Newt Gingrich should have been a comedian

Quote from trefoil:

There was a time, you know, not so long ago, when the only place I saw or heard a right-winger go on about Social Security was on the editorial page of Barron's and of course its letters pages, but that was about it.
That standards have changed doesn't make you any less far to the right, any more than a 60s liberal wasn't way over to the left just because at that time everything had shifted left. (Yeah, I know, Obama's a socialist and all the rest. By the standards of the 60s, he's a Rockefeller Republican; I find him indistinguishable from Nixon, who was in fact such a beast. By the standards of today, a Rockefeller Republican is a Democrat.)
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1. 1st of all, I am not against social security... it is a ponzi scheme so it should at the very least be means tested.

2. Social Security has always been an issue. I remember Reagans speech in which he spoke of raising taxes to fund the system. many were disappointed. People have known it was a govt ponzi for a very long time. Actuaries spoke at my high school about it. ( Back in the early 80s.)

3. The parties were shaped differently in the 60s. Far differently... Kennedy might be a conservative republican. I think he would get the nomination. Lower taxes, ask not what your country can do for you - faced down communism.

I agree that Rockefeller Republicans were Democrats. That is why the neocons were such a joke - they were really big govt spenders along the lines of their founders... socialists. George Bush senior was liberal for half his career.

give you my view... simplified but it is what I observed...

Back east

Republicans were Wasps... Catholics were Protestants going into the sixties. Then the democrats started taking in all these fringe wacko groups and alienated Catholics and the parties re - formed along new lines.

To consolidate Republicans had to bring in the goldwater conservatives, and reagan democrats. The democrats brought in the radicals, firnge groups, the govt handout types and the socialists.
 
Quote from Ricter:

Google string: is social security a ponzi scheme
Result (first link): http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2008/12/is_social_secur.html
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Not sure of your point, but interesting link...

the author admits its a ponzi because all the more workers now are paying out to the current beneficiaries.

But the author thinks techonology, an increase in taxes, and cut in benefits can save it.

Madoff could have said. Properly invested with limited payouts he could have returned all the money.
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by the way the quote above should have said Catholics were Democrats. Not Catholics were Protestants.
 
Quote from jem:

Not sure of your point, but interesting link...

the author admits its a ponzi because all the more workers now are paying out to the current beneficiaries.

But the author thinks techonology, an increase in taxes, and cut in benefits can save it.

Madoff could have said. Properly invested with limited payouts he could have returned all the money.
---------------
by the way the quote above should have said Catholics were Democrats. Not Catholics were Protestants.
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wrong. a ponzi scheme is a crime because of the fraud (misrepresentation of earnings), not because it takes current investor money to pay out old investors. in other words, if the real profits of the business are published (i.e., zero profits are being generated), then it's not a crime to take current investor money to pay off old investors. that can be easily achieved legally with revolving credit. same is true for social security.
 
Quote from ssrrkk:

wrong. a ponzi scheme is a crime because of the fraud (misrepresentation of earnings), not because it takes current investor money to pay out old investors. in other words, if the real profits of the business are published (i.e., zero profits are being generated), then it's not a crime to take current investor money to pay off old investors. that can be easily achieved legally with revolving credit. same is true for social security.
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exactly. if ss is a ponzi scheme every mutual fund in america is a ponzi scheme. money that comes in is used pay off those investors who are redeming.
 
Quote from jem:

1. 1st of all, I am not against social security... it is a ponzi scheme so it should at the very least be means tested.

2. Social Security has always been an issue. I remember Reagans speech in which he spoke of raising taxes to fund the system. many were disappointed. People have known it was a govt ponzi for a very long time. Actuaries spoke at my high school about it. ( Back in the early 80s.)

3. The parties were shaped differently in the 60s. Far differently... Kennedy might be a conservative republican. I think he would get the nomination. Lower taxes, ask not what your country can do for you - faced down communism.

I agree that Rockefeller Republicans were Democrats. That is why the neocons were such a joke - they were really big govt spenders along the lines of their founders... socialists. George Bush senior was liberal for half his career.

give you my view... simplified but it is what I observed...

Back east

Republicans were Wasps... Catholics were Protestants going into the sixties. Then the democrats started taking in all these fringe wacko groups and alienated Catholics and the parties re - formed along new lines.

To consolidate Republicans had to bring in the goldwater conservatives, and reagan democrats. The democrats brought in the radicals, firnge groups, the govt handout types and the socialists.
More...

No, Rockefeller Republicans were in fact Republicans. There was quite a difference between Nixon and any contemporaneous Democrat.
Their views as they existed at that time would largely (not completely by any means) fit that of the Democrats, and would be a poor fit for the present Republican party.
That doesn't mean they weren't to the right. They were. No one ever doubted Nixon's right-wing credentials.
But they were reasonable.
Scratch that, civilized.
It would never have occurred to them to cheer spontaneously at the mere mention of 200 people being executed, as happened in that question to Rick Perry in the first Republican debate, nor would they have cheered at the mere mention of some person's misfortune with the health care system, as happened in the second one.
The measure of the decline in morals of the Republican Party is that not one of the candidates running condemned that base and barbaric behavior. None have felt any pressure to, either.
I still can't believe either of those two things actually happened, but they did.
 
Quote from trefoil:

No, Rockefeller Republicans were in fact Republicans. There was quite a difference between Nixon and any contemporaneous Democrat.
Their views as they existed at that time would largely (not completely by any means) fit that of the Democrats, and would be a poor fit for the present Republican party.
That doesn't mean they weren't to the right. They were. No one ever doubted Nixon's right-wing credentials.
But they were reasonable.
Scratch that, civilized.
It would never have occurred to them to cheer spontaneously at the mere mention of 200 people being executed, as happened in that question to Rick Perry in the first Republican debate, nor would they have cheered at the mere mention of some person's misfortune with the health care system, as happened in the second one.
The measure of the decline in morals of the Republican Party is that not one of the candidates running condemned that base and barbaric behavior. None have felt any pressure to, either.
I still can't believe either of those two things actually happened, but they did.
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1. No - wrong... wtf. I agreed with your point. Rockefeller republicans were socially left and could have been today's democrats. Of course I did not mean Rockefeller republicans were literally democrats. Not only did I know the press secretary for a Sen Lowell Wicker pretty well ( a famous rockefeller republican). I also grew up in a town... where I personally met some of the famous ones.

Finally, note, my example was was George Bush Senior... who was a liberal much of his life. Obviously he was not a democrat. so I do not know where you came off acting I did not know what a rockefeller republican was.
 
Quote from ssrrkk:

wrong. a ponzi scheme is a crime because of the fraud (misrepresentation of earnings), not because it takes current investor money to pay out old investors. in other words, if the real profits of the business are published (i.e., zero profits are being generated), then it's not a crime to take current investor money to pay off old investors. that can be easily achieved legally with revolving credit. same is true for social security.
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you do not understand the point at all. why do people make statements about definitions which can easily be confirmed with a simple search.

The issue is that there are no profits and you are taking new money to pay out to earlier investors.

from wikipedia...

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation. The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. Perpetuation of the high returns requires an ever-increasing flow of money from new investors to keep the scheme going.
 
Quote from Free Thinker:

exactly. if ss is a ponzi scheme every mutual fund in america is a ponzi scheme. money that comes in is used pay off those investors who are redeming.
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are you being a leftist troll or are you that ignorant of the difference between a ponzi and a mutual fund?
 
Quote from jem:

are you being a leftist troll or are you that ignorant of the difference between a ponzi and a mutual fund?
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on top of all your other problems you have a reading comprehension problem too? i said IF ss is a ponzi so are mutual funds. neither are.
dont tell me that you dont know that mutual funds are "pooled investments".
 
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