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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (552182)	2/25/2010 9:20:00 PM
From: Jim McMannis	2 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1583979

Ah shucks... Ethics panel finds Rep. Charles Rangel broke rules WASHINGTON – Rep. Charles Rangel, the most powerful tax-writing lawmaker in Congress and a 40-year veteran of Capitol Hill, acknowledged Thursday that an ethics panel has accused him of accepting Caribbean trips from a corporation in violation of House rules. news.yahoo.com

To: RetiredNow who wrote (552182)	2/26/2010 10:51:45 PM
From: SilentZ	Respond to of 1583979

>Defined benefits bankrupt corporations and are on a path to bankrupting America. Do the participants like the benefits? Of course they do. They only bankrupt corporations because they overpromise and then undersave. >BTW, did I mention that the combined total gap between what is owed to former state and local employees and what has been saved to pay them from their defined benefit plans, is now over $1 trillion? Over what period? >Without exception, that is what the end state of these defined benefit plans is. They always end up owing more than they can pay. It's inevitable and it is NOT sustainable. Social security, Medicare, public sector pensions...they are all time bombs and all three are exploding in our lifetimes. Because the planning for them is horrible. >Goodbye American solvency. There are some serious rough times ahead and neither the Dems nor the GOP will be able to save us, primarily because they are unwilling to stand up the the tyranny and stupidity of the masses. That's some serious drama queenage. >If I was king, I'd cut those benefits to the bone, raise taxes to 90's levels, and going forward make everything defined contribution, tagging benefits to what's paid in for each tax payer. It's the only sane thing to do. I can't put my reaction any better than Digby does: The problem, of course, is that the best case has millionaires "sacrificing" being able to buy a bigger airplane while the average retiree has to sacrifice eating protein. This "game" we've all got our skin in has some much more serious consequences for some of us than others: since certain of the wealthy players just crashed the financial system a whole lot of soon-to-be seniors lost their nest eggs in both the real estate and stock markets (and are being priced out of the health care market just when they need the coverage the most.) If there's a worse time to require these particular people to sacrifice more I don't know what it is. It's also true that often the people for whom "sacrifice" is nothing more than a minor inconvenience are prone to lecture those for whom is is quite painful. It's irritating. digbysblog.blogspot.com -Z