----------
In article , USA

wrote:


> On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 15:51:25 -0500, "Deborah Terreson"
>  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>----------
>>In article , USA

>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On Sat, 05 Feb 2005 00:28:48 -0500, "Deborah Terreson"
>>>  wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>----------
>>>>In article
, wbt{at}privacy.net
>>>>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> 
>>>>
>>>>You'll be sniggering when Dubya's yupwardly mobile,
'ownership society'
>>>>mentality puts you right smack in the middle of the
Alternative Minimum Tax
>>>>bracket, and Wall Street's billionaires party with your
Social Security.
>>>>
>>>>Selah!
>>>
>>> Hey if "sharing the wealth" among "the
People" is your thing you can
>>> always relocate to The People's Republic of China.
>>>
>>> There is nothing with individuals striving to live a better life by
>>> their own sweat (upward mobility).  Unless of course you are one of
>>> the slackers who perfer to have others carry your weight.
>>
>>Just READ about the Alternative Minimum Tax. It is the government's
>>ace-in-the-hole for almost unlimited tax revenue growth - and it is NOT a
>>new tax, just one that is a non-indexed (which means the amount of dollars
>>taxed doesn't change as inflation rises), and that means as more and more
>>'upwardly mobile' Americans earn more and have their property vales rise,
>>they will fall in to this tax bracket. There ARE NO DEDUCTIONS OR
>>LOOP-HOLES! to avoid it.
>>
>>The AMT was created in the 60's specifically TO make those then wealthy
>>families, who loopholed and deducted themselves into paying NO taxes, pay
>>taxes.
>
> 1960 was 45 years ago and you are first in a mad frenzy about this
> now???  Sheesh.

I READ a recent editorial in the WSJ itself, ("Don't worry, look at what is
set to happen!!") about the benefit to the market economy FROM this upward
push. Business is puffing that *they* do not have to worry about taxes going
up, because more *consumers* will fall into the AMT and pick up the slack
for them. Isn't it great to be an investor? The numbers are being calculated
that show how the tax revenue increase will be good for business - nowhere
do they say it is a BAD THING - of course not! These taxes mean that they
can continue relatively unscathed by the inevitable revenue increase
necessary to allay the national debt! Once more, business gets off with a
disproportionally smaller tax burden than the middle-class consumer. Hello!

If you read the editorials and policy pieces, the amount of contempt for the
working and middle classes are incredibe. Holy shit! Oh, sure it's couched
in elitist, arrogant economic double speak, but it's there. Between the
lines it's just dripping with rancor sometimes. I often wonder if subtly it
isn't a form of maintaining conformity with the 'screw the other guy'
mentality - consider that anyone walking away from the fold gets drilled
mercilessly for not maintaining the validity of the belief system.
>
> Instead of talking about what this tax plan can or will theoretically
> do at some distant future point,  try to show some examples of what it
> has supposedly already done to the poor and downtrodden welfare
> recipients from 1965 to 1998.  LOL.

The poor? Who's talking about the poor here? I never said anything about the
improvident.
>
> They got one hell of economic free ride during those years, too.  It
> wasn't all about the Big Bad Rich Peoples nor were the rich the ones
> that really fleeced the middle class taxpayer.  But you don't focus on
> that end of reality.

I *lived* that end of reality and it wasn't about giving assistance to the
needing, so much as supporting a welfare bureaucracy.

As someone who grew up in the back of a VW bus, it was NO picnic, and I
rarely got anything nice or new in my childhood. This notion that being on
welfare in the 70's was a ticket to the easy life was just not true. That
was a bullshit line Reagan threw at everyone to scare the middle class into
acquiescing to his policies. Used clothes and few toys was the reality. Once
I got a new bike when I was 12, and that was from an adult friend of my
mom's. What the perceptions were, were nothing like the reality of the
situation. It was about the so-called social outreach and 'morally superior'
welfare industry officials sucking more from the taxpayer teat than they
ever shelled out to those in need and from what I see of it, it's not
changed much in the intervening 30 years.

I will as an adult, be homeless in a culvert on the roadside before I'll go
there again. No thanks, already know what it's like to be spit on.

>>>
>>> I happen to like the idea of keeping in *my* bank account the money I
>>> earn for *my* retirement and the rest of the slackers who aren't as
>>> ambitious can eat cat foor or just lay down and die in their old age.
>>
>>Cupcake, YOUR Social Security retirement will NOT be in YOUR bank account,
>>but in the hands of a Wall Street broker who will earn far more for himself
>>off of it than you will get.
>
> Twinkie Pie, MY Social Security retirement will quite possibly not be
> anywhere.  I'm 49 years old.  I'm sure as hell not going to bother
> trying to set aside 4% of my earnings in any account and hope that in
> 16 years it will amount to a hill of beans much less fund my
> retirement on cruise ships.  I am a free lance worker so my income
> will (as it has always been) be sporadic to begin with.

And I am in the SAME boat as you. Self employed in the building trades. 24
years now. Work comes and goes and right now, it's gone. I'm finding myself
competing with third world workers who don't speak English, are probably
here illegally, and get paid 1/3rd what I charge. Ermmm. :(
>
> As for Wall Street brokers, I have no real love of them or the whole
> make believe world of the stock market.  In Dec. of 2000 I came into a
> small inheritence and I invested about $3,000 in a mutual fund with a
> broker.  On Sept. 11, 2001 I watched the towers burn and in the next
> few weeks I watched my money disappear on Wall Street.
>
> I understand why it happened and don't blame Wall Street or the
> broker, but I will never, never invest in the market again.  I lost
> all of the $3,000 and I simply can't afford to do that again.  I'd
> have been better off taking that money to Las Vegas and at least
> having a good time with it even if I didn't increase it.

The rub is, Wall Street's collective mouth is watering at the chance to have
access to SS money. What Bush proposes isn't about helping those Americans
whose jobs are outsourced to Bangalore and are living on 1/3 of their income
(with NO money left over to invest, BTW - what do you think THAT prospect of
not having enough future investors available is doing for the dispositions
of CEO's and captains of industry?), but it is focussed on keeping the
market afloat THROUGH the retirement wave.
>
>>Stop huffing and puffing and STUDY how these
>>systems work -
>
> I suggest you get off your sanctimoniously high horse and follow your
> own advice, Sugar Pie.  If you did you would realize NO ONE is making
> YOU invest your 4% in the stock market.  YOU have the choice to do
> that or to just stay in the existing Social Security Scam until you
> retire.  The 4% deal is being sold to young people and from your posts
> I gather you are closer to Boomer Age than to Gen X or younger so you
> will *likely* have a choice.

I am a boomer. The very end of the wave, so I am looking at being just old
enough to see that the backside of this ride isn't gonna be fun, and NO, I
never expected anything from the feds. Chances are, I'll never even SEE this
money I have had taken from me. In light of that, we save. Our household's
annual savings rate is close to 20%, it's not fun, or easy but it can be
done.
>
> I'll qualify the "likely" statemenet above further by saying that so
> far nothing about these reforms is set in stone.  Anything said today
> by the government regarding possible reforms may completely be
> reversed tomorrow.
>
Nothing IS set in stone, but there are alot of folks thinking that this is
going to be some panacaea for what is a population demographic problem. Bush
is selling this joke like it's gonna give everyone a comfy retirement, and
THAT is a joke and an outright lie. This is nothing more than a scam to keep
the upward accumulation of wealth going to people who need it less.

> As for what Gen X'rs decide to do with their money and retirement,
> that is their business.  You will probably be dead when they retire.
> Let them worry for themselves as to which way the government fleeces
> them for the "good of the many."

That's a load of bollocks. What an appalling culture you'd leave in your
wake. One of greed, avariciousness and materialism. Let's create a society
where people just rob and lie. How moral. Isn't that virtuous society
bullshit the new mandate from this second administration's election?
>
>> unless you have at LEAST a half a million to invest - you
>>will be given the poorest performing options with the highest fees. That's
>>how Wall Street works - always has, always will.
>
> But this isn't your problem.  Just as the WWII folks didn't worry
> about how the Boomers were being ripped off carrying them, I don't see
> a point in worrying about the next generation down.

Nice to see you are not trying to make the world a better place than when
you entered it.

> I say this
> because its each generations' duty to watch out for themselves and the
> Boomers never held the government's feet to the fire about Social
> Security so now we're screwed and so it goes with each generation.

You are SO spiritually dead. Yuk!

>  If
> the youngsters don't want this plan they had better say so on their
> own.  They are the ones who will have to live with the results.

So let's at least give them a 'heads up' and point out the things that they
may miss in their youthful naievete.

Jesus! Strike a fucking light! You see the EXACT same things, have the exact
same views but you will NOT offer any insight into the wherefors and whys?
Please!

Your tacit silence is a capitulation to the very things you CLAIM to
despise!

>>
>>Putting that 4% of your SS dollars in a bank savings account or rolling it
>>into a CD or 401k or a Roth IRA would be a fantastic idea - you'd actually
>>earn MORE, but that is NOT what the plan is - because there is always the
>>chance that you will spend that money instead on a big screen teevee or some
>>such nonsense.
>
> Unless you are 40 or younger you are worrying about something that
> isn't going to matter much to you personally.  If you are older you
> are already screwed.

I'm already screwed.

> The only ones who are being guarnteed a Social
> Security Ride the way its always been is current retirees and those
> aged 55 to 65 now.
>
> As possible temporary solutions: I'd be far more interested in making
> all govenrment employees join the Social Security farce immediately to
> bring in more money.  I'd like to see the LBJ IOW's to the Social
> Security program repaid in full now with interest.

That would be a good start, so how does it get forced to happen?
>
> Neither temporary solution would help future generations not yet born,
> but it might be enough to tide the bulk of the Boomers through.
> Promises were made to us, and dammit the first priority ought to be
> finding ways to keep those promises.  Especially since the government
> grabbed our money while making those promises.

I'm not expecting a red cent. I never believed the bullshit.
>
>>Isn't it nice to know that the Bush administration and their economic
>>policymakers know how to 'save' your money better than you could ever
>>manage?
>
> Why blame him for that?  I don't like some of his fix it ideas but the
> real blame belongs to that Late Socialist Loser FDR.  Social Security
> is and was from the start a Socialist program.  You can guess it from
> it's name if nothing else.  Socialism has NEVER worked any place it
> has been tried.  And it didn't work here either.

And this system is better? How. Is it because we got the Superbowl, Cheetos
and Hummer 2's?
>
> That old socialist, FDR was the one who thought his communist advisors
> and he knew more about how to manage YOUR money than you did.  He
> decided it before you were even born.  This is another friggin
> Democrat Party debacle plain and simple and to blame Bush for that is
> wrong.  I just don't like Bush's attitude that future people matter
> more than living ones.

Welcome to the suck-up to future consumers. This is about maintaing a
materialsitic, feminist, female-oriented consumer culture.

Boston Tea Party be damned.
>>
>>Considering the govenrment's record on debt, I'd say their notions of
>>'superior' economic ability are pretty condescending, no?
>
> Looking at FDR again absolutely so.
>>>
>>> That is free choice.
>>
>>Try and put your SS money in an IRA then.
>
> I'm not getting my SS money.  I'll be lucky to even see a fraction of
> it.  I've accepted the fact though not very happily.
>
> What happens to others who end up in the stock market is their
> business.  If they don't like the plan, they (and you) should start
> doing something real about it.   Griping on usenet is good for
> generating ideas but it won't get you any further than that.

And ideas are EXACTLY what I am trying to convey. Just putting up an
alternative to the mindless, 'soundbite' spin of the media. As far as taking
care and looking out for myself, friend, I'm already there. As I said
earlier, got a 20% savings rate on our meager income. Baby DOESN'T need a
new pair of shoes. Ones from Goodwill fit just fine. Guess that upbringing
of dearth is paying off now!

Deb.


--- UseNet To RIME Gateway {at} 2/6/05 10:31:00 PM ---