http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ-4gnNz0vc

Powerful. And sad but true.

i call bullfluff.
at 1m hes talking about American factorys, i thought those were extinct?

if i wanted America to fail, i would turn the economy into pure service industry, all fast food and thrift stores! wait....

fluff you all

Bleh. Like either of these two parties could actually do anything other than get elected. Oh wait. All they have to do is get elected. Nothing else. Back to spending $$ on commercials.

If this were multiple choice instead of a 50/50, these jokers would never get a passing grade.

I'm not saying there isn't any truth to this, but there's also an incredible amount of biased spin.

The free market didn't lead to the rise of the middle class. The free market with socialist regulations led to the rise of the middle class.

The free market alone led to children working 12+ hour days in mines. Full-on socialism causes just as many problems on the other side. Let's stop pretending that the answer is either to let government take over everything or to remove government from anything.

There are some parts of our economy that government simply does better or more fairly than any free market solution would ever accomplish. There are other parts that the free market is far better for, but they need to just be kept in check a little bit, and there are yet other parts that the free market needs to be left alone to do its thing.

Government is a necessary evil in order to prevent worse evils from taking hold of particular sectors of our society. As long as people take the kind of simple-minded thinking based on absolutes that this video represents, there can be no reasonable discourse of what the role of government should be.

hah, oops. That was supposed to be an edit, not a quote.

And to think, I was just about to make fun of Sublime for quoting himself and not adding anything, but I'm guessing I know why he did that now. :P

Yep. Went to make an edit and boom. Dup quote post :)

Agree totally Sub and Twain

Government is a necessary evil and the smaller we can keep it and have it work effectively the better off the nation will be.

Sad that the media has dramatized everything now to the point that it takes videos like this to get people talking about the issues and how to find a solution.

Said video and videos like it all point to the same solution. To fix said problem. The answer must come from A), or B).

Problem is, it was a trick question. A & B are both wrong and there is no platform to create a C.

That's the thing that bugs me.

Again, I don't try to hide the fact that I'm generally liberal (I'm not like California liberal, but I'm liberal), but any time there's any attempt to put a regulation on something, it's the end of the free market.

I don't want all your guns taken away. I just don't want people running around with assault rifles.
I don't want the free market abolished. I just don't want unadulterated greed to be rewarded at the cost of hurting other people.
I don't want to take all the money from the rich and give it to the poor. I just don't want to live in a country where people are starving to death because they made a few bad decisions in life.

I'm sure the conservatives reading this could probably give the same type of statements.

They probably don't want to have a small arsenal sitting in their basements, but they want to know their hunting rifles are safe and that they have the right to have a handgun in their house for self-defense.
They don't want people starving to death on the streets, but they also don't want to give people who make no attempt to better their lives extra money just because they are abusing the system.

I made a thread about this in GT, but I think the 24 hour news cycle with stations like Fox News and MSNBC especially have made it too common to demonize and fear-monger. You don't see that type of stuff on the major networks with their 30 minute cycles. You do see it on Fox News and MSNBC, and those people who watch hours of Fox or hours of MSNBC or listen to hours of the vitriol on talk radio are the loudest people, so politicians have become afraid to work with the other side and instead it's easier for the Republicans right now to be the party of "No."

The Democrats basically did the same stuff with Bush (although they didn't have quite the resolve to do it like the Republicans have with Obama).

They're all basically treating politics and the business of Washington D.C. like it's a game they're trying to win and that compromise is losing.

um, politics isn't all compromise and favor trading?

How much compromise between the two major parties has occurred without a massive amount of drama since the 2008 election?

Every effort that has ended in a bipartisan fashion involved the people who were doing the compromising being attacked from both sides.

I honestly think Boehner and Obama could actually work together and accomplish things if the silent majority were the ones that were catered to instead of the loud extremes.

The whole reason much of the major legislation of the Obama administration is considered so liberal is because the only ones that would work with him were the other Democrats. The Republicans decided they'd rather walk away from the table and be the party of "No" than compromise, and again, I believe that's because anyone that was willing to work with Pres. Obama to create meaningful legislation would be labeled as a traitor or as too liberal and would be shunned by the RNC.

So gridlock is rewarded and compromise is punished.

how many people am i supposed to pay for without getting any direct benefit from what i pay out to them? i really don't see a solution other than a bunch of old people dropping dead. we're pretty much obligated to pay for them now. wonder if they read about Peter stealing to pay Paul before they decided to implement SS.

Disappointing Dibs

Those old people put money away for a long time and if the gov't had not "dipped" into it the situation would not be what it is today.

Twain

Once again you are correct. Both parties pushing the extremes. It is hard to get an answer on anything when each "News" station spends an hour taking 10 second sound bites and spinning them like tops.

those old people didn't put enough money away to even pay for what they bought, let alone enough to pay the medical expenses required to keep them alive. how many of them old people in the US are without debt and paying only property taxes and utilities?

the system could have been modified if the gov't hadn't bankrupted it already

there are a lot of different factors that played a role, but number one is the fed dipping into the cash those old people set aside

let's see, SS is what a 15% deduction? so, it takes 6.67 years for them to put in 1 year's worth of salary, though for most people it would take them twice as long since the employer is paying for 1/2 of it. 65 - 18 = 47. 47 / 6.67 = 7. so basically, everyone who has paid into social security has only contributed 7 years worth of the salary that they made by the time they retire. how you translate that into they contributed enough to live 20-30 years off of it? to get 21 years they need to get like a 33% yield on their investment... an everyday occurence, i'm sure.

for starters it is not drawn out at the full rate of their salary

second there are enough people that pass away before their 60th birthday and never draw it out at all

so with a little modification the program could have continued

the issue came when people who had never put in started collecting at age 11 or 19 or 25 because they have anger issues or have a disease of being a drug addict or some other bull crap thing

like i said there are a lot of contributing factors, but the principal of the program as it was set up were sound

if it had not been raped by the gov't it could be modified to adjust for the new life expectancy and it would still work

the issue is not with the lack of contributions by those who are currently over 60-65 who worked all their lives and contributed it is with non contributors drawing from a program never set up to handle them

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/...rs/maxtax.htm#maxEarnings

so, basically, you're stating that they contributed a lot less than what i said they contributed.

and the survivor benefits that are paid out

http://www.ssa.gov/survivorplan/onyourown5.htm

it's not free cash if someone dies before they retire.

i'm saying that the reason this program is in the state it is has to do with it being bastardized

if it was used as intended it would be just fine still today

the old people you say you want to see buried are not what is caused the problem

i said that we're stuck paying for them because they didn't set enough aside to pay for their shiznit. couldn't care less whether they live or die, that's their problem.

you might also want to remember that it was essentially the government that they voted for. it's the baby boom generation. they voted for the people that set it up and did it to them.

I totally agree with Khavic totally agreeing with Sub and Twain.