Because old people who paid into Social Security their whole lives, and are now retired, should get out there and do “honest work”? Really?

His family needs to call him home. He is cracking up, in public.

Much as I would love to see him take his blessed Commission down with him, the man deserves not to have this utter breakdown publicly.

Who among his loved ones will intervene?

Classy.

He needs to get rid of his tighty-whitey’s and get some breathing room.

Nobody really thought…

Astounding – I was wrong.
That’s what I get for giving Simpson the benefit of the doubt…

There may well be plenty of crazy/stupid/asshole left in his quiver.

Kick their asses, Jane.

How dare he speak to someone in that manner! I’m sure that Ms. Carson was shocked and so am I. I know he’s a nut case but I never thought that he would go this far. We have to let the WH know that this idiot has to be removed. And by the way, Mr. Simpson, that would be “teats”, asshat.

I actually think he should stay on the Catfood Commission.

He’s only saying out loud what the rest of them think, but are cunning enough not to say until after the election.

Um, may I point out that the DOD is a much bigger, more endowed cow?

You mean the beloved Simpson family, who you know, raised an arsonist and a monster, that family?

He’s the head of it now, and his son is the Speaker of the WY House and running for Governor. It’s insane.

And the Bush tax cuts are like a lottery with 120,000 predetermined winners.

I don’t blame Simpson. I blame the man who appointed him.

I agree with you. More like Simpson on the catfood commish, in fact.

I think DoD mental picture would be milking the pricks, not the tits.

ew!

Hey, I wonder if Simpson thinks he’s doing “honest work”?

hahahaha. wow.

“udder breakdown”?

I just realized the WY primary was last week when I was traveling. Simpson lost – good.

I suggest a “minor” tweak to the Catfood Commission: the removal of Mr. Simpson.

lol :)

Fascinating. I think Simpson just made the case for life juvenile incarceration without parole.

To which I would like to add: Alan Simpson has always been a misogynistic old coot, even when he was young. Sexist, crude, without redeeming qualities: he’s like Darth Cheney without the twinkle of evil in his eye.

But something is seriously going wrong here, now, and his family must step in. Now. While we don’t care much about Simpson’s political legacy, I’m sure his family thinks there’s something worth preserving. They need to remove this man from the public stage before he embarrasses himself and them in a much more memorable way.

*g*

Simpson is simply outstanding in his field…

Unless…

… this is more of Barack’s eleventy-million dimensional chess: save Social Security by putting someone atop his commission who can only embarrass those who want to kill the program!

right on the mark

He’s incredibly useful in that regard, isn’t he? Such a perfect barometer of how the entitled, silver-spoon rich really feel about us plebeians. (And he is, ahem, entitled, being the son of a governor and US Senator, and the father of the current Wyoming state House Speaker.) Betcha he wanted to use the word “parasites”, but that would have given him away as an Ayn Rand fan.

Careful Teddy, someone might charge you with concern trolling. But you are right, of course. Back in the day, there was a process to avoid this kind of public display. Perhaps the 24/7 media makes it impossible to hide this kind of behavior any more. I am remembering that Katherine Graham’s husband suffered from a combination of symptoms and JFK would send a private plane to fetch him when he got out of hand. His handlers definitely intervened. And whatever crowd that was around knew this was SOP for all public servants and respected the boundaries because they knew they could be cracking up next.

So Alan Simpson admits the plan is major changes to SS

Quick, before they are scrubbed – we must find all the pics of Obama with his arm draped around Simpson’s shoulder.

Ta-dah!

Yes, this (cushy govt jobs) is all working out quite well for the Simpson family.

Careful Teddy, someone might charge you with concern trolling.

Nah, this isn’t DK and we don’t let the Booster Clubbers game the system here.

Good point. If he keeps it up, ain’t no democrat can vote to approve the recommendations.

Call when you get honest work,

Al

He wrote without a morsel of self-reflection.

Essentially, yes.

Phew, good to know! :) Just a preemptive strike. carry on.

where’s our letter, Al?

He won’t write you a letter Jane. He’s terrified of you because you’re much brighter and better informed. Being aggressively bellicose only takes one so far…

Today I wrote to my friends that we need to be extra sensitive not to defame or ridicule those who are unemployed or poor in today’s depressed economy. After reading Simpson’s slighting of the millions of future beneficiaries of Social Security, I would like to repeat that cautionary warning: do not slight the self-esteem of those persons who are going to receive their Social Security benefits or any other benefits from the government. All of these benefits are directly or indirectly the property of the Americans who paid into the system so that they exist.

To scold, ridicule or defame the reputation of Americans who will receive these benefits is to stir up a hornets nest of resentment and anger. How dare this arrogant man call his fellow citizens lesser people and the reference to a million tits is very, very insulting. The appropriate response should be for this man to lose his position of authority on the commission. He is not acting appropriately towards those he should be trying to assist.

I repeat. There should be no shame is needing any of these benefits, in being poor, in seeking government assistance and in receiving Social Security benefits which are in fact, earned. We are going through a terrible economic crisis, and we need to be supportive of each other. There is no room here for defamatory language.

He must be a Randroid. Total lack of self-awareness, much less even a vestigial conscience, are identifying marks. That, and a belief in one’s own superiority to other mortals (a belief which frees you from having to obey their laws or have any sort of consideration for them). Which is why the Randroids are rampant among the Republicans.

If we can’t get a handle on this system and make it sustainable and assure long term solvency, and make some changes that are “minor” at the present time and will become “major” as each year passes…

IOW, Attention future Congresses-

It’s like the right-wing trolls who think they’re being so cute when they cuss in front of a GIRL! “Heh heh heh, she’ll curl up and die if I call her a bad word!” They know better than to try that crap with Jane.

Heh. Alan IS losing it; there’s 4 teats on a cow. That’s 77.5 million milk producers baby, and Don’t You Forget It!

I think there is something about males of a certain age…who never woke up to the women’s movement, so they truly are ignorant dinosaurs. Does that sound like prejudice? No, a voice of experience from being around the guys born on 3rd base who insisted they had hit a homerun. Won’t be long….women will run the world…already leading in college grads.

Nothing like a career politician admonishing others to get honest work. The Senate, it’s like a spoiled baby pulling on 310 million teats.

Alan Simpson

(_*_)

Next thing you know he’ll be complaining that all us old bags have dried up teats that can no longer be milked.

be interested to see if the White House cares about the fact that the Commission’s Co-Chair, a former US Senator, goes out of his way to treat older women is such a patronizing, dismissive and bullying fashion.

What??? The WH developing a sense of shame NOW??

Crap, the “patronizing, dismissive and bullying” looks like Page One from Rahm’s playbook.

I don’t think the WH will be criticizing Simpson; they’ll give him a medal.

I believe they beat you to it, eCahn – it goes by the name of Health Care Reform.

Think that doesn’t fit; they are milkin’ the younguns on that one.

bewbies are for porn, not for feeding things!
- pukes

Seriously! Which is more dangerous: an out of control arrogant person who impulsively blurts out falsehoods about Social Security, or an anonymous Whitehouse staffer who meets with reporters on the condition that he/she is not quoted and who talks about raising the retirement age and benefit cuts?? While I am at it add in the President who obliquely states that he’d like to make a few adjustments to Social Security, but won’t say exactly what he intends to recommend or support. Which of the three is the most dangerous?

It’s like the right-wing trolls who think they’re being so cute when they cuss in front of a GIRL!

I hope she writes him back and ups the bet. “Hey, Alan, I get the feeling that 40 years of sucking corporate cock has given you Mad Cow Disease” or something.

Patronizing…the voice of the good ol’ boy.

Wonderful insight. Rahm probably drafted the email for Simpson.

A strong point there … The unexpected “transparency” is Really.Quite.Amazing!

Actually, government-as-Rosasharn works for me ..

In all this catfood talk by the likes of Simpson, all million-be-tittied-gobsmacked for the moment, none of them ever ask or answer the question of SocSec recipients:

Will I Lose My Dignity? Will No One Care?

Gawd, I just can’t stand them.

Is he Homer Simpson’s uglier, stupider and meaner brother?

Every time Simpson speaks his mind, it helps undermine the credibility of the Catfood Commission. Let’s hope he gives more impromptu interviews and writes more letters!

Simpson’s tirade continues a pattern of erratic behavior that threatens to undermine the commission’s work. In June, he unleashed a stream of error-riddled invective on a Social Security advocate wielding a camera outside a closed-door commission meeting, leading Paul Krugman to conclude (happily) that Simpson was killing the commission.

– Huffington Post, via Daily Kos

But we are supposed to be thanking them for saving SS from privatization.
A 20% benefit reduction is a small price to pay.

Thank you.

You raise an interesting issue: who suffers from political Tourettes most, Simpson or Rahm?

International Human Rights Law: Article 12

Article 12.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

No pol in the U.S. pays any attention to domestic law, and they all now ridicule international law, based on U.S. exceptionalism. So your point is?

That law should stand. What do you believe?

Those laws are meant to constrain the govt, and it’s very clear they no longer do. So they are, for practical purpose, irrelevant. What I believe is totally inoperative.

The hatred and contempt for anyone he considers beneath him is sickening. The Gopers have hated SSI from day one. Why is Obamarahma allowing this travesty to happen in the 1st place? is this his idea of bi-partisanship? Nobody I know would have ever voted for this klown had he said I intend to put together a special Commission to cut SSI and Medicare. He’d have been laughed off the stage. He’s walked back and betrayed everything he ran on. He’s in short a LIAR and a traitor. We need to primary this guy with Dr. Dean for 2012.

I believe in my own conscience. This conversation about dignity and respect started the other day in the thread responding to Paladino’s wish to make prisons into ‘poor houses”

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/66724

Then I started thinking about the issue of treating everyone with more dignity and respect, to try to avoid the splitting, blaming , projecting onto the less powerful in our society.

That’s where I am coming from.

Yeah baby Mz. Hamsher! I was HOPING FDL would pick this one up and run with it!

Just caught up with it at HuffPo.

Now to enjoy your post, and the comments!!!

These people are nuckin futz!!!!

So far off the deep end, they don’t edit their mouffs or their butts, cuz I don’t know WHICH end this shit comes out of anymore!

*G*

I like that.

udder breakdown……………….G

Law, and more particularly Justice, are never irrelevant; they may be, as you use the term to describe your beliefs, “inoperative” but they matter deeply.

I have no problem with the standards you hold yourself to, ones with which I personally agree.

My point is that the PTBs could care less about any of the constraints that were so carefully crafted to try to reign them in.

Two different points. Mine is impt for how the country is run. Yours for your personal conduct.

My profession was forecasting, so I pay more attention to the former for forecasting purposes.

oopsie what beverage care you?

He used a comma in his salutation instead of a colon. I wouldn’t have read any further from someone so lacking in good home-learnin.

sick Aristos must be shamed into silence,

Tried to clarify my frame of ref in 69.

I’d love to see Alan Simpson get “dis-invited” from the Catfood Commission too. But if Obama didn’t have the guts to get rid of Rahm for calling us “F’n Retards” or Gibbs for dissing the “Professional Left”, I doubt he’ll find the stones to pink-slip good old Al. Now, if someone can find a picture of him at Woodstock tripping acid w/ Janis Joplin…

Simpson Fodder:

In 2001, Simpson became Honorary Chairman of the Republican Unity Coalition (RUC), a gay/straight alliance within the Republican Party. In this capacity, Simpson personally recruited President Gerald R. Ford to serve on the RUC’s Advisory Board. The organization has since disbanded.

WTF?!?!!?

Simpson

Ok, Puppers, need help here. Fuzzy memory.

Wasn’t there a VIRULENTLY AntiVietNam War Senator named Simpson?

Alan Simpson?

I got nottin on teh google.

Was there a CA Simpson I mighta voted for in the early 70′s?

Sigh. Hey, what are Pup Pals for!

*G*

Just yesterday got wind of yet another elder (female) now homeless.

I’ve gotten an earful regarding the gauntlet of demeaning procedures and administrators that folks are having to deal with repeatedly and over the same obvious ground (e.g., the person is still permanently disabled) complete with intentional disruptions in the receipt of monies and services.

or Gibbs? 3 cut from same narcissistic cloth

No Teddy – not call him home – send a car for him, with a nice burly guy in it to pick him up, wrap him lovingly in a restraining garment and take him someplace quiet. And hopefully, they will give him some nice warm milk (heh) and a couple of cookies and perhaps check to see if he’s firing on all six or seeing aliens coming out of the walls. (a little touch of Halhol might help here) Because this is the most offensive, uncontrolled piece of stuff I’ve ever read.

On the scale, I’d give Simpson a 10, Rahm 9+, and Gibbs an 8 for trying hard to get into the obnoxious Olympics.

By the way, the original Ashley B. Carson piece on HuffPo is well worth reading — especially when you realize that Simpson didn’t dare address a single one of her concerns. Check this out, for instance:

Mr. Simpson continues to paint the picture that everyone receiving Social Security benefits is living the high life – driving luxury cars, dining out and living in gated communities. If this is true, can someone please tell me where it is that I can retire in the United States where I can buy my Lexus, make house payments and never have to cook at home again on my $11,000?

Perhaps Simpson is confused, maybe because he lives the high life, he believes all older adults live like he does. If he doesn’t need his Social Security check, then perhaps he should donate the money to a homeless shelter, because that’s where many older single women will live if he reduces their benefits.

And as I said, Simpson didn’t dare address that. Maybe the truth about his being an entitled rich boy and a Senator’s (and governor’s) son, the second generation of a three-person political dynasty who obviously sees himself as superior to the “lesser people“, stung him a bit.

Thanks. Not surprised, though, that he did not address any substantive issues.

My question is, how can anybody not believe in evolution with this living fossil demonstrating so eloquently the differences between Cro Magnon and modern Humans?

There’s lots of evidence counter to the ‘theory’ of evolution among the Rs. You cite one of the more powerful. *g*

I was wondering when the last time they raised the upper income level on paying into Social Security? Maybe if all these big salaried types like Simpson paid more we could bump up Grannies benefit level and she could get some fancy catfood or something, maybe some new shoes.

PW, I was brought up to never, ever, under any circumstances, for any reason, hit a woman…and I feel that way today. But can someone please create a time machine that can send me to the 1950′s and tell me that Ayn Rand was really a cross-dresser…John Galt’s speech alone deserves a punch in the mouth at the very least.

I agree with what you are saying about how those in power seem not to care. And I understand what you mean by operative. I am concerned about the asocial net and its power to defeat the souls of any and all who now need it. I am concerned about a future blowback when these fools in charge keep telling the jobless to get jobs, 99ers to go on welfare or beg, when there are no jobs and there really isn’t a whole lot of welfare. If you read the Paladino piece I referenced above, he really treats low income people as lesser than. He blames them for being poor or for being jobless. No recognition of the truth about our economy and no honoring their suffering, their injured pride and their hardships.

In my opinion HP needs to toughen their view of the Catfood Commission as a whole; Simpson is just a sideshow. This statement in the quote you provide

Simpson’s tirade continues a pattern of erratic behavior that threatens to undermine the commission’s work.

shows insufficient scorn for the entire operation, one that clearly is intended to give the MOTU cover for cutting old-age pensions for working-class people. Simpson’s remarks are apt for a group of people who want to solve the problem of people unable to work by working them to death.

A lot of people having been paying on that cow for a lot of years. There is no excuse for taking this from people that have paid in and not paid into other programs because they were paying into this. They allowed the Elite to lose our retirement, the economy has been impossible to save in, banks have held back money from the economy and then charged the population billions in interest on debt and they want to take SS??

These people are ruthless and their obvious intention is for the Elite to own everything and for us to beg on command for a place to live,medical health care, etc. It’s sick and scary and we should be very afraid because these people have openly revealed themselves to be sociopaths that have no shame.

Wow.

Just read that letter.

Are we sure that came from Simpson?? My gawd, that letter is so bad I can’t even believe Simpson wrote it, and I give Simpson credit for being pretty bad.

Unbelievable.

Asshole.

Dean is a liar and a worm too.

Hey, the bucks stops with Oilbummer. He believes this vituperative old geezer is qualified to “judge” whether Soc Sec is solvent. No truly progressive person would try to destroy this program. Therefore, Oilbummer is a distasteful reichwinger, imo.

My POV on your thoughts is right in line with your POV.

We here at FDL for the most part all have similar POV’s, in our personal lives.

We mostly believe that the collective good is more important than the elite.

You have always made THAT clear, in my understanding, and I appreciate your thoughts because of that.

We are fucked, if we don’t change a LOT of shit.

We are greatly out ‘forced’, in all ways.

And, we are barely 50/50 in the population, due to the control the corporate fascists have over every single bit of out lives.

However, as things get worse, economically, for all of us, that 50/50 is gonna change, radically.

I want to see what the elite are gonna do when 80-90% of we the people are pissed at no jobs, housing, or food.

Cuz that shit’s comin soon.

We can bet Simpson’s Titt’s on it!

*G*

uhm ,Neanderthal,and i think he shares more DNA with a nematode personally,a festering one at that

My question is, how can anybody not believe in evolution with this living fossil demonstrating so eloquently the differences between Cro Magnon and modern Humans?

Err,…
Cro Magnon are modern Humans.

agreed

Alan the Asshat is so fond of cows huh…let’s make sure he gets put out to pasture where he can chew on his own cud…the man needs some professional help and the dood who put him on the commission is next in line for the same therapy…

I am on SS and I can assure Alan Hewhohasgoldenspoonstuckuphisass, that I am not living the rich life and woopin it up with my unparalleled wealth. I squeaked out some money this past year to give to one organization and only one: FDL!! Suck on that Alan!

Actually it reads very similar to what he says in the video. When he gets all worked up about the people who just don’t understand the brilliant work that he is doing he gets incredibly dismissive and disrespectful.

spot on…thieves highwaymen

Seriously if you took the income cap off completely it could help rein in executive salaries. I wonder what Social Security’s take on a hundred million would be?

Yo Pups, was there an anti war Alan Simpson I don’t know about in the early 70′s?

Or (gulp) nebbah mind.

Cranston.

Alan Cranston.

Dead cells.

Resume the mammary frivolity and horror.

My bad.

Oh, and may Simpson rot in the hell of his own making.

Whew, glad I got THAT in.

another OLD RICH ANGRY,MALEVOLENT MOFO,that about covers it

Actually, Cro Magnon are early modern humans, right? Modern humans are known as homo sapiens.

Hey Ed! Nice closing line!

*G*

same difference,they are all the same,old rich mean mofos

It’s a CULTURAL difference. Cro Magnon were what we refer to as the stereotypical “cave man” while modern humans are more CULTURALLY advanced and not coincidentally, THAT was the point I was making.

They were the first Homo sapiens.

Since he was Obama’s hand picked choice for co-chair it says as much about Obama as it does Simpson.

bingo!

tie this right to BHO

Absolutely. And to use an apt aphorism from my childhood in the midwest, Obama is as useless as tits on a boar.

Exactly. Oilbummer is a reichwinger, big time. We seriously need a real left wing party so the Dems will lose election after election until they die on the vine. This is the only solution. They need to know that we will destroy them electorally if they don’t agree to our wishes.

This is the only way. There are no “better Dems.” They all blow massive chunks and everyone here knows it.

spot on…thieves highwaymen

and don’t forget to include degenerate asswads!

Scapegoating the poor and politically powerless is a long tradition, not only in the U.S., but pretty much everywhere.

I don’t know what to do about it. I’m here, in significant degree, because I’d hoped (oops there’s that 4-letter word, hope) that I’d find a plan that would actually help change (oops there’s that other 4-letter word) things for the better.

After several years at FDL, I haven’t seen it yet, so I’ve gone back into forecasting mode. In my practice, that means taking a hard-headed look at the evidence in hand, figuring out what the behavioral models are, meaning, among other factors, incentives, institutional structures, etc. Then trying to figure out what factors might actually change the pattern.

To put it differently, how would my (and/or your) values actually be able to become values that were operative by our fearless leaders? I don’t see it, but perhaps you do.

Thanks for clarifying. I had the same brain fart, but didn’t want to embarrass myself by owning up.

Wrong. Modern humans are Homo Sapiens Sapiens. There was also Homo Sapiens Neanderthalis and some other lesser side branches. The genus “Homo” began more than a million years ago.

Thanks Larue…a tip of the hat to ya my friend…

Yea…this Simpson crapola gets me way steaming!

Alan simpson is such a vicious asshole here because gutting and looting SS has been the most important calling and mission of his life.its even more precious to accomplish it now that he can count the days he has left on his watch. so important that he(rotten desicated old corpse that he is) is still leading the supply sider crusade to pilfer or destroy it, about 20 years after he retired from his 600 year long career in the senate.his hatred for the AARP and old people who expect to recieve their full social security benefits, is infamous,reliable and very very well documented. and yes i would love to see him trot out his John Houston – directing routine with any of the regular contributors at FDL.

Simpson’s not the sideshow — he’s the guy who keeps revealing too much about the Catfoodies and how they really feel about us. Remember, virtually all of them are silver-spoon types who reek of entitlement and inherited wealth.

Modern Humans are the only extant species in the genus Homo, (unless you consider people like dear old Alan Simpson).

Ok. BIG PROBLEM HERE, I think.

I click on your link http://campaign.constantcomment.com … and I land on a home page titled: “Tell Alan Simpson – We’ve Had It.” But when I click on their header, I’m directed to a different URL: http://www.owl-national.org/Welcome.html.

So, what is it? Is your post hosting a front? Or is your post fronting a host? Why two URLs for the same place? Why, when I click on http://campaign.constantcontact.com do I end up on a pfished site for, sheez, a group of old ladies?

I went to http://campaign.constantcontact.com linked. Signed their petition. Made a contribution.

On my receipt page it said:

Harkness Labs

I googled Harkness Labs and learned that they are a a web site developer company. Clearly they are lending their paypal account to either the pfished site of http://www.owl-national.org/Welcome.html or they are the pfishers.

Why do I have to wonder about this after I gladly made a $20 dollar contribution because of your post?

In short, get the tech back end stuff of this right, or risk losing your advantage.

Best wishes. Carry on. Let me know if I can help.

and for all the myriad shite that is flung at us all these days…

keep this in mind!

I think he should stay with the other asshats so that it backs Obama up to a point of NO WHERE TO GO.

Cus we the people are gonna voice our ‘disagreements’ with this Catfooder Kit Obama is backin, for ‘small tweaking’.

There have been a recent 4 resignations of CatFood Commish Members, but I can’t get a handle on who they were, what they represented, and why they quit.

Any thoughts on recent resignations?

wonder if anybody on Mattthhhhhhhhas Vinyard collects SS

Hey Jane and Firedogs -

I have had the pleasure of reading OWL’s work for the past few months – they and some incredible partners at Strengthen Social Security

this is a great resource – for self education and push back on the oligarch’s poison now being spread around.

Raising the Age Limit no big deal you say ? not a problem, see “Raising Social Security Age is Dangerous.”

really, an incredible resource – book mark it.

The best of you, and there are many here “better” than me, are mouse pad radicals. The question is, what should we do? After awhile snark doesn’t get it anymore.

“People on Social Security who milk it to the last degree”? Whatever is he talking about? My wife and I get a couple of grand per month from Social Security, without which we’d probably be dead. What’s more, we both paid into the system for over 40 years. It’s our damn money.

This character has no business being in a position of authority over the fate of others.

That’s another whole different topic, and sexual in nature.

And yes, decidely, male.

Phallically speakin.

If you don’t agree with that, then there is no need to read any further.

I had to read further. The shit hit the fan below.

We’ve reached a point now where it’s like a milk cow with 310 million tits!

His mom had to nurse him. I think he sucked a tit.

oh, and fuck this retirement and healthcare for Life motherfucker

I had the wrong Alan, hoss. Or hossette.

Cranston was a hero.

But yeah, I’m pretty much in agreement with ya about politicians anymore.

Hell, I’m in FULL agreement with ya.

*G*

The q for all of us here. My reaction in 113.

If we knew what to do, we’d be dong it. Still gonna hang in the best place trying to figure it out.

Yeppers, I’ll bet not one of them has ever been faced with an exotic conundrum such as “should I buy food or pay my rent on time?” or “if I go to the doctor for this strange lump how will I pay for gas to get to work this week?”

Thumbs (or other organs) up to you, Larue.

And yes, I’ve made some plenty smart cracks about people on Social Security who milk it to the last degree.

Shorter Simpson: Yeah, how dare folks collect Social Security from the time they retire until they die. They should just go ahead and die already so I don’t have to have a tax increase!

Ha, ha! Well, voting for Dems isn’t the answer, man. Oilbummer is our enemy.

Nah!…but they probably have yachts with the name ‘S.S. I GOT MINE!’

Yep.

goddess love ya

Interestingly, I’ve not faced such issues, but have never had trouble understanding those who do. I did VERY MUCH appreciate Ehrenreich’s Nickled & Dimed because it gave me real life examples to use in discussions with those who don’t get it. It’s actually worked wonders on several occasions.

or tape up their fukkin glasses,when they break………..arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

lol

Well, there might be some of us who probably have a few ideas of what we would like to see happen to ‘ole’ Alan, but we self-moderate out of respect for the mods and this place we love and gather to!

i absolutly adore that woman,for doing what she does,was an eye opener for me,changed me

Abso Fucking Blue Toothly So!

Spot on, and way to drill the point.

Thanks!

Yep.

He’s already lost my vote in ’10 and ’12.

*G*

This is a class war. They want to make us all eat out of garbage pails. Bottom line. They are raising the stakes by destroying our livelihoods. It’s becoming more and more clear. No one is immune from their depredations, blue or white collar doesn’t matter. They want us in shantytowns like in Rio, drowning in our own vomit.

You think I exaggerate? All elites are the same. They are amoral cretins. Look at history.

Well said.

i posted this to you today

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/17/homeless-man-life-sentence-freed

he enjoys hobnobbing with the rich and famous,a whore

Very true ecahn, this sums it up perfectly.

And this is the BEST place to hang out until we do, IMO.

So many good ideas and smart folks here, I can’t help but wish our country would just adopt a few of what’s proposed here. Yet time after time they intentionally adopt crap that’s actually worse for the country as a whole.

eCahn, the forecasting is horrid news and predilictions, aint’ it.

But I’m glad to see another who’s willing to speak the worst, as the worst may well be coming soon.

I look forward to more of your prognostications and musings, as always.

*bows*

Yeah, I don’t mind taking a DUMBPHUCK for the team once in a while . .

*G*

read it and weep

http://labornotes.org/2010/07/gm-seeks-cut-wages-half-indianapolis-factory

Of COURSE they do!

Only it’s guarded as secretly as our black ops overseas are.

*G*

I’m.

Speechless.

*blush*

LOL

Totally agreed upon.

Oh, I think it’s MUCH worse than your points.

*G*

The most interesting personal example was with my cleaning lady. She’s worked for me for nearly 30 years, can best (in short) be described as poor white trash who’s pulled herself up by her own bootstraps. It’s been wonderful to see her change & grow. A real worker. Very recently we had a conversation about a neighbor who uses a cleaning service which is less than satisfactory. I asked mine if she wants the job (she got a LPN and works full-time for VA, so I am the only person she still cleans for). She said yes, so I made the intro. Mine couldn’t follow thru for reasons of big personal changes (chronic among those in her situation) but in the course of the discussion, my cleaning lady did the usual denigration of the lazy-good-for-nothings who work for cleaning services. I was able to use Ehrenreich’s experience to turn mine around in a couple of easy sentences. Which pleased me immensely. The worst is when the just-made-it-out-of-poor pick on those who can’t do it.

I started to answer your question, then realized that I do not have an answer for how to change the values by which our insensitive leaders operate. I would love to run this headline in the Post tomorrow: Obama’s Deficit Commissar Insults Seniors Twice and Obama Does Not Blink! Some kind of price should be paid. But how?

A homeless man who spent 13 years behind bars for trying to break into a church kitchen to find something to eat is to be freed.

Gregory Taylor, 47, became an example of the harsh sentences allowed by California’s three-strikes law, but a superior court judge has amended his sentence to eight years already served.

Taylor, who was sentenced in 1997 to 25 years to life, will be a free man in a few days. Taylor was arrested while trying to get into St Joseph’s church in Los Angeles. He told officers that he was hungry.

i weep for this country

Yes, I saw it. Sorry I didn’t respond. So much injustice.

Well said. I had skimmed over your comment.
Your comment has the more meaning for your being one of the snarkiest of the snarks.

and that is why there is no collective sympathy /reasoning in our country,it will be the undoing of it

the man cried in court,it was a real life Les Miserables,and after Katrina they shot looters,i cant abide this

Yet time after time they intentionally adopt crap that’s actually worse for the country as a whole.

Hoss, gonna take more n what we are throwing at them so far, to change it all.

They won’t budge.

It’s a class war.

1% v. we the people.

What’s history tell us happens when this occurs?

by the way a lot of the churches around here DONT FEED HUNGRY PEOPLE,they do weddings and such,with the latest greatest HOBART equip etc

A pity they don’t talk that way when they’re campaigning, but it’s probably how they talk to get their major kick-ass start backing.

Epic.

~~~EDITED IN MODERATION~~~

~~~ModNote: If you want to pick a fight, no matter the provocation, do it elsewhere.~~~

One costs money, the other makes money.

End of story.

Revoke 401, c, 3 status.

Simple.

I now scramble to catch up to FDL/Seminal.

I been busy job hunting. Like many.

Don’t fall into the trap that you need the instant answer.

You/we have values; hold them dearly.
You/we have problems; hold them dearly too.

Fact is, no one could have predicted the way Civil Rights worked out. If you were a forecaster, you would have said “Blacks always lose; I see no operative values in the System to predict otherwise.’ But then, they did. Because many folks acted differently than people thought they would.

Fact is, no one could have predicted the way Gay Rights worked out. If you were a forecaster, you would have said “Gays always lose; cops raid the bars, gays go to jail. The End. I see no operative values in the System to predict otherwise.’ But then, they did resist the cops. Because many folks acted differently than people thought they would over a longer time, gay rights are in the state they are now, with Marriage Equality on deck.

Hold those problems dear, and your values even more dearly; with all due respect to eCAHN, she also was never right 100% of her forecasting career.

im with you,Catholtc Church Vatican Bank?

I don’t know either. Perhaps shrill might be in order in this case?

I can contribute only what I know. In the case of forecasting, timing is as important, or more so, than pointing out where things are actually going.

And I learned, to my professional detriment, that timing means pointing out the obvious as soon as there is enough info for many peeps to have already caught on. That is precisely the formula that was Ed Hyman’s claim to fame. He only made a ‘forecast’ after most everyone already saw it, but had not yet articulated it. Made him a genius, as his clients were able to say: golly that’s just what I was thinking. Simple, but road to riches for him.

the very best of luck

There you go, that’s a good start.
You are my hero!

Yep. One of the few cases in which I felt that I actually contributed to increased understanding in the world. Much satisfaction.

funny thing,when your too big to fail,forecasts are irrelevant,they collect win or lose

bookmark’d.

Thanks.

Gee, and I wonder why the liberal base of the Dems (those evil professional leftists) are finding it so difficult to get out the vote in November. Well, gee, how the hell are they supposed to defend this president when the head of his own “deficit” commission is openly declaring war on Social Security?

Way cool, mouse pad comrade, but we need to sublimate such feelings, and act non self-distructively to help us all.

great TSHIRT

DONT TOUCH MY TITS or my SS!

Agreed! That is the dynamic we HAVE to shut down…we have to make it, ‘the bigger you are, the harder you fall’ no more win/win based on big bullying and deception.

I’m listening. Let us know when to ‘drop the hammer’ on this Social Security issue.

Agree attilathehen…the mantra I try to utilize to suppress the anger is that the:

Power of Love is a whole lot better and stronger than the love of Power…Jimi Hendrix

Wrong. Modern humans are Homo Sapiens Sapiens. There was also Homo Sapiens Neanderthalis and some other lesser side branches. The genus “Homo” began more than a million years ago.

There is still a lot of debate if Neanderthal is a separate species or not, Homo neanderthalensis. That would make Cro-Magnons the first Homo sapiens. I certainly would not call anyone flat out wrong for either opinion.

But I do not think there is any doubt Cro-Magnons was the first “modern man.”

Be careful saying that to politicians…they’ll think it is an invitation to create a commission!

Wish I knew. I worked for Ed for awhile, thought he was a moran, then observed his success thereafter. Never could figure out how to do the timing thing, though did figure out it was the key to his success.

I have two examples about my bad timing. One is a report title: Grow Is Not a 4-Letter Word. I thought of the theme in 1994, but didn’t write it until 1996, still too early (did get a handwritten petty correction from Greenspan, though). The other is that, knowing tech stock were in a bubble in 1999, I sold mine in 10/99, 6 months too soon and 50% too cheap. If I’d been managing stocks for others, I’d been fired long before I would have been proven right. Forecasting is truly a loser’s game, but as we all must make decisions about the future on less than perfect knowledge, we MUST participate in that loser’s game whether we want to or not.

Also, political timing is prolly different from timing in economics forecasting. I have experience only in the latter.

AND the U.S. has changed dramatically for the worse in the decade since I was employed & thus actively involved in forecasting for a paycheck. So just take my observation FWIW and go forward having added that to your kit bag of tricks.

I demonstrated beside a Code Pink woman against Schwarzenegger’s run for Governor where “The Gropenator” was a oft used epithet. Her t-shirt,with two pink hand prints over her breasts, read “hands off our rights”…

A good one.

me likey,he is grotesque……….yuck poor Maria

i loooooove your handle….rotfl

HelenaHandbasket is one of my faves too.

betcha Arnie is a 3 second lay

fantastik,your right the lake is teh entertaining as well as enlightening,when i receive my funds,i shall reciprocate

Does that include the half hour he spends in front of the mirror ‘flexing’!

rotflmao…………………….hahahaha

http://www.mygtv.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/arnold-schwarzenegger.jpg

I think NOT tying FDL to funding is part of the community, but Jane might demur. *g*

Thanks! But sometimes people think I’m too ready to peck a fight.

it is cheaper than a shrink……….GGGGGGGGGG!!!!

birds of a feather……g

I think I just barfed a bit…ghastly gov!

The important Q is that: Do you lay eggs that are NOT infected with salmonella?

sorry so near to bed time……………………….he truly adores himself

rotfl!!!!!

Validates ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’…huh!

i must toddle off,didnt take my vitamins today………….darn

I don’t know. Why don’t you fry to find out?

G’nite sadlyyes…pleasant dreams!

ahuh,good nite,enjoyable as always

Oy. Think I’ll completely abort that one.

Have frequently sent emails to cspan that their hosts should say: “I’ll note for the record that you have not answered the question.”

So having NOT A’d your Q, I’ll move onto the late thread.

I’m with you.

changing dicks in the middle of a screw.

You’re right Mr. Partridge. Somebody needs to take his car keys. The Munsters maybe.

The thing is that living from paycheck to paycheck is THE defining feature of being working class in my opinion, something non-workers don’t seem to get. Upper middle class people who don’t really interact with us focus on our mannerisms, speech patterns, diets, tv viewing habits, choices of literature and the like, things you might see when pumping gas. Even though workers are the overwhelming majority of the population there are just so few of us who actually make it to college. In all the time I spent earning a PhD the only other student I met from a working class background ((my father was a truck driver) was a German.

The countdown begins. Team Obama heard about Mrs. Sherrod in the morning and by the evening she was fired. For some reason they seem to be slow on the uptake with Simpson. Wonder why…hmmm…let me think for a moment…thinking….

Oh wait, he is not a liberal, professional leftist, nor progressive r-tard, so I guess he stays.

Sorry I cannot find a link to this, but I remember during the debate over Grutter v. Bollinger where The Michigan U. law school was sued over using race as a basis for admission, it came out through some sources that 75% of all graduate students at the university came from upper middle class families.

Class and race do matter. Simpson is simply mouthing the social and caste views of working people in particular. People are calling him crazy but this view gets expounded even by what Marxists would call the petite bourgoise.

Simpson’s like one of those craven villains from Dickens – as ugly outside as he is inside. I wish he’d just go away, but thanks to Obama’s increasingly pathetic choosing skills, he’s back. I just signed OWL’s petition to get this sour bastard off the catfood commission and I hope everybody else does too.

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/images/LD_ChartC.html

I believe the above is the chart Simpson is saying is so alarming.

It only says that we need the trust fund to begin to be cashed out beginning in 2017 – the chart just shows a gap between income and benefits.

Simpson needs to learn that making the rich pay off the loan that was the tax cuts for the rich – a loan that was financed by selling bonds to the Social Security Trust – is not a disaster.

The chart does show a need to increase the retirement age beginning in 20 to 30 years – and a need to remove the wage cap for both tax and benefit calculation. Indeed there are many ways to close the gap between tax income in 2050 and benefit outgo.

But Simpson only sees a need to cut benefits now so as to avoid a cut in benefits later that may be of a lesser amount – rather insane. The Simpson crisis of the moment – his only crisis – is the Trust cashing in bonds – making either a need for the rich to pay more to repay those loans that financed the Bush tax cuts for the rich, or making a need to sell China more bonds.

SSI isn’t on the table. Supplemental Security Income is funded through general revenue, not Social Security taxes. SSI payments for the poor elderly, blind and disabled was the consolidation prize the Democrats who controlled Congress gave Nixon after they rejected his guaranteed income plan– yes you read that right.
http://www.ssa.gov/ssi/

eCAHN -

I still work in this pasture based on hope that putting information in front of folks will make the majority want the correct as to justice and effect on the least of us decision. Then in my own little areas – Social Security, taxes, and all things actuarial – I try to give my call on what is correct as to justice and effect on the least of us. Like yourself I do not see folks coalescing around any plan – I do not see any push back 60′s style – just unhappiness with what is going on.

Your projection ability is needed but as you noted you project current trends – and key is getting folks behind the best new direction based on projections of the effect of various new directions. I wish you luck – because that is a skill I do not have and can add nothing to the effort. It may be time to sing Aquarius from the musical Hair!

:-)

When the moon is in the seventh house
and jupiter aligns with mars
The peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars

this is the dawning of the age of aquarius
the age of aquarius

aquarius
aquarius

harmony and understanding
sympathy and trust abounding
no more falsehoods or derisions
golden living dreams of visions
mystic crystals revelations
and the minds true liberation

aquarius
aquarius

I do not understand where you see that Simpson reflects the view of the working people, even when they are called the petite bourgeois as our English lord (former) CEO of BP called those with concerns in the Gulf.

But I agree education goes to the “higher” and richer classes – and even more so as it becomes unaffordable. I do not see race as part of that equation. Rich of any race get a higher education in greater numbers than the non-rich of any race. It has become easier for ones children to move upward in “class” or income level in Britain than it is in the US.

If this is true, can someone please tell me where it is that I can retire in the United States where I can buy my Lexus, make house payments and never have to cook at home again on my $11,000?

Medicare for All benefit #342

Current Medicare recipients pay monthly premiums for Part B provider coverage and Part D drug coverage (or may pay a combined Part C for privatized Medicare Advantage) as well as deductibles and other copayments. I don’t have precise figures handy but I believe the average premium costs are around $1600 a year and the “out of pocket” costs average about the same. A Medicare for All system that is funded via progressive taxes and with no premiums or out of pockets (and I’d note that Pete Stark’s Americare bill was zero premiums, deductibles and copayments for everyone under 200% FPL, around $25,000 a year) would be the equivalent of a 30% Social Security hike for a senior in the situation Ms. Roberts described.

Hopefully the senior’s home state provides a Medicaid supplement for low income Medicare recipients (the new federal Medicaid expansion doesn’t start until 2014). Of course, a Medicare for All system would replace Medicaid and allow states to spend the $175 billion or so in annual state funding on other public needs.

I think the crisis in social security is right where you placed in — in the possibility that taxes/revenues will have to be raised to cover the notes that the government issued the program when it “borrowed” money to cover years of deficit spending under Republican presidents (Raygun, Bush and Bush — Clinton ran deficits, but at least he was working to reduce them.)
As I recall, Bush II, at the least, insinuated those notes aren’t valid.
If they get away with it, it’s been a collossal rip off and scam: all the time the Repugs were pushing tax cuts, they were raising the rate destined for the general fund on everyone earning below the SS ceiling by up to 6.5%.

Has anyone done a study on why the people of Wyoming are so stupid as to elect a person like this to a position of authority and influence in the first place; repeatedly so?

I assume they have the same degenerative neurological disease that has wholly consumed Minnesota’s 6th district.

Don’t forget that Cheney is from there also, and was elected a Representative for a while. I’m guessing you are joking but seriously, my impression from living in neighboring Colorado for 12 years is that Wyoming is a bit like Alaska, Idaho and Montana in that it attracts “end of the roaders.”

“Um, may I point out that the DOD is a much bigger, more endowed cow?”

Touche, dosido.

BTW, Simpson’s email address was on the letter posted on HuffPo.

Just sayin’ . . .

It’s part of a master plan to get everyone distracted while Timmy appoints a financial industry insider to head the new Consumer Protection Agency.

I agree. You make a very good, strategic point.

Alan Simpson is like a butt with 310 million *ssholes.

Okay. Article 12 stands.

Remember: This is OBAMA’S, not George W. Bush’s, creature on the cat food commission saying these things. Where Bush failed to gut Social Security, Obama intends to succeed.

But back to Simpson. That boy is a flat out liar. He knows for a fact that Social Security is not insolvent and is in no danger of becoming so. By lying to people, he is insulting our intelligence, reducing us to the level of nothing more than a resource to be exploited so he and his fellow children can get something they’d never get by telling the truth, namely, the complete and irreversible gutting of what remains of the social safety net. Children lie to get what they want. They lie because they do not possess the emotional maturity or the forethought to consider what their lies do to people. As far as they’re concerned, anything goes if it gets them something they want. It’s “reasoning” without any moral basis whatsoever. It is only when we learn right from wrong, and learn to do the right thing even when it brings us no benefit or hurts us in the short term that we grow mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

But some vermin choose, by way of their own selfishness, apathy, and hatred, not to learn morality. They remain children mentally and emotionally. They will use any means necessary, no matter how destructive, to obtain what they want. The ends justify the means they use, and who cares if millions of people suffer and die as a result? They’re not really people anyway, because they’re not rich. People possessed of consciences go against the natural order, for ours is a society in which social Darwinism rules the day. There is no room for human beings in a socially Darwinist universe. Compassion and justice are for the weak, and the weak are food for the strong.

We are being treated like children by children who have nothing but contempt for everyone who wasn’t lucky enough to be born wealthy, everyone who wasn’t subhuman enough to claw his or her way to the top no matter what it did to others. Alan Simpson is one face of an enemy that is not only foe to all Americans, but foe to all of humanity. And we had better recognize that we are locked into the losing end of a class war waged by the super-wealthy against everyone else. Letters, petitions, and calls for voluntary resignations aren’t going to cut it. The enemy must be forcibly removed from power, and the only way that’s going to happen is if the left leaves the Democrats and organizes itself into a powerful, cohesive, and effective movement capable of challenging the powerful and beating them at the polls.

You think Simpson is aware that SS isn’t welfare? That is OUR fica contributions we are receiving back?

And Obama appoints this guy co-chair. It boggles the mind to think how full of shit Obama is. There has never been a politician who ran such a duplicitous campaign.

Simpson has always been a knuckle-dragging asshole who could only get elected by all the cows in Wyoming—problem is, everybody knows it including BHO. Don’t blame the bullshit messenger, blame the one who brung ‘em to the party.

Great choice Mr. Obama. We see that your value of bipartisanship extends to corporate tools with a penchant for using homespun, good ol’ boy humor to disrespect and condescend to “little” people. The “values cake” you’ve baked with this commission and this old fart sitting atop it is enough to make any progressive want to puke.

Great comment from Huffpost thread on Simpson:

“If you want to take my Social Security away, just refund to me everything I’ve paid in to date with interest.”

We don’t just “need these benefits,” we paid for them. My employers and I paid some $350k into FICA for Social Security. Am I supposed to pretend this is some kind of welfare?
Simpson has tens of millions of dollars and his family doesn’t need Social Security to pay for putting him away. He gets 80% of his government salary as pension, virtually free medical care on top of Medicare, and lots of “love” from corporations who want to make sure we don’t raise the FICA tax rate or limit on earnings. In the old days a mob would have tarred and feathered his scrawny, disgusting angst.

Ah the sentence I wrote was poorly constructed. What I should have written is something like “Simpson is simply mouthing the social and caste views held by the ruling classes about working people”.

That is, Simpson is mouthing back the ruling class social and economic views of the “lower classes”. There is actually a name some writers and historians have given to this in American–they call it “producerism” — the right wing view being that there are parasaites on the society who are bringing it down–and this is a theme certain of the cow analogy.

I am sorry to have missed the original thread on this issue. Though I am sure some non-trolls made all the points above.

Simpson is an asshat, and if Obama does not remove him before Friady news dump then we are in much worse shape than I thought (like free fall on the way, or Obama possibly taking on the sheeps clothing).

I have thought since 2008 that the reason the Dem leadership selected Obama over HRC was so he could gut SS. Like only Nixon could go to China, only a Dem in on it could gut SS. Some nasty Obama supporters posted a blog about my comments calling me ignorant.

Uh huh, and exactly what is this commission? And ALAN SIMPSON? Yeah I was right. Obama is going to gut SS. God save us. And Obama’s ‘governance’ and lack of ability to FIGHT like HRC, will leave Dems in the wilderness for generations, just as I thought. He is a sell out to TPTB and TBTF, FIRE.

Waiting to see the tax hikes and ben cuts to my mom and myself, (assuming I ever get work again in the O Economy) and figure he will appoint some Golden Slacks NYFed retread to run the Consumer Panel, booting Warren, the only person who cares about us,

It has been ABUNDANTLY clear since Obama deliberately failed to address HOUSING for we, the people, that he is the status quo.

we could have had it all.

and it is okay to demean people in a way that slams women. Race, not okay. Bashing women, go for it. It makes me ill.