FYI
I hope you will pass this on to others so as to put an end to "birther" concerns. Anybody who continues to believe Obama wasn't born in Hawaii is announcing they are racist. Okay?
Birtherist response highlights racial undertones of ‘debate’ - Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20110427/ts_yblog_theticket/birth-certificate-wont-end-race-related-attacks-on-the-president
Friday, May 27, 2011
Understand what's really going on with Social Security and attempts to change the system
A friend forwarded to me a diatribe about former Sen. Alan Simpson and his supposed attack on Social Security. You can find it on Snopes.com.
Let me comment on this.
The Snopes info wasn't as thorough as some times. So let me add a few things.
When Social Security began, the average age at death was 63. So having benefits extending to 65 wasn't realistic. Today, the average age at death is something like 85. Quite a few years after retirement -- to be paid for by our children and grandchildren! Because, as you probably will recall reading about, current Social Security payments have paid for the older people then retired! Our money was promptly used, we don't have a savings account like Chile does. The GOP tried to get this savings-account system set up several years ago, but it was shot down.
Also, in the early years, something like 17 workers' Social Security payments paid for each retiree. Now there are only 2 or 3 workers payments available for paying for each current retiree. So the system is in dire need of revamping. Simpson was one of the two tasked with figuring out how to reduce the trillions of dollars that the U.S. is in debt to others (mainly the Chinese). He wasn't personally responsible for the current system vis a vis what Congresscritters get. Moreover, he wasn't in Congress for 50 years,but for 18!
So instead of excoriating him, praise him for trying to keep the U.S. from going bankrupt, and thus leaving retirees with nothing.
Let me comment on this.
The Snopes info wasn't as thorough as some times. So let me add a few things.
When Social Security began, the average age at death was 63. So having benefits extending to 65 wasn't realistic. Today, the average age at death is something like 85. Quite a few years after retirement -- to be paid for by our children and grandchildren! Because, as you probably will recall reading about, current Social Security payments have paid for the older people then retired! Our money was promptly used, we don't have a savings account like Chile does. The GOP tried to get this savings-account system set up several years ago, but it was shot down.
Also, in the early years, something like 17 workers' Social Security payments paid for each retiree. Now there are only 2 or 3 workers payments available for paying for each current retiree. So the system is in dire need of revamping. Simpson was one of the two tasked with figuring out how to reduce the trillions of dollars that the U.S. is in debt to others (mainly the Chinese). He wasn't personally responsible for the current system vis a vis what Congresscritters get. Moreover, he wasn't in Congress for 50 years,but for 18!
So instead of excoriating him, praise him for trying to keep the U.S. from going bankrupt, and thus leaving retirees with nothing.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Are Rome's Last Days a Distant Mirror for America?
A friend sent me the article from the Wall Street Journal,
It starts
"The disturbing aspects of this moment in history are the striking similarities between America's current direction and events that took place in the late stages of the Roman Empire. Rome was the world's only superpower in the late second century, A.D.; 100 years later, Rome was terminally ill, weakened first by internal corruption and unsustainable spending and then destroyed by the emergence of multipolar contenders for power."
I recommend reading the full article. The situations aren't identical, but the Roman experience sure gives one pause for thought! I read a very good book by Kevin Phillips (I think it was Wealth and Democracy), on how superpowers don't remain so. He was talking about Holland, then England, and now the U.S., more than Rome. He's written other good books, including American Dynasty, about four generations of the Bushes, and what they've done to the U.S.
I recommend you read both of these books, if you want a greater understanding of the current world.
Are Rome's Last Days a Distant Mirror for America?
It's at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704312504575619143718091672.htmlIt starts
"The disturbing aspects of this moment in history are the striking similarities between America's current direction and events that took place in the late stages of the Roman Empire. Rome was the world's only superpower in the late second century, A.D.; 100 years later, Rome was terminally ill, weakened first by internal corruption and unsustainable spending and then destroyed by the emergence of multipolar contenders for power."
I recommend reading the full article. The situations aren't identical, but the Roman experience sure gives one pause for thought! I read a very good book by Kevin Phillips (I think it was Wealth and Democracy), on how superpowers don't remain so. He was talking about Holland, then England, and now the U.S., more than Rome. He's written other good books, including American Dynasty, about four generations of the Bushes, and what they've done to the U.S.
I recommend you read both of these books, if you want a greater understanding of the current world.
Solving the Israeli-Arab dispute
A friend emailed me about a YouTube video where a man was giving his view of the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4 I enjoyed the history lesson. However, my understanding is that Egypt and Jordan have both accepted Israel's right to exist, and have diplomatic relations with it. This happened over ten years ago.
It was interesting to hear that the Arabs have never ruled Palestine (modern-day Israel). Hello? The Arabs ruled all that land, as well as Spain, Portugal, and other areas of Europe, for at least a couple of hundred years. They were finally pushed out just before 1492. One of Queen Isabella's first actions, as the first native monarch in centuries, was to fund Christopher Columbus.
The solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict isn't easy to get to. In one way, it makes sense to have the Hebrews have their country where it was 2000 years ago. But their ancestors ruthlessly killed the Canaanites (including babies smashed against walls) who had been there first. The Jews' prophets told them that their God told them to do so because He was giving the land to "His" people (that was their interpretation, not really God's word). It wasn't until centuries later that the Hebrews realized that there was only one God. Ooops! They had killed some of His creation to take over the land. "Oh, well, never mind!"
Then, after two thousand years of persecution from Christians, the Allies gave part of ancient Israel to the survivors of the Holocaust. The Arabs urged that the new Israel should be in Europe, probably Germany, taken from those who had almost exterminated the Jews. However, the Jews wanted to return to Israel ("next year in Jerusalem" was a cry repeated for generations). So they fought the Arabs who didn't want them there.
The Jews weren't all sweetness and light, they killed a number of civilians, and took over houses owned for many years by Arabs. One of the long-standing controversies is "the right of return" of the people who fled. By now, most of these refugees have died of old age, but their children continue to want to return, just like the Jews had done for long dark centuries.
But the Israelis are concerned because, even without the right of return, the Arabs living in Israel have reproduced more than the Jewish Israelis. Thus the Jewish state is on the verge of being a minority-Jewish democracy even if those pushed out more than half a century ago never get back to their old homes.
Moreover, the Israelis have done some less than honorable things, like evicting Arab owners of lands, tearing up centuries-old olive trees, and building apartments for Jews -- and basically having an open-air prison in the Palestinian parts.
What is interesting is that the same Christians who refused to let a ship full of Jewish refugees from Hitler's crematoria land in the U.S., now claim that the Israelis can do no wrong. And why is that? Because those fundamentalist Christians believe that the Israelis have to be in control of that land for Jesus to return for the Second Coming!
So I hope, those who read this, that I'm just reminding you of things you already knew, and thus you realize that the video is far from adequate.
It was interesting to hear that the Arabs have never ruled Palestine (modern-day Israel). Hello? The Arabs ruled all that land, as well as Spain, Portugal, and other areas of Europe, for at least a couple of hundred years. They were finally pushed out just before 1492. One of Queen Isabella's first actions, as the first native monarch in centuries, was to fund Christopher Columbus.
The solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict isn't easy to get to. In one way, it makes sense to have the Hebrews have their country where it was 2000 years ago. But their ancestors ruthlessly killed the Canaanites (including babies smashed against walls) who had been there first. The Jews' prophets told them that their God told them to do so because He was giving the land to "His" people (that was their interpretation, not really God's word). It wasn't until centuries later that the Hebrews realized that there was only one God. Ooops! They had killed some of His creation to take over the land. "Oh, well, never mind!"
Then, after two thousand years of persecution from Christians, the Allies gave part of ancient Israel to the survivors of the Holocaust. The Arabs urged that the new Israel should be in Europe, probably Germany, taken from those who had almost exterminated the Jews. However, the Jews wanted to return to Israel ("next year in Jerusalem" was a cry repeated for generations). So they fought the Arabs who didn't want them there.
The Jews weren't all sweetness and light, they killed a number of civilians, and took over houses owned for many years by Arabs. One of the long-standing controversies is "the right of return" of the people who fled. By now, most of these refugees have died of old age, but their children continue to want to return, just like the Jews had done for long dark centuries.
But the Israelis are concerned because, even without the right of return, the Arabs living in Israel have reproduced more than the Jewish Israelis. Thus the Jewish state is on the verge of being a minority-Jewish democracy even if those pushed out more than half a century ago never get back to their old homes.
Moreover, the Israelis have done some less than honorable things, like evicting Arab owners of lands, tearing up centuries-old olive trees, and building apartments for Jews -- and basically having an open-air prison in the Palestinian parts.
What is interesting is that the same Christians who refused to let a ship full of Jewish refugees from Hitler's crematoria land in the U.S., now claim that the Israelis can do no wrong. And why is that? Because those fundamentalist Christians believe that the Israelis have to be in control of that land for Jesus to return for the Second Coming!
So I hope, those who read this, that I'm just reminding you of things you already knew, and thus you realize that the video is far from adequate.
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