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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (238787)	2/15/2008 11:05:24 AM
From: MJ	Respond to of 793912

I am very happy for your Mom. mj

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (238787)	2/15/2008 12:48:30 PM
From: Neeka	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793912

Considering the responses you've received, count on SS and medicare going broke. Work hard, save and don't rely on govt to support you in any way. Consider the money you've "invested" (more like been robbed of) gone.

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (238787)	2/15/2008 11:09:45 PM
From: KLP	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793912

She made out like a bandit. Well, BCB, NOT Exactly!!! Unless she or her husband were bootleggers like Joe Kennedy!! Then she might have made out like a bandit. Assuming she was born in this country sometime between 1910 and 1916....Let's see....Women didn't have to work out of the home yet, she perhaps married between 1930-1940.... but before then she and her family had to deal with: World War I - perhaps even losing a family member The Stock Market Crash of 1929. Many families lost everything they might have saved. The Great US and World Depression of the 1929-1936 or so era....not very people even had a job ....nearly the entire country were living on their farms and made very little money. Grew most everything they ate, with very few exceptions. FDR promised something like an Insurance program to the American people. Many at that time couldn't see any farther than how to put the next meal on the table for their families and themselves, so it sounded good. World War Two. Nearly every able bodied man in the country went to war, or worked two or three shifts at a time to help supply the war effort...The women held jobs (rosie the riveter) for the first time except for teachers, nurses, and other such "safe" jobs....and held down the home front, which in many cases included maintaining farm animals, equipment, etc etc...PLUS took care of the children singlehandedly. By this time, your Mom and millions of women just like her were between say....30-36 years old. Really lucky so far, eh? Then on to the 1950's....women still don't work out of the home very much....unless they were maids, or schoolteachers, nurses, etc....Took care of kids, laundry, kept the house, etc.... Whatever job she had IF she was able to find one, was at a VERY low salary. Starting jobs started at $0.90 an hour in the late 1950....and by golly, that was BEFORE the SS and FIT was taken out of those lucky girls paychecks. Now remember if she was a compatriot of Joe Kennedy and his ilk, she didn't have to do all that work. They were Rich, don't you know? And had hired help. And now, it is the 1970's...Your Mom and other women born in the teens of the early 20th century were now in their 60's.... If they ever worked, it was for very little money, unless they were very fortunate indeed. SO Yes, in someways, she and others like her might have "Made out like a Bandit...." When you really think about it, I think you will realize she and they didn't. The women born between 1935-1945 HAVE put money into SS from the day they started working. Little money because salaries were so low. But things got expanded, as you know. This generation of women was the very FIRST generation where it was OK to work by societies standards....They weren't working secretly so their neighbors and friends wouldn't think they were "spendthrifts" and "spent their husbands's money on foolish things"... They went to work because College for their children was important, and they wanted to help contribute to that. Many of these families had ONE car, ONE TV, no cell phones, no Internet, maybe two radios, ONE telephone, etc... No one "gave" them anything. They earned what they made financially. Unless of course, they were Joe Kennedy's children and grandchildren, (and Rockefellers families, Colgate families, etc etc etc) The children born as late boomers (1956-1964) and those born later than those years, are in so many ways more fortunate. Maybe someday, they will come to know that.

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (238787)	2/20/2008 4:10:31 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793912

You mom may have made out like a bandit. But now? Say some person currently 40 does live to 92. He isn't likely to make out like a bandit. First there is a good possibility of benefit cuts, or retirement age increases before than, but even if neither happens he's paying SS taxes at a higher rate than the average of what you mother paid, also you have to consider the time value of money. Getting paid the same as what you put in isn't really breaking even. Getting twice what you put in isn't close to making out like a bandit. At least not if your talking nominal dollars. Even if your adjusting for inflation and you get 1X or 2X of what you put in, in real dollar terms, you aren't making out like a bandit, you would likely have gotten much more than 2X if you had invested your money for all those decades.