OP ED-"Little Timmy Wants to Know Why Nobody Likes Airplanes Anymore?

[marks]

SS is not a Ponzi Scheme, it's an insurance plan.  If you die at age sixty after paying into it for forty years, you get nothing (except a tiny death benefit).  It can be like paying for aircraft insurance but never crashing . The American people could easily support the SS payout if when we live an average ten years longer we paid into it for six years longer.  -  We can be proud that Americans are workers.  Even the worst welfare cheats work off the books without paying in, but studies show that virtually all healthy welfare cheats work.  The worker participation rate is higher now than in the 1960's before women were in the workplace.  Americans with bigger houses and more PPP (purchasing power parity) still work more hours and produce more than Europeans who live well but take much longer vacations. Worrying about the prices of used airplanes and the cost of aviation is truly an RPP (rich people problem).  -  Taxes are actually going down for the rich people in this country.  The workers in this country pay income taxes on wages while the wealthy pay the lower long-term-capital gains tax for their biggest sources of wealth, but capital gains taxes are forgiven and forgotten by the free step-in-basis at death, so often they don't even pay that.  While income taxes have risen on wages, the Unified Gift Credit (the amount you can give during life and death without paying any taxes) has increased to 5.36 million dollars per person for next year, so a married couple can invest in commercial real estate, deduct the interest on the loans they use to leverage the investment, and then give it to their kids while paying nothing on over $10,500,000 of the estate.  -  Unlike truly poor countries, here most of our money belongs to each of us.  But we also pay for our collective defense, medical expenses for the poor, etc.  In the poorest parts of Africa it may cost $100 a year to send your child to school for a year, but in America we offer universal education - and the poor get the worst.  I am a registered Republican, but the wealth of the nation depends on those who can't buy airplanes.

[flyboy0681]

SS is not a Ponzi Scheme, it's an insurance plan.......

 

Don't waste your breath, those that don't believe, won't believe - even after given irrefutable evidence.

[flyboy0681]

And don't forget to tell Timmy that more Americans today are on welfare than have full time jobs!

 

Explain to Timmy that welfare pays more than minimum wage in most states and in some it pays more than 15$ an hour! Why work when you can sit home and collect a paycheck?  

 

 

This is exactly what I was talking about when I used the word "blanket statements". 

 

I can see you are an avid O'reilly viewer as you used his exact words in your reply. Here's a Fact Check for you that dispels Bill's diatribe (and no, there aren't as many people on welfare as full time workers), not that you will believe it but it makes me feel good just telling you it's available.

 

http://blogs.rgj.com/factchecker/2013/12/07/are-more-people-on-welfare-than-working-full-time/

 

I guess I have a different perspective on things than most. I detest welfare as much as you, but I have seen things first hand. A friend got ill, lost his job and had to eventually apply for public assistance and it was not a pretty picture. As a professional in his career he did quite well and saved, but savings only goes so far over the long term and the thousand dollars a month he received from public assistance didn't go very far, as you could imagine. Then there was the pride thing, which was worst of all.

 

Why people would elect to receive a debit card from the government for several hundred dollars when they can earn multiples of that is a mystery to me. I remember watching an episode of John Stossel (yes I do watch Fox too!) around 2010 and he profiled a man in New Jersey that got laid off and eventually had to go on welfare. He was capable of working but just couldn't find anything. The man was really upset because he was used to making $7,500 a month and his assistance check was for something like $1,200 a month and he really wanted to get back to earning his old wage. To me it sounds like you are saying that he's just fine sitting back and watching Montel everyday while the checks arrive in his mailbox and he doesn't have to do anything for it. 

 

You also may not remember the Welfare Reform Act that the GOP put together and Clinton signed. It calls for a 60 month maximum lifetime benefit and did away with those lazy people that collected for decades. I know, you won't believe me so why not do some research of your own, for little Timmy's sake.  

[marks]

Statistics are easy to misunderstand.  According to the Census Bureau, in the 4th quarter of 2011 49.2% of all Americans were receiving some form of  "governmental cash assistance".  The programs include: Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (formerly AFDC) - Supplemental Security Income - Supplemental Nutrician Assistance (food stamps) -  Public Housing Programs - Women Infants and Children Program (WIC) - Unemployment Benifits - Veterans Benefits - Medicaid - Medicare - and Social Security Benefits.  -  When commentators use the term, "some form or other of government assistance" this phrase covers all sorts of benefits, including benefits received by the wealthy (such as medicare) even if the recipient is still working and paying in.  Other programs, such as free school lunch programs could be paid for the children of hard working couples.  It's a mistake to think that the poor sit at home and just wait for the money to come pooring in.  My mom never worked a day in her life but she still received more than $1,100 a month in SS and she's 94 yrs old this week and lives in a truly wonderful ocean front home in Falmouth on Cape Cod, she also receives other "governmental cash assistance" from Medicare, etc.  Like I said, easy to misunderstand.  

[flyboy0681]

Statistics are easy to misunderstand.  

 

Excellent points. Of course somebody hearing that 49.2% will walk away and shout from the mountaintop that "half of America is on public assistance".

[Mooneymite]

I have resisted posting in this thread since I really prefer Mooneyspace to be non-political/non-partisan.  We all love Mooneys and that's really all that's important to participate on this forum.

 

However, I got these two "things" in my email and really didn't know what to do with them....I hope you enjoy them in the spirit they were posted.   

 

TOP-10 "Only In America" Observations ~ by a Canadian:
 

1) Only in America, could politicians talk about the greed of the rich at a $35,000.00 a plate campaign fund-raising event.
2) Only in America, could people claim that the government still
discriminates against black Americans when they have a black President, a black Attorney General, and roughly 18% of the federal workforce is black while only 12% of the population is black.
3) Only in America, could they have had the two people most responsible for our tax code, Timothy Geithner, the head of the Treasury Department and Charles Rangel who once ran the Ways and Means Committee, BOTH turn out to be tax cheats who are in favor of higher taxes.
4) Only in America, can they have terrorists kill people in the name of Allah and have the msm media primarily react by fretting that Muslims might be harmed by the backlash.
5) Only in America, would they make people who want to legally become American citizens wait for years in their home countries and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege while we discuss letting anyone who sneaks into the country illegally just 'magically' become American citizens.
6) Only in America, could the people who believe in balancing the budget and sticking by the country's Constitution be thought of as "extremists."
7) Only in America, could you need to present a driver's license to cash a check or buy alcohol, but not to vote.
8) Only in America, could people demand the government investigate whether oil companies are gouging the public because the price of gas went up when the return on equity invested in a major U.S. oil company (Marathon Oil) is less than half of a company making tennis shoes (Nike).
9) Only in America, could the government collect more tax dollars from the people than any nation in recorded history, still spend a Trillion dollars more than it has per year - for total spending of $7-Million PER MINUTE, and complain that it doesn't have nearly enough money.
10) Only in America, could the rich people - who pay 86% of all income taxes - be accused of not paying their "fair share" by people who don't pay any income taxes at all.

 

 

 

 

The definition of the word Conundrum is: something that is puzzling or
confusing.

Here are six Conundrums of socialism in the United States of America:

 

1. America is capitalist and greedy - yet half of the population is subsidized.

2. Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims.

3. They think they are victims - yet their representatives run the government.

4. Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting poorer.

5. The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in

other countries only dream about.

 6. They have things that people in other countries only dream about -
yet they want America to be more like those other countries.

 Think about it! And that, my friends, pretty much sums up the USA in
the 21st Century.

Makes you wonder who is doing the math.

 

 These three, short sentences tell you a lot about the direction of our
current government and cultural environment:

 

 1. We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few
lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions
of a few lunatics. Funny how that works.

 

 And here's another one worth considering...

 

 2. Seems we constantly hear about how Social Security is going to run
out of money. How come we never hear about welfare or food stamps
running out of money? What's interesting is the first group "worked"
for their money, but the second didn't. Think about it.....

 

 and Last but not least,

 

 3. Why are we cutting benefits for our veterans, no pay raises for our
military and cutting our army to a level lower than before WWII, but
we are not stopping the payments or benefits to illegal aliens???

 Am I the only one missing something!?

 

And now....back to our regular Mooney adulation.....

 

[Cruiser]

I went to the airport today.

[aviatoreb]

I hear you. How do you like being told it's NOT your money? How do you feel about being called just another tax? How about that it is a "pay as you go system"? Might be something there for you after "supporting others for 30+ years"? Ever hear one party talk about SS this way when they are running for office? SS is a huge Ponzi scheme that the government has forced me to support for my entire working life with ZERO guarantee on a return. What a joke. Remember when W tried to get just a portion of your SS available for YOU to control? To invest and manage as you see fit?...One party went crazy talking about our COMMITMENT and gambling with "the system"...HHS can not account for over 560 BILLION that is Billion with a "B" or half a trillion of funds paid during audit...REALLY?

If you trust Big Government for your future and support an ever expanding government you are just as much an enemy to me as a terrorist..

 

Scott you can blame whichever party you want but on the case of Flemming vs Nesto that determined that the money you put in dollar for dollar is not yours to withdraw later, was determined by the judicial branch, the Supreme Court which in theory anyway is not part of the party system (uh I may have opened up a can of worms there?...).  So that is how our government make such determinations according to the constitution.

 

That case was 1960 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemming_v._Nestor

I expect that was before you payed a single dollar into he system, and definitely before I did as I wasn't even born in 1960.  So there was no breach of contract there since the contract was clarified by the Supreme Court before I was born - wether you or I wish it was otherwise or not - the money you put into SS is NOT yours, nor mine.  It belongs to the system.  Then the legislative branch decides what the system will do with it however it does - I don't think anyone can predict much there.  

 

Now the contract with my mutual funds that I personally put away, those are my dollars. It would be a breach of contract if they were spent on other people before I was ready to use it.

[aviatoreb]

I went to the airport today.

 

Me too - I was looking for my SS security check - I think I left it in my hangar.

[alex]

Flyboy0681

"Maybe Sarah Palin will win in 2016 and you will get your wish. Her recent diatribe on fast food workers was an absolute gem."

(((Sometimes gems get a little help from an agenda driven media)))

Wednesday on KFSN, Fresno, CA's ABC affiliate, its morning show "Action News AM" ran a few seconds of a clip of former Gov Sarah Palin's (R-AK) discussing the minimum wage issue on her new online Sarah Palin Channel.

However, host Jason Oliveira described it in a very curious manner.

"Palin posted a bizarre rant on her new online channel," Oliveira said. "She mumbles about how much she thinks liberals hate fast food."

But it turned out the local ABC affiliate had only played an out-of-context cut from an almost nine minute video, which originated on the liberal blog The Daily Banter.

Oliverira, on the other hand, cast Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) as the hero, who was the subject of Palin's critique in the original video.

"Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren - who is fighting for more rights for low wage, fast food workers."

The larger point Palin was trying make was that while liberals often take up the cause for fast food workers and their wages, they often deride fast food establishment for providing foods they deem to be unhealthy.

The entire video, "A Conservative Response to Elizabeth Warren’s Progressive Commandments," can be viewed in context at Palin's website.

[FlyDave]

I typically stay away from political discussions because they can cause major rifts in what should be friendships. But.....

This "Little Timmy" thing is supposed to "tug at your heart strings". What a bunch of bullshit. The world is changing - it always has and it always will. The United States can either be an active part of this change and try to maintain our status and influence or bury our heads in the sand and be relegated to a lesser existence as so many countries have throughout history.

During one of our formation clinics here in California, another Mooney driver in his 60's said "All these guys want to do is sit around and bitch about politics". I have to agree with him. I've known too many people (it seems 40+ is the age this starts to happen) that just sit around and bitch, moan and complain - BUT THEY NEVER TAKE ANY ACTION TO EFFECT CHANGE.

If you feel so strongly about whats happening in this country then surely you get involved, right? Work on a campaign or for the RNC or DNC, working for organizations that stand and fight for what you believe in or even running for elected office.

I'm not trying to limit free speech. I'm just saying that if you just sit around and bitch, moan and complain without doing anything to try to effect change, then as far as I'm concerned, your opinion doesn't really matter. This country was built on the ACTIONS OF PEOPLE AND THEIR BELIEFS - not by a bunch of old codgers with nothing better to do than sit around and bitch, moan and complain!

[marks]

When you're born in America you don't have to fear catching polio or TB because our tax supported public health system is there. You can be sure that the air you breathe won't be like it is in China because EPA regulations and enforcement won't allow it.  Our taxes put men on the moon but without the space program (more taxes) we wouldn't have GPS satellites over our heads.  You grow up in this country with no fear that the food you eat will give you tapeworms because the FDA has all sorts of regulations and inspections we pay for with our taxes. Americans grow up with no fear of a military invation of their homeland because we pay the taxes for our defense. And if the house next door catches fire, you can be pretty sure someone will come to put it out. Most of the working poor in this country pay no taxes beyond sales taxes, but they reap our fields, babysit the children of working parents, and clean the toilets in the hotels.  Many of our veterans, injured and retired workers, receive benefits and pay nothing, but that's as it should be.  God Bless America.    

[flyboy0681]

Flyboy0681

"Maybe Sarah Palin will win in 2016 and you will get your wish. Her recent diatribe on fast food workers was an absolute gem."

(((Sometimes gems get a little help from an agenda driven media)))

Wednesday on KFSN, Fresno, CA's ABC affiliate, its morning show "Action News AM" ran a few seconds of a clip of former Gov Sarah Palin's (R-AK) discussing the minimum wage issue on her new online Sarah Palin Channel.

However, host Jason Oliveira described it in a very curious manner.

"Palin posted a bizarre rant on her new online channel," Oliveira said. "She mumbles about how much she thinks liberals hate fast food."

But it turned out the local ABC affiliate had only played an out-of-context cut from an almost nine minute video, which originated on the liberal blog The Daily Banter.

Oliverira, on the other hand, cast Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) as the hero, who was the subject of Palin's critique in the original video.

"Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren - who is fighting for more rights for low wage, fast food workers."

The larger point Palin was trying make was that while liberals often take up the cause for fast food workers and their wages, they often deride fast food establishment for providing foods they deem to be unhealthy.

The entire video, "A Conservative Response to Elizabeth Warren’s Progressive Commandments," can be viewed in context at Palin's website.

 

My point was not what she was saying, but how she was saying it. I still contend she has an incredible ability to mangle the English language. That is "irreputable".

[Tom]

If you trust Big Government for your future and support an ever expanding government you are just as much an enemy to me as a terrorist..

 

[marks]

Wow.  Do you think that social security is "big government"?  Do you think we should eliminate the Federal Reserve because it's not in the Constitution?  Do you think that all mortgage money for building in this country should only come out of cash deposits made by people who have far more cash in the bank than the size of their mortgages?  -  Most political arguments in this country are really economic arguments made by people who don't have the slightest clue how our Federal Reserve and monetary policy is run in this country or the rest of the world. -  The short story is that our money is backed by the nation's production.  If we double production the Fed "prints money from nowhere" to provide the liquidity for the offset growth of mortgage and investment debt that funds the production of homes, cars, and production equipment.  Without an independent Federal Reserve we truly would have a communist system run by demand control.  -  Social Security is a Federal Mandate but it's been in place since FDR and the New Deal.  FDR and the entire Congress was voted in by the people and the program passed into law.  The program remains one of the most popular by the electorate and if you worked your farm in Iowa and went flat broke and had all your equipment and land repossessed, you still receive SS at retirement even if you stiff all your creditors. -  Like FDIC there are many more forms of social insurance in this country that became part of our economic system than before the banks went broke, the Great Depression set in, and the "Dust Bowl" hit the farmlands.  Get used to it.    

[chrisk]

 Do you think we should eliminate the Federal Reserve because it's not in the Constitution?    

 

No, we should not get rid of the Federal Reserve because it's not in the Constitution.  We should get rid of it because it is prohibited by the Constitution.  --Something about states only being about to coin money from gold and silver (which they can't make, so they can't expand the money supply in an unbounded way).  Yea, this applies to the federal government too.

 

Also, you should clearly understand that the Federal Reserve effectively steals from you by debasing the currency.   We call this inflation.  And to make matters worse, if you manage to get a return on your savings (which is needed to preserve your savings), it is considered income and taxable.  If you have any doubt, look at what airplanes, cars, gas, and everything else cost 30 years ago.  Inflation only exists because the money supply is expanded.  Read some history and look at what happened in Germany after WW1.

 

And a question for you.  The Federal Reserve is in which branch and agency of the federal government?    I  can't wait to hear your answer.

 

And finally, I am abandoning this thread for something more Mooney related.

[alex]

Scott, the word terrorist is too harsh to use in this forum, remember that word is reserved only for right-wing extremist like tea-partiers (tea baggers as the leader of the free world calls them)  Some obviously confuse that description as hateful.  Here are some of the words that are accepted and have been widely used by prominent public figures to describe those who they happen to disagree with:

 

Enemies

Saboteurs

Hostage takers

Anarchists

Monkey wrenchers

Legislative arsonists

Blackmailers

 

I am quite sure that I may have left some behind but this short list should be sufficient to start sharing the love and uniting humanity....Share the love Scott!

[marks]

The Federal Reserve is an independent agency of the Federal Government.  Strictly speaking, it's part of the Executive Branch.  The Constitution certainly requires the government to "promote the general welfare".  Clearly, our founding fathers understood the need not to have "the King's Treasury".  They understood that all the merchant mariners sailing ships-of-the-line should not be sailing "His Majesty's Ships", but back then the banks could issue their own currency and if the bank went broke so did you.  -  Before you start trying to quote the cost of everything compared to 30 years ago to me, why don't you research how many hours of labor it now costs to fly a jet cross country compared to thirty years ago. Find out how many hours of work it takes to buy a gallon of milk.  Consider the cost of a mortgage and the value of the deduction in hours of labor compared to 1984 back 30 years ago and while you're at it, explain to me why the value of gold has fallen more than 30% in the last three years while they're not printing any more of it.  -  The money supply is not just currency.  It's the currency multipled by the speed with which the money changes hands.  We may all count one dollar many times as it moves from one worker/consumer to another.  When the money moves more slowly (during a recession) interest rates can fall and the Fed can provide more cash for mortgages and loans, but we don't suffer inflation because we don't have the money "chasing" the goods.  That's why we have little inflation now and the cost of a home is falling.  Falling home and airplace prices are actually an inflation "correction".  During the housing bubble some additional taxes or higher interest rates would have slowed the growth of the economy and helped slow the price rises that caused overborrowing, the bubble, and some of the inflation, but Americans were hooked.  -  Clearly you should know that during the early years of the twentieth century, millions of people moved to America but that the money supply didn't grow with the increase of the production of the roaring 20's and constriction of the money supply was one of the serious causes of the Great Depression.  In fact, the borrowed money buying stocks by margin, was another form of "printing money" and it's subsequence collapse contributed to the constriction of the money supply that led to the Depression.

[Mooneymite]

The Federal Reserve is an independent agency of the Federal Government. 

 

Another view:

 

http://www.monetary.org/is-the-federal-reserve-system-a-governmental-or-a-privately-controlled-organization/2008/02

[marks]

Please google Alexander Hamilton.  According to Wikipedia, He was "a founding father of the United Sates,,one of the most influential interpreters and promotors of the US Constitution, the founder of the nation's financial system,, especially the funding of the state debts by the Federal Government, and the establishment of a national bank."  -  The idea that the nation's financial system should not empower the government to have it's own national banking system along with interest rates set through the bank and the finance of state debt, and that the whole idea is against the Constitution and against what our Founding Fathers intended is just all wrong.

[WardHolbrook]

A while back I was asked to participate in a career fair at the local high school. A retired American Airline pilot and I manned the Aviation Booth. It's a fairly large school and they also bused over kids from the local Jr. High. It was pretty disappointing - although all of the school kids walked past the booth at one time or another, a grand total of TWO kids came and spent time with us talking about career possibilities. (One of the those was working on her private license.) A friend of mine is the chief flight instructor at a local 141 flight school. He said that the flight training business is at an all-time low for them, essentially non-existent. Personally, I don’t think that GA is in its death throws, but it is certainly being stressed. How can young people afford $125+ per hour rental rates or the ownership costs while they are in their career building years, especially when the airlines and business is in the state it's in? It has always taken a certain amount of career fixation and tenacity to make a successful career in aviation, perhaps even more so now.

[marks]

Ward, I'm curious.  The Air Force and Naval Academies must provide a few experienced pilots to the majors and their pilots pay nothing for aviation training or for their superior education.  Did anyone from the armed forces show up for career day at the local high school?

[WardHolbrook]

Ward, I'm curious.  The Air Force and Naval Academies must provide a few experienced pilots to the majors and their pilots pay nothing for aviation training or for their superior education.  Did anyone from the armed forces show up for career day at the local high school?

Yes and there was a long line to talk to those guys. I don't know how much "aviation" recruiting was going on but, since no one seemed to want to talk to us in our dedicated aviation booth, it really doubt it. It was pretty sad. My gut tells me that with all of the video games out there, the kids are getting all of the excitement they need in front of a computer screen. I don't know, I hope I'm wrong. Nobody seemed to really care. Sigh...

[Andy95W]

I went to the airport today.

Me too. Great day for flying, though a little bumpy.

Turns out, I didn't care about the bumps- when you're flying your favorite airplane, that you're lucky enough to own, nothing else really seems to matter.

[flyboy0681]

A while back I was asked to participate in a career fair at the local high school. 

 

I did my part today, having flown from South Florida to Tuscaloosa Alibama.

 

Last Saturday I took a friend out for a $200 hamburger (he loves the Mooney). He flies right seat on American's 767's and he mentioned that American is hiring but having a problem recruiting. The conversation turned to future hires and he was at a loss for where any American carrier was going to find qualified pilots. I concurred.