Bernanke suggests repeal of Social Security and Medicare

[JDPriestly]

Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) sympathized with Bernanke, saying that, because of entitlement spending, "you're going to be looking at a situation where the Congress will be unable to provide any kind of fiscal discipline because of the mandatory spending. That puts an enormous burden on your plate."

"Well, Senator, I was about to address entitlements," Bernanke replied. "I think you can't tackle the problem in the medium term without doing something about getting entitlements under control and reducing the costs, particularly of health care."

Bernanke reminded Congress that it has the power to repeal Social Security and Medicare.

"It's only mandatory until Congress says it's not mandatory. And we have no option but to address those costs at some point or else we will have an unsustainable situation," said Bernanke.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/03/bernanke-channels-willie_n_378963.html

Millions of baby-boomers will have to live with and on the income of their children (assuming they have any) if Social Security and Medicare are cut. Sure, some people have pensions. Most baby-boomers don't.

We need to remind Bernanke that it is the trade agreements that are impoverishing Americans and putting them out of work and Congress also has the authority to repeal the trade agreements. Let's impose tariffs as our Founding Fathers intended we should, return Americans back to good jobs that we do better than anyone else and restore the social net that insures the future of the middle class.

The first step is to bet rid of Bernanke and put Elizabeth Warren in his place. We need someone to represent ordinary Americans at the Fed.

[JVS]

1. Bernanke should be fired.

[Lance_Boyle]

9. Yes. With real fire. n/t

[Matariki]

15. LOL - my thought exactly!

It's getting close to pitchfork time and he's looking like a big fat marshmallow.

[Mithreal]

37. Gonna need a bigger pitchfork

[BREMPRO]

194. the pitchfork mob mentality here is ignorant and disappointing.

DU has transformed into a place to bash Obama, his team and the Democrats instead of trying understand what is going on and be realistic about what can be accomplished. The level of conspiratorial ignorance is increasing and degrading the quality of the discourse on the site. The original title of this post is shrill out of context fabrication and has nothing to do with Bernanke's position. Leave it to the pitchfork mob mentality to not investigate and realize he never said he thought SS and Medicare should be dissolved but that it was a serious concern for future deficits and should be addressed by congress. Leave it to the pitchfork mob to call for the head of a modest public servant who never worked for the private sector or wall street, was a professor of economics and expert on the great depression, came from a middle class background and quite likely helped avert a worldwide financial meltdown. It's ignorant and asinine.

[liberation]

204. I sure do hope you are at least drawing a salary from Bernanke's office

Shilling for free in an economy like this, it is not an advisable value proposition for PR professionals like you.


LOL

[BREMPRO]

228. just trying to defend the guy from unreasonable attacks.

FYI-i'm an artist,lifetime democrat/progressive, not PR pro.
Bernanke made some mistakes early on, but i believe he's been a good shepard of the FED during a very volatile time, averting what could have been a really disastrous financial meltdown. You have to save the financial system before you can save the economy and create jobs. Bernanke was on record as holding his nose to helping the banks and walls street after the irresponsible greed they practiced, and has publicly and privately pushed for strong regulation of banks to avoid future meltdowns. This whole post is a cherry picked and cartoon version of what he said in his testimony.

Let's talk about a fed chair that WAS a REAL monster:Greenspan who was considered a wizard by many during his tenure was a false idol following voodoo economics and Ayn Rand libertarian fantasy novels for his economic policies. Bernanke is a top notch scholar and a lifetime public servant who used his knowledge of the depression to drive fed policy. I'm just frustrated lately with the lack of depth of understanding of economics here, ignorant mob mentality, and jumping on an exaggerated and out of context statement to character assassinate Bernanke. It's just not tied to reality.

[JDPriestly]

244. Bernanke refuses to say where the taxpayers' money went.

A good shepherd looks for his sheep and can tell you where his sheep are. Bernanke is Greenspan's protege. That is precisely why I don't trust him. We need a change, a real change, in the management of our finances. You claim that Bernanke is a top notch scholar. That is no doubt true. At this point in his career, the right place for him is in a university where students can challenge his scholarship.

Bernanke's knowledge of the depression is not particularly helpful in this day and age. At the time of the depression we were a manufacturing nation with a surplus in trade income. Now, we have virtually no manufacturing and a huge trade deficit. It's like comparing the financial situations of a business that is flourishing with backlogged orders and a momentary cash flow deficit with a business that was hit by a flood, lost all of its customers and is now bankrupt.

[Mithreal]

229. I stand with Bernie Sanders. Sign the petition.

http://act.boldprogressives.org/cms/sign/supportsanders/?rd=1&source=e2-nonsign-t1&t=1&referring_akid=49.154108.iK8NtD

BREMPRO, you aren't going to find a lot of support for the Federal Reserve or the people ruining our economy. I am sure they are all really nice people.

President Obama rode the people with pitchforks for Bush and Cheney into office. Don't underestimate the pitchfork.

[BREMPRO]

235. you mean trying fix the economy that Reagan/ Bush/cheney/Greenspan broke.

i'm not sure why we've already forgotten that the whole disaster was seeded by the previous 30 years of libertarian non-regulation, fraud tolerant policies. Just when we get someone who knows what they are doing and is trying to fix things, the mob here wants to toss him over the railing. Not smart. Who would take his place? would he/she be better? What happens in the interim to the economy with an interruption of leadership? You want Summers as the Fed chair? The propaganda and idealism here has become as bad as the truthiness of the right.

[Mithreal]

237. Having fun yet making up straw men to knock down?

President Obama made a remark that stuck with me. I can't recall the exact quote but it was something like, We focus too much on the way things are rather than work for the way things should be. That sounds like support of idealism, but I guess it was just rhetoric.

Your comments in support of Bernanke look a whole lot like the propaganda you profess to hate even if you didn't back up your statements with any evidence. Yeah, damn idealists, crying out for the way things should be are so annoying. Whatever. No one forgets what Reagan has done even though Obama held him up as a model President. Yeah, yeah, I know there was nuance but still to those who know what Reagan represents it was outrageous. Summers? Come on. None of us wants Summers near our economy except the President. So, you think Obama would pick Summers? Had no idea. Go sign that petition unless you think Sanders is part of the problem.

[BREMPRO]

266. Please watch video link of Bernanke testimony - his questioning by Sen. Reed

Senator Reed questions Bernanke (skip to minute mark 66:00)
http://etv.thomsonreuters.com/link.html?ctype=group_channel&chid=3&cid=59617&shareToken=Mzo1OTYxNw%3D%3D%0A

Note: Please watch the clip to hear what Bernanke actually said, what he meant regarding entitlements.

Reed: Was trajectory of Federal spending and Federal Reserve Policy more appropriate in 2000 and at the end of 1999 than it is today

Bernanke: Well, we certainly face a lot more challenges

Reed: I seem to recall we had a surplus

Bernanke: We did have a surplus

Reed: And we had unemployment rates at 4.6%, we had economic growth and income growth, across the spectrum at every level- so what happened?

Bernanke: Well, Going back to some of the themes Sen. Shelby’s raised the stock market boom was not sustainable, it popped and contributed to the recession of 2001, and now of course we’ve had a financial crisis and a deep recession which has dragged down tax revenues and created needs for supporting people out of work and other important objectives. So a lot of what is happening right now, of course these enormous deficits we have this year and next year are not permanent, they are reflecting the current situation, but some will be permanent if we don’t address particularly the entitlement issue and the aging (population) issue

Reed: so you would concur that our efforts to pass HCR is critical to our economic future

Bernanke: I’m not going to comment on the overall health care bill, but I would just say I think an essential element would be to try to reform health care in way that controls costs going out (future) that is going to be essential

Reed and that’s what the CBO has concluded in its evaluation of the senate plan, is that correct?

Bernanke: They’ve talked about some premiums; I don’t think they have made a strong statement about the share of GDP going towards health care for example

Reed: They have indicated that going forward (bill) there will be cost savings

Bernanke (nods/gestures in general agreement)

Reed: And in my view the faster we can get this accomplished the faster we can deal with some of the other issues we’ve talked about today

Reed: I recall from the nineties, because I was here, that there are only two ways you can defect this deficit and that’s either by cutting expenditures or by raising income taxes or other forms of taxes. Can you think of another one?

Bernanke: well, just logically there are other kinds of taxes besides income taxes

Reed: no no, I concede that

Bernanke: and again on the spending side again “Willie Sutton robbed banks because that’s where the money is” the money In this case is in entitlement, those are the programs that are growing. At the rate we are going in 10 about 15 years, the entire federal budget will be entitlements and interest, and there will be no money left for defense or any of the other (government) activities. So clearly we are facing a very difficult structural problem in that we have an aging society and rising health care costs and the government has substantial obligations. I’m not in any way advocating unfair treatment of the elderly who have worked all their lives and certainly deserve our support and help, but if there are ways to restructure or strengthen these programs that reduce costs, I think that’s extraordinarily important to try to achieve.

Reed: Would you take taxes off the table?

Bernanke: those decision, I wouldn’t do anything, those decisions are for the congress.

Reed: well your predecessor (Greenspan) signaled very strongly that tax cuts in 2000 were appropriate

Bernanke: I have not done that. I have done my best to leave that authority where it belongs, with the congress.



The questioning continues with employment, jobs, credit, loans- please watch this too if you want to understand his positions on these issues.

The headline of the original post that Bernanke wants to repeal Social Security and Medicare is clearly fabricated for effect. The evidence is in his testimony.

[JDPriestly]

245. Don't forget Clinton. He contributed as much to our current economic

woes as the rest of these clowns.

[BREMPRO]

273. actually watch his testimony and tell me where he said Social Security and Medicare

should be repealed. that is a gross misinterpretation bordering on complete fabrication.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7147882&mesg_id=7159579

[JDPriestly]

274. Don't misunderstand. Clinton was not anti-Social Security.

But both Clintons favor "free trade" and outsourcing jobs, especially to India. They also like bringing in cheap labor from, for example, India. And all of that is terrible for Americans.

[BREMPRO]

275. I agree with you on the Clinton's- just trying to get you to watch the Bernanke testimony

to see what he actually meant regarding entitlements- i was referring to the title of your original post. Please watch it.

[Confusious]

277. Bernanke is Greenspan's protege.

We'll get the same libertarian non-regulation, fraud tolerant policies.

"Just when we get someone who knows what they are doing and is trying to fix things, the mob here wants to toss him over the railing. Not smart. Who would take his place? would he/she be better?"

We don't know what will happen, so we should do nothing.

[BREMPRO]

280. But he is NOT following Greenspan's policies. PLEASE stop making up things about Bernanke based on

rumor and association- Watch his testimony instead of relying on second hand partisan opinion pieces and prejudiced assumptions about the man and his policies. DU is becoming like the Fox news of the Left- fact-challenged partisan character assasinators.

http://etv.thomsonreuters.com/link.html?ctype=group_channel&chid=3&cid=59617&shareToken=Mzo1OTYxNw%3D%3D%0A

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7147882&mesg_id=7159579

[scribble]

242. Not so fast.

Bankers never come out with frank statement of intentions. They always 'beat around the bush.' They are handsomely paid to obfuscate even their smallest intended actions.

If Bernanke wholeheartedly supports medicare and social security, then he needed to say so, and say so frankly. He didn't. Instead, he did a great impression of what a good Libertarian Banker would say to a board of hostile nonLibertarian Congress people, when asked about medicare and social security; IF he wanted to be done with both of those programs but didn't want to be caught saying so.

Your criticism of DU is very short-sighted. If Obama is not evil, he is not perfect, either -- nor has he been as candid and forthcoming this year as the rest of us who voted for him, need him to be.

Your own comments seem to be steeped in fanboy denial. It would be more helpful if you would accept criticism as a reasonable exercise, and note the specific criticisms you agree and disagree with; and explain why -- in some detail.

=-=-=

Obama is a flaming ass for appointing an assiduously Libertarian Board of Economic Advisors. Nobody in the country voted for him, so he would do that.

He's an ass because he personally knew better.

He's an ass because he personally insisted on doing what he did anyway, knowing that Wall Street would continue to harm us even more than we had been harmed by last January.

He's an ass because he expects the Banking system to just voluntarily reform itself by magic, without him first re-regulating business environment within which they will be required to operate.

He's an ass because he has ignored the ongoing jobs and mortgage crises all year, that has resulted from his conscious, intentional inaction. It's Christmas: He's just noticed NOW, that there's a job crisis? While he dithered, 12 million people lost their jobs, several million more lost their homes, and several tens' of millions more are about to be foreclosed. It didn't have to happen.

Calling Obama an ass might sound harsh to you; but it is really the mildest judgement I can make regarding his conduct as President right now. I've actually explained myself pretty accurately, and my explanations stand as justifications: I really, really don't approve of several specific things he's done this year, and I've said why.

Obama is lucky he's not giving a TownHall in my town tonight; and that I can't afford a Sharpie to prepare my cardboard sign for his enjoyment.

I am no longer one of Obama's fanboys.

sc

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

250. Pot said to the kettle

He's a tool; a mouthpiece of the right. You can't see that? Really? They are going to get miles out of that concession.

[elehhhhna]

26. Bernanke's proposing we starve the elderly now? Up his meds.

[Jim Sagle]

50. Up his ass as well.

[proudohioan]

88. Some of them are probably already there.

I'm a cashier at a grimy "discount store", and every morning at 8:00 AM, these poor old people are lined up, waiting for the manager to unlock the door, so that they can get a free cup of hot coffee and buy the morning supply of $1.00 bags of "past prime" produce and discounted, about to expire meat. The lucky ones purchase these items with food stamps. One poor old man tried to buy about 4 bags of the produce towards the end of the month, only to have his food stamp card declined! Poor guy didn't even have $4 left on his card by the end of the month! I was so saddened by this I pulled the money out of my pocket to pay for it. The guy came back a few hours later and tried to pay me back! I wanted to cry right then and there. Is this how we treat our elderly after years of slaving and working their fingers to bone? Is this the fucken thanks that they get? Great move, Bernanke! I hearby sentence you to one week hard labor as a cashier at a grimy grocery store! No, never mind; that lesson would just go right over your greed infested head!

[JDPriestly]

247. I was buying salad and fruit in the grocery store today.

A very thin, elderly man stood behind me in the line and said, "I want to go home with you because you eat well." He was buying about six cans of tuna. He told me that is all he eats -- tuna fish sandwiches. He was proud of that fact. I didn't know what to do. A head of salad wouldn't have meant much for him. He, too, was very proud.

[glinda]

136. They have tapped us out already. Up his. Sick of this money grab.

[closeupready]

113. +1000.

n/t

[olegramps]

114. He should have never been hired.

[dotymed]

126. ABSOLUTELY

How can president Obama even nominate this thief to another term as the head of the FED? In that statement he proved to all Americans what he stands for. What about the corporate entitlements that cost us so much more....

[DeanDem10]

141. RE: Bernanke should be fired

You got that right.

[valerief]

172. He should be way, way worse than fired, but I won't say it on this board. nt

[Deja Q]

205. Yup.

[aquart]

217. What is wrong with a simple, tasteful public hanging?

With peanut vendors and clowns.

[kestrel91316]

222. Beheading, drawing, and quartering is more suitable, IMHO.

Of course, it might frighten the kiddies, but it sure would serve as an object lesson.

[aquart]

278. Tempting, tempting.

But not really American.

[eleny]

2. I hope Obama wants to replace Bernanke

[IsItJustMe]

46. If my memory serves me, Obama himself has often talked about reforming Social Security. That is

political code word for cut. In addition to that, just today they passed a bill that will cut medicare by millions.

Clinton took a nife to Social Security by changing the age to recieve it, and also dependent status.

It seems to me that Republicans talk about cutting it, and then when a Democrat gets in there, they cut it.

All I can say from observation is watch out Social Security. The knives are out.

[Oldtimeralso]

64. Social Security and Medicare "Reform"

was a Raygun idea. The age was increased in a 1983 vote to be effective starting with a phase in in 2000, not Clinton's fault. The same measure increased taxes for both SS and Medicare.

[Maraya1969]

68. I can think of one instance where social security could be cut and that is for the very wealthy.

millionaires get their social security checks that they really do not need.

I wonder what 1 or 2% of total social security pay outs are.

[JHB]

82. On the other hand, it's worth a few SS checks to millionaires...

...to keep SS universal. Take that away, and they will chip away at the top limit until they can call SS a "welfare handout" and then beat the drum to eliminate it entirely.

[Jackpine Radical]

129. Exactly. All wise liberals have understood this since before the time of FDR.

[dotymed]

130. SS is not an entitlement

We have paid way more into this (congressional piggy bank) than most of us will ever receive. I think that millionaires receiving SS checks is obscene. It is their joke...

[kirby]

134. Really?

I am under the impression that most people are pulling more out of SS over their retirement years, than they ever put in during their working years. (Except for the wealthy)

[MJJP21]

137. Really

This is true of those who were retiring in the beginning of the program but the pendulum is swinging the other way. That is not to say the the program in not still very good. Where else can you still get guaranteed income for the rest of your life and not worry about the stock market taking your share? Where SS has gone badly is that they now support so many people on disability long before age 65 etc which I don't think was ever intended.

[windbreeze]

148. BINGO!!

You hit that nail right on the head...I know a 13 yr old...pulling the same amount of SS EVERY MONTH...that I worked 30 years for...why??? because he has a disfunctional family, who for as long as I've known them, have lived on the welfare/ss system....and he has add...but mostly because he has a disfunctional family..

Advantage programs for Medicare, need to be eliminated...the gov't pays an additional $500/$600 PER MONTH for medicare coverage...for EACH PERSON on an advantage program...over and above the SS recipient's monthly donation automatically taken from their SS check...Who rakes in that dough...the insurance companies providing the coverage, that's who...and then after people sign up, they find out that the advantage program really wasn't for them...it was for the insurance company...IF there's one million people on medicare advantage programs....x $500 monthly...how much is that...EVERY MONTH...??? 5 HUNDRED MILLION bucks it costs...PER MONTH...or half a BILLION dollars.....I bet that's almost enough to fund a good health care program for everyone...So let's face it....some reforms could be made and still benefit the majority...but cutting it out....come on...then what fund would the gov't steal from for all the other little goodies they like and can't pay for??? wb

[xxqqqzme]

190. Well, I was disabled at 47 in an auto accident.

I was a passenger, belted, when we were slammed by a car from behind. I lost the use of my left side because of head trauma and have rods in my back from the repair of 3 broken vertabrae. At the time I had a very good job w/ excellent health insurance. The day of the accident was the last day I 'worked'. It took me FIVE years to get SSI even though I was no longer employable. I was extremely fortunate in that in those 5 years, I had some limited funds available to me, otherwise my kids & I would have been homeless. I would be homeless today if not for SSI.

So what do you propose to do to those disabled during their employable years? It always amazes me when people slam the disabled receiving SSI. What would you put in its place? Or have you ever even given it a second thought? I hope you remain healthy & whole your entire life so what you whine about never becomes your only means of keeping a roof over your head, food on your able or clothes on your back.

God this board has become so conservative and petty.

[Kansas Wyatt]

195. If anything, disability from Social Security is too under-funded.

I was in the same situation when I was 25, but I had to get back to work (suffer, and have since) asap, because I got $610 per month, and had to figure out how to cover my $250 prescription bill.

[windbreeze]

199. Correct me if I'm wrong...

I don't believe that SS, per se, was ever meant to fund people with disabilities...It was meant as a retirement fund...to keep old people from losing their dignity, by having to give up everything, move in with, and become a burden to their kids after retirement...It was meant as an aid to keep those older people independent...

There should be some sort of fund for those disabled, separate from SS...I agree..So that people in your condition, or worse, don't have to worry about how they are going to live...or buy their medicines...etc...I don't have a problem taking care of those less able to take care of themselves...I do however, have a problem with the way they currently fund it...wb

[RaleighNCDUer]

181. Kind of depends on how long you live.

If you retire at 65 and kick off at 73 you don't even come close to getting back what you paid in. And of course, anyone dying before retirement doesn't get a cent.

Look at the obits - what is the typical age of death? Somewhere about 76. Less than ten years after beginning to collect SS at age 67 - and more and more are waiting till 67, for the added benefit instead of taking early retirement or collecting at 65.

You can't really judge by the 'life expectancy' rates that are available because they average all deaths, from infancy to centenarians. To get a rate of return on SS you need to include only those who pay into SS, from their first job at 15 or whatever, and I have yet to find any stats that exclude childhood death.

So if someone is 80+, he may draw out more than he paid in, but what he is drawing on is supplemented by the pay-in of the hundreds of thousands who never got a chance to collect at all, or who died before getting their pay-in back.

It is not a simple personal investment, as the republicans would like to make it.

[rhett o rick]

197. I for one put money in but will never get any out. nt

[JDPriestly]

251. Adjusted for inflation, we get very, very little for Social Security payments.

Granted, there were a few years when I did not work. But I got my card and started paying into it at the age of 14. Now I am 66. I paid the maximum during some of those years, but still my monthly payments are very, very small. It is just a supplement to your savings or some other pension. The problem is that baby-boomers in the private sector are mostly stuck with what they were able to save in their IRAs or 401(K) plans. (Even if they saved the maximum possible, most people couldn't save enough to live on in today's economy.) Remember, when I was 14, I earned less than a $1.00 an hour. I'm not sure but it might even have been 50 cents an hour. So, even though I was paying into Social Security on my summer job, and even though the money was a good percentage of what I earned, it would not be much in today's dollars.

Fact is, the baby-boomers' parents and children lived well as long as this country provided jobs and decent pay. But thanks to "free (international) trade" our jobs have been exported. We need to replace all payroll taxes with sales taxes. We could exempt all food and children's clothing. That is the only way to make trade fair. Because as long as American businesses and workers have to pay taxes on their personal or business income, we will not be competitive with other nations.

[Deja Q]

202. That means McCain is President, yes? Obama was attacking McCain's desire to cut it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C6PzLBr_zg


Is Obama a phony after all? Or are we still supposed to be proud of our country?

[placton]

84. obama appointed this guy - reason for hearings

[ChiciB1]

166. Word Is That Regardless Of What Sanders & Others May Feel About Him...

He will probably keep his position!! I really don't want to "not know" what is going on, HOWEVER, each time I hear something new it makes me cringe even more!

Is REVOLUTION are only option??? If so, let's get on with it!

Gee, isn't this actually "taxation without representation?"

[ChiciB1]

168. A Fix-It.... Is REVOLUTION "our" only option? I Can't Stand Making Such An

obvious mistake. Wanted to catch it before someone called me on it! I've seen it happen lately and try not to screw up with spelling and grammar, even though I have seen where I've missed some of my mistakes!

[laughingliberal]

223. Replace Bernanke? They're holding these hearings cause Obama has renominated him nt

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. May he soon be gone...

And his crazy ideas with him.

[fascisthunter]

4. May you live in a sewer you rich sociopath

[Ken Burch]

5. I'm thinking this might explain the "hold" Bernie put on him

Hopefully, in this case, the hold is a full-nelson.

Jesse Ventura could probably give Bernie some helpful hints as well.

[annabanana]

21. "Full-Nelson" indeed. . (very good) . . .n/t

[bulloney]

73. May I suggest that Ventura pile drive Bernanke a few times in a parking lot?

Has there been any talk about cutting the military budget in all of this discussion? If there's ever a rathole in the federal budget, it's the military budget. Get our noses out of other countries' businesss and use the military for what it's intended--DEFENDING our interests, not launching offensive action for the benefit of a few contractors.

[barbtries]

138. that's the most sensible,

responsible, smart thing to do. why is it somehow a topic nobody in congress ever addresses? maybe a very few very progressives but you know what i mean. it's as if the military is sacrosanct when it's really about killing and dying and making a very few people obscenely rich.

[heliarc]

175. I like your avatar icon Ken...

Nice to see Victor every once and a while.

[cilla4progress]

6. Elizabeth Warren for Treasury!

Can Geithner and replace him with Ms. Warrne. Or Fed. Anywhere she can actually wield power.

[Better Today]

7. I don't like Bernanke at all, but I think this is an intentional mis-interpretation

of what he is saying. However what he said is vague enough I can't really guess fully what he meant. I'm hoping he meant it as pressure for Congress to get HCR that really works.

[onethatcares]

28. do you really believe that he

wants health care reform that works for the average joe? Or does he want to sluff granny and pops off on the kids to pay for. Kinda like a Dickens novel.

I don't think he's ever been vague in his mind, he's got enough and just wants more.

[Better Today]

35. As I said, I can't glean anything from the vague comment as I read it. It could

be read that he's simply talking about HCR that makes HC affordable for all including Medicare and Social Security.

However, I'm more than happy if he's out of there. I would love to be the fly on the wall during the next conversation between him and Obama. It would be the most telling conversation of where Obama really sits, and that's as or maybe more important to me.

Any hope that this gaffe (if it was that and not what is being suggested) would cause Obama to pull his nomination? I sure hope so.

[northernlights]

86. you are joking, right? Bernanke wants h/c affordable?

Bernanke wants health care for free...for the uber-wealthy. After all, the doctors, nurses and technicians that deliver health care should be their slaves. And the rest of us can go eat shit and die, for all Bernanke cares.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: that's rich. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: Bernanake wants affordable healthcare for all. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[laughingliberal]

49. No, I think he really thinks entitlement spending should be cut. It's time for him to go

and take all the other Goldman Sachs guys with him.

[HamdenRice]

76. other Goldman Sachs guys? Bernanke wasn't a banker. He was a professor. nt

[laughingliberal]

95. I suppose I think of it more as a mindset than who his employers were nt

[Hannah Bell]

215. Board of Governors of the Fed.

[HamdenRice]

218. The Fed is a public institution, not Goldman Sachs

Oh, right. I forgot you're a WSWS/Ron Paul Fed=private bank conspiracy nut.

[Hannah Bell]

236. it's a banking institution. oh, btw, you're a liar. i've never mentioned ron paul, & i've

repeatedly told you i'm not a trot.

keep destroying your own cred, though.

[HamdenRice]

262. So, you're not a Trot, but you almost exclusively cited WSWS a self described Trot site?

That makes sense because American trots believed in the theory of the "useful idiot," the person who would spread their propaganda without actually being dumb enough to formally subscribe to their party.

In your case though, I'm not sure I would describe you as smart enough to be one of their useful idiots.

[Hannah Bell]

276. I'm not a Trot, but you're still a liar.

[sabrina 1]

58. He meant it. He belongs to a cabal of

'capitalists' who subscribe to the theories of Milton Friedman and anything that to them remotely reminds them of 'liberalism', is a major sin. I bet he was not supposed to let that slip out, but these monsters that Obama kept on do not care one bit if old people were starving to death. They DO want an end to SS and Medicare. To them, these programs are a crime against 'capitalism' and people better not ignore who they are and what their goals are. And I do not know why they are in a democratic administration. But I do know that you can be judged by the company you keep, and Obama's choices of the people he has around him, are pretty chilling. I think we have been majorly conned.

[Lorien]

121. I don't think that Obama will even run for a second term

Why? Because when asked about a second term he has said repeatedly "The people will decide if I run or not", not "the people will decide if I win a second term", which is how most first term presidents have framed their response to that question. He said that even during the campaign. His reluctance to commit to RUNNING for a second term speaks volumes, imho.

[sabrina 1]

182. You may be right Lorien.

Much as I hate to even entertain the thought, I can't help wondering if those who made it to the end of the campaign knew that Corporate America were the bosses and they had to be assured that whoever won, would do the business of the corporate state. Not a bad exchange for a place in history for all of them. I doubt it mattered much to the corporatists which of the three actually won, so they left that up the people, many of whom voted with great reluctance for the choices they were left with. And to think I fought for so long with those who tried to tell me that.

[laughingliberal]

225. Yeah, color my face red. I raled at the "they're all in it together" crowd for years

I was convinced these were the people too wrapped up in their own little pursuits to expend the energy to become informed. Now, I have egg all over my face.

[Cosmocat]

192. Yeah, a 48 year old man ...

is NOT going to run for a second term?

what is he going to do, spend the next 30 years of his life taking over for Jimmy Carter as the best ex-president ever?

The man is in the prime of his life and has the most important job on the planet. There is nothing he could do with the rest of his life that could begin to match being president. He will run for a second term for the same reason professional athletes play as long as possible - they know it is all downhill afterwards, and want to max out their time at the top of their profession.

You don't fight to get to the top to just walk away when you are in your prime ...

[Deja Q]

203. On the basis of his own policies... which are the change people wanted?

What change?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C6PzLBr_zg
(Guess who just cut medicare?)


Sadly, it makes alluding to the inference that he's bought and paid for stronger. :(

[CrispyQ]

131. Very well said, Sabrina!

I couldn't agree more.

[sabrina 1]

185. I like your flag ~

The whole thing is so sad, as they are ruining this country. But the sooner we wake up and start doing something about the better. We have wasted a decade fighting Bush, who was a huge distraction, but when I look back and think of how often I was disappointed and puzzled by the number of Democrats who voted for his agenda and nominees, it is all beginning to make sense.

[CrispyQ]

186. My husband sent this article to me from work last night.

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts12022009.html

The World's Least Powerful Man
The Obama Puppet
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

snip...

It didn’t take the Israel Lobby very long to bring President Obama to heel regarding his prohibition against further illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land. Obama discovered that a mere American president is powerless when confronted by the Israel Lobby and that the United States simply is not allowed a Middle East policy separate from Israel’s.

Obama also found out that he cannot change anything else either, if he ever intended to do so.

The military/security lobby has war and a domestic police state on its agenda, and a mere American president can’t do anything about it.

President Obama can order the Guantanamo torture chamber closed and kidnapping and rendition and torture to be halted, but no one carries out the order.

Essentially, Obama is irrelevant.

===
It's a good article, worth the time to read. Depressing, though. I'm not feeling optimistic that we'll ever get our country back.

[sabrina 1]

196. I like Paul Craig Roberts.

You're right, it is depressing. In fact I just asked that question in another post somewhere today, whether or not the US president actually has any say in anything after all. Not sure where I posted it but it's looking more and more like the president is just the newest CEO of the Corporate state and he gets his orders as soon as they let him in the door of the WH. I think I also referred to Eisenhower's warning about this.

Glad to see that someone of P.C. Robert's status feels the same way. Sometimes I wonder if I'm getting paranoid.

I think we should not pay so much attention to the presidential races anymore. The people's only chance of holding any power is with Congress. No more donations to presidential campaigns. We need to build a Congress that works for the people. And WE need to choose the candidates, not the DLC or the DNC.

[proudohioan]

234. Even more depressing

is the article (same link) written by Carl Ginsburg: "Planning for Poverty". Depressing and scary stuff, but worth reading.

[phantom power]

106. "Entitlements" is conservative dog-whistle for SS, Medicare and friends.

It's really that simple.

[inna]

8. Jesus.

Another nice pick, Obama.

:banghead:

[Sebastian Doyle]

10. Sebastian Doyle suggests repeal of Bernanke

and the goddamn cabal of private banking thieves known as the "federal" reserve.

[SoCalDem]

11. Elizabeth Warren SHOULD have been Sec of Treasury

and Sheila Bair could be in charge of the Fed

men have mucked it up badly..let the women be in charge for a while:)

[truedelphi]

16. I'd settle for Warren, but my first choice would be Brooksley Born as

She knows where the bodies are buried and she knows their games and how to defeat them by playing them down and under

While Warren has that "Ivory Tower" academic niceness to her, and can be easily snowed.

[unabelladonna]

27. i like ivory tower

they're not beholden to the hoodlums who populate wall street.this "let them eat cake" attitude is pitchfork ready.

[truedelphi]

29. Ya know something, Catherine Austin Fitts, who makes her living by advising

Wealthy people about finances, she says her clients are ready to put heads of some of the current Geithner/Bernanke people on pikes.

And that is from the affluent side of the tracks!

[robertpaulsen]

208. Put Catherine Austin Fitts in charge of the Fed.

Now that's http://solari.com/">change I can believe in!

[truedelphi]

239. i would believe in that change myself. n/t

[Sebastian Doyle]

31. Nobody should be in charge of the "fed", as it should no longer exist.

Totally cool with Elizabeth Warren taking the Elf's place though.

[femrap]

41. What was the Greek Drama....

that the women took over the Treasury? It started with an 'L.'

Damn, my memory. And it ended in 'strata.'

Geez.

[SoCalDem]

53. Lysistrata

http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/lysistrata/summary.html

Summary

Lysistrata has planned a meeting between all of the women of Greece to discuss the plan to end the Peloponnesian War. As Lysistrata waits for the women of Sparta, Thebes, and other areas to meet her she curses the weakness of women. Lysistrata plans to ask the women to refuse sex with their husbands until a treaty for peace has been signed. Lysistrata has also made plans with the older women of Athens (the Chorus of Old Women) to seize the Akropolis later that day. The women from the various regions finally assemble and Lysistrata convinces them to swear an oath that they will withhold sex from their husbands until both sides sign a treaty of peace. As the women sacrifice a bottle of wine to the Gods in celebration of their oath, they hear the sounds of the older women taking the Akropolis, the fortress that houses the treasury of Athens.

In Lysistrata there are two choruses—the Chorus of Old Men and the Chorus of Old Women. A Koryphaios leads both choruses. The Chorus of Men is first to appear on stage carrying wood and fire to the gates of the Akropolis. The Chorus of Men is an old and bedraggled bunch of men who have great difficulty with the wood and the great earthen pots of fire they carry. The men plan to smoke the women out of the Akropolis. The Chorus of Old Women also approaches the Akropolis, carrying jugs of water to put out the men's fires. The Chorus of Old Women is victorious in the contest between the choruses and triumphantly pours the jugs of water over the heads of the men. The Commissioner, an appointed magistrate, comes to the Akropolis seeking funds for the naval ships. The Commissioner is surprised to find the women at the Akropolis and orders his policemen to arrest Lysistrata and the other women. In a humorous battle, that involves little physical contact, the policemen are scared off. The Commissioner takes the opportunity to tell the men of Athens that they have been too generous and allowed too much freedom with the women of the city. As the policemen run off, the Commissioner and Lysistrata are left to argue about the Peloponnesian War. Lysistrata argues that the War is a concern for women especially and she adds her two cents as to how the city should be run, drawing an elaborate analogy to show that Athens should be structured as a woman would spin wool. Lysistrata tells the Commissioner that war is a concern of women because women have sacrificed greatly for it—women have given their husbands and their sons to the effort. Lysistrata adds that it is now difficult for a woman to find a husband. The women mockingly dress the Commissioner as a woman.

The next day, or perhaps some considerable time afterwards, the sex-strike devised at the beginning of the text, begins to take effect on the men. Lysistrata spots Kinesias, husband of Myrrhine, approaching the Akropolis. Kinesias has a full erection and is desperate for his wife. Myrrhine refuses to have intercourse with Kinesias until peace exists between Athens and Sparta. Kinesias tells Myrrhine that her child needs her, he needs her and he loves her and Myrrhine pretends to listen to his frustrated pleas. Myrrhine hints that she might make love to Kinesias, but delays by going repeatedly into the Akropolis to fetch things to make the couple comfortable. As Kinesias promises to only think about a treaty of peace for Athens and Sparta, Myrrhine disappears into the Akropolis and leaves her husband in great pain.

snip

[femrap]

183. I love this story.

Thanks.

Women need to run the Fed.

[redqueen]

12. Wow.

Stunning.

[redqueen]

13. deleted

double post

[truedelphi]

14. Ever since the appointment by that complete tool

Of Bernanke (Goldman Sachs) and Geithner (Kissinger) to the top posts at The Fed and the Treasury, and then that Evil Duo allowed the same economic policies to develop such that there are over twelve trillion and counting of entitlements, guarantees etc to WALL STREET, I have been telling the spouse that what this was all about was getting rid of Social Security and Medicare.

Then last week, when the Dubai financial firm blew up, there was some serious fallout. Such that a top European money adviser in Europe was stating that the ONLY WAY to keep the US dollar strong was to

1) start taxing the American people (Which really was that person's way of saying - tax the rich like they do here in Europe)
AND WE ALL KNOW THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN
2) or get rid of "entitlements

Entitlements my arse. Those of us who have not neen working off the books are paying over seven percent into the Social Security fund and ove rfifteen percent if an indie contracter!

Get rid of pensions for Congress first, says I.

[ima_sinnic]

17. eff you, you stinking wealthy cornhole

and Obama picked YOU. how nice. how very very nice. That is the kind of change I did NOT vote for. thank god or whatever for Bernie Sanders, because our "president," the tool who is supposed to be "leading," and with "change," is doing jack for We The People.

[Vinnie From Indy]

18. Ouch!

Bernanke should go simply for being so politically reckless. He gained nothing by his reminding Comgress that they can repeal SS and Medicare. Does he really think they do not know that? WTF? Why in the world would he have said such a stupid thing?

I think that Bernanke has forgotten that fucking with Granny's SS is a political loser. She and her posse WILL show up at the polls and beat the shit out of any politician trying to take SS away and they will still have time to make the early bird at the MCL.

[spanone]

19. bernanke is a bu$h* criminal

[Bluenorthwest]

100. Who is still around a year later because of Obama

Bush has been gone for some time now.

[annabanana]

20. I suggest that Bernanke retire.... NOW.

He is not doing America any good.

(Audit the Fed)

[Lugnut]

23. I second that!

Throw the bum out.

[Thickasabrick]

22. They whine about the money being in entitlements - the money is in

the military. How come nobody ever mentions that???

[onethatcares]

36. the money is in entitlements to the wealthy.

these people talk like they support small business which to me means a small company with maybe 10 employees or maybe 100 employees. These people think that Disney is a small company and that's no joke. In fact, I just heard Eisner saying that he can't hire anymore because he doesn't know what the tax rate for the employee is going to be.


Gaud damm it. something is radically wrong here.

[Lorien]

124. The government's definition of "small business" is one with 500 employees

or fewer. I know this because I own a small business, and personally I think of a company with several hundred employees as a mid sized corporation, not a "small business".

[katkat]

66. shortly after

dumping more money into Vietnamistan, our glorious leader cautioned about the difficulty of job creation because of limited funds.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

24. Not that I like to defend Bernanke...

but isn't this getting taken blatantly and ridiculously out of context?

[Ikonoklast]

98. 'Reform' also might include taking the income cap off contributions.

Make the wealthy pay their percentage on ALL earnings.

This is being considered.

[BREMPRO]

139. agreed -the post is totally misrepresenting his statements and taken out of context

he's not FOR repealing SS and Medicare, just reminding congress they need to do something because both programs are both constructed on unsustainable financial trajectories and a risk to the financial balance sheet of the treasury.

Also, doesn't Bernanke get SOME credit for saving us from another great depression? The haters here sometimes sound more like ignorant teabaggers than informed and thoughtful progressives. One poster even suggested Bernanke had worked for Goldman Saks- pure ignorance. He's never worked for wall street, never in the private sector and been a professor of economics and a public servant all his life- and from a very modest background. Too many here lately are just jumping on the bash Obama team bandwagon without really understanding what they are talking about.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/bios/board/bernanke.htm

[RoyGBiv]

165. Yes ...

But since when has that ever stopped anyone. The addition of the word "repeal" is particularly ridiculous.

[Neecy]

25. Yes, because the obscenely wealthy want that money, too

[michreject]

30. If he is fired

Will Glenn Beck take credit for it?

[earth mom]

32. Fuck Bernanke!

:grr:

[glitch]

33. Dude's got zombie eyes.

Still looking to hide his crimes on Wall Street with a couple of huge cash infusions, like any small-time embezzler.

[berni_mccoy]

34. One word: Moron.

Bernanke just fired himself.

[lovelyrita]

38. Shameful.

This part was also disgusting.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) has been pushing hard for the creation of an independent commission that could cut entitlement spending. He has met recently, he said Thursday, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, reiterating his threat to block Senate legislation if the commission isn't created.

"We're on a course that's just unsustainable," Conrad said, but put emphasis on Medicare rather than Social Security.

[JDPriestly]

57. The problem is that those of us who are now in our 60s and 70s

have paid into Social Security and Medicare all our working lives -- only to be told now that the portion of our pay that we have paid in reliance on the promise of Social Security and Medicare should be cut.

Believe me, the payments for Social Security are not very large. The government should have known years ago that it should set money aside or invest it in some way so as to pay out when we who are now in our 60s and 50s would become eligible for Social Security and Medicare. I did not work for some years, but then I began paying Social Security at the age of 14, so I certainly paid my dues for my parents' and grandparents' generation.

In the 1980s, the amounts that we paid for Social Security and Medicare taxes were raised in order to make sure that there would be enough in the Social Security accounts to provide for us in our elderly years. Where did that money go? To fight wars for the benefit of big business. I can tell you that, thus far, I have not benefited one bit from any war that was fought with my tax money.

[katkat]

67. JD

I have long felt that it was a total crock for the government and SS opponents to say that we aren't paying for our own Social Security benefits but are paying for those who are older than we are. It basically allows the government to do smoke and mirrors.

I am sure I've posted before that I took the records I got from SS about how much tax they had taken from me over the years, number-crunched as to what that would add up to if I have been able to keep it and it had compounded at 5% (a very reasonable long term interest rate, considering rates were in the double digits in the 1980s), and it was far more than I will ever receive in benefits, esp. considering the principal will continue to earn compound interest as I receive benefits.

Sure, there was a getting off the ground shortfall decades ago, but SS should be rolling in money.

Where the hell is that money? What did the government do with it? Al Gore knew it was being ripped off, hence his lockbox proposal.

2012: I am seriously worried (okay, I am already beyond seriously worried) about 2012. Obama has failed so badly in so many respects - a tool of BigFinance, failing to do more than minor environmental things, endless money and lives for stupid wars. If he gets a public option through that's pretty good.

But most of us really bought that hope and change crap. We seem to be stuck with either him or a worse Repig, with no chance for anyone decent until 2016. And in 2016, it better be someone with history to have credibility with actual Democrats, and meanwhile Independents won't believe anyone any more. I see a disastrous future.

I really want to spit that Obama has blown the real chance he had to make inroads on problems that are now overwhelming.

[spooky3]

102. Some of it was "loaned" for other purposes as Al Gore said; some

of it DID go to pay for benefits for people older than you. If you look at earlier generations' receipts vs. contributions, they HAVE received more. For example, the earliest recipients paid in next to nothing but were covered for years. That was the intent of the program - so senior citizens' poverty rates would be diminished and the program has succeeded in doing that.

Also, because Social Sec. increases with the cost of living, sometimes beyond the 5% you described, some recipients have received FAR more than they contributed, plus you will receive more each year. Since that principal isn't fully there to earn income while you are receiving it, there is a shortfall.

Further, remember that Soc. Sec. isn't just for retirees; it also provides benefits to widows/widowers, dependent children, spouses who never worked outside the home or earned very little, etc. They also may receive far more than they contributed.

This is not a criticism or endorsement of any of these policies; just an explanation of where the money really did go.

[JDPriestly]

256. We are not receiving more each year. Bush declared that there would

be no inflation and we are going two years without COLA increases in Social Security. Tell that to your landlord, to the gas and electric companies. Here in L.A. even our water bills have gone up. And food is much more expensive.

[spooky3]

261. that's true but in almost every other year, the amounts have gone up.

[pleah]

39. Another pos ready for the dung heap. Should have been sent there

long ago.

[bvar22]

40. repeal of Social Security and Medicare

Be afraid.
It is coming.
That is what "Entitlement Reform" means.

The seeds for the destruction of Medicare are already planted in the Health Care Reform Bill which calls for a $500Billion Dollar defunding of Medicare.


The DLC has always advocated for giving Social Security to Wall Street.
It is no secret. It is on their website.
Obama picked these people because he BELIEVES what they believe.

The DLC New Team

(Screen Capped from the DLC Website)

"I am a New Democrat!...Barack Obama
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=254931&kaid=85&subid=900184

[patrice]

226. I look forward eagerly to calling my Republican senators and telling them NOT to vote for that piece

of crap HCR bill in the senate.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

42. Started digging my grave

so my wife can push my un-medicared, un-social securityed , ass into it.
My kids will cover me up, wife can hardly breathe.

[bobbolink]

48. Thank you for saying what so many of us feel. I just don't even care anymore.

However, if "progressives" have any compassion at all, which more and more I doubt, then they need to make sure we have the means for a quick and painless exit, rather than dying a slow, painful and humiliating death!

[Dr.Phool]

104. Jack Kevorkian for Sec. of HHS!

That should do it.

[bobbolink]

253. Thank you for your caring concern.

[Flying Dream Blues]

112. I can always count on your posts to cheer me up.

You are the most relentlessly negative person on this board, and that is saying alot.
If you despise everyone on DU so much, I wonder, why are you here?

[bobbolink]

255. Why? Because it's so much fun bedeviling people like you.

You think I'm negative, huh? You are welcome to walk in my shoes any day.

AND, I "have to ask", if I bring you down so much, why do you read my posts?

Please, do both of us a huge favor, and put me on ignore.

Thank you. :hi:

[kentuck]

43. What stupid Democrat would vote to confirm this asshole...?

after saying something like this? How about we repeal the unnecessary wars and 3/4ths of the Defense Dept??

[L0oniX]

44. Bernanke has a death wish.

[ThoughtCriminal]

45. Socail Security was looted to pay for tax cuts for the rich

and illegal wars.

That can be fixed.

[nc4bo]

47. Oh Lordy. So I guess he sees the end coming and now feels free to talk

all the disgusting neocon RW garbage he's been keeping to himself for so long.

He'll go work for GS, BOA or some other too big to fail bank or financial inst. and then collect his retirement check along with his SS check and get a bypass or 2 performed on the taxpayer's dime.

POS.

[tritsofme]

51. Nowhere is Bernanke quoted suggesting that Medicare and SS be repealed.

In this context they were discussing mandatory increases in spending on entitlement programs, as opposed to "non-defense discretionary spending" which policymakers have more control of on a year to year basis.

But the smear on Bernanke isn't surprising.

[fasttense]

74. Reminder:

Social Security was a program put in place by FDR with the intention of the children paying for their parents retirement. However, when Raygun became president he doubled our Social Security taxes, and created the Social Security trust fund to ensure Social Security remained solvent. So for about 30 years, we have been paying double Social Security taxes, for our parents and ourselves (what's supposedly in the trust fund is for our retirement). How can anyone in congress suggest that this is an entitlement program when we have paid for our parent's and our retirements in advance?

Any problems with Social Security could easily be resolved with the stroke of a pen by lifting the cap of $100,000. The cap means that you only pay Social Security on the 1st $100,000 of earnings, all other earnings are totally SS tax FREE. With the CEO of an average health-care corporation earning $57,000 per hour, after the 1st two hours of work, the CEO has paid all required Social Security taxes. The average individual earns $50,000 per year. They have to pay all year on their Social Security taxes. How is this fair?

The simple solution is to remove the cap - the problem disappears.

[kirby]

135. How is it fair?

Well, SS is not a 'tax', but an insurance program. Those over $106800 do not get monthly retirement payouts strictly proportional to their contributions. The monthly retirement (output) amount is capped. That is the logic behind capping the contributions (input).

[tonysam]

160. "Entitlement" isn't welfare. "Entitlement" means just that.

You paid into it, and you're entitled to the benefits. Period.

[Hannah Bell]

213. .

"Well, Senator, I was about to address entitlements," Bernanke replied. "I think you can't tackle the problem in the medium term without doing something about getting entitlements under control and reducing the costs, particularly of health care."

Bernanke reminded Congress that it has the power to repeal Social Security and Medicare.

"It's only mandatory until Congress says it's not mandatory. And we have no option but to address those costs at some point or else we will have an unsustainable situation," said Bernanke.

[tritsofme]

219. He is talking about unsustainable cost increases going forward.

Nowhere does Bernanke suggest that we simply repeal the programs.

The only one making that implication is the author.

[Indenturedebtor]

52. Fire Bernanke. Tax the Rich.... Or Cancel SS and Medicare

Either tax the rich or get rid of these programs. I'm for taxing the rich, but dammit don't try to make my generation pay for 30-40 years of decreasing taxes while boomers lived it up. To hell with that. I'll simply leave.

[Daphne08]

62. That's a very strange position to take.

If you really feel like leaving, perhaps you should. I wonder which country has lower taxes than the U.S.

And what will happen when you grow old... or become ill?

Perhaps I simply misunderstood what you meant. If so, please enlighten me.

By the way, I'm one of those 60-year-old "boomers" who has never begrudged the elderly or the sick or resented the taxes I've paid.

I have, however, noticed a great deal of "anti-boomer" rhetoric among the younger crowd.

Whatever.

[katkat]

70. Daphne/anti-boomer rhetoric

That's because a lot (not all) of younger folks know no history and don't bother to be informed about what's actually happened. Thus they're fodder for whatever the Repigs/DLCers want.

[kirby]

161. It is not hard to understand...

If there is a notion that previous generations should leave things better for the later generations, the baby boomers deserve a lot of blame. Of course what goes around comes around and eventually the later generations will get their blame for not taking action and fixing things.

I'm not the original poster, but I do personally think the boomers share a great deal of blame for the sad state of affairs this country is in today. I certainly do not agree that Medicare / Soc Sec should be canceled though. If that decision were to be made, people who have already paid in should not be cheated out the program they were expecting.

[patrice]

227. Could you explain that to me about the boomers' blame, please? I don't want to attack.

I just want to know factually what the issue is.

[kirby]

241. Well...

Simply the fact that the boomers have been the ones running the country and businesses. The baby boomer generation are the CEOs, leaders, executives, politicians of today. Therefore, they made and continue to make the decisions that put us on the path of today.

[patrice]

243. Assuming that you are in the generation after this particular boomer, I'm wondering if

you are aware that the generation that succeeds yours is being diagnosed with a high frequency of bi-polar and manic disorders.

:hi: Good luck. :hi:

[JDPriestly]

260. The baby boomers are not to blame.

If you recall, it's thanks to the baby boomers that we have a peace movement and environmental awareness. I'm actually a bit older than the average baby boomer so I remember the baby boomers went through.

If you are African-American, you can thank the baby boomers for fighting for your rights.

If you are woman, you, too, can thank baby boomers for fighting for your rights.

Baby boomers spoke out, took care of their children and their parents (at the same time) and were sold out by the leaders who gained the baby boomers' trust through lies.

If you want to blame someone, don't blame the baby boomers on DU.

[Indenturedebtor]

249. Hah it's not about lower taxes - don't put me in that republican box

Look at this Income Tax graph:



Whether you were for or against the pillaging of your children's future it happened. Money was borrowed from SS to continue to pay for wars of expansionism, and (gutted) social programs, roads, hospitals, etc while the Boomers watched their stock portfolios grow and their income tax shrink.

At the same time environmental regulation was rolled back, education was cut again and again, insane people were let out of asylums onto the streets, the unions were virtually destroyed, free trade sent many of the good jobs overseas, and on and on and on.

Now that SS hasn't nearly enough money to be sustained there's talk of taxing the working class of my generation when Boomers finally retire to pay for that retirement. Not only do we have to sustain your cruise-going lifestyles, we have to try to clean up the mess you left of our country, geo-politics, and the environment.

The taxes your generation paid were not enough and were proportionally smaller than at pretty much any period in modern American history... I would be utterly shocked if you or any Boomer resented them.

Your generation broke this country, whether you were a part of that or not. That's why my generation is pissed.

[katkat]

69. Indenturedebtor

Read #67. You aren't paying for boomers to "live it up." Boomers have already been taxed for SS a lot more than they will ever get from SS. And no one "lives it up" living on $1000 a month.

[AndrewP]

200. That's true, you can't really "live it up" on $1000 a month

Personally, I don't have a problem funding Social Security with my "prime of life" wage. Who knows, maybe it'll actually still be there if I reach retirement age.

[Indenturedebtor]

257. No SS pillaging and the utterly selfish and irresponsible policies of Boomers

put us in the mess we're in. Now you all want to pass the buck to me and my children. Tax the rich who benefited most from the last hideous 30 years which have left our country and our world a shambles... but don't pass the buck YET AGAIN to those who come after.

[pecwae]

83. Aw, don't leave.

The country just wouldn't be the same.

[raccoon]

94. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. And I don't know where you got the idea that all

boomers are "living it up"--but I have to tell you--not all of them are.

Some of them haven't had medical insurance for years.

[Indenturedebtor]

254. Yes no medical insurance since their corporatist policies took effect

"Don't take it out on the poor boomers Indenturedebtor, take it out on the poor X and Y'ers!"

Raise taxes on the rich or leave me the hell out of it.

[Bluenorthwest]

103. simply leaving does not relieve you of your tax burden as

an American. To do that, you will have to also give up your citizenship and be taken in by another nation, then pay their taxes. Or keep the US papers and pay both! Good luck!

[Indenturedebtor]

281. Actually I believe you're taxed in the country in which you earn the income

That's why our corporate overlords all have their headquarters in the Cayman islands, dubai, etc.

[shireen]

140. that's a pretty irresponsible and selfish statement

This is not the fault of boomers. It's the power structure of this country working for the super-rich to make them even richer. You have every right to be angry, but don't take your anger out on innocent people who are also suffering.

[Indenturedebtor]

252. Read my post again - and also don't ignore what's happened

SS was heavily borrowed from to lower income taxes. That happened before I came of voting age. Now there's talk of raising my taxes and cutting the pitiful programs that still exist to pay for SS? Don't make the boomer irresponsibility my problem.

[JDPriestly]

258. It's the job of the Obama economic team to rebuild our economy

so that American employees and businesses generate enough in their own income and in tax income so that we can have a decent society in which everyone can afford healthcare, clean water and air and a decent, warm place to live. Obama took that job upon himself when he ran for office. Bernanke accepted responsibility for that task when he agreed to chair the Fed.

Any one of them can quit at any time if they think the job is just too demanding for them.

When I worked, I did my job and did it well. They should do no less.

[JDPriestly]

259. Boomers did not "live it up." And no one "lives it up" on Social Security.

Who do you think paid for the schools and streets that you enjoyed in your childhood. Who do you think kept your grandparents' generation in good health care and a good life during their retirements.

If you don't pay for Social Security all your life (as the baby boomers did), you are quite likely to find your mom and dad, those nasty babyboomers, living in your spare bedroom or sleeping on your living room couch. That's the reality you face if Social Security and Medicare are cut back really far.

Now, you may be telling yourself that you have nothing to worry about because your own parents are well situated. Do you know how quickly that can change when one of your parents develops Alzheimers or has a really bad fall and breaks a hip or develops a severe case of diabetes or some similar problem? Do you want to have to choose between buying milk for your kids or paying for mom's hip operation?

[Generic Other]

54. I will be living in his front yard in a homeless tent if he keeps talking

yeah cut ss and medicare. cut your throat while you are at it bernanke. all the concealed weapons at goldman sachs will not protect you from the wrath of the walker brigade!

[totodeinhere]

55. I have never trusted that either Social Security or Medicare will be there when I retire.

That's why I'm trying my best to plan ahead now and provide for my own retirement when it happens, and I strongly suggest that everyone else does the same. I realize though that's it's too late for those close to retirement age who don't have anything and don't have enough time to do anything about it. Those are the ones I am most afraid for.

On edit, let me add this. Of course, the repeal of Social Security and Medicare and other social programs has been a wet dream for many Republicans for a long time. They opposed the establishment of both and they would eliminate both in a heartbeat if they could.

[eridani]

63. It won't be if shitstains like Bernanke remain where they are n/t

[northernlights]

89. be afraid for yourself

after they've stolen SS, don't think for one moment they won't go after your savings. In fact, they already probably are. No matter where you try to hide them, no matter how you "invest," they will find your stash and they will take it, one way or another. They make and burst a bubble here; a bubble there. More double-digit unemployment. No matter how careful you are, how much you sacrifice, how hard you plan, they can outwait you. You'll end up like the rest of us, with the last few haves blaming you for being robbed.

[totodeinhere]

146. Thanks for those encouraging words.

So based on that maybe we shouldn't worry about saving anything and just live for the moment. At least we might have a good time for a while before it all comes crashing down.

Either that or invest in a good mattress.

:sarcasm:

[AtheistCrusader]

163. They can steal it right out from under your mattress too.

Oh hey, that's 'drug money'. Or worse, they just inflate the currency, and your pile is worthless.

[northernlights]

283. bingo nt

[JDPriestly]

264. We did without. We saved. It's not so easy to outsmart Wall Street.

[northernlights]

284. so did I

I saved and saved, paid off mortgage and saved some more. Thank goodness I never did gambl...er, invest in Wall St because when the industry where I had built my 20-year career crashed, I had to start over from scratch and long-term unemployment ate up my savings.

In the meantime, I have a *wonderful* :evilfrown: new (hopefully temporary) career in a mutual fund call center being screamed at by the investor class as they recognize they were bilked. And being jerked around and abused by "management." All for a princely $11/hour, while struggling through allied health program for hopefully better, real career doing something worthwhile.

[BennyD]

107. You're smart to plan for your own retirement. Otherwise there

will almost certainly be nothing waiting on you when you do retire. It's my understanding that all of the money that goes into social security is immediately drawn out to pay for benefits of others. This was NOT how it was originally intended to work. It was designed to be sort of a forced savings account, where the money YOU put in would be there for YOU when you retired. Obviously, this is not the reality as congress saw a money chest they could spend and did. Now, the money you and I pay in immediately goes out to pay for others whose money was stolen by our government and wasted on unnecessary expenditures.

[bullwinkle428]

246. Yeah! That's why I put all that money in the stock market!

Uh...wait a minute...

[JDPriestly]

263. Good luck! You need to get married and save the entire

salary of either your spouse or yourself. Never have any children. Never get sick. Don't risk your money on starting your own business. The chance of failing is probably greater than the chance of succeeding. Hope that Wall Street treats your life savings better than it has treated the life savings of the baby boomers. And, once again, never get sick.

You will need to live a totally self-centered but very quiet life. Don't travel or lift anything too heavy. Stay away from germs. Don't eat or exercise too much. And check your family history very carefully. You don't want to need heart surgery all of the sudden at the age of 49. You don't want to develop diabetes (a very expensive illness).

Maybe you should stay out of cars and planes too. You don't want to risk an accident. That could really mess up your retirement plan.

Social Security is a necessity for most of us even those of us who save assiduously. Even those of us who are well educated and work hard all our lives. Life brings many surprises.

[earcandle]

56. I LOVE ELIZABETH WARREN> BRING HER ON!

[kenny blankenship]

59. Get the hook.

[kristopher]

60. That quote doesn't support the headline.

The quote says Congress has the power to do something about mandatory levels of spending for these programs and will have to act to ensure the programs are viable.

That is nothing like the headline statement that he is calling for repeal of SS.

[JDPriestly]

265. You don't speak bureaucratese, do you?

Bernanke reminds Congress that it has the power to repeal Medicare and Social Security immediately when responding to and making comments about the "problem" with entitlements.

The problem with the American budget is that we spend too much on the military and we have outsourced all our good jobs. We need tariffs. We became a world power because of our ability to produce high quality goods. Now, we just buy junk from other countries. Our dollar is falling. You can save what you want. If your money doesn't buy anything that last longer than a couple of weeks, you are poor. And that is why Americans are poor.

We used to make Maytag washers right in the heartland of southeastern Iowa. My Maytag is over 25 years old and still doing a great job. Try to make a Maytag made in Mexico or China or wherever they make them now last that long. You can't do it.

America was betrayed by the Wall Street cheats.

[Kalun D]

61. and Hopelessness we can believe in

re-appoints him, what do you want to bet?

and if they do decide to make him a patsy they'll find someone just like him to replace him

[katkat]

65. somebody ought to remind that creep

That we've been taxed for those programs for decades of our working lives. How about we fire Bernanke, take away all his savings and the savings of his relatives, and prohibit them for getting any job above minimum wage.

Then we can add him to a list of why Obama is a big failure.

[FrenchieCat]

71. amazing how you read what you wanted out of those words!

Bush has won our hearts and minds!

[Hubert Flottz]

72. He wants to pull the plug on Granny!

[TheWatcher]

75. Look, everyone needs to fall in line here, and stop acting like selfish ninnies.

With EVERY SINGLE AVAILABLE PENNY needed for War, Wall Street Speculation, Endless Bailouts, and the Corporate Trough, you know the things that ACTUALLY MATTER in this country, you peasants are just going to have to make do.

You've been living PRETTY high on the hog these past few decades with the crumbs you are allowed to have, but it's time to face reality and get with the program that the Predator Class is in a Crisis, and it's time to sacrifice for the Greeds Of The Few.

What Helo Ben is Proposing is HUMANE and JUST.

Why, if this weren't the Good O'l USA, you'd probably just be sent off to camps and genocided. You're the best Fed, most well taken care of Rabble on THE PLANET, but it just isn't good enough for you is it?

Now, you just simmer down and get back to towing the "Party Line", or we'll put those nasty REPUBLICANS you hate so much back in charge, and you'll see some REAL Tyranny and Domestic Abuse then.

We're trying to be a kinder, gentler Corporatist State, but you people are getting out of control.

Do you want us to bring the Voting Machines back?

DO YOU?

Don't make us pull out Jeb and Sarah in 2012.

SUBMIT

:sarcasm:

[MsLeopard]

101. +1,000,000,000

You have it dead on right, expressed perfectly. I love the way you think.

[Scruffy1]

119. Too true to be saecastic

[INdemo]

77. If this guy does not get fired then we obviously have been

fooled into thinking we voted for a Democrat..We would have to believe then that President Obama is owned by the corporate power group if Bernanke's name is not removed as the nominee for Fed.chairman.
This is unbelievable how Republicans still occupy key positions in this Obama administration and Democrats in Congress still support them.

[Paper Roses]

78. A little later when I have a few minutes, I will read this in detail.

THis proposal, according to the headline, is a death sentence to millions. I no sooner express disgust with the federal government when something else comes along to make me even more angry.

Can you say death sentence? That is what this would be.

Bookmarked until I get back from the Doctors office. (where I will pay for services and hope I don't need any drugs. Can't afford them.

Can we get any more cold hearted? Money for war, not for our elderly and sick.

What has happened to us anyway.

[harmonicon]

79. god damn.... and HE's a shoe-in?

What the fuck is wrong with people? The Senate - including my two Democratic(tm) senators - is a complete fucking joke.

[Wednesdays]

80. Couldn't we repeal the Department of Defense instead?

Methinks we'd save a whole lot more money.

[phasma ex machina]

99. .

[pundaint]

81. That may go down as the stupidest bit of vetting testimony ever.

If he get renewed after this there can be no further doubt that government has lost every connection with the pubic good.

[northernlights]

85. so bernanke's going "all in?"

good. nothing, nothing will unite the 99% or so now poor or on their way there than recognition that they'll be forced to house and care for their parents and grandparents until they die.

When push comes to shove, even the freeper-whiners living on cheetos in mom's basement will get this reality check / wake up call when they realize they'll be living on cheetos in a cardboard box.

We can afford trillions for war and wall street bailouts, though.

[blindpig]

87. Here it comes.......

'Fiscal responsibility' is the administration's catch phrase for next year. This talk is just a trial balloon. The priorities are all too clear. George Bush couldn't get away with it but a Democrat will.....

[TheCowsCameHome]

90. Bernanke should be repealed. End of problem

Get this guy out, NOW.

[SimonBolivar]

91. Entitlements - not

I fail to see how a retirement program to which I have contributed since 18 years of age is an entitlement. Also, the last I looked, Social Security revenues have been and continue to be greater than expenses.

Some obvious solutions here are to roll back chimpy's tax cuts to the wealthy, get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and for goodness's sake, if you can't stop the flow of jobs, resources, and capital out of the country, don't subsidize it.

[varelse]

92. I'm sure that's great news to the seniour I found begging for cash to pay for his prescription

in front of the grocery store. :'(

[El Che]

93. "You know what they want?

....... Obedient workers ­ people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your f-cking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this f-cking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club."
"This country is finished." -George Carlin.
Carlin was an atheist,but he was also a prophet."F-ck Hope".Miss ya' George,you were the wisest man in America.

[varelse]

206. Ugh, and I'm one of their drones too

thoughts like that don't lead to a happy ending...

[QC]

96. Can someone remind me--who renominated Barnanke? n/t

[dionysus]

97. is ben smoking crack?

[BennyD]

105. If he thinks he can rob social security, well, he will find the "lock-box" empty. n/t

[BonnieJW]

108. Or baby boomers HAD pensions.

All the happiness that occurred on Wall Street made many pensions magically disappear.

[BlueJac]

109. Hey Ben.....FUCK YOU

[FlyByNight]

110. Vulgar display of classism

"Entitlements" are OK for the military/security complex but Social Security and Medicare are to be axed. Slashing the "defense" budget and/or raising top marginal tax rates, for example, aren't even discussed.

Go to Hell, Ben (and you can take Summers and Geithner with you).

:mad:

[nicky187]

111. Would someone please let me know...

... when our side is going to engage in open class warfare. It
looks like Bennett & Bernanke, et al., have already
started without us. Tools that they are.

K&R.

[Lorien]

116. William Buffet has said that his class (the uber rich) has been engaged in

class warfare for decades now, and that our side (the working people) are losing-and he's never said that like it's a good thing.

So, what do we do to push back?

[Lorien]

115. Yep. The greed driven failed CEO of citigroup (which he also destroyed)

vs. The Harvard law professor who is an expert on snakes like Bernanke, and has written many noted books on bankruptcy and how to overcome it. Seems like a no brainer, but there appear to be plenty on Capitol Hill who aren't only brainless, but are also hideously corrupt!

[Scruffy1]

117. Social Security has been largely destroyed over the last 25 years

First it was the RayGun jamming a huge tax increase up our ass while giving his rich buddies a huge tax cut.
Then it was fiddling with the COLA formula by Reagan, Bush SR., Clinton and the Greasy Little Weasel from Texas. In order to make up for inflation it would have to be increased about 80% to equal 1980 payments.
The rich pay virtually no social security tax since most of their income is unearned-that is in form of interest, dividends, bonuses, stock options etc. only 6% of the income in the US pays Social security taxes.
I am going out to buy some tar and head to a chicken processing plant to see if I can corner the market on feathers. Never thought I would agree with Senator Bunning on anything but he's tag teaming this fraud with Senator Sanders. I could give the old geezer a kiss.

[Joe Chi Minh]

118. Ah! How I loves me the smell of class-genocide in the morning!

[Faryn Balyncd]

120. This son-of-a-bitch has no business working for us for 1 more second.

[Faryn Balyncd]

122. Ben Bernanke: "Bail out the Wall Street criminals & repeal Social Security & Medicare"

[Blue_Tires]

123. holy damn...

well, even before today i was never in favor of him being kept around after the crash...

[Mugweed]

125. Do I get all my money back?

When they cancel these programs, do all the US citizen get a full refund of the money they have paid into the system so far? If the answer is no, the reply might get ugly.

[CrispyQ]

127. So parents will have to move in with their kids when they retire?

Would this be the same parents whose kids are living with them because there are no jobs?

How much longer are American's going to tolerate this bullshit?

[bertman]

128. Another obscenely greedy rich fuck who wants to jerk the safety net out from under the elderly.

I am outraged that President Obama and the Democrats would even CONSIDER keeping this intentionally-incompetent bastard as Fed Chairman.

Rec.

[mike_c]

132. can we bring out the torches and pitch forks yet....?

Bernanke wants hundreds of billions for bankers and for war, but it's time to cut off the last lifeline of the citizenry? I believe there is a lamppost somewhere with his name on it.

[nightrain]

133. knr. Thanks for posting this. Corporate Dems undermining our safety nets. Horrid!

[marshall]

142. I wish people wouldn't make these ridiculous suggestions that they don't mean

I get that they're trying to throw the other side off by casting a worst case scenario. Like Charlie Rangel pushing for a draft and acting like it's because he's pro-war. Or John Marcotte pushing to ban divorce in California (when thanks to a clusterfuck of right wingers joined with protesters, it might accidentally pass, then what?), and now this. Bernanke doesn't want Social Security repealed, he's just trying to make a clumsy point.

[JDPriestly]

268. Marshal, how do you know that Bernanke doesn't want Social Security

repealed. He wants cuts. How much is he going to cut from $800 to $1,200 per month which is what many people get. You cannot cut Social Security and keep elderly people alive.

Seniors pay taxes on money they earn through their work and investments. And once you reach a certain age, you have to take money out of your retirement savings and pay taxes on what you take out. So, forget about trying to cut benefits to older people.

The image of older people living great lives reflects the reality less and less.

People who retire with pensions that were saved for them and managed by a retirement fund -- like public employees or certain employees of big corporations (but fewer and fewer). But, let's say you worked as a legal secretary for 30 years. You and your spouse put two kids through college. You have a house that you can't sell for much of a profit. You drive an old car. You have some savings but the stock market crash took a lot of that money. Mostly you rely on Social Security. You didn't make any mistakes. You just didn't earn that much in the first place so you couldn't save a whole lot.

And it gets worse when you think of the millions and millions of Americans who work for close to minimum wage most of their lives. What's there to save if you have a couple of kids?

And I'm not even considering the fact that, in nearly every family's life, there are a couple of setbacks due to illnesses or accidents. Wall Street failed the American people. Our government failed the American people. The American people did not fail. The baby boomers did not fail. Our leadership failed us -- and continues to fail us.

If Bernanke cannot see any alternative for getting the U.S. out of this financial hole, then he should resign without further questions.

[marshall]

279. I can't imagine that he thinks repealing it would fly

Even if he thinks it's a good idea, he has to know the domino effect it would create at the next election if lawmakers now voted to ditch social security. I suppose the next thing would be for somebody to step up and say if they repeal social security they must also repeal their own retirement packages, similar to the public option add on.

I often use hyperbole and it can be a great way to make a point. But you have to factor in whether it might actually go through. I wonder what Charlie Rangel would have done if the draft had actually been reinstituted?

[MJJP21]

143. Medicare cuts

I know first hand that some of what Medicare provides should be cut. Speaking from personal experience and being an ex mobility dealer I know first hand the costs that medicare dishes out. In business I/We provided mobility scooters to the handicapped and elderly. We were a mom and pop operation pushed out by the new rules of Medicare in which we could not continue to do business. We never got into the "Power Chair" side of the operation and I think some figures on cost need to come out. I had customers who had gone from a $2300 list price scooter to a $23,000 power-chair. That is correct. With options like a seat lift, leg lift etc many power chairs run into this 5 figure cost. Why? I know what my scooters would cost with options as well and they wouldn't cost anywhere this much. Yes I do know that these power chairs do keep people out of nursing homes etc and thereby saving money . However that power-chair I referenced about could have been purchased by me online at the sellers list price of around $4000.00. You can't tell me that options ran the price of this unit up $15000.00.
If you need it you need it but what galls me is that people with money are entitled to mobility equipment regardless of the ability to pay. On top of this Medicare will pay for batteries every year regardless of need. I had scooter batteries last 5 years with proper care. Then there are the repairs that dealers claim and again that gets charged to medicare regardless of the customers ability to pay or the proof of a needed repair. In all fairness Medicare is trying to solve some issues and has made some headway but there really does need to be a means test before receiving these high cost items.

[JDPriestly]

269. If you downgraded payments on scooters across the country,

you still would not save much.

[Faryn Balyncd]

144. Here's what Dodd's office just told me about Bernanke's re-nomination:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7154066

[ProfessorGAC]

145. An Idiotic Solution To A Problem That Doesn't Exist

Bernanke is a wholly unqualified hack.
GAC

[Triana]

147. This cretin has GOT. TO. GO. n/t

[Trillo]

149. Perhaps it's a more honest approach than algorithmically screwing with

inflation statistics and then lying enmasse to people that they got a "cost of living" increase.

[grytpype]

150. Tax the super-rich to pay for domestic programs.

[dysfunctional press]

157. something like that would never occur to bernancke...

interesting times are ahead- get ready for it.

[Rolly88]

151. Repeal Social Security

I half way like this forum and some of the things it represents. Like unjust war things like that. I am not acquiescing however or quelling anger. My opinion on this comes from experience. It's not good for a person to not work. That goes for an older person to. They should have enough sense and experience to have a living. Now I am no socialist and am sure not a capitalist. That leaves one more thing and I'm not that either.

See people that borrow all there lives and slave paying it back usually wind up with nothing. Also no place to live in many cases. The reason you broke your back, paying back the money you borrowed at 100 and as much as 300 times what was borrowed. See you think this borrowing stuff is a big nothing. Believe me it isn't.

If you had saved your money then bought something. Then you don't waste it. Your careful. And paying off debt is a HUGE WASTE. Waste of time, waist of energy, waste of your life's time. Its worse than that even. You can get little Johnny what he wants. But at the expense of your short lifespan? Driven into poverty. See all this borrowing eventually impoverishes.

Furthermore. It is not a good thing for an older person not to work. Don't talk to me about jobs. Like I said they should have gained enough sense. Than to work and give there labor away for free and live on payments. Your muscles atropine. Your mind stops working. Life isn't about leisure. Sitting around waiting to die.

[raccoon]

153. Is English your first language? nt

[dysfunctional press]

154. i'm disabled due to the onset of a mis-diagnosed medical condition in my early 30's...

i'm 48 now.
i cannot work.
my income is my $1200 monthly check from social security. it should be larger, but one of my employers never paid the government the fica money they deducted from my checks for over 2 years- so i get no credit for it, and since they long ago went bankrupt, i have no legal recourse either.

what would you suggest i do for income once social security goes away?

[olegramps]

155. I can't help from speculating that you are suffering from what you have warned us of.

[ProfessorGAC]

156. Candidate For The Week's Silliest Post

GAC

[county worker]

164. What universe do you live in? Theory is easy to speak about.

People live in the real world. Everything you just posted isn't worth the time or effort you put into it nor the band with it takes up. It's just useless bs.

[ProfessorGAC]

169. The Theory Is Unsound As Well

It's simpleminded, two dimensional blather. The actual economy doesn't work the way it would need to work, for this silly idea to have merit.
GAC

[bullwinkle428]

248. You're either a performance artist, or the author of the worst post

in the history of DU!!!!

Either way, well played, sir or ma'am! :patriot:

[JDPriestly]

270. I would love to work, but last time I sent my resume for a job,

a job for which I was especially well qualified, I was told that there were 50 applicants. After that I gave up. I lost a very good job in 2004. I took the next job I was offered only to discover that the boss was not running his business in a manner that I considered to be something I wanted to be connected with. And by the way, I lost the job in 2004 because my boss -- and he told me this, I did not assume it -- wanted to hire a younger person.

Laws prohibit age discrimination, but employers pay off the older workers some token amount and fire them. We don't look as good as we did in our 20s. And many of us are slower. Arthritis tends to slow you down. Recall also tends to slow, and that annoys younger people. All in all, many older people would gladly work, but can't get a fair shake in the workplace. The unemployment rates now make even applying for a job a waste of time for most people over 65.

Inevitably, the older person is advised that there are lots of meaningful volunteer opportunities. That's true. And it's great for people who have pensions and can afford the gas, the shoes, etc. But if you don't have a pension, you are pinching pennies like crazy.

When 20-year-olds can't get jobs, it is pretty futile for 65-year-olds to even try.

[olegramps]

152. How much of the present situation is attributable to the working class?

From the period from the 1930s to the 1960s the working class were making tremendous strides in gaining a rightful share of the fruits of their labors. This can be attributed to the New Deal legislation that of the FDR presidency that repealed the laws discriminating against the organized labor. What has transpired since this period is that the working middle class bought the managements propaganda that unions were the enemy infiltrated by the mob that was robbing them blind. They promised that they would be well taken care of and the workers bought it hook, line and sinker.

The mind set of the naive workers became why should I pay dues when I can get the same benefits without paying for them. Of course we all know that the only reason management paid top wages was because they had to complete with organized labor to attract employees. The gullible workers also bought the swill that tariffs were evil, fair trade was a god send and global markets were the wave of the future. As a consequence union membership has gone from a high of 36% to 8% of employees in the private sector with a corresponding widening gap between compensation of management and labor. Could much of what has happened to the American worker have been prevented by strong unions? There is little doubt that a united block of the working class could have put pressure on representatives to stop the wholesale out-sourcing of jobs with tariffs and confiscatory tax rates on the unconscionable profits that are being made by the exploitation of foreign labor. In fact the present tax rates on the wealthy are a scandal in view of the tax rates that were enforce during and after WWII which were over 90% on the wealthy.

I have lost much of the faith that I had in Obama restoring justice for the American worker. Rather than seeing a much needed tax increase on the wealthiest class we have seen the promised repeal of the unjustified tax breaks that the Bush administration gave their wealthy friends postponed. Rather than compelling the wealthy to equally share in the cost of social security and medicare to make it viable they are allowed to continue to contribute a paltry share of their earning while reaping the same benefits of the working class who see a substantial portion of their wages taxed for identical benefits. At the present rate I can't help from seeing America going to hell in a hand-basket. I am truly feel sorry that millions of young Americans will never experience the relative financial security that the New Deal legislation brought for the working class following WWII. But I have to conclude that the only people that can demand justice and obtain it are the very worker themselves.

[laughingliberal]

233. Great post

I really think it's all over but the crying for the American worker. There will be fewer and fewer who can hang on each year. If it collapses too fast, people might get wise and we might have the revolt that is needed. But there will be just enough that have "theirs" to keep a little illusion going. By the time it's hit enough people to make a difference it will just be too late.

My husband once worked for a man in Mississipi. Not being from the South, he was appalled when he saw the conditions under which his black employees lived. He went to the owner and negotiated better wages, some health insurance, and a little paid time off for them. There were men who had been working there for 20 years who had never had a paid day off. The employees paid the owner back by becoming one of the best crews of workers in the whole industry. One day, the owner took my husband to lunch to discuss his concern that other business leaders in the community were upset that his company was "treating these blacks too much like white people." My husband was shocked. The owner then told him the general rule was to give them just enough to survive but not enough to get away. That has been the trend for all workers since the 80's. We've been had.

[JDPriestly]

271. Right. Thank you. olegramps.

I was paying attention when Obama explained how he would increase payroll taxes on those earning over a certain amount of money in order to fund Social Security and Medicare. Another promise that Obama is breaking. He promised tax increases for the wealthy. We shall see what he does.

It looks like he has been captured by the Wall Street crowd. I bet it is just so much fun having these guys at your parties. Can you imagine the lunches they buy for their friends? Wow! Is Obama being seduced by the promise of wealth after leaving office? I hope not. But I do not understand why he is thinking about reappointing Bernanke. It does not fit with his campaign rhetoric. Not at all.

[Faryn Balyncd]

158. Senate Banking Chairman Dodd NEED TO HEAR FROM US TODAY. Here's his :

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7154066

[debbierlus]

159. He is Obama's nominee

[Dinger]

167. Yay, That's My President!

:sarcasm:

[county worker]

162. I don't understand the "entitlement" meme.

We pay into this programs, the money is taken out of our paychecks. We are entitled to get our money back. It is not to be used for other budget items. I don't see how they can say it hurts anything if they just leave their hands off of it!

[AtheistCrusader]

173. Actually, he's using the word differently.

en⋅ti⋅tle⋅ment  /ɛnˈtaɪtlmənt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation Show IPA
Use entitlement in a Sentence
See web results for entitlement
See images of entitlement
–noun 1. the act of entitling.
2. the state of being entitled.
3. the right to guaranteed benefits under a government program, as Social Security or unemployment compensation.

It MUST be paid, no matter what. Currently it's spending that cannot be trimmed, no matter how on fire the Treasury's ass is. That's what he means by 'entitlement', not that you are 'entitled to it' as a moral smear or anything.

Before anything else, congress is required to fill those programs budgets. Defense spending is actually not an entitlement, they are able to trim and adjust it. (And need to trim it by... fucking HALF at least)

[county worker]

187. When I hear the right wing talking heads use the word entitlement when speaking to their stupid base

I think they using double speak. They don't mean it as a moral smear but it sounds like that to the base and they let it go without comment because it is useful to them that way.

If the right wing talking heads say entitlement they mean Medicare and Social Security and the base hears "welfare" or money coming out of their pockets going to lazy non working non tax paying folks. So the base supports something that in reality is not in their best interest.

[AtheistCrusader]

191. Exactly.

Which brings us full circle to the importance of quality public education... :D

[valerief]

170. But there's plenty of moolah for war and permanent corporate bailouts.

Amazing.

[Doc Martin]

171. Fire him. Do we need more evidence?

[Angry Dragon]

174. The man is a stupid ass

He says ..... Make my job easier, get rid of all the stuff that is getting in my way so I can give more money to my pals.

[stray cat]

176. He told congress any congress has the power to do it - He stated a FACT

[Hannah Bell]

216. in a CONTEXT, which was the "unsustainability" of the present situation.

[David Zephyr]

177. This Pie Chart shows what should be repealed: the Defense Department

"The pie chart below is the government view of the budget. This is a distortion of how our income tax dollars are spent because it includes Trust Funds (e.g., Social Security), and the expenses of past military spending are not distinguished from nonmilitary spending. For a more accurate representation of how your Federal income tax dollar is really spent, see the large chart (top)."



Thanks to http://www.warresisters.org for the chart.

[patrice]

231. You have to include Past Military with Curent Military because they are symbiotic.

Just the size of Current Military alone creates inertia in all other systems and then there's also the fact that lots, most?, people would never join the military in the first place if it weren't for the official gaurantees for your life after the military, not to mention the un-official ones like preferences in hiring. Who runs the civilian side of the Military Industrial Complex? EX-Military. Combat is a gaurantee to advancement and advancement is big big big $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ and Social Status when you retire from the military all very closely hooked up with churches too, I'd bet.

[Optimistic]

178. If the Repuks and Palin win big in 2012.

This will happen in the first day!
Also Gay, Pro Choice, Black and Hispanic people will be executed by Jan 22nd.
They will make Hitler and Idi Amin look like good guys

[freddie mertz]

179. When will someone rid us of these cretins?

Bernanke, Summers, Geithner...ugh.

Obama will not DESERVE a second term the way this is going (ie, straight down the tubes)...

[SandWalker1984]

180. Bernanke's score card to date -- Wall Street 7, American People 0

To date, Bernanke has spent or put the taxpayer on the hook for close to $24 TRILLION in bailouts, lending windows, and off balance sheet arrangements.

YET HE’S FIXED NOTHING.

Banks remain insolvent (if you marked their assets at market value, they’d all wipe out equity in a second), mortgages remain underwater, hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to lose their jobs every month, foreign investors grow increasingly distrustful of the dollar, and the financial system continues to deal in derivatives… all of which could bring about another CRASH.

Bernanke DIDN’T HAVE A CLUE about the financial system and economy from 2005-2007. How can the guy who’s in charge of our monetary system NOT see the biggest housing bubble in US history OR the worst financial crisis since the 1930's???

However, to focus on Bernanke’s incompetence is to overlook his culpability in destroying Americans’ wealth. In the last year alone, the man has committed perjury (he lied under oath about no longer monetizing debt), embezzlement ($24 trillion gone to banks at least $9 trillion of which no one, not even the head of oversight at the Fed, kept track of), corruption (forcing Bank of America to buy Merrill Lynch), and more.

It would, in fact, be no exaggeration to say that Ben Bernanke is a financial criminal on a scale that makes Bernie Madoff look like Mr. Rogers.

Madoff ripped off $50 billion. Bernanke is currently destroying the middle class in the US, trashing our currency, worsening EVERY Americans’ quality of life, and erasing any hopes of retirement for millions of Boomers.

In simple terms, Bailout Ben, in a mere year and a half, has overseen the destruction of 30% of US household wealth (from a housing and stock bubble he FAILED to see coming while working under Greenspan). He has yet to do a single thing to protect the average American or the dollar, but instead has opted to funnel trillions of taxpayer dollars over to Wall Street so that Goldman Sachs and friends could claim they’re not insolvent and pay themselves RECORD bonuses.


So why is Obama pushing Helicopter Ben's nomination?

Why keep someone with a track record like this?

The only logical answer I can come up with is: Obama is beholding to Goldman Sachs and Wall street.

[JDPriestly]

272. Thank you, SandWalker198f. You raise good points.

[bluethruandthru]

184. I'm sick of hearing we don't have money for anything but war!

War/military/weapons spending is always No Problem...but no money for health care, no money for Social Security, no money for Medicare...

[deutsey]

188. Sickening. The mask is being dropped, imo.

The ruling elites are tired of putting up the facade that they actually want or even condone the kind of country progressivism helped to create. More and more, I believe their objective is to erase the progressive gains of the 20th century and restore themselves to the aristocracy they believe they so richly deserve.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

189. He's lost his god damn mind!

[davidwparker]

193. Storm the Bastille!

[peacetalksforall]

198. If Obama had made an attempt to bring in fresh people, not the Bush people and not the DLC and he

wasn't a war enthusiast/believer - this country would be buzzing with people enthusiasm to fix our problems and help him.

The reason they want to take SS or Medicare or both comes from the money needed to kill and extinguish Iraqis, lay, pay-off, and secure pipleines, pay for the prisons for Moslem men and Mexican families, and, of course, the take of the barons, those who got rich from the baron's agenda, and their facilitators in Congress, K Street, coalition partners, cover-ups. Over and over.

There is NO EQUALITY in this country.

[Divine Discontent]

211. And Obama is showing whose side he's on with who he brought us. I'm very disappointed overall. D+

[Deja Q]

201. Can we at least have the money we put into the system back?

If they can't steal it via privatizing it, it makes sense they want to abolish it.

[NYC_SKP]

285. No, it's not there, it's already spent.

I've argued with a lot of people over the years that it was mathematically impossible for it to remain solvent even if they weren't spending it.

Unless we kept growing our population to keep up with the growth trend of the first half of the century.

Fuck.

I wish they'd been right, that I was wrong.

[dae]

207. I'd rather reform Wall Street and Banks, but that's just me.

:grr::banghead:

[Divine Discontent]

209. Come on, Obama, do something for the people and get rid of this ass!

it seems we have the CASH for warfare and corporate bailouts - but we gotta get that social spending under control fast!!!

[mnhtnbb]

210. More money needed for bombs and war! Bleed the masses dry!

Keep the wealthy in champagne, caviar and private jets! After all, they're creating jobs
in India, China, Malayasia...anywhere but the U.S.A.!

You know what, Bernanke? Why don't you go Cheney yourself?

:mad: :mad: :mad:

[Historic NY]

212. Congress needs to stop spending our SS TRUST FUND...

we got all the IOU's and then they tell us its going belly up. I think some of the TARP money being repaid with interest should be used to shore up SS.

[katty]

214. the next wave, if Ben boy wants repeal--his gang will push for it

[grahamhgreen]

220. Scumbag!

[RedCloud]

221. Just kill us all. 45,000 a year isn't fast enough?

[patrice]

224. Their plan to Privatize Soc Sec failed when BushCo failed to earn the "political capital"

he expected from "mission accomplished".

[Marr]

230. These people think the wealthy drive the society, and everyone else is a leach.

That's the only common thread I see in their comments. They're like ticks on a starving dog, saying there's just not enough money for dog food.

The legitimate expenses of government are the smallest part of the budget, and they include things like Medicare and Social Security. All the luxuries these ticks depend on, from financial bailouts to military ones, are unnecessary. THEY are unnecessary.

[Mithreal]

240. Welcome to the plutocracy

http://www.progressiveliving.org/plutocracy_defined.htm

[patrice]

232. Blank Checks OFF BUDGET for Invasions and Killing, but dog-eat-dog budgets for everyone else.

:sarcasm: God bless America. Land of war slaves and home of the paranoid. :sarcasm:

[Snowys Dream]

238. social security back-pay

I am on SSI and it took me nearly 5 years of being very sick and to the point that my physical condition was life threatening. I had to leave my aging mother (who i was sole caregiver)in Georgia to try to get medical care so that i would not die. I found medical care here immediately but in Georgia there are no programs for people who are waiting for SSI that deal with medical issues that are more than just basic health care. I have just received my final "lump sum payment" for the time that i waited for the system to stop throwing me into its horrible spin cycle and they had paid my lawyer his 25% which was 5800.00, they paid me in 3 installments what was supposed to be the rest of that back pay, 2 of which were only 2020.00, my final lump sum payment was a whole 2020.00, they say that they can not legally give me the entire amount that i waited for so long and suffered for. I didn't qualify for SSD they said because the funds that i had paid in all of my working life had rolled over since i wasn't able to work for so long, was not compensated for caring for my mother not even for medical insurance. So, all of those years, the social security administration took out of my paychecks and my employers matched went where?? I truly feel like i have been ripped off by this country and now that i can no longer works because of multiple medical conditions which would have been simple to resolve have all gotten to the point that they nearly took my life and i am not totally out of the woods nor will i ever be. My final lump sum was something that i had depended on to purchase a small camper or put a down payment on a mobile home so that i would have a secure place to live, have been denied me by one supervisors opinion that i did not need the rest of the money that i was supposed to have been paid for my time of suffering waiting for the system to work. The government made the limitations on our lawyers so that they could only charge us 25% so that we would still have some funds to help us financially see our way out of the debit that that waiting time had caused us to have or to have the moneys we had to wait so long for and depended on receiving in that time to only be disallowed to receive by a supervisor who is allowed to play god with our money and our lives, this is just pitiful and it is shameful that what we have paid in for all of our lives were denied because the system can not allow anyone to see above the poverty level that they have put us in. I lost everything i owned waiting for the system including my modest little mobile home, my vehicles, everything gone...and when i see the president spending millions on a vacation in martha's vineyard it just makes me sick!:mad:

[bertman]

267. REPEAL BERNANKE!!

[L0oniX]

282. I suggest someone cut off his head and shit down his neck.

example at 2:51

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67IIRN9FfH4