So are you in favor of my right to operate a tiger-infested poisonous flower/landmine farm or not?
I really have no opinion on the subject.
Yes, I’m well aware that you spend my money and pay taxes on my money but those things, in the absence of you being a contributor to the economy, by producing something (look up the word “productivity”) do not make you an asset, they make you a drain.
Who’s paying your way for you, then? In real life facts, in part, the people who are paying for you to not contribute anything to the economy are illegals, since they, like me, are net contributors to the economy. Unlike people like you who produce nothing.
Only a Republican would think that doing work is not contributing to the economy, while collecting the benefits of other people’s work is.
You’re not a retiree. You don’t have a whole life of contribution to look back on.
I’m beginning to realize that it’s hard for you to imagine how anyone could actually be a productive contributing member of society.
We don’t. Most people are not like you.
Again with the stupid. I’m not spending your money, and just because you would sit on your butt and be useless when you retire/become disabled doesn’t mean everyone else does as well.
My husband.
Funny how you use the term “real life facts” and then go on to make guesses and false assumptions.
What is it called when someone can’t parse a sentence, and/or put together an intelligent response to it? If you would like to try again, it was “No, they are not making a *positive *contribution”.
BTW, I am collecting the benefits of my work.
I see. You have some minimum number of years one must work before you think they are qualified to get their social security? Do you go around asking retirees if they have worked enough years to satisfy you? What about children who get their deceased parent’s funds, do you have requirements for them too? Or housewives that never worked and get their spouse’s benefits after he passes on?
Fortunately, since I don’t seem to see much of it here, I do see it in real life.
Well, that made a lot of sense. Yes, most people are not like me, but that has zero to do with whether we have more poor people or not. I realize this is the Pit and all, but you should at least try to stay within shouting distance of the point.
I have a job. You’re the one who’s sitting on your butt, while I’m paying into the system that is paying you money.
Oh. Well, I had thought you were collecting disability. If you’re not, and you’re just spending his money, it’s no skin off my back.
Real life fact: People who consume but do not produce are not an addition to the economy. The people who earned the money you’re living off would have spent it anyway, so you spending it for them doesn’t help the economy, and you not producing anything hurts it.
Sorry it offends you that we also allocate some resources to undocumented immigrants but at least they, unlike you, are producing something of value to us.
I suppose it’s called “curlcoat’s excuse for not working and instead spending other people’s money”.
No, you’re not working. You already said that. You are collecting the benefits of my work, and the work of people like me.
I certainly don’t think you paid every bit into the system that you’re now collecting. Even people who retire don’t do that (the system depends on population growth to make up for that disadvantage) but they have at least earned their allotted share. As you pointed out, you are on disability, so you have not done that.
I don’t have to. Their monthly payments depend on their contributions.
Something you might be aware of if you had more experience earning money and being taxed on it. In fact, every couple years the government even sends me a worksheet detailing how much I’m entitled to collect if I retire now (basically zip, since I’m still young.)
You would be familiar with this if you had had experience earning money like I have.
Housewives work. You don’t work. Vital, fundamental difference.
You mean, in the work done by the people whose earnings you depend on?
You got basic facts wrong. Perhaps being too stupid to get basic facts right is part of your reason for not working.
Which works out quite well for people who actually can’t, like you.
Nice sidestep, sort of.
I am collecting SSDI. However, it is such a small amount it in no way supports me. Of course, if you had a brain and a clue, you would know that.
Real life fact: Just because someone isn’t getting a paycheck doesn’t mean they aren’t producing. Which ties in with my saying just because you would sit on your butt and be useless after you retire doesn’t mean everyone does.
At the expense of legal citizens. Any value they produce is greatly outweighed by the cost.
Ya know, you really need to go buy a clue, find someone who can show you how to use it and then in a year or so after it has sunk in, come on back. You have been wrong about pretty much everything, yet you continue to make those guesses and false assumptions. Either you are dumber than dirt, or you are trolling.
However I did work, for decades and during all that time the government made me pay into social security. Those are the benefits that I am now getting. The fact that the government stole money out of the social security fund and it now doesn’t have enough to cover everyone who is owned reimbursement doesn’t mean that I am collecting the benefits of your work. If you want to play that game, then you owe me money for helping to fund your 12 years of schooling plus whatever college you may have attended. Then when you have kids, you will owe me for helping to fund their schooling.
Well, that just proves once again that you have no idea what you are talking about, doesn’t it?
OK then, you tell me - what is the “allotted share”? How many years does someone have to work before you will allow them to collect? Or do you want to go by how much money they paid in?
:rolleyes: God you are an asshole.
Again with the cluelessness - do you really think it’s any different for people getting SSDI? Are you even aware that I am getting much less than I would have if I’d made it to retirement age AND that it won’t go up when/if I get there? Where did you get the idea that SSDI is free money?
Honey, I worked for decades. I am well aware of how social security works, and I am far more aware of how SSDI works than you.
Yeah? What work do housewives do that I don’t?
No, I cannot work due to physical issues. That is another basic fact you are completely unable to understand, because you would rather flail around like an idiot than even try to find a fact. Just to be nice, here are the basics -
Disabled does not equal bed ridden.
SSDI does not pay anything close to a living wage.
Social security is not a government handout like any of the welfare programs. Anyone who is either disabled or lives long enough will get SS payments if they have paid into the system long enough.
Being on SSDI doesn’t mean one cannot work, it simply means one cannot be paid for it. Now, if a disabled person is doing so much that they could hold a job, there would be issues, but there is certainly nothing wrong with volunteering one’s time as much as one is able.
And, that is all the time I am going to spend on that. Unless you manage to absorb some learning, the most I am going to do is point you back to this post, and specifically this sentence -
You have no idea what you are talking about.
Nope. If I wasn’t having to pay so much in taxes to support all these programs, there is a good chance we could live on just my husband’s income.
As I said several posts ago; you’re dealing with the Curlinator. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until this thread is dead.
And it runs entirely on napkin sandwiches.
Yeah, this must be where some posters get the “make shit up” disease, since none of that is true. How dare I not hold your views on life and society! :smack:
Napkin and ketchup sandwiches. And the thread has been dead for at least the last couple of pages. Another one down, thanks to the curlinator.
And if you didn’t have a husband, what then?
You do NOT take care of yourself. Apparently it takes both a man and a government to carry your worthless ass.
Now, as a test of basic empathy, imagine for whatever reason (say, you’re a crazy hateful bitch who DIDN’T actually manage to con some fool into supporting her) you didn’t HAVE that income. What now?
Well, consider the effects of a more serious (that is to say, a less laughable) effort to keep them out - higher prices. Your government checks won’t go quite so far.
What income, my husband’s? If that’s what you mean, depends on what circumstances you want to make up. As in he loses his job? If he can’t get another one, we have savings and could stagger along until he is old enough to get retirement. If you mean as in I was never married to him, hard to say since you are talking almost 20 years so I really don’t know where I’d be. If you mean he divorces me and leaves me without income other than SSDI ( not gonna happen ), since I’m not a crazy hateful bitch I have friends I could live with. When I get to retirement age, I’d have two (smallish) pensions and an IRA for supplemental income.
Not really sure what any of that has to do with anything tho.
Doing the nyx sidestep, eh? Or are you seriously more concerned about expensive tomatoes than any of the other issues?
I take it that’s why you’re whining about what those of us who earn money choose to spend it on? Because we don’t pay you enough to do nothing?
Right. But you’re not producing. I’m not judging everyone who doesn’t earn a paycheck. I’m judging you, and I’m basing it on your own statements.
No. If you were capable of understanding economics and actually studying up on this stuff, you’d know that these people are a net benefit to the rest of us. Unlike you.
I haven’t been wrong about a thing yet. I was right to guess you weren’t a productive citizen, for example.
No. If you were getting retirement income it would be the basis of what you’re getting paid now. You said you’re on disability. That’s not based on what you paid in.
Oh, believe me, I’ve already paid in way more taxes that the cost of my k-12 education (seriously, that doesn’t take many years at all) and certainly the publicly funded part of my higher education.
Honestly, if you learned enough math to work these things out, maybe you’d be hirable.
I dunno, at least I haven’t tried to resort to arguing that I’m paying my way because taking and spending other people’s money somehow helps the economy.
Well, if it were retirement, it would be based on how much you paid in. That’s the difference between disability and retirement, isn’t it?
At least I’m not being resentful that people who contribute to the economy, like undocumented immigrants, also benefit from the government programs I depend on. You know, the way you do.
Don’t worry, I’m sure you have far more idea than I do how federal free money programs work.
They maintain houses, instead of being paid not to work.
Huh. I guess your opinions don’t really matter to me.
It won’t just be tomatoes, of course, but agricultural products in general. This USDA report (from 2004, I admit, but I don’t expect things have changed much) describes Americans spending:
$41.1 billion: meat, poultry, fish
$38.0 billion: bakery, cereal and grain products
$30.6 billion: dairy, eggs and dairy/egg substitutes
…further down:
$17.1 billion: vegetables
$16.8 billion: fruits
Even if illegal immigrant workers have the greatest impact on just those last two, and even if the loss of their cheap labour leads to, say, a 15% rise in prices… that’s an extra $5.1 billion out of the pockets of hard-working (or government-check-cashing) Americans.
Now, there are indeed costs to illegal immigration. The same year that report came out, California alone coughed up some $10.5 billion claims one source. A more recent report (pdf file) by the Congressional Budget Office recognized the complexities of trying to answer the deceptively simple-sounding question of “Do illegal immigrants benefit the U.S. economy more or less than they cost it?”, though they phrased it as “The Challenges of Estimating an Aggregate Effect”.
The upshot? The writers recognized the variability from state to state but “[a]lthough it is difficult to obtain precise estimates of the net impact of the unauthorized population on state and local budgets, that impact is most likely modest.”
So, basically, I’m not sure anyone knows the impact of illegal immigrants on the U.S. economy, so I’ve no reason to expect you have any particular insight.
See post #587
OK, then it is more important to you that your vegetables and fruits don’t rise in price. Apparently you just pulled the 15% out of your butt, but fine go with that. So much more important that you pay less than pickers aren’t treated like slaves.
That’s the whole problem - because they are illegal, it’s next to impossible to pin down exactly how much in social services they are using. I’d think it likely that any studies that you can find are just the tip of the iceberg. But even if their impact is “only” modest, that still adds up to a hell of a lot of money. $10.5 billion isn’t chump change.
Unfortunately, as this thread has revealed, society has fallen apart to the point that getting a job and earning your keep, rather than living on government largess, is now some “stupid liberal idea” rather than, you know, the normal thing people do.
I guess mounting corporate welfare has created such an entitlement society that individual conservatives also think they should live off other people’s money rather than earning their own.
Hey, they ain’t my fruits and vegetables. What the U.S. does regarding its southern border is only of academic interest to me.
Actually, I expect the 15% estimate to be rather low. Aren’t there a number of farming operations that can’t afford to pay minimum wage, that would shut down (or see their output greatly restricted) if they couldn’t hire illegals?
Besides, now you’re acting all concerned about them not being treated like slaves? That’s mighty white of you, I must say, showing some concern for their well-being at this late date. These people don’t go to the U.S. to be slaves - they go because being underpaid in the U.S. is better than what they can get at home.
Well, here’s a wacky idea - make them legal. You don’t have to give them citizenship, some sort of work-visa system will suffice. At the very least, you’ll save the money wasted on law enforcement efforts to round up illegals who otherwise just want to work and get paid and mind their own business.