Comments on: In The Not So Perfect World…

By: linden

linden — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:27:46 +0000

Just a little nit to pick. SSI is an income program for disabled adults who do not have a previous work history of 40 consecutive quarters. By definition, the people who receive it have not “paid into the system.” People who are past retirement age can and do receive it, but their Social Security retirement check is reduced dollar-for-dollar by the amount they receive in SSI. Since their work history during their lifetimes was usually sketchy, they don’t have much coming to them in retirement funds and SSI makes up the difference. In that way, it acts sort of like a pension.

The SSI payment rate for 2008 is the princely sum of $637 per month. Some states supplement that amount.

By: pluege

pluege — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 23:01:56 +0000

In the past five years, America’s briskly rising productivity has been the envy of much of the world. But again, there’s been no corresponding increase in most people’s wages.

why would anyone think rising productivity would mean better living for the average worker? “productivity” is dog whistle for getting machines to do jobs people used to do. Its what has pushed most workers into lower paying, less skilled jobs. The only ones that should be excited about rising productivity are the corportists chieftains eager to shed payroll.
.

By: Crosstimbers

Crosstimbers — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:55:31 +0000

Agreed, and I sure miss them. But, I’ve been able to convert one wife into a solid liberal, raise three rock solid liberal children, and placing seeds with the grandkids. Only thing, DW, is my parents always told me that they chose me? LOL.

By: DWBartoo

DWBartoo — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:48:15 +0000

I too, remember the Army-McCarthy hearings, my father, who was a professor and his fiends, including several who were European, would meet at our house and talk about their concerns. I recall one professor who had come to this country from Austria, making the comment, ‘You have Nazis in your country.’ I asked my father later what that meant. Crosstimbers, you and I were most lucky, I think, in choosing our parents so wisely.

By: Crosstimbers

Crosstimbers — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:33:36 +0000

Yes, I can remember it as well as the 1956 election. My dad was a printer and an officer in the International Typographic Union, so we were some of the few liberals among southern Democrats. At school, I was an Adlai Stevenson supporter and was always outnumbered by those supporting conservatives, until 1960, when it was about half and half.

On of my earliest memories is of my highly politicized family watching the Army-McCarthy hearings, like other families watched wrestling. My parents both jumped up and cheered when Army attorney Joseph Welch said, “At long last, sir, have you no sense of decency?”

By: cinnamonape

cinnamonape — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:28:18 +0000

BTW I see an very interesting political commercial on the horizon. It opens with a prescient scene from the Simpsons circa 1992 when Homer is looking down into the cradle of little Baby Lisa. Homer says “Oh my sweety, I’ve already opened up a college savings account at Lincoln Savings and Loan for you.”

[Note: this actually happened, Lincoln only later went bankrupt.]

“Dohhhhh!”

Fade from a picture of Homer into John McCain. Caption: McCane was one of the notorious Keating Five Senators, who were investigated for taking bribes in the 1990 S&L Scandal…and the only one still in office today. The others stepped down from their positions or retired. McCain received $123,000 in contributions from Charles Keating and requested government investigators to “back down” in looking into Keating’s Lincoln Savings and Loan.

Over 1000 banks and S&L’s received an over $150 billion bailout for bad loans made in the real-estate market in the 1980’s and 1990’s…increasing your tax bills and the deficit.

Is John McCain the man we want handling the Sub-Prime Real Estate crisis?

“Dohhhhhhhhh!”

By: DWBartoo

DWBartoo — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:27:59 +0000

Do you, then, actually remember that election?

I started my journey round the sun four years after you and the first election I can recall was in ‘56, mostly because of comments like those of your father. Clearly, what was going on was quite important to adults around me, so I paid some attention.

By: jayt

jayt — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:27:21 +0000

mentally ill veterans on the streets,…

It occurs to me that, as I live in a mostly rural state, the large majority of people here (Indiana, *s*) fall into one of two categories:

a) they’ve never seen, up close and personal, the problems of either homelessness of mental illness, and certainly not at the same time, or

b) that the knee-jerk reaction (as I’ve seen and fought in the “comments” section at the IndyStar.com) is that being homeless, addicted, or otherwise ill, is evidence of nothing more than personal failure, and should most certainly not be “rewarded”.

Ignorance is astonishingly, in 2008, fer-chrissakes, wide-spread, fed by Bill Orally and Rush, is monstrously dangerous and must somehow be overcome.

I miss John Edwards.

By: kiddo

kiddo — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:23:33 +0000

Some of our “representatives” have sold their souls to big pharma and the health care insurance industry.

By: Crosstimbers

Crosstimbers — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:22:06 +0000

It’s been a long term issue. I was nine years old during the 1952 election. Truman had previously brought up the idea of “socialized medicine.” During the election, Eisenhower was strongly opposed to the concept. I can remember hearing my dad say, with disgust, “Eisenhower never paid a doctor bill in his whole life.”