OT: 17 Day Vacation!!!!

fishlessman

nolaegghead said:

Obummer should have been prescient enough to predict Russia's annexation of Crimea and the Russian meddling of the 2016 election.  Although in all fairness, they did tell the current administration Flynn was compromised when they found out about it. 

obama knew about the meddling, didnt have to predict it

nolaegghead

billt01 said:

Foghorn said:

billt01 said:

In other news....

While the media ( social and news) continue to write articles to get the average Joe to argue with each other about "THEIR" party. We continue to pay extremely high taxes into a system which knows no limit spending on an every day occurrence. If you get up in America, go to work like good little boys and girls, and pay your taxes, your feeding the beast every day.

Don't get me wrong, I have bought into this way of life too. People working until 66 years of age when they could have retired somewhere ~50 if they were able to keep their taxable wages and had a decent savings regiment.

But that's OK, everyone keep arguing (R) and (D), all the while the country is continuing to spend everyone's money on politicians. I mean hey, they gotta eat to right?

@billt01, while I'm all for making our government more efficient, I'm curious about a couple of things.

1) Can you give me an example of a first world country that has to pay for defense that has a better run government than we do and lower taxes? (note, I don't know if one exists, and even if it doesn't that doesn't make our government optimal)

2) Can you give me an example of a population where a significant percentage of them actually contribute enough to a "decent savings regiment" to retire 10+ years early?  It seems to me that 95+% of the world lives at or beyond their means no matter how much they make.  The only way to get a significant portion of the population to contribute more to savings/investment would be to make it mandatory and potentially run by the government.  And now we're getting back to big government.  

I think a lot of us are good at identifying pieces of the problem.  I do it, too.  But I'm pretty sure there aren't any easy solutions because of all the moving parts.  That doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss them - or that we should give up.  

95+% of Americans do live beyond their means. The rest of the world just tries to live..

My point with that comment...if the government gives me back ~30% of my lifetime earnings, and I could retire early (~50ish)

If one thinks the majority of tax dollars goes to the military, go talk to my Henry County board of education superintendent who just requested a ~900K salary all the while I am still buying glue sticks for the entire classroom...

And that sir/ma'am is on a county level...

If government is great, its because everyone finances it....

I would think what you're talking about is related to this, except your numbers are off.  

http://www.ajc.com/news/local-education/henry-county-school-board-unable-negotiate-superintendent-contract/mEb9zYO6B5XXPyF0oo6yPK/

HeavyG

I was just googling the same thing.. They told that candidate for the superintendent job to go pack sand.

The Super who just retired seemed to be making about $250K/year in salary (fringe bennies brought the total amount quite a bit higher) for a system with an annual budget of $380 million and about 40K students.

My city pays our Super an annual salary of about $240K for a system with an annual budget of $850 million and about 70K students.

Seems they pay their school honchos pretty well in Georgia.

Also, kinda love the irony of someone (who is apparently a teacher in that system) whining about the taxes they pay to fund a civilized society and if they just had all that money back they could retire at age 50-ish when....

...looking at the Henry County schools budget the employees only contribute 6% of their salary to their teacher retirement system while the taxpayers contribute a whopping almost 17% of their salary to their retirement system - which I'm guessing is a nice defined benefit pension with an annual COLA trigger.

nolaegghead

replace "women" with "people"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GQxLtBsWq4

billt01

HeavyG said:

I was just googling the same thing.. They told that candidate for the superintendent job to go pack sand.

The Super who just retired seemed to be making about $250K/year in salary (fringe bennies brought the total amount quite a bit higher) for a system with an annual budget of $380 million and about 40K students.

My city pays our Super an annual salary of about $240K for a system with an annual budget of $850 million and about 70K students.

Seems they pay their school honchos pretty well in Georgia.

Also, kinda love the irony of someone (who is apparently a teacher in that system) whining about the taxes they pay to fund a civilized society and if they just had all that money back they could retire at age 50-ish when....

...looking at the Henry County schools budget the employees only contribute 6% of their salary to their teacher retirement system while the taxpayers contribute a whopping almost 17% of their salary to their retirement system - which I'm guessing is a nice defined benefit pension with an annual COLA trigger.

SO...

Not a teacher..

But..

Will retire around 50 as long as my FANG and BITCOIN continue to climb due to market rise. All about playing the game. If the average Joe could have half of his tax rate back over the course of his lifetime, the country would still function and politicians would make a fair wage.

That is all I was trying to say

about 8 to go...  

HeavyG

billt01 said:

HeavyG said:

I was just googling the same thing.. They told that candidate for the superintendent job to go pack sand.

The Super who just retired seemed to be making about $250K/year in salary (fringe bennies brought the total amount quite a bit higher) for a system with an annual budget of $380 million and about 40K students.

My city pays our Super an annual salary of about $240K for a system with an annual budget of $850 million and about 70K students.

Seems they pay their school honchos pretty well in Georgia.

Also, kinda love the irony of someone (who is apparently a teacher in that system) whining about the taxes they pay to fund a civilized society and if they just had all that money back they could retire at age 50-ish when....

...looking at the Henry County schools budget the employees only contribute 6% of their salary to their teacher retirement system while the taxpayers contribute a whopping almost 17% of their salary to their retirement system - which I'm guessing is a nice defined benefit pension with an annual COLA trigger.

SO...

Not a teacher..

But..

Will retire around 50 as long as my FANG and BITCOIN continue to climb due to market rise. All about playing the game. If the average Joe could have half of his tax rate back over the course of his lifetime, the country would still function and politicians would make a fair wage.

That is all I was trying to say

about 8 to go...  

Good luck! Hope your bubbles don't pop.

Eoin

Foghorn said:

billt01 said:

In other news....

While the media ( social and news) continue to write articles to get the average Joe to argue with each other about "THEIR" party. We continue to pay extremely high taxes into a system which knows no limit spending on an every day occurrence. If you get up in America, go to work like good little boys and girls, and pay your taxes, your feeding the beast every day.

Don't get me wrong, I have bought into this way of life too. People working until 66 years of age when they could have retired somewhere ~50 if they were able to keep their taxable wages and had a decent savings regiment.

But that's OK, everyone keep arguing (R) and (D), all the while the country is continuing to spend everyone's money on politicians. I mean hey, they gotta eat to right?

@billt01, while I'm all for making our government more efficient, I'm curious about a couple of things.

1) Can you give me an example of a first world country that has to pay for defense that has a better run government than we do and lower taxes? (note, I don't know if one exists, and even if it doesn't that doesn't make our government optimal)

2) Can you give me an example of a population where a significant percentage of them actually contribute enough to a "decent savings regiment" to retire 10+ years early?  It seems to me that 95+% of the world lives at or beyond their means no matter how much they make.  The only way to get a significant portion of the population to contribute more to savings/investment would be to make it mandatory and potentially run by the government.  And now we're getting back to big government.  

I think a lot of us are good at identifying pieces of the problem.  I do it, too.  But I'm pretty sure there aren't any easy solutions because of all the moving parts.  That doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss them - or that we should give up.  

The UK has mandatory scheme in place now, because nobody is saving any more.  There used to be a wholly Govt earnings related scheme, there is a standard basic pension as well, but they dropped it as it was basically a Ponzi scheme that was unsustainable in the long term.  Now there are mandated contributions to a private pension savings plan from employer and employee.  This is currently 1% each, was to rise quickly over the next years to 3% each but now we are sinking economically , this has been deferred. Even at 6% total contributions, this amount is not enough.

France is a good example of a proper state pension plan - there they have a good pension and good welfare if you lose your job. It illustrates well the cost of this type of scheme - as a middle income earner, you need 40% more total gross pay in France to have the same take home as in the UK.  That's a very big slice of any income, but gives an idea of how much we should be saving from our greater take home pay to guarantee our retirement.

DoubleEgger

nolaegghead said:

Obummer should have been prescient enough to predict Russia's annexation of Crimea and the Russian meddling of the 2016 election.  Although in all fairness, they did tell the current administration Flynn was compromised when they found out about it. 

Well Romney was prescient enough to recognize the threat...

Gulfcoastguy

From what I understand, they are trying to exterminate a major infestation of cockroaches that were already in the White House when Trump moved in. Poor undocumented cockroaches were just seeking a better life. They are also replacing the 27 year old heating and cooling system. That should save a bundle on electricity costs.

HeavyG

DoubleEgger said:

nolaegghead said:

Obummer should have been prescient enough to predict Russia's annexation of Crimea and the Russian meddling of the 2016 election.  Although in all fairness, they did tell the current administration Flynn was compromised when they found out about it. 

Well Romney was prescient enough to recognize the threat...

What threat?

I thought all this Russia stuff was just FAKE NEWS.

DoubleEgger

HeavyG said:

DoubleEgger said:

nolaegghead said:

Obummer should have been prescient enough to predict Russia's annexation of Crimea and the Russian meddling of the 2016 election.  Although in all fairness, they did tell the current administration Flynn was compromised when they found out about it. 

Well Romney was prescient enough to recognize the threat...

What threat?

I thought all this Russia stuff was just FAKE NEWS.

Russia has always been a threat to the USA. That likely will never change. 

Gulfcoastguy

HeavyG said:

I was just googling the same thing.. They told that candidate for the superintendent job to go pack sand.

The Super who just retired seemed to be making about $250K/year in salary (fringe bennies brought the total amount quite a bit higher) for a system with an annual budget of $380 million and about 40K students.

My city pays our Super an annual salary of about $240K for a system with an annual budget of $850 million and about 70K students.

Seems they pay their school honchos pretty well in Georgia.

Also, kinda love the irony of someone (who is apparently a teacher in that system) whining about the taxes they pay to fund a civilized society and if they just had all that money back they could retire at age 50-ish when....

...looking at the Henry County schools budget the employees only contribute 6% of their salary to their teacher retirement system while the taxpayers contribute a whopping almost 17% of their salary to their retirement system - which I'm guessing is a nice defined benefit pension with an annual COLA trigger.

In my state the employee contribution is 9%. If you don't make it the full 30 years all you get is what you contributed, no employer matching. At that time you also start paying for your own health insuranceThe last raise that I got was 4 years before I retired. The last raise before that was 10 years earlier. It has been over a year since I retired and they still can't replace me because the starting salary is too low. Of course as it gets closer to retirement you get to hear cr@p from people who chose to take higher paying private jobs with no benefits rather than a lower paying public job with a pension...if you make it 30 years. 

JohnInCarolina

DoubleEgger said:

HeavyG said:

DoubleEgger said:

nolaegghead said:

Obummer should have been prescient enough to predict Russia's annexation of Crimea and the Russian meddling of the 2016 election.  Although in all fairness, they did tell the current administration Flynn was compromised when they found out about it. 

Well Romney was prescient enough to recognize the threat...

What threat?

I thought all this Russia stuff was just FAKE NEWS.

Russia has always been a threat to the USA. That likely will never change. 

Please tell President Trump.  He seems very confused.

JethroVA

Hey @Eoin, first, I enjoy your cooking photos and stories from across the pond. Thank you. You seem like a really good dude with whom I would enjoy a pint or three.
My question: you say that "France is a good example of a proper state pension plan".  Just curious, what's the unemployment rate running right now in France? and do you think there's any connection between France's socialist policies and its unemployment rate? Disclosure: I have only a bachelors degree in economics from a U.S. university many decades ago so I'm eager to learn the latest thinking. Thank you in advance for a civil discourse on this topic.

Love and peaches, 
Jethro in Virginia where my ancestors started a revolution some years back.

nolaegghead

Wonder what it is in Germany too...

JohnInCarolina

Our diplomacy with North Korea seems to be going exceptionally well!

HeavyG

This fellow seems clueless but I think much of the world became truly aware today about who the real nuclear madman may be.

GATraveller

There's no such thing as diplomacy with a crazy MF'r like KJU

DoubleEgger

GATraveller said:

There's no such thing as diplomacy with a crazy MF'r like KJU

Maybe Rodman can talk KJU off the ledge 

DMW

Methinks saber rattling with a psycho totalitarian child-man might not turn out so well. Especially when there's two of them with fingers on the buttons

lousubcap

For all the bluster, those outside the President know the lunacy of any military strike unless you turn the entire country into a parking lot within the first couple of shots.  Too many South Koreans (15 million+) and a good portion of the 28K US military would get the brunt of the initial attack.  We would not stop the southward advance until likely well south of Seoul (around 60 KM's from the DMZ) as it would be a fight for the DPRK regime.
As crazy as KJU is I'm not sure he would want to get to that point however, he is buying time to further his technological  prowess.  If the solution were easy it would have been tried a few decades ago.  Off soap-box.  

HeavyG

Eoin

JethroVA said:

Hey @Eoin, first, I enjoy your cooking photos and stories from across the pond. Thank you. You seem like a really good dude with whom I would enjoy a pint or three.
My question: you say that "France is a good example of a proper state pension plan".  Just curious, what's the unemployment rate running right now in France? and do you think there's any connection between France's socialist policies and its unemployment rate? Disclosure: I have only a bachelors degree in economics from a U.S. university many decades ago so I'm eager to learn the latest thinking. Thank you in advance for a civil discourse on this topic.

Love and peaches, 
Jethro in Virginia where my ancestors started a revolution some years back.

@JethroVA I think you have misread my enthusiasm for the French system. They have endemic unemployment because it's so expensive to hire people and so hard to fire them. They do have better productivity than the UK for those in work though, due to their willingness to invest in automation to avoid hiring new people! In the UK we can hire and fire and tend to rely on cheap labour to fill the gap rather than forward investment. Our fast rising minimum wage and likely Brexit labour shortages will probably change that.

My point was that the real cost to save for a good income in retirement is huge and that most people in the UK (and I guess in the US) spend rather than save and have little hope of a comfortable retirement. Personally, I fall on the free market / make your own decisions side of the argument, but there must be a point when the Govt steps in when the bulk of the population is making no personal provision for their own future. Or do you leave these people alone and let them work until they keel over?

nolaegghead

JethroVA said:

Hey @Eoin, first, I enjoy your cooking photos and stories from across the pond. Thank you. You seem like a really good dude with whom I would enjoy a pint or three.
My question: you say that "France is a good example of a proper state pension plan".  Just curious, what's the unemployment rate running right now in France? and do you think there's any connection between France's socialist policies and its unemployment rate? Disclosure: I have only a bachelors degree in economics from a U.S. university many decades ago so I'm eager to learn the latest thinking. Thank you in advance for a civil discourse on this topic.

Love and peaches, 
Jethro in Virginia where my ancestors started a revolution some years back.

What do saving money for retirement and unemployment have to do with one another?  I'd like to hear what you learned from your degree in economics.  In a civil discourse.  Please couple this with shooting your gun into the ground and finding oil, then moving to Beverly Hills.  

GATraveller

You can't save money for retirement if your unemployed......duh. 

fishlessman

i WILL kill you from here

JethroVA

@nolaegghead, the gist of my point lies in Eion's second sentence of his reply to me.  He said, "They have endemic unemployment because it's so expensive to hire people and so hard to fire them."  There's a correlation between certain aspects of socialism and economic woes especially when policies interfere with the market's ability to hire at a market-defined wage and fire as needed.  

I was just kidding' 'bout going to college.  As you may recall, Jethro only gots an 8th grade educashun.  

Eoin

JethroVA said:

@nolaegghead, the gist of my point lies in Eion's second sentence of his reply to me.  He said, "They have endemic unemployment because it's so expensive to hire people and so hard to fire them."  There's a correlation between certain aspects of socialism and economic woes especially when policies interfere with the market's ability to hire at a market-defined wage and fire as needed.  

I was just kidding' 'bout going to college.  As you may recall, Jethro only gots an 8th grade educashun.  

Why do you think that the Right in many Western countries have such a problem with the free market in labour?  Seems the Right is always very keen on the free movement of capital, but not very keen on the free movement of labour, in spite of both being of importance as scarce resources that should be allocated by the market and not by the state?

Kayak

@jethrova, @eoin, presumably "endemic unemployment" means "higher than it should be", since every country has a positive unemployment rate, and France's is hardly third-world level? Eoin, which 'Right' are you talking about?

France had very low unemployment previously, with all of the same employment rules. How could that be?

Maybe forced austerity and no control over their money has had some effect?

JethroVA

@Eoin, I'm not getting your point. Please elaborate.  Typically those who support capitalism are fine with letting the market establish wages and letting employees and employers engage or disengage freely.