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Post by Galadon on Nov 12, 2004 17:42:51 GMT -5
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Post by Hussar on Nov 13, 2004 22:17:26 GMT -5
Yup, trust private business to handle your retirement funds. They never lie or steal or misappropriate. Can anyone here spell Enron? That's what happens when someone decides that their personal paycheck is more important. Now, I'm not saying that a private pension scheme couldn't work. It could. There are numerous examples in America and abroad where private pension schemes do work quite well. There are also some pretty damning schemes where the people have taken the money and run. To simply blame Democrats for the failures of Social Security is creative history. I haven't seen the Republicans standing up to privatize Social Security. Considering only 8 of the last 20 years have seen Democrats in power and only in those 8 years did you see a balanced budget and restrained government spending, pointing fingers at liberals or democrats for wasted or misappropriated money is a little misleading. This idea that private enterprise is automatically BETTER than government at spending money is not always true. Large corporations are just as likely and just as able to waste money and use funds inappropriately. Take drug companies. 50% of Merck's annual budget is spent on advertising. Not research, not paying it's people, just advertising it's products. Now, it's a private business, so it can spend its money where ever it likes, subject to its shareholders, but, is that the best way to cure disease? See, putting money in the hands of a private pension fund simply changes the people around the table. Instead of a politician who has no personal interest in whether or not the fund is paid or grows or whatever, you have a group of individuals who have a vested interest in that money. The more money in the fund, the more money they make. This can be a good thing. The stock holders take care of the fund, manage it well and it grows. It can also lead to Enron cases where money disappears, reports are falsified and the books are cooked more than pea soup. Remember, those stock holders are only legally obligated. If they can evade the legal obligations, they can run free. The politician is legally obligated AND has to run for re-election. If he bungles the job, he doesn't gain any money AND he's out on his ear. Private companies are no more trustworthy and no less trustworthy than government agencies. The idea that the government automatically piddles away the money they have is a fallacy generated by decades of Republican overspending. The Dem's, the liberal lefties that they are, curbed spending and actually reduced your deficit. How's your favourite prez doing these days?
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Post by RowanMoonWynd on Nov 14, 2004 10:45:04 GMT -5
Well said Hussar!!! Well said!!!
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Post by Galadon on Nov 14, 2004 16:59:52 GMT -5
So Enron is the only place you can think of. How about giving people to choice, (choice is a bad word to liberals in wash DC) oh one thing if were just going to mud sling. Enron did it's handy work in the sainted Clinton years, hmmmmm.
Let's looked at some easy numbers. Say 200 people were paying in to Soc Sec to suport 50 old people. No problem right.
As people get older, some look to the future and discover something. Lets say 200 people paying in to Soc Sec to support 350 old people (old baby boomers) plus all the social program that the liberals do, to try and get votes, which didn't work.
So what happens, well if you do nothing, the common Kerry liberal stance. You come to the logic 200 people cannot support 350 people. Even if we remove the failed social programs.
The Baby Boomers are getting older and are going to want there soc Sec. Let see now there is no TRUST fund some think exist. The money paid in today is issued tomorrow. There are some in DC who know the way Soc Sec is now there's no why to pay everyone. Why, 200 people cannot support 350.
But I also know why the liberals don't want to give anyone a choice. They would lose control of Billions of dollars, that they are not suppose to use. But they do to make a fake surplus, Clinton, and spend it on social programs.
So the same doom and gloom talk that lost the liberals the election lives on, Enron. How about this, what if you had the choice, not anyone in wash DC but YOU, put FICA money to buy stocks in MicroSoft, GE, or any other successful company in the stock market, over a long term. might that work, or did you turn away at the word succsesful.
If we want to go the way of mud slinging, I can do that to.
What I see right now is the left sticking it's head in the sand and saying nothing is wrong. Which is fine because the democrats in DC don't have to worry about living off of Soc Sec. But if nothing happens a few years down the road, how many left leanding people are going to be screaming, YOU SHOULD OF DID SOMETHING.
Republicans are doing something for the future. Do I hear anything from the left in DC on how the fix the future problem? (I wouldn't hold my breath waiting)
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Post by Galadon on Nov 16, 2004 17:13:23 GMT -5
And for people who like choice I give you a varity of things to complain.... I mean talk about.
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Post by Hussar on Nov 17, 2004 3:44:23 GMT -5
Gal, the funny thing is, you're pointing fingers at Democrats for this. I haven't heard Bush standing up and saying he's going to privatize social security. Why not? Let's face it, in the past 24 years, you've had 16 years of Republican governments and 8 Democratic. Yet you still have pubic social security. Hardly something you can blame Dem's for. The Republicans have had MORE than enough time to change things, but haven't. Why is that?
Also, my point about Enron wasn't a shot at either side. It was merely pointing out that private firms are just as guilty of misappropriation and mismanagement as government. Sometimes considerably more. If you'd actually bothered to read what I wrote instead of simply defending against an attack that was never made, you'd see that.
So, I'll repeat my basic premise for the slow of reading:
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Post by Galadon on Nov 17, 2004 12:22:36 GMT -5
If the Republican just changed Social Security without the democrats in Washington DC, something I believe they could do, you would not hear the end of the screaming and threats to this and that from the democrats. The Republicans are trying to work with the democrats the are not to change Social Security at all for the reason I stated.
During the debate President Bush did say he wanted people in the future to have a choice. This choice was not going to affect the people who get Social Security right now. This came up because bush proposed it in his first term.
This choice wold be long term, and you would have check on some companys. In the long term, the stock market can make you money.
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Post by Hussar on Nov 17, 2004 23:15:39 GMT -5
Oh certainly that's true. And it would probably make you more money than what Social security pays. That's very true. But, again, it assumes that the private corporation is going to be automatically better at handling money than the government, which isn't necessarily true and it assumes that the stock market will continue to climb.
Let's face it, the last 50 years have seen the largest economic growth in American history. Will that continue? That's debatable. Look at Japan. A privatized social security tied to the Japanese stock market would see you getting absolutely zero for your investment over the past 15 years. Just because the stock market in the US has grown, doesn't necessarily mean it will continue. A governmental social security guarantees some money back. Maybe not as much as the stock market, true, but, the stock market is not guaranteed. What happens if America goes into an economic slump like the Japanese? 15 years of recession? Who's going to pay for your social security then when the private security firm goes bankrupt?
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Post by ElrosTarMinitarsus on Jan 30, 2005 16:35:02 GMT -5
Ummm...Ill turn in my soda cans collection...
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Post by Galadon on Jan 30, 2005 16:45:32 GMT -5
I find this a bit strange, why would a change in social security matter to him at all.
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Post by ElrosTarMinitarsus on Jan 30, 2005 18:01:32 GMT -5
Polital, econimical, social, personal, ect... the reasons are endless.
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Post by Galadon on Jan 30, 2005 18:09:32 GMT -5
Now let's ask where Hussar lives.
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Post by ElrosTarMinitarsus on Jan 30, 2005 18:21:02 GMT -5
Japan I believe?
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Post by Galadon on Jan 30, 2005 18:50:21 GMT -5
Hmmmmm, and why would reforms in the soc scc in the U.S. affect anyone in Japan, other than U.S, citizens of course.
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Post by ElrosTarMinitarsus on Jan 30, 2005 18:51:06 GMT -5
Personal intrests??
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