StrangeSox

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 22, 2013 -> 03:46 PM) It's a sad story, and it sucks, and it's a good thing we have programs like Medicare and Social Security to help people like this, Sure, when that kicks in a few a more years, maybe he can finally get the chronic cough and asthma looked at. Oh, and he'll get a modest SS check, which will help, but it'll still be pretty marginal. Well, potentially, it could, but I could point out that we have more than enough wealth in this country to afford a modest retirement. You may have no problem with the wealth distribution in this country, but I do, especially when this is what it results in. A tiny few horde an obscene amount of wealth, more than could be spent in a dozen lifetimes, while millions struggle to just get by. For a while, after WWII, we had a society that was growing rapidly, rewarding those at the top nicely and growing a robust middle class and bringing up wages across the board. In the early 80's, that stopped. It's not surprising that people have not been able to save up much in the intervening decades, especially when you throw in that lost decade+ we're mired in right now. This retirement problem will suck for most people. Eliminating the regressive SS cap and doubling benefits would be a huge start. edit: instead our whole media/political class discussion is centered on just how much we should cut these programs because, again, we're ruled by the stupidest f***ing people on the planet

Not sure what part of that is "fear-mongering doomsday prophecy." It's attainable data and it's from a guy who writes a bunch of retirement advice for Forbes, not some Marxist sociologist writing for Jacobin. Aside from being only about a month into the cuts so lol@u if you think it'd show up instantly, it's also not the same thing at all as a CBO GDP and employment hit projection. It's simply looking at data of exactly where things are now and seeing "oh s***, people don't have any money for retirement, this is going to be very bad."

Personal anecdote: my wife's uncle worked as a retail manager for decades. In 2009, at the age of 60, he lost his job. When unemployment ran out, he had to start drawing from his 401k to cover his mortgage (on his small house). He's been unable to find steady, full-time employment anywhere since 2009 because no one's hiring someone in their 60's for that type of management. His 401k is mostly gone and it's possible that he's eventually going to lose his house. His situation is far from unique, yet your response appears to be even more callous than "let them eat cake."

How does a consumer-driven economy with stagnant wages and ever-rising living expenses function with significantly high savings rates? Again, either way, the system isn't working. Is your answer just "oh well, f*** you, shoulda invested better 30 years ago, enjoy elderly poverty?"

Lousy workers, personally responsible for decades of stagnant wages, disappearance of pensions and the ever-growing income gap!!! Either way, whether you want to blame it on individuals who didn't save enough and invest 'properly' in financial products or you want to look at the huge amounts of wealth our financial sector has sucked off along with various other structural problems, we're still left with a coming wave of widespread elderly poverty. For whatever the cause, this 401k/IRA experience we've tried is complete s*** and doesn't work for the vast majority of people. Your response appears to be "f*** 'em I've got mine"

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Mar 22, 2013 -> 02:51 PM) Might as well have just kept Urlacher and spared all the uncertainty about the locker room and pissing off the fanbase. A huge persona that was a big supporter of the previous regime probably isn't seen as a good locker room presence by the new regime.

Moral indifference to the likely reality of widespread elderly poverty in the wealthiest country in the world noted, though.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 22, 2013 -> 03:04 PM) Damned rich people not saving enough for me to retire on! wealth distribution, how does it work??

The Greatest Retirement Crisis In American History http://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsiedle/2...erican-history/

CLUNK. CLUNK.

only gets worse

haha

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 22, 2013 -> 01:27 PM) Brick, Brick, Brick.

A whole lot of things count as felonies that have nothing to do with with guns or violence in even loosely connected ways.

LinkedIn somehow recommended Tex's profile to me despite neither of us using our real names on this board or ever having communicated outside of it.

But, had Japan not attacked us, you'd be cool with him just doing his thing in Europe?

Hey, you might not realize this, but "the consequences" are not some fixed, immutable law of nature! They are public policy and can be debated and changed! I'm surprised you're not 100% in favor of removing another infringement of the 2A. Why should Martha Stewart, convicted of some securities fraud, be barred from owning a gun in order to protect herself from violent criminals and the tyranny of the state you like to tell us about so much?

Ex-felons should have the entirety of their rights resorted, imo, with the exception of violent (and possibly some other) crimes.

Louisiana Court strikes down state ban on possession of a firearm by a convicted felon http://www.volokh.com/2013/03/21/louisiana...arms-provision/

If they didn't get tired of war after the atrocities and meaninglessness of WWI, or the centuries of war prior to that... edit: Duke seems unaware of millions of Syrians who are neither the Syrian government or the rebel forces.

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 21, 2013 -> 02:16 PM) Oh no! Drose said no instead of any and didn't add an ly when speaking! What a complete asshole! Every post on SoxTalk is grammatically perfect.

OTOH we should always be weary of international interventionism because that leads to incredibly dumb things like Korea, Vietnam and Iraq.

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 21, 2013 -> 01:58 PM) It's also just something that is allowed to be considered. It may also be unfair to this student that her school may have not had as many extracurricular options as other students, however, those are also allowed to be considered. Also LOL at being forced to pay to apply. As soon as we abolish legacy admissions and relaxed "student"-athlete standards maybe we can care about the "injustice" of a mediocre white student not being good enough under any metric to get in who's crying race-discrimination.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 21, 2013 -> 01:58 PM) As soon as you make race a factor it's discrimination. Schools can hide it in these application processes all they want, but what the US attorney didn't want to answer - and what is absolutely true - was Alito's question that if you have two identical students with the same qualifications and the only difference is one is black and one is white, under these admission standards, the black kid is going to get in over the white kid, and it's only because of race. That should be unconstitutional. He did answer it by saying "I don't know" because a) that hypothetical will never, ever happen and b) that judgement would be made in the context of the rest of the class as I understand it. Ruling in that manner would make any consideration of race in an attempt to ameliorate racial inequalities unconstitutional. It'd be one step closer to completely barring public policy from being able to address that problem.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 21, 2013 -> 01:55 PM) I thought he said he couldn't - that they might be able to use what they self-identify as on the application but they don't have to. And the school doesn't go classroom by classroom to count minorities. They're relying solely on how people self-identify on the application even though it's not a clear cut case of being 100% one ethnicity. I mean, I get your point that the same issue might exist with census data, but census data is just a figure, not a figure to use whether there should be an exception to the equal protection clause. That's why it's important in this case. Census data is critical to equal protection with laws like the VRA as well as a whole host of other allocation systems. If we can't rely on self-reporting for UT, then we can't rely on any type of census. Since race is a social construct, how an individual self-identifies is, in some sense, what race they are. Yeah, you could be dishonest and claim you're black, but that again applies to any demographic analysis. E.g. Obama identifies and is identified in our society as black, no real question. She would have paid $100 regardless of the policies in place, though, and wouldn't have gotten in with race-neutral policies. So even if they find that the policy is a Constitutional violation, why should she get her $100 back? They have a clearly stated and compelling interest, so that leaves us with efficacy then. Should the SC really be the judge of whether or not a particular admissions policy is effective-enough? Why can't I turn this question around on them and ask "at what specific quantitative level do you find it to be Constitutional?" The problem is that this is a hugely subjective area, and it's hard to see why the SC should be making that final determination on holistic racial policies. well this court should be a-ok with this policy then because they've effectively barred any form of review for wiretapping because you can't prove you were harmed by secret wiretapping because it's secret!