Or is Socialist Stupidity a good deal because, without it, lord BJ couldn’t have invented a proposed budget surplus????

The average worker benefit from Social Security, for which you and your employer have paid in 12.5% per year, is $1,153 per month, or $13,836 per year, with the expectation that you’re only going to live seven more years — which means that, having given the government $3,125 per year for 48 years for a total of $150,000, it expects to only have to pay you $96,852.

As for the Great Depression, it ended on December 7, 1941. With the draft already in place, it was the start of reducing unemployment. Two issues that should have been investigated, is why the CIC, FDR, ordered the entire Pacific Fleet to be docked at the same time and the same port, Pearl Harbor and why did he order the Secretary of the Navy to be out of town on Sunday December 7th?

Of course, considering how much the Republicans hate Social Security and the minimum wage.

Is this another way of saying Democrats love confiscating money from people, telling them its for their “retirement” when in fact they dispense it as part of the General Fund, and the whole scheme is going to bankrupt long before the current generation can collect it? Is that the kind of thing Erik cheers for?

And the minimum wage — So, Erik likes having the government dictate to business what they have to pay employees, as well as who they can hire and fire, regardless of employee competence or value for services rendered?

And the people who put together these schemes are now the super-geniuses who will run the economy.

Of course, considering how much the Republicans hate Social Security and the minimum wage,

What’s to like about Socialist Stupidity? Please tell me what it is that I’m supposed to be so enamored about?

It’s a Ponzi scheme of massive proportions. You saw what happened to the folks who gave Madoff money, can you imagine what it will look like when Socialist Stupidity goes to shit? You whimper about the people when it comes to letting banks and businesses fail, but you don’t seem to give a royal damn about the people who will be effected by the golden turd FDR laid on us. Why? Because you wouldn’t dare say a cross word about FDR. When you’re “retirement” plan goes south, are you going to sit around gushing about how great he was?

I dare say that it’s the liberals who hate Socialist Stupidity. What’s more, they hate, they hate, they HATE the people who participate in it. They know it’s going to fail and they’ll do everything they can to prevent the failure just so they can keep the memory of a gimp in their spank bank.

Privatization has been done. It’s been proven that it works. People who have done so have retired with far more money than they ever would have gotten from Uncle Sugar. But the liberals lied and used the fear card against Seasoned Citizens and killed any effort to actually let YOU do what you want with YOUR money. They told YOU that you’re too damn stupid to know what to do with it and you agreed with them. What’s more, you reward them by giving them your votes. What kind of self loathing does that take?

I’m supposed to believe that gay conservatives hate themselves. Well, the liberals tell you on a daily basis how stupid you are and show nothing but contempt for you and yet there you are with your lips clamped firmly to their sack. We at least stow the gear necessary to criticize our own when necessary.

BTW, one would have a much easier time proving that FDR lied us into a war than proving Bush did.

V and NDT – Our society has been so brainwashed about Roosevelt and the Depression, it’s ridiculous. I have to say the following again:

Unemployment stayed above 10% for NINE MORE YEARS under Roosevelt. That is the worst economic record in American history.

I have to say it again, because I only just ‘got it’. The Roosevelt Administration has the single worst economic record in American history. Hoover’s is right up there, because Hoover did so much damage in a single term, turning a stock market recession into a Depression. But, if Hoover had been re-elected in 1932, would his additional policies have been anything like Roosevelt’s? Would he have done Roosevelt’s additional damage, artifically prolonging the crisis nine more years? I’m beginning to question it.

considering how much the Republicans hate Social Security and the minimum wage

I’m no Republican and never have been – which is why I feel so free to knock Bush – but yes, Erik, it has long been conclusively proven by economists that the higher the minimum wage goes, the more structural unemployment it causes. You care about people? Then for God’s sake Erik, start supporting some policies that will create jobs, not destroy them!

Now, like Obama, FDR had a slavishly devoted media cult to propagandize on his behalf. Unlike in FDR’s era, there now exists an alternative media. And as long as this media exists, it will be harder for Obama to hide the graft, corruption, and failures of his economic policies — no matter how hard Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann cheerlead for him.

Second, in FDR’s Era, there was no alternative to his fascist, state-centralized economic policies because people didn’t know there were alternatives. People know about alternatives now, and there is a network of conservative organizations to put them out.

Whether it will be enough to limit Chairman Zero’s damage to a single term, I can’t say. The people of Michigan and New Jersey idiotically return Democrats to power even as their state economies are devastated and corruption runs rampant.

the reason said companies are failing is because they can’t get credit because the banking system is teetering on collapse

False. The reason said companies are failing is because they suck.

Look at the automakers. They’re perfectly capable of continuing to operate after declaring bankruptcy. That’s what corporate bankruptcy is for. It gives you protection from creditors, so that you can use your cash to pay employees and costs as you *restructure the business* into something viable. There is no reason to bail out the automakers. Except: They don’t want to restructure. They don’t want the boat rocked. The people in charge want to stay in charge and be paid their full bonuses. And that includes the unions, who want to continue to be paid way more than their jobs are worth.

Long story short: The automakers suck ass (except maybe Ford). And they want to continue as they are, without having to change. That’s what the bailouts are about.

Same for brokerage houses. There is no reason whatsoever to bail out Goldman-Sachs, or any of them. They can also operate under bankruptcy protection. But a state of bankruptcy would imply boat rocking, lost bonuses, etc. They want bailouts instead.

The banks are a more complicated area because of extra intense, complicated regulations involved, but the general principles would apply by extension. Bush-Bernanke-Obama are choosing techniques that keep the failures in power. That’s wrong.

[Roosevelt's] programs hurt SO much that the voters re-elected him in landslides in 1936 and again in 1940 and again in 1944

And the voters were stupid enough to elect Obama in 2008. So what? That doesn’t change economic reality.

Here’s what happened in the Great Depression. In WW1 and the early 1920s, the Fed expanded the money supply, setting off the Roaring 20s and a stock market bubble. Around 1928, they decided to cut back the money supply, producing a stock market crash in 1929. So far, so bad. The Fed shouldn’t have done either action, and the country would have to have a recession to pay for it. *But only a recession*.

What made it a Depression? Hoover and the Congress raised taxes. And went protectionist as well, thus destroying international trade and especially hurting Europe. In the middle of a recession! The exact wrong things to do!

Then Roosevelt came in. What’d he do? Raise taxes even more, and create business laws so fascistic that even the Supreme Court, at the height of the crisis, found them unconstitional. Business people were literally prosecuted and sent to jail for making a better product at a better price than their competitors! And what was the result of that? Unemployment stayed above 10% for NINE MORE YEARS under Roosevelt. That is the worst economic record in American history! That is nothing to brag about!

Their verdict on FDR’s policies has always been very clear.

So was the Germans’ verdict. Under Hoover and Roosevelt, the U.S. was the leader, first in destroying the international economy, then prolonging the crisis UNNECESSARILY for decades. The Germans responded, first by voting Hitler into power, then by enthusiastically supporting Hitler’s wars. I’ll pass on having a repeat, Erik. “Thanks but no thanks.”

Notice, amusingly, how the leftist Erik tries to invoke the voters as being right when it comes to his attempt to defend FDR — but whines and cries that the voters are wrong, ignorant, and bigoted when it comes to Proposition 8.

Will the leftist Erik admit that the voters are right and that he is wrong on Proposition 8, since he insists that the voters are always right?

Oooo, threats!

No; the plan would have been that the banks that needed to collapse would have, the ones like JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, and others who didn’t would have picked up the pieces for pennies on the overvalued dollar, and then would have put them to work. The fact that this works and works well is why we have antitrust laws; acquiring your competitors is such an extraordinarily-effective method of instantly increasing your productivity, profits, and market share that we have to take care that it doesn’t become overwhelming.

Sure, there would have been short-term turmoil. But now, because of this, the taxpayers are now being forced to subsidize industries that are unprofitable because they employ too many people and financial institutions that are insolvent because they gave credit to too many people who can’t pay it back. In order to fix the problem, you have to lay people off and foreclose on assets — and the leftist Barack Obama will never allow that because it would be “politically unpopular”. As a result, productive taxpayers like myself will be forced to subsidize people who don’t manage their money intelligently and are overpaid/underemployed.

So that means Bush was a success because he was re-elected by even larger margins in 2004.

Meanwhile, economists have determined that FDR’s policies did indeed lengthen the Depression by seven years. Just like Japan’s similar policies and refusal to let banks fail, while politically popular, produced a “lost decade”.

The whole point of capitalism is to make the failures fail, so their assets (and people) will then be taken over by the successes, and re-deployed in new ways that are beyond anything you or I could imagine. That’s it. That’s the secret.

Yes, except when the reason said companies are failing is because they can’t get credit because the banking system is teetering on collapse. And when allowing the banking system to collapse would bring down the entire economy.

So that’s that. It has to be done.

Why do you think the Great Depression lasted so many years *after* Roosevelt took office? Because his programs hurt! They didn’t help!

And his programs hurt SO much that the voters re-elected him in landslides in 1936 and again in 1940 and again in 1944. I know the Republicans want to rewrite FDR’s historical record. But you can’t change those election results. Those are the people who actually lived it. Their verdict on FDR’s policies has always been very clear.

Of course, considering how much the Republicans hate Social Security and the minimum wage, it’s not surprising that you’re still trying to disparage Roosevelt. It’s a lost cause, fellas.

Under my plan, we will bounce back.

Your plan would’ve been to let the banking system collapse. If we’d have let that happen, if we had let liquidity completely dry up, there would have been no bouncing back. It would’ve been just a thud, not even a dead cat bounce. It would’ve been anarchy. That is not a plan or even an option.

And lastly, the abortion issue wasn’t even raised in this election. Nor were “social issues” for that matter.

I’d be shocked if anybody who voted for Comrade Obama had any issues in mind.

Obama repeatedly said much of his proposed new spending would be “financed” by cutting “wasteful” spending — especially programs that should have been “sunset” years ago.

Oh c’mon! You know he’s going to add new (read: wasteful) spending and you know damn well a liberal will never cut wasteful spending. The notion that he would cut out useless programs and redundancies is patently absurd.

We’re the ones expected to do with less. The government and liberals never will.