Did we do this last year? If so, we should look back and see how accurate we were. If only the archives were ordered by date.
The Republicans will do something stupid with the debt ceiling -- Obama will broker a brilliant deal made up of 99% of what the Republicans want and 1% of what centrist Democrats are arguably maybe willing to accept, then he'll publicly complain about the doctrinaire liberals who are threatening to ruin his presidency by complaining about stuff.
This sounds about right.
I thought we'd have more hopeful predictions. You know, like about shanties.
I predict Stanley will get his hopes dashed in this thread.
I predict Stanley's toe will feel better in a few weeks.
I predict another ex president dies this year. And a former VP.
I predict the Pirates will continue to suck so bad it will stop being funny.
Mine: this will be the year of the Canadian shanty's rebirth
I'll say again that there's a good version of "Seven Spanish Trawlers" on this compilation.
Looking for more information on the song leads me to GEST Songs of Newfoundland and Labrador which looks interesting, but I didn't look in much detail.
Oh, huh, a mefi thread about the website mentioned above which makes some recommendations.
The first of the recommended shanties that I listened to is pretty good.
And this song will faded out. I predict.
Listening to "Donkey Rising" got me to look for versions of "Heiland Laddy" (which I know via trenchmouth).
The Tommy Makem version is predictably good and somewhat understated.
The Kingston Trio version just seems odd to my ears.
And then there's an fun but overly dramatic version by a Polish folk band.
None of those are Canadian, of course.
Does "Rock on Rockall" count as a sea shanty? I suspect it does not.
I foresee Nadir Oil, a new dawn for Happy Motoring, and all Suburban Slums to be gutted for trendy Suburban Lofts.
The Orioles will extend their streak of losing seasons to 14.
15: "Suburban Lofts" sounds like a golf club.
It's gonna start off very slowly, almost imperceptibly, but it will get worse ans worse until it's really bad. And you will think it's over but it isn't. Then it will end horribly, for everyone.
And there is nothing you can do, nothing at all, not even really turn your head away. But you will try.
But enough about the next Ke$ha video.
I usually say "apocalypse" on threads like this, but I think these days bob has that niche covered.
teo and I will have heated arguments consisting of nothing but competing webcomic links.
My objection isn't shouting "Apocalypse" in the crowded theater. I just think you need to give a time-frame and a bit of detail before you've actually made a prediction. At a high level of abstraction, "everything will end horribly" is kind a given.
21: I see your blog went all anthropophagy for the holidays.
25: I figured it was seasonally appropriate.
I just learned that word, so now I'm going to be looking for places to use it. Burger King ahoy.
That word being "anthropophagy." I already knew "appropriate."
Here's an example of the type of comment I mentioned in 21.
30: I had to make the "Pirates Suck" prediction because JRoth is otherwise occupied, but Spike needs no assistance to report that the Orioles suck.
There's some anthropophagy on that thread too.
The Carolina Panthers improve all the way from 2-14 to 5-11.
Bill Clinton is hospitalized for cardiac symptoms.
Lindsay Lohan finds Jesus.
The extent of the Gulf of Mexico oil poisoning turns out to be way worse than it appears now.
No more masturbating to Hugh Hefner.
I just learned that word
I just learned pro re nata, which I plan to use, well, you know.
34: Did you get good stuff or just a note saying "Tylenol when needed?"
To save time, can I just put my name to this.
I predict that you guys will be...the best!
I just looked at the link in the OP; of course that's what it was. Without following NickS's links (or listening to what Stan Rogers says in the beginning of the clip), because it would spoil the joke, are there any other Canadian shanties?
Of course, unlike some other Stan Rogers songs I could name, Barrett's Privateers did not single-handedly save the life of an entertainingly-accented guy in a member's only jacket.
Sometime in the new year, this date that started Tuesday will come to an end.
This is among the more strenuous dates I've seen liveblogged.
For comparison, the most strenuous.
Man. Based on the campaign donations to early primary state politicians reported in this (Politico) story, it really appears that Palin will make a run for it. I still predict that she will drop out early and play kingmaker, but the donations make an actual formal run seem much likelier.
42: Di, I'm so happy you are having a good time!
I predict that Di will not be able to snap her hips if she swims tomorrow.
Sometime in the new year, this date that started Tuesday will come to an end.
Settle down, Di; it's only been an hour.
48: sorry to hear your refractory period is so lengthy, nosflow.
No, that's my fractious period. Di and I were practicing oral arguments.
Di's date is coming to an end many times.
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the worst of NPR is The Splendid Table. This show is awful. I am really cozy, snuggling with Hokey Pokey, and the radio is out of reach.
Can anyone come over and turn it off for me?
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52: Noooo. That show "about women" that -- in NYC at least -- is on really early in the morning. Erm, lemme see . . . Satellite Sisters. Good grief.
54: Ohh. It was canceled or something. Sad!
52: Huh. I like it. Granted, they not infrequently discuss foodstuffs and recipes that I'm not in line to be making any time soon, but it's hard to avoid that with any cooking show.
Sad!
That the worst of NPR was canceled?
Actually, TST can't be the worst, because Garrison Keillor just came on, and I'm willing to relocate snuggly pokey to get rid of it.
BTW, reading the 2009 and 2008 year end / New Year threads linked in 29 and 30 really brings home how many commenters have floated off. (I know, I know: go back another year, and another, and it's even more notable.)
Kotsko's predictions linked in 2 are good and interesting. This in particular,
The Republicans will do something stupid with the debt ceiling
while not hard to predict, has begun to play out already. Lindsay Graham was on Meet the Press this morning, saying that he'd not agree to raise the debt ceiling unless he saw a plan on the table to address entitlement programs, particularly Social Security, viz., raising the retirement age and means-testing benefits.
The latter actually surprised me.
The latter actually surprised me.
I think I see the Bob-Signal floating over the skyline!
62: I confess to having that thought.
Really, though, I did not expect Graham -- who's attached in my mind to "asshole jerk!" -- to be saying that those of quite comfortable means probably need not be receiving retirement benefits from the gubmint.
He did fulfill his asshole jerk quota on other matters.
And I know we're not supposed to reply to Pauly, but damn, you make no sense.
If you want to continue to thinking of him as 100% asshole jerk, you can just tell yourself that he's working off the "programs for poor people become poor programs" script. Step 1, split the "defend SS" coalition by selling means-testing on a fiscal-responsibility basis, pitting poor & rich against upper-middles. Step 2, starve the program that remains, pitting middle and rich against (always disproportionately powerless) poor. Note that if you engage in periodic cuts to the payroll tax for stimulus or whatever, you can create the illusion of extra intra-SS fiscal shortfalls, helping repeat the cycle.
Okay, that's enough channeling Bob for one night. I'm not sure how much of that story I believe, or what I even think is a first- or second-best program, absent such considerations. There's something ugly about UMC entitlements, yes, but I'm also attracted to fully unconditional grants (left-libertarian/socialist Basic Income stuff, etc.)--you have to get tons of fiscal savings from means-testing or what-have-you, IMHO, to outweight the costs in lost dignity, extra anxiety, abuse of official discretion, etc., from anything that imposes conditions.
the worst of NPR is The Splendid Table.
Ugh ugh ugh! People on the radio should not be allowed to take bites of things in front of the mic and exclaim "delicious!" with their mouths full. I'm not too crazy about tv cooking shows, but at least they don't actively try to pick up the sounds of eating on the microphone.
Also, was the old SNL parody, The Delicious Dish, a takeoff on the Splendid Table? Because when I finally heard The Splendid Table it sounded exactly like it.
The Republicans won't really fail to raise the debt ceiling, will they? I almost prefer to think they're holding it hostage in order to negotiate cuts in entitlement programs, rather than that they're insane enough to torpedo the economy in the service of some half-baked ideological point.
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I love 'Watchmen' (the comic, not the movie) and all, but, uh... what's with Alan Moore these days? His 'Neonomicon' seems to be straightforward Lovecraftian hentai rape-porn, and 'Lost Girls,' well, I feel like the whole Alice/Dorothy/Wendy slash thing must have been done--and posted on usenet--two decades ago. And if you just judge it as porn, it seems artistically mediocre. Is there something I'm missing here?
I guess I need to send out the SEK-Signal to join the Bob-Signal.
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split the "defend SS" coalition by selling means-testing on a fiscal-responsibility basis
I hear you on this as a possible strategy on Republicans' parts. I'll have to think about all this.
I don't know. I dislike taking a "don't touch entitlements or the military budget at all, in any way" stance. Why? Or why not? I'll need some reasons.
And I really haven't seen any substantive suggestions, with policy and implementation detail, regarding Social Security reform, so I'm not sure how to weigh costs in lost dignity and extra anxiety. On the face of it, I don't care about the dignity or anxiety of the well-off.
And I really haven't seen any substantive suggestions, with policy and implementation detail, regarding Social Security reform
Huh? Removing the payroll tax cap solves most of the problem, and pushes the urgency of the rest of it pretty far off into the future. Social Security is really not a big problem and doesn't need substantial reform.
69: I agree. I meant substantive proposals regarding means-testing benefits.
And if you just judge it as porn, it seems artistically mediocre
Meaning what, it's not arousing?
On the face of it, I don't care about the dignity or anxiety of the well-off.
I'm overgeneralizing here, but the costs of dealing with a gate-keeping bureaucracy will not only fall on those who are not supposed to be eligible. Once there's an "in" and an "out," policing for fraud means subjecting even those who qualify to scrutiny. We could ask Gary Farber how pleasant the (SS? Medicaid? --can't recall) disability application is.
Re: 66: The Republicans won't really fail to raise the debt ceiling, will they? I almost prefer to think they're holding it hostage in order to negotiate cuts in entitlement programs, rather than that they're insane enough to torpedo the economy in the service of some half-baked ideological point.
Yeah, no, I don't think they'll refuse. They seem to view every situation at this point as a bargaining position, never mind the actually right thing to do, so yeah, they'll be holding the debt-ceiling vote hostage.
What's somewhat interesting to me is that some people think Obama should take the same approach toward governing: hold everything hostage, regardless of the cost of losing the bet (bluff).
Although I don't know what (not just asshole-jerk but downright fucker) Jim DeMint has to say lately about the debt ceiling.
Meaning what, it's not arousing?
Well, yeah. But I meant to be making a stronger claim--I don't think it would be arousing even to those who'd be turned on, in the abstract, by Lovecraftian rape-porn or Wendy/Alice/Dorothy slash. (Links provided purely for the purposes of aesthetic criticism, obvs.)
The lurkers support me in email.
Ooops. Guess I messed up the first link, but I'm sure neB will take care of it.
Alan Moore has always had a weird thing around rape and coercion. It's all over V for Vendetta. I think his worst instincts are just growing stronger.
73: I'm aware that dealing with bureaucratic procedures can be unpleasant, but that's not a good enough reason on its face to avoid the having of rules and guidelines.
A critic at Salon said of Lost Girls "If it fails as smut, though, it's a victory as art, which is not a bad condolence prize." I've actually had little desire to read it as a result, because damn it, if I'm going to read smut, it ought to at least work as smut.
Look, delaying or refusing to raise the debt ceiling (or shutting down the gov't) will not collapse Western Civilization overnight. There are steps Obama can take, and the bond markets might raise rates a little bit...and wait. Look up the Argentina default. Remember the Gingrich shutdown. Repubs gott Congress back soon enough.
So I think this Republican Congress will do both. There will not be hyenas eating babies in the street the day after. Just drama, and negotiations.
But, you know, as the gavel falls, "Bill failed" the Dow could drop 90% in 15 minutes...nah stops. But whatever, crashes are possible and not completely predictable.
And the bond markets and Uber-banks could play along with Repubs, just to scare parsimon or give Obama the excuse he needs.
But the headlines (US dropped to Baa!!!) won't really be the story. It's a process, and a scam.
Remember who gets the interest from bonds.
There will not be hyenas eating babies in the street
Oh, god. Vegetarian hyenas? It's worse than I thought.
you have to get tons of fiscal savings from means-testing or what-have-you, IMHO, to outweight the costs in lost dignity, extra anxiety, abuse of official discretion, etc., from anything that imposes conditions.
While I agree this is the case with existing means-testing, I think it's contingent on procedures, technology, etc. It's possible, I think, to create a leftist, dignity-preserving means-testing if it's just a matter of excluding the rich. For example, you could limit benefits based on income tax returns (if AGI exceeds a certain amount), and not require people to prove they qualify.
58: god how I hate his voice.
I predict I'm going to eat waaaaay too many chocolate-dipped candied orange peels, way too quickly.
84: You'd think, but the argument is always as in 64.1. As for myself, I've never been able to figure how you get the same people arguing that you must raise the marginal tax rate on people making over $xxx,000 dollars but send them $1,500/month if they happen to make it to 65.
The real reason, of course, is that well-off retired people have nothing to do but vote and complain and, that with the Baby Boom and better medical care, there are a butt-ton of them.
87:that you must raise the marginal tax rate on people making over $xxx,000 dollars but send them $1,500/month if they happen to make it to 65.
It is called a common good. Everybody gets $1500 a month, no questions asked. Everybody gets health care and education, no qualifications necessary. Everybody gets to vote. Etc.
And thus everybody can demand that billionaires give it up.
It is part of a classless society. A steeply graduated tax system doesn't have bright lines between those who should pay and those who should receive. Everybody pays, if not equally. Everybody receives.
Everybody over 65 who had sufficient quarters of qualified employment.
(88: this is a little hard to reconcile with being "against transfer payments" and in favour of abolishing income tax, as you were two days ago.)
I did a review of the 2009 predictions at the beginning of last year.
are there any other Canadian shanties?
Yes.
(88: this is a little hard to reconcile with being "against transfer payments" and in favour of abolishing income tax, as you were two days ago.)
It's called being spontaneous and unpredictable. It's called being open-minded. It's like jazz, man, but with ideologies instead of key signatures.
Everybody gets $1500 a month, no questions asked.
?
I'm pretty sure that, under the existing system, not everybody gets $1500/month (once they've paid in for a sufficient number of quarters).
I'm pretty sure your SS benefits are proportional to your income over time: so higher earners get higher SS benefits, lower earners, lower. No?
Bob is talking about how it should be, not the current system. I think the parts about everybody getting health care and education were the tip-offs.
94: Okay. I thought that might be it - the tone kept wavering back and forth for me. Thanks.
... so, uh, anyone know how to get a foot in the door of the shipping industry? Mmm, logistics.
Frankly, it would be awesome if everyone got $1500/month regardless of income earned during working lifetime. As it stands, if you were marginal or downright struggling all your life, you get to continue to be so post retirement, when it's also a great deal more difficult for you to manage (what with aging); so I have no problem with revising Social Security. It's not sacrosanct in its current form.
Just musing. But if I continue in this vein I'll shortly be freaking out about people who spend $100,000 on a wedding cake (true story) when grandma and grandpa over there are eating cat food.
High five? Someone, anyone. Please?
96: You have to spin the handle to open those. And they call them bulkheads or something.
97: Yes. $1,500 is my guess at what the maximum payment is. My guess is based on half remembered conversations with old people, so I could be off.
99: hatch and bulkhead, Hick.
What makes a $100,000 wedding cake? single-sourced organic chocolate? personally designed by I.M. Pei? feeds 800 people?
100
Yes. $1,500 is my guess at what the maximum payment is. My guess is based on half remembered conversations with old people, so I could be off.
The maximum monthly benefit for someone retiring in 2010 was $2346.
100: And I think -- from half-remembered conversations with old people -- that a minimum payment is something like $300. Per month.
How we've gotten to the point at which we look at our fellow humans suffering along on $300/month and shrug is completely beyond me. It's grotesque.
Hm. No takers? How about a fist bump? Anything? I'm lonely here, guys.
102: It was made by that guy whose Baltimore cake shop had a show on the Food Network. Forget his name and the shop's name. The tv show was recently canceled and there was an interview with the guy on the radio here: he reported that he was doing fine, his team had just made and delivered a $100,000 cake [they do architectural cakes, yes] someplace in the southwest for a massive wedding.
Maybe it was $50,000. But not much less.
103: I should meet a higher class of muttering elders. Or some that retired more recently.
Maybe a full swing orchestra jumps out of a $100,000 cake.
93
I'm pretty sure your SS benefits are proportional to your income over time: so higher earners get higher SS benefits, lower earners, lower. No?
This correct but the formula favors low income workers in that their benefit amount is a greater proportion of their average earnings than the benefit that high income workers receive. See here for more.
68
And I really haven't seen any substantive suggestions, with policy and implementation detail, regarding Social Security reform, so I'm not sure how to weigh costs in lost dignity and extra anxiety. On the face of it, I don't care about the dignity or anxiety of the well-off.
Well as a well-off person let me put it to you this way. If the government breaks its social security promise to me I won't feel any moral obligation to see that it honors its promise to anyone else.
If you want to cut social security outlays it seems to me the obvious place to start is the numerous people receiving disability payments who are not in fact disabled.
That is a strange use of the word "favors," James.
If the government breaks its social security promise to me I won't feel any moral obligation to see that it honors its promise to anyone else.
You have no conscience, sir. Congratulations.
I don't think Shearer is being unreasonable. Right now everyone cares about Social Security because everyone has skin in the game. If you make it so wealthier people no longer have skin in the game, its not unreasonable for them to place their priorities elsewhere.
Putting Shearer's conscience to one side, the dignity and anxiety costs aren't imposed on the well off. They're imposed on people who need and are entitled to help, but are going to have practical difficulty proving it, and emotional difficulty admitting how needy they are, once getting SS is a mark of being helplessly impoverished rather than a common societal benefit.
115: Sadness! Got any trips planned anytime soon?
Haven't booked yet or anything, but I predict a call for a meetup in 2011. And just discovered a series of post-it notes left about telling me I am wonderful. So, so charmed.
Haven't booked yet or anything, but I predict a call for a meetup in 2011. And just discovered a series of post-it notes left about telling me I am wonderful. So, so charmed.
So charmed, my comments are all multiples apparently.
114: once getting SS is a mark of being helplessly impoverished
Is it at all clear that this is the form means-testing would take? I mean, do you envision that with means-testing, only those who are helplessly impoverished would be receiving SS?
I really wasn't seeing it that way.
Speaking of trips, and calls for meetups, it appears that I will be sadly unable to do the MLALALALALALA thing.
Oh, but they're charming comments! That's so sweet of him!
I realize this is sort of ridiculous, but I want to throw out there to anyone worried about pending apocalypse who isn't planning to hole up in some libertarian bunker that being a foster parent to a child who needed that has been immensely rewarding and I wish there were more smart, good people who'd do it. I don't want to take the comment into anthropophagy or anything (I'd probably offer to be eaten first; there's no way I could handle the eating part) but small interventions can be meaningful on more than a small level and I'd be glad to talk about this with anyone.
113: If you make it so wealthier people no longer have skin in the game, its not unreasonable for them to place their priorities elsewhere.
This is computing for me only in the most formal sense: of course it's not *unreasonable*, i.e. irrational, strictly speaking, for wealthier people not to give a shit about those in need. It is, however, morally abominable, in my view.
That said, politics can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, or whatever, which is to say that the well-off control the levers of power and we need them not be all pissy, since we can't count on them to be caring. So they'll have to receive SS benefits even though they totally don't need them and their benefits are in fact taking away from those who do.
My career will continue to languish.
Maybe Graham's idea of means-testing is that you only get social security payouts if you averaged more than $1M/quarter during your working years.
Hm, if you wrote something like that into a sufficiently hairy and complex 700-page bill, and creatively selected your phrasing when you talk about it, how far could it get through congress before someone noticed?
anthropophagy
My association with that word is the Flanders & Swann song, "The Reluctant Cannibal."
how far could it get through congress before someone noticed?
Depends on how dark the theater is.
I was about to comment at length about how obviously the musician to associate with anthropophagy is Serge Gainsbourg, but the evidence proved to be: 1) one truly bizarre group TV appearance (ad proceeding video), 2) the lyrics to a great early tune, "Mambo Miam Miam" (from the loungy cha-cha era), which seem upon closer inspection to be metaphorical.
So, never mind.
I do think that means testing Social Security would put in place some pretty screwy incentives against saving. Why should I put money in my 401(k) if I know that every dollar I save will be canceled out by a dollar not paid to me as Social Security?
Dammit, when I predicted another bad year for the Orioles, I didn't realize things would start to suck so fast.
123
... their benefits are in fact taking away from those who do.
This is not true.
I actually agree with 131.
People of all income should qualify for social security because it is good for the social security program. Programs for the poor are poor programs and all that.
Right now everyone cares about Social Security because everyone has skin in the game. If you make it so wealthier people no longer have skin in the game, its not unreasonable for them to place their priorities elsewhere.
I haven't noticed a marked tendency among the wealthy to care a huge amount about social security. The whole "redistribution of wealth" thing may the wealthy to think that they might be giving more through taxes than they will get in benefits. So those benefits, while rationally of some value, aren't exactly going to secure their love for the endeavor.
91- Surely, Emerson Woodcock would be the name of the unofficial honorary Canadian shanty-singer, were Unfogged ever to need such a thing.
The future of Social Security is highly dependent on not ever again thinking it might be a good idea to watch She-Ra: Princess of Power on Netflix on-demand.
And how hard can that be, really?
134, 135: I'm Wii Swordfighting instead. I may be unable to manage dwarves, but I can put the smackdown on fake people.
133
I haven't noticed a marked tendency among the wealthy to care a huge amount about social security. The whole "redistribution of wealth" thing may the wealthy to think that they might be giving more through taxes than they will get in benefits. So those benefits, while rationally of some value, aren't exactly going to secure their love for the endeavor.
Grudging tolerance is good enough and beats undying hatred.
the wealthy to think that they might be giving more through taxes than they will get in benefits
Poor dears.
The musician to associate with anthropophagy is Mighty Sparrow.
I predict that in the coming year an NFL team with a losing record will get its ass kicked in the playoffs.
OT: My beard still looks sparse, but it can now hold cracker crumbs.
142: find some crackers that match your hair color and you'll be all set.
The snack you can have where ever you are.
141: Yeah. We'll write a song about it, or make some coffee or wine. It's fine.
And just discovered a series of post-it notes left about telling me I am wonderful.
Aww. This warms my curmudgeonly heart.
126, 140:
A little too on-the-nose?
146: Now that Four Loko is banned, you have to really work to get some heart warming.
Just sleep. I promise I won't drop down in your snoring mouth. Besides, you aren't going downstairs for the step stool this late.
Now that Four Loko is banned
One of my cow-orkers picked up some pre-ban Four Loko last week and we had a tasting. It's utterly vile, and yet everyone who tried it had the same reaction. "Jesus Christ this stuff is revolting! Lemme try some more..."
We had some on New Year's Eve. OMG disgusting.
I predict that NYT abortion columnist will write a column about abortion, because Harvard guys take so long to get what they want.
Wait they banned that shit? what. it sounded like the best thing ever.
Haven't booked yet or anything, but I predict a call for a meetup in 2011. And just discovered a series of post-it notes left about telling me I am wonderful. So, so charmed.
Awwwwwwwwwww!
Prediction: Vaginal steam baths take the nation by storm!
155: jeez, x.trapnel, you've already activated the bob signal and the SEK signal in this thread, and now the AWB signal!
I can string words together at random!
129: I do think that means testing Social Security would put in place some pretty screwy incentives against saving. Why should I put money in my 401(k) if I know that every dollar I save will be canceled out by a dollar not paid to me as Social Security?
With respect to this and in general, I should clarify, or at least try to put in perspective, some of my ranting about this last night: I am not in favor of means-testing SS, and am in agreement with essear at 69 upthread that the program is not in terrible danger and can just use some tweaking.
However, if Republicans are going to try to introduce SS reform in the form of means testing, we do need to think about this. It'll be coming our way. I'd dearly love to dismiss it as a policy change proposal with absolutely no legs, but I'm not sure: I was surprised to hear earlier today on our local public radio station an hour-long program on just this matter. It featured, first, Robert Samuelson (pro), then Robert Kuttner (con).
The host of the program kept saying: but I've been paying into the SS program all my life, on the understanding that I'd be paid back! Sure, that's how we view it.
What happens if we view SS not as a retirement plan (for which we will receive benefits upon retirement), but as an insurance program? You pay into an insurance plan against the possibility that you will need it to cover you in future. You may well not need it. Meanwhile you've been paying into the pool which does benefit others when they need it. Do you wring your hands and tear your hair out in the event that you didn't need it after all, even though you paid all this money into it?
I don't know, but I suspect this is the form the discussion might take.
I suspect that the answer to your question in your penultimate graf is: "Absolutely." At least for JBS, and most everyone moaning about ACA.
159: Right. I'd started to add a paragraph about some of the hand-wringing over ACA taking the same form, but thought I'd probably been going on too long as it was.
Doesn't it seem that we (progressives? Democrats? liberals?) don't want to be taking the same sort of stance as Tea Partiers or Republicans toward social insurance programs? That they should not be changed at all? That seems fundamentally conservative. I see pitfalls here, that's all.
don't want to be taking the same sort of stance as Tea Partiers or Republicans toward social insurance programs? That they should not be changed at all?
Huh? I mean, generally, anything can be improved, and while means-testing SS makes me jumpy, I can imagine circumstances where it wouldn't be the end of the world.
But Republicans are all for changing SS. Keeping it the same may be small-c conservative, but it's not what political conservatives want to do.
Yeah, I just keep hearing the Tea Partiers' (and Republicans) "Don't touch my Medicare!" in my head: they're against the ACA's patching up of the so-called 'doughnut hole' because it involved shifting funding mechanisms around, which counted as touching. I'd want to be sure we aren't doing that with respect to SS.
I'm talking mostly about Dems' rhetoric here. Maybe we'd be better off with a "Don't touch my Social Security!" routine. It's really a question of how it plays to the public, I'm sorry to say.
The Republican policy is to remove all safety-net programs for human beings. The "stance" of certain candidates is something different.
Sorry, that wasn't quite clear: the Republican party played to a "Don't touch" message, which was obnoxious and manipulative of them. Do we want now to play to a similar "Don't touch" message with respect to SS? We know it works for large segments of the public.
The "stance" of certain candidates is wide.
I thought at first parsimon was just meaning the broader ideological tendency of conservatives to resist change on an ideological level as one that liberals should not necessarily be falling into with regards to social security specifically.
But if the idea is just that Republicans have used "Don't touch health care" as their spin on preventing greater levels of coverage-- well, why not say "Don't touch SS"? Is it that you feel since their messaging on health care was dishonest and misleading, using a similar one now w/r/t SS would be compromised by that? I don't see it, myself.
I actually do mostly mean 167.1.
With respect to 167.2, it's probably okay to go for a "Don't touch SS" message, even though I know it would be for messaging purposes, in order to cast Republicans as horrible awful people.
166: why on earth exclude that? They were against it when it started, and just because their supporters (old honkies) don't want it gone doesn't mean the politicians themselves don't want to destroy it. They'll just have to be a bit more careful about how they do it.
158: Jesus wept, hasn't Bob managed to knock anything into you yet? Your line to take is "NO!" No. No. No. Right? No. Go demonstrate, go lie, go rant, go troll, go organise. No. Got that? NO!
No works. 'Baggers do no, students do no, Sadrists did very well with no. Join the party of no.
Heh. Thanks, Alex. For some reason I listen to you.