don't understand what your problem is with what Giuliani said that time. Is he wrong? And if so, how so?

By the way, I also noticed that nobody addressed my points about the actual Hillary proposal itself.

[StruckingFuggle]

If you don't see it, I'm not sure what I could say to illustrate it...


Moving on, would have replied sooner but I didn't know that it existed until now.

WRONG. The US government shouldn't be treating its retirees at all. Instead, it has been pushed above and beyond the call of duty to provide medical care and retirement payments to people who failed to properly plan for their retirement. Retirement is not a right. If you want to quit working and hang out all day, awesome, but don't expect me to pay you for it.

It could be seen as investment, perhaps, because if that support system (bad enough as it is) evaporated, I can see all sorts of new costs to the government springing it up in its place BECAUSE these people can't take care of themselves. And then what happens? I'm not sure, but I can't imagine it not being messy and costly.

(and retirement should damn well be a near right, but more at the expense of the company they worked for instead of the people - the least they could do, after using you up and throwing you away, is at least help insure you have a soft landing somewhere safe... well I guess a privilege all people should enjoy, more than a right... )

The bolded part is the accurate part. The idea that your neighbors are responsible to provide for your own retirement is a distinct social sickness.

And what about the fact that there's so many people who don't know how, never knew how, to do so on their own - too bad for them, there's nothing wrong with it beyond their own little self-contained world? Where were they supposed to learn to do it to begin with, if not from society / their neighbors? And if it's too late for them, are they just doomed to their mistakes?

I'm further curious, just as a brief aside: do you have the gonads enough to look to everyone who draws benefit from it now straight in the eye and say exactly what you're saying about it here to their face?

This kind of thinking is just so foreign to me that I don't even really know how to respond properly. I don't even know where to begin. There's just such a root difference in world view that I don't know where the common ground at the base of this diseased logic tree even begins. I'm flabbergasted.

I'm curious, absent public programs, would you contribute much or even anything to private charity to accomplish the same? Why or why not?

[adciv]

I'm curious, absent public programs, would you contribute much or even anything to private charity to accomplish the same? Why or why not?

Similar Question: DO you contribute much or even anything to private charities.

[StruckingFuggle]

Do I? No. I lack the money (nonworking student), and pay some taxes already. Had I the money, and were I not paying taxes? I would, yes.

[Deacon]

If you don't see it, I'm not sure what I could say to illustrate it...

Oh, well then of course don't bother. Your ideas don't need to be able to be expressed in at least a rudimentary way to be considered potentially valid.

It could be seen as investment, perhaps, because if that support system (bad enough as it is) evaporated, I can see all sorts of new costs to the government springing it up in its place BECAUSE these people can't take care of themselves.

And yet you can't see yourself describing even one of them.

retirement should damn well be a near right, but more at the expense of the company they worked for instead of the people

Since when? Which of the many companies I've worked for should be saddled with the burden of making my dreams come true? No, that's ridiculous. They choose whether to hire me, and I choose whether to work there, based on a number of criteria. One of those is retirement options, especially funds matching into a 401k, for instance. Why would it be a right for you to demand they give you free money if they've promised you no such thing? Where would they be getting this money from? You're the kind of non-working hippie who's never had to pay his own bills--much less try to keep a business afloat--and therefore never really thinks about how and why the CEO's and CFO's hair turns grey so early in life, because you assume that if it's a business, it's flush with cash, and that they've got millions and millions of dollars to just throw at whatever sniveling little self-entitled chickenshit happened to work in the mail room for a month. The communism-by-proxy you want is powered by dreamshine and unicorn farts. It doesn't exist. It can't exist. It's a fantasy. Back when the world wasn't so globalized and America was fat and happy and people would work for one company their entire lives, pension programs and such (a fairly recent invention, as far as the history of business is concerned) sounded like a neat idea, and that's just what they got, and people got so greedy that the bottom eventually fell out of that lofty dream, and you have multi-billion-dollar companies being brought to their knees by the sheer weight of that burden.

the least they could do, after using you up and throwing you away, is at least help insure you have a soft landing somewhere safe...

The hell are you talking about?

The bolded part is the accurate part. The idea that your neighbors are responsible to provide for your own retirement is a distinct social sickness.

And what about the fact that there's so many people who don't know how, never knew how, to do so on their own - too bad for them, there's nothing wrong with it beyond their own little self-contained world? Where were they supposed to learn to do it to begin with, if not from society / their neighbors?

What do you think people did for thousands of years before this new idea of "retirement" came from? If they managed to save up some measure of wealth, they perhaps took it fairly easy in their later years, relying on their fortune and hard work from their earlier years. Most people, however, they worked if they were able, they did something of value, even if it was just puttering around the house tidying up. And whose house was it? Guess what? THEIR FAMILY'S. I don't know at what point The Government became a babysitter, a substitute for family, but it sucks, it's sick, and it needs to change. People who can afford it just stick their parents in a nursing home. Those who can't afford it still do so, but they expect ME to pay for it. And those who were such assholes in their lives that they pushed away everyone who ever loved them generally wind up paying for it in the end. Fuggle, I am not responsible for providing you with a comfy retirement. If you can't afford to retire by 45, then you'll be working till 50. If you can't afford to retire at 65, you'll be working to 70. Hopefully you'll eventually start doing something to bring in more money, to make wiser investments, to become more valuable to your employer, or to own your own business, but if you don't, you better not expect that I'm going to be saddled with you as my responsibility. You are your own responsibility. Try not to alienate everyone who might otherwise tolerate you, even if only to be assured that you have some place to stay when you're older.

I'm further curious, just as a brief aside: do you have the gonads enough to look to everyone who draws benefit from it now straight in the eye and say exactly what you're saying about it here to their face?

I have, actually, and I've had several family members in that exact situation, living off Social Security, and they made it work. In fact, my grandfather has been on medical disability since before I can remember, and it's never been legitimate in my eyes, and I've told him so once. It made him very angry, but the dude's been sitting on his ass for over 20 years leeching off my tax dollars because he's such an asshole he ended up burning out some brain gland or another and should take medication to keep him from being as obsessive and compulsive as he is (translation: he's actually just a world-class self-centered spoiled brat), but he doesn't and can take the easy way out, so he does.

I'm curious, absent public programs, would you contribute much or even anything to private charity to accomplish the same? Why or why not?

No, not if it's "the same" as I understand it. In reality, it depends on the charity in question, my financial position, who they're helping, and how. If it's just so that the grasshoppers of the world can mooch off the ants, then no, absolutely not.

Fuggle, the world doesn't owe you anything. Your employer doesn't owe you anything beyond the terms to which you both agreed, terms which mean you mutually owe each other certain things. I don't owe you anything. Do you have the gonads to look me in the face and tell me that I owe you a comfy retirement you did nothing to earn for yourself? Not that I don't think you could be a prick just to win a bet, but I mean to tell me that you really and truly believe I owe it to you to pay your mortgage, your car payment, your food and light bills, your water bill, a cruise here and there, maybe a flight out to see your grandkids, etc? Maybe a hulking RV? Because if so, you can get bent. I don't owe you any of that.

[NorthernComfort]

I agree 110% with Deacon in this. I've got nothing to add, just general "nodding of the head" and a few bits that I felt needed to be Quoted For Truth:

...never had to pay his own bills--much less try to keep a business afloat--and therefore never really thinks about how and why the CEO's and CFO's hair turns grey so early in life, because you assume that if it's a business, it's flush with cash, and that they've got millions and millions of dollars to just throw at whatever sniveling little self-entitled chickenshit happened to work in the mail room for a month.

So. Fucking. True. It. Hurts.

[Deacon]

I will admit to being surprised.

[Thorsman]

WRONG. The US government shouldn't be treating its retirees at all. Instead, it has been pushed above and beyond the call of duty to provide medical care and retirement payments to people who failed to properly plan for their retirement. Retirement is not a right. If you want to quit working and hang out all day, awesome, but don't expect me to pay you for it.

Nevermind that these same retirees contributed to US government revenue for nigh on 50 years of their lives, possibly more. For these people it's not a matter of wanting "to quit working and hang out all day," and nor is it a matter of them having "failed to properly plan for their retirement," but rather it involves not having to work until they drop in their old age. What you're in effect championing is a Victorian work-till-you-drop scenario. I say no to this ridiculous attitude: retirement IS a right, especially in light of the decades of hard work these people have already put in to their jobs, not to mention the decades of taxes they paid. Would you really deny them getting some of their own back after having worked so hard? If so, I'm glad you're not in power.

The problem with Hillary's program is that it's taking billions of dollars in tax money and just giving it away. The other problem is that she's proposing an extreme socialist/communist program that's not even wearing a token veil of fairness. Instead, those people who actually did manage to scrimp and save and invest during their life are having the fruits of their life-long labors raided, plundered, and robbed by Hillary and handed over for free to people who have done nothing to earn it. This goes so sharply against everything I believe that I don't even know wtf more to say about it. I find it abhorrent and sick..

Again, you're neglecting the life-long labors of those seniors now struggling to survive. The trouble is, the costs of the medications and general medical treatment these people need in order to survive are skyrocketing, not least because: 1) HMOs withdraw cover for all but the most basic of treatment; and 2) pharmaceutical companies are constantly increasing the prices of their medications. The pharmaceutical companies and the HMOs know that seniors need these medications, so they deem this as carte blanche to drain these seniors' income dry. Any savings they may have accumulated are quite quickly bled dry as a result, and social security doesn't provide much of a boost to their living allowance. That's their savings and their life-long labors made waste.

However, there is a good side to this: it shows even shrill leftists who work so hard and so diligently to screw their eyes shut and deny basic human nature are realizing that if we're going to raise a bunch of people with the idea that they're not responsible for their own destiny but rather that it's their neighbor's burden instead, it at least needs to be privatized. Basically, she's pushing for a very conservative, meek version of Bush's excellent plan to privatize Social Security by putting the money into stocks and bonds, giving it a good chance of being not just sustainable but actually successful, rather than dooming it to certain bankruptcy by the time anyone here retires. Right now I'm pissing money into the bottomless hole that is Social Security. I will never get to use any of it. Ever. That money I've earned has been taken from me, never to be seen by me. At least Hillary's finally realizing that something private has to be done, even if her proposal itself is offensive, unfair, and ultimately ineffective.

I think that's the problem in the first instance: the solution is TOO conservative. Perhaps a small amount of socialism isn't such a bad thing. It doesn't bleed the wealthy dry as you're trying to say. Seniors in the UK have their medical expenses taken care of by the National Health Service, and Sir Alan Sugar and others like him still manage to live prosperously. I don't see why that can't still happen in the US.

The bolded part is the accurate part. The idea that your neighbors are responsible to provide for your own retirement is a distinct social sickness.

The social sickness is actually the idea that seniors should be left out in the proverbial cold just because they didn't "plan properly for retirement." Would you say the same if this were a grandparent who was close to you and whom you loved dearly, your previous anecdotal example notwithstanding?

After all, for the most part these are decent people who have paid their dues all their life. Why shouldn't we use our taxes to show our gratitude

This kind of thinking is just so foreign to me that I don't even really know how to respond properly. I don't even know where to begin. There's just such a root difference in world view that I don't know where the common ground at the base of this diseased logic tree even begins. I'm flabbergasted.

My logic isn't at all diseased. It's based on a rather sound premise: that people who contribute into the system all their lives really ought to be entitled to get something back from the system in their old age. It's only fair at the end of the day.

In fact, I'm fairly certain you'll feel differently about this matter in four decades' time.

[ampersand]

The communism-by-proxy you want is powered by dreamshine and unicorn farts. It doesn't exist. It can't exist. It's a fantasy. Back when the world wasn't so globalized and America was fat and happy and people would work for one company their entire lives, pension programs and such (a fairly recent invention, as far as the history of business is concerned) sounded like a neat idea, and that's just what they got, and people got so greedy that the bottom eventually fell out of that lofty dream, and you have multi-billion-dollar companies being brought to their knees by the sheer weight of that burden.

Which is why General Motors is having trouble making a profit because they have to pay retirement benefits to their retired UAW auto workers, and when UAW realized that GM was indeed telling the truth that they can't make the payments work --- without shipping the plant work to, I don't know, China? --- they ended a strike many thought would last for months.

By the way, the Frito Lay's subsidies source is here.

As for my comments about farming, as I see it, yes, there's a lot of double standards and governmental programs that I have to scratch my head and wonder about, but most of it makes sense. However, since the farm bill programs are for anyone interested in farming, everyone from the family farmers like my father to mega-hog corporations take advantage of such aid. Not having the aid, however, would mean that it would be very difficult if not impossible for family farms to survive. I got interested in meteorology solely because I learned first hand that the weather can bring turn a profit into a very large loss in an instant of a bad hail storm or in a long and lengthy drought and you might not get any relief in higher prices to sell your corn because the drought doesn't affect the two states that Chicago Board of Trade members to determine what the market will pay for this year's corn or soybean market: Iowa and Illinois. Even now with the somewhat skeptical demand for ethanol (at least to me), they will still look at Iowa and Illinois to determine how well crops are doing nationally.

A lot of the Crop Reduction Program is to keep soil erosion, which is still a rather big problem, at a minimum. The more topsoil that's removed, the less likely the crops will get the nutrients needed to grow, genetic or not. And building up new topsoil usually takes a span of eons to produce.

I do think more people are slowly realizing that they themselves will have to their own benefactors of their own retirement, so I think self-made retirement plans are becoming the norm, not the exception. However, that doesn't mean people will start saving either.

[collegestudent22]

My logic isn't at all diseased. It's based on a rather sound premise: that people who contribute into the system all their lives really ought to be entitled to get something back from the system in their old age. It's only fair at the end of the day.

In fact, I'm fairly certain you'll feel differently about this matter in four decades' time.

Actually, it is diseased. Why should they get something out of the system in their old age? You claim that because they paid their taxes the entire time they were working they should get compensated for it in their old age. The problem is that you are forgetting that the money they are required to give to the government goes to things like schooling and defense and these stupid welfare programs. Without the welfare/Social Security programs they wouldn't have to pay as many taxes and could save more money, which would help more in the end anyway....

[adciv]

By the way, the Frito Lay's subsidies source is here.

I read that as just the opposite of how you stated it above.

He grows a large portion of his corn for Frito-Lay and also grows crops that will be sold as seed next year by seed companies. To satisfy their needs, he has sometimes had to plant more corn than the Government would allow farmers participating in its programs.

Translation: He either sells to Frito-Lay OR gets the subsidies normally, NOT BOTH.
Also, That has more to do with controlling Corn supplies, not keeping Fritos cheep.

[ampersand]

Argh. Sorry. I know I read it in a local newspaper, the Columbia Tribune, but to find an article from there, even with google's help is very difficult. Plus, I'm a little wary of subscribing to the New York Times. I hear you actually have to pay to subscribe to its online edition. So, I could only go with what I saw on the google response.

[Thorsman]

Actually, it is diseased. Why should they get something out of the system in their old age? You claim that because they paid their taxes the entire time they were working they should get compensated for it in their old age. The problem is that you are forgetting that the money they are required to give to the government goes to things like schooling and defense and these stupid welfare programs. Without the welfare/Social Security programs they wouldn't have to pay as many taxes and could save more money, which would help more in the end anyway....

Actually, it isn't diseased. What is diseased is your "rugged individual" mentality that would deny the elderly a bit of peace of mind in the twilight of their lives. Why SHOULDN'T they get something out of the system in their old age? I'm not forgetting that government funds go to education and defense. I'm merely saying that if a nation as wealthy as the United States can afford a gargantuan military budget (Wanna talk waste? Think about the sunk costs of the Iraq War, which I might add have had a draining effect on the budget), it can also afford to provide medical care for people who have worked hard and paid into the system for decades on end. It's shocking how little the United States government actually cares about its seniors.

You seem to be ignoring the fact that welfare isn't all societal leeches. There are some people who legitimately need welfare assistance out there, such as those who are truly disabled and cannot work. Secondly, without the Social Security programs, these very seniors we are speaking of would be worse off. Social Security is the only financial buffer (although not wholly effective as one) for many seniors who as I said before are quite frankly getting ripped off by HMOs and pharmaceutical companies. If you look at the medication expenses of your average senior per month, they run into the thousands. I defy you to tell me that this is a just situation.