The Maytag Man came by today

Thanks for the swell check, Jim!

Nothing except for a limited income, limited by my determination to work for a fair wage, not to skin the sheep, choosing to cut the wool instead. I'm not the typical "grab all you can" kind of guy, and I proved it through my working years. I put my money where my mouth was. I bid fairly and was even encouraged to raise my bids on several occasions when I came in a small fraction of competing bids. My favorite customer (which will remain nameless here) told me time and again that they didn't want to put me out of business by buying low when they relied on me for difficult work. In spite of the fact that there were occasions I raised my price, I never bid a job at a losing price with this particular customer, so any increase simply gave me more spending money. That was a rare happening, though, not routine. I couldn't have put the few dollars away for retirement and made a difference. :-)

That, too, sucks. Sorry to hear it. Will you be OK in the future?

The way I see it, as long as there's a Democratic party, we don't have to worry about any of these things being taken away from us. They'll see to it. No, I do not vote the Democratic party, and not the Republican one, either. My leanings are towards the Libertarians.

Don't think I'm not sympathetic, Jim. It's just that I'm now drawing the things that I was forced to buy, and I expect to get them. I wanted to opt out. I really did! And for likely all the reasons you've mentioned, and maybe even more. I'm a fiercely independent type of person, who rarely, if ever, calls for help. I'll struggle all day long with a board that's too long to handle before I'll disturb a neighbor with whom I may not have a great relationship, unlike some of the users I've known in my life.

Harold

Realistically, your message could have easily read "should be torn down", full stop. The idea of SS sucks , but I promise you, when you get to the retirement age, you'll want to draw your share. I have a friend that could pay cash for all of us put together. He makes a ton of money, yet couldn't wait to get in line the moment he turned 62. Realistically, why shouldn't he? Not speaking from a moral position here, but from a fairness one. When he was younger, like me and others, he paid what was required and had no voice in how he may have felt about contributing to the plan. We were all victims. All of us could have put to good use the money that has been taken from us by the system. Now that they've taken our money, we want it back as promised. I doubt you'll feel any differently, especially with the huge percentage of your wages that are being withheld these days.

Harold

Chuckle...it should be torn down, then replaced with individual retirement/medical accounts. Hows that?

If the last few years have been any indication, by the time Im of retirement age in 12-15 yrs..I doubt there will be any money in the kiddy anyways. Im stocking up on the more tastey varieities of dog and cat food, just in case. Ive already picked out my refridgerator box.

Gunner "The British attitude is to treat society like a game preserve where a certain percentage of the 'antelope' are expected to be eaten by the "lions". Christopher Morton

Harold you still don't 'get' it.

There was no promise.

There's only a tax - an income redistribution.

This tax takes money from workes and gives it to old or disabled folks. It's not a bad idea.

But I've been given no promise, neither were you. Only a bill that says, "pay this much, or else you go to jail."

This is how taxes work. They want their money, they want it all, and they want it now. Or else.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

It is true that a lot of the mechanization and automation which have taken place in agriculture, along with the consolidation of small farms into larger ones, are directly the result of the inability to get enough farm labor to be able to operate in the old ways. Instead, we've had to turn to large machinery in large fields to allow those we can get to work to do the job.

This all started after WWII, when the mass migration from the farm to the city became a tidal wave. But it didn't really start to get critical until the late 1960s when it became easier to draw welfare than to do farm labor. At that point, farm labor essentially dried up. That was the point where farms under about 1,000 acres started to be uneconomical, because the required mechanization to farm them with available labor cost so much that one couldn't amortize the equipment on a smaller farm.

But some forms of agriculture remain labor intensive because they are not easily mechanized or automated. If sufficient workers can't be found here to do that sort of work, those agricultural products would have to be imported from farms in countries where people are willing to do that sort of work.

So we face a choice, import the crops, or import the labor. Neither is a good choice, but as long as we can't get enough Americans to do the jobs (and currently we can't), they're the only choices we have.

Gary

There are no such things as "Loopholes." To say loophole is to imply an error on someone's part it putting it there.

Think 'carrot and stick.' This is one way the government has to get you to do something it wants you to do, but can't come right out and make it a law. They are giving you 'free will' with a built in fine for going against their wishes.

Just another example of "all the justice you can afford."

Ron Thompson On the Beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast USA

'Don't trust anything that has no moving parts. Especially if it's a relative' Red Green

You can always opt out. SS is not mandantory. There is an IRS form to withdraw.

Ron Thompson On the Beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast USA

'D>

Oh, but I *DO* "get it".

They held my feet to the fire, with which I'm sure you'd agree.

I have no quarrel with almost everything you stated!

However, now it's my turn to hold feet to the fire, because the basis by which they stole my money was that when I retired they would put me on the payroll. I'm retired. I demand I be on the payroll. It's my turn to hold feet to the fire. I paid the taxes, which gives me the right to do so.

Yes, I understand that it was a tax, and is a tax. So is a building permit. The dirty underhanded bastards force us to pay for a permit (tax) to build a house so they will have a record of the house with which they will further tax us. How stupid is that? Pay to make sure you pay again and again. Don't you just love politicians?

Harold

You may be right, but right now you're sounding a lot like an ex friend of mine that was damned sure that he wasn't required to pay income tax. He had the balls to tell IRS so, right in their face. Funny how he saw things differently as he desperately tried to raise the $26,000 they wanted so he wouldn't lose his 10 acres of land which they were foreclosing. Be the ruling to pay taxes right or wrong, he ended up paying. That's the harsh reality.

If you claim there's a form one can file, please provide the name and number of the form. I don't believe it. I was instructed by a trusted CPA that is well versed on tax law that I was mandated to pay into SS, so I did so. I did not choose to do so.

Harold

So we should just forget about enforcing any laws other than the handful that address the most urgent issues? Are you contending that people (and companies) should be allowed to break laws with impunity as long as they aren't breaking high-priority laws?

Yep.

Do you actually know of any cases where the IRS spent $10K to go after someone who owed them $32.12? It is my understanding (and I could be wrong) that you have to owe more than some threshold amount (the actual amount being a closely guarded secret) before the IRS will even think about coming after you. And even then, I doubt they would spend $10K unless it was a complex case with big bucks involved. Not that I'm trying to defend the IRS. Certainly they have had (and probably still have) some serious problems with the way they do their job. I'm just not sure that what you described actually happens.

Incidentally, it's up to Congress, not the IRS, to plug the loopholes.

Not exactly sure what you're talking about here...

By "funding elections" are you referring to paying for the logistics of elections (printing the ballots, setting up polling places, etc.), or are you talking about the Presidential Election Campaign Fund? If it's the latter, why do you think "distributing evenly" would be better than distributing based on the existing matching funds concept?

Bert

You're right in the sense that there was never a promise to give back the money that was paid in as SS tax. On the other hand, there has always been a promise (certainly implied, but also I believe explicitly voiced by various Congressmen and Presidents over the years) that SS would still be around to provide at least *some* retirement benefits for everyone who contributed.

Bert

I'm not sure I agree with your assertion that a loophole can't be intentional, but even if that's the case, I think you're giving too much credit to our elected officials to say that our laws are purely intentional and free of errors. Very few Congressmen have the wisdom or the intelligence to foresee all the ways in which tax laws (or any other laws) will be used and bent, nor can they envision the extent to which those laws will be used and bent. Thus, they don't always do a good job of crafting the laws and unforeseen consequences can arise (i.e., loopholes).

Bert

Well, that's a nice story.

There are certain things that politicians cannot do. One is come right out, and say "we're going to keep on funding the present crop of retirees after X date, but after that the wage earners will still have to pay SS tax until the last recipient (and all the SS paper pushers) die, but won't receive any benefit at all.

The other thing they cannot do is say, we're simply going to abolish the system completely, no more payroll tax, no more benefits. Too bad for the folks that contributed and are going to get nothing.

But aside from that, they can pull all kinds of shenanigans, and nothing, and I mean absolutely NOTHING is ruled out. There have been no promises, nothing that would stand up in court, the government can and will cut the water off when they think it's the right time.

A scheme like SS is great, but it's a bit like drinking from a spitoon. Real tough to stop once you start.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

They didn't 'steal' your money. It was a tax. The same way that the govenment taxes me for everything under the sun.

I suppose as a self-employed the sting was so great that it felt like stealing. This is one reason, btw, that my wife simply quit practicing law.

Unfortunately the only folks with the ability to toast the toes would be, the govenment. So if they decide your benefit (not pay, it sounds so much more tenuous if they call it a benefit - like they're being benificent or something...) is causing too much of a drain on the 'trust fund' which does not exist, they'll reduce it.

Skunks that they are.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

Yep! Those that praised the beginning of our government trying to intervene in private lives with these damned concepts should have had their heads examined. I'll never understand why it's the government's job to see to it that fools have something to eat. Sure would cut down on the fools if they were left to fend for themselves. Darwin said so in his own way. Wasn't it something like natural selection, or survival of the fittest?

Harold

Have you ever looked at the form? I do not qualify or I would have done it.

Dan

So you answer my request for enough information to review the form with another question? Did I not clearly ask you for the name and number of the form so I could see it for myself?

If there is such a form, I'd be interested in hearing when it was approved. My choices were made for me in 1967, so if there is such a form, I'd like to know if it was available back then. As I stated, I'd have opted out of SS.

Once again, would you please provide the name and number of the form you speak of? If you're so sure about it, surely you must know enough to provide all of us with the information.

Harold

On 17 Nov 2003 18:36:37 -0800, jim rozen brought forth from the murky depths:

Yes, but to waste tens (hundreds?) of thousands of man hours and dollars to prove that illegals were hired does noone any good. The JD wasted all that manpower instead of doing something meaningful. Some of us in CA (way back when) voted for the laws which said we shouldn't have to overburden our schools with children of people who shouldn't be here in the first place. (The kids should have been in their own country's schools.) It passed but was immediately thrown out by court appeal. Ditto the hospital emergency room where kids with colds and flu were brought on a daily basis. The State (OK, we taxpayers got reamed for it) paid for all that when the Feds should have been deporting any illegals immediately. Why do we have all these UNENFORCED laws? The feds ought to put up or shut up.

(And don't get me started about the taxpayers paying for voter's information pamphlets and ballots in TWENTY EIGHT DIFFERENT LANGUAGES. Only in California?) I'm happy to be a new Webfoot.

Couldn't they just start working for a -working- INS?

I don't want to sound like a Socialist, but some of their ideas might work well to remove the corruption from the election system. Also, wouldn't it be nice to limit all campaigning to TWO WEEKS prior to each vote? I think Europe has something to that effect. They're out there buying votes for a minimum of two years now, as things stand in the system today.

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On 18 Nov 2003 07:32:34 -0800, jim rozen brought forth from the murky depths:

Does anyone else smell that tea brewing? Are we in Boston yet? Let's party!

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