[quote=pri_dk] But eaves, your arguments – once one looks past the eloquence – really don’t make much sense.[/quote]
Thanks, pri. I realize that you’re telling me that I’m full of shit, but I’m vain enough to take it as a compliment, and be pleased that I at least bullshit eloquently.
[quote=pri_dk] [quote=eavesdropper]
So do I. But they weren’t able to collect SS retirement, which is the point I was trying to make. [/quote]
You were talking about SS? (even though you never actually mentioned it.) [/quote]
Actually, I did. The reference you chose was one of 3 points that I was making about Mr. Ryan’s analysis of the CBO’s report, specifically the fact that the income equality could be traced to the difference in allocation of “entitlement” program payments, identified as SS and Medicare. The three points I made were listed under that statement, and were conveniently labeled 1, 2, and 3.
So, while more money from “entitlement” programs, namely SS and Medicare, may be going into an age group of older Americans, the increase is not due to baby boomers retiring, since the report includes data from 1979 to 2007, and boomers didn’t qualify for SS payments until 2008 (only boomers who were age 62 and opted for earlier but decreased amount pmts. Those boomers wanting full amount payments have to wait until age 65; the very first boomers didn’t turn 65 until 2011).
Now, about your in-laws (and I don’t mind anecdotes at all, unless you try to use them as a basis for changing policy).
I empathize with you on this. I know that what you’re seeing with your in-laws pisses the living shit out of you, because it used to do the same thing to me (well, not YOUR in-laws, but….you know what I mean). However, the VAST number of older Americans (baby boomers or not) are not government employees who receive big-ass pensions and retire early. And Mr. Ryan and his buddies are trying to change policy in mid-stream – and, by the looks of this “analysis”, he’s trying to use the tried-and-true method of turning Americans against each other to achieve HIS goals.
My recommendations to you and others are:
a) Go out and get yourself a government job with a big fat pension, and/or
b) Work within the system to get what you consider unfair policies changed.
Yes, there are a lot of slackers on government payrolls, and a lot of nepotism. The system, by its nature, fosters that. But keep in mind that Werner von Braun was a government employee, as was Neil Armstrong. Richard Feynman was, and Thurgood Marshall, too. And countless others who give you, as a taxpayer, more than your money’s worth.
Also, I don’t know what kind of jobs your in-laws held, but keep in mind that ALL government jobs are not equal. Federal differ from state which differ from local, and all of the states and localities have their own wage levels and benefits. I can guarantee that there are a lot of low-paid “government” employees around, just as there are plenty of well-off retirees who never spent an hour on the government payroll. And policies have changed over the years: employees who took a job in 1968 will receive the retirement benefits in place in 1968. Unfair as that may sound, age 50 or 55 is no time to suddenly find out that the pension you were told you’d have, doesn’t exist. Just ask the folks at Enron….but that’s another column.
[quote=pri_dk]I The problem comes in when you look at my kids (their grandkids.) There’s no way my kids will have the same outcome if they choose the same path. [/quote]
That may be. In which segment of the Constitution did I overlook that guarantee?
[quote=pri_dk]….My kids will enter the workforce in a decade or two and they will start making SS payment that will go directly to their grandparents. They will pay federal taxes that will go directly to their grandparents. But, all else being equal, when my kids reach the age of 55, they will be looking at another 20 years of work before they can see any sort of “entitlement” payments or be able to retire.
Much of this can be explained with demographics – every generation lives much longer. But not all of it. For the first time in American history, there is an indisputable wealth inequality between generations. [/quote]
Sorry, pri. That last sentence sounds suspiciously like one that I’ve read in several newspaper and blog stories recently. And trust me: the powers that be want you to believe that the wealth inequality is a generational thing. It will deflect attention from the growing awareness that there IS a divide, and away from the speculation on who, exactly, are the HAVES as opposed to the have-nots.
Look there’s no question that there were some who made very good money during the 1990s and the aughts, invested it, and got out in time, or, at the least, hit that retirement “sweet spot” where they earned good money and followed that up with a generous pension. But relative to the rest of the population?. A significant chunk of those age 46 to 60 will be hit hard: many have been laid off in the last 5 years, and, trust me, age discrimination is alive and well in the workplace.
As for your kids paying federal taxes that go to their grandparents: Not to sound heartless but BFD. Where do you think my Federal taxes have been going for the past several years? What about yours?
I can’t speak for you, but mine are going to support, in part, a generation who spent their childhoods trying to survive the ravages of the Great Depression, only to be taken from their homes for 4 years and sent off to face the horrors of war. When they finally returned, they started the families that became known as the Baby Boomer Generation. They worked hard and made tremendous sacrifices to be able to provide their children with the things they had been deprived of: a safe neighborhood, time to be a child, an education, including college for many.
I’d like to be able to feel bad about the fact that your kids won’t be able to retire at age 55……oh, hell no, I really don’t.
So what? Who the hell should *expect* to retire at age 55? Seriously? At the very least, it appears dramatically at odds with the image of the “independent, tough, pulled-himself-up-by-the-bootstraps American” so popular in certain political circles these days.
I even question age 65, although I will reserve judgement until such time as I’m actually that age.
[quote=pri_dk][quote]Therefore, the Boomers can’t be blamed for the shift in inequality demonstrated by this data.[/quote]
“Blame” isn’t the right word. But you cannot dismiss the fact that there is a generational wealth gap. We can’t blame the boomer generation for causing it – nobody could have seen it coming. But I will blame the boomer generation if they don’t have the ethics to try and fix it. They have the power. They can use it to keep what’s theirs, or they can do the right thing.
[/quote]
Again, I was referring to Mr. Ryan’s assertion about the data in a specific data table, and the fact that, based on the dates, it would have been impossible for Boomers to be responsible for larger SS expense transfers during that time, because payments to Boomers were not included in the data set.
My bad. That’s what I get for actually reading stuff. An accurate understanding of the situation.
And, yeah, I can dismiss a “fact” for which I see NO proof. I have read the studies – not just the abstracts…or, god forbid, the blog reports on the so-called “wealth gap”. Again, stop reading the headlines and listening to the pundits and bloggers, and start reading the reports and analyzing the data.
And, after that, you still feel the same way, let me know. I have a long list of people who actually qualify statistically as the “older Americans” described in these reports. I know they’ll be anxious to talk with someone who will be able to tell them where they can find that gap that is hiding all their “wealth”
[quote=pri_dk][quote]I can’t believe that Paul Ryan is trying to take on older Americans. It’s obvious (at least to a few people) that he’s not terribly bright. But, man!! Someone needs to explain to him and his pals that he’s not playing nice with the group that
a) votes the most (by far!)
b) contributes the most money to political campaigns[/quote]
…But do you realize what you are saying here? Should a politician ignore the realities and simply cater to those that provide campaign contributions?
[/quote]
As a matter of fact I do. It was snide commentary on politicians’ propensity to recognize those groups of voters who either contribute or actually show up to vote. If I believed that this was a sincere effort on the part of Mr. Ryan to serve his constituents, I would not hesitate to praise him. But, given his earlier statements and proposals, I wouldn’t have expected him to have brought up the issue of income inequality on his website either (in fact, I believe that was also the reason UCGal posted the graphic).
As it turned out, he didn’t really want to address income equality, y’know, like it was a bad thing. He spent a lot of time trying to brainwash people into thinking it was income equality was due to, of all things, a “generational wealth gap”, and the rest telling people that income equality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and that it will send us over the economic edge (“Just look at Greece”).
Hate to be cynical, but I think Mr. Ryan’s just pissed that the nasty old people (who are all boomers by the way) at AARP said mean things about his plan that all his friends in Congress said was “brilliant”.
[quote=pri_dk][quote]And that illustrates another point: Many older Americans have “wealth” […] because they’ve been much more prudent in their spending habits. [/quote]
You are contradicting yourself here. You argue that older people really don’t have much wealth, but then claim the reason they have more wealth is because they are more prudent.
So your generation was better behaved than these kids today?
Now you just sound like an old person.[/quote]
First, let’s determine whether I’m an old person, or not:
Your statement: “So your generation was better behaved than these kids today?”
My statement: No, my generation has had their heads up their asses for most of their existence, just like every generation before them, and every generation after.
Your statement: “Now you just sound like an old person.”
My statement: Wait a minute: didn’t you just call me an old person in your first statement? If you think I’m an old person, shouldn’t I sound like one? I’m all mixed up now, and feeling highly inadequate.
At any rate, for future reference, when I place quotation marks around the odd word, it’s typically because I am in disagreement with the way the word has been used in something. And I believe that the meaning of the word “wealth” has been seriously, and intentionally, distorted here, to create a “generational wealth gap” where none exists.
But since the word “wealth” is being used to refer to the homes of senior citizens, I stuck with it. There appears to be quite a bit of resentment on the part of younger people about the amount of debt they are carrying, and that older Americans had an unfair advantage because they could buy homes unsaddled by college debt.
This is bullshit. I don’t have time to go into it now, but I cannot begin to tell you how difficult it was for my parents to buy a home. They were married for 9 years, and had 4 children by the time they moved into their first and only home. My mother still lives there, and pays out 1/3 of her income (yes, one-third) on real estate and school taxes every year. She has no other income, and no other “wealth”. She can’t afford to do repairs, and she can’t sell it.
Yes, I recognize that millions of young adults are carrying considerable student debt, some in excess of $300,000. My questions is “Why?” Didn’t they, or their parents, ever sit down and figure out how much the payments were going to be over what period of time? Ask themselves what kind of job would bring in the income necessary to meet the payment schedule? What the job market was in their chosen occupation?
But, then again, why would they? Nobody apparently did that when buying homes in the last 20 years, either. This perplexed me when I first heard about it, but then I learned that it’s supposed to be the bank’s job to tell you if you can’t afford something.
See!!? Another way those bastard bankers set us up! (tongue-in-cheek alert)
Seriously, we all have to get real here. We’re adults, and we’re responsible for ourselves, and those we create. Nobody owes us anything unless they’ve legally incurred a debt with us. We have to stop focusing on what others have that we don’t, because there’s a helluva lot more at stake here than a house or a pension or Benz in the garage. While we’re all bickering with each other over irrelevant shit, the smart people are busy at the courthouses, cutting all of us off at the knees.
But we also have to get real about our expectations. People rant about the need to cut programs and services, but immediately put on the brakes when it comes to those that affect them and their families. Here’s a novel idea: go back to the readily-available statistics on government spending in 1960 Then compare it with not only HOW MUCH we’re spending, but ON WHAT. Unfortunately, Congress has a bad habit of establishing programs, and then distracting themselves with something else.
We can take care of our citizens who truly need it. But not with the current model. “Change” does not have to be synonymous with “bad”, but there is no question that refusing to accept ANY change IS bad. The one problem we do have as an entitled society if that we’ve either forgotten, or never learned, the difference between “need” and “want”. That Difference is the equivalent of Dollars.
