jeff2sf wrote:They'll have to deal. Laws aren't one size fits all. Tell you what, you, liberal dems, can have some means testing. Would that make you feel better?

Alright, are we all on board? Because I need to get back to McConnell and Reid in the next couple hours.

Means testing turns the program into something else. Part of the idea of Social Security is that it's universal--meaning that at least in theory everyone has a stake in its success. That there's so little appetite for cutting it, or even changing it, outside of overeducated people like us suggests that it's worked pretty well.

Three polls out today. A hung parliament looks on the cards, after the debate, with a huge Lib Dem surge.

Con 33 Lab 30 Lib Dem 29 Con +3
Con 31 Lab 28 Lib Dem 32 LD +1
Con 31 Lab 27 Lib Dem 29 Con +2

Of course with FPTP, the Lib Dems will still get effed by the electoral system.

Wild. I heard the Liberal Democrat guy kicked ass in the PM debate.

Ah, the things I would have had time for a few months ago.

jerseyhoya wrote:Blue collar workers and African Americans tend to have lower earnings which means they benefit from the progressive benefit formula. That makes up for them dying young. If we're going to generalize wildly by racial or socioeconomic groupings.

And blue collar workers tend to not have much retirement savings, IRA, etc., if any. That's what happens living paycheck to paycheck.

I was just pointing out that the people the program is meant to be a safety net for in their twilight years, the people that paid a higher percentage of their income into the system (IIRC, the threshold base is around 100k now, was around 50k a few years ago) get more of the screwing as the elegibility age rises.

Personally, I think we should just do away with SSI and go China style, where the financial responsibility for "seniors" lies directly with the family (children). If the family can't afford to support them, too bad so sad, go sleep under a bridge. I'm not being facetious. Me and Mrs. PiP send money to her mom in China every few months as her "cultural obligation", I send money to my mom since she doesn't get enough from SSI to pay the bills. I do it, so can you. Then again, we Americans were't raised with the same kind of "cultural obligation" to our elders as our Chinese counterparts, so this would probably be disasterous.

Phan In Phlorida wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Blue collar workers and African Americans tend to have lower earnings which means they benefit from the progressive benefit formula. That makes up for them dying young. If we're going to generalize wildly by racial or socioeconomic groupings.

And blue collar workers tend to not have much retirement savings, IRA, etc., if any. That's what happens living paycheck to paycheck.

I was just pointing out that the people the program is meant to be a safety net for in their twilight years, the people that paid a higher percentage of their income into the system (IIRC, the threshold base is around 100k now, was around 50k a few years ago) get more of the screwing as the elegibility age rises.

Personally, I think we should just do away with SSI and go China style, where the financial responsibility for "seniors" lies directly with the family (children). If the family can't afford to support them, too bad so sad, go sleep under a bridge. I'm not being facetious. Me and Mrs. PiP send money to her mom in China every few months as her "cultural obligation", I send money to my mom since she doesn't get enough from SSI to pay the bills. I do it, so can you. Then again, we Americans were't raised with the same kind of "cultural obligation" to our elders as our Chinese counterparts, so this would probably be disasterous.

Shit, that's downright unamerican. My parents still send me nice birthday presents and shit.

Phan In Phlorida wrote:Personally, I think we should just do away with SSI and go China style, where the financial responsibility for "seniors" lies directly with the family (children). If the family can't afford to support them, too bad so sad, go sleep under a bridge. I'm not being facetious. Me and Mrs. PiP send money to her mom in China every few months as her "cultural obligation", I send money to my mom since she doesn't get enough from SSI to pay the bills. I do it, so can you. Then again, we Americans were't raised with the same kind of "cultural obligation" to our elders as our Chinese counterparts, so this would probably be disasterous.

If this worldly-conservative view of China's near future is to be believed, you may want to use the $ you're sending to your mom-in-law to buy her a plane ticket out of there:

....will ours be the Chinese century? Probably not. China has just about reached high tide, and will soon begin a long painful process of falling back.

drsmooth wrote:

Phan In Phlorida wrote:Personally, I think we should just do away with SSI and go China style, where the financial responsibility for "seniors" lies directly with the family (children). If the family can't afford to support them, too bad so sad, go sleep under a bridge. I'm not being facetious. Me and Mrs. PiP send money to her mom in China every few months as her "cultural obligation", I send money to my mom since she doesn't get enough from SSI to pay the bills. I do it, so can you. Then again, we Americans were't raised with the same kind of "cultural obligation" to our elders as our Chinese counterparts, so this would probably be disasterous.

If this worldly-conservative view of China's near future is to be believed, you may want to use the $ you're sending to your mom-in-law to buy her a plane ticket out of there:

....will ours be the Chinese century? Probably not. China has just about reached high tide, and will soon begin a long painful process of falling back.

That guy may be right, but that article is the worst kind of half assed punditry. Glenn Beck probably has more insight.

If only I had the same knack for self promotion I could pull such a contentless bunch of broad generalizations and ignorant speculation as that guy.

Tetlock has these people pegged.

TenuredVulture wrote:
That guy may be right, but that article is the worst kind of half assed punditry. Glenn Beck probably has more insight. .

the World Affairs guy definitely uses 30 words where 3 might work as well.

OK, I'm back.

Nick Clegg is pretty much awesome right now. After reading up about him, I like this guy. He's certainly better than the other options for the UK. It's amazing that one debate can rocket a guy like this, though. Plus, he's atheist, so that's interesting. I guess he basically assures Brown stays PM, though, since he takes voters who just dislike Labour and weren't exactly voting FOR the Conservatives? I don't know much about this. At the very least it bumps up the importance of the Liberals, does it not?

All I know is that Top Gear doesn't like Brown and that's good enough for me. Go other guy.

Phan In Phlorida wrote:Personally, I think we should just do away with SSI and go China style, where the financial responsibility for "seniors" lies directly with the family (children). If the family can't afford to support them, too bad so sad, go sleep under a bridge. I'm not being facetious. Me and Mrs. PiP send money to her mom in China every few months as her "cultural obligation", I send money to my mom since she doesn't get enough from SSI to pay the bills. I do it, so can you. Then again, we Americans were't raised with the same kind of "cultural obligation" to our elders as our Chinese counterparts, so this would probably be disasterous.

Or better yet we could lure herds of senior citizens towards a cliff with promises of early bird specials and bingo tournaments, then push them off.

I think that would save a lot of time.

A new Pew Research survey shows that just 22% of Americans say they can trust the federal government "almost always or most of the time" and 65% say they have an unfavorable view of Congress. Both measures are among the lowest ever found by Pew.

In addition, the proportion saying they are "angry" with the federal government has doubled over the last decade, increasing from 10% to 21%.

An interactive chart plots trust in government and other data back to 1958.

Key finding: The political implications of this environment overwhelmingly favors Republicans. In fact, independents say they prefer the Republican candidates in their districts by an overwhelming 66% to 13% margin.

Speaker Boehner

I love how in England everything is guided by betting

"With bookmakers yesterday installing a hung Parliament as the favourite outcome of the election"

I'm looking forward to this election night so much

jerseyhoya wrote:

A new Pew Research survey shows that just 22% of Americans say they can trust the federal government "almost always or most of the time" and 65% say they have an unfavorable view of Congress. Both measures are among the lowest ever found by Pew.

In addition, the proportion saying they are "angry" with the federal government has doubled over the last decade, increasing from 10% to 21%.

An interactive chart plots trust in government and other data back to 1958.

Key finding: The political implications of this environment overwhelmingly favors Republicans. In fact, independents say they prefer the Republican candidates in their districts by an overwhelming 66% to 13% margin.

Speaker Boehner

I'm no expert, but in terms of trust destruction performance, I've got 2 Dems net negative out of 5, with Barry too early to call, and zero republicans positive of 5 listed, though was Ronnie a push or maybe a slight uptick.

By that chart, the Bushes were geniuses of trust destruction (Johnson was no slouch either)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE7SQRGM1Uk[/youtube]

The Dem running to replace Murtha's current campaign ad

what the hells the point of this guy. i disagree with him on everything

He's the token "We Democrats don't all think the same" candidate.

if only all democrats did think the same. maybe shit would have gotten done when they had a fucking super majority.

well, there wouldn't be all those democrats if we did.

but this guy, sheesh

fivethirtyeight
If Charlie Crist runs as an indie, going to take me 10-20 hours of work to tweak my Senate model to accommodate. Very much rooting against.
26 minutes ago via web