Social Security

[kiki5711]

I don't understand how raising the "age" of social security can be justified and even used as something "good to do" by republicans running for Pres?

What it really means is that, "we hope you drop dead" before you can collect any SS and we'll make sure you do "drop dead" by cutting cost to medicare.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I don't understand how raising the "age" of social security can be justified and even used as something "good to do" by republicans running for Pres?

The wannabee rich doesn't care what happens to anyone else, so anything that purports to allow them to keep their money and devil take the hindmost is find with them.

What it really means is that, "we hope you drop dead" before you can collect any SS and we'll make sure you do "drop dead" by cutting cost to medicare.

As long as it doesn't raise their taxes.

[tattuchu]

Is there any way to cash out my Social Security money? I want it now. I don't mind paying a penalty or something. It's okay if I get less than I normally would. I just want it now.

[kiki5711]

good question. I'd like to cash it out now too! but I think the only way to get it now is if you get on disability. so in other words you have to be dying practically to collect the money you invested into SS all your life, or until you're practically dead.

[Tero]

It all started with Reagan and Bush. The idea was that if you pretend these funds are here and there and you can do whatever, it would eventually confuse people and the whole of SS would disappear. But SS is a tax paid by us ants who do the work. It does not get a boost from the rich the way income tax does. As a source for the Gubment to use.

[kiki5711]

what I'd like to know is why don't those that profited from the wars, companies like Haliburton and such don't contribute to the deficit. After all they made a ton of money from the wars that "we" the tax payers payed for and got nothing in return but dead bodies.

[Pensioner]

what I'd like to know is why don't those that profited from the wars, companies like Haliburton and such don't contribute to the deficit. After all they made a ton of money from the wars that "we" the tax payers payed for and got nothing in return but dead bodies.

There is more profit from killing folk than keeping folk alive. Sad but true.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

what I'd like to know is why don't those that profited from the wars, companies like Haliburton and such don't contribute to the deficit. After all they made a ton of money from the wars that "we" the tax payers payed for and got nothing in return but dead bodies.

From a 1943 "Soldiers and Sailors Journal:

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

[kiki5711]

and that's just up to 2003.

Throughout the 1980s, Halliburton's subsidiaries continued their projects around the world (under management of former CEO Brian Darcy) even in countries once considered enemies. Equipment was provided for the first multiwell platform offshore China, and an Otis Engineering team controlled a gigantic Tengiz field blowout in the Soviet Union.[16]
[edit] 1990s

Following the end of Operation Desert Storm in February 1991, the Pentagon, led by then defense secretary Dick Cheney, paid Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root Services over $8.5 million to study the use of private military forces with American soldiers in combat zones.[20] Halliburton crews also helped bring 725 burning oil wells under control in Kuwait.[21]

In 1995, Cheney replaced Thomas H. Cruikshank, as chairman and CEO. Cruikshank had served since 1989.[22]

In the early 1990s, Halliburton was found to be in violation of federal trade barriers in Iraq and Libya, having sold these countries dual-use oil drilling equipment and, through its former subsidiary, Halliburton Logging Services, sending six pulse neutron generators to Libya. After having pleaded guilty, the company was fined $1.2 million, with another $2.61 million in penalties.[23]

During the Balkans conflict in the 1990s, Kellogg Brown-Root (KBR) supported U.S. peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Hungary with food, laundry, transportation, and other life-cycle management services.[24]

In 1998, Halliburton merged with Dresser Industries, which included Kellogg. Prescott Bush was a director of Dresser Industries, which is now part of Halliburton; his son, former president George H. W. Bush, worked for Dresser Industries in several positions from 1948 to 1951, before he founded Zapata Corporation.[25]
[edit] 2000s
5 Houston Center in Downtown Houston, which at one time housed the headquarters of Halliburton
Wikinews has related news: Civilians testify to Halliburton fraud, coercion

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2001 that a subsidiary of Halliburton Energy Services called Halliburton Products and Services Ltd. (HPS) opened an office in Tehran. The company, HPS, operated on the ninth floor of a new north Tehran tower block. Although HPS was incorporated in the Cayman Islands in 1975 and is "non-American", it shares both the logo and name of Halliburton Energy Services and, according to Dow Jones Newswires, offers services from Halliburton units worldwide through its Tehran office. Such behavior, undertaken while Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, may have violated the Trading with the Enemy Act. A Halliburton spokesman, responding to inquiries from Dow Jones, said "This is not breaking any laws. This is a foreign subsidiary and no U.S. person is involved in this. No U.S. person is facilitating any transaction. We are not performing directly in that country." Later Dave Lesar would book his own flights to the Tehran office through the UK arm of KBR. No legal action has been taken against the company or its officials.[26]

In April 2002, KBR was awarded a $7 million contract to construct steel holding cells at Camp X-Ray.[27]

From 1995 to 2002, Halliburton Brown & Root Services Corp was awarded at least $2.5 billion but has spent considerably less to construct and run military bases, some in secret locations, as part of the Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program. This contract was a cost plus 13% contract and BRS employees were trained on how to pass GAO audits to ensure maximum profits were attained. It was also grounds for termination in the Balkans if any BRS employee spoke of Dick Cheney's being CEO. BRS was awarded and re-awarded contracts termed "noncompetitive" because BRS was the only company capable of pulling off the missions.[citation needed] DynCorp actually won the competitively let second contract, but never received any work orders in the Balkans.[20]

In November 2002, KBR was tasked to plan oil well firefighting in Iraq, and in February 2003 was issued a contract to conduct the work. Critics contend that it was a no-bid contract, awarded due to Dick Cheney's position as vice president. Concern was also expressed that the contract could allow KBR to pump and distribute Iraqi oil.[28] Others contend, however, that this was not strictly a no-bid contract, and was invoked under a contract that KBR won "in a competitive bid process."[29] The contract, referred to as LOGCAP, is a contingency-based contract that is invoked at the convenience of the Army. Because the contract is essentially a retainer, specific orders are not competitively bid (as the overall contract was).

In May 2003, Halliburton revealed in SEC filings that its KBR subsidiary had paid a Nigerian official $2.4 million in bribes in order to receive favorable tax treatment.[30][31] , United Arab Emirates In October 2004, Halliburton opened a new 250,000-square-foot (23,000 m2) facility on 35 acres (140,000 m2), replacing an older facility that opened in 1948, in Rock Springs, Wyoming. With over approximately 500 employees, Halliburton is one of the largest private employers in Sweetwater County.

[Jason]

It all started with Reagan and Bush. The idea was that if you pretend these funds are here and there and you can do whatever, it would eventually confuse people and the whole of SS would disappear. But SS is a tax paid by us ants who do the work. It does not get a boost from the rich the way income tax does. As a source for the Gubment to use.

It's no different in Canada, and perhaps the same in the UK and other countries with similar systems.

I've paid into UI (what you can supposedly collect in Canada when you've become unemployed and meet certain criteria and perform certain tasks regularly, or at least pretend to) and CPP (Canada Pension Plan) for 10 years. I've never collected a dime from UI, though they've taken many thousands of dollars from me and apparently CPP will be bankrupt by the time I'm ready to retire - so where does my money go??

I've long been in favour of having the choice to opt out of both UI and CPP and putting my money where I want it to go.

[amused]

I can't find the citation, but it's repeatedly said that, if you include all the people who paid into SS and died before getting anything back, the average number of months/checks that are actually paid out, is 13.

[Seth]

what I'd like to know is why don't those that profited from the wars, companies like Haliburton and such don't contribute to the deficit. After all they made a ton of money from the wars that "we" the tax payers payed for and got nothing in return but dead bodies.

They pay income and other taxes just like everyone else, according to the law. If they get a tax break, it's because Congress gave them one, so it's hardly their fault they take advantage of the tax laws that favor them, any more than it's wrong for you to do the same, albeit on a smaller scale.

[Seth]

Is there any way to cash out my Social Security money? I want it now. I don't mind paying a penalty or something. It's okay if I get less than I normally would. I just want it now.

Nope. It's not there for you to collect. That's why it's a Ponzi scheme. It's built on the premise that today's workers pay for today's retirees and tomorrows workers pay for today's workers when they retire. Problem is, there are fewer workers in and entering the workforce, and more people retiring, so the burden on today's (and tomorrow's) workers will be even higher, because the retirees of today have "earned" their benefits, which means that the government has non-discretionary, obligatory spending it cannot afford to pay, and it's going deeper in the hole every day, particularly since Congress has been raiding the trust fund and replacing the money with worthless IOU's for decades.

What you paid was spent before you paid it on yesterday's retirees.

[Seth]

I don't understand how raising the "age" of social security can be justified and even used as something "good to do" by republicans running for Pres?

What it really means is that, "we hope you drop dead" before you can collect any SS and we'll make sure you do "drop dead" by cutting cost to medicare.

Because it beats the alternative, which is that the whole system collapses because there's no money to pay the bills.

When SS started, the average life span after retirement was quite short, something like seven to ten years. Now, some people are living longer in retirement than they worked at a job, or nearly so, and since SS is "until you die once you retire" rather than "you get back what you paid in," the whole system is unstable and unaffordable. Since it was set up as a last-ditch retirement "social security" program to make sure that the elderly don't starve in the dark after they retire, it was never intended for people to live off of for extended periods and did, and does indeed count on people dying much sooner than they happen to be dying these days.

The system was never intended to be the primary source of income for every senior in the nation for 20 years or more, it was intended to provide minimal benefits to those who had no other form of pension, retirement or investments to retire on for the less-than-a-decade that most people live after retirement.

Increasing the retirement age is merely an honest reflection of the fact that people are living much, much longer now than they were before, and they are also working longer, and should be working longer, before they retire and eventually die. The nation simply cannot afford to have huge numbers of retirees sucking at the public teat for extended periods. That's one of the fundamental flaws of the whole socialist/progressive social security paradigm.

People have to make their own way, work longer, and save for their own retirement rather than expecting the government to do it for them.

[Seth]

It all started with Reagan and Bush. The idea was that if you pretend these funds are here and there and you can do whatever, it would eventually confuse people and the whole of SS would disappear. But SS is a tax paid by us ants who do the work. It does not get a boost from the rich the way income tax does. As a source for the Gubment to use.

Liar. Congress had been raiding the Social Security Trust Fund long before Reagan, and the Democrats are just as guilty as anyone in that regard.