post election fun

[JanS]

hmmm…”post election fun”….are we having fun yet?

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[Anonymous]

Using productivity as a measure:

Our unemployment rate has since risen to an average of 6.5%, but when it was still at 4.8%, 50 countries had a lower unemployment rate.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lab_une_rat-labor-unemployment-rate

There are 20 countries with a per worker, higher tax rate than us.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/tax_tot_tax_wed_sin_wor-total-tax-wedge-single-worker

And here’s the order by country of lifestyle happiness.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lif_hap_net-lifestyle-happiness-net

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[beachdrivegirl]

thanks job and happy holidays to you,too.

Now a reminder to all, to give with labor and not money this holiday season if u can’t be sure of your security in the future

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[Anonymous]

Wow – You ALL are making quite an assumption.

If someone questions a Government that GIVES to us as opposed to a Government that WORKS FOR us, they are considered unsympathetic, mean and privileged?

No one on this forum knows anything about myself OR BDG. No one on this forum has ANY idea what hurtles she and I may or may not face daily. Maybe that is something that could/should be considered before making such harsh accusations about people you don’t even know???

JoB – Here’s something you can do for someone else this holiday: Why don’t you choose to give people the benefit of the doubt and NOT assume the worst of people for once?

Merry Christmas to you as well. :)

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[Anonymous]

Not sure how I missed this earlier, but it is really obnoxious:

“may they never be so unlucky as to find out the hard way how lucky they have been.” – JoB

You do not know the FIRST, SECOND or LAST thing about me and I would appreciate it if you would stop implying that you do.

This style of posting (as if you know me) is extremely intrusive and insulting. Again, I request that you stop this behavior, as I’ve requested before.

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[JanS]

I suppose I’d want to know what’s so personal and insulting to you, if I were new on here and reading for the first time. In this season where we should be thinking of others, I find that you assuming that she meant YOU, personally, is interesting.

I suppose we all read things into what’s posted here. I know that I thought it a personal affront when it was brought up that some of us add to the debt of this nation, because there are certain things that the gov’t. might have to help us with. As you said, we don’t all know where the other person has been. Suffice it to say, I have a story of how MY gov’t. did not help me in a time of need, and caused me to lose every red cent that I had , and ultimately my home, right after I had a lengthy illness that caused me to lose my business.

I will not speak for JoB, but I can speak for myself, and I think that perhaps what she meant was that some people do not know how lucky they have it, and hopefully won’t walk in shoes like mine. I don’t wish it on anyone. I know I certainly wouldn’t want anyone else to have to go there.

So…guess it’s all in how one looks at things. I didn’t see insulting, I saw a sincere wish that you or anyone on here reading these forums who see a rosy future ahead without gov’t. help to be very, very careful, that it can all change in an instant, and we sincerely hope that it doesn’t for you.

It’s late, I’m fighting a cold..not sleeping because of the dastardly coughing, so I’m probably not saying any of this right, so don’t take offense. Personal requests like the above to JoB should be in private, IMHO, and one should never assume that something said on here is only about them when names aren’t mentioned.Guess we all see things at times that aren’t really meant…but I suppose you’d have to ask JoB, before assuming she was singling you out. It’s kinda hard to not direct at the person that you’re having the cyber conversation with, so understand where you might have misunderstood…

OK…back to our original programming bringing tidings of great joy and cheer in the next few weeks :)

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[HeavyMetalConservative]

Oh JanS, sorry you are coughing and feeling bad. Get Better Soon!!!

I find communication by written word to be very difficult. Maybe that is why my posts are so long!! I know what I mean but do I convey it sufficiently to others? We can only try.

Now, wouldn’t it be nice if Social Security and Medicare were going to be solvent? I will or hope to retire in about 20 years. I am willing to pay into SS because my Grandparents (87 and 91) use it. My dad, 70, needs it. My mother probably won’t need it but she deserves it too since she probably paid more into than my dad and her parents.

For the good of my family and others I am willing to help out (our citizens), but I do not expect it to be there in its present form in 2027. I will be teaching my son to Save, Save, Save because I do not trust the government to manage the system properly. At this point I wonder about our banking system too. Whether my son does it is another question. He will need to take care of himself and hopefully his mother and I will not be a burden.

I do not know very much about SS but I see a huge problem on the horizon.

Solutions. Well… we could have a lot more babies and then they would become employed and pay the social security taxes?? Baby Boom II?

We could change the law of how SS is run and change it from pay as you go to an actual savings plan and actually force congress not to spend what is not rightfully theirs.

We could streamline it but generally gov programs get larger. I do expect the taxes to go up fairly soon. How intrusive will they be?? Hopefully they will cut some other areas if they do that.

Mostly we need to elect enough people who are independent enough to try to fix it.

My hardcore instincts as a conservative say that if it fails, so be it, BUT I really do not want it to. I know that too many people depend on it. It was meant as a supplement but for too many it is their only means. My dad lost a pension because of a greedy Corporate Holding Company. When you pay into something for 30 plus years, you sort of expect to get a little back. I think other government programs should be scrapped but not this one.

It is up to us to make this work out.

whooa, I’ve got to go to bed. I will finish later. I don’t feel like argueing about some of the other points made in other posts. Good night (good morning really).

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[Kayleigh2]

Charla, thanks for your thoughts on health care. I totally agree, and I really believe we will not save the middle class or our financial system unless we fix health care.

In a way, our private insurer system stifles innovation, growth and all those other pro-capitalist things. How many of you would leave your jobs and/or start a small business if you didn’t have to pay $400 a month (or more) for health insurance? How much more money could *all* of us spend on education, infrastructure, even consumer goods if we weren’t paying our 20% cost share or our $25 co-pays?

This is where I think the European and Scandinavian countries have us beat, hands down. And in Finland, higher education is essentially free. Can you imagine if we did that here in the U.S.? I’d be in grad school in a heartbeat if I didn’t have to shoulder a $50,000 debt to do it.

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[JoB]

HeavyMetalConservative brought up the one point that seems to be missed when social security comes up..

“We could change the law of how SS is run and change it from pay as you go to an actual savings plan and actually force congress not to spend what is not rightfully theirs.”

Social Security actually has been a pay as you go system… and since there were far more baby boomers paying in than those drawing dollars.. this system should have been in massive surplus.

It isn’t. Part of that is due to people living longer.. but a great deal of it is due to our government using social security funds as a big piggybank instead of putting the money into government securities where it could grow compound interest.

Beyond that, our government wouldn’t be in this shape right now with so many baby boomers to support had they regulated business… and not allowed companies to bail on their pension funds and re-organize.

Or had they regulated the captive retirement account funds invested in the stock market and not allowed those funds to fuel an already inflationary market.

But hey.. let’s not overburden those who reaped the profits from dumping pension plans and speculating with your retirement dollars by reinstating their tax rates…. because higher taxes are bad.

let’s reward them instead so that middle class taxpayers can assume the double burden… of supporting our current economy and of paying the tab for those bankrupted pensions from now thriving companies and for the increased services that will be necessary to support those whose futures were stolen in the process.

This is just plain bad economics.

As is our current system of labeling any money paid to improve the welfare of our citizens entitlements and that paid to subsidize thriving industries.. and bail out companies failing due to their own mismanagement and greed… as investments in America.

It is far less expensive to house, feed, clothe, educate and offer medical care to our citizens than to pay the tab for the social services including prisons that result from our failure to do do…

but hey.. somebody would have to pay for that…

what’s overlooked is that we pay more heavily both as individuals and as a nation for our failure to invest in our greatest resource.. our citizens..

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[JoB]

I am reminded of last year when we did the handbags for hunger event to benefit the local food bank.

TheHouse said that he would willingly donate to a food bank that also offered job counseling and helped people get back to work.

His assumption was that the food bank was just another handout program for people who didn’t really want to work.

House made a generous contribution that day… personally delivering bags of food to the head of the food bank after having a long conversation with him and learning the kinds of programs that were offered there.

it’s too easy to pass the food bank and see people huddled in line and assume that they would rather be there than be working.

The ugly truth is that our local foodbanks are now feeding people with jobs who don’t make enough money to support themselves or their families…

and doing what they can to help those without jobs find a way to at least minimally support themselves.

Anyone who assumes that those who need our help are just lazy people who would choose to accept public help rather than work really ought to volunteer some time at an incredibly large number of organizations who provide the safety net for these people.

it can be a real eye opener to find that most of those needing a little help are people just like yourself… they just weren’t as lucky.

An even larger eye opener is to find out what the minimum wage is at the company where you collect your living wage salary.

It’s a shock for most to learn that some of the people you pass every day at work are supplementing their income at the local food bank or with other programs.

There but for the grace of god go i…

and you…

That’s something worth thinking about as you think of others this holiday season. A charitable heart goes far further than any donation.

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[beachdrivegirl]

ding,ding, ding round two over. And the winner is… HMC!! He got the point and understands the point. This isnt about “me being an evil person and not wanting to take care of others” because those that know me dont make assumptions and accuasations like that. The piont is that people should not assume that the government will be there to take care of them. If you read the quote below that is what one poster decided to do and was recommending to others to do.

“but one way or another taxpayers are going to have to foot the bill for feeding, housing and medical care for those who have not been able to accumulate a nest egg for “

My point was that people should not live with that mantality. I was questioning whether this was a genearational concept. It sounds like it is not. Good luck to those that are chosing to live by that concept and I will continue to save, save, save because I understand that it is my responsibilty for my future. And as NR said, please do not assume anything about myself or my family.

Lastly, here is some food for thought. Try to go the rest of the week without giving insults and giving your friends high fives try to find other things to give.

Cheers!

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[JoB]

beachdrivegirl…

you miss the point.

many of the people currently needing help did save save save.

they chose jobs that payed less but had pension plans. they put money into their retirement plan. they bought homes to build equity.

they didn’t plan on a government that would decide to de-regulate business.. or on owners so greedy for profits to fuel stock speculation that they would bankrupt to avoid pension obligations or on rampant speculation in the stock market that would shrink their contributions to less than what they invested or on the housing market taking a nose dive because of rampant speculation in the mortgage industry.. eroding their equity at a time when they had no choice but to sell… or on catastrophic illness and their employer firing them because they were driving up the health care costs.

Those people didn’t assume that government was there to take care of them.. they didn’t live their lives counting on a handout.

I can give you good examples of people i personally know well..

a pilot who graduated from college and chose the air force to get flying time (over VietNam) so that he could have a commercial aviation career. He spent his first 20 years at a major airline that bankrupted (they are still flying) and defaulted on his pension. Then he went to work for another major airline (who is still in business) who bankrupted and defaulted on his second earned pension. He is too old to fly per federal regulations.. and too young to collect his federally secured pension (a fraction of it’s original value).

He did save save save and invested heavily in a business for his retirement.. but he didn’t count on losing the income required for overhead in a failing market.

oh.. his backup plan.. real estate… several houses.. another eroding asset… that he can’t liquidate to cover current expenses… and can’t borrow against because he doesn’t have a job or a profitable business.

oops.. another lazy sob who just wants a handout.

How about a fireman… who was injured falling two stories from a ladder at a fire.. and who counted on the disability insurance that he paid for to provide income in case of an accident just like that one… but who found that when his back injury left him with intense disabling chronic pain that his disability insurer labeled his problem psychiatric and he had to go to court to collect his insurance payments. He settled after 6 years continually fighting the insurance company and is now collecting social security disability.

oops.. another lazy sob who just wants a handout.

I could tell countless stories like this one about people i personally know… but the pattern here is the same… people whose lives were negatively affected due to no fault of their own because of predatory business practices… and who eventually have had to rely on government programs that they never intended to use.

These are educated people… are intelligent resourceful people who planned and made provisions for their future.

The predatory business practices of the last few decades have created millions of stories just like those two.

neither of these people will end up homeless.. they had substantial resources at their point of failure and both have strong family safety nets… but both of them are currently struggling financially at a time in their lives when they had every expectation of being financially secure.

What happens to those who aren’t as lucky?

To make the leap from my statement that government will be the safety net of last resort for the generation of indigents these business practices have created…

to an assumption that i believe the government should take care of us.. and therefore nobody should work …

is naive at best.. and incredibly callous and self serving at worst.

I definately don’t think our government will take care of us. They created the lack of regulation that allowed the kind of abusive and speculative business practices that have created our current economic situation.

but someone is going to have to pick up the tab for all of this greed..

and it isn’t going to be those who created the problem.

So how do you think this situation will be resolved?

The poverty induced by this latest round of excessive speculation won’t go away.. and the boomers don’t have a long enough working career ahead of them.. even if they work well into their 80s.. to recover financially from their current losses.

Are you counting on euthanasia to reduce or eliminate the problem?

Because death or assistance really are the only viable options.

Where do you think that assistance is going to come from if not from the government?

it’s something you should be thinking about and planning for… because your generation is going to shoulder much of the cost when our generation’s ability to work falters due to rising medical issues… either by personally supporting parents and older siblings or through government programs.

You’d better save save save and hope hope hope.

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[beachdrivegirl]

Its all about how you look @ life.

I choose to look @ the glass half full and live below my means so that I will be prepared for the hardships I know I will face considering I am human.

And JoB please refrain from making personal comments and assumptions about me. I dont need to tell you (brag) about everything I already do on a daily bases besides paying taxes to take care of those less fortunate around me year round. (Because the holiday season isnt the only time people need us.) Unlike some, I do these things because I honest to god care, not because I want to one-up my neighbor or get a high five from my friend down the street.

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[GenHillOne]

I don’t know where this theme came from – over several threads – but it is really bothersome to me that various folks are suggesting that people are somehow looking for pats on the back for what they do in the community. Especially given that many are in new financial situations this year, I believe many are looking for new ways to celebrate the holidays, help others, whatever, while being mindful of their own family’s needs and I see people sharing that information. With so many choices out there, sometimes hearing about a neighbor’s involvement helps me to decide where I might lend my support. It comes across as mean and synical to ask that people not discuss what they’re doing and I would ask that we not categorize the exchange of information as self-absorbed or boastful. I doubt anyone here, and there are many who are generous with their time and money, are doing it for accolades.

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[JoB]

beachdrivegirl..

i am glad you live below your means. I am also glad that you have the means and a second income in your household to allow you to do that.

and i am glad that you choose to volunteer in your community… although i wish your comments reflected more compassion for those you help.

however living below your means is no guarantee of a successful retirement.

there is an entire generation who found their savings wiped out by job loss or catastrophic illness… events they thought they had planned well enough to weather.

those people need our compassion and our help. And their numbers are multiplying exponentially.

Blaming them for their circumstances won’t make the problem we will all share disappear.

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[beachdrivegirl]

I must be reading two different posts because I thought comments like “honest to god care” actually showed alot of compassion.

My bad next time I will be sure to use many more adjectives so others can feel the compassion.

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[JoB]

genhillone..thanks for your comment.

…

i am afraid i can’t be unemotional about this one.. as it is a trend that has been repeated on this forum before… and it has had negative consequences for people who were totally innocent bystanders.

Some posters have let their personal animosities towards individuals get in the way of their common sense.

Trashing what another person has done just because you can is petty.. but that is easy to overlook.

What is not so easy to overlook is when that personal animosity spills out onto community projects simply because of dislike of the person who is making positive comments… like what is happening here with threads about making a difference during the holidays.

Souring a project because you don’t like the person promoting it is not petty.. it’s mean… and it is completely against the rules governing this forum.

There is a synergism that every community project counts on.. that builds with the sharing of ideas… and of enthusiasm. It is the life blood of community activism.

I am proud to contribute to that synergy in any way i can.. some days that is literally all i can do.

…

so to be perfectly blunt to those who would spoil that synergy …

if you don’t want to be part of the solution… back off and let those of us who want to do something get on with our work.

There are many projects and events promoted on the forum that are beyond my capabilities or simply beyond my interest.. but they are important to somebody… and because they cared enough to post.. they deserve support from their neighbors. it’s too easy online to forget that we are posting on this forum because we are all neighbors and have an interest in what happens in and to our community…

This is the season of hope… we have just had a presidential election about hope… and seeing your cup half full in this regard means believing that change is possible.. even on a personal level.

These threads are full of people who are trying to find ways to make lemonade out of the lemons our economy has handed us… whether from personal need or just the desire to make a difference.

if you can’t find it in your heart to join in with those of us who would like to know about opportunities to share.. or be reminded of those we forgot… or share a tradition.. or a recipe.. or christmas lights.. or cookies…

start a bah humbug thread and humbug away…

…

It is one thing to dispute someone’s ideas.. another thing entirely to decide that you are in possession of the only real knowledge of that person’s character and intentions and that you are responsible for exposing that person to the world.

I don’t know how to say this any plainer.. each one of us who posts over time exposes exactly who and what they are to the world with their own words.

Before passing judgment on someone else’s intentions and character, it might be a good idea to check what your words are saying about yours.

…

i apologize for being so blunt.. but volunteerism and community activism is something i care deeply about… and i just can’t let that get thrown under the bus here on the forum..

all because some people have decided that i .. and others… have an agenda they need to expose.

it’s too important.

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[andrea]

thank you very much for posting that GenHillOne…as the daughter of a social worker who spends almost 20 hours a day this time of year working for those in our community that are truly suffering with nothing, I want to shout from the mountaintops all that she does (and yes she DOES deserve a pat on the back and a high five!) and tell everyone about all of the embarassed, shame filled, and fearful pleas she receives daily for food, clothing, shelter, supplies,etc…she truly cannot keep up with the need, yet she and those who work with her strive daily to give more, work harder, and ask for nothing in return…I think that any person who goes out of their way to help others not just because it the Holidays but because its the right hing to do, should be thanked and given a pat on the back (and then some)! Far too many of us don’t do any more than criticize and look down our noses…myself included at times…

So thank you to anyone on here who gives, gives and then gives some more to our community. I thank you (oops…I said the dreaded ‘I’) and am cyberspace sending you a high five and warm pats on the back!

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[andrea]

if any of you on this forum would like information on how you can help out our community now, please PM and I can give you a list of upcoming times where my mom will be shopping for gifts, wrapping presents, handing out gifts, visiting and spending time, for in need local WS grade school children, struggling single parent homes, and lonely nursing home residents. this is all through the group my mom runs, Human Care Ministries, which is based out of Hope Lutheran Church. there is a lot of work and a lot of local people in need. any amount of help would be greatly appreciated. financial help is also appreciated, if that is easier to give than your time…

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[Anonymous]

Andrea, praising OTHERS, like your mom, is exactly the type of posts that would be welcome and appreciated.

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[HeavyMetalConservative]

OK. Time for all of us to take a time out. Turn on some elevator music, put a slice of lemon in our water and sit back and think good thoughts. I’m humming to an old Herb Alpert cover. Ahhhh.

I am for not continuing this discussion. There are many diverse opinions and many of us will not agree.

Let us question ideas but not integrity. The written forum is fraught with misunderstanding of intent. We all want what is best for us and others. Lets just chill for a moment.

Shall we take a break for awhile?

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[JoB]

i have started another thread for political discussion titled what do you think about that.

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[Anonymous]

BDG – I don’t think it is generational either.

My parents are around the same age as many with a differing opinion than yours on this forum, and they are semi-retired (by choice), and definitely NOT relying on our Government for necessities such as housing, medical, food, etc..

They lived exactly as you are suggesting. They planned and they saved and, most importantly, worked very hard for the future they now enjoy. All this even AFTER a surprise divorce very late in life.

They are a great example to me and I’m proud that they are my parents.

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[beachdrivegirl]

NR, like andrea, you have every right to speak highly about your parents. :) I am very glad to hear that everything worked out for them despite their divorce and that they are able to be semi-retired at their age. It is great to hear about people who were able to make the best of everything life delivered them.

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[Zenguy]

So NR, your parents will declining Social Security of course?

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[Author]

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