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Entitlement America And The High Cost Of "Free"
Almost three years ago we first highlighted the real math behind the surging entitlement class that America has become. So why does a large portion of the population choose not to work when there are many jobs available? The answer is simple. If you can receive 2-3 times as much money from unemployment, disability, and/or welfare benefits (subsidized housing, food stamps, free cellphones, etc.) as you can from a temporary or part-time job, and live a life of leisure, why work? This is the ugly reality we illustrated just six months ago and the situation - amid what is apparently called a 'recovery' remains a depressingly real sign of the times. The political allure of free is so strong that an alarming number of people choose to become wards of the entitlement/welfare state rather than captain their own destiny. Indeed, while many are 'proud', 49% of American households now receive one or more government transfer benefits amounting to 18% of all personal income and a burden of $7,400 for every American - seemingly threatening the supposed self-reliance that has long characterized the American national psyche.
Via the Ludwig von Mises Institute,
Why does a large portion of the population choose not to work when there are many jobs available? The answer is simple. If you can receive 2-3 times as much money from unemployment, disability, and/or welfare benefits (subsidized housing, food stamps, free cellphones, etc.) as you can from a temporary or part-time job, and live a life of leisure, why work? In 2011, the U.S. government spent over $800 billion this “welfare,” exceeding expenditures on Social Security or Medicare.
In the Denver arena where Mr. Obama gave his DNC 2008 acceptance speech, a woman in the audience became overwhelmed by the speech and said that she no longer needed to worry if she could make her car or mortgage payments because he would take care of it for her. In Cleveland, a woman claimed that she was going to vote for President Obama again because he gave her a free cellphone (along with a litany of other entitlement giveaways). Before you growl, you should know that the free cellphone program was instated by President Bush in 2008 through the FCC’s Universal Service Fund. Fees for these “free” cellphones are paid by all telecommunications service providers out of the revenue received from their paying customers. Despite the political rhetoric over the past half century, entitlements were actually highest during Republican administrations. The political allure of free is bi-partisan.
The political allure of free is so strong that an alarming number of people choose to become wards of the entitlement/welfare state rather than captain their own destiny. Economist Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute believes that Americans have become a nation of takers, threatening the self-reliance that has long characterized our national psyche. Eberstadt (2012, p. 4) presents data showing that entitlement payments to Americans, since 1960, have risen annually by 9.5 percent. He argues that over the past 50 years the ever-increasing array of transfer payments to Americans have risen 727 percent. In 2010 such payments alone totalled $2.3 trillion with Social Security (for old age and disability) accounting for 31 percent, Medicare 24 percent, Medicaid 18 percent, Income Maintenance 12 percent, other giveaways (free cell-phones, support for a broken education system, housing, the arts, etc.) 8 percent, and Unemployment Insurance 6 percent (Eberstadt 2012, C1-2). This has resulted in 49 percent of American households receiving one or more government transfer benefits (Eberstadt 2013); this amounts to 18 percent of all personal income and a burden of $7,400 for every American.
The Balance Sheet on Government Giveaways
Our economic analysis shows that retirees who worked for 40 years and then live 20 years past retirement will receive more than twice what they, and their employers, contributed over their lifetime of working. Only retirees who survive a decade or less after their retirement do not take more out of Social Security than they contributed. Most people will agree that the retirees should receive his/her Social Security benefits at retirement. But with people living longer, who will pay for all the additional benefits now promised? Most people who have not done their homework (including Congress) fail to realize that the numbers for Medicare benefits exceed those for Social Security. Since 1965, Medicare required less than a 3 percent contribution from a worker’s gross wages, yet most people receive over $250,000 in medical benefits before reaching the age of 74, assuming no catastrophic illness. You can do the math on your own wages, assuming a lifetime salary of $100,000 per year for all 40 working years, a worker will have paid in only $120,000 into the Medicare system. Congress, after agreeing to take care of everyone after retirement for the rest of their lives, has broken a sacred trust and used incoming contributions to fund other government expenditures, instead of letting the contributions build over the past 50 years.
The Political Allure of Free Runs Parallel with Tough Economic Times
The U.S. Census data show that in 2000 the percentage of Americans existing at or below the poverty level was 11.3 percent or 31.1 million people. The 2010 census showed a 75 percent increase in reported poverty by Americans rising to 15.1 percent or 46.2 million people from the previous census. As with most government statistics, there is ample room for politicized error. For example, when people get laid off from work, there is reason to believe that many join the underground economy and do not report their income. Rahn (2009) reports that 26.5 million households are either unbanked or underbanked (from FDIC data) and that while the economy may be improving slightly, the growth in the underground economy should be decreasing but isn’t.
Another contributing factor is a measure called labor force participation. It is the total work force that includes people working and those actively looking for work as a percent of the noninstitutionalized population. The Reason Foundation’s Randazzo (2012) points to a circularity problem—when the unemployment rate goes down the labor force participation rate should rise. After the recession ended in 2009, both rates are tracking in the same direction—the labor force participation rate was 64.9 percent, the lowest since 1981and the unemployment rate was 10 percent. In 2012 the labor participation rate had dropped to 63.4 percent and the unemployment rate also dropped to 7.8 percent. Randazzo suggests this is because participation in the labor force has been declining for over a decade. Despite President Obama’s recent crowing about jobs, the drop in unemployment has factually less to do with the creation of real jobs than with the fact that more Americans are dropping out of the workforce for the allure of free things from their government. Randazzo believes lower workforce participation will be the labor norm of the future.
Why work if you can’t find a comparable job to what you had before you were laid off and the government will give you free living expenses? We have analyzed what a single parent with three children is eligible to receive from the state and federal governments in a given year, working a part time job at minimum wage living in Florida (a relatively benefit-frugal state). Free and subsidized benefits include: housing, welfare, utilities, telephone, school breakfast and lunches, child care, medical care, food stamps, commissary food, prescription and non-prescription medications, education, education testing, and refundable tax credits. All of these benefits are in excess of $47,000 per year, exceeding the poverty level in Florida by 200 percent.
Researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research cite studies suggesting that in difficult economic times approximately 30-40 percent of those applying for disability would return to the workforce if the economy were better and disability were not an available option (Autor and Duggan 2006, p. 19).
Choosing Disability over Work
Many people add to their free government benefits through working in the underground economy and pay taxes on none of it.
Others choose another free government benefit. Since mid-2010 (the date when millions of U.S. citizens exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment insurance) the number of workers on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits rose by 22 percent, an increase of 2.2 million people.
Workers with disability now get nearly a 20 percent chunk of the total Social Security benefits budget and the number has increased (Kowalski 2012). Kowalski refers to a government study that shows that 99 percent of people who have been granted SSDI benefits remain on this entitlement the rest of their lives. Economists David Autor and Mark Duggan (2006) argue that the spiral in SSDI claims by the non-elderly adult population is the result of three main factors: (1) Congress has dropped the threshold for receiving disability benefits (inability to function in a work-like setting); (2) Congress has increased the level of benefits for recipients giving people more incentive to apply. (3) Congress increased the number of people in the workforce covered by SSDI (Autor and Duggan 2006, p. 8-11). The allure of free has made the political class very proud of its accomplishments in creating a welfare-dependent state.
When government programs are seemingly free, recipients tend to use them more. Medicare is a perfect example, where pharmaceutical and diagnostic tests multiply with the change in new benefits (Pauley 2004). Research shows that even when controlling for age and medical condition, if medical care is a bargain, people on Medicare as opposed to people on private insurance utilize 50 percent more care (Matthews and Littow 2011). They point to the fact that especially when Medicare patients have supplemental care in the private sector, their out-of-pocket expense nears zero, encouraging even more utilization. They conclude: “Since private insurers are much better at controlling utilization and reducing fraud, why not turn to the private sector to resolve Medicare’s excessive utilization?” (p. A16)
Mises (1990) analyzed this double-edged sword of government dependency and the cost to human value.
Today, George Gilder (2012) echoes this risk by pointing out that 70 percent of government discretionary spending devalues human life by paying people to be disabled, sick, reproduce, be unemployed, unmarried, retired, poor, homeless, hapless, or drugged.
He believes these supposed problem-solving programs accomplish nothing beyond expanding themselves by spreading dependence and tragic waste and saying: “Reforming them [the first rule of bureaucracy (Pettegrew and Vance 2012)] is all upside.”
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1st
Should work fine till crack, meth, pot , rent double....THEN WHAT!
Then they'll double the benefit.
Something cheep and new. Soma?
For "CHEEP CHEEP" at 120dB you can't beat an excited Sun Conure! (Yes, they ARE that loud!)
It's FREE! (Swipe Yo EBT)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzspsovNvII
There is no free lunch.........only happy hour
Man can survive for quite some time on chicken wings...
Prat! You can't live a proper life on meth and crack. Even pot is quite debilitating.
As for rent, well it will only double when the market can stand it.
The basic balancing force exists that if you make housing completely unobtainable for the people at the bottom of the ladder, by buying up all teh property and refusing to rent it at an affordabel cost, then we bums will eventually come and burn or occupy your houses, and the rich know it, so there will always be affordable housing. (The difficult trick to pull off I found was to find my cheap housing somewhere that wasn't a war zone).
And you really shouldn't end a sentance that asks a question with just an exclamation mark, or make facile assumptions about peoples lifestyles on "fightclub" unless you enjoy the feeling of being "owned".
There again, isn't that what this is all about, people waking up to the fact that their failure to excercise a bit of due diligence has allowed them to be almost totally owned, by a buch of psychopathic gits?
"Keep your government hands off my Medicare!" Most of you are probably sucking the gubmint tit too.
Went to some TEA Party events (vast majority of attendees were over 60), and none of them were for "means testing" for SS or Medicare. Cut all other spending, but don't mess with our .gov benefits. All you heard was "we paid in".
The whole system has to collapse hard, then we will see what the reset is like. It is the only way, the gene pool needs a shock treatment.
Social Security was designed as an enforced savings program-- NOT welfare. "Means testing" your own savings is bullshit. Score one for the tea party guys.
However, as far as Medicare is concerned-- now that's welfare.
SS was SOLD enforced savings program. It has turned into welfare.
I can't speak for others but I'm still FORCED to pay and they want to take the income limits off at the same time they want to means test benefits. Just more redistribution and PROOF that anything that government promises beyond death and taxes is a LIE.
You're not forced. You might feel coerced, but you aren't. You voluntarily pay in, supporting the wars and enabling the tyranny.
"You're not forced. You might feel coerced, but you aren't."
I love people like you. Do something about it and then post something from prison so we can look to you for courage.
Do it right and you don't HAVE to go to prison.
You DO have to change your way of life.
And that my friend takes REAL courage and some skill.
Any fool can go to jail.
One of these ... re:"Do it right and you don't have to ..."
Well don't just stand there boy. Spill the beanz. Enlighten us. Assertions are three cents to the dozen and still six dollars each over-priced. You come to the spotlight, take a bow and expect us to applaud? You forgot to put on the show!
"i know a guy", he's 31.
Quit his fortune 500 job making $24, after he became debt free and stacked PMs.
Signed up for state bennies.
Planted a garden.
Hunts.
Gets $400 a month from the VA.
Mines bitcoins.
Works as a grease hood cleaner and winery tasting staff for $10 under the table.
Babysits dogs and barters for needed items ie. grass seed, wine, vehicle use.
Doesn't have a vehicle on the road. Rides his bike instead and borrows cars.
Lives frugally, refuses to drink at bars etc.
Doesn't pay for television.
Has a phone for internet. Uses foxfi for free wifi, can now get internet on his computer.
The list goes on but my point is... he has made some drastic lifestyle changes.
He also claims to be the happiest he's ever been because he doesnt have to file by april whenever. He's starving the beast. And he's getting a free lunch, while working under the table.
Plays softball on Sundays. Runs his dogs daily. And has plenty of time to read ZH. Also has plenty of time for DIY projects.
Wow, I touched a nerve there it seems.
The post below by pretty much covers what I have learned and practise on a daily basis. Plus I do work to identify and remove "evil" from my life.
I absolutely assert that you can live comfortably and within the law by simply minimising your outgoings to match your income. Make the overall balance slightly positive and you can even grow your worldly empire.
I have managed to retain the use of my Jaguar, and slightly increase my holding of silver by simply reducing my outgoings to a bare minimum and refusing to make ANY form of financial commitment, direct debit etc. Because my cash turnover is so low, I qualify for all state benefits, but becuase I am handy and smart and when I am in the right mood useful, I can easily ignore the trap of state benefits, and that frees me to work when and where I wish. Currently casual income is very hard to obtain, so things are a bit tight, but my extremely low cash turnover combines with some sensible (in percentage terms) cash reserves, easy access to short term personal credit means I am preety fireproof, financially and legally speaking.
I'll admit, I have no property, I don't get to give as much as I would like to good causes, adn I knwo that by many of your expressed standards, I am a "bum".
I'd reply that "bum" or not, I have worked damn hard to get where I am, it's working for me, and the people around me and all my transactions are honest and mutually beneficial. I go without a few things admittedly, and sometimes that hurts, but I am living a real life, with almost zero accountability, and I can't believe how much reducing my overall handling of money has improved my life.
It's counter-intuitive, I know, and I claim no credit for being clever, is why I come here to learn from the smarter and better informed posters would you believe? But right now, in this political economic climate, disconnecting myself from the madness out there and living a small life seems like and certainly feels like the sensible option.
Realising the basic truth that what ones heart desires is not money, but the things money can buy, and that every time you handle money you have to pay a tithe and account for your activity to a bunch of greedy psychopathic bastards, kinda forced me to shift my effort into finding out how to acquire what I need directly, reducing the involvement of money to an absolute minimum, and then only in it's cash form has saved me an incredible amount of time money and effort.
IF I am proven wrong, or circumstances change I shall adapt my strategy, but the original assertion that I made that you can starve the beast, and have a comfortable life without going to prison or being untrue to yourself or your god holds true. At least for me.
However, in this climate I have found that spreading the word, does seem to piss people off, it's a BIG mental adjustment I had to make, and if your life is working well and you are happy with your lot, please treat everything I have to say as of no relevance.
All I am saying is that there are other games to play in life apart from "monopoly". Still can't see why I got so many down arrows. Hope the explanation is of value and use to someone.
Sorry for the breach in etiquette, I forgot this is fight club for a bit there, and should have stuck around to take on any challengers...
Well, there's a few thick folks here today. I'll say it for the hard of hearing:
YOU CHOOSE TO PAY IN TO THE WAR MACHINE, and you are a material and ideological supporter of the wars that result. Have some moral responsibility for yourselves. And some other dumb fuck tells me to grow up; classic.
And plantation slaves were not 'forced' to work for their masters either by your attempt at logic. Grow up.
From your tone, it sounds like you're the slave. Good luck with that.
It matters not what the government told people; they were forced to pay under threat of imprisonment and confiscation, anyway.
Too late now; if you don't want your ox gored, vote early and often: the Chicago Way!
Actually, I think Social Security was originally sold as a social insurance program (though right-wingers hate the concept with such passion that you refuse to even understand what that is.)
Social insurance works like this: at a young age, no one in the working class knows who will die young (and never need a pension) and who will live to 100 (but starve to death well before that without a pension.) So they all "agree" or get required to pay into a social insurance fund. Those who drop dead at 64 lose out completely. Those who live to 100 dont' starve to death. It was not exactly intended a free-stuff program. It was actually popular with the rich, because the rich because if the working class were not paying into social insurance, the rich might be arm-twisted into supporting all the oldsters who would otherwise starve to death.
It's true that means testing and very high limits on taxed wages give the program an element of redistribution of income (exactly what the rich were trying to avoid with Social Security). Yes, the rich hate that.
The program also had a well-known element of actuarial fantasy, where it was clear starting in the '70s that benefits would be worth a lot more than what people were paying in. (If it were a private insurance company, SS would have been shut down by regulators; but as a politically popular handout to voters, it lumbers on.) The current generation of retirees should give up some of their benefits because what they paid in (even counting the unlucky ones who died young) was too small to justify their benefits. The current generation of retirees knows this full well, but in America, everyone is selfish (including me !!)
If you've known any selfish people in your life, you'd know that they never lived or died in peace.
***The current generation of retirees should give up some of their benefits...***
Not quite, If you live to be 100 you get more that you paid in. If you die at 68 you've paid in more than you get. If you die before 65 you've payed in a lot, and get nothing. That's how insurance works. Think of it like house insurance. If you're house never burns down, you've paid a lot and get nothing.
Finally someone who says something intelligent...
Right, but housing insurance will actually pay if you need it. People below the age of fifty would be fools to think they will receive benefits for something they have paid into their entire working lives. SS willl be bankrupt before my generation can even collect. Also if you don't have a mortgage, are you still forced to buy housing insurance? Knowing what I know now I would much rather count on a private company to manage its finances and be able to pay out its insurcance than the corrupt politicians looting the lower classes and small business owners dry. It's not entirely the same. If I don't own a house (which is true), I am not forced to have housing insurance. Yet if I work, I have to pay SS tax.
A private company like say.....AIG. Bullshit! The government directly and indirectly supports all the "private" insurance companies. And if you hate paying for lazy government workers who earn six figures, what do you think about the 400 million that Joseph Cassano stole?
In 1953, a subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee conducted hearings for the express purpose of settling the question of whether social security was contractual in nature; see Hearings of November 27, 1953 entitled "The Legal Status of OASI Benefits," (Part 6). The witness at the hearing was Dr. Arthur J. Altmeyer, who held several offices in the Roosevelt administration. He was a member of the first Social Security Board, and by 1946 became the Social Security Commissioner, retiring in 1953. During this hearing, various parties stated that social security was not a contract:
At page 918:
"Mr. Altmeyer: * * * There is no individual contract between the beneficiary and the Government.
"Mr. Dingell: Congress knew that, did it not?
"Mr. Altmeyer: Yes, of course. I am sure it did.
* * *
"Chairman Curtis: The individual * * * has no contract? Is that your position?
"Mr. Altmeyer: That is right.
"Chairman Curtis: And he has no insurance contract?
"Mr. Altmeyer: That is right."
At page 937:
"Chairman Curtis: We came to an agreement on one of our major premises, that this was no insurance contract, and the words did not come from me. They were volunteered by Mr. Altmeyer."
At page 968:
"Mr. Winn: * * * Mr. Altmeyer, there being no contractual obligation between the Government and the worker, it follows, does it not, that the benefit payments under title II of the Social Security Act are merely statutory benefits which Congress may withdraw or alter at any time?"
At page 969:
"Mr. Winn (reading): ‘These are gratuities, not based on contract * * *. Moreover, the act creates no contractual obligation with respect to the payment of benefits. This Court has pointed out the difference between insurance which creates vested rights, and pensions and other gratuities, involving no contractual obligations, in Lynch v. United States, (292 U.S. 571, 576-577)."
At page 994:
"Mr. Altmeyer: I have answered your question, sir. If you will refer to section 1101, you will find, as you read into the record, that there are no vested rights, that Congress may create different rights * * *."
At page 996:
"Mr. Winn: We have also established that there is no insurance contract between the Government and the worker within a covered wage whereby the rights and obligations of a party are set; that is correct, is it not?
"Mr. Altmeyer: No. You did not establish that. That has been self-evident since the law was passed in 1935."
At pages 1013-14 (the Chair's concluding remarks):
"Chairman Curtis: Mr. Altmeyer, it is apparent that the people of the country have no insurance contract. That does not mean that I do not want to do my full part to do justice to them and to carry out and make good on the moral commitment that has been made to them. Yet, notwithstanding the fact that they had no insurance contract, it remains true that the agency under your direction repeatedly in public statements, by pamphlets, radio addresses, and by other means, told the people of the country that they had insurance. I think a number of people were misled by that."
The Supreme Court and the evolution of Social Security
The Supreme Court has established that no one has any legal right to Social Security benefits. The Court decided, in Flemming v. Nestor (1960), that "entitlement to Social Security benefits is not a contractual right". In that case, Ephram Nestor, a Bulgarian immigrant to the United States who made contributions for covered wages for the statutorily required "quarters of coverage" was nonetheless denied benefits after being deported in 1956 for being a member of the Communist party.
The case specifically held:
2. A person covered by the Social Security Act has not such a right in old-age benefit payments as would make every defeasance of "accrued" interests violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Pp. 608–611. (a) The noncontractual interest of an employee covered by the Act cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of an annuity, whose right to benefits are based on his contractual premium payments. Pp. 608–610. (b) To engraft upon the Social Security System a concept of "accrued property rights" would deprive it of the flexibility and [363 U.S. 603, 604] boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands and which Congress probably had in mind when it expressly reserved the right to alter, amend or repeal any provision of the Act. Pp. 610–611. 3. Section 202 (n) of the Act cannot be condemned as so lacking in rational justification as to offend due process. Pp. 611–612. 4. Termination of appellee's benefits under 202 (n) does not amount to punishing him without a trial, in violation of Art. III, 2, cl. 3, of the Constitution or the Sixth Amendment; nor is 202 (n) a bill of attainder or ex post facto law, since its purpose is not punitive. Pp. 612–621.[65]
As I understand it, SS was a way to pull forward future spending into today. Because SS got your back, you didn't have to worry about the future so much so you could spend more today and not save as much for tomorrow. Like most government programs it was a Trojan horse that redistributes money to DC. The Fed has to finance the unsustainable and create about 10% real inflation to pay for it all. More Ponzinomics.
We'll see how much that works out for the Boomers that saved nothing for retirement.
Soc Sec and everything else is designed to screw you over. Its also designed by politicians to boost their chances in the next election. They don't give a damned about the consequences to you, they'll be long gone by then.
The concept of 'welfare' is bullshit. They stole 97% of the value of peoples earnings and savings. If it hadnt been stolen, people wouldnt need to beg for a few crumbs back.
They frame the argument, and people fall for it.
(Kinda like 'gun control' after SandyHook, when youre more likely to be struck by lightning than be a victim of a mass shooting.)
You are notmally spot on in your comments, however you got this one wrong,
MedicAID is pure welfare - This is the program that fixes the gangbangers for free get when they shoot each other in the ghetto
MediCARE is a paid in program from a lifetime of additional tax withholdings to pay for your medical care when you are old.
Important diffetence!!!!
It's a relative thing. Medicare is partly funded by tax withholdings, but it's very clear that the trust fund will go bust soon in a big way because the amount paid in was not nearly enough to cover the cost of benefits people want. Perhaps Medicare is 30% paid-in social insurance, and 70% welfare. That is just a guess.
The amount subtracted (taxed) for Medicare was minimal. LMS is correct. It is not enough to fund the program. Bust it goes..
That was never true. It has been a documented ponzi scheme since the Supreme Court case that requested segregated funds was lost.
About Medicare. My former employer will let me stay in the group insurance plan with me paying the full premium until I turn 65. Guess where that leaves me?
Fedbuster, you're a fucking liar.
"we paid in "
OK : you will get what you put in [adjusted for inflation, and just to be generous, we will add interest accrued per the 10-year] and then that's it; you can pay for your own private insurance with high-deductible because you didn't pay but a small part of that.
Government measured inflation or real inflation?
Who made you the arbiter? You seem to be a self appointed facist.
So it is fascist to pay back contributions but not add welfare benefits...OOOk...
"OK : you will get what you put in [adjusted for inflation, and just to be generous, we will add interest accrued per the 10-year] and then that's it; you can pay for your own private insurance with high-deductible because you didn't pay but a small part of that."
Thank you. Would you like an address where to mail my check?
Bring back the government cheese.
Makes geat nachos!!
Thirty years ago, myself and my dog lived a week on a block of govt cheese; didn't shit for two weeks after. To this day the thought of american cheese product makes me gag.
What are geat nachos?
Well, lets see - - what kind of system is it where they take just about all you have ? Which tells you what you can or cannot do with what little you have, including your own body ? And after taking just about all you have . . . 'redistributes' a few crumbs of your own property that they took, back to you . . after they grab most of it for themselves ?
Well, you could call it 'Communism' and youd be quite accurate, of course. But the 'isms' are just lots of pretty words, a con game. Its really about criminality, about taking what you have - living off of you. They steal it all . . . including the most precious thing. And thats the very limited time that youve been granted to live your mortal life. And the sense of creativity and independence that you had when you were a young child, before they started indoctrinating you in the public 'schools'.
They have stolen 97% of the value of your earnings and savings over the last century. They have forced many on the 'gubmint tit' because they want you to be mindless dependent serfs. And they also want the serfs to fight among themselves and be divided & remain ignorant.
Kleptoparasitism, another gift from the animal world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptoparasitism
Kleptoparasitism or cleptoparasitism (literally, parasitism by theft) is a form of feeding in which one animal takes prey or other food from another that has caught, collected, or otherwise prepared the food, including stored food (as in the case of cuckoo bees, which lay their eggs on the pollen masses made by other bees). The term is also used to describe the stealing of nest material or other inanimate objects from one animal by another.
The kleptoparasite gains either by obtaining prey or other objects that it could not obtain itself, or by saving the time and effort required to obtain it. However, the kleptoparasite may run the risk of injury from the victim if the latter is able to defend its property.
Which is as it should be. Any government that HAS tits should be devoured until there is nothing left (though a shot through the heart is better in every way in the medium and long terms), because tits imply vampire tentacles, and vampire tentacles do more damage in the long term. Worse than a big volcano, or a 9.5 earthquake, or a category 7 hurricane. Those tentacles destroy civilizations. Whole worlds. Whether they use bronze, steel, or silicon.
Spitzer
Your FOFOA posts were usually very good, I hope that you decide to go back to looking at gold in the serious manner I have seen you do before. Gold is one of the few ways those of us not receiving .gov "benefits" can save oursleves from the relentless privation that our government is imposing on us.
The term you seek is "47%".
"Free" is perhaps the most dangerous word in the English language.
I'm from the government, and I'm here to give out free stuff. - BO
i agree.
let's form a committe to free the word "free".
No, I think the most dangerous word is "entitled".
A "right" is also often mis-used and dangerous. Especially when used by the communists on the left. -ie The "right" to govt. housing, food, work, healthcare, etc.
"A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you." -Ramsey Clark
Similarly the confusion between "rights" and "power".
Government doesn't have "rights", government has "power". That confusion turns up all the time, everywhere. Even fairly conservative places like National Review confuse the two.
Even if it's just one small step, we must never use the word "rights" where the correct word to be used is "power".
Words aren't dangerous, just how crappy minds understand them.
NAU collectivist dictatorship may be more your style.
The subsidizing it's 28 million unemployed, uneducated, skill-less and old/young/unfortunate is a stepping stone. Relax.
Unsustainable path is going to collapse the nation, just as it was placed.
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/New_World_Order
"If you knew the whole story, you would commit "suicide" by locking yourself into your car's trunk and driving it into a lake."
Information is the currency of democracy. ~ Thomas Jefferson
With shit like this going on for 10 years, why work? So I can support such a fucked up system?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eQZoXAU7X0
>Create problem
>........
>Profit
The second line usually involves votes and taxes .
Print moar!!!
I agree. Print this bitch off a cliff...........
Thus, the Great Experiment is ova...
This is classic Cloward and Piven Strategy.
Overwhelm the system and collapse it.
This only works when you have a government that has been infiltrated with Marxists.
When the system enevitably collapses, you get full blow socialism/Marxism as the logical answer to failed Capitalism.
We are fucked.
Personally, I don't think they've thought it through far enough...in typical leftwing academic egghead fashion.
Vee pretend to voork, de pretend to pay us...old Soviet expression ;-)
Au Contraire. They have thought it through. It's never been about making people's lives better. It always been about POWER and who wields it. The aim is the turn an educated, free populace into a bunch of mindless bootlickers who will grovel for their Government cheese and shanty.
Exactly. And another thing... Obama is clearly a Marxist, and the people around him are Marxists. This is obvious to anyone who has bothered to do the slightest amount of research. But, people get confused because we have a system that looks more like corporatism/fascism, so some people claim that Obama can't be a Marxist, because he is obviously in bed with the corporatists. Which he is.
Coward-Piven is the key to making sense of this apparent contradiction. Obama knows that to implement his Marxist state in America, he has to collapse the system first. If he believes that working with corporate interests advances this agenda of collapse, well, he is quite happy to do so in the short term. And lord knows, corporations can't see beyond the tip of their noses, so they are happy to be led along by their noses.
So, you believe this started with the current President, and not a day before?
Damn, that's really stupid.
Um... Please be more specific. Believe me, I know "it's" been going on since 1861, but no, this is the first openly Marxist president we've ever had, so no, that part is brand new.
Ahhh, the great American ability to debate a man's politics while he's sticking a shiv through your ribcage.
Instead, keep an eye on the shiv. The shiv's effect is more important than its political persuasion.
It's amazing how so many American's are self proclaimed experts in Marxism, especially considering that they never read Das Kapital, are not really taught about Politics (outside US politics) in school and don't have and never had a Socialist party (Corporate Welfare, aka Socialism for the Rich, doesn't count), much less a Marxist one.
But hey, please engage in ignorant name-tagging, communistophobia, riff-raff infighting and "look at the shinny welfare recipient over there and pay no attention to the rich parasitic sociopaths robbing your country blind", 'cause I'm pretty sure that is not at all what the elites have in mind when they push the "blame it on the commies" propaganda on the MSM /sarc
What a bunch o' tools!
Politicians survive on populism and while republicans have advanced social spending for political power, the marxists have always recognized it as a means to an end. This their prescribed path to power. No one had to make this up. It is no conspiracy as it has been written. They were not bashful innstating their plans early on, even if they have been in denial recently. Mindless leftists have accepted the ill fated consequences of their do-gooder agendas as collateral damage to an ideologically pure utopian world, while the true marxists have always know it was about power through destruction. The marxists are winning and Obama is their front man, but even he is being manipulated to an end goal beyond his dreams. Obama is motivated by marxist destruction to advance his black liberation agenda as he has always seen it as justice and the the only effective means the bring about true black power. Anyone who would read his history, his writings not to mention his "church" affiliation would know this to be true. This is all about "the chickens coming home to roost". But the marxists and the far left have never been shy about using race to advance their political power and a black president does just that. In the end, politics is about bedfellows. They are all using everyone else to advance their agendas. Obama is entitled to his agenda. The danger is in the backhanded destructive lying behavour. If America decides to become marxist they should have that choice, but not lied to and manipulated to that end, and an end I do believe it will be.
Thank you Oldwood. I expanded what you said so it could be better understood.
"Politicians survive on populism and while Republicans have advanced social spending for political power, the Marxists have always recognized it as a means to an end.
This is their prescribed path to power. No one had to make this up. It is no conspiracy as it has been written. They were not bashful in stating their plans early on, even if they have been in denial recently.
Mindless leftists have accepted the ill fated consequences of their do-gooder agendas as collateral damage to an ideologically pure utopian world, while the true Marxists have always known it was about power through destruction.
The Marxists are winning and Obama is their front man, but even he is being manipulated to an end goal beyond his dreams.
Obama is motivated by Marxist destruction to advance his Black Liberation agenda as he has always seen it as justice and the the only effective means the bring about true black power.
Anyone who would read his history, his writings not to mention his "church" affiliation would know this to be true. This is all about "the chickens coming home to roost".
But the Marxists and the far left have never been shy about using race to advance their political power and a black president does just that.
In the end, politics is about bedfellows. They are all using everyone else to advance their agendas. Obama is entitled to his agenda.
The danger is in the backhanded destructive lying behavour.
If America decides to become Marxist they should have that choice, but not lied to and manipulated to that end, and an end I do believe it will be."
You still have no clue whatesoever what a Marxist is.
It's Statists that are the problem. They are the ones that use taxpayers' money to buy voters, reward their buddies and pad their retirement nest. Statists come disguised in whatever political color is handy and will gladly put on an enormous show of publicly confronting statists wearing a different color, all the while colluding with them outside the public eye.
Anybody going around throwing the "Communist" or the "Marxist" tags in the context of American politics is a tool, played like a fiddle by those conmen and naive/self-deluded enough to confuse the theatre the socipaths play for the cameras with the real thing.
Marx's statement of the creed in the 'Critique of the Gotha Program':
"In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"
"Liberation Theology" has sought to interpret the Christian call for justice in a way that is in harmony with this Marxist dictum.
+1 viator-----I can still hear the coffee house views from the 1960's poly-si students at Mich proclaiming "if Jesus was alive today he would be a Marxist"--
State universitys have been a hot-bed of dliberate misinformation for years--its no wonder most "educated people' get it wrong.
The difference with the Obama clique is that, unlike activists from the socialist/Marxist school, the Obamaites, some of the European nomenklatura, and the IMF don't necessarily want to own the means of production (a key Marxist demand). They are happy to let family, friends and clients own the means of production as long as they get a cut to fund their various projects and life styles (see the Clintons). That makes them closer to fascists than Marxists.
I really don't care what your definition of marxism tells you anymore than I care what it truely means to be Muslim. I go by what those who claim their ideology to be. What I describe is what many of "them" have been telling us for a hundred years. If you want to spend your time parsing definitions while telling everyone else they are wasting their time taking what self described marxists say to heart, thats your choice. It really doesn't matter what we call it anyway. What matters is what is happening. Marxism is simply another tool to be used for destruction for the pursuit of power. We must resist the destroyer of worlds, regardless of what name he goes by.
Very good post. In my younger daze, I used to believe that Corporations were pro-free market. Now I realize that was totally naive. Corporations (and the people who run/own them) just want to maximize their profits. In that pursuit they are not especially loyal to country or ideology. In the end, they only care if their stock goes up and they get theirs--in the short term.
Ultimately, hese companies just want a population to BUY THEIR STUFF. They couldn’t care less, if the $$ people spend comes from legitimate work or welfare. If you think about it, public assistance is a subsidy to retail (Walmart), consumer products (Proctor and Gamble), and healthcare companies, etc.
However, in their pursuit of profit, corporations are short sighted. They will do things that maximize profit in the short term even if fucks them up in the long term. I've seen this up close, If someone's strategy appears to be working, regardless of the obvious long term consequences, being a naysayer will just make you look like an idiot. Leadership will always side with the guy who appears to be getting it done now.
I also agree that the the current Administration are Marxists. The key difference between Statists and Marxists is that Marxists want to control everything. Statists may look similar on the surface, but they will still let corporations be corporations, even if they suck at the Government teat. Marxists want the corporate profits to redistribute for the purpose of maintaining power. Again, its ALL about power. Cooperating with the Marxists in the short-mid term is just suicide, but the Corporations won't care. They'll gladly be led to the slaughter one quarter at a time.
They collapse the "system" and we cut off the blue hives from the red counties that supply their food and energy.
Today's liberals wouldn't last two months without food stamps and government jobs.
Most immigrants (since the 80s) that benefit from the free-shit system come to the US from corrupt , military and police-state socialist systems and that is what they expect here.
It makes sense that people would gravitate toward a place that feels like home.
That's why we are seeing the socialist police states and their FR banking systems in the process of collapsing. Change doesn't come easy, but it is in the best interest of humanity.
God I hope you are wrong..... I really need to be careful what I wish for.
Why does a large portion of the population choose not to work when there are many jobs available? The answer is simple. If you can receive 2-3 times as much money from unemployment, disability, and/or welfare benefits (subsidized housing, food stamps, free cellphones, etc.) as you can from a temporary or part-time job, and live a life of leisure, why work? In 2011, the U.S. government spent over $800 billion this “welfare,” exceeding expenditures on Social Security or Medicare.
Obama has excacerbated this FUBAR situation more than any other President
Now, see, this is always insane. If I get laid off from a good job that pays my bills, I should immediately run out and take a bad job that doesn't. You ever see prices come down when labor gets put through the wood chipper? Nope, profits always have to go up so prices are always on the rise. Who cares if millions of Americans are working _and_ homeless so long as a few stuffed suits are having a grand old time.
"The political allure of free is bi-partisan."
Says it all. Perfect defense to the logic that there is only ONE party....of self centered, lying, robbing, cheating scumbags who are puppets for the moronic, puss ridden, greedy parasites that will fight among themselves for every penny they can get.
I gotta say, there is a compelling argument to give up. Shits broken and it ain't gonna be fixed. Just jump on the free shit train.
But remember, use the free time & money to stockpile food, get and train with weapons, and set up a good hiding place. Cause that free shit train will grind to a halt eventually. Probably at the least conveinient moment.
but in the end we'll need the pitchforks, rags and a good amount of kerosene.
Dude 18 years vacation and going strong. Not too bad for a white boy.
Yeeeeeehaaaaaa.
Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain sane.
And thank you Lord Keynes, for the quote and the situation.
I didn't say solvent.
1966.....Johnson
1964, Lyndon b. Johnson. He will be forgotten along with the rest.
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/06/poll-who-hates-capitalism.html
"55 percent of Hispanics had a negative view of capitalism, the most of any groups surveyed in a 2011 by the Pew Research Center, as did 47 percent of those of all races between the ages of 18-29."
Disclosure, wife's side of family is Hispanic and they are all revolted by this.
And, just to be clear we all get that there hasn't been anything approaching free-market capitalism for decades, if ever.
The Pew Research Center has a ton of good research on hispanics in the US, measuring their income levels, social mobility and educational track record over multiple generations, rate of assimilation, adoption of the english language, and lots more, over a period of many decades. It's a wealth of information that paints a very clear picture to anyone who bothers to do the digging-- which I have.
I won't bore you with the details, but let me assure you, the picture is fucking horrifying.
The media has done a good job of portraying hispanics as hard-working, religious, family types - it's all bullshit
No, it's not all bullshit. Hispanics are very hard working. They just don't value higher education, are politically disconnected, tend to assimilate poorly, and have poor upward mobility.
Bottom line: through their hard work, they can make a positive difference in the short term, but in the long term, they are a terrible fit for our country and culture.
Kinda depends on what you mean by capitalism. If you identify what we have now, or have have had in the last century, as capitalism, you're damn sure gonna find a lot of negative opinions. About as capitalist as China is communist, but it serves the agenda of each to perpetuate the lie about the other. Ditto the Soviet Union, when it still existed.
Uh, isn't Mexico the remains of a socialist paradise? Have you ever seen the domestic hiring contracts? Admittedly no one has used them for years and every foreign company that is allowed to operate there is given a variance to the laws, but still, this is what the come from and has been for over a hundred years. The only education these people have is socialism and corruption. All they really need is voting rights in America to have the triffecta.
"If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until it is free"
Pretty sure that was Foxworthy.
- Ned
"Health care is too expensive, so the Clinton administration is putting Hillary in charge of making it cheaper. (This is what I always do when I want to spend less money — hire a lawyer from Yale.) If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free."
P.J. O'Rourke "The Liberty Manifesto" 1993
The other Entitlement is a more grotesque kind, and it guarantees ultimate failure.
It gains control, it suffocates everything... it pretends to lead, but it only manipulates for personal gain.
That is the Entitlement that you should be worrying about.
The other kind of entitlement is a distraction, and a tool.
Considering the biggest free riders are, and have been, at the upper end of the food chain, why shouldn't the low enders jump on the bandwagon? Low end shit bags are suppose to continue to hump it and pay taxes so Buffet and Goldman Sachs can get government subsidies? People are suppose to respect the system when the system obviously doesn't respect them? Fuck it, bring it down.
Good point. "Entitlement" spending works at both ends. Big, well-connected corporations get their own welfare. ADM, for instance. There's a company that's not likely to even exist if you took away their governement goodies.
A thousand corporations siphoning off 100 million a year each is $100 billion dollars a year down the crapper. Expensive, but not crippling.
Fifty million people siphoning off 50,000 a year each is $2.5 trillion dollars a year down the crapper. Now that's a real problem.
There just aren't that many huge, politically connected corporations. But there are a shit-ton of people in this country and once the welfare state really takes hold, the country will go bankrupt within a few years.
Except when it's that plus ten TBTF's taking an average of $100 billion each, whether in direct welfare, no-bid contracts, or lost interest on free money from the Fed.
Target corporate, financial, and military welfare first, THEN target the other stuff. If you are addicted to meth and alcohol, you dump the meth first, not the alcohol.
Note that that is only if you want to try to actually SAVE this sinking shitcan of state.
If you DON'T want to save it, you just let these idiots keep doing what they are doing. You don't need a sword when your enemy thinks he can win by cutting himself over and over.
Boy you got that backwards, bigtime Buckaroo. Put down the Glenn Beck book and go out and look around you.
+1
To paraphrase Pacino in Scarface
Fuck Buffet, and fuck the fucking Goldman Sachs. Fuck em all.
Generalizations get you nowhere greatbeard! Maybe some of the silver spooners get a free ride. Do you condemn the guy who came up with a good idea, service or invention from becoming wealthy?
oh and for fucks like GE et al who get huge tax breaks f them too.
>> Do you condemn the guy who came up with a good idea, service or invention from becoming wealthy?
I'd love to know how you construe that to be my opinion from what I posted.
Generally, the guy who came up with a good idea, service or invention ended up selling it to much less talented people with money.
Microsoft DOS is a perfect example. Hopefully nobody really believes Bill Gates created that. Fortunately, he and his brilliant partners had that million dollar endowment from Bill's mom to see him through the tough part of startup.
Oh, wait, maybe we're thinking of Warren Buffet. Worked his way up from a sprout with only the money his daddy the senator made off from gold.
Perhaps I'm confusing them with Donald Trump. It's amazing that he wasn't quite able to piss away all of his family money. Thank god for business advisors and bankruptcy attorneys.
But there are always a few obstinate types like Steve Jobs who slip through without million dollar daddies. So I guess we should tilt all of our laws and attitudes to favor the one in a million chance that one of these guys will come along for every hundred George W or HW types. Or the drooling Rockefeller grandkids.
God, I wish I could give you a MILLION ups for that one.
Absolute, CRYSTAL clarity.
So where were the REST of you that day in school?
off somewhere convincing yourselves that being born rich WASN'T a HUGE,UNASSAILABLE advantage?
..Obviously.
"Fuck it, bring it down."
Brilliant.
And I'll take license to start judging the ever-changing audience of ZH by the popularity of your well-thought-out plan.
The big question is whether, when Uncle Sugar goes into withdrawal, he takes the rest of the world with him into economic Hell, or whether the rest of us get to stand around Uncle and laugh at him while he seizes. Believe me, a lot of people will be laughing, if their circumstances permit.
Where do I sign up for some gubment cheese.
I brought some gubment cheese home the other day and the wife asked me what kind it was.
I told her it was nacho cheese.
She asked me how I knew.
I said the nigger I stole it from chased me three blocks screaming 'that's nacho cheese!'
"when there are many jobs available'. Really. www.dailyjobcuts.com Shit jobs i might add.Service sector shit. The whole system is a fraud,top to bottom.
Forgot to mention the large entitlement program for insolvent bankers that runs in the trillion$.
and Corporate/MIC Welfare
Gawd I fucking HATE the govt and most of my fellow citizens.
As individuals we are not so bad...as groups we really suck.
Read "Calculated Chaos" sometime.
dont be so unappreciative........you live in a "first world" thanks to the a debt fueled welfare program that keeps the backwaters and inner cities on par with the rest of america.................thanks to the generosity of u.s. creditors and our government, america has paved roads and electricity running coast to coast....food on the table of all americans...............cell phone coverage for all.........medical clinics on every corner........police and standardized schools in every nook and cranny of america..........yes smegley.............it is thanks to americas ability to BORROW LOTS OF MONEY that gives us this greatness.......and be thankful of your military......of the men and women in the armed forces who conquer lands far and wide to bring home the riches of oil.........to open markets for our grand corporations to drain wealth of foreign lands, breaking their back......... so that their resources may flow back to our great nation like honey...........yes smegley...stand tall....be proud and sing.......
For Purple mountain's majesty.......
Hungry eyes on broken streets
And ice cracks the sidewalk cabaret
Moral psychos run the show
Tunnel vision starts to grow
And blood spills like water on the stage
Gotta do what we can to right this wrong
For tomorrow's child we must be strong
Let the people sing, bells of freedom ring
Let the people shout, till there can be no doubt
Let the people sing, bells of freedom ring
Hear the voices roar, we won't take this anymore
Purple mountain's majesty
....oh wait....sorry....those are the lyrics for America the Beautiful after the mik and honey runs dry by decades end.....now what did i do with the lyrics for the "patriotic" version of America the Beautiful..........
Revenge is dish best served cold.
- Old Klingon Proverb
Don't get mad, get even.
- Old Delta Proverb
Don't get mad, get even.
- Old Delta Proverb
I prefer the Aerosmith version - http://www.elyrics.net/read/a/aerosmith-lyrics/don_t-get-mad,-get-even-lyrics.html
Or Buster Bunny.
The free shit storm is there precisely to keep the population in check as the "new normal" moves into a full-blown neo-feudalism model of a few haves a whole helluva lot of have nots. We are in that transition stage and the only way to make it happen is to keep the population quiet right up until whatever sudden shit they have in mind. They aren't buying all of those drones, bullets, armored police cars, supercomputers etc to protect against foreign enemies. The debate over "entitlements" is truly a debate over the proverbial deck chairs because we've already hit the iceberg.
Lest anyone think getting on disability is an easy task then think again. To characterize all on disability as drug addict slackers is also such an asinine generalization that it's to the point where it has become the opposite of "hate the rich" or "get the rich" class warfare that the dems and Obama administration started and accomplished exactly what they hoped to do. Divide and conquer. Mission accomplished. The masses are so busy pointing their finger and hate at each other feeding of the vitriol of the politicians all the while they laugh all the way to the bank with the banksters no less.
If it's not easy then why are millions of bums getting disability?
That's an idiotic statement because you do not know a million people on disability to classify them as bums. All you are doing is talking out of your ass. You generalize based on rhetoric parroting what you hear and not based on personal knowledge. Is everyone on disability on the up and up. Of course not because there is a certain amount of the human race that is in their nature to take advantage but to besmerch and entire group based on the actions of the minority is the height of ignorance. I know people that went through the process of disability and I saw first hand it was not some easy deal and you actually have to have proof and a real disability. You can't just sign up and get it. To believe what you say then there are any number of doctor's willing to risk their own careers filing fraudlent claims for their patients. What's in it for the doctor? Also consider that 99% of claims are initially denied and it on average takes 2 years from the time of filing to go through all of the denials and appeals.
You should know a little bit about the subject in which you speak before spouting off insulting generalizations. Some one once said it is better to remains silent and thought ignorant than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Perhaps that's advice you should consider.
However, your generalizations are fine. Is that it? You "know a million people on disability"? Since you state a "certain amount of the human race is at their nature this way" what is that percentage?
Times are changing. I remember the time when parking lots had only a few handicap spaces, now I routinely see many a capable person HOP out of their SUV and stride right in to the store to get their shit. Probably a doctor somewhere wrote that they were indeed handicapped.
Pathetic times for a once proud people.
Having been in medical field all of my life, I can tell you there are more disabled people leaving the home, taking part in life, they may be suffering from a medical condition leaving them with inability to walk far. There always will be the frauds. Frauds were given the greenlight by the frauds who deregulated the world.
There are people you haven't seen, so mangled, trapped and unable to communicate, from degenerative disease, accident or congenital anomalies, that they require constant care. They receive disability which includes care. What else would you do? Many years ago, there died much younger. Pneumonia, most probably. Now, they get physical therapy. We'll see how this ends. But, once you start, where do you stop?
You can close the door and not watch them suffer, but you'll know it's going on just the same. Abuse of the disabled, exploitation in every manner, has been a dirty little secret and modern times have changed that.
What do you want your society to be like? Invest in the people and there is a return. You leave them in poverty, where there is nothing but shame and the sight of things we should never see, and you expect them to grow up and be somebody? Surviving without being damaged in a life where chaos and danger reign every moment of the day is nearly impossible.
How much work do you really think the richest man in the world does? Do you think he has broke a sweat off the tennis court ever in his life? That the riched people can display gluttony, vanity, every deadly sin and be excused while you attack the unfortunate is what speaks of soceity today.
I did not use generalizations but simple statistics and laws of probability to make my assumptions. It would be impossible to say 100% of the human race is on the up and up. There is enough evidence over the years for me to make my assumptions with a fair amount of certainty but refrained from using broad generalizations against a certain group without the tiniest bit of mathmatics or real knowledge.
You're right, it's not easy to get on disability...unless you hire a good disability lawyer, and there are plenty of them. It might take them two or three years, but they'll eventually get anyone on disability.
You would have to have a doctor to play along too and that would be harder to imagine a doctor commiting fraud for little to no payoff with huge risk. That's the missing piece that no one seems to get that just doesn't jive.
Holy shit, you sure don't know much about the medical system. Every halfway decent personal injury lawyer has a few pet doctors and chiropractors they can count on to "play ball." Some docs and chiros make their living exclusively on the personal injury racket.
Ask any doc or chiropractor, and they'll know a few medical school classmates who went that route.
Holy shit you don't know much about the way law suits work.
Personal Injury racket is much different than "disability racket" Personal injury goes after the" at fault " insured, not the SS system. Personal Injury racket only works when the "at fault" person actually has a decent insurance policy along with having private means. Along with that, you have to have real medical bills as part of calculating the amoun of the suit. Secondly if you add "miss work" layer to suit you actually have to show how much money you lost due to said injury. Thus if you are a minimum wage worker you aren't exactly hitting it rich.
You can sue someone for 5M but if they only have 50k policy and have a minimal job then the well is pretty dry you will only see 50k minus 33% off the top for lawyer fee, then a doctor would be paid to offer an opinon, then if you had health insurance pay for your bills up front they will hire a subbrogation service to recoup from the monies suit to be reimbursed for what they paid. So when it's all said and done the 50k won in a suit, there could be as little as 15k left. Yeah wow, 15k which would take 2 years to get a check, is such a windfall. You could actually buy uh well hmmm NOT MUCH.
Unfortunately I know a lot more than most in this area and am not just getting my knowledge based on tv shows or rhetoric but some real world experience.
Mr. Banzai is completely correct.
I am, by the way, a doctor who has had some dealings with the US "disability" system: 75% is fraud (ballpark)... and that was back in the 90's.
So how much did it take for you to commit fraud or are you saying it's the "other" 75% of practicing doctor's that commited this crime and you just turned a blind eye to it as opposed to reporting it to the medical board?
+1 notadouche
Every cloud has a silver lining
has now become
Every disability check. Should be turned into Silver.
I pretty much quit working (in the oil business) at a relatively young age (55).
I'll tell you why.
FUCK this two set of rules legal system, and the crony capitalism, and the squandering of the $$$ they (The federal and state gov) were demanding of me.
Instead, we bought 50 acres, and are growing most of out fruits and veggies, raising goats and chickens, living simply and paying exactly $0 in federal taxes now.
Starve the beast....I could easily work "productively" in the oil bus another 10-20 years and make a lot of money and pay a lot more ot taxes...BUT FUCK 'EM....they drove me out of the system and I ain't playing their game to the greastes extent that I can duck and cover.
Get into rabbits too...