IGX

BucketHead wrote:Yes, it's the pay and benefits. It's quite obvious that most of the $473,000/yr for every active duty member goes toward their pay and benefits.

Even if you use a more realistic number it's still significantly higher than in those other countries.

Batboy2/75 wrote:LOL, yes, trim, cut, slash the military budget and everyhing else. However, our problem is entitlement spending is twice as much as the military budget and are projected to grow.

That number usually includes SS in 'entitlement spending' - which is great, except that we can't actually cut SS. Not from a practical perspective (grandma eating cat food is bad politics), and not from a moral perspective. Today's elderly were told, for their entire adult lives, that SS would be there in the end, we don't get to pull the rug out from under them now.

The best you can hope for is to fully means-test SS and eliminate the FICA cap, but no one wants to do those, either.

milosz wrote:

Batboy2/75 wrote:LOL, yes, trim, cut, slash the military budget and everyhing else. However, our problem is entitlement spending is twice as much as the military budget and are projected to grow.

That number usually includes SS in 'entitlement spending' - which is great, except that we can't actually cut SS. Not from a practical perspective (grandma eating cat food is bad politics), and not from a moral perspective. Today's elderly were told, for their entire adult lives, that SS would be there in the end, we don't get to pull the rug out from under them now.

The best you can hope for is to fully means-test SS and eliminate the FICA cap, but no one wants to do those, either.

Which is why we are going hit the Iceberg.

Social Security is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme. With all Ponzi schemes, the con artists promises something that can not and is not fiscally sustainable.

The Feds will continue to raise taxes to feed the beast. Below is our future:

Step 1 Raise taxes & borrow money
Step 2 More Entitlement spending & stimulus (hand outs) spending
Step 3 Huge cuts to spending on the real core functions of government
Step 4 Economic depression and misery
Step 5 Repeat steps 1-4
Step 6 Monetarize the debt when the dollar collapses
Step 7 Hyperinflation
Step 7 enact price controls & food export bans as political cover
Step 8 price controls lead to food shortages, tax evasion, and black markets become the norm
Step 9 riots in the streets

Grandma is a fucking vampire that is living off of her grandchildrens future. She is morally bankrupt and screams like a banshee if anything is done to shore up the system. She will end up wishing for cat food when her SS check doesn't buy squat and the price controlled market has no food.

.....and the grand children are vampires living off grandma's SS check now.

ALL ABOARD!




CHOO CHOO!

Do we at least get free conductor hats?

The EPA gotta fine that train big time for putting all that dirty smoke in the air.

Batboy2/75 wrote: Social Security is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme. With all Ponzi schemes, the con artists promises something that can not and is not fiscally sustainable.

As with everything you say, this is babbling, incoherent rhetoric.

You can't escape the fact that SS today is an obligation to a very large chunk of the populace, who have no alternative. You don't get to just pretend that obligation no longer exists - this isn't a new promise, this is 60-80 years of a promise that governed how many people led their lives.

milosz wrote:

Batboy2/75 wrote: Social Security is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme. With all Ponzi schemes, the con artists promises something that can not and is not fiscally sustainable.

As with everything you say, this is babbling, incoherent rhetoric.

You can't escape the fact that SS today is an obligation to a very large chunk of the populace, who have no alternative. You don't get to just pretend that obligation no longer exists - this isn't a new promise, this is 60-80 years of a promise that governed how many people led their lives.

As with everything you state (by the way it's state, not say you dumb fucker) you refute nothing, engage in tangents and love logical fallacies.

All you have done is proven my point. Those obligations, years of promises, and large scale dependancy are the exact reasons politicians will do nothing to right the ship. All of the promises and best wishes won't erase the financial mess that is SS.

baffled wrote:The Feds take in something like a little less than $200 billion/month in revenues.

If that number is correct (and I'm not saying it is, since I can't remember where I read it), I have a hard time believing we need higher taxes. We need to cut defense spending. We need to cut entitlements for the elderly (aka, people who have had a lifetime to save and prepare) instead of taxing the young who are just getting started in making money.

We need to make real reforms to preserve safety nets for the truly needy, and put other people out on their own two feet.

I'll go back to praying for unicorns now.

second edit: Stopping foreign aid would be a great start too.

Interesting post. I'm in the uK but it seems we are in pretty similar circumstances. The notion that pensioners simply MUST have state aid is also prevalent here. In a way it's nice, because their ability to earn is now a thing of the past, but equally many are fucking minted! The grey pound is not just a cutesy phrase -there are a lot of very well off pensioners these days. Conversely on both sides of the pond, (at least in UK & Canada) cost of living now requires a far greater work output to maintain a certain standard of living than was needed by our parents/grandparents generation. In simple terms, where as my dad could afford a 'middle class' lifestyle for our family on one parental wage, me & my wife now need both of us working to achieve a similar standard. Actually in reality we have a lower standard, but that's because Manchester < North Yorkshire, obviously.

milosz wrote:You can't escape the fact that SS today is an obligation to a very large chunk of the populace, who have no alternative. You don't get to just pretend that obligation no longer exists - this isn't a new promise, this is 60-80 years of a promise that governed how many people led their lives.

Ask the Native Americans of the United States how well the Government has taken care of them and honored their commitments, Miloscz.

Andy79 wrote:.....and the grand children are vampires living off grandma's SS check now.

Ah-the Tea Party weighs in. "Don't touch my government handout, but no more god damn taxes or entitlements for anyone else".

Is that what the Tea Party is sayin'?

Andy79 wrote:Is that what the Tea Party is sayin'?

Yes.

lasalle wrote:

Andy79 wrote:.....and the grand children are vampires living off grandma's SS check now.

Ah-the Tea Party weighs in. "Don't touch my government handout, but no more god damn taxes or entitlements for anyone else".

Medicare is not a handout, you pay into it. Just because it is serially poorly administered and patient health and liability are not aligned does not mean it is too expensive by necessity. Both of these inefficiencies are government caused.

Turdacious wrote:

lasalle wrote:

Andy79 wrote:.....and the grand children are vampires living off grandma's SS check now.

Ah-the Tea Party weighs in. "Don't touch my government handout, but no more god damn taxes or entitlements for anyone else".

Medicare is not a handout, you pay into it. Just because it is serially poorly administered and patient health and liability are not aligned does not mean it is too expensive by necessity. Both of these inefficiencies are government caused.

Sort of agree with you. But it is unnecessarily bloated with fat benefits to private insurance companies (see Bush's Part D for Rx coverage). And the benefits outpaced the contributions.

But try saying "no" to a nation of Andy's and the soon to be retired boomers.

It was not a subsidy to private insurance companies-- their profit margins have not changed. If anything Part D was a subsidy to drug manufacturers. And unlike the subsidy to drug manufacturers that is Obama's birth control decision, Part D actually improves access to basic pharmaceuticals.

The inter generational divide is very real. Those retiring around now in the West represent a high water mark in standard of living. The big negatives for coming generations are demographics, the threat to economic dominance from emerging economies and plain old limits on natural resource exploitation.

To see the older generation cling to their entitlements under the current system in understandable. But (gulp) I'm with BattyBoy. In most countries it's a fucking ponzi scheme. And ultimately, they fall apart. Don't expect anyone to tackle any of this if they can help it. It's political fucking jenga (in the words of Malcolm Tucker).

It's funny that in Europe the US is seen as having practically no safety net at all. Imagine how fucked we are over here. I'm a "socialist" by the US definition BTW.

lasalle wrote:

Andy79 wrote:Is that what the Tea Party is sayin'?

Yes.

You mean those phony cunts want me at 80 years old to get a job?

Turdacious wrote:It's not that simple-- one of the reasons our military spending is higher is because we spend more per service member than Russia and China do (pay, benefits, medical care, death benefits, etc...). Individual service members are much more highly valued here.

One of the reasons, true Turd. Your root cause analysis is missing:

US (Volunteer) vs. China/Russia (Volun-told)