Which is funny, because a bunch of us have been trying to point out that there's been a great big cannon pointed at it all along. As Brian J. Noggle puts it:
It would be a good exercise in imagination for those who receive these giveaways to think about what they would do if those benefits actually stopped. And I don’t mean “stopped” in the sense of “went on furlough for a couple weeks or months, only to come back with additional sugar to make up the shortfall.” I mean, what if the Tea Party people are right and this rate of expenditure is unsustainable and eventually the huckster’s constant motion machine falls to a pile of gears and pistons. Then what will they do?RTWT.
The free money pipeline's getting cut off one way or another, sooner or later. The only question is do we want to try and dead-stick this bird in, or do we just let it fly out of control and do a Texas Lawn Dart?
22 comments:
And it's not just Social Security.
I shocked a coworker the other day when I confessed that I really don't believe that I'll be allowed to draw funds from my 401k when I can "retire" in a dozen years. I figure the government will decide that they should manage it for me by then.
After all, it's already been suggested at least 3 times since The One took office. They need Other People's Money, and there is a lot of it sitting in 401k's and IRAs. With a stroke of a pen, all those funds can be consolidated (nationalized) into a new Federal Retirement Program where they can decide how much of your money you can have.
And a few years later, they'll just combine the new program with Social Security to "simplify" the process. SS payments will go up a token amount while the new program disappears completely.
How bad we crash and burn depends how far the Congress Critters can kick the can down the Road. But to expect them to actually do what is necessary? That's like expecting a pack of Lions to NOT eat a Wildebeest by shaking a finger at them and saying "Bad Kitty!"
Bailing out is not an option-there's no chutes and no out: where you gonna go?
I can not think of any better outcome than the Government Shutdown they threaten. pay the interest on the debt, pay SS and Mediwhatever, pay the troops, and send all the bastards home. It's like Mom saying "if you don't clean your room before six, I'mna make you sit up all night watching Scary Movies and eating ice Cream"
bring it. I'm your huckleberry.
The the love of God, please don't stop paying our 2 million federal Civil Servants!
"a good exercise in imagination..."
Or, one of my favorite fantasies.
Re: not having your 401k
Precisely why when the Kenyan imposter was anointed, I moved every stinking IRA, investment portfolio and savings account of any substance to two overseas bank accounts that I set up over twenty years ago. We set up a series of LLCs for both deposits and payouts which reduce our tax liability tremendously.
And it's all legal.
My primary purpose was to avoid the excessive and multiple taxation the socialists would bleed from me.
But after the banking meltdown, stimulus and bank bailout--and seeing what banks are doing with OUR money--I will never, as in REPEAT NEVER, keep a substantial amount of money in an American bank ever again.
No matter WHO or WHAT is in office.
Never again.
I do not trust this government. I do not trust anyone who DOES trust this government.
--AOA
My 401K got yanked when The Media Company tanked, so I had to convert it to an IRA - now it's in a bank somewhere being managed by "Blackrock" whoever the hell they are...
I love the Texas Lawn Dart reference; and, unfortunately, I think that is exactly the direction this bird's headed 'cause there are too many critters in the cockpit with no clue or, worse, fighting over whose going to hold the stick like a bunch of drunken monkeys fighting over the last piece of poo to fling at the others.
I'll take my retirement in the form of land that can be cultivated and/or used to raise chickens and cows with enough guns to defend it. Anything else is pretty much worthless in the long run in my opinion.
What would they do if it all fell apart.
1. They would dial 911.
2. They would blame everyone but themselves for the predicament that they are in.
3. They would riot.
4. They would all die in a blaze of gunfire from those who actually spend their days preparing for such an event.
5. They would lose, because that's what losers do.
mycrofth4 - I shocked a coworker the other day when I confessed that I really don't believe that I'll be allowed to draw funds from my 401k when I can "retire" in a dozen years. I figure the government will decide that they should manage it for me by then.
After all, it's already been suggested at least 3 times since The One took office.
Yeah, I've mentioned that to some folks (including my wife), and I usually get a look like they think I'm crazy. "But... that's ILLEGAL! The law says that they can't do that."
The look they get when I point out who makes the law is usually pretty interesting...
Keep in mind that before Social Security, people retired to squalid apartments in boarding houses or with relatives, often times.
Social security has dismantled those options over the decades; it would take decades to restore what little support used to be there.
And I still don't see why Medicare and Medicaid focus on insurance, and not breaking the AMA grip on health care provider licensing. Keep the AMA doctors, but put general health providers on every street corner, then everyone will have access to *some* kind of health care, without resorting to the cash cows hospitals and doctors have concocted with insurance providers -- like emergency rooms and insurance schedules. Or the way doctors are paid to write scripts for expensive drugs being promoted, instead of the well established, cheaper-by-competition standards.
(HYPERBOLE ALERT FOR THE EXCESSIVELY LITERAL)
If you got the government out of all health care, you could get your triple bypass as a $14.99 Xtra-Val-U option in the same van where you get your $499.99 While-U-Wait Lasik...
...how long is this road and how many cans are there?
Social Security was created in the mid 1930s to provide the unfortunate, stupid, improvident, and disabled with a working class standard of livng if they did not earn a living.
Social sacurity will ALWAYS provide that, a mid 1930s working class standard of livng.
Like Medicawhatever will provide that mid 1960s medical care.
Face it, with the magic of the Federal Reserve System, the pensioners will ALWAYS get their checks. What they buy will just be a little shabbier, a little less every year.
Look at the French and British systems if you want to see us in 50 years. Or until that big war comes along.
Tam! I have been using a similar airplane metaphor myself lately: "all engines are on fire, so do we set it down hard now, or just fly it into the mountain?" I feel so validated.
I have also been using a comparison to a saying from the world of emergency medicine: "the bleeding always stops, eventually."
So it shall be with government spending...
Dirt: Pull 10k and mke down payment on a home in a red state.
Property is cheap right now.
Get a fixed loan, or do what i did and pay cash.
A first home is a free 10k draw from an IRA.
Who's to say "they" won't come for landowners? Eminent domain? Taxes? Something unheard of as yet?
Hard to move property - ask Californians.
Q
Actually, the O lied when he said the Social Security checks - and others, such as military pay - would stop if the debt ceiling wasn't raised. They aren't linked. The checks will go out. OldeForce
Oh yeah, technically SS isn't "free money". We've been paying in for years so we're hoping to get our money back. Now, I admit it's a ponzi scheme and we'll get back more than we paid in, if it stays solvent (good luck with that!). When I look at my FICA amount these days I choke! Wish I could put all that under my mattress, or buy ammo with it!
Your last paragraph does really sum it up. Unfortunately the pilots are arguing about how they want their coffee.
The Republic can be salvaged. It does NOT have to crash. On present course it will.
The only thing necessary, to save the Republic, is to abandon the PREMISE of Socialism.
All Welfare State programs, being un-Constitutional, must be abolished. There SHOULD BE NO Socialist Security, no SSI, no Welfare, no Food Stamps, no WIC, no AFDC, no S-CHIPS, no National Health Service, (insert YOUR favorite entitlement here) etc...
We shall BE free men or we shall not. The choice is ours. The decision and action are ours to take. Right now we are serfs and share-croppers, begging scraps from the Master's table.
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