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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (453391)	9/5/2003 4:04:43 PM
From: JakeStraw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

>>I don't care about the elderly Gee how nice of you...

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (453391)	9/5/2003 4:56:12 PM
From: k.ramesh	Respond to of 769670

If you are looking at the big picture... Why was the tax cut so loaded towards the rich? Bush is beholden to the rich etc. is the easy answer. The real answer could be that the whole dang thing is a pyramid scheme built on worthless paper, and if the little guys all start spending it, it would increase inflation. The 'right way' is to increase the circle of holders of this worthless paper ie India China, Taiwan etc, whose govts hold $$ as reserves. If you notice most foreign aid is never directly given away to the little babies with big bellies, it is done in such a way that the $$ don't leak out of the 'system' via grants that require buying from the donor countries, intermediaries etc. Concentration of wealth could again be a symptom of too much money for the amount of stuff you can actually buy. With software the ties become binding, and hence India will probably be brought into the inner circle of countries, G8 to G9, The currency will get adjusted, which will create a whole bunch more of artificial growth. If the Indian programmer costs .5x instead of .15x, much of the bleeding will stop as it takes overhead of project managers,CEO's,profits etc on both sides to make it work. On the other hand, the US will have to reassess the meaning of wealth, whether loading up on COSTCO and driving 100 miles a day is really a higher standard of living, than say the luxury of 6 weeks vacation,lounging around the water cooler, or being relaxed about your career etc.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (453391)	9/5/2003 5:12:59 PM
From: Logain Ablar	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Lizzie: I fall into your over 40 bracket (48) and I can state if you take into consideration what I and my employer have paid in and will pay in till I'm 67 and assume I get to collect till I'm 88 (considering the oldest male on both my mother and fathers side never made it past 62 that is a stretch as that was the exception as the rest died in their 40's and 50's) then there will be like a 2% return. This is part of the reason Bush tried to change the system (like shifting assets to where historically there is a greater return) but once he made it a campaign issue the Democratic party just took the other side (at one time Gore was in favor of SS reform but he took the opposite stance to Bush) and once in office his proposal has gone nowhere. A combination of politics and the market. Social Security was set up as an insurance system with the tax being the premiums and the payout skewered towards the lower income contributers (i.e. someone making 25k a year collects 11k on retirement while someone making 84K, the fica threshold collects 20k). Of course its payouts have been expanded to include disability and other items. So all those contributers @ the max have to live a long time or else they don't make out under the system and I think it goes up over 67 (maybe 69) before one can collect. While people can still collect early the payout is reduced (actuarially so they collect the same amount over their forecasted lives). Glad I'm not in Bermuda this weekend.