Increasing Social Security

~ susie

Through the years, I’ve seen large corporations complain about the burden of administering their pension plans. It really can be complicated, so you’d think they’d be the first people in line to support Social Security as a national pension plan instead. I agree with Krugman that even the fact that it’s being talked about openly is good news:

Before I get there, however, let me briefly take on two bad arguments for cutting Social Security that you still hear a lot.

One is that we should raise the retirement age — currently 66, and scheduled to rise to 67 — because people are living longer. This sounds plausible until you look at exactly who is living longer. The rise in life expectancy, it turns out, is overwhelmingly a story about affluent, well-educated Americans. Those with lower incomes and less education have, at best, seen hardly any rise in life expectancy at age 65; in fact, those with less education have seen their life expectancy decline.

So this common argument amounts, in effect, to the notion that we can’t let janitors retire because lawyers are living longer. And lower-income Americans, in case you haven’t noticed, are the people who need Social Security most.

The other argument is that seniors are doing just fine. Hey, their poverty rate is only 9 percent.

There are two big problems here. First, there are well-known flaws with the official poverty measure, and these flaws almost surely lead to serious understatement of elderly poverty. In an attempt to provide a more realistic picture, the Census Bureau now regularly releases a supplemental measure that most experts consider superior — and this measure puts senior poverty at 14.8 percent, close to the rate for younger adults.

Furthermore, the elderly poverty rate is highly likely to rise sharply in the future, as the failure of America’s private pension system takes its toll.

When you look at today’s older Americans, you are in large part looking at the legacy of an economy that is no more. Many workers used to have defined-benefit retirement plans, plans in which their employers guaranteed a steady income after retirement. And a fair number of seniors (like my father, until he passed away a few months ago) are still collecting benefits from such plans.

Today, however, workers who have any retirement plan at all generally have defined-contribution plans — basically, 401(k)’s — in which employers put money into a tax-sheltered account that’s supposed to end up big enough to retire on. The trouble is that at this point it’s clear that the shift to 401(k)’s was a gigantic failure. Employers took advantage of the switch to surreptitiously cut benefits; investment returns have been far lower than workers were told to expect; and, to be fair, many people haven’t managed their money wisely.

You mean, by assuming that Wall Street wasn’t going to lie to them?
Continue reading “Increasing Social Security” →

Concerning the facts and consequences of the tragic death of President John F. Kennedy

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

This is very, very long — but very perceptive.

November 23rd, 1963

A speech by Fidel Castro

Always, when something very important has happened, national or international, we have thought it desirable to speak to the people, to express our opinions. And in every such case to express the orientation of the Government, the orientation of our Party, so that each one of us all know the attitude we should adopt in each one of these situations.

It is true that we are somewhat accustomed to various types of unexpected events, important, serious events, because since the victory of the Revolution our country has had to face a series of problems, a series of situations that have prepared the people to carry forward their victorious revolution.

Therefore, because of the events of yesterday in the United States in which the President was murdered, because of the repercussion these events can have, because of the role that the United States plays in the problems of international policy, because of this, we believe that we should make a specially objective and calm analysis of these events and of their possible consequences.

The government of the United States, the former administration of Eisenhower and the Kennedy administration, did not practice precisely a policy of friendship toward us. The policy of both administrations was characterized by its aggressive, hostile, and implacable spirit toward our country.

Our country was the victim of economic aggressions intended to cause the ruin of our economy and the starvation of our people; it was the victim of all kinds of attacks that caused bloodshed; hundreds of our compatriots have lost their lives, defending themselves from attacks of U.S. imperialism, and not only this. The hostility and the aggressiveness of U.S. imperialism toward our country took us to the brink of war which was fortunately avoided, took the world to the brink of thermonuclear war.

And even when we were not facing a situation like the crisis of October, and the time of the invasion of Giron [Bay of Pigs], we — were all perfectly aware that if the plots they were planning against our country had been carried through, that is to say, if imperialism had been able to establish a beachhead on our shores, that struggle would have cost our people tens of thousands, and perhaps even hundreds of thousands of lives.

We have been victims of the constant hostility of the United States And among the rulers and the leading men of the United States, there falls on Kennedy an important responsibility in these events.

Nevertheless, the news of the murder of the President of the United States is serious news and bad news. We should analyze it thoroughly in order to understand it; above all, analyze it serenely and dispassionately, as revolutionaries should analyze these things.

I say it is bad news, leaving aside the human question, in that the sensitivity of man, any man, is affected by an act of this nature, by a crime, by a murder. I say that leaving these questions aside, I always react and I am sure that this is the reaction of the immense majority of human beings — we always react with repulsion toward murder and toward crime.

We cannot consider this to be a correct weapon of struggle — no, we cannot consider that. Above all under the conditions in which it happened, because — like all these things — it is always necessary to consider the atmosphere, the things, the circumstances.

In other settings, under other circumstances, whatever they may be in a normal situation, in a peaceful situation, a deed of this nature is never justifiable. Especially in the middle of a crowd, in the presence of women, all these things, which above all — I say — are the circumstances that lead us to take a condemnatory attitude toward something, even though some deeds of a political nature, some crimes of a political nature, may or may not be justified.

In the circumstances that surrounded the assassination of President Kennedy, we believe it has no justification.

But analyzing the question from the political, objective point of view, I also said it was serious news, bad news.
Continue reading “Concerning the facts and consequences of the tragic death of President John F. Kennedy” →

Now he’ll get paid for feeling victimized

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

This guy is creepy and scary:

Pennsylvania ‘libtard’-hating chief charging $25 a month to serve in ‘militia’ (via Raw Story )

Gilberton, Pennsylvania Police Chief Mark Kessler is organizing what he calls a “professional” militia while awaiting the final decision on his job status. The Patriot News reported on Thursday that Kessler, who is still the subject of a termination…

Continue reading “Now he’ll get paid for feeling victimized” →

No, really

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

I’v actually wondered why potatoes are sold in such huge bags. Now I know!

Pennsylvania potato farmers across the state are cheering in unison for state Sen. David Argall this week.

Senator, this spud’s for you.

The state is one step closer to liberating potato sales from long held weight restrictions on the sale of taters. Currently, potatoes can only be sold in in bags that total less than three pounds or in exact weights of three, five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 50 or multiples of 100 pounds.

That’s right: It’s illegal to sell potatoes in quantities that equal say four pounds, or seven, or 22.

Following the state House’s approval to lift the weight restrictions by a vote of 197-0 on Thursday, it’s apparent that lawmakers aren’t teetering on tubers and Argall declared Pennsylvania “one step closer to repealing this obsolete restriction and allowing the market to dictate potato packaging.”