ikol

Is anyone with access to these places in a sharing mood?

Bin Laden was born before 1964.

That sucks.

It's not a pyramid scheme, because you're making money off of economic growth. The reason mutual funds are pretty safe is that they spread out the risk over many different investments. Even if some of those investments tank, there's an overall gain. As long as the economy is doing well, they will continue to grow. They might suffer some when the economy sucks, but when you're talking about several decades (most of which have economic growth), you are still going to make money. If you want a pyramid scheme, Social Security is the way to go.

I don't think that would be a problem. Everyone wouldn't be selling them at the same time, and there would also be employees contributing to funds while retirees were cashing them in. Also, you wouldn't cash the whole fund in at once but rather take out small amounts as needed.

There is some risk with retirement investments, but for the most part, your money's pretty safe as long as you invest conservatively. The problem with the current system is that it is going to run our country into the ground if it isn't drastically changed. When it was first conceived, the retirement age was close to the life expectancy. Now, people are living and collecting benefits for 20-30 years after they retire. With the ratio of old to young people shifting as it is, there's no way that workers are going to be able to cover retirees. At the very least, the retirement age is going to hav

Depends on the employer. I think most small businesses would. Where do you think the extra 6% came from when employers first had to make the contribution?

So you're saying the employer match doesn't come out of what would have been your pay? Those old ladies could be eating a lot better if their contributions had gone to IRAs and 401Ks instead of George Bush.

Me too.

With SS and Medicare taxes, you're throwing away 15% of your income every year, so I could see how it's hard to turn down the money when the cash flow is reversed.

I'm between Ron Paul and Giuliani.

Has has convictions. They're just subject to change.

You're not suggesting that a politician might change his rhetoric to get elected, are you?

How are you defining right? You do realize that political philosophy comes into play here, right? If I say that Republicans are right in favoring low taxes and small government (at least they claim to), you'll just claim they're wrong. And my point had nothing to do with favoring the right side of the issue, but rather the sort of ad hominem attacks and stereotypes that both sides engage in.

I'm guessing there's nothing wrong with the Dem stereotypes of Repubs because they're right.

Me too.

When did he flip flop on that? I've only seen him speak against torture (specifically waterboarding) in the Republican debates.

But McCain vs. Obama?

That's pretty much how I feel. None of the Repubs is consistently conservative, except maybe Thompson. I respect McCain the most, but I don't know how he would do in the national election. Huckabee is a good guy, but he's not all that conservative. Thompson acts like he doesn't want to be President. Romney's a total sleaze, almost as bad as Edwards. I guess I would rather have McCain lose the national election than Romney win. Then there's Ron Paul. He's the most consistent and reliable conservative, but he is completely unreasonable on the War (which is probably why he has so much support). H

Maybe if he did his fetus voice, he'd get more votes.

Maybe this will wipe that shit-eating grin off his face.

I agree. That's kind of my point. They didn't do much that was really conservative but instead screwed a lot of stuff up. True, they got a few conservative things passed, but they increased the size of government more often than not.