In comments following the post about Limbaugh, Coberly replied to me, in part, as follows: “but since the R’s give Rush credit for the “republican revolution” we should try to understand why he is so effective. and why it pays him to get our goat.”
It is no secret why hate speech is often so successful. Address an audience of fools and bigots and one need not be concerned with the truth of any issue. Bigotry is a combination of hate and ignorance and the small minds that are occupied by such thoughts are easily persuaded of their righteousness. Think of all the despicable actions of our fellow citizens and the truth will be told. Ours is a species of egotistical fools filled with greed. One need only a bit of historical knowledge to confirm that sad fact. Not all are so abysmal in their interactions with others, but it doesn’t take an overwhelming portion of the population to screw things up for the rest, especially when they are egged on and directed by the few that in spite of their own ability to understand their world they choose to use that understanding to their own avaricious ends. It is not the blind leading the blind in the case of the Limbaughs and the Kochs, etc. It is the blind being led by their own ignorance, fears and hate and at the same time being directed and manipulated by the smaller number of self serving scum that often make up the elite of any society.
A question for Bruce and Dale concerning an aspect of Social Security I had been less familiar with. Hope that I’m not opening a can of issues.
A friend of mine has been collecting his benefits for a few years. He’s worked all his life and deserves his SS pension benefits. So we are talking one day and he describes to me that his wife, who seems not to have worked at all or for a good long time, is also collecting a monthly benefit tied to his own “credited” work history. It’s not a disability benefit. He’s alive so it’s not a widow’s pension and I don’t’ think he adopted her so it’s not an orphan’s benefit (especially since he isn’t dead). So what is she collecting based on his work history and payments into the system? And how is it not welfare?
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/ny-fed-1-4-borrowers-carrying-past-du Student loans are another source of potential defaults in unpaid debt. Bear in mind that some schools in the Cal State system now cost more to attend than Harvard and even California’s community colleges are expensive enough to require some students to take out loans. Many students drop out of school when the burden of debt becomes too great. Note that not all student loans are federally guaranteed and some require payments to start before the student graduates.
So, health insurance companies charge us over and above cost for our health care. Same for Big Pharma. And, now we see that our future pool of highly skilled and professionals and scientists are mortgaged to the hilt before people even get their first jobs. Meanwhile, states like Florida want to privatize the public school system and cut their contribution to citizens’ educations to the bone. Yet another way the financial industry in this company can truly be described as a vampire squid. NancyO
Social Security retirement benefits are intended to replace lost income when the worker retires. The income lost at retirement affects the spouse and children of the worker. The family’s benefits are capped at a fixed amount. As children attain age 18, they become ineligible for child benefits unless they were disabled before age 18. The Social Security Administration’s website has a complete explanation of benefits payable to family members of living and deceased workers. The website is at this link. http://www.ssa.gov/
Private retirement pension systems do not usually include payments to the spouses/children of the worker. There is no law or other legal principle which would forbid the practice. However, any benefits provided in private pension systems usually require the worker to pay extra over and above the usual pension premium. SS’s FICA payroll contributions are set at a rate sufficient to cover the auxiliary and survivors’ benefits of retired and deceased workers.
So, how do I know? I worked in SSA for 32 years. I retired in 2003 after managing the SSA office in Santa Maria, CA for 17 years. Bruce and Coberly know the theory and practice of financing SS. I comment on the benefit system and how it is administered. NancyO
sadly, I think you are mostly right. but the habit of the left to be suckered by the hate speech doesn’t help them.
what we had on AB that I was responding to , was pretty much a hate-filled reply to Rush’s hate-filled rhetoric. what we finally got, thanks mostly to Dan was a pretty simple fact based reply that would have avoided our falling into the sixth grade schoolyard shouting match that may have made us feel good, but won us no friends among the folks who are not naturally hate filled themselves, but can easily be made that way by appeals to their basic fears.
fears which “the left” dismisses as ignorant, and so guarantees Rush his audience.
look at it this way. you pay an insurance premium against the “accident” of reaching retirement age without enough to retire on. one of the possible “accidents” is having a spouse with not enough income history of her own to have earned enough benefits on her own record to help provide the two of you with enough for both of you to live on.
on the other hand, many women have “earned” nearly enough to justify benefits almost equal to the spousal benefit… they don’t collect that. you can hear the liberal lobby moan about that. they want it both ways, you see.
i earnestly suggest people stop looking at SS… while it lasts… as “what is absolutely fair according to my lights” and just look at what they get, and whether in the long run it’s worth the price they paid.
and i will add this sentiment… even if you paid a million dollars and only collect 900,000 (inflation adjusted), that 900,000 when you need it may be worth quite a bit more than the million when you had another seven or eight million coming in.
not entirely true, but mostly true. on the other hand the retirement benefits based on ten years wages will likely be quite small. your ultimate benefit is figured as a percent of your wages… or what you paid in payroll tax… with a higher percent for low income, and a lower percent for high income… but still not less than about a 2% real return for even the highest earners. and around 10% for the lowest earners (or more in the case of disability or death)… but ten percent rate of return on low earnings is not a lot of money… meaning you high earners are not being robbed.
now if your ten years were spent as a baseball star you might still get a pension based on … say… 100k times 10 or 1000k, adjusted for “inflation plus growth”.. and end up looking like the pension of someone who got, say, 25k/yr over 40 years…
not a fortune, but “enough,” which is to say, “priceless.”
on the other hand if your ten years were at 25k… your pension would be about one quarter that of the first two examples. (math is not accurate here, just “conceptual.”) because the pension is based on the total you paid in, not how many years it took you to pay it.
and the jobs for the educated are being off shored along with the industries that used to hire them.
so of course there is no need to send kids to college unless their parents can afford it. because there is no need for teachers, or any education really except for tax lawyers.
This concept was put into the law to handle the stay at home spouse. The spouse typically gets 50% of the primary earners benefit. You get to choose the larger of the spouses benefit or your benefit, and can switch at least ones. Some strategies envision say taking the spouses benefit until 70 and then switching to the workers benefit.
say you can receive “just enough” by taking option A. or choose option B and get a 50 50 chance of either getting enough plus 100 dollars, or enough minus 90 dollars. Which do you choose?
The “experts” I have read say choose option B to maximize your expected return. They are fools. They are assuming that “just enough” doesn’t mean what it says and you have some unstated option for recovering from “not enough.” They also assume the bet is about money. The bet is really about life.
Consider, you are invited to play russian roulette. one cylinder of a six cylinder revolver is loaded, the other five are not. you spin the cylinder thingy, point it at your head and pull the trigger. How much do you need to take the bet? five dollars? a hundred dollars? a thousand? a milion? ten million?
answer… you are a damn fool to take the bet at any level.
further thought question: when you were three, did your four year old sister really get the biggest piece of burfday cake? does it matter?
final thought question: what does any of this have to do with social security?
well, a former friend of mine was pretty sure he wanted to do something in his retirement he could not do if he had to spend an extra one percent of his 100k earnings on SS. So he was willing to bet that the extra money he MIGHT earn in the market with that 1% was worth more than the chance that he would have to work an extra year before he was “allowed” to retire. In fact worth more than forcing everyone else in the country to work that extra year, no matter how much they hated their jobs and would be glad to have paid that extra 1% themselves.
of course at a 100k there was no chance he could afford to divert a different 1% of his income to those private investments. And I suspect he has NO idea how much that !% invested in the market is actually going to earn for him above what his SS would be worth. But in any case if he is still thinking of the bet in terms of money, he is making a very serious mistake. It’s about life.
For those of you that aren’t aware of the inadequacies of our current health insurance system here is a real life example that came to me via an acquantence. I don’t know any of the details, but it is presented as “now your covered, now your not” phenomenon.
http://www.change.org/petitions/blue-cross-blue-shield-henry-young-needs-rehab-to-live?utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition&utm_term=autopublish
In comments following the post about Limbaugh, Coberly replied to me, in part, as follows: “but since the R’s give Rush credit for the “republican revolution” we should try to understand why he is so effective. and why it pays him to get our goat.”
It is no secret why hate speech is often so successful. Address an audience of fools and bigots and one need not be concerned with the truth of any issue. Bigotry is a combination of hate and ignorance and the small minds that are occupied by such thoughts are easily persuaded of their righteousness. Think of all the despicable actions of our fellow citizens and the truth will be told. Ours is a species of egotistical fools filled with greed. One need only a bit of historical knowledge to confirm that sad fact. Not all are so abysmal in their interactions with others, but it doesn’t take an overwhelming portion of the population to screw things up for the rest, especially when they are egged on and directed by the few that in spite of their own ability to understand their world they choose to use that understanding to their own avaricious ends. It is not the blind leading the blind in the case of the Limbaughs and the Kochs, etc. It is the blind being led by their own ignorance, fears and hate and at the same time being directed and manipulated by the smaller number of self serving scum that often make up the elite of any society.
A question for Bruce and Dale concerning an aspect of Social Security I had been less familiar with. Hope that I’m not opening a can of issues.
A friend of mine has been collecting his benefits for a few years. He’s worked all his life and deserves his SS pension benefits. So we are talking one day and he describes to me that his wife, who seems not to have worked at all or for a good long time, is also collecting a monthly benefit tied to his own “credited” work history. It’s not a disability benefit. He’s alive so it’s not a widow’s pension and I don’t’ think he adopted her so it’s not an orphan’s benefit (especially since he isn’t dead). So what is she collecting based on his work history and payments into the system? And how is it not welfare?
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/ny-fed-1-4-borrowers-carrying-past-du
Student loans are another source of potential defaults in unpaid debt. Bear in mind that some schools in the Cal State system now cost more to attend than Harvard and even California’s community colleges are expensive enough to require some students to take out loans. Many students drop out of school when the burden of debt becomes too great. Note that not all student loans are federally guaranteed and some require payments to start before the student graduates.
So, health insurance companies charge us over and above cost for our health care. Same for Big Pharma. And, now we see that our future pool of highly skilled and professionals and scientists are mortgaged to the hilt before people even get their first jobs. Meanwhile, states like Florida want to privatize the public school system and cut their contribution to citizens’ educations to the bone. Yet another way the financial industry in this company can truly be described as a vampire squid. NancyO
you just need 10 years of work (40 credits) to be eligible for retirement benefits:
http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10072.html
Social Security retirement benefits are intended to replace lost income when the worker retires. The income lost at retirement affects the spouse and children of the worker. The family’s benefits are capped at a fixed amount. As children attain age 18, they become ineligible for child benefits unless they were disabled before age 18. The Social Security Administration’s website has a complete explanation of benefits payable to family members of living and deceased workers. The website is at this link. http://www.ssa.gov/
Private retirement pension systems do not usually include payments to the spouses/children of the worker. There is no law or other legal principle which would forbid the practice. However, any benefits provided in private pension systems usually require the worker to pay extra over and above the usual pension premium. SS’s FICA payroll contributions are set at a rate sufficient to cover the auxiliary and survivors’ benefits of retired and deceased workers.
So, how do I know? I worked in SSA for 32 years. I retired in 2003 after managing the SSA office in Santa Maria, CA for 17 years. Bruce and Coberly know the theory and practice of financing SS. I comment on the benefit system and how it is administered. NancyO
Jack
sadly, I think you are mostly right. but the habit of the left to be suckered by the hate speech doesn’t help them.
what we had on AB that I was responding to , was pretty much a hate-filled reply to Rush’s hate-filled rhetoric. what we finally got, thanks mostly to Dan was a pretty simple fact based reply that would have avoided our falling into the sixth grade schoolyard shouting match that may have made us feel good, but won us no friends among the folks who are not naturally hate filled themselves, but can easily be made that way by appeals to their basic fears.
fears which “the left” dismisses as ignorant, and so guarantees Rush his audience.
Jack
look at it this way. you pay an insurance premium against the “accident” of reaching retirement age without enough to retire on. one of the possible “accidents” is having a spouse with not enough income history of her own to have earned enough benefits on her own record to help provide the two of you with enough for both of you to live on.
on the other hand, many women have “earned” nearly enough to justify benefits almost equal to the spousal benefit… they don’t collect that. you can hear the liberal lobby moan about that. they want it both ways, you see.
i earnestly suggest people stop looking at SS… while it lasts… as “what is absolutely fair according to my lights” and just look at what they get, and whether in the long run it’s worth the price they paid.
and i will add this sentiment… even if you paid a million dollars and only collect 900,000 (inflation adjusted), that 900,000 when you need it may be worth quite a bit more than the million when you had another seven or eight million coming in.
rjs
not entirely true, but mostly true. on the other hand the retirement benefits based on ten years wages will likely be quite small. your ultimate benefit is figured as a percent of your wages… or what you paid in payroll tax… with a higher percent for low income, and a lower percent for high income… but still not less than about a 2% real return for even the highest earners. and around 10% for the lowest earners (or more in the case of disability or death)… but ten percent rate of return on low earnings is not a lot of money… meaning you high earners are not being robbed.
that’s total wages over 35 years.
now if your ten years were spent as a baseball star you might still get a pension based on … say… 100k times 10 or 1000k, adjusted for “inflation plus growth”.. and end up looking like the pension of someone who got, say, 25k/yr over 40 years…
not a fortune, but “enough,” which is to say, “priceless.”
on the other hand if your ten years were at 25k… your pension would be about one quarter that of the first two examples. (math is not accurate here, just “conceptual.”) because the pension is based on the total you paid in, not how many years it took you to pay it.
Nancy
and the jobs for the educated are being off shored along with the industries that used to hire them.
so of course there is no need to send kids to college unless their parents can afford it. because there is no need for teachers, or any education really except for tax lawyers.
This concept was put into the law to handle the stay at home spouse. The spouse typically gets 50% of the primary earners benefit. You get to choose the larger of the spouses benefit or your benefit, and can switch at least ones. Some strategies envision say taking the spouses benefit until 70 and then switching to the workers benefit.
thought exercises:
say you can receive “just enough” by taking option A. or choose option B and get a 50 50 chance of either getting enough plus 100 dollars, or enough minus 90 dollars. Which do you choose?
The “experts” I have read say choose option B to maximize your expected return. They are fools. They are assuming that “just enough” doesn’t mean what it says and you have some unstated option for recovering from “not enough.” They also assume the bet is about money. The bet is really about life.
Consider, you are invited to play russian roulette. one cylinder of a six cylinder revolver is loaded, the other five are not. you spin the cylinder thingy, point it at your head and pull the trigger. How much do you need to take the bet? five dollars? a hundred dollars? a thousand? a milion? ten million?
answer… you are a damn fool to take the bet at any level.
further thought question: when you were three, did your four year old sister really get the biggest piece of burfday cake? does it matter?
final thought question: what does any of this have to do with social security?
well, a former friend of mine was pretty sure he wanted to do something in his retirement he could not do if he had to spend an extra one percent of his 100k earnings on SS. So he was willing to bet that the extra money he MIGHT earn in the market with that 1% was worth more than the chance that he would have to work an extra year before he was “allowed” to retire. In fact worth more than forcing everyone else in the country to work that extra year, no matter how much they hated their jobs and would be glad to have paid that extra 1% themselves.
of course at a 100k there was no chance he could afford to divert a different 1% of his income to those private investments. And I suspect he has NO idea how much that !% invested in the market is actually going to earn for him above what his SS would be worth. But in any case if he is still thinking of the bet in terms of money, he is making a very serious mistake. It’s about life.