Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
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Your "identity"
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How to Pick a Kayak
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Tuesday, December 16. 2008

Tuesday morning links

A third of hedge funds will go down.

Grim tidings for the news biz. McArdle

It's about morality: Thatcher's defense of free markets

Politics as fashion statement: Gitmo lawyers and the new Radical Chic. Good grief.

Our enemies are collapsing. Dick Morris

Neoneo observes, as we have been doing for years, the growing numbers of vocal climate skeptics. She links Sen. Inhofe's most recent press blog. One quote from that:

“Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.” - Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.

Related: Who's in denial? Am Thinker

Quoted in the WSJ today:

When folks like Mr. Madoff create a Ponzi scheme, it's called fraud; when the Federal government creates a Ponzi scheme, it's called Social Security.”— Bud Hammons, responding to "Madoff

Posted by The News Junkie in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:00 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

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But social security isn't a Ponzi scheme. It's an inflation-protected annuity that guarantees you won't outlive your income.

The only thing wrong with it at the moment is that the retirement age is too low.

This is easily fixed once the principle of the thing is made clear.

You have to provide for yourself until a magic age that you get benefits at, and that magic age changes as the demographics change so that workers are willing to support retirees.

Future services will be provided by future workers. You can't save them ahead of time. It's not a Ponzi scheme because current workers provide current benefits, in the same way.
#1 Ron Hardin (Link) on 2008-12-16 09:58 (Reply)
Social Security is the quintessence of what a Ponzi scheme is.
#1.1 Habu on 2008-12-16 15:18 (Reply)
RE: Dick Morris...
I am not totally convinced by his arguments regarding the demise of OPEC. Can some members of OPEC withstand a drop in the price of oil that puts their competition out of business? Perhaps yes. The recent delays and cancelations in exploration and developement do not bode well for future supply. So would begin the next cycle for any truly effective cartel.
#2 Patina on 2008-12-16 10:11 (Reply)
Noted this morning that Stephen Chu, the Asian scientist who claimed that he could manipulate atoms and the like at room temperatures but could not reproduce his experiment when Rice University hired him with great fanfare, is now going to be Obama's climate czar. Oh jeez, we'll all be cooked to death, and it won't be climate change that does it.

Marianne
#3 Marianne Matthews on 2008-12-16 11:23 (Reply)
I hope I've got the right Chu ... the computer is acting up this morning and turning itself off whenever it wants to so I'm rushing to put this up. If I'm wrong, my friends, don't hesitate to correct me. I hate being wrong far more than I hate being corrected ...

Marianne
#4 Marianne Matthews on 2008-12-16 11:26 (Reply)
I think you got it right - Chu appears to have evolved from chimpanzees, as attested by his membership in Project Steve.
#5 The Distributist on 2008-12-16 13:05 (Reply)

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