We actually got a bit of snow here last night and this morning which has increased my chores I need to finish up for the day before I can really do any serious blogging or writing. Later this afternoon or evening I plan on posting up another fiction Sunday Reading post and updating the page but for now I need to finish up some cold weather daily maintenance and go clean off my Dad's walk and driveway.
I wanted to address a question that was posed to me through email by an anonymous reader. This person was wondering how they could justify receiving a government check each week while also being a Conservative and Prepper.
While I disagree with all public pensions, government sponsored welfare and most disability payments they are simply a fact of life we have to deal with. Federal over reach has forced them on so many of us they are a problem that many people cannot escape from. Everyone out there should be responsible for their own retirement and the money should be their property given to them for their own labor to be invested as they see fit, not promises made on someone else's labor via a tax and ponzi scheme. There are a few exceptions, especially in the military and other service sectors that result in injury, but that is another issue.
The bottom line is not so much whether you are currently receiving a pension or some form of government check. It is what you do with it that matters at this point and if you are honest enough to realize it cannot last forever.
Many people know they are living on stolen money and they understand it cannot last and shouldn't. They were sold a bill of goods or it was forced on them and they are now used as pawns by the Femocrats or accused of being hypocrites because they get Social Security but disagree with even more Welfare.
Don't listen to these self serving idiots. Do not feel that because you have been forced to use a broken system that you must support that system with your vote or your opinion. What they are asking of you is akin to mass suicide.
Simply put it is no different than a group devouring the seed corn and then condemning the few who try and plant some of it because they also must eat while doing so. Would you vote to bring even more of that seed corn out for a party? No, you wouldn't, but you would still have to take a daily ration to have the energy to plant more.
Beware the hustlers who try and convince you they are on your side. The one's who claim solidarity while pushing for more theft. Those who may plant a tomato or two and then try and claim they are part of the solution while screaming for more loot, all the while destroying themselves with alcohol or bitter memories on the public dime. The dried up has beens that keep a chicken or two and then perpetuate myths to bring everyone down to their level. These people are the true enemy and the current quislings in our midst.
We are all of us at this party my friends but people like that are the ones attempting to block the exits as the building burns down around you. The rest of us are the ones attempting to make those exits wider. Some of us have managed to escape already and our only goal is to get as many others out as we can before the roof collapses.
Around the Small-Hold we don't ask that you starve on principal. We only ask that you help as many (including yourselves) as possible find a way out and that once this emergency is over we all know how it should be rebuilt.
Keep Prepping Everyone
My husband worked 30 years for the Feds and gets a pension check. In those days govt workers made less than the civvies but the benefits (including pensions) made up for it. Because of his pension, he cannot collect Social Security, which I might add, he also worked and put in wages for. A person working for a private company gets a pension, too. AND they collect Social Security. So I would check my facts before spouting off.
ReplyDeleteAnd what facts are those tewshooz? The fact that so many Femocrat states and municipalities made an agreement to get out of paying social security for their employees and relied on promising even more taxpayer money to do it? Or the fact that private sector pensions, back when they actually existed, were using a companies own money and not promising to rob from the tax payers?
Deleteahhh another quisling attempts to protect their loot.
Exactly on all points.
DeleteMy dad was in the same boat. After serving in the military during Vietnam, he worked on a military base as a civilian firefighter setting out on the airfield so that the fly boys could have a measure of safety while doing "touch and go's". He lost a fair portion of his hearing in this capacity so that the military types whose pensions we all want to protect could learn how to do their jobs better.
Your grouping of public pensions with welfare is offensive. He took the deal he was offered when he got that job. He did not just sign up for a handout.
PP, I believe you overshot this one buddy.
So am I a quisling?
DeleteMatt - As I believe I stated quite clearly there are forms of disability payments that are justified. I also pointed out no one is at fault for receiving a public pension it isn't as if it could be avoided nor were the problems and downright theft from the taxpayers as open for all to see from the start.
DeleteThe real question here is if the pensioners can see they are unsustainable or dot hey attempt to fabricate lies and spread myths just to continue the gravy train and rob more from the next few generations?
As for your use of offensive that is a pretty lefty tactic to avoiding the bottom line really.
Sorry, guy, but I'm not the one making generalized statements.
DeleteI don't think its lefty. Sorry if you do. I just think its wrong to want to blast everyone who did their jobs for 30 years, paid taxes largely without complaining, and now, in their old age, expect the other side to honor their word.
The bottom line here is that its wrong to break promises. just because we aren't the ones who made those obligations years ago doesn't give any of us the right to walk away from them.
And thats where it this ultimately leads.
Matt - One the fact that welfare spending and pensions ultimately come from the same resource pool is going to be the same no matter how offended anyone gets about it. Expecting the facts to change because someone or group is offended by it is a very Liberal lefty point of view.
DeleteI believe I stated quite clearly no one is to be blamed for taking a pension. It couldn't be avoided and it still can't. What is important right now is making sure you are prepared for when the promises stop.
If you proclaim loudly there is no reason to worry and everyone should just pay up then you are in fact removing a promise from those people just as certainly as you say a promise is being renigged on for the pensioner.
Will it be fair to bond holders to rob them and not honor their word only to pay what they promised the pensioners?
If you think it is fair to walk away from one group but not another then you are being a quisling. Although you never struck me as one before.
This is the mess that has been made Matt. Someone is going to NOT get the promises made to them. It is also the ultimate evil side of public pensions. They should have never been allowed to begin with. Each person should be the one saving for their own retirement. I don't blame them it isn;t like they really had a choice but which promise do you suggest we break Matt?
I'll not have this turned around on me.
DeleteI'm not the one proposing that we walk away from some group..... that would be you, you wrote this post not me.
Are you trying go link the corruption going on in Detroit and the bondholders who are going to get an 80% haircut to federal workers who worked for a living?
Really? Is that what this has been all about?
These federal workers, were not union and bonds, while being largely safe in the past, were never guaranteed, name any fiat investment instrument that is....
Who do you suggest we begin with? You started this, let's see a list of those you propose we break trust with.
In the end this is pointless in terms of practicality . It'll ALL crash soon anyway
But here's my bottom line. Once you allow ANY government entity to walk away from its obligations it will never end. It'll eventually end up with the military..... in fact I think they already are screwing with those guys...
Matt - I am beginning to believe you didn't even read what I wrote. I said all that matters is what you do with the pension or whatever now. . Did I mention anywhere in there at all that these payments should stop now? In fact I said they were fact and no one was to blame for taking them.
DeleteWhat is going to matter is how it continues once this bubble bursts.
Will the pensioner demand that stolen food or whatever be delivered to them since the pension funds are drained?
Bonds are actually just as assured as pensions if you get right down to it especially as investment vehicles. The same power of assurance from the govern body for repayment. Yet I am not defending them at all either.
When there is not enough money to pay the debt who do you suggest it come from?
In the end, when this does fall apart that is going to be the factor that puts you on one side or the other. Right now the government is taking money but before too much longer it will be something more tangible and regardless of how much anyone thinks they worked for it they will need to decide for themselves if it is right to rob from someone else to get their pension.
Where do you expect a pensioner to draw the line? When property is being confiscated to pay the bill? When food is being taken out of mouths? They should be using that money now to make sure they can make the proper moral decision when the time comes.
What I read was your comment to tewshooz. Everything she said was true and then you got harsh with her. You called her a name and then insinuated that she was a crook for wanting to "protect her loot."....he worked for that pension, he didn't steal it.
DeleteYour blog and all that, but she's not "lotta Joy or Rat" that she had that coming to her.
She's an honest person married to a man who fulfilled his obligation to his employer. They are a couple probably at least in their middle 60's, scared to death that all the things they worked for is about be yanked out from under them and theyre too old to start over.
C'mon, man. Think of her position. Yes, you and I realize we are screwed too, but if they were your parents would you want someone around them sounding like they want to yank their pensions and then getting harsh to them just because they object?....and yes I know she came to your blog and not the other way around...
Matt - As I have pointed out at no time did I even so much as suggest ANYONES pension was either ill gotten or should be stopped. Why hell I never even pointed out that anyone's welfare or any other government check was ill gotten or should be stopped in this post anyway :)
DeleteWhat Twoshooz said in her reply was wrong however. Attempting to cloud the issue and even going so far as to try and justify government pensions because of private ones? The Social Security exemption thing is another Union left response they attempt to use over and over again to justify the pension without ever admitting the municipalities that got out of them were doing so without paying in the SS payment.
Both red herrings in this discussion and if she had read the post not even necessary.
This entire post is about just how justified a pensioner feels they are and to what lengths they will to approve robbing others by the government to get theirs.
A topic many people are going to have to wrestle with. Including me.
Detroit has already sold off public property to try and meet their debts and resorted to questionable seizures as well.
So how far we are willing to go is a very important question and no matter how many sob stories are out there the way it stands now we are create another for every one we fix.
In closing she maybe someone you like but I don't know her from Adam and I treated her no different than I would treat anyone who commented with falsehoods or assumptions.
And in fact Matt Before you go accusing me of getting nasty I giving me her story I would suggest you review her original comment which was anything but nice itself.
DeletePp, I think it was statements like "living on stolen money" that started this.
DeleteI don't think Harry considers himself living off of stolen money in the way that you used the word.
Look. You and I both have the ability to do this all night but I'm done.
Anything else I'd say st this point is redundant. You made your feelings clear in the post and your comments, and white frankly I'm stunned that you are so militant against such people.
Whatever. I am not sure what you are on about really and I am certainly not going to bring others into this to try and make my point.
DeleteYou are defending the aggressor for whatever personal reasons of your own.
And frankly I find that stunning as well.
Honestly I have no problem with those folks who are genuinly in need of assistance, and use that money for the purpose it was meant for. For instance the mothers buying milk and formula for their baby. Times are tough and I hate the thought of a baby going hungry. When the parents are genuine and trying their best.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do have a problem with is those who abuse the privledge by paying for their entire grocery bill with money that is not theres. I don't think chips, ice cream and 20.00 a pound steak is in mind when welfare checks are given out.
I think the EBT card needs to dissappear, there are too many stores out there who accept it that shouldn't . like clothing stores, and veternarian offices. I have even seen vendors at a flea market accepting it...
They also need to make drug testing mandatory in order to get welfare, and place a time limit on the the assistance. The entire system just absolutely incites me. But I am sure as I post this comment, there is some one, somewhere out there with a Masters Degree, a BA, and a PHD on the subject and is much more qualified on the subject of this debate... lol
Exactly JuGM - The real avenues those justifiable acts of charity should have been handled in and the social/family system have been so gutted by the state that they are gone now. We cannot turn off the spigot but we can work to fix what has been broken by the Femocrats and their self important (and often made up) degrees in wymins studies :)
DeleteI will say your flea market observation is sometimes a requirement to sell there. I have seen it in one of the three liberal counties in Missouri a farmers market requiring the seller take food stamps.
ok - this is a serious post and is about a very serious topic. but JUGM's last sentence had me rolling on the floor - oh my goodness...i have fallen and i can't get up - bahahahahahahah!
DeleteWhen the ponzi scheme rolls to a stop they will still be blaming someone else. There is no point even talking about it just prepare for the last day the money machine runs.
ReplyDeleteSF - Exactly. My point is how they are meeting that eventuality. By rolling up their sleeves and preparing for the real end of pension promises or attempting more slight of hand to grab just a wee bit more before the roof caves in.
DeleteWell, I don't know about all this but I can tell you one thing. I have paid into social security for more than forty years. My wife has paid into it. I didn't ask to, the government didn't give me a choice. I'll be old enough to start getting it in less than two years. If there is no social security for me, I will be so pissed off I will undoubtedly have a stroke and die. I'll be relying on all of you to avenge me.
ReplyDeleteHarry - You might get SS for a few years. I am pretty sure I am never going to see a dime of what's been taken from me for it though.
DeleteThe question is when they start admitting they cannot pay you are you going to demand they steal from others to get it?
Will you go to the nearest city where the spoils the Feds have stolen from others is distributed to SS recipients instead of money? Or will you live sustainably on your own?
I would bet the last one for you.
Harry - no worries buddy! i'll avenge you and i'll be wearing the *ss-kicking boots when i do! when i was in the canadian forces, unemployment insurance came off of every one of our checques. and guess who doesn't qualify for unemployment insurance when they leave the military before getting their pensions??? you guessed it. military members pay into it but can never have access to it. we also had money come off of every checque for CCP (canadian pension plan) - we were never asked if we wanted to pay into it or not - it was taken. so when someone has been forced to pay into a program and not of their free will...then they better get something out of it in the end. i hope that these badly-managed systems will *somehow* play out for a few years of your social security days so that you can reap few and small benefits while getting yourself even more prepped!
DeletePP - great post! and all that i can add is a question? my question is this - how did people manage to support themselves BEFORE these systems of draining money from workers to pay for those who paid into the system their entire lives (like Harry and his wife), and the people who now make a living of living off of the system???? back in the day before these programs, people worked hard and saved for their retirements and if they were smart, had several children to help take care of them in their aging years. and the ones who tried to make a living off the system? well - there wasn't a system to be lived off of and they either died or got a job!
ReplyDeletei am on a pension plan right now - i had a choice in the military to pay a level 1, level 2, or level 3. i paid into level 3 because it took the most money from you, but gave you the most back. i rolled my mil pension into a government pension when i left the mil instead of cashing out and that was the smartest decision i have ever made. for the next 10yrs i paid the highest amount into my gov pension. then i retired and retired jambaloney at the same time. it was a choice that we made - he was making a killing as a Senior IT Business Systems Analyst and we could have stayed and rocked in a small fortune for another 5 years. but we saw the writing in the sky, don't know if it's all gonna collapse in 2yrs, 20yrs or 50yrs. but we made a choice to come here and try to learn how to be as self-sufficient as possible. if the pension stops, we have a few skills and ideas that we might be able to use to keep us going. and if it doesn't collapse in our lifetimes - well, we try to use my small pension in very cost-effective and preps building ways. we are trying to teach our community how to be better prepared. we are trying to do as much for ourselves as possible and it helps that we are in a rural location where the people are already community-minded. i pray that the pension i worked so hard for will continue. but we made the choices that we made based on an understanding that it could very well disappear.
i hope this comment made sense. we had a long day today. i left details on Harry's last post if you are interested. and i might be really tired and blathering. i know that you will forgive me. oh and to quote my Gurlie:
"I am sure as I post this comment, there is some one, somewhere out there with a Masters Degree, a BA, and a PHD on the subject and is much more qualified on the subject of this debate"
oh bahahahahahahahahahahahahah! oh buddy, i'm tired. your friend,
kymber
Heh kymber. You made perfect sense.
DeleteHere's the solution and I hope others who read this can grasp the concept.
We were sold a bill of goods. Private or public is not what's important except in the fact that public pensions are promises made on someone else's property. The same with Social Security.
Personally no one should be given that type of a choice in my opinion but what's done is done.
However some of us are smart enough to realize in the end they are just promises and not really under our control.
People like you plan accordingly so when the time comes you have the breathing room to make a moral decision on the matter.
My goal is to push as many people as I can into making plans to have that breathing room.
I'm on the "dole" now if I deserve it or not is up for debate. I think I do but I might be a prejudiced. But the real topic is if you get a government check be it SS or Military or working for the government that check may vanish or be made worthless in some paper game so the PTBs get what they want. It doesn't matter what promises were made (ask folks in the military about that) or if you are deserving or not. If the checks stop, then what will you do? It's just math and math doesn't care about you it just is.
ReplyDeleteI know some think I'm a bit over the top with how much I store but look at history. Look at hyperinflation and a laof of bread going from less than a dollar to $3.00 to over a million dollars during hyperinflation. Look at what reach people buy they are getting out of the markets and buying Bitcoins (i think this is manipulated) Artwork, gems, PMs, and agricultural land or mineral rich lands. They investing in T-bills or a 401k or trusting in pensions!
Sorry not investing in T-bills, 401ks or pensions
ReplyDeleteMASR - It isn't about who deserves what. We are past that question I believe regardless. To me it is more an issue of just what does democracy let these deserving pensioners or welfare recipients or what have you get away with.
DeleteIf they believe they are guaranteed these payments no matter what then it is possible they believe it is perfectly fine to take from others with no limits to get them.
The old system of private charities and family support generally did not work well in times of large scale disasters. Part of that is tied up in the change in social patterns caused by the agricultural-industrial revolution. But you can see that it often went under severe pressure in agricultural societies as well. Societies, even down at the hunter gatherer level, have almost universally overrun their resources.
ReplyDeleteThe recent (last 200 years) efforts to try and use various types of social insurance have worked pretty well, but they also tend to set up a situation where the "fall back" is set at a higher and higher bar. If you add in the fact that societies (and in our case, the social services associated with them) tend to grow to unsustainable levels during times of sustained plenty, then you pretty much will always get a series of variously sized expansions and contractions.
Welcome to the contraction.
There is no need to use words like "theft" to describe a universal phenomena. They are simply poorly thought out social contracts. Transfer payments go back to the biblical gleanings in the fields. Given their antiquity, it would seem reasonable to view them as at least necessary on some levels for living in a society that is something less than a horror show.
Russ - Didn't work is a relative opinion and indeed if the entire thing was scaled back or actually followed legal precedent I might agree with you on the theft tag. However it is not. It is money taken from the population with no real say and attempting to lock them into a contract they did not agree to and institute it by force.
DeleteSomewhere along the line the fact that this includes pensions from cities, counties and States as well as Federal seems to have been missed.
Still the issue at hand is just how far do pensioners believe the government should go to collect the wealth for their payments? That's the real problem. So far all I am seeing is those who get a pension or other type of payment unwilling to take a hair cut if that is the case the theft is going to get much worse.