On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:48:48 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 19:50:52 -0800, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 22:40:50 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:30:13 -0500, wrote:

I am not sure how to penetrate the dream world you live in.

It's a faith based belief system. :-)

Actually I can tell you how it will get resolved. At some point
there will be no one willing to buy any more US debt. Interest rates
will skyrocket and the economic system as we now know it will grind to
a halt. Inflation will run rampant and social security checks will
become worthless pocket money. There will be massive rioting in the
big cities and shortages of just about everything. It will not be
pretty at all. I'm thinking about buying another sail boat or a farm
in the country somewhere.

Yes, that's a correct analysis. We're not particularly close to that
situation.

In more than a sense, any kind of economic system beyond simple
transactions is a faith-based system. That's the definition pretty
much of 'full faith and credit.'

Our debt problem is about as bad as it was at the end of WWII but this
time we are not the engine of production and the only industrialized
country in the world that wasn't blown to hell.

We're also the place where just about everyone turns to when there are
problems, financial or otherwise.

We don't really have the production capacity to dig our way out of
this mess right now. It surely won't come from an internal service
economy paying for 80 million retired people.
One day the government will stop lying to us and tell us we have to
cut our spending, just like Europe is doing now.
We also better find something we can make and sell to the world to
repatriate some of our money

"One day" Well, whatever. The sky isn't falling.

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:39:10 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 19:49:10 -0800, wrote:

It is not "long term" when you already can't pay your bills without
borrowing money and the serious obligations have not even hit yet.

Huh? People do this all the time when they use a credit card. While
not the best way to pay for things, it's fine if done responsibly and
in the short term.

If your credit card minimum payments are greater than your income you
are on the road to bankruptcy and that is what SS is doing right now.

And, that isn't the case for the US.



From the 2010 SSA trustees report
"Annual cost is projected to exceed tax income in 2010 and 2011, to be
less than tax income in 2012 through 2014, then to exceed tax income
in 2015 and remain higher throughout the remainder of the long-range
period."
Considering their track record on "predictions" I doubt the 2012-2014
surplus will happen. That assumes we are going to reproduce the Bush
boom years of 2004-2006 again.

Medicare has been upside down for years.
From the trustees' report

"HI expenditures have exceeded income annually since 2008 and are
projected to continue doing so under current law through 2013 ...The
HI trust fund has not met the Trustees’ formal test of short-range
financial adequacy since 2003."

Interesting that you didn't quote from the top of the report...

"For Medicare, it projects that changes put in place by the new health
reform law will help extend the life of the program's trust fund by 12
years – from 2017 to 2029. But this projection comes with cautions
that such gains will be dependent on the federal government achieving
significant health care savings in the years to come. Meanwhile, the
recession has worsened Social Security’s financial health – at least
in the near term."

Why quote a lie? That all assumes THREE things. One that there is
really a trust fund, there isn't
Two. it also assumes they will increase the taxes like the health care
bill calls for. They just reduced the taxes 2% across the board. Why
would I think those 2014 increases will stand.
It also assumes health care costs will go down.
They always go up.

YOU quoted the report and conveniently left out the part you didn't
like.

I left out the things that were conjecture, dreams and estimates. I
am showing what is already happening.

According to you.

According to that trustees' report. The quotes you posted are all
prefaces with assumptions. You can just go look at the OMB site and
see what is happening right now.
SS/Medicare is simply paying out more than it takes in, every month.

Which has nothing to do with short-term problems. Keep trying. You're
just thrashing around over a long-term problem. Nothing is happening
next week (yes, that's a metaphor).


The 2014 thing assumes nobody changes the new health care law taxes.

The chance of that was only made worse by Obama cutting payroll tax
revenues by 2% (in the democratic congress) and they are even talking
about more cuts, perhaps dropping the payroll tax altogether.
They added taxes in the health care bill to get a good CBO cost
estimate and before the ink was dry they cut them again.
I think the plan is to dump the whole program into the general find
and remove any illusion that this is anything but a welfare program.
They have been spending any surplus as fast as it came in since 1939
so there is no "trust fund".

First sentence from the conclusion:

"Conclusion

The financial outlook for the Medicare program is substantially
improved as a result of the far-reaching changes in the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act."

The tax increases in that bill have already been gutted and they are
talking about removing the payroll tax altogether.

Just exactly what fixes do you see coming any time soon?
I know you say we need to raise taxes but your party does not seem to
agree. Both parties have bought into the idea that lower taxes creates
more revenue or that higher taxes stifle the economy (whether it is
down or if it is booming) .

This is totally untrue. The Dems have tried to raise taxes on those
over $250K, you even said as much, but the Reps won't have it. Get
your story straight. Did they or didn't they?

They talk about it but they had both houses of congress and the white
house. Nothing happened.

Which is a failing of the Democrats for sure. In any case, this is
what needs to happen. I think it will still happen in one form or
another.


They just want to use the platitudes you parrot that this will get
fixed some time in the future and they kick the can down the road.

Try again.

OK
They just want to use the platitudes you parrot that this will get
fixed some time in the future and they kick the can down the road.

Very unfunny. If you can't actually support your point of view,
perhaps it's time to retire from the discussion.


I am not sure what else to say. It is a fact that SS and Medicare
spend more than they make right now and you deny it. I have also never
seen any projection or guess than changes that in the LONG TERM.
I am not sure how to penetrate the dream world you live in.

No. I'm denying that it's a short term problem. I've said this several
times. Why is this difficult for you to get?

Because the long term failure has already started and there is no end
in sight. The projection of a surplus for a few years in the trustee
report is not valid now that Obama cut the total revenue by 14.2%
(taking 14% FICA down to 12%). It is like they just gave up on the
solvency of SS/Medicare.

No it hasn't. That's just FEAR not reality.

I know. It's all Obama's fault and the sky is falling. Bad man...

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:12:05 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 19:53:10 -0800, wrote:

I have no idea who Wilbur is

That's odd since both you and Wilbur's recent "girl friend" post with
the same account headers from Eternal-September.org

Believe what you want, but please leave me out of your paranoia!

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:59:34 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 19:59:05 -0800, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:50:34 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 18:07:03 -0800, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:20:40 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 11:08:32 -0800, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:29:35 -0500, wrote:

On Sun, 20 Feb 2011 20:46:06 -0800, wrote:

On Sun, 20 Feb 2011 23:17:11 -0500, wrote:


DoE was a Carter invention. Nobody said ERDA was a good idea either
but it was not the same huge bureaucracy DoE became.
I was in DC at the time, working in those buildings. I saw what
happened. Each time they changed the name, another office was started
up and the existing office just got a new sign. The joke at GSA was
they were going to hang the signs with thumb screws.

Sure... DoE... created by a Dem, therefore it's horrible. What total
nonsense. You just want to eliminate anything that doesn't directly
involved profit.

No it was bad because it was an extra layer of bureaucracy on top of
an already redundant layer on an agency that was working well.

According to you. So, no coordination among the disparate groups is
needed?? That's what you're claiming...


Make up your mind, you started out saying we needed this omnibus
bureaucracy to regulate a small sector of the energy business that
runs nuclear reactors and now you are talking about disparate groups?
What groups?

There were two agencies that were disbanded. They, along with several
others were combined. For some reason you think that represents
terrible bloat.

That may be what you learned in your civics class but I was there. The
AEC was still there (in a big building in Germantown Md). ERDA was a
new office with a bunch of new bureaucrats in Rockville Md that sat
over AEC. When DoE was started it was yet ANOTHER office in DC that
sat over both previous bureaucracies. The difference was the old AEC
people now had two more levels of management above them who knew very
little about what they did and chipped away at their allocation of the
pot of money.

Come on. I made a statement of fact. Published fact. You can claim you
know more, but it doesn't mean much when compared to the published
facts.

What "fact"? Disbanded only meant they got different stationary. I
guarantee you the building and all the people in it were still there.
They just lost some of their autonomy to decide what they should be
regulating.

You sure are an expert in so many things! Esp. when the published
facts don't match your view.

I know what I saw.

Well, let's see... say I walk down a street and I see a mugging. Do I
then conclude that all streets have muggings on them? That seems to be
what you're saying...because you saw something that means it happens
everywhere.

This is simpler than that. You said AEC was disbanded and I said it
never went anywhere, nobody lost their job, they just got a new
"agency", and then layer a "department" above them.

Something is simpler, but I'm not going to say what.


I also seem to understand government jargon better than you. Maybe it
is because I grew up around it, most of my friends worked there for
their whole career and I worked there for 15 years.
It you want to talk about the patent attorney business I will deter to
your experience.

What gov't jargon? Seems to me you're speaking regular English (more
so that some people in fact)

Things like agency and department. They have distinct meanings and
different political connotations. It is not the Webster definition.

Whatever. That's not jargon, but feel free to be the king of it
whatever you want to call it.


A cynical person might say that confusion actually disrupted the AEC
oversight and allowed TMI ... but I don't think there was that much
oversight in the first place.

So, there should be less?


There was less

Things are a bit more complicated now. Perhaps we should go back to
the regulations in place before the 1920s.

In some cases, maybe we should.

Which cases? Like extreme poverty, no safety net, terrible food
safety, etc., etc.

Changing the subject again?

You commented, I replied. Sorry if you don't like the reply. Next time
don't talk about the 1920s.



Why should the agency that regulates the safety of our nukes have to
live under the same bloated bureaucracy that is promoting the
collection of methane from cow farts?

So, therefore, remove it. No way to fix something right? That's your
argument?

I don't think you fix anything by increasing complexity. Keep it
simple.

?? Making it more simple doesn't not equate to removing something.

It also does not equate to putting more management overhead on top of
an agency that was working just fine.

It's not clear it was "working fine." That's your interpretation
that's unsupported.

We were not having plant melt downs when AEC was regulating them.

Which melt down is that? I can think of 3-mile island...

Here's list. You pick...

http://www.lutins.org/nukes.html

Maybe the government can't be trusted with nukes

Haha... so, give them to Haliburton.


I guess AEC just did a better job of covering it up.
You win


I haven't won or lost anything. That's a guy's game.

On Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:53:40 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 19:59:57 -0800, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:57:01 -0500, wrote:



Anyone individual making more than $250K should be taxed a bit more on
the amount over the line... by a few percent as per what was proposed.
The Republicans fought tooth and nail to prevent that. The Democrats
even proposed pushing that up to $1M, but no go from the Republicans.
Why?

So you agree with my numbers now? OK

The answer to your question is simple. Rich people are the only ones
who can afford to buy congressmen. If the republicans were not taking
point on these tax loopholes, the democrats would be doing it.

Did you see this. A real eye opener about who is bribing whom.

http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpictur...Rep&Cycle=2008

Agree with which numbers? The fact is that the Republicans blocked a
reasonable tax increase and have made the situation worse.

I agree the Bush tax cuts should have expired, I always have, but I
also know it would not approach fixing this $1.1T deficit.

Yes, it would. OVER THE LONG TERM.
How is that?
You are not attacking a 1.1 trillion dollar deficit that is going up
every year with a $70B tax increase.

Try your math again.


The projection for the whole thing (resetting to 2001 rates for
everyone) was only about $70B a year ($700B over 10 years)
That is why I put this in perspective and cited the total net worth
for the top 2%.
That would take care of the deficit for about 18 months and there
wouldn't be a US economy anymore because you liquidated all the big
companies.

You need to start thinking longer term.

It is worse in the future than it is now. How does long term help?
You are just kicking the can down the road and hoping you die before
you hit the wall. That may work if you are 75 but if you are in your
60s it is going to crash before you die.
If you are in your 50s it will hit the wall before you can retire.
Print this out and put it in your wallet with your social security
card

"By 2020 the minimum retirement age will be at least 70 and benefits
will be strictly means tested. If you are much above the poverty
level, you won't get a dime from Social Security"
"Medicare will be a totally different program and a lot less generous"

You will think I was nostradamus

I think you're very afraid.

On Feb 22, 1:15*am, wrote:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:12:05 -0500, Wayne.B

wrote:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 19:53:10 -0800, wrote:

I have no idea who Wilbur is

That's odd since both you and Wilbur's recent "girl friend" post with
the same account headers from Eternal-September.org

Believe what you want, but please leave me out of your paranoia!


Paranoia has nothing to do with it, JessicaB. Headers do, though.

On Feb 22, 1:21*am, wrote:
On Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:53:40 -0500, wrote:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 19:59:57 -0800, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:57:01 -0500, wrote:

Anyone individual making more than $250K should be taxed a bit more on
the amount over the line... by a few percent as per what was proposed.
The Republicans fought tooth and nail to prevent that. The Democrats
even proposed pushing that up to $1M, but no go from the Republicans.
Why?

So you agree with my numbers now? OK

The answer to your question is simple. Rich people are the only ones
who can afford to buy congressmen. If the republicans were not taking
point on these tax loopholes, the democrats would be doing it.

Did you see this. A real eye opener about who is bribing whom.

http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpictur...kdn=DemRep&Cyc...

Agree with which numbers? The fact is that the Republicans blocked a
reasonable tax increase and have made the situation worse.

I agree the Bush tax cuts should have expired, I always have, but I
also know it would not approach fixing this $1.1T deficit.

Yes, it would. OVER THE LONG TERM.
How is that?
You are not attacking a 1.1 trillion dollar deficit that is going up
every year with a $70B tax increase.

Try your math again.





The projection for the whole thing (resetting to 2001 rates for
everyone) was only about $70B a year ($700B over 10 years)
That is why I put this in perspective and cited the total net worth
for the top 2%.
That would take care of the deficit for about 18 months and there
wouldn't be a US economy anymore because you liquidated all the big
companies.

You need to start thinking longer term.

It is worse in the future than it is now. How does long term help?
You are just kicking the can down the road and hoping you die before
you hit the wall. That may work if you are 75 but if you are in your
60s it is going to crash before you die.
If you are in your 50s it will hit the wall before you can retire.
Print this out and put it in your wallet with your social security
card

"By 2020 the minimum retirement age will be at least 70 and benefits
will be strictly means tested. If you are much above the poverty
level, you won't get a dime from Social Security"
"Medicare will be a totally different program and a lot less generous"

You will think I was nostradamus

I think you're very afraid.

Many here believe you are stupid.

On 2/22/2011 2:13 AM, wrote:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:39:10 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 19:49:10 -0800, wrote:

It is not "long term" when you already can't pay your bills without
borrowing money and the serious obligations have not even hit yet.
Huh? People do this all the time when they use a credit card. While
not the best way to pay for things, it's fine if done responsibly and
in the short term.
If your credit card minimum payments are greater than your income you
are on the road to bankruptcy and that is what SS is doing right now.
And, that isn't the case for the US.

From the 2010 SSA trustees report
"Annual cost is projected to exceed tax income in 2010 and 2011, to be
less than tax income in 2012 through 2014, then to exceed tax income
in 2015 and remain higher throughout the remainder of the long-range
period."
Considering their track record on "predictions" I doubt the 2012-2014
surplus will happen. That assumes we are going to reproduce the Bush
boom years of 2004-2006 again.

Medicare has been upside down for years.
From the trustees' report
"HI expenditures have exceeded income annually since 2008 and are
projected to continue doing so under current law through 2013 ...The
HI trust fund has not met the Trustees’ formal test of short-range
financial adequacy since 2003."
Interesting that you didn't quote from the top of the report...

"For Medicare, it projects that changes put in place by the new health
reform law will help extend the life of the program's trust fund by 12
years – from 2017 to 2029. But this projection comes with cautions
that such gains will be dependent on the federal government achieving
significant health care savings in the years to come. Meanwhile, the
recession has worsened Social Security’s financial health – at least
in the near term."
Why quote a lie? That all assumes THREE things. One that there is
really a trust fund, there isn't
Two. it also assumes they will increase the taxes like the health care
bill calls for. They just reduced the taxes 2% across the board. Why
would I think those 2014 increases will stand.
It also assumes health care costs will go down.
They always go up.
YOU quoted the report and conveniently left out the part you didn't
like.
I left out the things that were conjecture, dreams and estimates. I
am showing what is already happening.
According to you.
According to that trustees' report. The quotes you posted are all
prefaces with assumptions. You can just go look at the OMB site and
see what is happening right now.
SS/Medicare is simply paying out more than it takes in, every month.
Which has nothing to do with short-term problems. Keep trying. You're
just thrashing around over a long-term problem. Nothing is happening
next week (yes, that's a metaphor).

The 2014 thing assumes nobody changes the new health care law taxes.

The chance of that was only made worse by Obama cutting payroll tax
revenues by 2% (in the democratic congress) and they are even talking
about more cuts, perhaps dropping the payroll tax altogether.
They added taxes in the health care bill to get a good CBO cost
estimate and before the ink was dry they cut them again.
I think the plan is to dump the whole program into the general find
and remove any illusion that this is anything but a welfare program.
They have been spending any surplus as fast as it came in since 1939
so there is no "trust fund".
First sentence from the conclusion:

"Conclusion

The financial outlook for the Medicare program is substantially
improved as a result of the far-reaching changes in the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act."
The tax increases in that bill have already been gutted and they are
talking about removing the payroll tax altogether.

Just exactly what fixes do you see coming any time soon?
I know you say we need to raise taxes but your party does not seem to
agree. Both parties have bought into the idea that lower taxes creates
more revenue or that higher taxes stifle the economy (whether it is
down or if it is booming) .
This is totally untrue. The Dems have tried to raise taxes on those
over $250K, you even said as much, but the Reps won't have it. Get
your story straight. Did they or didn't they?
They talk about it but they had both houses of congress and the white
house. Nothing happened.
Which is a failing of the Democrats for sure. In any case, this is
what needs to happen. I think it will still happen in one form or
another.

They just want to use the platitudes you parrot that this will get
fixed some time in the future and they kick the can down the road.
Try again.
OK
They just want to use the platitudes you parrot that this will get
fixed some time in the future and they kick the can down the road.
Very unfunny. If you can't actually support your point of view,
perhaps it's time to retire from the discussion.

I am not sure what else to say. It is a fact that SS and Medicare
spend more than they make right now and you deny it. I have also never
seen any projection or guess than changes that in the LONG TERM.
I am not sure how to penetrate the dream world you live in.
No. I'm denying that it's a short term problem. I've said this several
times. Why is this difficult for you to get?
Because the long term failure has already started and there is no end
in sight. The projection of a surplus for a few years in the trustee
report is not valid now that Obama cut the total revenue by 14.2%
(taking 14% FICA down to 12%). It is like they just gave up on the
solvency of SS/Medicare.
No it hasn't. That's just FEAR not reality.

I know. It's all Obama's fault and the sky is falling. Bad man...
Sooner or later Greg is going to realize that you are just a nut case
who just likes to argue for arguments sake.

On 2/22/2011 2:21 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:53:40 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 19:59:57 -0800, wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:57:01 -0500, wrote:

Anyone individual making more than $250K should be taxed a bit more on
the amount over the line... by a few percent as per what was proposed.
The Republicans fought tooth and nail to prevent that. The Democrats
even proposed pushing that up to $1M, but no go from the Republicans.
Why?
So you agree with my numbers now? OK

The answer to your question is simple. Rich people are the only ones
who can afford to buy congressmen. If the republicans were not taking
point on these tax loopholes, the democrats would be doing it.

Did you see this. A real eye opener about who is bribing whom.

http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpictur...Rep&Cycle=2008
Agree with which numbers? The fact is that the Republicans blocked a
reasonable tax increase and have made the situation worse.
I agree the Bush tax cuts should have expired, I always have, but I
also know it would not approach fixing this $1.1T deficit.
Yes, it would. OVER THE LONG TERM.
How is that?
You are not attacking a 1.1 trillion dollar deficit that is going up
every year with a $70B tax increase.
Try your math again.

The projection for the whole thing (resetting to 2001 rates for
everyone) was only about $70B a year ($700B over 10 years)
That is why I put this in perspective and cited the total net worth
for the top 2%.
That would take care of the deficit for about 18 months and there
wouldn't be a US economy anymore because you liquidated all the big
companies.
You need to start thinking longer term.
It is worse in the future than it is now. How does long term help?
You are just kicking the can down the road and hoping you die before
you hit the wall. That may work if you are 75 but if you are in your
60s it is going to crash before you die.
If you are in your 50s it will hit the wall before you can retire.
Print this out and put it in your wallet with your social security
card

"By 2020 the minimum retirement age will be at least 70 and benefits
will be strictly means tested. If you are much above the poverty
level, you won't get a dime from Social Security"
"Medicare will be a totally different program and a lot less generous"

You will think I was nostradamus
I think you're very afraid.
Ignorance is bliss. Poor baby.

On 2/22/2011 5:15 AM, TopBassDog wrote:
On Feb 22, 1:21 am, wrote:
On Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:53:40 -0500, wrote:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 19:59:57 -0800, wrote:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:57:01 -0500, wrote:
Anyone individual making more than $250K should be taxed a bit more on
the amount over the line... by a few percent as per what was proposed.
The Republicans fought tooth and nail to prevent that. The Democrats
even proposed pushing that up to $1M, but no go from the Republicans.
Why?
So you agree with my numbers now? OK
The answer to your question is simple. Rich people are the only ones
who can afford to buy congressmen. If the republicans were not taking
point on these tax loopholes, the democrats would be doing it.
Did you see this. A real eye opener about who is bribing whom.
http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpictur...kdn=DemRep&Cyc...
Agree with which numbers? The fact is that the Republicans blocked a
reasonable tax increase and have made the situation worse.
I agree the Bush tax cuts should have expired, I always have, but I
also know it would not approach fixing this $1.1T deficit.
Yes, it would. OVER THE LONG TERM.
How is that?
You are not attacking a 1.1 trillion dollar deficit that is going up
every year with a $70B tax increase.
Try your math again.





The projection for the whole thing (resetting to 2001 rates for
everyone) was only about $70B a year ($700B over 10 years)
That is why I put this in perspective and cited the total net worth
for the top 2%.
That would take care of the deficit for about 18 months and there
wouldn't be a US economy anymore because you liquidated all the big
companies.
You need to start thinking longer term.
It is worse in the future than it is now. How does long term help?
You are just kicking the can down the road and hoping you die before
you hit the wall. That may work if you are 75 but if you are in your
60s it is going to crash before you die.
If you are in your 50s it will hit the wall before you can retire.
Print this out and put it in your wallet with your social security
card
"By 2020 the minimum retirement age will be at least 70 and benefits
will be strictly means tested. If you are much above the poverty
level, you won't get a dime from Social Security"
"Medicare will be a totally different program and a lot less generous"
You will think I was nostradamus
I think you're very afraid.
Many here believe you are stupid.
That's a given.