Whenever I hear a liberal MSM talking head say that Social Security is not a problem, I could spit.
Obama and Romney both declared the Social Security system sound. They lied to the American people that it will only require minor tweaks to keep it solvent for a hundred years. Liberals hate math. The Social Security System has an unfunded liability of $18 trillion. This means our politicians have promised $18 trillion more than they can possibly pay out. I guess $18 trillion is trivial to a liberal minded person like Krugman or Obama. Lucky for them that 99% of all Americans don’t understand what unfunded liability even means. The chart below gives the gory details. The Social Security system had a negative cashflow of $47.8 billion last year, after running a $48 billion deficit the year before. You may notice that 77% of this deficit was created by the SSDI program, where the depressed masses gather after their 99 weeks of unemployment run out. Do you have a headache? Are you depressed because liquor stores don’t accept food stamps? Did you pull a muscle getting on your government provided rascal? Trouble hearing your Obama phone? Then you are eligible for SSDI.
The funniest line item on the chart is the Assets at End of Year line, which shows the Social Security system having $2.7 trillion. Even using this funny number, the SSDI will be broke in three years. Al Gore told us this money was in a lockbox. They take it out of your paycheck and put it into a fund, waiting for you to retire and collect what you’re owed. Right? Wrong! If you tried to observe the vault with the $2.7 trillion on deposit, you’d be looking for a long long time. You see, the noble politicians in Washington DC took the $2.7 trillion and spent it on undeclared wars overseas, ethanol subsidies, investments in Solyndra, turtle crossings, tax breaks for hedge funds, TARP, bailing out AIG, subsidizing GM, $800 billion stimulus packages, cash for clunkers, homebuyer tax credits, predator drones, DHS, Sandy relief and thousands of other buckets of shit. There are nothing but IOU’s in the vault. The $2.7 trillion is long gone. The U.S. government had to borrow $47.8 billion to fund SS last year. They will have to borrow over $50 billion this year. There will be 10,000 per day turning 65 for the next decade. The borrowing will rise exponentially. If the $2.7 trillion actually existed, why would we need to borrow?
The trust funds are required by law to hand over all surplus revenues to the Treasury and the Treasury then provides “special issue” non-marketable bonds—essentially electronic IOUs—to the trust funds in return for the cash. These “IOUs” become part of the national debt. When the Treasury pays “interest” that increases the value of the Social Security Trust Funds it does so by increasing the number of IOUs it owes the trust funds. When the Social Security program runs a net cash flow deficit, as it has in the last three fiscal years, the Treasury needs to borrow cash from the “public” to keep the program funded.
Does this look like a trend that is going to reverse itself or level out with 10,000 Boomers turning 65 years old every freaking day?
These costs will be exceeding $1 trillion per year in the near future. Meanwhile, the number of workers per retiree will continue to fall as it has for decades. In 1945 there were 42 workers per retiree. In 1965 there were 5 workers per retiree. Today there are less than 2.5 workers per retiree. There are only 1.6 full time private workers for every one retiree. With Obamacare working its magic of destroying jobs across the land, there is much less revenue going into the Social Security System. The system is unsustainable and ignoring the problem will not make it go away.
A recent article on Bloomberg below barely scratches the surface of the massive fraud going on in the SSDI program. Those who think we owe them a living are faking disabilities by the millions. The number of annual applications were flat at 2.1 million per year between 2004 and 2007. They now exceed 3 million per year, as the Obama administration has actively attempted to get more people on the dole. In a matter of a couple years, there were suddenly 40% more people getting disabled. Amazing!!!
Shockingly, as 1.4 million people have been kicked off the 99 week unemployment rolls, the number of people applying for SSDI skyrocketed. Just because the scumbags on Wall Street and in the rest of corporate America commit fraud on a massive scale does not mean we should look the other way when lowlifes in our community do the same thing on a smaller scale. The working middle class pays the bill for the cost of both frauds. More than 90% of all the people who go onto SSDI never go back to work. This program was supposed to be short term until people could recover and go back to work. There are now 8.83 million people so disabled, they supposedly can’t work. There are only 12 million officially unemployed people in the country. The government is so incompetent, they barely check the applications for SSDI. Anyone with an ounce of brain power (this disqualifies anyone on MSNBC) knows that at least 50% of the people on SSDI are capable of some form of employment.
The Social Security system is already broke. The money is gone. Pretending all is well is for fools and there are millions of them in this country. If someone within the leadership of this country was honest with the American people we could fix the Social Security system. A combination of age adjustments, means testing, and reconfiguration of income levels subject to the tax could make it viable. Too bad Washington is inhabited by snakes, scumbags, liars and knaves. Corrupt lowlife politicians, lying liberal media whores, and a delusional populace will ignore the Social Security problem until it becomes a crisis of epic proportions. Then they will propose wrong solutions and implement them badly. Some things are easily predictable.
Just read the thread on ZH. Do they all have ADHD or are they just “challenged?”
Less than 10% of the 300 comments had anything to do with the article.
Sangell, you didn’t spell it out like Admin did, i get your point now.
“The mathematically inept liberal douchebags don’t have a clue what unfunded liability means.
They actually believe the $2.7 trillion exists in a fund with their name on it.”
If i was ignorant of that fact, i wouldn’t be visiting TBP, it isn’t the cheeriest of sites but it is informative.
Dammit, Admin – I came to this post as stop numero uno for one reason and one reason only – to see your response to Pike Bishop. And to my great and abiding disappointment, your response was….nada. Not a fucking word.
I will make my way over to see what carnage you have wrought on Zero Hedge, but for fuck sake, you gotta take care of business at home, too. You let Pike come on here and take an A grade dump, and do not destroy his sorry ass?
At my ever advancing age, one of my remaining joys is to see you stomp mudholes in jerks like that. Are you going to deprive me of that? That is so insensitive of you.
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I have had time to peruse the ZH thread. What a stinking pile of shit. Holy cow, can they ever fuck up a conversation. Total morons hang out there. Jim did obliterate a couple of folks, but for every head that he lopped off, ten more sprouted. My friend Pike showed up there, too. Jim didn’t get around to him. There simply would not be time enough for any person to address all the fuckwits over there.
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llpoh
So many fuckwits and so little time. Some comments are so stupid they don’t deserve a response. I enjoy when a liberal nitwit like Pike arrives on the site and spews their nonsensical gibberish so everyone can see the type of people who are in control. It does more for our cause than anything I can write.
Why is it folks only remember the TARP but don’t remember QE2 and QE3 and now QE4? BOTH parties have bankrupted this country and made their rich bankster friends richer. We could have printed up a million per person in this country (about 310 million) and it would have made more sense than giving the banks TRILLIONS.
I”m 65 and retired last year. There were 4 young black girls with kids at the SS office for every olster. They evidently get SSD when their kids are determined to be mentally, emotionally or developmentally/behaviorably disabled. I think SS is now just another part of the minority welfare ripoff of working people. PS: My 2012 visit to the IRS office to get forms turned into a long wait as IRS employees filled out unearned income tax rebate forms for minorities; IRS now looks like the county welfare office I visited a few years ago and like the post-GI VA physical I took in 1983. Welfare want-a-bees choked the hallways. Liberals have been taking America to Hell; always talking about cutting SS/Medicare/Defense but never the welfare programs; it’s past time to fight back! Nobody getting welfare should have a higher standard of living than anybody working! Support school vouchers.
Sue – I understand the sentiment, but when you say something so outrageously stupid as “We could have printed up a million per person in this country (about 310 million)”, your whole message gets tainted by it.
That one million times 310 million is $310,000,000,000,000. Count the fucking zeroes, and get back to me on what that number is. Here is a hint – it is 22 years worth of the entire GDP of the country.
Deservin’s got nothing to do with it (apologies to Clint)! I so look forward to seeing you skewer them, it is like a kid waiting for Christmas morning to unwrap the presents. I even tend to leave some of them fresh and unskewered so you can have all the glory – sloppy seconds just isn’t the same. But I understand – so many morons, so little time.
But I have to say, the time I spent on Zero Hedge is ten minutes of my life I will never get back. I enjoyed your beheadings, but damn, there was some worthless crap on that site. It has jumped the shark for sure. Some of the posters were saying the same thing.
llpoh
ZH is crawling with jew hating 9/11 nutjobs. David Pierre actually appears sane on that site. Of course he will copy this comment and use it the next time I have article on ZH. Some of the commenters on ZH are always surprised when they take a shot at me and I then kick them in the balls and hit them with a baseball bat. They get offended and call me mean. They wouldn’t survive 5 minutes on TBP.
Admin’s latest ZH foe:
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“There are only 12 million officially unemployed people in the country.”
I guess you accepted this “official” number after changing your mind about the competency of the government and while using your ounce of brain power.
“The government is so incompetent, they barely check the applications for SSDI.”
PROVE IT. Or at least offer evidence.
” Anyone with an ounce of brain power (this disqualifies anyone on MSNBC) knows that at least 50% of the people on SSDI are capable of some form of employment.”
Oh boy. This is not even opinion. This is speculation based on what? Hatred of the unrich?
As for the stolen SS surplus – why exactly are you so willing to just forget about it? If you think the government should default on all its obligations say so. Otherwise why just the SS money?
Working Class
Is there any liberal out there capable of making a point that anyone can understand?
You all come across as angry foaming at the mouth douchebags without an ounce of brain power.
I’m convinced that liberals are dumber than a sack of hammers.
Make whatever argument that supports your assanine position with some facts and we’ll assess your brainpower.
The fact that the surge in SSDI claimants are increasingly claiming ‘mental’ disability or ‘soft tissue’ , ie. impossible to refute, injury ought to tell you something about the level of fraud and abuse taking place unless you are contending that, for some unexplained reason, people are more mentally ill today than in the past. Soft tissue injury is just as dubious. Why, in a time of higher than normal unemployment, are we seeing an increase in soft tissue injury so severe as to incapacite a person. They sure aren’t getting injured at work. Maybe it is comes from the increase in obesity in America in which case requiring a person to reduce their weight to some reasonable level could restore their ability to do useful work.
Workingclass idiot shows up and spews forth shit.
First, Admin, and anyone with an ounce of brains – which leaves Workingclass idiot out – knows that the actual unemployment figure is probably nearer 40 million than 12. The was being sarcastic.
Second – why should Admin have to prove anything – look it up yourself. Look at how many folks are applying for SSDI, look at how many are accepted, look at the break-out of their ‘ailments”. Look at the correlation between applications and the running out of benefits. Look at the number that return to work – ever. Make your own deductions, shit-for-brains. Speculation my fat ass – these folks are going onto SSDI for stress and soft-tissue ailments – and they NEVER COME OFF. Stress? What a load of fucking shit.
And re the SS surplus – get this through your thick skull – the money does not exist. It has been spent. The “surplus” is just another debt that the US owes. There is no pile of money – just a marker “to be repaid”. And that is never going to happen.
Damn, the Admin is right – ther are just too many idiots in the world.
Workingclass – go back to your Starbuck’s job and leave comments to folks with the intelligence to make them.
Sangell – nice comments – you beat me to those points. I would have given it a 10/10 if you had started with “Workingclass, you ignorant douchebag”. Style points count around here, you know.
Its not that guys like working class are idiots it is that they are dependent or will soon be on government. Its very threatening to hear that the government they depend on may not be able to continue the Ponzi scheme for much longer thus they attack the person ringing the alarm rather than heed the alarm. Afterall if you are on a burning boat just where is it exactly you are supposed to go when the alarm sounds.
WorkingClass
Spewing and defending government propaganda. The government drone trolls aren’t hard to spot. They dispute anything resembling original thought or anything that violates the party line. Love the names they give themselves.
Sangell, I am afraid you give them too much credit. They are supposed to be human beings, and as such they are capable of rational thought and the ability to over-ride their emotions. Yes, it is scary for them, but that doesn’t mean they should hide in their cabins while the ship goes down, having heard the siren. That just makes them stupid.
Recent photo of Workingclass:
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My comments got published. That’s good enough for me. I don’t mind being called an idiot.
“And re the SS surplus – get this through your thick skull – the money does not exist. It has been spent. The “surplus” is just another debt that the US owes. There is no pile of money – just a marker “to be repaid”. And that is never going to happen. ”
Thanks for at least trying to answer my question. But I already know all that. I was asking about your seemingly permissive attitude about the governments default on the debt owed to SS and if it extends to all government obligations.
I thought you might have some numbers to back your bull shit on SSI but since you don’t (and I don’t either) I guess we can just call each other names until one of us has something substantial.
Working Class
WTF are you talking about?
What is my permissive attitude about government default on SS?
The Federal government has promised $200 trillion of benefits to its citizens that it cannot fund. Medicare is in much worse shape than SS.
I also think the insolvent Wall Street banks should be liquidated. I think our military spending should be cut in half and troops withdrawn from the 100 countries we occupy. I think we should eliminate the $3 billion we give to Israel and the billions we spread around to other countries.
Please make a fucking point and we can have a discussion.
Permissive attitude re the govt’s default? The government does not promise to pay SS – never has. There is in fact no formal legislative entitlement to SS, and the courts have so upheld. It started out as an insurance program, and devolved into a pension program. But the government does not in fact promise to give pension payments.
I do not have a permissive attitude about the governmnet debt – any of it. The fact is, the government will never repays its debt. It owes directly 16 triliion dollars, and has promised a hundred to hundreds of trillions more. It simply cannot pay what it owes and what it has promised. Social security and medicare are cooked geese, as they account for a huge slab of the total. Defined benefits pensions for govt employees account for another huge slab.
Their are millions and millions of folks on SSDI and waiting to get on SSDI, for the “ailments” already mentioned. If you can claim stress, and soft tissue injury, and obesity, as ailments, and get onto SSDI, then fraud will be rampant. There is virtually no follow-up screening, or investigative screening, done to establish whether a person gets better, or should have ever been allowed on in the first place. Once on, these folks are on for life. You really think this is not being abused in a major way?
You can’t argue with a troll. Our military is gearing up for Africa, fighting a cold war with China over natural resources. About all our military does anymore is invade countries (without congressional approval) so the banksters can rape the resources. Good thing we can afford troops in 35 more African nations. Oh wait, we can’t, we’re bankrupt.
The War On Terror Spreads to Africa: U.S. Sending Troops to 35 African Nations
U.S. Army teams will be deploying to as many as 35 African countries early next year for training programs and other operations as part of an increased Pentagon role in Africa. The move would see small teams of U.S. troops dispatched to countries with groups allegedly linked to al-Qaeda, such as Libya, Sudan, Algeria and Niger. The teams are from a U.S. brigade that has the capability to use drones for military operations in Africa if granted permission. The deployment could also potentially lay the groundwork for future U.S. military intervention in Africa.
AFRICOM’s [the U.S. military’s Africa command] goal is to eliminate China and other countries influence in the region. Africa’s natural resources is another important element to consider because it includes oil, diamonds, copper, gold, iron, cobalt, uranium, bauxite, silver, petroleum, certain woods and tropical fruits.
Working class, I presume the government woudn’t default on the bonds it has issued to the SS Administration. It didn’t allow the bonds issued by Fannie Mae to default and they were not the official obligations of the US government and even said so on the prospectus for that debt but it was close enough that the government had to be concerned that to allow those bonds to default would impact its credit rating and ability to finance itself through Treasury bond issuance.
If and when the US government can no longer issue new Treasury debt the game is over. It can print dollars to pay off existing bond holders but it can’t borrow new money or rollover existing debt. The US government isn’t going to ‘default’ in the same fashion you or I would It will simply fund itself with increasingly worthless money it prints. Social Security checks will still be issued and banks will probably still cash them but the money will be worth less and less until it has no value at all.
After seeing SSDI every day for 15 years, I can assure you the government doesn’t want anybody off SSDI on the contrary, they are making it easier and easier to get on disability every year. The entitlement seekers and hoveround jockies are the life-blood of a massive bureaucracy that has budgets to inflate and pay-grades to ascend.
They look the other way with regard to fraud, ridiculous claims, selling meds, illegal drug use, and once your on SSDI, you’re set for life. Not to mention the more than 80 different programs supplying welfare cash and benes. It would take years to shut down these programs and fire the union government drone “tentacles” feeding the 128 million people getting cash/food/medical care/phones/housing every month.
Jimi d : ” It is money to be held in trust for recipients.”
Working Class : “As for the stolen SS surplus … ”
Sigh. Those are not even opinions — you speak of myths. The Social Security pamphlet of 1936, quite simply, was a.pack.of,lies. Go read it for yourself, easy to see the flimflam.
But better yet, here are two facts for the record, check them out for yourself.
In a U.S. Supreme Court case, Helvering v. Davis
(1937), the court held that Social Security is not an
insurance program, saying:
“The proceeds of both (employee and employer) taxes
are to be paid into the Treasury like internal revenue
taxes generally, and are not earmarked in any way.”
[ … so it only took a year … and then there’s this … ]
In 1960, the Supreme Court decreed in Flemming v.
Nestor that “entitlement to Social Security benefits is
not a contractual right.
Health, Education and Welfare Secretary (Arthur
Sherwood) Flemming stated in his brief:
“The contribution exacted under the Social
Security plan is a true tax. It is not comparable
to a premium promising the payment of an
annuity commencing at a designated age.”
Math is hard. Reality is harder. And as a special treat for you:
In 1997, Paul Krugman wrote for the Boston Review:
“Social Security is structured from the point of
view of the recipients as if it were an ordinary
retirement plan: what you get out depends on
what you put in. So it does not look like a
redistributionist scheme.
“In practice it has turned out to be strongly
redistributionist, but only because of its Ponzi
game aspect, in which each generation takes
more out than it put in.
“Well, the Ponzi game will soon be over, thanks
to changing demographics, so that the typical
recipient henceforth will get only about as much
as he or she put in (and today’s young may well
get less than they put in).”
I’m guessing he wishes that had gone down the memory hole.
More, from Walter E. Williams: (not sure when this was written)
“a man reaching age 65 in the year 2000 could
expect to receive $71,000 more in government
transfer payments (of which the largest amount
is Social Security) than he paid in taxes. But a
20-year-old man who entered the workforce in
the year 2000 can expect to pay $312,000 more
in taxes than he will ever receive in benefits.”
…
Form ssa-7005-sm-si (the summary of your lifetime SS
payments) might be worth your time to check.
You guys can check it out and get back to us, OK?
An early example. Remember there were 42 paying for every person retiring in 1940.
The first monthly payment was issued on
January 31, 1940 to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow,
Vermont. In 1937, 1938 and 1939 she paid a
total of $24.75 into the Social Security System.
Her first check was for $22.54. After her second
check, Fuller already had received more than she
contributed over the three-year period. She lived
to be 100 and collected a total of $22,888.92.
By 1950, the ratio of workers to retirees was 16 to one. Today there are less than three.
Any questions?
Thanks Sangell
I get it that the plan is to monetize the debt. All of it. Thats different than default but still qualifies as theft. I think it was you speaking of soft tissue and mental illness claims earlier. Do you know if the increase is in claims or awards or both?
Working Class
If you had the motivation to click the link to the Bloomberg article, you would actually get the data regarding the government not auditing the claims. Here is the pertinent part of the article. Intellectual laziness seems to be a common trait of liberals:
“Qualifying for benefits has also gotten easier since 1984, when Congress liberalized the rules by shifting eligibility from a list of specific impairments to consideration of a person’s medical condition and ability to work. Applicants with multiple maladies can qualify even if no single condition would meet the criteria, and symptoms of pain or mental illness are allowable in lieu of a clear diagnosis.
After the economy weakened in the late 1980s, the number of beneficiaries doubled from 1989 to 2009. That corresponded with a rapid increase in claims of musculoskeletal conditions and mental disorders, which now dominate the list of ailments.
One quick fix is to require the government to conduct more periodic screening to make sure beneficiaries are still unable to work. The Social Security Administration conducted 443,233 full medical reviews in 2011 — less than 5 percent of all cases. Budget cuts have sapped funding for the reviews, which cost about $758 each, and created a backlog of about 1.4 million cases, according to Bloomberg News.”
Greetings Administrator:
I stumbled in here on a link from Dollar Collapse and joined the thread uninvited. I’m hoping you are the author of this piece. If so:
Thanks for bringing me up to speed.
“I also think the insolvent Wall Street banks should be liquidated. I think our military spending should be cut in half and troops withdrawn from the 100 countries we occupy. I think we should eliminate the $3 billion we give to Israel and the billions we spread around to other countries.”
Yes! And restore the Constitution and dismantle the Police State. Give me all that and I will gladly give you Social Security. Apparently we have much common ground. If we have anything to discuss it would be classism as an obstacle to bringing the people together to defeat the Oligarchy and their puppets in our political institutions.
My disrespect was intended for your defender. You have my apology for aiming it at you.
Working Class
I’m with you 1,000% on restoring the Constitution and dismantling the Police State. TBP is a libertarian leaning website. We hate Wall Street bankers, neo-cons, welfare cheats, Democrats and Republicans.
Sorry for insulting you.
So, your disrespect was aimed at me? Boy, do you have a lot to learn. LLPOH’s House of Pain welcomes you. I would address your last post, but for the life of me I do not understand “I will give you SS”, and the crap about classicism. I googled the definition of classicism and got this:
1) The following of ancient Greek or Roman principles and style in art and literature, associated with harmony, restraint, and adherence to…
2) The following of traditional and long-established theories or styles.
No matter how I tried, I could not figure out what the hell you meant.
comment in my local ( sarasota) paper today
I know some of what these people are going thru. I have an Electronics Degree since 2003 and have no where to use it. I was fired from a job I had for almost 3 years working maintenance at a local RV Resort in 2008 and since then I spent 2 years on unemployment looking for work and only got 5 interviews and never got a job from any of them. I am now a 100% disabled Veteran with a 1994 vehicle that is just getting me around and I can’t afford to get a newer one right now (I didn’t get the full 2 years back pay from the VA like I was hoping for when my disability increased). My significant other is on Social Security Disability too and our bills do get paid (we rent an apartment) but expenses are such that the vehicle payments would be high for us especially with the prices of things going up! Our entertainment consists of the internet and TV as we couldn’t/can’t do anything else.
“Intellectual laziness seems to be a common trait of liberals:” i resemble that remark. anyday now, if not today, i will learn that i am a fucktard math-impaired liberal. actually, i sympathize with working class because he sounds like a newbie who is seeking direction from TBP. it seems Sangell is the self appointed orientation commitee with AWD as the designated hazing official. we newbies get it that the SS account is dry, we see the takers multiplying and we come here with questions. if you ask naive questions you get nutted quick so you seek comfort in ZH where you remain in ignorance but no one kicks you in the groin for asking questions.
AWD, fyi, i am not a troll or a govt spy, i am a stupid boomer, liberal if you must call me that, i am on this site because i am concerned about the SS benefits i may not get. i have surmised that we may yet get the check but the money won’t be worth anything. i don’t believe you are a doctor, i wouldn’t let you pop a pimple on my fat ass, sorry.
i hope never to hear politicos say, “In the narrow spread of the question…” it has gotten tiresome to hear, “let me be clear”.
Pike Bishop, Americans do not begrudge people needing SSDI, we all know people can get injured or acquire medical conditions that makes it impossible for them to hold a job. Most of us also know people getting SSDI who are quite capable of work and in fact do work ( under the table). It is also the case that just because you may no longer be able to do the job you had you can do another. My old employer ( a municipal utility ) did everything it could to not allow people to go on disability. If they couldn’t work in the field they were given a job in the radio room. If their doctor said they need a break once and hour they got one. I myself damaged an eye that makes it hard for me to determine the direction an oncoming auto headlight is coming from on a dark road. When I told my superiors that they could insist I drive at night but if I had a head on with family and survived, the lawyers would get my medical records and the City would be held responsible for requiring me to drive at night. That ended them calling me in for any emergency after dark!
Pike was not disabled, he was ill. He is bitter and twisted, and expected his job to remain open indefinitely (ten months he was unable to work, and acknowledged his illness was variable). He fails to address why millions go onto SSDI and never get off of it. He does not address how or why millions go from unemployment to SSDI.
I am sorry for his health issues and hope they are behind him. But he makes no case whatsoever, and his position stems from his bitterness at how his life has gone.
Helping friend is a moron. He talks about the poor getting 25 percent of their wage ripped off them. What a load of crap. He talks about Admin doing nothing constructive. What a load of crap. He talks about going hungry – yeah, right. I saw Admin kick his low-IQ ass all over Zero Hedge, and he follows Jim here to get smacked around some more. What a dolt.
Helping friend – you are swimming with the fucking sharks. Your pea brain and your left wing, socialist bullshit lies will get you stomped on round these parts. You will find few allies around here. We know horseshit when we smell it, and, boy it wafts off you like 10 cent perfume off a three dollar ho. Do yourself a favor and crawl back up Obama’s ass before the folks around here get your scent, because some of them are not nice like me.
Holy shit, the retards are crawling out of the woodwork.
Helping_Friend, Pike, and any other douchebag, Johnny-come-(or is it cum?)latelies: Are you seriously arguing that there isn’t rampant abuse of the SSDI program? That being too fat, or emotionally sensitive, is a legitimate reason to not work, and to entitle the “victim” to a lifetime of free cash (and other associated bennies) for watching Oprah and cruising Wal-Mart in their Rascals? Is it a coincidence that SSDI is up big time, as unemployment benefits run out (for folks who, theoretically, could have worked last week, but are now “disabled”)? Do you not know, personally, someone capable of working (and probably actually working, off the record) who is collecting SSDI?
And your assumptions about the site administrator and his beliefs are laughable. Obviously you have not paid enough attention (or are too dense or idealogical) to figure it out. Fucking dickheads. If you have enough grey matter, follow TBP for more than one post before projecting your stereotypes on the folks here. Ah, fuck, why am I wasting my time on useless eaters like you?
Tsuki – you are out of your fucking mind. We talk about all that here. Just because not every fucking aspect of every fucking stupid govt policy is not covered in one article does not make Admin, or us, intellectually dishonest. Why don’t you watch and learn a while before shooting your fucking mouth off. You may have something worthwhile to say, but we will be too busy kicking your ass to hear it.
Pike Bishop and helping_friend
Not sure why you’re unloading on Jim Quinn so harshly, but he’s a big boy, so I’ll let him defend himself in the manner he deems most appropriate. In the meantime ….. a few personal observations on your statements with my response in caps.
First, the Pikester, who said: “People assume there is some great reason to live on SSDI payments. It doesn’t exist. (90% OF THE PEOPLE ON SSDI NEVER LEAVE THE PROGRAM. ARE YOU SUGGESTING A PAYCHECK FOR LIFE ISN’T “A GREAT REASON TO LIVE ON SSDI PAYMENTS.” I WOULD STRONGLY SUGGEST IT IS. IT’S FUCKING FREE MONEY.)
“The prejudice which was shown by Quinn, is just that. He presented none of the data which shows the actual fraud numbers, and that they are miniscule, although do exist. (AGREE THAT FRAUD ISN’T THE MAIN PROBLEM. IT IS GOVERNMENT RULES AND/OR INCOMPETENCE THAT ALLOWS SO MANY PEOPLE TO QUALIFY IN THE FIRST PLACE.) Mainly because there is a neurotic meme that 100% of the Government is 100% incompetent. (COUNT ME AMONG THOSE THAT THINK THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS DAMN NEAR 100% INCOMPETENT. REPEAT AFTER ME. NOTHING IN THE USG WORKS WELL. NOTHING.)
Next up, helping_fiend (spelling intended), who said, “To ridicule the weak yet say nothing about the criminals (WHO ARE THESE CRIMINALS? WOULD IT BE THE DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS AND LYNDON JOHNSON WHO DECIDED TO PUT SOCIAL SECURITY TAXES INTO THE GENERAL TREASURY INSTEAD OF AN HONEST TRUST FUND?) who caused this chaos through no fault of the ones who have/had 25% of their take-home pay ripped from their hands every payday (PLEASE SHOW ME THE MATH THAT SAYS ANYONE IN THE LOWER AND MIDDLE INCOME CLASSES GETS 25% OF HIS TAKE-HOME PAY RIPPED FROM THEIR PAYCHECK) and get bashed by callous persons such as yourself (YOU HAVE A POINT THERE. QUINN CAN BE MEAN. HE’S SAID SOME VERY BAD AND HURTFUL THINGS ABOUT ME BECAUSE I’M OLD, SUFFERING FROM ALZHEIMER’S, AND PRONE TO TOO MANY NAPS.) because some person, legitimately or not, gets some of the money, paid back, they have paid in to the system all their working lives (THAT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE. IF YOUR NOT GETTING MONEY LEGITIMATELY, THEN YOU’RE FUCKING BREAKING THE LAW. IT’S CALLED FRAUD.).
Aka – nice rant. I do not know about you, but I waste my time on those shitheads because they deserve the ass-kicking they get, and unless we do it, they will go through life thinking they are right and unopposed. Glad to see you have not lost your ability to charm the masses!
SSS joins the fray. After saying you will let the Admin deal with them, you sure are kicking shit out of them. I particularly like the point about the 25% tax rate being paid by the poor – seems I may have made that same point myself, but you did it better.
SSS – one small quibble – I think the number who go on SSDi and never come off is more like 99%. It is a lifetime paycheck.
llpoh-had I known that you would post at the same time, and that SSS would follow up, I probably would have sat on my ever-widening ass and not bothered. Been pretty busy lately-barely enough time to lurk, much less to be active on TBP. But a douchebag is a douchebag-sometimes even a lazy fucker like me can’t leave them lay.
Personally, I am not shooting for a good looking corpse.
“I am ready for a serious discussion of all Federal Pensions.”
—-tsuki
So am I. You claim military and FERS pensions for retired alphabet soup employees such as the FBI and CIA are “top secret.” That is absolutely, totally false.
I’m not going to do your homework for you. You do it. Then get back to me and post your findings and recommendations. You may be surprised at my response because I too agree that those pensions are far too generous.
First, you have to find out why. Get crackin’.
SSDI is a Kludge to coverup a failing economic model. Its a means to provide income to folks who are permanently unemployable, not really because they are “disabled”, but because there are not enough jobs for them to fill.
The total Employed Workforce has been steadily Decreasing while the Population Increases. That’s a Fact, Jack. if your society is impoverished enough, these folks just Starve. They don;t get jobs just cause thier Bennies get cut off. Ask any Greek Pensioner. Self-Immolation is a Soultion for some in this scenario.
Anyhow, cutting off SSDI won’t create any more jobs, but it will create a whole lot more destitute people This makes little sense since it will just end up with a faster spin down to Mad Max. Until the society starts to develop a meme that can actually employ people in productive work (that doesn’t include Starbucks Barristas, Lawyers, Doctors or CPAs), it needs some means to distribute its resources OTHER than work.
I completely agree SSDI is a bogus Kludge here, but so far nothing better has been suggested other than cutting off a vast segment of the population from income and accelerating a downward slide into Mad Max territory, aka Greece or Spain as we speak.
RE
helping_friend (and others)
“they have paid in to the system all their working lives.” Yeah, didn’t we all. So what? Some of us learn the grim truth — go back to my extended comment above and see what the system has determined.
~They~ were only taxed … just lies, smoke & mirrors, from the 1936 pamphlet’s “Old-Age
Benefits”
http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/ssb36.html\
Beating a dead horse, I reckon. Here, again:
“The proceeds of both (employee and employer) taxes
are to be paid into the Treasury like internal revenue
taxes generally, and are not earmarked in any way.”
“The contribution exacted under the Social
Security plan is a true tax. It is not comparable
to a premium promising the payment of an
annuity commencing at a designated age.”
Bruce Krasting, who seems pretty up on things Social Security, says the SSDI ‘Trust Fund’ will be exhausted by 2016 ( if not sooner as more 99 weekers apply). This apparently will trigger either benefit cuts or tax increases. It will be interesting to see how Obama will deal with the first tangible unraveling of the welfare state. If he tries to pay SSDI Peter with SS Paul’s money the outcry will be deafening. Raising the income level above $113,000 on payroll deductions is a possible option but raising taxes on $113,000 incomes is not taxing the rich by almost anyone’s definition and would use up that option to save the larger Social Security program which itself will be a few years away from exploding. The only other possibility is to crack down on SSDI claimants and bureaucratically restore them to work status.
The comments being copied and pasted on TBP from Zero Hedge are being posted by none other than DOUCHEBAG DAVID PIERRE who has taken time out from fucking sheep to try and spam TBP. The comments are not being made by Pike Bishop,tsuki or help fiend. DP is a psycho nutjob who trolls everything I write. He really must have a pathetic excuse for a life.
Back to the barn DP.
What’s wrong with being a sheep lover?
Excellent post, Jim. Comment thread is even better.