Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire No Way Out of U.S. Debt Trap

They've got other money than SS. The point is that a lot of folks do not. Also, there are a lot of people who didn't plan to just live on SS, but it happened that way. Nobody at my house is saying anybody ought to have to support them or anything like that. What I am saying and have said for years is that digging a dammed ditch is hard work. I've heard for years on the forums that work such as that just ain't worth x amount of dollars, usually around the time minimum wage rates come up for discussion. I've dug ditches and I've told folks what to do, and believe you me, I'd rather do the latter even if the same pay is involved.

Some doctors have really got their panties bunched up, but look at it this way, the Safari dude already made my case. You take some guy with an average IQ, and he is already effed when it comes to being a doctor. You can figure that most other professions can be commensurate with intelligence too. Not much a person can do about their intellect. If a guy is making $500k per and another guy is making $50k, who is going to hurt worse with a 50% reduction? Who is potentially hurt worse with a 100% reduction and reliance on their savings?

There is also a lot of talk about "self-made men" and other such things. I know a lot of good, intelligent, and even educated folks who are poor. There are other factors outside one's control regardless of what some people's vision of reality is. You won't continue in our way of life if 75% of the people in this country are impoverished. This is regardless of what Ayn Rand's adherents think and also those who say a poor man never gave him a job. True as true and right as rain on that last, but a guy who invents something usually has to have somebody to do the work in making it, unless it is pottery or something.

As Gus would say...ancient Sumaria, now there's a thought...~insert long pull on the bong here~whyn't we go back to them days and whup out the leeches to cure cancer?

That part of very much out of control. Especially, all these county and state wide re-assessments that are way below actual property values.



When that happens it will get real ugly. Like nothing yet seen.

The [bleep]? I thought you were just sayin' the other day as how the youngsters were gonna "Logan's Run" all you elderly persons. That won't help the real estate market what with all them old folks' haciendas on the market and suchlike. It could break some of the companies too. Not as big of a market for Kaopectate and what not.

There are much better reverse mortgage plans than the 50% dynamic you speak of. 3000 combined SS will get you over a couple 100,000 in equity lines of credit. 200K at 5% sets you back a grand a month plus sundries. Also, take in a renter for your food bills. Where there's a will, there's a way.


All far better than going hungry, don't you think? Unless,of course, ya'll are going to starve yourselves to death to prove a point.

Already happened in many places, my man. I had to sell a home in Texas because of exorbitant property taxes. I had part interest after an inheritance and the property taxes were the deal-breaker. They were linked to the "fair market value" too, and had nothing to do with what the other heirs eventually got out of it.

I think the point our leakypond friend is making is that property taxes, even more than other types, are inherently unjust.

Plenty of talk about reducing spending on welfare, foreign aid and healthcare, has anyone thought about pulling the throttle back on this one??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

Unjust is in the eye of the payor and it varies. Where are these we're gonna starve because of real estate taxes places? 1 out of 100,000 homeowners or less ain't a debate winning stat,either!

We both know that B is just overstating for effect. I happen to agree with rrroe though. Real estate and other property taxes are fundamentally unjust. I know you don't like to talk "pie-in-the-sky" but they are. A man pays for something, it should be his and not his only if he can keep paying the government protection money to keep it.

John,

Military spending at the current levels should be temporary. We could fix the military spending within a couple years, but that's not the case for spending on social welfare programs like Medicare and Medicaid that are continuing to rise at an awful rate. The article said that Social Security and Medicare combined represent 1/3 of the U.S. federal government budget. That is not sustainable, and we are going to have to either phase out those programs over time or radically reform them.

And in a word, "yes". The problem is that the libs all want to do this and not that they are always wrong, but they almost always have a hidden agenda in addition to the visible one, which is bad enough. Lots of us have a problem with siding up with liberals even if we think cuts could be made too. We also aren't experts on what is and what isn't needed and its gotten to where anymore, in the US, the ones benefiting will fight until the last dog is dead on a $500 hammer. Nobody wants to see us defenseless.

As long as it's fair and equitable I agree. However, what they're doing to make money at the expense of property owners with property tax hikes via re-assessments is just plain UNJUST! And it's going to pizzz a ton of people off. Especially, those who have no place else to go.

Even worse many do not have the money for the unjust tax hike and when the man comes to evict ...well SHTF round 1 begins.

Further, any of these candidates, regardless of party, who promise the demise of property taxes are just plain liars. Virginia is a prime example. No more car tax my azzzz. I won't vote for them. Not again.

Well,..sure they are.

It's being billed as "entitlement reform".

That's politispeak for, "We've squandered alla that Social Security money you've been paying in all of your life,..so eat fuggin' cake, peon".

I always thought it was unjust that my folks bought my younger brother a mustang convertible while I had to drive the Ford Fairlane. So, I could either continue to beat the schit out of my little brother with some misdirected anger or learn to adjust to the unjust.

When you fight for a living for much of your work week,you really learn to pick those unjust battles that are worth fighting over rather than wasting energy and time spouting worthless musings over matters long ago fought and lost.

I am really pissed about feeding SA Charlie and buying him big screen TVs and XBOX,though.

Will,

I don't want to go to a doctor who makes less than $100k per year because for the amount of training that I expect for my physician, that isn't near enough money to repay school loans, the opportunity cost of his/her time for all of his/her training, and to reimburse him/her for the time and effort he/she spent training. Feel free to take yourself to a physician with less training, but I think the current level of training is about right.

If you want to reduce costs, why don't you just create a health care network where nurses (not nurse practitioners, but RNs) are the only ones you get to see unless they give you a referral. Most nurses are good at diagnosing the common stuff, and a lot of them are great at it. Plus, it would have the added benefit of quickly eliminating from the health care system patients who have something that looked common but turned out to be a little more exotic and deadly. The ones with something a little more exotic would be the most expensive ones to treat too, so it is a winner all the way around for cost reductions if they got sent home with Tamiflu or Cipro and they died a month later. That's the real solution to your way of viewing the mess - allow natural selection to take place a little more aggressively.

I'd feel especially sorry for a new doctor coming out into the field today, or one working 5 years or less, who earns only 100K per year.

Letting something go psychologically because there is just nothing one can do about it is something I know a little about. You can always remember it though and do something about it later if conditions change. Acceptance and defeatism aren't always the same thing. Not to apply that to your particular situation though.

Hell you're probably a lot richer than your little bro now anyway.

I don't know the stats so maybe it will blow back onto me when I pisss into the wind here...Do you really know of any doctors who actually make $100,000 or less? Gosh, from what the safari guy said, doctors are all of high intelligence. What person of higher-than-normal intelligence, not to mention significantly higher-than-normal, is going to go into a field not knowing how much they can expect to make? Who would put up with those kinds of hours and all that schooling, and also the expense of it all, and only figure on making that?

Or Dentists. Can you imagine the equipment costs on top of college loans?

My parents new neighbor is out of Emory and working as an ER trauma surgeon. To your point, she's making 12k a month out of the gate but faced with about $750k in past tuition loans. Now add in mal-practice premiums, (which I assume are out of pocket) and they have little.

The state of Texas has some air quality programs that require what is called 10-Year Best Available Control Technology (BACT), and what that means is for the equipment covered by those programs, industry has to have installed the control technology that would have been considered "Best Available Control Technology" 10 years before for a new plant or a new expansion project at an existing plant. In most cases 10-year BACT is a little less stringent, and it is less costly because it is a mature technology. We may need to go to a similar model in health care.

It would work like this: If you are on government-funded health care (Medicare/Medicaid), you get the standard level of care of 10 to 15 years before. To get more advanced care, you have to purchase a supplement. The health care of 10 to 15 years ago is perfectly good for the vast majority of situations, and it would avoid paying premium costs for the latest technology, which aren't needed in the vast majority of cases.

Drug reform so that drug companies couldn't subsidize the 3rd world drug sales with the exorbitant amount of money we pay for drugs would help, too. I want the drug companies to make profits and have a profit motive that drives innovation, but we shouldn't be paying 3x or more for drugs than other countries do.