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No, I believe you that President Clinton offered your sister $100 for that when she was your age, but we've stopped that program, dear.

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No, we are going to execute your father. Can you spell "execute"?

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the stereotypes that you "liberals" have dragged out show that racism is certainly not limited to any one party. in fact the very selection of the photo as being "funny" shows abject racism.

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Look, I told you not to go long on the Eagles.

Just because Rocco is looking for you is no reason to take it out on us.

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Update record- Gatti hates blacks and Italians.

SS & savings
 

For the record, let me be clear: I hate what appears to be the Dem party-line position on SS -- "do nothing." SS has a long-term problem. It is one that can be fixed by some tweaks that address the factors that brought that problem about (mainly, longer life spans and smaller families).

I would respect Bush for his determination to address the long-term problem if it didn't seem to me that he has already decided on the solution. And that solution, I fear, imposes greater dangers for SS, imposes huge and dangerous costs elsewhere, is contrary to the very purpose of SS, and is motivated more by ideology than by a well-founded belief that it will cure the problems at issue.

Raise the retirement age. Means testing. Reduce benefits growth, or make the benefit 95% now. These things should be on the table and should be getting discussed. Instead, what's happened is that Bush has made PSRs the centerpiece of every discussion -- and the way he posits the discussion, they are free from any risk (because all investments in the stock market are, right?), and we don't need to consider the cost (because hey, what's another few trillion in borrowings -- especially if they mostly happen after his term ends?). So, he puts it to the Dems to say "no, we should cut benefits" -- because the Bush plan would never, ever need a cut in benefits because we can just borrow the money and rely on the guaranteed returns of the stock market.

So,yes -- the Dems are being cowards. But the White House has set up a situation where that was a foregone conclusion. If a handful of Repubs comes forward with an alternate plan, one that at least puts cuts and changing the retirement age on the table, then I would hope the Dems join in that. BUt without such a Concord Coalition-like effort, it'll never happen.

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Actually, I had an abject need to find a picture to replace the text of an inadvertant second post, RP-style. But good thinking with the racism thing.

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Bold talk from someone who thought it was funny when he was calling the kid's sister a whore.

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You mean because they hit home?

Hank, how come you and I have been agreeing so much lately?

SS & savings
 

Interesting discussion of scope of money involved in private account thingy -- I note that they still, STILL, are not bringing in the question of administrative costs. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...042EST0073.DTL ETA note to liberal media conspiracy theorists -- the article originally appeared in the WSJ



Robert Pozen, chairman of MFS Funds and a member of the presidential commission that backed private accounts, estimates that about $65 billion will flow into the accounts every year. That compares, for example, with $242 billion that all stock and bond mutual funds took in last year, according to Financial Research Corp.

Others in the industry are less certain. "I don't think that anybody -- including the administration -- knows how many people are going to opt in" to voluntary private accounts, Mr. Riepe says. "I think the speculation about this gigantic pool of money is just speculation -- and it would be a long time before it's a big pool."

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Coming up with the things you each did shows that you each think that way. Everyone has some biases G, you shouldn't claim perfection. My point is simply that you as a group all seem to have biases in a direction against blacks.

And Sidd, i said "offered" the money, not that she took it.

SS & savings
 

I enjoyed those care-free, salad days when I didn't need to worry about anyone else. Mom and Dad could take care of themselves, the kids handn't come along, and all I need to think about was me. Me, Me, ME!

Ah, good days indeed. Liquid crystal liberation. Nothing between me and the object of my desires but a bit of lambskin.

But, those days are past for me as for most. And now I know that when most of us think about ourselves, we think about the whole family for whom we have some responsibility. Mom and Dad aren't always taking care of themselves, there's a batty aunt up in someone's attic, a nephew who lost some of his equipment in some equipment, that cousin who crispied while on the volunteer fire department and left three small kids, and then a kid of our own who has one or two issues.

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So we didn't agree?

What I said implied there are a disproportionate number of black in the military. True?

And that the kids parents' voted Democratic. What are the odds of that?

And that Laura Bush might think of blacks as people who do her fighting for her. Hmmmm. How many Republican members of congress, Senators, or Cabinet members have children in the military?

SS & savings
 

Well, he who gets off his ass to speak first tends to get to set the initial terms of the debate. Honestly, though, I don't see why Bush positing PSRs has rendered the Dems incapable of suggesting anything else, discussing the cons thereof in terms other than "Scare tactic!" or otherwise sucking it up and acknowledging that of the various variables (amount of benefit, universiality of benefit, age of retirement, amount &/or source of contributions) something has to give (and hopefully acknowledging that, of those, the amount &/or source of contributions is probably the least flexible for all the demographic reasons giving us the problem in the first place).

Had Ted Kennedy been on MTP this weekend acknowledging "yeah, there's fucking trouble brewing, it is a crisis, and it's a crisis right now just like discovering an asteroid that is 99% certain to destroy the earth in 50 years is a crisis right now, because it's gonna take some serious time to figure out how to fix it and put that plan into operation. But what's been suggested isn't the way to fix it, here is why it doesn't fix it, and you may not want to hear what will fix it but we're not gonna insult your intelligence and lie to you and so here it is: ________," I'd have been pleased as a pig in muck even if his suggestion for fixing it was "let's raise taxes on today's younger workers who haven't even been able to afford to buy houses like their parents could, so we can maintain benefit levels for their parents, and then phase in reduced benefits that will hit just when they retire so they're screwed after they've paid for everyone else to live on (relative) easy street," because that would have been an honest suggestion and we'd have a debate on our hands. Instead, he said "there's no problem, BUSH LIED just like Iraq" and "the [nonexistent] problem would be solved by rolling back 1/3 of Bush's tax cuts [which would make sense only if he was suggesting re-raising those taxes as (flat or regressive) SS payroll taxes, unless he's thinking of a rather bigger structural overhaul of the SS system than even Bush is]."

BR(Tim Russert did sort of made him look like an ass - I heart Tim Russert)C

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Yes. you are perfect. you are a good-thinking liberal man. You are not racist. You went through the above before posting.

Yes. you are perfect. you are a good-thinking liberal man. You are not racist. You went through the above before posting.

Yes. you are perfect. you are a good-thinking liberal man. You are not racist. You went through the above before posting.

Yes. you are perfect. you are a good-thinking liberal man. You are not racist. You went through the above before posting.