Solargate

[Danzig]

i can't help but wonder if....

the feds decided to just take all the money they've spent on all these now failed programs, and put it all towards beefing up ss payments-would more retirement age people have retired or could retire, thereby forcing firms to hire, reducing unemployment, etc, etc...and actually having something useful come from all the spending?
perhaps instead of pushing to give money to states to hire teachers (money lasts one whole year), put it where it will make a real change.

and for crying out loud, states who allow public employees to 'retire' and then rehire them a month later, stop doing that! how does that put one unemployed person into a job?? it doesn't!

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by Danzig

i can't help but wonder if....

The feds simply distributed the $2.6 trillion it owes to SS benefactors and privatized SS? If an employee instead of paying 6.2% in a payroll tax was able to put it into a private investment account and their employer matched it? If instead of investing in things like Solyndra, bailing out failed banks and backing up Freddie and Fannie the money was invested in stocks, selected by the investor, gold or if desired, even T-Bonds?

The answer is obvious. SS taxes are the cash cow of the government. Allowing 12.4% back into private hands is unacceptable because we have wars and useless programs and companies to invest in. The only way government will ever cut anything is if the funds are made unavailable.

Under George W. Bush the National Debt rose $4.9 trillion in 8 years. In 3 years and nine months the National Debt has risen $4.4 trillion under Obama. No fear though as if he can maintain his current pace of $203 billion a month (October’s total) he’ll top the $5 trillion mark and do in four years what took Bush eight. If he maintains his current pace and is re-elected he’s on track for a $9.7 trillion second term debt and will not only double what Bush did to the debt but triple it.


Wall Street and the 1% are the wrong targets to protest.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by dellinger63

The feds simply distributed the $2.6 trillion it owes to SS benefactors and privatized SS? If an employee instead of paying 6.2% in a payroll tax was able to put it into a private investment account and their employer matched it? If instead of investing in things like Solyndra, bailing out failed banks and backing up Freddie and Fannie the money was invested in stocks, selected by the investor, gold or if desired, even T-Bonds?

The answer is obvious. SS taxes are the cash cow of the government. Allowing 12.4% back into private hands is unacceptable because we have wars and useless programs and companies to invest in. The only way government will ever cut anything is if the funds are made unavailable.

Under George W. Bush the National Debt rose $4.9 trillion in 8 years. In 3 years and nine months the National Debt has risen $4.4 trillion under Obama. No fear though as if he can maintain his current pace of $203 billion a month (October’s total) he’ll top the $5 trillion mark and do in four years what took Bush eight. If he maintains his current pace and is re-elected he’s on track for a $9.7 trillion second term debt and will not only double what Bush did to the debt but triple it.


Wall Street and the 1% are the wrong targets to protest.

knowing how wall street has been, and most likely will continue to be, stocks are not where i'd place money. not a mutual fund either. my pick right now would be some sort of permanent insurance fund with a reputable life insurance company. it's a guaranteed return, which you never get with stocks or funds, and most insurance offers a higher interest rate than any cd out there. another option would be an annuity, same safe investments, same guarantees on interest never dropping below a certain percentage. unless you have years to hope for a return for long term investments, stocks are off putting for many.
matter of fact, i read an article last week in the ny times that said many financial planners are also advocating permanent life insurance. where else can you get a guarantee?
ask your insurance agent to do a fund vs policy comparison if you have money in a cd. it's an eye opener.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by dellinger63

The feds simply distributed the $2.6 trillion it owes to SS benefactors and privatized SS? If an employee instead of paying 6.2% in a payroll tax was able to put it into a private investment account and their employer matched it?

You want to force private businesses to fund an employee's retirement account? What are you, a Marxist socialist libertarian?

Dell, people have been whining about privatizing social security since it's inception. That's not about helping people or making better retirement plans, that's just a talking point they feed you. It's about the Republican game plan of privatizing everything they can and getting their hands on your money (war contractors, etc).

Privatizing social security funds would be a huge financial windfall to Wall Street in management fees (automatically making the SS return on investment smaller).

And that's the only reason they want SS privatized. Get it?

For the account holders, it's a good thing Social Security has not been privatized, because the stock market would have wiped out people's retirements three times over. Look what it's done to matched-fund 401K's.

People used to have three methods of saving for retirement: personal savings (that paid 5% interest), company pension plan, and social security. Personal savings are gone, paying only 0.05% interest. Company pension plans are gone (and you're on that side, too, of eliminating those, with you being in favor of union-busting).

The only thing many have left is the success and safety of Social Security. Yes, Social Security is a massive success, and has decreased elder poverty exactly as it intended.

But you want to hand that money over to Wall Street, so they can steal that money via fees and management? BWAAAHAAAAAA !

If that plan would be successful, right now we'd be rolling in people who are privately rich, due to their Wall Street investments over the past 40 years.

Oh, wait. They've been wiped out.

And, your figure of 6.2% on "payroll tax" for Social Security is wrong. You have to eliminate the Medicare portion of that. So you want Medicare eliminated, too?

You want to go back to the massive elderly poverty and elderly illness we had before those very successful programs were instituted? That's exactly what you are proposing, in your faux Libertarian zeal to get the government out of your life. Thank goodness you and your ilk have been outvoted for the past many decades.

[dellinger63]

and the beat goes on, and the beat goes on......

Newly obtained emails released by House investigators suggest that George Kaiser, a billionaire Obama donor and chief investor in bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, discussed the company with White House officials, directly contradicting earlier accounts

Shocked!!!

http://campaign2012.washingtonexamin...ed-solyndra-wh

Yet both Kaiser and the White House previously denied Solyndra was ever discussed in any of his 17 visits to the White House.

[jms62]

Originally Posted by Danzig

i can't help but wonder if....

the feds decided to just take all the money they've spent on all these now failed programs, and put it all towards beefing up ss payments-would more retirement age people have retired or could retire, thereby forcing firms to ship more jobs overseas thus increasing unemployment, etc, etc...and actually having something useful come from all the spending?
perhaps instead of pushing to give money to states to hire teachers (money lasts one whole year), put it where it will make a real change.

and for crying out loud, states who allow public employees to 'retire' and then rehire them a month later, stop doing that! how does that put one unemployed person into a job?? it doesn't!

ftfy, Let me guess, you haven't been in the workforce a bit.

[geeker2]

and the beat goes on....

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybens...lie_under_oath

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by jms62

ftfy, Let me guess, you haven't been in the workforce a bit.

i've always worked, i can't imagine not working.

[Riot]

Oh, it will be a pleasure to vote all of these losers out of office

Republicans keep on getting caught with their pants down over their Solyndra scandalmongering:

The loan was never approved by the Energy Department, but Upton’s advocacy for United Solar stands in contrast to his recent skepticism about the government’s clean-energy loan guarantee program.

Upton has pursued two lines of argument against the administration over Solyndra. First, he says the government shouldn't pick winners and losers. Second, he says Solyndra shouldn't have been given the loan because it was a company in trouble. This news exposes the hypocrisy of both arguments—not only did he urge the government to "pick a winner," he urged it to pick a winner that was on the cusp of failure.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/1...irm?via=blog_1

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by Riot

Oh, it will be a pleasure to vote all of these losers out of office

The loan was never approved by the Energy Department, but Upton’s advocacy for United Solar stands in contrast to his recent skepticism about the government’s clean-energy loan guarantee program.

Perhaps if a guy like George Kaiser, Obama's billionaire fundraiser, was a lead investor, like he was for Solyndra, it would have been approved like Solyndra was. Seventeen visits to the White House and Solyndra was never discussed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the loan wasn't approved, however it appears that the Auburn Hills company outlasted Solyndra despite a $500 billion disadvantage.

The Fed is broke it does not need to be loaning or giving anyone, anything. Period!

[Riot]

Originally Posted by dellinger63

Perhaps if a guy like George Kaiser, Obama's billionaire fundraiser, was a lead investor, like he was for Solyndra, it would have been approved like Solyndra was. Seventeen visits to the White House and Solyndra was never discussed.

Solyndra wasn't approved first, either. Then they came back with redone paperwork, and lied to the government, making them look better on paper than they were.

Yeah .. that whole, "lied to the government thing", is a problem for them. Not the government.

And I don't notice you getting your panties in a wad because the Waltons, of Wal-Mart fame, long-time conservative Republican supporters and donors, were right on the front line of Solyndra investment as huge backers.

Your pathetic attempt to blame Obama for this is beyond absurd, and everyone who knows the Solyndra timeline is awares of it. Go sell your silly Faux News-Daily Caller-Big Government nonsense elsewhere. People know better.

[Danzig]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...CWN_story.html

The great pipeline sellout

In 2008, the slogan was “Yes We Can.” For 2011-12, it’s “We Can’t Wait.” What happened in between? Candidate Obama, the vessel into which myriad dreams were poured, met the reality of governance.

His near-$1 trillion stimulus begat a stagnant economy with 9 percent unemployment. His attempt at Wall Street reform left in place a still-too-big-to-fail financial system, as vulnerable today as when he came into office. His green-energy fantasies yielded Solyndra cronyism and a cap-and-trade regime not even a Democratic Congress would pass.



and at the end:


Nor is this the first time Obama’s election calendar trumped the national interest:

● Obama’s decision to wind down the Afghan surge in September 2012 is militarily inexplicable. It comes during the fighting season. It was recommended by none of his military commanders. It is explicable only as a talking point for the final days of his reelection campaign.

● At the height of the debt-ceiling debate last July, Obama pledged to veto any agreement that was not long-term. Definition of long term? By another amazing coincidence, any deal large enough to get him past Election Day (and thus avoid another such crisis next year).

●On Tuesday it was revealed that last year the administration pressured Solyndra, as it was failing, to delay its planned Oct. 28 announcement of layoffs until Nov. 3, the day after the midterm election.

A contemporaneous e-mail from a Solyndra investor noted: “Oddly they didn’t give a reason for that date.” The writer was obviously born yesterday. The American electorate was not — and it soon gets to decide who really puts party over nation and reelection above all.

We can’t wait.

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by Riot

Your pathetic attempt to blame Obama for this is beyond absurd, and everyone who knows the Solyndra timeline is awares of it.

And your ignorance to who George Kaiser is, the fact he is a billionaire and visited the White House more than Obama's blood family combined makes you once again the poster child of a chump!

Everyone doesn't know the Solyndra timeline but hopefully they will by the next election. And hopefully knowing who George Kaiser is will bring about the change Obama ran on, the first time.