I thought it was because they were mostly fishermen..huh? :wall:

Johnny, I still maintain that talking about controlling federal spending, is not necessarily a distraction to the conversation you would like to have.

I liked a lot of the commission's ideas. I'd just like to see deeper cuts before we talk about raising tax rates. Since Obama has been in the oval office, the number of federal employees making > $150,000 has DOUBLED. That is so insane as to defy description.

Social security, medicare, medicaid have to be cut. There is no earthly reason why at least a portion of social security can't be privatized. Let me put my contributions into an S&P 500 Index fund, I'll have 5 times the nest egg that I'd have if you put it in t-bills. I cannot see the liberal argument against this, other than it came out of Bush's mouth, and therefore deranged liberals must oppose it...

Entitlement programs have to be cut. No one, and I mean NO ONE who is healthy, should just get a welfare or unemployment check in the mail. Have 'em pick up garbage at playgrounds, paint walls in city schools, have them dig up Mt McKinley and move it three inches to the right for all I care...but if people are physically able to work, and they want my tax dollars for welfare, then they can put down the beer and get off the goddamn couch.

At the state and local level, SOMEBODY NEEDS TO HAVE THE COURAGE TO SAY "NO MORE!!" to municipal unions.

After all those cuts are made, if we're still in debt, then raise taxes...

[QUOTE=Jim in CT;810458] Let me put my contributions into an S&P 500 Index fund, I'll have 5 times the nest egg that I'd have if you put it in t-bills. At the state and local level, SOMEBODY NEEDS TO HAVE THE COURAGE TO SAY "NO MORE!!" to municipal unions.

QUOTE]

Im in an uncomfortable place here, I hope you guys dont think im turning lefty. I agree with alot of what Jim said,,,,,,except the comment above. Why?
If the above happened, I would never work again for the rest of my life.
Why?

If an SP 500 index fund was offered as an option for SS investments. The stocks in the SP 500 would go through the roof, guaranteed! I would take out every loan I could and put it all in an SP index fund and after a few months that the program was open, sell it all and make a fortune. Understand?
Markets are supply and demand and having that volume of cash pumped into the stock market would make prices soar

[QUOTE=RIJIMMY;810465]I'm pretty sure that the head of SEIU suggested recently that the govt. begin to use ss reciepts to purchase stocks...talk about picking winners and losers...

I forgot that Andy Stern was on the debt commission, another reason that it's a joke...


http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/07/...-stock-market/

[QUOTE=RIJIMMY;810465]OK, you absolutely have a point there. So I'll modify my suggestion and say you spread the investments into something even broader than the S&P 500. But my point is (and I htink it has a lot of validity) that is we want to pretend that we care about the viability of social security, we need to get a decent return on the money before it's spent on benefits.

There will be more retirees who are living longer, and fewer workers paying taxes into the plan. The math just doesn't work unless you're generating some kind of return.

Finally, if the money was put into the S&P, and those stocks went up, almost every American benefits from that, because most of us have some stake in the market.

Will some benefit more than others? Absolutely. Does that mean it's better to let the whole plan implode, rather than let a lot of people do OK and a few get rich?

please distinguish between partial privatization of social security (which is what Jim suggests) particulary considering most of us will never see a penny of our ss "investment" and to continue the farce of doling out huge sums each year cloaked as retirement investment(lock box) but in actuality just another tax and government transfer of wealth....and the government actually taking ss money and buying into the stock market which this union thug(Stern) seems to favor probably realizing the depth of the disaster that unfunded union pensions pose...there's a huge difference...