The Graying o0f Americas Bankruptcy filers.

not everyone has good parents, some are not that lucky

some children are abused\raped in churches, abuse can happen anywhere, if one is unlucky enough to have experienced such abuse as a child, it can effect the growth of the brain and the brain chemistry for life

 

Note that you're not giving parents any agency. Parents have a responsibility to their children, and part of that responsibility is making sure that their children aren't born in a third world country. Only focusing on children who are unfortunate enough to be born to worthless parents in a corrupt country is just removing moral agency.

Is the child responsible for being born to good parents? Nope.
Are parents responsible for being good parents? Yep

Now who did you focus on?

 

You really think that some poor person in Malawi or some other third world country has a choice in terms of where to raise their children?

And if they would try to better themselves and actually manage to come here, you'd scream that they are from a shithole country and have no place in the US.

 

I'm still not seeing any moral agency being assigned here. Are Americans responsible for people who live in shithole countries? No, we aren't.

 

And their taxes are low because the country uses oil revenues to cover expenses.

 

You are out of your mind.

You are saying a government endorsed ponzi scheme, or unsustainable pension plan, is less detrimental to one's retirement than a 401k?

You are so adverse to anybody else making a buck, you are blind by the fact the government is robbing you blind in a collapsing ponzi scheme and pension IOUs.

 

I thought you based your morality on your god. Does your god not care about people in shithole counties?

 

BS. Inability would presume impossibility. It's phrased in the format that they are the victim, as usual.

Good. There we go. They weren't unable, they failed to plan.

So... mitigate their mistakes by forcing everybody else to contribute to an inefficient ponzi scheme for the benefit of a few.

Liberal ideologies always have the same common denominator. Forced compliance to protect people regardless if they need the nanny state policies or not.

 

One of the best things about having Democrats in power is that we don't have to deal with conspiracy theory craziness.

 

You really shouldn't make assumptions about people.

I served my time in the army and did 8 years.

It's a 20 year commitment in the armed forces for a pension. If you join at 18, you retire with a full pension at 38, and collect that pension for the rest of your life.

Did you deserve it? Sure, because it was promised to you. Is it sustainable? Absolutely not.

I have more compassion for military requirements. I understand the sacrifice. Municipal and state workers, teachers, college professors. Not so much.

 

Most of the people in my age group grew up and worked in an era of promised company pensions only to see over 100,000 of them disappear during the Reagan years, following the congress and Wall St. introducing the 401k in the late 1970's.CEO's Executives and Boards of Directors then took the money saved from no longer funding pensions and split it up between them creating the giant disparity we see today between executive and rank and file employee salaries.

 

It is an obligation. It should have precedence over our welfare system where it was not earned, but is considered some kind of right.

If it is not sustainable, it is time to start making a different promise to the military who dedicate their lives.

Things must have changed considerably since I got out. We only got 50% after twenty years, not a "full" pension. Fifty percent of an E-6 or E-7 pay was not going to be that great.

Where is the assumption? You did not put in twenty years.

 

Are you trying to assign responsibility to my god?

Sorry, but I'm sensing a pattern developing when it comes to lefties and responsibility.

 

Still. An E7 with 20 years retired with a base salary of 56K.

Half of that is 28K annually.

Collecting pension from 38 to 75 would cost tax payers 1,036,000 dollars.

How many retired military with 20 is there out there? How is that sustainable?

You said in response to me:
All I can say is those of you who think it is such a picnic, you are free to join up and maybe you will also make it to retirement age.

Yeah I took that to mean me.

Secondly, my service doesn't matter because I didn't do 20? Ok then. I'll just leave with a polite "thanks for your service"

 

Naw, I'm just pointing out the lower level of morality of those who get their morality from gods.

 

I'm not quite following you. How does it follow from you saying that my god is responsible have any bearing on me?

You blamed my god, rather than me. One that I kinda assume that you probably don't even believe in, but you assigned responsibility anyway.

I think it's pretty clear. You and responsibility aren't exactly on a first-name basis.

 

I saw this coming, and knew it would be a failure for most people. Many people cannot save, and any reason to get a loan, borrow, cash out their 401K, did so. Now when they really need it, boom, nothing left.

 

As usual, your arguments are diversionary and no evidence is provided to rebut the OP.

https://www.businessinsider.com/older-americans-are-filing-for-bankruptcy-during-retirement-2018-8

 

Just saying "How is that sustainable?" Does not mean it is or isn't. It is just a question that someone should consider before making the promise.

Who said that? You got out after eight. I stuck it out for twenty. Does yours matter? Sure. However, my point was that deciding that you want to stay in for twenty does not make it happen. It is risky. You can put in just short of eighteen and kicked out because you don't make the grade and it is pretty much eighteen years down the drain. I can assure you that after you spend eighteen or twenty years in the service and you start a new career, you may not start at the bottom, but you will likely be very close to it. When I left the service, I had two sons coming up on college age and my retirement pay would not even put a dent in it. I set a goal to find a job within a month. If that job was working in a service station, then I would work in a service station. I was lucky enough to get a job back in the aerospace industry and work my way up to a decent living before I retired a second time.

I have no regrets and I came out fine. Some of my buddies did not do so well. Some were killed in Vietnam and some were forced out before they could retire.

 

Just look at Gen.Patreaus who was fired from his position of CIA Director after he allowed his author girlfriend open access to his computer containing top secret communications.He gets close to a quarter million per year of taxpayer money for the rest of his life and in addition had a job paying him over $100,000 for doing little to nothing.Just look at how many ex Admirals have been caught up in the Fat Leonard court martials taking place out in San Diego,being convicted of paying Fat Leonard for repairs NEVER PERFORMED and for FUEL never used in exchange for booze, hotel rooms hookers and concert tickets, for 30 or more years.

 

I am not talking about moral agency and never suggested Americans are responsible for people in other countries. I am trying to point out is the holier than thou, self-righteous attitude of many conservatives that assigns credit for their lot in life ONLY to their own good decision making and supposedly superior character and work ethic. It's called the self-serving bias in psychology, but in conservative circles it is not only used to irrationally big themselves up, but more importantly to look down on other people who they deem inferior to themselves, and then advocate and vote for policies to punish those people.

 

Every system of government gets "broken" with time. Ours has and is destroying the country and it's people. But we the voters, are responsible for letting it happen. That is why first the voting system has to be secured by going back to paper ballots "in person" with ID to register and to vote WITH DRACONIAN PUNISHMENTS FOR FRAUD is so important. Unless the foundation is secured and confirmed, we are heading the way of the dinosaurs as Antifa is proving.

And as to your post, YOU and YOU alone are responsible for your decisions and choices. You are too ready to make excuses for failure of people to follow basic KNOWN rules. I bet you think and have bought into the fantasy that drug addition is a disease too? It is NOT! It is a self inflicted injury. We make choices, and we live and die by our own choices. I am NOT responsible for your choices., good or bad, YOU ARE! Choices have consequences. It seems by your post that people who make good choices in life are bad people, and people who make bad choices are victims of some sort, not responsible for their choices.

 

1) I agree with going back to paper ballots and getting rid of voting machines.

2) I never said that people who make good choices in life are bad people. What I said is that I have a problem with the chest pounding that goes along with the people who supposedly have success built on their own choices, while denigrating others who were not so lucky.

My dad was someone who was very successful in life and made a lot of good choices. Yet, he was also the most humble person I knew. He would never blame someone for not being successful, rather help them. That's what I miss with the self-proclaimed success stories posted on internet forums, it's the humbleness and acceptance that there was more to success than just personal awesomeness and hard work.

 

But good decisions, goals and hard/smart work IS worth to some to pound your chests. It shows the way to others how they can get there too. That is what drove me to be successful in life (by my value systems) is seeing these well off arrogant people, and doing what was necessary to become one of them. It is NOT an easy road. I DID earn it, and I see many who did not, wanting to take from me (via the tax system) to pay for their failures in life. They HAD the OPPORTUNITY to join me, instead, they CHOOSE to get pregnant at 18, stick a needle in their arm, not go to school, not learn if they did go to school, put the alcohol to their lips, buy things they could not afford etc. Again, these are personal choices we all make, and the price we all pay or the reward we all receive.

 

Total nonsense. Look at Chile. Buchanan and other libertarians tried their luck in implementing a libertarian society there - note, their notion of liberty is always of the economic slant, not any other.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-chile-social-security-20160812-snap-story.html

In chile they pay 10-25% of their contributions directly to fees, which does nothing to aid Chileans.

It's -not- just the economy, stupid. The problem with the right in general now is that their entire message is a Koch funded batch of sordid libertarian drivel, a throw back to the heady days of denying everyone but rich land owners the right to vote, etc.

How do we know this?

The tea party. The tea party was always an astroturfed Koch funded enterprise - https://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/final-proof-the-tea-party_b_4136722.html

The tea party started their bullshit astroturfed nonsense in 2009, auspiciously when they began winning seats, sitting republicans began vocally denouncing climate change.

The whole thing is a Koch funded charade and anyone who actually reads knows it.

The Koch family has been behind every scheme, enable by things like GMU, The JBC, etc - all to push their "economic liberty" model as true liberty, and it is succeeding. Americans are buying the message because they are being lied to and convinced via propaganda, enabled by the likes of citizens united to power vast corporate donor campaigns, into believing their sordid nonsense.

The true travesty here is that the American system already imposes a near impossible barrier to democratic change - things like the over representation of states like Wyoming, for example. The average Wyoming voter has 70 times the voter power when it comes to the senate compared to California. Yes, this is constitutional. And yes, it's part of the only portion of the constitution that cannot be amended.

The reality here is that the attacks on social security, Medicaid, the education system, are all nihilistic throwbacks to the 1900's. They don't even deny what the outcome of their pogrom will be. They claim "shanty towns" and "favelas" will be the likely outcome of - as the tea partiers claim - the moocher class, or, as the libertarian economists claim, the "parasites" or "predators."

They have succeeded in fracturing our national identity by driving an anti-society mantra of liberty, which is truly economic liberty, and only works for the top of this nation's income producers.

No, you, the desk jockey, or truck driver, will not benefit. We will, in the words of some economic libertarian theorists, be burdened with the yoke that was foisted upon the corporate class for so long.

Moreover, evidence of this is already leaking into our society. Mandatory binding arbitration denies each individual the rights under the constitution to sue in court, and instead, creates an extrajudicial system perpetrated, invented, and policed, by the very corporate entities we should be binding to the public will.

This is a very grave threat to our nation and is masquerading under the guise of "individual" liberty and it absolutely is -not- individual liberty. It is the richest American's liberty to liberate you from whatever you earn - which they have almost achieved and will achieve when they take our retirement, our unions, and every other blue collar protection that is designed to ensure our elderly are provided for.

Their system would literally lead to elderly folks dying in the street. The saying goes "The market will provide." Yes, it has. YOU should have seen this coming and prepared by saving money in accounts gangsters on wall street can empty at a moment's notice. YOU should have begun planning your life at 11, saving for the future and for day care for your kids.

It's YOUR fault the system we chose as a collective doesn't work for you, but will enrich the Kochs and others, and allow them to pollute with impunity.

It's -disgusting- and I am ashamed to see my fellow americans embracing this insidious usurpation of public will by powerful corporate donors. This is essentially a messianic cult and should be treated as such.