j_b

It's not on one or the other: it's on both, plus on government to enforce regulations. The looters who dismantled or didn't enforce regulations over the last 30 years should be kept away from government.

Oh my god, I am shocked [video:youtube]JQ31Ljd9T_Y

"pure"? if it's not free and there is a role for government to play (R&D, infrastructure, subsidy, regulations, ..), why talk about "free markets"? isn't the terminology some kind of post WW2 propaganda?

As if fossil fuels and nuclear weren't subsidized and have been so forever. Moreover, a lot more R&D is needed for solar. Where is the money?

THE COFFIN BUSTER

the gobment should do human trials for my pillow stuffing.

Right along with "Klean Coal, Green Nuclear and Green Biofuels". Meanwhile, genuine renewables like solar and wind aren't getting the proper amount of subsidy. Still, it's amazing to see the neanderthals are still harping about fuel efficiency standards that should have been enforced over a decade ago.

huh, everything should obey basic safety guidelines, then for specifics cases like drywall or pillow stuffing a few lines in building codes and other regulations should make it illegal to sell toxic/dangerous product.

hey did you see the ads for coupons and lawn mowers?

hey, next time, you won't fall for regressive rhetoric claiming that: "SOcial Security is bankrupt", "social security won't be around to pay benefits to those who are being taxed today", "SS is a ponzi scheme", "SS and other entitlement programs are the reason for the deficit", etc .. ALL LIES meant to pit younger workers against older folks in order to further dismantle the social safety net. Repeat after me: THERE IS NO SOCIAL SECURITY CRISIS.

Fact - Social Security is entirely solvent and will pay full benefits at least through 2042. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that Social Security can pay all benefits through 2052 with no changes whatsoever. Fact - The Social Security trust fund has accumulated a surplus of more than $1.5 trillion. That occurred because the fund collected more in payroll taxes from our paychecks than it paid out in benefit checks. Fact - 48 million Americans now receive monthly Social Security checks. Of those, 38% are the disabled, and widows and their children. The remainder are retirees. More than 5 million children receive part of their family income from Social Security. Fact - The current US Social Security program is a model of financial efficiency both for the government and for banks and businesses, in that 99% of all payroll taxes paid into the trust fund are paid out as benefits. Administrative overhead to run the program is only 1% of all monies paid in by us. Fact - In 2018 at earliest, monthly benefit checks sent out will be higher than the monthly payroll taxes collected by the Social Security trust fund. However, the surplus will keep growing until 2028 because of the interest that the Social Security trust fund earns in US Treasury Bonds. Fact - If nothing at all is done to “reform” social security, it will still be able to pay 70% of full benefits after 2042, at worst case. Fact - In 75 years at the earliest, if nothing at all is done to reform Social Security, it could run a deficit of up to $3.7 trillion. Not $10 trillion. Fact - Payroll taxes (called FICA) are now withheld from US workers' paychecks on the first $97,000 of their annual incomes. That means that if a person earns $400,000 a year, he pays exactly the same FICA as the person who earns $97,000 a year. (This is called a payroll tax cap, because it's capped at $97,000.) Fact - If the payroll tax cap was raised to $200,000 per year, there would be NO Social Security funding gap for more than 100 years. Fact - When President Bush states that he will not raise taxes to "reform" Social Security, that means he will not ask the wealthy to pay more because he refuses to raise the payroll tax cap. Fact - President Bush proposes that Americans be allowed to invest part of their payroll taxes into private saving accounts that would be invested in stocks. These accounts are like 401(K) accounts. This is called "privatization." Fact - By diverting payroll taxes away from being paid to the Social Security trust fund, Social Security would no longer be able to pay full benefits. Benefit cuts would range from about 15% to 46%. Most economists project that diverting payroll taxes way from the trust fund will result in the phasing out altogether of Social Security. Fact - President Bush said in 2005 the initial cost to American taxpayers for privatizing Social Security will be $2 trillion!!! Fact - Privatized accounts will be reduced as much as 20% to 30% by fees charged by investment bankers, trustees and account administrators. This occurred in Great Britain, Chile and other countries that adopted privatization. In both Great Britain and Chile, privatizing Social Security has been judged a failure because retirees' benefits were greatly decreased by "fees." Fact - The Security Industry Assn wrote in a 2005 research paper that its member firms will collect at least $39 billion in fees over 75 years from privatized accounts. This $39 billion will be taken directly out of retirees' retirement funds. Fact - The President’s privatization proposals are not intended to and are unable to "fix" any shortages in the Social Security trust fund. The real truth is that conservatives have historically detested and attempted to undermine Social Security since Franklin Roosevelt established it in the dark days of the Depression. Conservatives derided it then, and they do now, as an entitlement, akin to welfare. They forget that Americans PAY for their benefits. Final Fact - Most Americans believe that Social Security should NOT be privatized. There are many excellent, modest proposals to shore up Social Security long-term, that involve raising payroll taxes and/or making very minor benefits cuts decades from now. (And those proposals don't cost $2 trillion.) Until then, most Americans see no reason to "reform" a reliable, trustworthy system that's not broken. http://usliberals.about.com/od/socialsecurity/a/SocSecReform.htm

More fearmongering from the let's privatize everything front. The truth is that SS is doing well considering the current economic downturn (with 8 millions out of work, payroll tax receipts are down 2.5% from 2007). Although some reforms are necessary, like removing the cap on taxable income (anything above 110k per year isn't currently taxed), there is no crisis of social security. Media claims that we have to start borrowing to pay benefits are lies. So per your understanding, is the balance in the Trust Fund filled with something other than special-issue Treasury Bonds? When the total cost of benefits exceeds inputs, and the SSA redeems the bonds in the trust fund to pay for them - where is the money required to cover those redemptions going to come from? Social Security will run a surplus for quite a few years and would have a lot longer if free marketeers hadn't enabled fraud and economic collapse. Minor tweaking like taxing income over $110,000 are necessary to insure your scenario doesn't come true. blablabla there is no SS fund crisis, there is a general fund crisis caused by your policies of warmongering, "free trade" monopoly enabling, race to the bottom labor and environemental costs, etc.. It's very simple, if you are unwilling to pay people a decent wage so they can also save for retirement be prepared to pay higher SS taxes.

More fearmongering from the let's privatize everything front. The truth is that SS is doing well considering the current economic downturn (with 8 millions out of work, payroll tax receipts are down 2.5% from 2007). Although some reforms are necessary, like removing the cap on taxable income (anything above 110k per year isn't currently taxed), there is no crisis of social security. Media claims that we have to start borrowing to pay benefits are lies.

The irony here is that putting all of those funds into Uncle Sam's Cookie jar made it much easier to fund all of the wars, etc than it would have been if the money were in private accounts subject to all of the protections that bank accounts, homes, and other personal property are covered by. huh? "protections" like during the last few bubbles? The truth is you wish SS was privatized but you can't seriously make the argument that people's retirements would be safer in private accounts unless you are already suffering from alzheimers.

By Matthew Skomarovsky Obama Packs Debt Commission with Social Security Looters Obama has filled his new 'debt commission' with Wall Street insiders determined to gut Social Security The most generous bank bailout in history has amplified Wall Street's considerable political influence, and the economic implications of this democractic calamity go well beyond bloated bonuses. Over the past year, the financial propaganda machine has set its sights on Social Security, launching a massive assault on one of the nation's most important economic programs. But rather than push back against the flawed economic assumptions of the nation's financial elite, President Barack Obama appears to be advancing their arguments, and is now poised to repeat George W. Bush's politically perilous efforts to gut Social Security. A decade of wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, and the fallout from Wall Street's housing bubble have almost tripled U.S. public debt since 2001, from $5 trillion to $14 trillion. Big, scary numbers like this, along with carefully timed downgrade warnings from Wall Street's obedient rating agencies and continuing worries about the financial collapse of Greece, Portugal and other nations have changed the political climate in Washington, breathing new life into decades-old schemes to slash Social Security and Medicare entitlements. And defending Social Security does indeed sound like yesterday's issue — a fight the people won when they defeated Bush's attempt to privatize the system in 2005. Our Social Security program is currently solvent through 2037, while millions of Americans are unemployed, millions more are losing their homes, and still millions more are struggling to meet soaring health insurance costs after watching their retirement accounts dwindle in the financial collapse. Would the entitlement wolves -- primarily Wall Street executives who stand to reap billions from Social Security privatization -- really have the gall to go after Social Security now? In a word, yes. Global deficit jitters and U.S. political uncertainties associated with Scott Brown's surprise Senate victory in Massachusetts have helped fuel the fire at propaganda campaigns like IOUSA and the Wall Street tycoon-funded Fiscal Times. The White House is now either on the budgetary defensive, or exploiting the moment to exact unpopular entitlement cuts it was already preparing to make. Regardless, this week's New York Times' front page confirms that "reforming" Social Security could very well be a top priority for Obama in 2010. According to anonymous White House officials and budget analysts, because the Medicare cut under the health care reform bill "effectively takes those fast-growing entitlement programs off the table for deficit reduction … [social Security] now stands as the likeliest source of the sort of large savings needed to bring projected annual deficits to sustainable levels." In other words, because rapidly rising Medicare costs were not effectively contained by health care reform -- it would have hurt the health care industry -- slowly rising Social Security costs will instead have to get the axe. Instead of weaning corporations—banks, insurance companies, war contractors—off the federal teat, the administration is seriously considering punishing seniors. [..] A foregone conclusion? Andy Stern, president of SEIU, is Obama's only pick out of six who is sure to oppose Social Security cuts. Everyone else is likely open to slashing. For the commission to reach an agreement, its Democrats will have to win the support of at least two Republicans, which will be nearly impossible unless spending cuts are among its proposals. That Obama’s picks are so amenable to, if not gunning for, some form of benefits cuts suggests the White House is indeed seeking such a "grand bargain" from the commission, not a stalemate. The odds are slim, especially given the commission’s history, that five of the 10 Democrats would defy the White House to kill such a bargain. As the New York Times confirms, in establishing the group Obama has once again adopted a course favorable to his economic advisers and their Wall Street friends over the objections of his political team. How much of the usual looting this will involve remains to be seen. They seem to be proceeding carefully. Earlier, following Obama's recent spending freeze announcement, an anonymous official told the Times that spending cuts would start with earmarks in order to earn goodwill with the public, and then move on to more "popular entitlement programs." "By helping to create a new atmosphere of fiscal discipline, it can actually also feed into debates over other components of the budget," the official said, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity. Which administration official might this be? Sadly, it could be just about anyone, as Obama’s economics team is dominated by Wall Street-friendly advisers, most of whom are close friends and proteges of Robert Rubin, and have been calling (pdf) for Social Security reductions for years. The March 23 Gray Lady front-pager mentions two of them, Orszag and Jason Furman, along with associate budget director Jeffrey Liebman, as likely masterminds. Both Orszag and Furman followed Rubin into Obama's inner circle from the Hamilton Project. Liebman too has a history of Social Security mischief – he was on the commission under Clinton. If President Obama wants to get heavy handed about the deficit, he could start by putting an end to the disastrous and unpopular schemes that created it – the Bush tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the trillions of dollars funneled to Wall Street. Unfortunately, it looks like Obama has taken the bankers' bait: the only people disciplined by his fiscal retreat will be millions of senior citizens with the gall to believe that society should guarantee them a decent standard of living. http://www.alternet.org/economy/146183/obama_packs_debt_commission_with_social_security_looters?page=entire

Seems like it's hard to answer anything but "yes" to the above. Ditto for the levies imposed to fund Medicare. In one case your money will be funneled into a series of highly regulated, nominally private cartels and in the other it's going into a marginally solvent public-monopoly/intergenerational ponzi apparatus. LOL In case nobody noticed, calling major social programs "ponzi schemes" to incite intergenerational strife is the latest regressive frame. I mean, their entire ideological contruct collapsed along with the markets and your retirement benefits but they'll pretend the Social security fund they stole from for decades to finance their wars are ponzi schemes, when in fact there isn't a Social Security crisis.

Well, we know which President sent it back to Britan anyway: INITIALS ARE BO -LINK LOL I missed that! I thought it was a gift but noooo. "when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: "Thanks, but no thanks."

Note that these 2 sets of beliefs have a very different relationship to reality despite what the nutjobs at CATO say. The first one, "Iraq had WMD and we found them", has been shown to be false, although right wing media said differently on numerous occasions. The second one, Bush knowing in advance about the 9-11 attack, hasn't been verified and it is merely speculation.

total failure of logic on your part PP. For example, I never assume that the enemies of my enemies are my friends, but it is however what Churchill did (giving him the benefit the doubt by assuming he wasn't an outright fascist himself and was merely an opportunist) when he praised a trifecta of fascist distators because they cracked the lefties' heads. Throughout the 30's fascists showed they were no democrats by perpetrating numerous acts of violence on their political opposition. Churchill's support for the fascists that enginered ww2 has everything to do with his world view that progressives and the left were the foremeost danger at the time, and that they had to be stopped by any means available (including dictatorship, apparently). bonus trivia: guess which president had a bust of Churchill in the White House?

[video:youtube]AQGBYY6HVMs

That Churchill dude was quite a well-known soshalist to hit the trifecta in praising Hitler and Mussolini and Franco "That Commission solved nothing and the miners dispute led to the General Strike of 1926, Churchill was reported to have suggested that machine guns be used on the striking miners. Churchill edited the Government's newspaper, the British Gazette, and, during the dispute, he argued that "either the country will break the General Strike, or the General Strike will break the country" and claimed that the fascism of Benito Mussolini had "rendered a service to the whole world," showing, as it had, "a way to combat subversive forces"—that is, he considered the regime to be a bulwark against the perceived threat of Communist revolution. At one point, Churchill went as far as to call Mussolini the "Roman genius... the greatest lawgiver among men."[89]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill In contemporary newspaper articles he referred to the Spanish Republican government as a Communist front, and Franco's army as the "Anti-red movement".[111] He supported the Hoare-Laval Pact and continued up until 1937 to praise Benito Mussolini.[112] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill

especially don't believe your lying eyes

Hey, KKK beat me to it that it was the national soshalist party, so there. After all, well known commies from Churchill to Ford and everybody else in between, loved how Mussolini and Hitler cracked heads. Some of them even supported the national soshalists throughout the war. Go figure who the "commies" really are. "I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war I hoped we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations. I am sorry, however, that he has not been mellowed by the great success that has attended him. The whole world would rejoice to see the Hitler of peace and tolerance, and nothing would adorn his name in world history so much as acts of magnanimity and of mercy and of pity to the forlorn and friendless, to the weak and poor. ... Let this great man search his own heart and conscience before he accuses anyone of being a warmonger." Churchill's speech in the House of Commons, October 5, 1938

I am surprised this drivel is still up on the main board. What gives? I am not sure where you are going with this but you have got it all wrong. It's not about angst, it's about horror. I'd like to think it was prescient of me to pick that avatar at the beginning of the Bush years but honestly, it didn't take a genius to realize it was going to end up as a disaster.

Not at all. Are you referring to Jay_B? I am not sure I was aware of his existence when I signed up here.