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

To: THE WATSONYOUTH who wrote (621904)	7/29/2011 1:43:23 AM
From: i-node	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1577188

>> If all are rejected........Shut it down. Unfortunately, too many Republicans are simply not real conservatives.....and I see them capitulating in the end. I just cannot fault anyone for this philosophy. If the spending is not controlled, it all comes to an end anyway. It is just a question of how we get there. In the early 80s, as the great debate was held over the collapsing SS system, I read a great article by the former Chief Actuary of SSA in the NY CPA Journal. I remember the article well as it was, strangely, a turning point in my understanding of government. In this article, he described how the SS system was an irretrievable failure -- that regardless of what would be done to "fix" it, the system would ultimately require a 40% payroll tax just to support SS. This was before Medicare had become the disaster it is now. He also described what the result of that tax rate would be: Tax Revolt. The article was dead serious. Of course, times have changed and economic circumstances have, as well. The cold, hard reality is that nothing these guys do today can salvage the situation. Medicare and SS are so far gone that collapse is assured. Still, we have people who see more debt and government spending as a way to prop up a failing economy, failing under the weight of layers of massive Ponzi schemes designed to bilk taxpayers out of their standards of living. To add to the systemic problems within the social programs, people are living longer, and not just by a little bit. Imagine the difficulty of SS & Medicare dealing with increasing numbers of persons who retire in their 60s and live well beyond 100. US residents have among the longest lifespans in the world, now estimated at 77.5-80 years, and that is NOT EVEN A CLOSE ESTIMATE. Some people alive today could well live to decades past their 100th birthday. It is a tragic end to a great and prosperous time in America. But numbers don't lie, and the numbers are clear: Over the next 50 years, standards of living in this country are going to collapse. So, there really isn't anything to do about it. We can prolong it, but in the end, we can't fix it. So, your guess is as good as anyone's as what the optimal way forward is.