Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Sarah Palin for VP!

Yup because we haven't seen the stock market dip that drastically at all in the last month or so. Nope that was the first time and it's ALL Obama's fault!

Actually it was Barney Frank's, Christopher Dodd's, Franklin Raines', and Jim Johnson's fault, among other Democrats.

I only give Obama credit for the last two days' worth of carnage.

I take it you support Social Security II and the loss of all of our 401(k)'s?

Oh you silly kids making assumptions. This is why most of us don’t come in this thread to discuss things. Instead of talking like a normal human being would about a subject you spend most of your time on the attack. Maybe if you stopped trying to think for others and trying to make assumptions about what they believe you would have a better discussion going on here than it is.

Of course that sounds a whole lot like this campaign went.

I haven't been called a kid in 30 years. I'm in my 40's, btw. I notice I keep getting attacked personally (re: "normal human being") every time I ask a hard question, and the question never gets answered. Interesting.

Still, what's the answer to my question? Do you support a second Social Security system and the abolition of 401(k)'s? That question is hardly an attack on anyone. it's just a simple yes or no.

Reading this with some puzzlement - isn't the budget cycle in the US something like a year long, like most other nations? Accordingly, won't it be most of a year before any major changes that the new government makes come into effect?

Looking at what has been happening to e.g. the stock market, banking etc. internationally over the last few weeks, I can't help thinking that any change in government pensions policy will be relatively small potatoes. The BIG change will be that your pension buys far less than you expected, because the dollar will be worth a lot less. But that's being driven by the collapse of the banking system, not by any government.

A change of this kind would not fall under the budget, but rather can be implemented at any time. It may have impact on the budget but it can take place on whatever date the law specifies.

The dollar is actually much higher now than it was before the crisis hit a month ago. The dollar now buys 1.27 Euros.

Kudos Roger! Keep putting out the facts.

IMO, your information is always put out there with polite, logical simplicity. If FACTS challenge or contradict the assumptions of some, making them feel insecure, "attacked" and angry... what what can you do?

Please keep up your informative posts. With the "media" who used to claim to be impartial journalist (just reporting the facts) now openly abandoning the PRETENSE of such, it's harder to get both sides of an issue.

Thanks.

Marcus, your question about government pensions is valid, and I don't think it's been answered yet.

What we call Social Security is a payment from the government once we retire. The size of the payment depends on how long we've paid into the system (unless one gets in on a free political pass), how much money we make on our investments and savings and other retirement programs, whether we're married, if we're disabled, and so forth. That money comes from each taxpayer, goes into a common fund (which is usually raided by Congress - whole other story), and is paid out on a monthly basis.

The 401(k) funds Roger referred to earlier are completely separate from Social Security. A person with a 401(k) voluntarily pays into the fund and the employer usually matches a portion of that payment. The money is invested in one or more mutual funds or savings programs or bond funds or other financial vehicles, and the person who is paying in chooses where the money goes. This gives the individual a great deal of latitude in his or her retirement investments.

The most attractive part of the 401(k) program is that the contributions are not taxed. This means that if I contribute five hundred dollars to my 401(k), the Federal and state governments do not take taxes out of that money. They will tax it when the individual takes it as income after retirement, but by that point the retiree is usually living on a lower income, and therefore would pay less in taxes then than at the point when the money is actually earned.

If Congress takes over this program, the management of my money will end up in their hands, not mine. I will have little if any choice over where the money is invested and how much return I can generate over the years. And that means that my taxes will go up and my retirement nest egg will shrink because I won't be able to afford to sock that much money away.

The worst part, to me, is that it would break an implicit contract that Congress made with American workers when the program was first implemented. They don't tax my retirement savings now, and I'll save more. It has, for the most part, worked out well, despite a number of negative experiences by individuals. This program was never meant to guarantee anyone a rich retirement. It was set up to give each person some leeway in building for that retirement.

Thanks, Terry. I guess I didn't remember that not everybody knows what a 401(k) program is. 401(k) refers to section 401, subsection k of the Internal Revenue Code.

As Terry says, it's a program that's not managed by the government, but rather is a tax exemption on funds individuals invest for their own retirement. A 401(k) can be invested in almost anything, with the exception of insurance policies and a few other minor instruments. I've seen cases where a person declared his car a 401(k) investment. It does not have to be a mutual fund or any other type of financial fund, though a vast majority of 401(k) funds are invested in such to a total of about $4.5 trillion currently in 401(k) funds.

Companies often offer a selection of funds that employees can invest in. If an employee chooses to do so, the employer will often match some or most of that investment, giving an even bigger boon to an employee's savings. My company, for instance, offers a number of Fidelity Mutual Funds for my 401(k). An employee by no means has to invest in those funds. That's just a perk employers often give. An employee may choose to invest in almost any outside instrument. The matching is a big incentive to invest in the funds recommended by the employer. Note that the employer does not manage those plans, but merely offers them for matching purposes as an employment incentive. Fidelity Investments has a big family of mutual funds, not all of which are offered by my company for matching purposes.

The attraction in the 401(k)'s, besides tax-deferral, is the control an individual has in the funds. It is your choice to invest nothing or up to 15% of your gross income. You are free to invest more than 15% in retirement funds, but those additional funds are not considered a 401(k) and would be taxable as a standard investment. And you can invest in virtually anything you choose. It's the freedom of choice that's good. You can choose to be aggressive by investing in stocks, bonds, or commodities when you're young. Or you can play it safe by investing in a safe money market fund or dividend-paying Treasury bond fund if you're nearing retirement age. The bottom line is that you make all the decisions. This new proposal would take away that choice and make retirement exclusively a government-run business. And we all know how wonderfully Social Security has been run. It'll start going bankrupt in 2017 since the "trust fund" has been raided by the government and all of its funds spent in the general budget. There is no trust fund. Polls frequently show that more people believe in UFO's than believe that Social Security will be there for them when they retire. Mark me as one of those who doesn't believe Social Security will be there when I retire. Therefore, I'd consider Social Security II to be as solvent as Social Security I. It's just another 5% tax hike plus the loss of deductibility of 15% of my income to be spent in the general fund.

The only involvement government has in these plans is in its taxability. Normally, government will tax any gross income. The 401(k) provision of the tax laws exempts up to 15% of an individual's gross income from taxation if it's invested in a 401(k) plan that grows tax deferred until it is drawn upon at retirement. If an individual draws from a 401(k) before age 59 1/2, the government penalizes the individual 10% of the proceeds, plus any taxes owed on that money.

The government does not manage any 401(k) plans at all. I think that's where the confusion came in. Sorry, Marcus, for the misunderstanding.

Actually I came in here to point out your absurd statement about Obama being the cause of the stock crash was just that, absurd. The stocks markets have done exactly what stock market analysts said it would do and it's really no surprise in that area. Analyst have also said that Obama's long term effects on the market will be very good as his solution are long term solutions that will help to bolster the economy.

You however decided to jump topics to something you felt I didn't agree with you on, even though you know nothing about me, just so you could pick a fight and choose the topic you actually wanted to talk about.

I'm sorry that I didn't play your baiting game so that you could try to trounce on me and make yourself feel superior. You and captivated can go back to high fiving each other now. The rest of us are going to go enjoy the prospect of our new president and actually wait to see what he is going to do instead creating doomsday theories.

What analyst is that who says Obama is good for the long-term economy? Virtually every economist will tell you it's very bad policy to raise taxes in a recession, so I'd say that analyst would be in a distinct minority. What parts of Obama's economic plans would you call pro-growth?

Again, as I predicted, the question doesn't get answered. What does it hurt to answer it? I'm not baiting anything. I'm just seeing if you agree with Congressional Democrats on their new version of another Social Security plan. That was the topic, btw. The comment on the stock market was an aside. So I was merely continuing the topic at hand.

You're right. I don't know anything about you, but since you jumped into the conversation about the Congressional plans to take away 401(k) deductibility and its potential effects on the stock market, I posed it to you as a question. I made an assumption, but posed it as a question for you to say yay or nay on in case my assumption was wrong. So what's your answer? The worst question I'd come back with if you do support it is why?

I'll answer you, Roger. No, I don't think that 401K plan is a good idea, and as we've established, I lean far more left than right. Based on the information from the links, I don't support it.

I will make the caveat, however, that since I know nothing about the partisanship of the links, it's possible that they have made the scenario out to be more dire than it is. I guess I also have to trust that if this were indeed put up for a vote, that some of the Democrats might also view it as a bad idea.

I also don't share your exceptionally negative view that the Democrats are going to make the economic situation worse than it is. But I have no facts and figures to argue with you, so I am prepared to leave that as we agree to disagree.

Kathy

I don't know much about the first link, but the second is to US News and World Report, a very well-known, slightly left-leaning magazine.

I don't have a problem with disagreement. Thank you for your comments, Kathy.

It's so frustrating... people forget the economy was doing relativley well until a liberal policy (low income mortgages) caught up with it. People habitually use Bush as a scape goat (unjustified) and connected McCain with him.

Obama spoke in glittering generalities... like “ the audacity of hope,” “change we can believe in, " "yes we can," and this real head-scratcher, "we are the ones we've been waiting for!"

(OK... I swear BO must have studied Eric Hoffer's "True Believer" http://www.erichoffer.net/ )

But because of his vague rhetoric, vast numbers of Obama supports have projected their own values and poured their own meaning into his words. And now he has a problem. He has a cult-like following of unrealistic "fans."

The Hopemeister is already trying to LOWER expectations. In his acceptance speech Tuesday, Obama said he might not be able to accomplish everything he wants to do in one term... (Ya think?)

"Barack Obama’s senior advisers have drawn up plans to lower expectations for his presidency if he wins next week’s election, amid concerns that many of his euphoric supporters are harbouring unrealistic hopes of what he can achieve. .."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/2308539/US-Election-Senior-aide-to-Barack-Obama-says-Obamamaniacs\'-hopes-unrealistic.html

But... He has already changed his tune on issues like the war and I dare to hope that in reality he will wise up on his economic theories and that some of his "bright" ideas (like raising taxes and government run health care) will be soundly defeated.

Obama is a very eloquent man, but he just told people what they want to hear and it worked. Soon we'll have a clearer picture of what we've actually bought into.

Since we're stuck with him now, I hope he moves more to the "center" and wish him the best.

I've heard audio clips of people so excited that he won because now they wouldn't have to worry about buying gas or making their house payments because he was going to do it for them or something like that. I didn't understand that then or now... And it was more than one person...

/shrug/

At his press conference today, he was asked if any of the information he's received since the election... surprised him or something to that effect and he didn't comment on that.

Part of what I think about Iraq and other national security things is that it's easy to 'Monday morning' quarterback all kinds of stuff, but once you know the whole truth about intelligence etc. the ballgame changes. I think that's true of most presidents as they take over. For instance, Truman didn't know about the Manhattan Project when he became president and he was the VP. How much less do those outside the administration know and how much could their minds change when they find out?

Just a couple thoughts .

Carol

Captivated, I hope that you're not stereotyping anyone who voted for Obama as part of this cult-like following. Your disapproval with Obama's election is obvious to all, and you have your right to your opinion, but do remember that others of us may feel differently. That doesn't make the vast majority of us part of a cult.

I also wanted to address this statement from one of your earlier posts. To me, a fact is a statement like "Ronald Reagan won the presidential election in 1980." That is a fact - it happened, no one can bring any evidence to say that it didn't.

But for me, not everything that Roger says are facts. He always presents very lucid explanations, well thought-out and supported by sources that he finds credible. If you believe in what he says 100%, that's fine.

However, it's very possible that the "other side" could take some of his statements as to why something happened, present some different supporting evidence, and suddenly the picture doesn't look quite so clear-cut anymore. Therefore a "fact" from Roger would look very different from a "fact" from the left side of the aisle. Maybe Roger would think this fact from the left side is wrong, maybe you would think so too. But maybe I wouldn't - and that wouldn't automatically make me wrong because I believe in something different than you do.

So I definitely encourage Roger and anyone else to continue to post their opinions. I've found them to be very informative, even when I don't agree. But please don't act like any conservative is stating "facts" that us insecure liberals can't bear to read. That's insulting.

Kathy

As for the facts that Roger presents...

This is one such 'fact' that I myself found extremely mystifying. Is Alan Greenspan a Democrat? Why have I never heard that before?

I googled Alan Greenspan and read the Wikipedia post about him. Wikipedia didn't mention Greenspan's political affiliation. But there was someone on these boards who said that you can learn about a person's convictions by looking at his friends, so let's look at the some of the people that Wikipedia lists among Greenspan's friends:

Ayn Rand's philosphy was that government is evil and the individual is good. Her philosophy inspired such things as deregulated banking and supply side economics. Remind me, isn't supply side economics a Republican specialty?

Hmmm. Richard Nixon. Remind me, wasn't he a Republican?

Gerald Ford. Remind me, wasn't he a Republican?

Ronald Reagan. Wasn't he a Republican?

Wikipedia points out that Greenspan served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve under four Presidents, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. That means he served under three Republican presidents and one Democratic president. Well, that clinches it, doesn't it? Anyone who has had any associations with any Democrats at all must be a Democrat himself, no matter how many Republican friends he has got. Right?

You cite Greenspan's marriage to Andrea Mitchell as proof that he himself is a Democrat. Well, I don't know about you guys in America, but in Sweden it is not unknown for married couples to agree to disagree on matters of politics. Besides, according to Wikipedia Mitchell and Greenspan were married in 1997, eleven years ago, and they may have grown apart politically since then. Mitchell certainly seems to have some 'not-so-Democratic' credentials, as she was apparently involved in the Valerie Plame case. But in any case, Mitchell is twenty years her husband's junior, and her relative youth just might mean that she has an easier time evolving politically than her husband does. And personally I just don't consider the political leanings of a person's spouse sufficient information to draw conclusions about the party affiliation of the person himself.

(I'm not sure I absolutely believe that Andrea Mitchell is 'ultra-liberal' in the first place, Roger. We have only your word for it that she is, just as we have only your word for Greenspan's supposed affiliation with the Democratic Party.)

I would say that on balance, Alan Greenspan looks a lot more Republican than Democratic.

Ann

I think this is my first post on this board but I've been lurking for a long time. Just had to correct Roger on this 'fact':

http://newsmeat.com/washington_political_donations/Alan_Greenspan.php

A list of Greenspan's political contributions between 1982 and 1987 (I assume he had to stop making political donations when he became Chairman of the Federal Reserve in 1987.

He made a total of $6500 in political donations in this period - $6000 to the Republican Party and $500 to special interest groups. Not one cent to the Democratic Party.

Of course, he could have changed his political affiliation since 1987 but I doubt it - he's too closely associated with neo-con ideology.

Bec