The Selfish Rich are Killing People

[CC27]

Hannah Bell Donating Member (1000+ posts)  Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Tue Jan-04-11 03:12 AM
Original message
The Selfish Rich are Killing People
   
We have a huge crisis in the country. The private pension system is collapsing. The public pension system is on the brink of collapse, and people are beingpitted one against the other. But, what we often fail to do is connect the dots: between the collapse of the public pensions system and the robbery of the country by the richest people. Here's another example.

This struggling small city on the outskirts of Mobile was warned for years that if it did nothing, its pension fund would run out of money by 2009. Right on schedule, its fund ran dry.

Then Prichard did something that pension experts say they have never seen before: it stopped sending monthly pension checks to its 150 retired workers, breaking a state law requiring it to pay its promised retirement benefits in full.

Since then, Nettie Banks, 68, a retired Prichard police and fire dispatcher, has filed for bankruptcy... Far worse was the retired fire marshal who died in June. Like many of the others, he was too young to collect Social Security. "When they found him, he had no electricity and no running water in his house," said David Anders, 58, a retired district fire chief. "He was a proud enough man that he wouldn’t accept help."

Let me repeat that last emphasis: the man was too proud to ask for help and so he died alone with no electricity and no running water in his house...

It is astonishing that both these stories, and I presume, the rest in the media, ignore the obvious:

The careful and decades-long obliteration of a fair tax system has brought these pension plans to the brink... In New York States, and virtually, every other state, we could wipe out fiscal deficits and continue to have decent pensions for people if the wealthiest paid their fair share...By abandoning their responsibility in society, the richest among us have consigned millions of people to a retirement of poverty and a struggle to survive...

There is absolutely no economic reason--NONE--that we could not have real, defined benefit pensions in America. ZERO ECONOMIC REASON, I REPEAT.

The only reason our pension system is collapsing is because of POWER--the power of the ruling elites in the business and political worlds to simply decide that people should not get decent pensions--defined benefit pensions. They decided that it was more important to drain the lion's share of our wealth into the hands of a few: that has happened because of an unfair tax system AND a decision to drain real pension money into the 401k sham system...which meant more profits for Wall Street. This, btw, is the entire motivation behind Social Security privatization--to put more money in the hands of Wall Street firms.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/12/23/931159/-The-Se.

..

Hannah is a DUmmies DUmmie.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x113214

[Ralph Wiggum]

She's already working hard to move up the list of Top DUmmies of 2011 I see.

[dandi]

Hannah Bell Donating Member (1000+ posts) 

The Selfish Rich are Killing People

While it is a sad state of affairs, and I really hate to point out the obvious, the problem is not with soaking the rich.

It's quite the opposite.

You see, Hannah Bell DUmbass, the problem with taking other people's money is that eventually you will run out.  Times go bad, money goes away.  Not the fault of the recipients of benefits nor the fault of the "rich".  The problem lies in the fact that no one should try and retire off of a public pension when there are boom and bust cycles in tax revenue and especially when democrats are busy ****ing up the country.  A public pension should be a supplement, not a sole income.  Anyone who is living solely off of one of those did piss poor retirement planning. 

Now you can blame the rich all you want, but the truth is that your greedy ass democrat overlords are getting exactly what they wanted - taking away wealth and spreading it amongst themselves while throwing you a crumb every now and again.

Frankly, Hannah Bell DUmbass, I blame you for all of this.  I think everything that belongs to you socialist harridans should be seized, liquidated, and "redistributed" directly to the tax payers you have stolen from for the past 50 years.  Then you can start at zero and work your way up; just like most of us have.

[JohnnyReb]

I killed my quota by 9 am. this morning....how 'bout y'all?

[Ralph Wiggum]

I killed my quota by 9 am. this morning....how 'bout y'all?

What's the bag limit these days?  Can we still whack more liberals? 

[jukin]

ar worse was the retired fire marshal who died in June. Like many of the others, he was too young to collect Social Security.

Asked and answered as to why the public pension funds are going bankrupt.

Here is how it worked in kalifornia.

1. Internet bubble produced estimates of double digit pension fund growth to the end of days. Politicians and public unions started basing pensions on 12% annual return for CALPERS. If CALPERS as the biggest public pension fund in the USA did it other public pension funds used it too.

2. Real estate bubble brought gobs of money in property tax to state and local governments. Some years property tax revenue was coming in 40% year over year and would continue to the end of days. Politicians and public unions got together and tied yearly raises to the year over year revenue increases. This is when government union salaries exploded.

Now kalifornia and it's local governments are stuck paying really high salaries (avg state employee is at $140K/yr), wildly overestimated rates of returns from investments, and pensions based on incredibly high salaries of the last years.  Yet the politicians and the public unions will not take any cuts in salary or pension benefits. They refuse to even pay in 2% to their retirement.

As it stood three years ago, working any public sector union job meant that you were essentially a millionaire.  It was and is unsustainable. The pols and union thugs done sucked all the life out of the host organism.

Sorry but I say tough shit. You had higher than deserved salaries and didn't save for your future. You wouldn't give back 5-8% to save your pension.  The greed of the average public sector union member is what caused the pension bubble.  When this happens all over, Greece is going to look like a well run organization.  There will be riots that the parasites killed the host and they have nothing more to suck on.
 

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Money is a medium of expression of compensation for one's effort.

Unless it is taken by force.

IOW, if one baker prospers over another baker we presume it is because he is better at his craft/marketing/whatnot.

We don't assume he is baking fortune cookies with extortion notes in them. He can only gain his money by way of voluntary transaction.

So the DUmbass opines that because a baker has prospered he is committing an act of murder if he does not share the gains of his labors with those less fortunate.

But if the omission of the gains of labor is violence then surely the omission of labor directly must then be considered equally violent.

Ergo I propose those who are unemployed (read: non-laboring) be met as a violent horde and they be rounded-up and compelled to contribute their labors until such as all society's ills have been assuaged.

All the more so if those indiviuals happen to recieve any monies collected by extortion notes, i.e. taxes collected from others.

[Attero Dominatus]

Hannah Bell Donating Member (1000+ posts)  Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Tue Jan-04-11 04:43 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. what do "obamacare" or "death panels" have to do with pension funds?
   
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When the economy is controlled by the government, everyone either contributes to the common good or dies. There is a soft form - so-called 'democratic socialism' - and a hard form called communism. In both forms, governments kill people instead of cut costs. In the soft form, those who are not 'cost effective' do not get 'free' medical care. In the hard form, people are rounded up and sent to the gulags. Since the massive taxation required to support the soft form kills any motivation to be successful, the whole system will lose its supply of other people's money. When this happens, a government will transition to the hard form. Under the hard form, you cheeto-eating primitives will be the first to be sent off to the gulags where what little labor value you offer is extracted.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Not fast enough, apparently.  And proportionally they seem to be doing it a lot slower than DU tombstones them for deviant thoughtcrimes.

 

Now this is funny:

This struggling small city on the outskirts of Mobile was warned for years that if it did nothing, its pension fund would run out of money by 2009. Right on schedule, its fund ran dry.

Personally if I was writing that, the last sentence would have been "So right on time, they did nothing." 

[jukin]

European nations begin seizing private pensions

Hungary, Poland, and three other nations take over citizens' pension money to make up government budget shortfalls.

Coming to the USA.  Watch your 401Ks and IRAs.  That is an awful big pile of money the politicians and public sector union members want.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Adam-Smith-Institute-Blog/2011/0102/European-nations-begin-seizing-private-pensions

[Attero Dominatus]

Coming to the USA.  Watch your 401Ks and IRAs.  That is an awful big pile of money the politicians and public sector union members want.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Adam-Smith-Institute-Blog/2011/0102/European-nations-begin-seizing-private-pensions

The Obama administration has already considered doing that. http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36823

[AllosaursRus]

The Obama administration has already considered doing that. http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36823

Yep! cashed mine out and took a penalty, since I won't likely live long enough to enjoy it after I'm 65! Bought gold and silver so when the shit hits the fan, I can buy up all the DUmmies stuff for 5¢ on the dollar! Not that I want any of their stuff, I just want to be able to show them we were right all along! Liberalism is a mental disorder!

[BannedFromDU]

     I don't understand how this is at the feet of the rich, all of the sudden. What Hannah the Wannabe Marxist C**t means is that she is simply in favor of taking money from people who have a lot, and giving it to people who, through the stupidity of government, were promised too much.

     What Hannah the C**t and other DUmmies cannot wrap their heads around is that government cannot work the way they want it to work: it can't ratchet its size and obligations year over year, without regard to what happens in the economy.

     Oh well - if we're going to soak the rich, I say we simply start with rich Democrats, of which there are millions. See how they like it.

[true_blood]

Hannah Bell Donating Member (1000+ posts)   Tue Jan-04-11 03:12 AM
Original message
The Selfish Rich are Killing People

Hmmmm,,.........that's odd. The "selfish rich" are killing people, huh?
Hey primitive, who do you think provides jobs for people? Who do you think pays for your welfare checks? It certainly isn't the poor people.

[Alpha Mare]

As usual,  DUmbass Hannah ignored the real cause.

The city’s rapid decline began in the 1970s. The growth of other suburbs, white flight and then middle-class flight all took their tolls, and the city’s population shrank by 40 percent to about 27,000 today, from its peak of 45,000. As people left, the city’s tax base dwindled.

Prichard’s pension plan was established by state law during the good times, in 1956, to supplement Social Security.  But the plan allowed workers to retire young, in their 50s. And its benefits were sweetened over time by the state legislature, which did not pay for the added benefits.

The city had already taken the unusual step of reducing pension benefits by 8.5 percent for current retirees, after it declared bankruptcy in 1999, yielding to years of dwindling money, mismanagement and corruption. (A previous mayor was removed from office and found guilty of neglect of duty.) The city paid off its last creditors from the bankruptcy in 2007. But its current mayor, Ronald K. Davis, never complied with an order from the bankruptcy court to begin paying $16.5 million into the pension fund to reduce its shortfall. 

Anyone care to guess the demographics?  http://www.clrsearch.com/Prichard_Demographics/AL/36610/Crime_Statistics

[true_blood]

European nations begin seizing private pensions
Hungary, Poland, and three other nations take over citizens' pension money to make up government budget shortfalls.

Coming to the USA.  Watch your 401Ks and IRAs.  That is an awful big pile of money the politicians and public sector union members want.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Adam-Smith-Institute-Blog/2011/0102/European-nations-begin-seizing-private-pensions

How true that is. They want people who have worked their whole life to pay for the gubberment/union leaders' mismanaged ideas and mistakes. I'll pull my 401k, even if I lose money, just to not pay for someone's stupidity. Besides,...it's MY money. I put it there. I saved, I invested.

[vesta111]

  How strange, I thought it was the poor uneducated, dope dependent that were on the streets stealing cars robbing stores killing folk.
 
 Sort of off subject but not that much.

Let me tell you something, the Shrine Medical Hospitals are funded by not the rich but by members that that may have little to give.

Just because a man becomes a Mason and Shriner does not mean they are rich by any means.  This is my Charity and perhaps the only one I will support, I have seen the hospital for crippled children in Springfield Mass. and the wards of children from all over the world being treated for free.

Sorry it is the time of the year for me to give thanks for the treatment one of my grandchildren received there.

Back on subject--  No better not get me going about how the rich kill people, few liberals take the time to become involved in anything but their wants and desires.

[jukin]

The Shriners, BSA, and Salvation Army are my only charities that get money.

The United way lost out when they came out against the BSA.  Although the person that called demanding where my yearly donation was said I could specify that it went to BSA. I said why have the middle man and to never call me again. They have not.

I donated to the Red Cross right up until they took all the 9/11 donation and spent it elsewhere.

I just got a thought. Health insurance companies have to spend 85% of all premiums on patient care. I would like to force that on non-profits and NGOs. 95% of them would be out of business the next day.

[thundley4]

I just got a thought. Health insurance companies have to spend 85% of all premiums on patient care. I would like to force that on non-profits and NGOs. 95% of them would be out of business the next day.

I'd like to see that applied harshly to every fundraiser put on TV by celebrities.

[GOBUCKS]

I just got a thought. Health insurance companies have to spend 85% of all premiums on patient care. I would like to force that on non-profits and NGOs. 95% of them would be out of business the next day.

You sure hit that nail on the head! MOST non-profits and other NGOs are in business for themselves only. You could cut the required percentage from 85% to 25%, and most of them would still have to close up shop.

[formerlurker]

As usual,  DUmbass Hannah ignored the real cause.


Anyone care to guess the demographics?  http://www.clrsearch.com/Prichard_Demographics/AL/36610/Crime_Statistics

Why the heck didn't the state take them over until their fiscal problems have been resolved???   this is beyond incompetence.

[Evil_Conservative]

Well then, Hannah Bell, you will receive none of my lotto winnings tonight.

[thundley4]

Well then, Hannah Bell, you will receive none of my lotto winnings tonight.

Oh I hadn't thought about that. Buy DU from Skinner or whoever owns it and open it up to everyone with no tombstoning.

[Evil_Conservative]

Oh I hadn't thought about that. Buy DU from Skinner or whoever owns it and open it up to everyone with no tombstoning.

[MrsSmith]

The Selfish POOR are Killing People
   
We have a huge crisis in the country. The private pension system is collapsing. The public pension system is on the brink of collapse, and people are beingpitted one against the other. But, what we often fail to do is connect the dots: between the collapse of the public pensions system and the robbery of the country by the POORest people. Here's another example.

Those that choose to receive government benefits instead of finding employment.
Those that choose to spend government cash on illegal drugs or gambling instead of giving to charity or paying more taxes
Those that vote for their own financial gain instead of personal responsibility and freedom are stealing money from the aged and truly disabled