Sorry, gotta get ya again. You've heard Gunner speak? (Look up diction in your dictionary).
That wasn't my point.
I understand that but it refers to a large group of people - not one individual. "Drove - a moving mass of people". (from my crappy little Webster Pocket Dictionary for School and Office). Hence my comment since you were referring to only yourself. I'm sorry to give you a bad time. I only comment on stuff like this when the error is humorous or I can make it humorous. Sue - bowing out now and not a moment too soon ;o)
not to take sides, but Jim appears to know plumbing, at least from a serious diys'r point of view. i plumbed a two story home but made sure that the main sewer was brought into the basement, terminated in a vertical joint. no big deal, but you have to buy a "sleeve" to do horz., _and_ know how to use it. i may still have some oakum, probably 40yrs old now. --Loren
ps. why is _everyone_ getting so lazy about triming posts? top posting is a help, but at some point we need to give some thought to those still using dialup. my 2cents.
Not a sleeve, but an asbestos joint runner. It's a thick rope of asbestos that wraps around the outside of the cast iron bell, and the molten lead gets poured in the top where the clip holds the rope tight.
Adding to this trouble was the fact that it was a re-work of an existing reducer, that went from four inch down to two inch CI pipe, and a transition from there to copper. Plus, this house is so old it has 'standard weight' cast iron pipe - almost eggshell thin by comparison to the 4X heavy weight, centrifugally cast stuff sold today.
It's an old, whacky house but I've learned that if something works, LEAVE IT ALONE, and I was sure that an amateur plumber like me would mess this up somehow.
There is one guy that I would trust this job to, and I was lucky to have him come over and do it for me one day after work. I could not thank him enough, and paid him more than he asked for doing the job.
Jim
================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================
Yep, it does suck. I put in more than my required 40 quarters, many of which were at the maximum, and hated paying each and every dime, especially because I was self employed and paid both halves of the tab for many years. I didn't work at all for the 9 years before applying for SS when I was 63½ years old, but I am drawing every dime I'm entitled to draw. Hell, I even got a raise last January after drawing only one check, and now I understand Dubya is giving me another raise, this one 2.2%. Life is good!
Modern American law has already structured the process along those lines. It seems that anyone can be responsible if two important conditions are met. Those are that 1), the situation comes to the attention of some greedy flawyer, and, 2) the party ignoring the situation has a pocket with some money it.
Those have become the primary considerations for a need for some "justice", no?
Hmm. Odd, you were not laughing when that other gent says he was being denied SS benefits. In fact, your thoughts were quite the opposite:
================================== Yep, it does suck. I put in more than my required 40 quarters, many of which were at the maximum, and hated paying each and every dime, especially because I was self employed and paid both halves of the tab for many years. I didn't work at all for the 9 years before applying for SS when I was 63½ years old, but I am drawing every dime I'm entitled to draw. Hell, I even got a raise last January after drawing only one check, and now I understand Dubya is giving me another raise, this one 2.2%. Life is good! ==================================
Maybe he was denied benefits because the walmart workers weren't *paying* into the system, eh?
SS isn't an investment. It isn't a trust fund with money in it. Your benefits are not the money you put in, which were saved for you. That money's long gone. Sure it would be great if I didn't have to pay SS, or if my employer could give me a raise because they didn't have to pay it either. I personally thing I should be entitled to the same conditions as those guys who work for walmart. Which means NOBODY pays into SS. How would it be, if nobody had to?
There goes your good life, out the window.
I encourage you to re-think the humor in the situation where todays workers don't pay SS tax, and employers are not prosecuted for doing this.
Jim
================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================
Up here, you have a house with CI sewer pipe, you can NOT get insurance (new coverage) without tearing out all the CI and putting in plastic. The insurance companies are SO paranoid the pipe might leak, and they might have to actually pay out.
One of the lessons that may be learned here is the fact that I made mention of having paid in MORE than the required 40 quarters. I have no way of knowing, nor is it my business to know, if or why this person has or has not paid his "dues" as is required. Yes, it's a sad thing that he may be denied SS, but it would also be a tragedy if they handed it out to those that held jobs by which they may have been exempt, limiting or eliminating their contributions. You know, like working for the government? Damn it, I earned my SS, in spite of the fact that I was not a willing participant. The key word here is having paid in long enough.
Or perhaps because he held a government job that exempted him from doing so. I held just such a job VERY briefly in the mid 60's, working as a tool & die maker for Tooele (pronounced Toowilla) Army Depot. The Viet Nam war was raging so we were required to work 7 12's with no excused absences except for death, and that included working Christmas and New Years. In spite of that, it seems we had more than enough time for the shop workers to paint cabinets that didn't need to be painted, and good old LaVar had more than enough time to make a large brass name plate for the desk of one of the Generals, who also wasn't required to pay into the SS system.
That isn't my fault, and I should not be punished as a result.
I, for years, resented having to pay into SS. I've already made mention of the fact that I had to pay both halves, so I know and understand all too well how you might have your feelings, which I also shared. I recall all too well having paid what I thought was a fair amount on my quarterly estimates, only to be hit by a $5,000 tab when I filed my taxes one particular year. For the most part, it was due to SS fees, which were far and away higher than my tax tab, and were rising rapidly. SS is a stupid idea that has gotten completely out of control, but I paid and paid dearly, so I expect to receive the benefits. The government was unwilling to exempt me when I hoped they would. I'm not too keen on the idea of letting them (us?) off the hook now. The money I may have put away for my living expenses was taken from me by them (us?) without my permission. I had no choice other than to face possible imprisonment for not paying. .
I am in sympathy with you, but I'm not convinced that the whole of Wal*Mart is doing that, nor do I see it happening elsewhere. If, by chance, it's as you say, that employees are not paying into SS, they also will not be able to draw it. ?? Where is that hurting us, or me? Sounds like a lighter burden down the road. I also don't deny that there may be instances where it may be happening. Still, I don't see why that justifies boycotting an industry that is performing a good and valuable service to our citizens in providing jobs and in selling goods at a reduced price. If you, or others, find their policies of (assumed, or accused) lower wages, perhaps it's time to acknowledge the fact that the American worker is way over paid, that we are no longer in a position to compete on a global basis, and without that ability, we are doomed. I have no doubt that you will see things with a much clearer mind when it is you that is living on a limited income in retirement. Wal*Mart may suddenly look like a good deal to you, as it appears to be to us. We live slightly better because our dollars go a bit farther.
This thing will shake out eventually, so we may as well face the idea head on and adjust our thinking quickly to moderate the damage that is sure to come. Denying the inevitable certainly isn't facing the problem, nor is placing blame on Wal*Mart. Never fail to consider that part of the problems of today are deeply rooted in greedy people, union members, top level management, all of which seem to think that they are worth far more than they are. Don't whine the next time you see a friend lose his job to China, just consider the fact that had he been somewhat less greedy, perhaps the price difference between his prospective wages and his current wages may not have encouraged his employer to do business across the pond.
That really sucks. I intend to go far out of my way to put in CI pipe in the house I'm building currently to eliminate noise, which plastic pipe transfers readily. Water running through the pipes sounds like rocks running along. All pipes between the main and top floor will not be plastic for that reason. The no hub pipe CI is a snap (no pun intended) to install, taking only slightly longer than plastic.
But that's like any other tax. They taxed you to pay for somebody elses retirement - and now they're taxing me, to pay for yours.
Nothing prevented you from putting away more money for retirement, and nothing prevents the government from telling me, you ain't getting nothing back. But remember, nothing prevents them from saying the same to you - sorry, but there's no more money to give you, and seeing as we're gonna 'starve the beast' and cut Jim's taxes, your benefit is going to be drastically reduced.
All this stuff that looks like cast in stone entitlement, really isn't. I learned that when my pension was taken away by my employer.
Jim
================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================
Yup, I'm operating on the assumption that SS will not be paying benefits to me or anybody younger than me. In addition, it probably won't be paying benefits to people even somewhat older than me.
I had an interesting epiphany around 1999 when my (large company based in NJ and run by Tony Soprano types with MBAs) employer forced every employee in the company - 100,000+ - to choose between the traditional pension plan and a cash balance plan. I'm a long way from retirement, and I had to face up to the recognition that (1) I couldn't possibly trust the thieving executives to fulfill the current commitments (medical + the federally-protected defined benefits) of the traditional pension plan even until I retired, and (2) they wanted me to know that they didn't think we'd be long-term employees - new employees only had access to the cash balance plan. I took the cash balance with me when I left the company a few years later and they've now significantly cut the medical benefits to current retirees.
This varies widely according to location. In many nearby areas, cast iron is still required by code, and plastic is not allowed.
Jim
================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================
Yep. A certain large blue company got it's teat caught in a wringer over the enforced switchover to cash-ballance plans. One court ruled on a class-action lawsuit, and said that yes, doing this is age discrimination.
Of course there will be appeals, but the bottom line is they can take away whatever they feel like. Real funny to find out that much of the money gained by taking the pensions away from older workers went straight to fund another retirement setup for the executive management.
Jim
================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================
Ah. I thought you were saying that the government should allow them free rein to hire illegals, and not prosecute. I think they should have their feet held to the fire, if it's shown that they knew what was going on.
Ah but then we'd have another bunch of out of work whiners, and we'd have to pay *them* welfare.
Umm. OK, I think I get where you're headed on this. I don't think there will be much dissent here!
Jim
================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================
Forty quarters is the minimum to qualify for Social Security. Almost everyone pays in longer than forty quarters. What you get paid when you draw Social Security is not easy to calculate. IIRC it depends on how much you earned in your highest forty YEARS ( not quarters ) with a factor for when those years were, and the credit varies with the amount. So a person that earned say $30,000 a year gets 75% of of what a person that earned $60,000 a year. Not the correct figures, but the general idea.
Civil Servents were not in the system for a long time and some are still not in it,but all the newer civil servents have to contribute to Social Security. About the only people that get out of it are in Congress.
The military contribute to Social Security. Started while I was in the Service in the late 50's.
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