Comments on: Republican Equality

By: barker13

barker13 — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:06:13 +0000

Re: Sinz54; 2:23 PM --

"The stock market disasters of 1929-32, 1973-74, and 2008 should be enough to convince even you that you can't depend on your own funds in the stock market for your retirement."

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

Sinz. You can't simply point to the BAD years. Over time - and that's what we're talking about here, the long haul, averages, not just snapshots in time - private sector wealth creation is simply undeniable.

(BTW... how much money did you lose in the markets? Ya know... not everyone waited too long to get out... and some of us diversified our investments outside of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Anyway...) (*WINK*)

"...the 401(k) plan is an experiment that failed."

Not for me it hasn't, Sinz! (*SNORT*) I'm 46 years old. To my mind, looking 20-30 years years into the future based upon present day social security "math" it's the social security system that I worry about in terms of "failure."

"Private defined-benefit pension plans worked because all the workers' funds from a company were pooled into a giant pool run by the pension fund manager."

Earth to Sinz: As with social security (the largest "pool" one can think of) the "trick" to "working" is tied to ALWAYS having more INCOMING revenues dedicated to payment of current/future liabilities than otherwise.

Sinz... the "otherwise" is here for medicare/medicaid, coming fast for social security as a whole.

Sinz... jeez... don't you follow your own logic as noted by... er... YOU...??? (See: Sinz; 4/25/2009 7:55 AM)

When the *POOL* goes out of wack... upside down... it just means more people are adversely effected.

BILL

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:56:04 +0000

krove: Obama is still in his presidential honeymoon phase, having been in office just over 3 months. His popularity ratings are right in the average of popularity ratings for newly inaugurated Presidents--including George W. Bush, I might add. Check the approval ratings of the last 5 or 6 past presidents in April of the first year of their terms.

Other Presidents who did even better--notably Reagan, who won with 60% of the popular vote and whose coattails won the Senate--nevertheless saw their party lose seats in the next congressional election.

Presidential honeymoons don't wear off until the summer. We'll see how Obama--and his party--fare after that.

By: krove

krove — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:31:07 +0000

The viewers of Fox News may not agree, but the no one can fudge the numbers from the network's own polling (.pdf) showing that Americans like Barack Obama, and to a lesser extent the Democratic Congress, and want to see both reelected.

In the next congressional election in 2010, are you more likely to vote for the Democrat to help Barack Obama pass his policies and programs or vote for the Republican to provide a check on Obama's power? [question slightly reformatted]

Democrat: 46 percent
Republican: 33 percent

If the 2012 presidential election were held today, would you definitely vote to reelect Barack Obama, probably vote to reelect Obama, probably vote for someone else, or definitely vote for someone else?

Vote to reelect Obama: 52 percent (37 percent definitely, 15 percent probably)
Vote for someone else: 31 percent (23 percent definitely, 8 percent probably)

There's very little good in these numbers for the GOP. Starting first with the 2010 data, fewer Republicans (78 percent) than Democrats (86 percent) want to vote for a congressional candidate of their own party, and Independents lean slightly towards the Democrats (33 percent to 26 percent, with a large 34 percent plurality saying it's too soon to be pushed in one direction or the other).

The 2012 numbers look even worse for the GOP, with President Obama maintaining a robust +21 reelect number, including a +14 number among those definitely supporting or opposing him. Digging deeper into the weeds, 13 percent of Republicans would vote to reelect the President, compared with the 9 percent support he received from Republican voters in 2008, and Independents line up in favor of a second term by a 15-point margin, nearly double the 8-point victory he scored within such voters last fall.

You might think that this would lead the GOP to change it's failing ways. But judging from the past few months, as well as the latest posturing from the party, I don't know how likely that outcome is.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 18:23:24 +0000

barker13: The stock market disasters of 1929-32, 1973-74, and 2008 should be enough to convince even you that you can't depend on your own funds in the stock market for your retirement.

Private defined-benefit pension plans worked because all the workers' funds from a company were pooled into a giant pool run by the pension fund manager. The fund manager could afford to take prudent risks, since the size of the pool would always dwarf any one worker's retirement pension.

Now that more and more corporations have abandoned pension plans for defined-contribution individual 401(k) plans, the risk-limiting feature of pooling has been lost.

If private corporations won't pool workers' contributions anymore, then the Federal Government will have to do it. The Federal Government may invest a part of that in the stock market someday--as long as it, NOT the worker, retains control over the investment pool.

But the 401(k) plan is an experiment that failed.

By: barker13

barker13 — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 14:05:44 +0000

Re: Sinz54; 4/25/2009 7:55 AM --

Hear, hear!

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

But beyond tactics, we've got to focus on strategy and to my mind while I'm all for any "tinkering" that serves to move the revenue vs. expenditure ratio closer to being in line, long term I believe we should be working towards (though it'll take years...) a public concensus that what amounts to a ponzi scheme isn't really the best way for Americans to prepare for retirement.

Yes... moving TOWARDS privatization.

Yes... moving TOWARDS self-reliance.

Sinz. You pointed it out yourself:

"In the 1930s, Franklin Roosvelt set the official retirement age at 65, because at that time, that was the median life expectancy."

Well... even setting aside the whole concept of the "Ponzi" and how at the beginning you OBVIOUSLY have far more people (what was it.. 35 to 1 or something like that in 1935?) paying in then people receiving payouts... under the logic of even FDR you need to - at a bare minimum - tie the retirement age (when you can start collecting) to life expectancy. (As noted... presently roughly age 78 norming for men and women.)

BILL

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 10:41:49 +0000

danbmil99: The “nouveau riche” class of young entrepreneurs tend to be transnationalist and socially liberal. Among the wealthy of Silicon Valley, Bush was hated, the Iraq War was hated, and social conservatism is hated.Sergey Brin and Larry Page don’t care if Obama raises their taxes a little bit. Each of them is already worth $12 billion. And even the most radical Marxists on the Internet use Google.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 10:37:17 +0000

Bulldoglover100 sez: "....I am a middle class Republican...."

Are there any Republicans you could vote for? Which Republicans do you like best?

Because as far as I can tell, you as a "middle class Republican" has never had one positive thing to say about the GOP, past or present. Do you know what the term "moby" means?

By: danbmil99

danbmil99 — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 22:44:07 +0000

Interesting article. A bit wordy (even for me) -- but I think I agree with most of what the writer says. I too am unclear on where he comes down wrt health care, which is the 800 lb gorilla in the living room no one seems to want to mention (or is that a White Elephant?)

Perhaps the most interesting tidbit was the fact that > $200K voters went for Obama. Think about this: they are the people he promised to tax! What is going on there?

Are the well-off guilty about something? Or, on a pragmatic level, do they realize that if society crumbles, those $200K/yr jobs are going to dry up, and only the *mega* rich will have real freedom?

I live in an area where the median family income is greater than $200K. It's also staunchly liberal (Priuses, NPR...) My perception is that people here know they are living on a precipice. Their overpriced houses, high-paying but stressful jobs, unbelievably expensive schools for their kids... it just feels sort of fake, unsustainable. There is also a degree of liberal guilt, which clearly played into Obama's win. But there's something else going on -- a fear of where things are going.

Most of these people would be happy to pay a marginal tax rate of 50% and live like they do in France. They are not scared of socialism, but they *are* scared of a dog-eat-dog society where the underclass is poor, hungry, sick, angry, and armed.

By: Bulldoglover100

Bulldoglover100 — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:45:50 +0000

I agree with the issue of health care and this article not dealing with that reality but I have another problem with it and it’s attempt to correlate the middle class and the GOP. The GOP has always been known for white men as it’s strongest entity but has recently been over taken by the lower intellect and income because they are easiest to frighten with untruths. Hence the tea parties which held no basis in reality and the Palin supporters who seemed to thrive on rage.I am a middle class Republican and I could NOT vote for any ticket that included someone as ignorant and incourious as Sarah Palin. Regardless of someone liking these facts does not change them. It’s a reality we better deal with before it’s too late.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 11:55:21 +0000

In David Frum's article, which you cite, he states that skyrocketing health care costs have eaten away at the incomes of middle-class Americans. In fact, if present trends continue, health care will consume 20% of U.S. GDP in another 10 years. Yet Mr. Bauer gives short shrift to this problem.

Health care costs are rising rapidly, I believe, because while Americans are living longer, they are not retiring later. In the 1930s, Franklin Roosvelt set the official retirement age at 65, because at that time, that was the median life expectancy. In other words, half of Americans would not even live long enough to reach that retirement age.

Today, the average life expectancy of Americans is 78, or for today's kids, even 80. More and more Americans live till they're 90, after having retired at age 65 and no longer work to produce for the nation. This forces Medicare (and Social Security as well) to pay out benefits for 25 years of that person's life, which is unsustainable.

So Job One for the GOP has to be to advocate gradually raising the retirement age for SS and Medicare, from its current 65 to something like 73 (at least).