Dumfuck wingnut, you’re thinking of They Shoot Heroin, Don’t They?
(And I was in the Peace Movement when she went to Hanoi, the universal opinion amongst my ilk was “You stupid, overprivileged cunt!!!”…)
Wow, gloss over stuff much? You guys are paying lower taxes because you’re out of pocket for more things; we still (mercifully) have more widespread social programs and universal health care, it’s just not as good as it was before the neoliberals got into office and started hacking it to bits; we have a smaller tax base than you; and Paul Martin gave a $100 billion tax cut in 2000, do you think that might have had something to do with it?
Can you tell me what definition of “free” you’re using? Curfews, road checkpoints, searches and siezures aplenty, and twice as many casualties due to coalition action than insurgent activity in the past few months doesn’t seem all that free to me. The average Iraqi has a very strict set of rules they must follow in their daily lives under pain of death from those people they can’t even communicate with. Looks like they’ve traded one crappy set of conditions for another. The difference is the promises from their current occupier that they plan on fixing things up and leaving at some point. Promises which, to date, have not proven to be all that reliable.
And things are objectively, measurably more unsustainable with the economy also. Tell me, how much longer can the Asian nations continue to purchase US securities at the rate they currently do?
Fantastic. That’s great news, for all the rich people who need expensive, high-end treatments. In the meantime those who suffer common, easily treatable conditions must go without basic care because it is too expensive, even with insurance.
You may want to read A Congressional Analysis of College Costs and Implications for America’s Higher Education System(PDF).
I find the descriptor of “a motivated person” to be meaningless. It could mean anything and a single instance of an exceptional individual would validate it. Virtually any level of motivation which failed to be sufficient could be dismissed as “not motivated enough”. That’s fine if we’re saying ANY measure of success is what we’re after, but pretty crappy if we’re wanting more college educated people than the tiny minority of the population who would qualify as “motivated persons”. Especially as the “motivation” it takes to overcome education costs which have grown far faster than inflation will grow as well. No matter how bad it gets there will still be a handful of success stories. If that handful is good enough to satisfy your sense of civic duty to make education available for your fellow citizens then I guess that’s good enough. I’d rather see more be educated than less, but YMMV.
Excluded middle much? History has taught us that huge swaths of the public are not good at taking financial care of themselves. This does not mean they are frivolously wasting it. It is perfectly possible(in fact quite common) to live within one’s means and still not accumulate enough resources for personal financing of retirement. Look at savings rates for a nice cold glass of reality. You could argue this is because people think SS will always take care of them, but the pitiful savings and financial planning habits of Americans in the 1800’s and early 1900’s was the REASON for SS, not vice versa. Such an arguement would be ahistorical.
I also find “sound financial planning” to be a meaningless descriptor. Much like “motivated person”. It sets no objective bars. A single person who picks stocks at random and gets lucky could qualify if at the end of their working career their portfolio has done well. This same person could be pointed to as proof that “sound financial planners do well”. A person who had researched their options and still managed to lose their shirt in the market via either normal market cycles/fluxes/uncertainty or flat out fraud by companies like Enron and Worldcom would be considered an unsound financial planner. The system could be said to be working in his case too because he “didn’t plan well enough.” Both of these applications of the term would be grossly unfair of course. The lucky bastard didn’t deserve it and the person who tried and failed did his best and it simply wasn’t enough. Even people with extremely good financial acumen were hungry in 1929.
In all the label of “good financial planner” is a nonsense platitude used to describe situations in hindsight. It’s great to sit back and see the person whose portfolio did well and say they exercised “sound financial planning.” If the portfolio had not done well, then just adjust the bar on the fly and say “it was possible to do well, you must just have exercised poor planning”. Can you look at a bunch of portfolios at the beginning of an investment career and tell me which ones will do well and which won’t? Because if you can then you can use that descriptor. If you can’t then you should acknowledge that A) financial acumen is a pretty tough skill to acquire, and B) even those with financial acumen sometimes go wrong. If you’re willing to tie a person’s security in retirement to this rare skill(with large amounts of luck and capricous financial/market cycles involved) then you’re setting up a society where extremely large swaths of people will retire in cardboard boxes under bridges. Including many of those who made good faith efforts and exercised generally responsible financial habits.
Bad stuff happens to good people. Fate is capricious. All the good financial planning in the world won’t help if you or your wife gets cancer. Setting up a system based on nebulous factors like “motivation” or “sound planning” is going to lead to lots of BIG cracks that lots of people WILL fall through.
Enjoy,
Steven
Well Bricker, I now understand what is important to you and your fellow right wing nutjobs. Making sure some dumbfuck who can’t save money suffers tremendously for their mistakes and is never allowed one of your precious dimes. Yep, that’s right at the top of my list. And at the bottom, murdering thousands of iraqi’s and americans is a-ok, as well as pissing off the world and playing Mr. tough guy on tv. I mean, Bush showed how tough he is when he went and fought…errr, nevermind. Anyway, you cry about giving money to the poor and foolish, but apparently giving 200 billion dollars to someone to drop bombs on people is money well spent. They were gonna die eventually, surely speeding up this process is well worth the $200 billion and counting. I don’t care if Bush cured cancer and shat gold, I’d still support him as much as you support lazy hippies. War trumps all. And if you don’t see it that way, then you’re every bit the psychotic murderer he is.
And one other thing. I have 3 easy steps to solving the nation’s healthcare and welfare problem.
#1-Don’t start wars that cost billions of dollars for no reason other than the joy of overpowering and killing others.
#2-Disband the DEA. The drug war is the second greatest crime against humanity. See above for #1.
#3-Stop giving the church tax breaks. It seems odd to me that spreading lies and hate is rewarded by the gov’t. Maybe if I start doing that then my property won’t be taxed?
This is a FAR bigger waste of money than supporting the aforementioned worthless hippies.
And Shodan, if I made any spelling or grammatical errors, let me give you a pre-emptive Fuck You. Bush would be so proud.
Great job restating the obvious while completely ignoring the question I asked. Would you care to try again?
Sure you can. Portfolios diversified over a wide number of historically strong, well run companies will generate positive returns over time almost without fail. Nobody is suggesting that each taxpayer be allowed to invest all of his retirement money in hula hoop stock on the off chance that hula hoops make a big comback and the stock prices jump 500% allowing that lucky person to retire in Monacco, where do you get this stuff?
Wd: Y’all already pay higher taxes than we do, and you have a larger country with more natural resources than the US, yet only 1/10 of our population, and you still can’t fund unlimited on demand health treatment for everyone.
Well, of course no country can fund unlimited on-demand health treatment for everyone: that’s just silly. But plenty of countries do manage to fund lots of health treatment for everyone, with parallel private health plans so that the better-off can buy more health treatment, and they have healthier populations than ours.
Their wealthiest people may come here for top-dollar medical care, sure, but frankly I don’t think that’s an indisputable sign of success in a national health care system. I’d rather support a more attainable standard of health care for everybody than have foreign dignitaries paying millions out-of-pocket for heart transplants while thousands of Americans die or go bankrupt for lack of resources to treat diabetes or hypertension.
Bricker: I maintain that a motivated person with no financial resources can obtain a college degree in this country. I did it, and it was less than 30 years ago.
Ha ha ha ha! So did I, fellow geezer; I graduated nearly 20 years ago, and my college costs were less than one-fourth of what the same institution is charging now. Have wages quadrupled over the past 20 years? Didn’t think so. Face it, gramps, you and I had a lot easier time paying for college than kids do today. The rate of increase in college tuition has massively outstripped most other costs.
Wd: Portfolios diversified over a wide number of historically strong, well run companies will generate positive returns over time almost without fail.
Got some numbers on that “almost without fail” bit? Lots of well-invested portfolios sank like a freaking stone at the end of the 1920’s, and lots didn’t do too well at the end of the 1990’s either. “Over time” is a very handy little vague phrase, but in fact your results “over time” depend very much on where the endpoints of the “time” happen to fall.
Not to mention that the real minimum wage was 20% higher back then in the stone age… I mean 20 years ago 
Better make sure it’s not a degree in the liberal arts, though. Wouldn’t want the real motivated people to ridicule you when you are unable to score a job that pays above minimum wage right away.
Come by here, Jesus.
treis: Not to mention that the real minimum wage was 20% higher back then in the stone age… I mean 20 years ago
[swings old-lady vinyl purse and smacks young whippersnapper upside the head]
I think Shodan would agree that pre-emptive Fuck Yous are unilateralist and just plain wrong. One should seek a consensus Fuck You from a properly constituted world deliberative body such as the United Nations. 
I mean over a working lifetime.
You’re not supposed to start sentences with the word ‘and’.
*Fuquez vous, Chodan!
Der bist gerfochen-Schodin!
Wafuckimasu, Shodan-san!*
Sounds like a long meeting…
GDP Per capita:
United States: 37610 (#4 in the world)
Canada: 23930 (#31)
That is the difference between a more socialized economy vs a more capitalist economy. We give up economic efficiency, which acts as a drag on our economy. In essence, we’re spending our capital instead of re-investing it. Over time, that costs you. Canada was once on par with the U.S. in terms of standard of living. Now it lags substantially.
So which companies are “historically strong, well run companies”? AT&T was once THE blue chip(well within living memory in fact). Now it is being bought for a pittance by one of the baby bells. Are you seriously disputing that managing a portfolio to the detail it takes to virtually guarantee consistent positive returns is something every Tom, Dick, and Harry can do? Or are you just saying that if they screw it up then they deserve to be living off ramen for their retirement? Not starving, but certainly markedly less comfortable than someone else with better financial acumen(and/or luck). God help them if they are ill during their declining years. Someone with 60% of their retirement income guaranteed(SS) and 40% badly managed(probably due to flat out poor money management skills, i.e. the average Joe) would be pretty screwed if they ended up needing medical care post-retirement.
Enjoy,
Steven
So, Sam, those socialized economies are likely to produce lower standards of living, as evidenced by GDP per capita? According to Nationmaster’s chart of the top 50 countries in GDP per capita the US ranks second and Canada 10th.(Nationmaster’s source is the CIA World Factbook(albeit obviously an older edition). The countries nearest the US in terms of GDP per capita are the leader, that gem of capitalism, Luxembourg. Another jewel in the crown of capitalism, Norway, some of the Carribean islands, and then the crown jewel of the free enterprise and laisse faire capitalism, Switzerland. If you’re interested, Nationmaster also has GDP per capita figures for several other time periods. That marvel of Laisse Faire Capitalism The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg moved up from number 5 in 1970 to number 1 today.
Enjoy,
Steven
OK, I concede that apart from funding a 527 plan for Bricker Jr I haven’t closely investigated college costs. If, as you say, things have multiplied that dramatically, I might be persuaded I’m misguided on this point.
You still have the wrong idea. I think it would be madness for allow each citizen to chose to buy 15 shares of AT&T, 30 shares of Enron, 15 shares of UCI, etc…buying and selling stock willy-nilly pretending to be Martin Sheen in Wall Street; that would likely lead to exactly what you are describing. The idea is NOT to allow individuals, through luck or skill or whatever, to leverage their retirement money into a vast fortune. However allowing people to kick a percentage of their SS money (say 50%, just for discussions sake) into a conservatively managed mutual type fund, and requiring them to leave it there is a great idea. SRB buys out AT&T? Who cares? 20 years from now we may be talking about their stock as a prime blue chip issue, if not, it’s only a small percentage of the total stock held by the fund. Make participation voluntary (if you want to leave your SS the way it’s always been, that’s fine), limit the amount of money that can be invested (say 50% for arguments sake), limit the choice of funds to a small number of options, so Johnny Chucklehead can’t decide to put all his retirement money in the “Harebrained Inventions Fund”, insure the return to be the same as regular SS money (think FDIC) so that nobody can lose anything on the off chance that they don’t generate the 1% return that SS offers, and Bob’s your uncle. Everyone gets at least what they get now, but some (hopefully large) percentage of the people have the opportunity to handle their money in a manner that allows them to generate a greater return on their income, taking pressure off the system and more importantly, putting the money beyond the reach of those vultures in Congress. Now tell me, under a plan like that (obviously very simplified, I came up with it right off of the top of my head, so there may be a big hole I’m not seeing), where are these millions of seniors starving on the streets?