If you don’t even understand the difference between an income insurance program and a retirement investment program, your criticisms aren’t worth listening to.
They will. My cite is Medicare, Social Security and the prescription drug plan Bush passed. Any law that gives away free stuff is difficult if not impossible to repeal.
Do you have a cite of any entitlement ever given to the voters that was taken away once everyone started getting it? That never happens.
Cite? Ask ten people on the street what percentage of their taxes go to what functions of government. You’ll realize most people are clueless.
It was in the news today that only one out of eight uninsured people even know the exchanges were scheduled to open today. We’re giving them free stuff and they can’t be bothered to know when the program starts.
They’ll find out. Aunt Rhoda will tell Uncle Fred, Uncle Fred will tell his barber, and so on and so forth. All to the good, actually, it forestalls any stampede that would gum up the works. It was wise to set this up so that there are several months of opportunity.
You can toss whatever labels on it that make you feel good. But the reality remains that the returns Social Security pays out are an easily avoidable disgrace.
It isn’t an investment. It’s insurance. The policy on your car also has a poor rate of return.
In other news, my cat makes a terrible horse. She’s small, can’t pull a carriage, and sleeps too much.
Yeah, sure, but you just try getting a horse to crap in a sandbox and bury it.
So, you didn’t mean to imply “… but if Democrats don’t win a majority in both houses, the ACA will be defunded”? Then why didn’t you just say “ACA will probably be funded regardless of who controls Congress” if that’s what you meant?
That’s exactly his point.
Social security is not an investment program. It’s an income insurance program. It was never designed nor intended as an investment vehicle. You are demonstrating a significant lack of understanding on a very basic point.
As for my assumption as to a basic level of rationality of the American population? I assume the average voter is smart enough to pick their legislators, who will reflect their constituents’ preferences. If that’s not smart enough, we have some deeper fundamental issues.
Would I support a program to hand out free iPads? No. I don’t see the point. But should such a program be enacted, for good or ill, I would support funding it until such time it could be repealed. I wouldn’t support my congressman throwing a hissy fit, furloughing hundreds of thousands of workers (in a depressed economy, no less), and costing the country tens of billions of dollars, in what can only end as a failed attempt to bypass a properly enacted and defended law.
If you’re worried about ruinous financial decisions, you’d have hated going into WWII. Wars, especially world spanning wars are ruinously expensive. But sometimes that price gets paid anyway for whatever reason.
Social Security is NOT AN INVESTMENT PROGRAM and should never be. If it were, you’d be bitching about “the gov’t choosing the winners and losers” and gov’t getting it’s hands involved in private business. You can’t have it both ways. Not to mention, you don’t want your SS funds beholden to the whims of the market. That would be idiotic.
This doesn’t make sense. Insurance is a type of investment.
It’s like you’re saying “That thing in my driveway isn’t a truck! It’s a Ford!”
Indeed. I can’t have it both my way and the way of the strawman you just constructed for me.
So every investment professional should just invest in Tbills, then? Since being beholden to the whims of the market is only for idiots?
Just trying to nail down exactly how crazy this idea is, exactly.
What’s the rate of return on your homeowners policy? Are you making fat stacks of cheese with all that cash that Allstate is giving to you?
What percent are you earning on your car insurance? Because I have State Farm, and they haven’t sent me a dividend check in, like, decades. That’s why I’m thinking of changing.
No it’s not.
I don’t know where you are going with this nitpick/hijack or whatever it is. I’m being open and clear about what I’m saying. If you have a question just ask. But the two quotes you posted from me are in no way in conflict, despite however you are misreading them.
I posted what I did because I was making the point that Obama did have choices here. He could have passed a budget and just let Obamacare be defunded. Then he could have funded it later when he had the votes to do so. I admit it’s the Republicans causing the shutdown by excluding Obamacare funding from their budget. But I’m just making the point that Obama did have a choice, as distasteful as it must have been for him.
That’s it. Not sure how that’s confusing.
I don’t know how to break it to you guys but you are just straight up wrong on this one. Insurance is a type of investment. Usually, it’s doesn’t have an expected rate of return that is positive on it’s own. You don’t buy home insurance to get rich overnight. You buy it because as a portfolio together with your house they are a good investment together. (Your house is an investment too.)
Something doesn’t need to pay dividends to be an investment.
This is basic FIN101 stuff.
No, seriously, tell me how much money you’re making on your car insurance. Or your homeowner’s policy. Tell me all about how your insurance premiums are increasing your wealth.
ETA: Or, tell me the circumstances under which someone gets rich on an insurance policy that they bought for themselves. Do you see a house burning down and think, “Wow, what a lucky duck! That dude is going to be swimming in money! That man is set for life now!”
What kind of profit do you make off of your car insurance contract?
Do they pay you dividends?
You do not understand the difference between insurance and investment. Every post you make just underscores that fundamental lack of comprehension.
The point of Social Security is to make sure ITS THERE, not to make profits. What would have happened to Social Security if it was privatized into the market before the crash of 2008 as the Republicans were pushing for? How would you explain that to the Senior Citizens who depend on that income to eat and pay their heating bill? Sorry but we gambled away your grocery money? Oopsie?
Not much of a hole really, more like a pinprick. $1.4B is like a few hours of government spending.
It is, but you’re on the wrong side of it. Maybe you should revisit those textbooks.
Debaser, you’re probably right that Obamacare is here to stay. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be drastically modified in the future by a Republican government that has a better plan. That has to be the approach they take going forward. Get the votes, the electoral positions - and then gut it or change it.
The shutdown nonsense won’t and shouldn’t change anything. It won’t because polls show people are not behind it right now, and because Obama has the legal and electoral authority to forge ahead. It shouldn’t because it is almost a form of economic terrorism that congress is performing to America right now - “do it our way or we all suffer”. Congress can’t govern that way - it is not right and the worst possible outcome would be the Dem’s caving to this kind of pressure such that both parties continue it as a regular tactic into the future.