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.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
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Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
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Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
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Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
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Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

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Saturday, May 16. 2015

Saturday morning links

The Wedding Sting - How a police department tried to save a failing Rust Belt town by luring all the local drug dealers to one party (h/t Am. Digest)


The Case for Riding the Subway to the Last Stop


I've done that


What Happened to "Start-Up New York?" If this is what your friends say about you, you have a problem.


Maybe Christianity In America Is Dying Because It’s Boring Everyone To Death


Research shows that people who get accepted to the Ivy League but don’t attend do just as well as people who do attend. They’re sorting for
success, not contributing to it.


Texas Drought Blamed on Irreversible “Climate Change” Ends After Rainfall


In the climate debate, hear both sides


The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London


The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London

Power To The People: Can We Privatize The Welfare State?


Hello Young People, I'm Hillary Clinton: You're an AfricanAmericanMiddleClassHomosexual? I care about you!


What the Clintons Haven't Learned


The Brian Williams comparison has got to hurt: “Willams wrapped himself
in the flag; Stephanopoulos cloaked himself in charity.”


Why Stephanopoulos tarnished his credibility by hiding his Clinton Foundation donations


The Hired Liars of Liberal Media


Clinton Foundation donors include dozens of media organizations, individuals


Free Trade Fantasies


Mattis: U.S. Suffering ‘Strategic Atrophy’


UK PM David Cameron Proclaims: It’s Not Enough To Follow The Law, You Must Love Big Brother


Rights group: Human rights under Palestinian rule worsened


U.S. Says Assad Caught With Sarin. Again.

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 05:42 | Comments (12) | Trackback (1)

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"They’re sorting for success, not contributing to it."

So wait, if you are not accepted to an Ivy because you are White and were a member of FFA or the Boy Scouts, then you won't be successful?
#1 JK Brown on 2015-05-16 08:02 (Reply)
John C Goodman: Government insurance for the elderly is invariably run like a Ponzi scheme.

Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme. It is an income transfer program from the young to the old. Shortfalls in Social Security over the next 75 years will be about $11 trillion, but U.S. GDP (assuming 2.1% growth) will be $3000 trillion. There is no financial reason the U.S. can't afford to shore up the program.

John C Goodman: Power To The People: Can We Privatize The Welfare State?

It's certainly possible, but keep in mind that you would have to continue paying benefits to current recipients while beginning the process of setting money aside. That will require significant taxes or borrowing over the next two generations or so.

At the end of the Clinton Administration, the U.S. was running huge cash surpluses which had the effect of shoring up transfer programs. During the Bush Administration, the U.S. turned away from this policy to an unwise procyclical deficit policy. The Bush administration attempted to implement an unfunded Social Security privatization scheme not long before the U.S. led the world into a global economic meltdown.
#2 Zachriel on 2015-05-16 09:05 (Reply)
Quite right about the taxation needed to support privatization of retirement benefits, however, if done right, might affect income inequality. Another drawback would be the government guarantee which means a whole new bureaucracy to vet and supervise the various investing firms and ensure an adequate level of fees, etc.

On the other hand, how about unemployment? Look over Wikipedia's Unemployment benefits in Sweden. Remember one Swedish krona is about 12 cents US.
#2.1 walt moffett on 2015-05-16 10:53 (Reply)
"U.S. Says Assad Caught With Sarin. Again."

Will President Obama draw a line in the sand? Again?
#3 JJM on 2015-05-16 10:37 (Reply)
Stephanopoulos, his mistake is that flow of cash and favors is supposed to be other way, insider access, boozy off the record/on background briefings, free dinners, fixing traffic tickets, campaign swag etc comes from the candidate.

Mattis, he's right, however, long term geopolitical strategy is seldom discussed by the candidates.
#4 walt moffett on 2015-05-16 10:41 (Reply)
Yes SS is a Ponzi scheme and if you had asked me to agree to end it back in 1958 when I first started paying into it I would enthusiastically agree. Now that I'm 71 and paid into SS for 55 years or so and I get this small return on that investment every month... not so much.
What is "wrong" with SS? To many free loaders. When Jimmy Carter took in 100,000 Cubans from Castro's Cuba all those who were over age 62 were "awarded" SS. Well it seems that's the tip of the ice berg because the millions of legal and illegal immigrants since then who qualified by age alone also got the freebie that you and I must contribute to for a lifetime to qualify for. That is just wrong! Don't tell me how SS is going broke (the politicians I mean) and vote to give it to people who never earned it.
What else is wrong? If you work hard and make a nice middle class income and put into SS $9000 a month (your contribution and your employees contribution) you will be rewarded at age 67 with $2000 a month. Pretty cool, huh! However if you don't work so much and collect welfare half your life and work at part timejobs making sure to be fired every time you qualify for unemployment and yur yearly contribution is "maybe" $500 a year including your emlpoyers contribution. The good news is when you retire you will get about $1400 a month. Wait a minute! That does not compute. SS is "welfare".

So what else is "wrong" with SS? During the great Obama depression the Democrats, who controlled congress, in their infinite wisdom dramatically reduced payment into SS! WTF! It is almost like they were trying to destroy the system and create a crisis or something... Naw! They wouldn't destroy SS just so they could rewrite it alland sieze control of it.

Fixing the SS system is easy. So easy it's hardly worth explaining. Pay out ONLY to those who paid in and pay out to them in direct proportion to what they paid in. Second step: Pay no more each year then the system takes in. Yes that means your SS retirement payment could actually decrease but that would be perhaps 1000% better then having your SS retirement payment ending because the government mismanaged SS. Run the SS like an investment and use standard accountng principles.
#5 GoneWithTheWind on 2015-05-16 10:50 (Reply)
GoneWithTheWind: Yes SS is a Ponzi scheme

No, it's not a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi promised principal and profits. Social Security just transfers money from young to old.

GoneWithTheWind: and if you had asked me to agree to end it back in 1958 when I first started paying into it I would enthusiastically agree.

Didn't you have parents who received Social Security? Perhaps not, but most people in your generation did. That's where your payroll taxes went.
#5.1 Zachriel on 2015-05-16 12:17 (Reply)
Zach I'm starting to think you are not a human but some kind of an "app" that responds to comments with key words in them. If you read my comments you would see that I am a supporter of SS. I did indeed "resent" it when I got my first payday and I still to this day feel that it was never constitutional. But except for all the things our congress has done to loot it I would say today that the idea of a forced contributary retirement system is a good thing. You could say that my thinking has evolved since I was 13 working at the local car wash.
#5.1.1 GoneWithTheWind on 2015-05-16 15:28 (Reply)
Since when did Stephanopoulos have any credibility other than a Political Hack?
#6 ron snyder on 2015-05-16 13:30 (Reply)
re The Wedding Sting

I guess I should be impressed.

If all the local drug dealers could be rounded up in one night and locked up, how long would that interrupt the supply of drugs
coming in?

It strikes me as the equivalent of sweeping water.
#7 feeblemind on 2015-05-16 14:55 (Reply)
If there are any former Tigerhawk blog followers here at Maggie's, TH has surfaced at The Conservative Wahoo's blog.

Here is his latest post:

http://conservativewahoo.blogspot.com/2015/05/do-not-care-about-greeks-bearing-gifts.html
#7.1 feeblemind on 2015-05-16 15:01 (Reply)
But you could say that about all efforts to arrest any lawbreaker. Does that mean we shouldn't arrest them? If the story was about catching bankrobbers or serial killers would you feel the same?
#7.2 GoneWithTheWind on 2015-05-16 15:31 (Reply)

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