Post: #26

Quote:some sort of popular uprising that will overthrow the existing order. Either that or another civil war, which wouldn't really surprise me either.

Started and finished by? Please dont say the millennials who couldn't even take on the current living WW2 vets. lol

Post: #27

Maybe young people would have more if they didn't waste money on x box, iphones, and the latest fashions. Oh yeah..they want their M tv too. Live within your means and you won't go bankrupt. Go get public university education and live at home instead of thinking you are entitled. TBH the old generation earned their entitlements..the young generation has only earned a higher level in WOW lol.

Post: #28

Older people will always believe they had it harder this is a fact of life and is 100% false.

Making it to the top gets harder every year as the level of competition always increases.

Sitting a mulling around if our generation is fucked is a waste of time. Do whatever you can to fix your life. If you meet old people who think you don't work hard tell them to all fuck off, cut them off and never speak to them again.

Go find someone older than you, better than you and willing to help you. Latch on pull as hard as you can on those coat tails to stay afloat.

Find someone below you and pull on their rope for them.

Find someone older again who is better than you in every way and latch on again...

Rinse and repeat.

Anyone who thinks they deserve everything they have is living a lie. Your only choice in life is to break in with the top tier and reach out to future top tier talent. Everyone else is a clown and a waste of time.

If someone is not going to help you they are a collossal waste of your time.

#harshtruth

Post: #29

(01-22-2014 03:23 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

(01-22-2014 11:35 AM)solo Wrote:  Also, lol at the panel members in the video saying the solution is the "political process". Yeah right. The solution is expatriation.

The solution is going to end up being some sort of popular uprising that will overthrow the existing order. Either that or another civil war, which wouldn't really surprise me either.

Yeah, a civil war to get rid of social security. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Post: #30

(01-22-2014 03:52 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  

Quote:some sort of popular uprising that will overthrow the existing order. Either that or another civil war, which wouldn't really surprise me either.

Started and finished by? Please dont say the millennials who couldn't even take on the current living WW2 vets. lol

Even though I'm a millenial, I agree. We're not going to do anything except watch the world burn. Some of us will fight against it, but most of us will be busy on whatever social media thing there is going "OMG HOW HORRIBLE!" and then pretending as though it doesn't exist.

I'm thinking that it's going to end up being my children's generation with a handful of milennials joining to fix the mess they made.

Post: #31

(01-22-2014 04:10 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  Yeah, a civil war to get rid of social security. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

No, I don't think a civil war will be to eliminate social security. I think the civil war will be to destroy the bloated order (like Caesar's march on Rome) and replace it with something (hopefully) better.

Post: #32

(01-22-2014 04:13 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

(01-22-2014 04:10 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  Yeah, a civil war to get rid of social security. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

No, I don't think a civil war will be to eliminate social security. I think the civil war will be to destroy the bloated order (like Caesar's march on Rome) and replace it with something (hopefully) better.

Let me describe the physical reality, what I see right now if I walk out my door. Paranoid fantasy isn't my department.

Gee where I live ( admittedly a cushy California college town but any reader of this in the USA can move here) the food's exquisite, there's 400 kinds of wine in Safeway, the air and water are safe and perfect, almost all bangers are in jail, the cars carefully and politely grant you room on the road with your bicycle, the mall parking lots are full of futuristic air-bag safe cars, and the college chicks are smoking.

Are you hungry? Do you own a car? Have the cops shaken you down recently?

In 98% of America, If you (heaven forbid) fell over ill right now passed out and were unconscious, would a team of licensed EMTs come as soon as someone called 911 and get you great medical care even though you had no insurance info because you were out cold? Essentially giving you without question the benefit of 3000 years of research as well as decades of training by those practitioners-- on credit?

Unfortunately, such a supremely powerful culture doesn't produce humble women. That's what the unbelievably safe air transport system is for.

What are you even complaining about, let alone advocating revolution for?

Do you know anything about what life for most, and even royalty has been like throughout human history? Did the Caesar you mention have access to antibiotics, CATscans, or Wizzair?


Oh. it's GONNA all fall apart. Yeah, for the last 3000 years people selling shit have said that.
I've accepted with age that the majority of the top people at State, Health and Human Services etc are a bit smarter than me, and probably smarter than you.

The only thing that's sure to fall apart is you and me. Enjoy your time in this period and location of unparalleled wealth, safety, and tech.

Just accept unless you're Bieberesque, you've got to do it with women from somewhere else.

Post: #33

IKE is gearing up to get his SS don't rain on his parade... Also I'm 44 and they've been talking this shit since I can remember at 13 or so.. Move on and if you don't understand that those "Boomers" are the folk you need to target to make your money off of you are really just lazy.. they have it and don't want to do shit except pay and get good service.

Good luck to all.

Post: #34

(01-22-2014 05:19 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

(01-22-2014 04:13 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

(01-22-2014 04:10 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  Yeah, a civil war to get rid of social security. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

No, I don't think a civil war will be to eliminate social security. I think the civil war will be to destroy the bloated order (like Caesar's march on Rome) and replace it with something (hopefully) better.

Let me describe the physical reality, what I see right now if I walk out my door. Paranoid fantasy isn't my department.

Gee where I live ( admittedly a cushy California college town but any reader of this in the USA can move here) the food's exquisite, there's 400 kinds of wine in Safeway, the air and water are safe and perfect, almost all bangers are in jail, the cars carefully and politely grant you room on the road with your bicycle, the mall parking lots are full of futuristic air-bag safe cars, and the college chicks are smoking.

Are you hungry? Do you own a car? Have the cops shaken you down recently?

In 98% of America, If you (heaven forbid) fell over ill right now passed out and were unconscious, would a team of licensed EMTs come as soon as someone called 911 and get you great medical care even though you had no insurance info because you were out cold? Essentially giving you without question the benefit of 3000 years of research as well as decades of training by those practitioners-- on credit?

Unfortunately, such a supremely powerful culture doesn't produce humble women. That's what the unbelievably safe air transport system is for.

What are you even complaining about, let alone advocating revolution for?

Do you know anything about what life for most, and even royalty has been like throughout human history? Did the Caesar you mention have access to antibiotics, CATscans, or Wizzair?


Oh. it's GONNA all fall apart. Yeah, for the last 3000 years people selling shit have said that.
I've accepted with age that the majority of the top people at State, Health and Human Services etc are a bit smarter than me, and probably smarter than you.

The only thing that's sure to fall apart is you and me. Enjoy your time in this period and location of unparalleled wealth, safety, and tech.

Just accept unless you're Bieberesque, you've got to do it with women from somewhere else.

This is a hall of fame post right here.

Post: #35

(01-22-2014 05:19 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

(01-22-2014 04:13 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

(01-22-2014 04:10 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  Yeah, a civil war to get rid of social security. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

No, I don't think a civil war will be to eliminate social security. I think the civil war will be to destroy the bloated order (like Caesar's march on Rome) and replace it with something (hopefully) better.

Let me describe the physical reality, what I see right now if I walk out my door. Paranoid fantasy isn't my department.

Gee where I live ( admittedly a cushy California college town but any reader of this in the USA can move here) the food's exquisite, there's 400 kinds of wine in Safeway, the air and water are safe and perfect, almost all bangers are in jail, the cars carefully and politely grant you room on the road with your bicycle, the mall parking lots are full of futuristic air-bag safe cars, and the college chicks are smoking.

Are you hungry? Do you own a car? Have the cops shaken you down recently?

In 98% of America, If you (heaven forbid) fell over ill right now passed out and were unconscious, would a team of licensed EMTs come as soon as someone called 911 and get you great medical care even though you had no insurance info because you were out cold? Essentially giving you without question the benefit of 3000 years of research as well as decades of training by those practitioners-- on credit?

Unfortunately, such a supremely powerful culture doesn't produce humble women. That's what the unbelievably safe air transport system is for.

What are you even complaining about, let alone advocating revolution for?

Do you know anything about what life for most, and even royalty has been like throughout human history? Did the Caesar you mention have access to antibiotics, CATscans, or Wizzair?

Anyone who thinks like that is not truly free. Of course, just like an animal raised in a cage, they will never realize it. At least, not until it's too late.

People will be very surprised when their pensions and retirement funds are seized to pay off (or secure) the national debt. This is not theoretical. It has already happened in Poland and Hungary. It is well-known by political insiders that the U.S. already has such contingency plans in place.

Knowing that you are not truly free provides the opportunity to escape the system with both your ass and your assets still intact.

You have three options: fight, flight, or obey your masters. Under each scenario, you will pay the consequences for your action -- or your inaction.

Post: #36

(01-22-2014 05:53 PM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  People will be very surprised when their pensions and retirement funds are seized to pay off (or secure) the national debt. ..... fight, flight, or obey your masters. Under each scenario, you will pay the consequences for your action -- or your inaction.

"Things are GONNA get really bad...." over and over again, for the last 3000 years, yet it never fails to make money and/or get attention...

Post: #37

(01-22-2014 06:05 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

(01-22-2014 05:53 PM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  People will be very surprised when their pensions and retirement funds are seized to pay off (or secure) the national debt. ..... fight, flight, or obey your masters. Under each scenario, you will pay the consequences for your action -- or your inaction.

"Things are GONNA get really bad...." over and over again, for the last 3000 years, yet it never fails to make money and/or get attention...

I notice none of the people ranting about this econ doomsday shit EVER mentions any kind of exceptional qualification.... professor of economics.... wall st trader 10 years...hehhe how about even "High School History Teacher" ... anything? Do you have ANY qualifications to predict such extraordinary events besides. "It happened in Poland."

Post: #38

For some reason I trust the opinion of a multi-billionaire over random doom and gloom prophets.

bill gates "no more poor nations"

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014...gates-says

Happy people are not pessimistic. Successful people are in general happy. That's your answer.

Post: #39

NYU kids are semi-book smart insular hipsters going into 6 figures worth of debt for liberal arts degrees. How intelligent can they really be?

Post: #40

(01-22-2014 06:05 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

(01-22-2014 05:53 PM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  People will be very surprised when their pensions and retirement funds are seized to pay off (or secure) the national debt. ..... fight, flight, or obey your masters. Under each scenario, you will pay the consequences for your action -- or your inaction.

"Things are GONNA get really bad...." over and over again, for the last 3000 years, yet it never fails to make money and/or get attention...

lol.

Question: How many governments have failed over the past 3000 years? Answer: All of them (except for those that exist right now).

Question: How many governments have survived the level of national debt presently accrued by the U.S.? Answer: None of them.

Governments never have financial problems . . . until they do. Then it happens very quickly.

"How did you go bankrupt?" "Two ways, gradually and then suddenly" -- Ernest Hemingway, "The Sun also Rises."

Post: #41

@ Tail Gunner - How many human beings are immortal? None.

Your "beliefs" won't shield you from the inevitable death that awaits, no matter what you or governments do.

To each his own. Just agree to disagree.

Post: #42

(01-22-2014 06:45 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  Happy people are not pessimistic. Successful people are in general happy. That's your answer.

I love how people post crazy stuff without any source. Here's a list of famously successful people with major depressive disorders:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_peo...e_disorder


Here is a list of famously successful people with bipolar disorder:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_peo...r_disorder


Many successful people do not even trust other people who are overly happy.

Post: #43

^ you're predicting the doom of the entire USA and I'm the one who is crazy.

Enough said.

I don't care about your studies because I am basing my opinion on real life connections. When I say successful I mean health, relationships and social life. If you don't have it all you are not successful. All those studies are based on a single metric "money" or a "job" which destroys the entire study from the get go.

If you have everything you actually want in life it is impossible to be unhappy. That is a fact. All those people already break the mold by having "issues". This is why people get it and other people never will.

Take it to a personal level. If you have literally everything you personally want in life how can you possibly be unhappy. It is not possible from a factual basis because all negative feelings come for fear which is spawned from worry.

You also confuse fame with success which is unrelated.

Post: #44

(01-22-2014 06:19 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

(01-22-2014 06:05 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

(01-22-2014 05:53 PM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  People will be very surprised when their pensions and retirement funds are seized to pay off (or secure) the national debt. ..... fight, flight, or obey your masters. Under each scenario, you will pay the consequences for your action -- or your inaction.

"Things are GONNA get really bad...." over and over again, for the last 3000 years, yet it never fails to make money and/or get attention...

I notice none of the people ranting about this econ doomsday shit EVER mentions any kind of exceptional qualification.... professor of economics.... wall st trader 10 years...hehhe how about even "High School History Teacher" ... anything? Do you have ANY qualifications to predict such extraordinary events besides. "It happened in Poland."

Have you forgotten how to use Google?

http://business.inquirer.net/57211/exper...d-currency

Post: #45

(01-22-2014 05:53 PM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  

(01-22-2014 05:19 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

(01-22-2014 04:13 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

(01-22-2014 04:10 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  Yeah, a civil war to get rid of social security. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

No, I don't think a civil war will be to eliminate social security. I think the civil war will be to destroy the bloated order (like Caesar's march on Rome) and replace it with something (hopefully) better.

Let me describe the physical reality, what I see right now if I walk out my door. Paranoid fantasy isn't my department.

Gee where I live ( admittedly a cushy California college town but any reader of this in the USA can move here) the food's exquisite, there's 400 kinds of wine in Safeway, the air and water are safe and perfect, almost all bangers are in jail, the cars carefully and politely grant you room on the road with your bicycle, the mall parking lots are full of futuristic air-bag safe cars, and the college chicks are smoking.

Are you hungry? Do you own a car? Have the cops shaken you down recently?

In 98% of America, If you (heaven forbid) fell over ill right now passed out and were unconscious, would a team of licensed EMTs come as soon as someone called 911 and get you great medical care even though you had no insurance info because you were out cold? Essentially giving you without question the benefit of 3000 years of research as well as decades of training by those practitioners-- on credit?

Unfortunately, such a supremely powerful culture doesn't produce humble women. That's what the unbelievably safe air transport system is for.

What are you even complaining about, let alone advocating revolution for?

Do you know anything about what life for most, and even royalty has been like throughout human history? Did the Caesar you mention have access to antibiotics, CATscans, or Wizzair?

Anyone who thinks like that is not truly free. Of course, just like an animal raised in a cage, they will never realize it. At least, not until it's too late.

People will be very surprised when their pensions and retirement funds are seized to pay off (or secure) the national debt. This is not theoretical. It has already happened in Poland and Hungary. It is well-known by political insiders that the U.S. already has such contingency plans in place.

Knowing that you are not truly free provides the opportunity to escape the system with both your ass and your assets still intact.

You have three options: fight, flight, or obey your masters. Under each scenario, you will pay the consequences for your action -- or your inaction.

lol...that won't happen.Unlike Poland..we can print money.Our gov't best interest is letting people retire comfortably so new ones can work. Also gov't employees get pensions. There is NO gov't if the public employees declare anarchy who work for the gov't.
As a gov't retiree I have been following what happened in Detroit..the unions have been waiting for the appeal before they literally take over the city.Seriously..you can read this shit on their forums. If the cops and firemen take over ..you got trouble. Most top ranks in the national guard are owned by public employees also.
Now I am reading how the "pension money" IS BEING RAISED by the state and others.I am 90% sure they realized the danger they were in! These are the folks that help the gov't oppress everyone else lol.

Post: #46

(01-20-2014 08:01 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  Generational theft is real.

The children of the 1960s were supposed to be the ones to change the world for the better; to eschew materialism in favor of "free love" and radical change. Instead, they wound up being the most greediest, materialistic generation to date, helping destroy the economy and the environment in the process.

So, what happened next? Disillusioned by the 1970s, they did away with the politics and kept up the free love and the drugs. In the 1980s, they scrapped all of it in favor of ruthless individualism, unabashed service to self, and living up to Gordon Gecko’s ideal that “greed is good.” This was a nice segue into the 1990s where there was unprecedented prosperity founded upon wanton stock speculation. This generation mortgaged themselves to the hilt buying shit that they did not need, owing to some juvenile notion that the prosperity of the 1990s would somehow continue into perpetuity. You know the rest; stocks dried up and Wall Street pumped the world's money into American real estate. That worked for a while until BOOM – massive speculation bubble bursts and we all wound up FUCKED because of that unchecked greed.


So, where does that leave US? Well, many people you probably know, if not yourself, are professionally adrift; stuck in middle management, underemployed, or just plain unemployed as a direct result of their lack of discipline or foresight. A lot of young folks can't move up a rung in the ladder because the boomers still haven’t retired – or rather, they CAN’T retire. They refinanced their over-sized houses too many times or lost their retirement dough playing fast-and-loose with stocks or mortgage dominoes.

The buck doesn't stop there though. Because of advances in modern medicine and the fact that they didn't live on a steady diet of red meat, martinis and cigarettes like the generation that came before them they’re going to live for a lot while longer, leaving everyone that came after them holding the Social Security bag.

Bottom Line? The generation following them were supposed to have inherited this world by now – yet many can’t because they’re still holding all the chips. There will be no passing off of any keys to the kingdom this time around. The only way for the succeeding generations to get their due is to take it from them. It’s an unsavory thought, but one that's probably necessary. Otherwise, the alternative is the worsening of the status quo.

couldn't have said it better. right on dude.

Post: #47

(01-22-2014 05:19 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  Enjoy your time in this period and location of unparalleled wealth, safety, and tech.

I agree with many of your points, but in my view the most pertinent pessimism is that which questions whether fulfillment can be fashioned from wealth or technology. I doubt that happy, healthy people measure the value of a day by the number of gadgets they use or dollars they spend. Aesthetic beauty, companionship, community and purpose likely make for a much surer rubric.

(01-20-2014 08:01 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  The children of the 1960s were supposed to be the ones to change the world for the better; to eschew materialism in favor of "free love" and radical change. Instead, they wound up being the most greediest, materialistic generation to date, helping destroy the economy and the environment in the process.

Great post. You can also include feminism in that list of messes that that generation left for their children to deal with.

Post: #48

A few facts to illuminate the discussion.

Social Security works in the following way: every legally employed American pays 6.2 percent of income into the fund, and it's matched by his employer with another 6.2 percent for 12.4 percent total. By any standards, that's a decent sized retirement plan if you start working at 22. There are two major problems here:

1) The contribution in absolute value is capped at the 110,000 dollar level, ie. $13,640 a year. This means that this "retirement" scheme effectively becomes a regressive tax. For those who earn 220,000 dollars, rather than paying a total contribution of 12.4%, they pay only 6.2%. For those earning 440,000 dollars, they only pay 3.1%, and so on. If you earn all your income from investments, you pay 0.

2) All SS funds are used to buy US treasuries. Because of the high demand for US treasuries from the SSA, the price of the bonds is artificially high. Instead of being sold at, say 90 cents on the dollar, they are sold at 100 cents on the dollar. This reduces the effective interest rate the US government must pay on its debt. In the latter situation, the US government is paying 3 cents a year to the bond-holder. In the former, it's still 3 cents, but 3 cents is 3.33% of 90, and only 3% of 100. The opportunity cost of buying US bonds when you should've been buying stocks or other assets (nuclear power plants would be an ideal investment) is the huge returns you've foregone by buying bonds with shitty returns.

The US public owns most of the Federal debt. Interest rates today are very, very low. When they rise again, who's gonna get fucked? The US public. Who wins? The US government. They have bought down their cost of borrowing, and thus can continue their destructive spending sprees unabated. This topic is covered in the book "The Big Short" which I recommend to everyone. The US has been routinely fucking bond-holders in the ass for decades.

Next, I wouldn't hate on the baby-boomers too much. They didn't start this Ponzi-scheme. The real winners are the grandparents.

Finally, SS is not as big a problem as Medicare and Medicaid. Those systems are truly fucked up.

A fact of life is that you people start out life poor, but healthy, and end it wealthy, but sick. Medicare takes money from the future generations to bring down health care costs for seniors who are precisely those people who, after 65 years on this Earth, should've saved enough for the retirement, including being sick.

The solution to the above problems is to simplify the tax system to make it more fair and transparent. The rich in the US pay quite low effective tax rates (when taking into account capital gains taxes, income taxes, etc.). The effective tax rate in the US should be something like 15% on the lower class, 20% on the middle class, and 30% on the upper classes. Today it's more like 15% on the lower class, 25% on the middle class, and 15% on the upper class.

Next, the health system should be turned into a completely free market to allow for maximum competition. Only through competition do you create incentives for better quality at lower prices. All Americans should then be given a subsidy of 250 dollars a month if they have an approved health plan that meets minimum standards, ie. a catastrophe insurance. I know for a fact in CA I could get a decent insurance with a high deductible for 100 bucks a month. Any savings, you keep. Any extra perks, like lower deductibles, you pay.

For 900bn a year you would thus ensure ALL Americans got a minimum standard health insurance and the future cost of health is thus internalized by the aging baby-boomers. Social Security should become a means tested benefit, and it the SSA should gradually move out of US treasuries into other investments, ideally FDI or other investments inside the US (power-plants, infrastructure projects, and so forth). The remaining surplus generated from the tax and entitlement reforms should be used to eliminate US government debt, and henceforth keep at levels of 0% except in times of war.

Post: #49

(01-22-2014 05:19 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

(01-22-2014 04:13 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

(01-22-2014 04:10 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  Yeah, a civil war to get rid of social security. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

No, I don't think a civil war will be to eliminate social security. I think the civil war will be to destroy the bloated order (like Caesar's march on Rome) and replace it with something (hopefully) better.

Let me describe the physical reality, what I see right now if I walk out my door. Paranoid fantasy isn't my department.

Gee where I live ( admittedly a cushy California college town but any reader of this in the USA can move here) the food's exquisite, there's 400 kinds of wine in Safeway, the air and water are safe and perfect, almost all bangers are in jail, the cars carefully and politely grant you room on the road with your bicycle, the mall parking lots are full of futuristic air-bag safe cars, and the college chicks are smoking.

Are you hungry? Do you own a car? Have the cops shaken you down recently?

In 98% of America, If you (heaven forbid) fell over ill right now passed out and were unconscious, would a team of licensed EMTs come as soon as someone called 911 and get you great medical care even though you had no insurance info because you were out cold? Essentially giving you without question the benefit of 3000 years of research as well as decades of training by those practitioners-- on credit?

Unfortunately, such a supremely powerful culture doesn't produce humble women. That's what the unbelievably safe air transport system is for.

What are you even complaining about, let alone advocating revolution for?

Do you know anything about what life for most, and even royalty has been like throughout human history? Did the Caesar you mention have access to antibiotics, CATscans, or Wizzair?


Oh. it's GONNA all fall apart. Yeah, for the last 3000 years people selling shit have said that.
I've accepted with age that the majority of the top people at State, Health and Human Services etc are a bit smarter than me, and probably smarter than you.

The only thing that's sure to fall apart is you and me. Enjoy your time in this period and location of unparalleled wealth, safety, and tech.

Just accept unless you're Bieberesque, you've got to do it with women from somewhere else.

I'm not advocating revolution at all. I think you've misunderstood what I'm trying to get at. What I'm saying is that the system is going to change through some sort of political upheaval, and revolution may be what happens. However, my opinion is that most Westerners (in general) are too lazy to actually do anything about it unless it directly affects them/they see a perceived injustice.

Post: #50

(01-23-2014 09:33 AM)ElJefe Wrote:  The US has been routinely fucking bond-holders in the ass for decades.

I agree with almost everything that you stated in your post except raising the effective income tax on top-earners, because they already pay nearly 70 percent of the federal tax burden. The problem is not enough revenue, but far too much spending.

The reason that I highlighted one particular sentence in your post is to emphasize that it is not just (or even primarily) bondholders who are grievously injured by artificially created low-interest rates, but also savers.

For example, "Mom and Pop" can conscientiously save $1 million over their lifetimes (representing over 100 years of work between them). If they could rely on historical market interest rates of between six and eight percent, they could live very comfortably on yearly interest payments of between $60,000 and $80,000.

Instead, the Fed's artificially created low-interest rates of less than one percent means that although Mom and Pop have saved $1 million they must live on less than $10,000 per year in interest income and eat cat food in their old age.

This is legalized institutionalized theft -- and a transfer of wealth from the middle-class to the wealthy.

Eliminating artificially low interest rates so that people can care for themselves is far more important than raising revenue.

Most poor people are poor because of their own personal choices. I care about the hard-working members of the middle class who the government is victimizing by transferring their wealth to the uber-wealthy through artificially low interest rates.

This is just another example of why most serious problems are not caused by government inaction, but by government intervention. Allowing market interest rates to prevail allows members of the middle class to keep their own money and prevents them from falling into the ranks of the poor, where taxpayers must then pick up the tab. We will always have the poor. What we do not want are members of the middle class falling into the ranks of the poor because of insane government policies.

And believe me, the very wealthy are benefiting far more from this morally corrupt Fed policy than from any type of low income tax rate.