social security

[one shot]

With close to a million dead from covid do you think SS will finally become solvent , seems to me the plan is finally working .

[Johnny P]

The breeders are staying well ahead of the covid deaths.

[one shot]

The breeders are staying well ahead of the covid deaths.

yeah but there's a 50 year lag time before they hit the SS dole , and they may get a job and contribute .

[Art]

A million people is a drop in the bucket since they are mostly geezers at the end of their collection life.

I'm interested to see what happens when the funds are really out and by law they have to start to cut payments. That will happen with Medicare first . The options then are grim. Either raise the tax past its already high rate, tax all benefits at every level as income, or pass legislation to raid the general fund instead of what they've been doing, raiding Social Security to prop up the general fund. Any of those are very, very grim.

This goes way back. The tanking of the Roman Empire had a lot to do with it running out of real money in the third and fourth centuries. Fiat currency can only "paper" over the economy for so long.

[togor]

It's demographics plus uncontrolled medical costs.

New therapies to wring out a few more years of life at a phenomenal cost. Like the new Alzheimer's drug that many want Medicare to cover. It is still being debated if the drug does anything, but the cost is undebatable at $26K a year.

Demographics. The native birth rate is down, way down. Below replacement. Conservatives don't want immigration, and they are lukewarm on social engineering to up the rate. Fair to say they want more babies born but they don't want to pay for them.

I'm okay with a controlled contraction of the population. But it will mean more emphasis on wellness and less on expensive therapies with limited return for people at the end of a long life.

[Art]

In order:

1. True

2, True with an explanation. Being in sort of the situation you describe I can tell you that at 75 even with the best payment options, the docs will start to encourage you to limit your options, for example discouraging chemo therapy for advanced cancers in people many over 75 in favor of pain/quality of life management.

3. A lot, probably a majority of conservatives I know actually do understand the need for immigration but want those immigrants, white, black or brown to buy into the values of Western Civilization/Representative Government; the old idealized "American Way" that I understand even Superman has dropped. I personally find that a good thing. Right now the Democrats are trying to pack the electorate by running what amounts to a massive smuggling operation. We're seeing now that that policy is coming to actually have mixed results for them.

4. So am I.

However....this is mostly Medicaid/Medicare and not the Social Security Crisis which is the bigger elephant in the room because it will indeed effect everybody and instantly.

Messed up and didn't quote you this time, oh well.

[lyman]

It's demographics plus uncontrolled medical costs.

New therapies to wring out a few more years of life at a phenomenal cost. Like the new Alzheimer's drug that many want Medicare to cover. It is still being debated if the drug does anything, but the cost is undebatable at $26K a year.

Demographics. The native birth rate is down, way down. Below replacement. Conservatives don't want immigration, and they are lukewarm on social engineering to up the rate. Fair to say they want more babies born but they don't want to pay for them.

I'm okay with a controlled contraction of the population. But it will mean more emphasis on wellness and less on expensive therapies with limited return for people at the end of a long life.

In order:

1. True

2, True with an explanation. Being in sort of the situation you describe I can tell you that at 75 even with the best payment options, the docs will start to encourage you to limit your options, for example discouraging chemo therapy for advanced cancers in people many over 75 in favor of pain/quality of life management.

3. A lot, probably a majority of conservatives I know actually do understand the need for immigration but want those immigrants, white, black or brown to buy into the values of Western Civilization/Representative Government; the old idealized "American Way" that I understand even Superman has dropped. I personally find that a good thing. Right now the Democrats are trying to pack the electorate by running what amounts to a massive smuggling operation. We're seeing now that that policy is coming to actually have mixed results for them.

4. So am I.

However....this is mostly Medicaid/Medicare and not the Social Security Crisis which is the bigger elephant in the room because it will indeed effect everybody and instantly.

Messed up and didn't quote you this time, oh well.

on #3

all the folks I know, and have talked to, have no issue with immigration, if done by the books and legally,

resident alien of full blown citizenship, either is good,

it's the massive illegal population, that are often granted benefits, that put a big drain on an already struggling system, this is something no conservative I know, and many D's are not for

[Johnny P]

yeah but there's a 50 year lag time before they hit the SS dole , and they may get a job and contribute .

Social Security pays more money to minors than any other government program. It use to be for people retiring, but hasn't been that for many years now.

[dryheat]

Social Security pays more money to minors than any other government program. It use to be for people retiring, but hasn't been that for many years now.

That is true. My cousin got killed in a car wreck. He was 40 and an airline pilot. He was making 100K a yr. waaaaay back when. SS paid for his kids to go to college. A friend has a friend whose daughter supposely got brain damage from all the drugs. She's "disabled" but makes a fortune in the antiques business. Just two stories about how SS covers things that it shouldn't.

[togor]

All I know is that immigration reform goes nowhere in Washington.

The immigration reform sticking points I would say are whether or not one can write quotas by region into the law, and what the numbers are.

It gets political very quickly.

But in the mean time the asylum laws way out of date. People blame Biden for them but he's just following the law. We want that, right? Trump tried to jawbone people to bending the rules, and maybe the #s were down as a result, but that was not a long term solution. Neither was a wall when people can just show up at a gate and claim they need asylum.

It helps if someone can actually wrap their head around Climate Change, because increasingly that is the root cause of people taking to the road. As a given region of land sees its carrying capacity reduce, then there are scarcities. And scarcities produce winners and losers. And the losers hit the road.

My father-in-law (a descendant of the German 1850's immigration to Iowa) liked to observe that America was settled "by the losers" of the various European disputes.

[lyman]

All I know is that immigration reform goes nowhere in Washington.

The immigration reform sticking points I would say are whether or not one can write quotas by region into the law, and what the numbers are.

It gets political very quickly.

But in the mean time the asylum laws way out of date. People blame Biden for them but he's just following the law. We want that, right? Trump tried to jawbone people to bending the rules, and maybe the #s were down as a result, but that was not a long term solution. Neither was a wall when people can just show up at a gate and claim they need asylum.

It helps if someone can actually wrap their head around Climate Change, because increasingly that is the root cause of people taking to the road. As a given region of land sees its carrying capacity reduce, then there are scarcities. And scarcities produce winners and losers. And the losers hit the road.

My father-in-law (a descendant of the German 1850's immigration to Iowa) liked to observe that America was settled "by the losers" of the various European disputes.

re trump, remember your side wanted to beat him down for Immigration and those policies they were beating him for were Obama era stuff,



meanwhile I have a regular customer that is a Brit Ex Pat, here on a green card, and was scared to death he was going to be exported when it expired,

[blackhawknj]

Conservatives have never believed that paying for babies was a government/society/taxpayer obligation. However, the "Great Society" took all the stigma out of illegitimacy, we have a situation best summed up by a New Jersey judge who told a welfare queen who appeared before him-as a plaintiff-that she was using her children as "meal tickets."

[togor]

Conservatives have never believed that paying for babies was a government/society/taxpayer obligation. However, the "Great Society" took all the stigma out of illegitimacy, we have a situation best summed up by a New Jersey judge who told a welfare queen who appeared before him-as a plaintiff-that she was using her children as "meal tickets."

You oppose abortion, or at least making it accessible. So right there, it divides by those with the resources to get an abortion, and those without.

Now fast forward a few years to when those kids are school age, but with precarious home lives come to school hungry, if they come at all. Ever try to teach a kid who has no food in his stomach? It doesn't work.

So the taxpayers feed him, and try to teach him, because at the end of the day, that is way cheaper than housing him in a prison.

[togor]

re trump, remember your side wanted to beat him down for Immigration and those policies they were beating him for were Obama era stuff,

My side is the moderate center, can be of either political party, that rejects extremist views. And as you know I'm not shy about putting my views out there, all of them being squarely moderate.

Since you put yourself on the opposite side of me, that makes you an extremist. A closeted one maybe but extremist nonetheless.

In real life this board isn't as extreme in their political views as they come across online. But then a lot depends on whether or not people have cable news in their ears all f*cking day. That surely does not help!

[blackhawknj]

Kids come to school hungry thanks to welfare mothers who spend their children's food money on drink and drugs.
I like to quote the words of the late Professor Elizabeth Fox-Genovese "By declaring reproductive freedom (i.e.abortion) to be women's exclusive right, it dismisses the claims of men and cancels their obligation to the next generation." One of the Great Unaddresed Issues of our day is the widespread rejection by men of the role of provider and protector-"Had two, wanted none" is their mantra, and there is the widespread belief that the duty of supporting and raising children belongs solely to the mother.