the chump generation

[audrey_girl]

fyi:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/op...-87229222.html

interesting read...

[bcassill]

Re: the chump generation

Interesting slant on history. But what it fails to even bother to mention is the fact that BOTH parties plundered the Social Security and Medicare lock box to pay for tax cuts, wars, bailouts, pet projects, and pork spending. Right now, both Social Security and Medicare accounts are stuffed with IOU's in the form of Treasury Bills.

Although the Right would like nothing more than to stick the Left with this calamity, their hands are all dirty and there will be no hiding from the truth when the bill comes due. Right now you are beginning to hear whispers in the Media about the insolvency of both programs. The American people are being set up for the coming crash with the story that the great socialist experiment was a failure from the start and that the people have no one but themselves to blame for the result.

The problem is that people are angry and are slowly coming to the realization that they have been fleeced from all sides: state and local governments, the federal government, Wall Street, and large corporate interests. Things are slowly coming to a head (or maybe quickly) and the political falllout will be seismic in scale. :eek:

[Ghent12]

Re: the chump generation

Interesting slant on history. But what it fails to even bother to mention is the fact that BOTH parties plundered the Social Security and Medicare lock box to pay for tax cuts, wars, bailouts, pet projects, and pork spending. Right now, both Social Security and Medicare accounts are stuffed with IOU's in the form of Treasury Bills.

Although the Right would like nothing more than to stick the Left with this calamity, their hands are all dirty and there will be no hiding from the truth when the bill comes due. Right now you are beginning to hear whispers in the Media about the insolvency of both programs. The American people are being set up for the coming crash with the story that the great socialist experiment was a failure from the start and that the people have no one but themselves to blame for the result.

The problem is that people are angry and are slowly coming to the realization that they have been fleeced from all sides: state and local governments, the federal government, Wall Street, and large corporate interests. Things are slowly coming to a head (or maybe quickly) and the political falllout will be seismic in scale. :eek:

I don't agree with the left/right paradigm you suggest. That being said, I think this article is perhaps too optimistic about the future. Thinking that this "chump generation" will revolt against the policies that have made them destitute is putting perhaps too much faith in what is perhaps the dumbest generation in history.

[Slimprofits]

Re: the chump generation

I don't agree with the left/right paradigm you suggest.

you don't?

What's this?

Second, it will be crystal clear who caused the entitlement crisis. Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are seeing to that now in their mad rush to pass Obamacare, even if means doing so over unanimous Republican opposition.

According to the writer, everything that's wrong with social security and medicare can be blamed on Reid, Pelosi and Obama and Obamacare.

What would you call this, a "fair and balanced" assessment?

Gee I hate to pick on Audreygirl again, but what is interesting about this read?

We've known for years that social security and medicare will not be there for us. I am 33 and no one that I know has ever taken these programs seriously, accept for the fact that we have to pay into them and watch the fat and greedy fucks a couple of generations older than us cash in.

Keep it up with the left right nonsense and you are only helping to further the ruin.

And yes Fred, this is how I talk to people in public if they bring up political nonsense. our standards for discourse might be different.

[Ghent12]

Re: the chump generation

you don't?

What's this?



According to the writer, everything that's wrong with social security and medicare can be blamed on Reid, Pelosi and Obama and Obamacare.

What would you call this, a "fair and balanced" assessment?

Well the article outlines party differences, yet you attribute those to Left/Right assessments if I am reading your intentions correctly. It is that which I disagree with. I tend to think of Left/Right in terms of Social/Economic freedoms. Neither party supports either, so they are neither Left nor Right, at least according to my version of a political compass.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: the chump generation

watch the fat and greedy fucks a couple of generations older than us cash in.

Thanks for the money .

[Starving Steve]

Re: the chump generation

fyi:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/op...-87229222.html

interesting read...

A federal sales tax ( a GST or VAT ) would solve America's budget mess. Taxes have to go up, regardless of what the Republicans think. And the eco-frauds have to be driven-OUT of the Obama Administration because they have hyjacked the Democratic Party. Let these global warming frauds (the Al Gore bunch) have their Green Party, but they do NOT belong in the Democratic Party. There is nothing liberal and nothing progressive about the green agenda to-day. Living in caves and starving and smoking pot is not my idea of progress in America.

[Raz]

Re: the chump generation

What's Wrong with our Government: RepubliCrats.

(A picture being worth a thousand words, I submit the following)

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: the chump generation

What's Wrong with our Government: RepubliCrats.

(A picture being worth a thousand words, I submit the following)

Some of our Senators are going to present a challenge to the Wax Museum. If they do a perfect job, micro-pore and hair follicle accurate, then customers will complain that it looks too much like a wax dummy and is not one of their better efforts.

[cindykimlisa]

Re: the chump generation

you don't?

What's this?



According to the writer, everything that's wrong with social security and medicare can be blamed on Reid, Pelosi and Obama and Obamacare.

What would you call this, a "fair and balanced" assessment?

Gee I hate to pick on Audreygirl again, but what is interesting about this read?

We've known for years that social security and medicare will not be there for us. I am 33 and no one that I know has ever taken these programs seriously, accept for the fact that we have to pay into them and watch the fat and greedy fucks a couple of generations older than us cash in.

Keep it up with the left right nonsense and you are only helping to further the ruin.

And yes Fred, this is how I talk to people in public if they bring up political nonsense. our standards for discourse might be different.

Cheers

I am soon to be 59 and each year I get a statement from Social Security that tells me as a Greedy F*** Exactly how much I have paid into Social Security along with my employers for 42 years - It is in the huindreds of thousands of dollars.

I would not characterize myself as a Greedy F**** for receiving all or part of what I have contributed. Social Security is not an entitlement to me: I paid the damn money into it.

Be careful what you call or characterize people or else someone like me will point out what a damn fool you are!

Cindy

[audrey_girl]

Re: the chump generation

you don't?

What's this?



According to the writer, everything that's wrong with social security and medicare can be blamed on Reid, Pelosi and Obama and Obamacare.

What would you call this, a "fair and balanced" assessment?

Gee I hate to pick on Audreygirl again, but what is interesting about this read?

We've known for years that social security and medicare will not be there for us. I am 33 and no one that I know has ever taken these programs seriously, accept for the fact that we have to pay into them and watch the fat and greedy fucks a couple of generations older than us cash in.

Keep it up with the left right nonsense and you are only helping to further the ruin.

And yes Fred, this is how I talk to people in public if they bring up political nonsense. our standards for discourse might be different.

hey -

no problem - no offense taken

I guess I read this in a different way then you - I agree with you that the catastrophe we find ourselves in has been a completely bipartisan effort to get here



I read this as that there will be a payback for the generations that have gotten us into this mess (myself included)

in a lot of ways, I am ashamed of my generation for what it has done to this country

what did the writer Stevenson say...

"sooner or later we all will sit down to a banquet of our own consequences"

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: the chump generation

Stepping back for a moment from the inter-generational warfare that's bubbling gently to the surface here, it seems clear to me some of what must happen.

Many of us older people have been made promises for retirement money (Medicare, Social Security and countless public and private pension funds, not to mention home equity and IRA/401K's invested in stock mutual funds) which cannot be kept. In most cases, we had money taken from us while we were working in return for these promises. Some damn crooks stole that money and destroyed the economy that would have been needed to provide a decent return on that money.

Now there is no choice but that (1) promises to old folks are paid in fewer dollars or cheaper dollars while (2) more money is extracted from those still working to pay even that reduced amount.

We cannot put all the old folks out on the street to starve to death, and we cannot steal all the money of the working folks to pay for the fraudulent promises of crooks.

Like the passengers on a sinking ship it doesn't matter much anymore what class ticket got you there. Unless you're so rich that your private helicopter can rescue you, you're in with the rest of us and as humans we have a moral obligation to make some allowance for our fellow humans in hard times.

The workers will pay too much in taxes and the retired will receive too little in pensions. Deal with it. There is no moral alternative.

Internicene warfare only serves the ends of the crooks, distracting the honest people with infighting while the crooks find new ways to keep stealing.

Our energy should be spent getting ourselves, our friends, our families and our neighbors through difficult times, under a government that has gone pathological.

[chr5648]

Re: the chump generation

fyi:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/op...-87229222.html

interesting read...

I'll give my perspective on this article based, I believe it is based naive hope and most likely fluff written to fill the opinion quota page of newspapers. I am 24 years of age and am familiar with the generation in front of mine, the late 20's to 30 to 40's and younger. From my experience, I can tell this generation is even dumber than the boomers, its like boomers^2.

I then look at my generation and I believe that the 20-28 year olds (approximate) are just as dumb and filled with false hope. They have no clue what is going on and completely in tune with the baby boomer philosophy^3.

I then look at my 16 year old brother and his friends and see that they have the same thinking processes as the boomers, if not worse. They are much dumber and more manipulated than when my generation was 16. I see very little potential in them.

In conclusion, nothing is going to change, these younger generations are just as dumb if not dumber than the boomers. They will continue to live and espouse the boomer values and lifestyle, how they will pay for that is beyond me.

[Jeff]

Re: the chump generation

I've been babbling on for years about the possible outcomes of the coming collapse of the global economy, and there really seem to be 2 ways it can go. The Great Depression brought us the Joads, the Waltons and my Grandfather Partington's stories of making do with less, and taking in the cousins through a few tough years. It also brought the rise of fascism elsewhere, and humans as a species pretty much made a dog's breakfast of the whole thing by going in that direction.

I remain hopeful that once all the yelling is over, a lot of people in the US will hunker down, work hard, help each other and muddle through a messy decade or two, since there really isn't a whole lot of choice. When the starving masses outnumber the privileged and well fed by an order of magnitude, no amount of screaming about "class warfare" is going to keep taxes down. The rich will be taxed heavily, the hungry will be fed and the world will only come to an end metaphorically.

I'm looking forward to learning to make and shill goat yogurt, how about you?

[HDLee]

Re: the chump generation

some of us miss your babbling Jeff - when you "rant" . . . your understanding, perspective and wisdom