Replying to a message of TIM RICHARDSON to MARK LEWIS:

 TR> On 10-19-10, MARK LEWIS said to TIM RICHARDSON:

 TR>> Do the math........at some point....nobody's gonna be able to eat
 TR>> lunch, because there won't be enough coming in to pay for it.

 ML>> nice story but it still does not answer the questions i posed...
 ML>> everyone who is working has to pay into the system... if they do not
 ML>> use the monies they paid in by participating in the system, then why
 ML>> cannot others use those monies??

 TR> I and many other people pay auto insurance. I've been with the same
 TR> company for over twenty years, and had one accident that was the
 TR> other guy's fault. His insurance company paid to have our vehicle
 TR> fixed.

A note on the news the other day said that 20% of the drivers on the roads
in this country don't have insurance.  Some timy number of them are rich
enough to self-insure, but most of them are a problem for the rest of us.

 TR> So......you could say that I've paid those monies into the system by
 TR> participating, but never `used' it.

I don't think I've ever had a chargeable accident (knock on wood).  I have
had to have my car dragged home or to a service station several times,
though.  One of those pays my AAA premium for the year.

 TR> Why should someone else who has *not* paid into the system get to use
 TR> what *I* paid into it? Why should *I* have to pay for someone's
 TR> accident who has no insurance, and has *never* had any?

That is a problem.  Also those who don't carry renter's or flood insurance.
When something bad happens - and Murphy's Law says that it will, eventually,
they still expect the government (IOW the rest of us) to bail them out anyway.
I suppose some would consider me hard-hearted, but if someone is harmed by
some action on inaction on his/her own part I don't have a lot of sympathy for
them; failure to acquire insurance is one such inaction, smoking is another, as
is unprotected sex (of either type, one risks AIDS the other risks various
STDs -
and I count children as an STD).

 TR> And its the same with the Social Security monies I've paid in all
 TR> these years. I paid in for many years, enough to be recieving a
 TR> fairly good monthly return for it.

Actually you'll get a max of about $1300/month.  I get about $1100/month.
In 9 years of working at Central States Insurance, I built up enough in my
401K to pay me $1100/month for seventeen months - after I took out a loan
of $9K from it (which turned into a distribution when I left CSO, but I was
over age 59-1/2 so no penalty) to cover the closing costs and incidentals
related to my purchase of this place.  The IRA lasted exactly long enough for
Social Security to kick in.  I suspect if one manages to stash money in a
401K or equivalent IRA investment for a much longer period one can do better
than I did.  My boss mentioned that he had over $300K in his 401K just before
he was laid off, but he'd had a LOT longer to work on it - if Vanguard is
doing as well as it was he's pulling down at least $25K/year in interest on
it, so from 2004 to date with no more contributions from him it's grown by
about $150K - and he's got about 15 more years to go to age 65, so he should
have somewhere around an even million in it by then - and then can draw
$5,000/month out of it without touching the principal (assuming 6% growth,
and Vanguard generally does better than that) .

 TR> But my return would be much higher if the monies weren't also going to
 TR> support people who do not work. Who whine about headaches, or sore
 TR> backs. Not to mention all the other boondoggles those monies have
 TR> been stretched out to pay for.

 ML>> if you allow no one can to them, then you are wasting your
 ML>> monies and showing a very negative charitable side...

 TR> The money is only being `wasted' by the politicians who have control
 TR> over it. Any time you have politicians controlling large sums of
 TR> money that belong to the people they are supposed to be looking out
 TR> for, as well as governing.... you get a whole lot of `governing', and
 TR> very little `looking out for'.

 TR> It isn't the `governed' who waste the monies.....its the politicians.

Amen.  One definition of insanity to to keep doing the same thing over and
over and expect a different result.  The people of this country have been
electing Democrooks and Republicrooks to office for over a century and 
BOTH of those groups are responsible for the mess.

 TR> As for a `negative charitable side'.......the last time I looked,
 TR> `charitable' was a matter of personal choice. What the government
 TR> does with much of the monies we pay into the system isn't on a

--- FleetStreet 1.19+
 * Origin: Bob's Boneyard, Emerson, Iowa (1:300/3)