Most Americans under 30 "do not support capitalism"

Needs pithiness.

North Hemisphere waves

5 Likes

Isn’t it funny how the Greenspan Commission in 1983 managed to get all federal civilian employees hired after 1983, all members of Congress, all federal judges, and the President and Vice-President covered for the first time (despite the fact they had generous pensions already)? How much did that add to the burden?

All we need to do is either raise the cap or make those who don’t pay their full share into the fund because of the cap to be similarly capped in payout. Why should working people alone bear the burden of giving the wealthy and powerful more money with few strings attached? Because that’s really the problem: higher payout goes to those who need it the least and have paid a lower percentage of tax into the fund, leaving less money available for those who’ve actually worked for a living and paid into the fund based on 100% of their income.

7 Likes

Firstly, taking the cap off buys about 10-15 years before the eventual demographic crash of Social Security.

Secondly, it does so by raising taxes on everyone who (1) makes more than 118,000 and (2) actually makes their money from a pay check. The .1% will pretty much not have to pay one dime more.

(edit) From the SSA - “Pension payments, annuities, and the interest or dividends from your savings and investments are not earnings for Social Security purposes.”

I am sure there are lots of nurse anesthetists and fire lieutenants who will be pleased to know that you’ve promoted them from “working people” to the ranks of the “wealthy and powerful”.

You seem to have skipped over the fact that I made two suggestions, the second of which was most of the sentence: cap the payout to match. If someone pays into Social Security based on only 0.01% of their yearly income, their payout should match. If they pay based on 95%, because they make just a little bit more than the current cap, is it really so awful if their payout is also at 95%? Remember, the higher earners almost always have other means of income, whether pension or investments, etc.

4 Likes

Really? Like what? Don’t get me wrong, we really didn’t want to go to war with Russia, but at the same time, we had nuclear weapons and the will to use them. Russia had a force spread out across Europe that had taken truly massive losses. They had a big army, but no way of transporting them en masses across the ocean.

Truthfully, we could have overthrown every government on the planet had we been ruthless imperialists with some B-52s and 20 nukes and there really wasn’t a damn thing anyone left standing at the time could have done about it.

Hell, if Churchhill’s advice was taken about nuking Russia at the time, they would have ceased to exist.

It’s not awful if it’s not you. Your proposal makes Soc Sec pretty much the equivalent of the income tax system, where the income group from about $100K to $500K supports everybody above and below.

1 Like

The near-postbellum US did not have twenty nukes: Plan Totality - Wikipedia

In a long afternoon or two, you could read James K. Galbraith, The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too and feel happy you did for the rest of your life. It’s readable and a good bridge to other reading and still enjoyable on its own.

1 Like

Good edit?

1 Like

It was a great quote in the 80s for pre-Colbert era AM radio reactionaries too lazy to study an issue but still excited to buy gold certificates and Hooked on Phonics.

3 Likes

I was saying 20 nukes to take over the world. Nine was more than enough to wipe out every major Russian city and leave them mortally wounded.

At 20, you could basically bluff the rest of the developed world that you had a near infinite supply.

Of course, no one was insane enough to do such a thing. Well, I mean Churchill did want us to, but we ignored him.

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.