NY Times Story on Pilot Population Decline

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 21:53:28 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
wrote in
. net:


"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
.. .

Of course, no one is _forced_ to participate, even in the US. It's
only a condition of earning a wage in the US. ...


Wage earners are forced to participate. Wage earners are someone.


That is how I understand it also. However no one is forcing anyone to
support themselves through earning a wage.


What would happen if only those who were bad drivers could purchase
automobile insurance? Do you think the premiums would be affordable
in such a case? If you're opposed to SSI, are you also opposed to
automobile, aircraft, life, and health insurance?


Social Security is not insurance.


Perhaps you're correct. That's what it was called in the old days as
you can see he http://www.ssa.gov/history/1986dibhistory.html

A HISTORY OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY PROGRAMS
January 1986

INTRODUCTION

The recognition of the hardships created by a worker's loss of
earnings due to disability dates back to consideration of the
original Social Security Act of 1935. After the establishment of
the retirement insurance program under the 1935 Act, serious
thought was given to whether that program should be expanded to
provide wage related cash benefits to workers who become
permanently and totally disabled before age 65 and to their
dependents. ...


That attitude is rather shortsighted, and totally out of place in
today's global society. If you fail to bring the less fortunate up,
you will not be happy with the consequences. Trust me.


Why should anyone trust you?

Because I'm an honest guy?




You don't live in isolation regardless of whether your home is
situated behind the walls of a gated community or not. As the world
population is predicted to double within the next fifty years, we're
all going to have to adjust our tribal biases in order to coexist in
the future.


I doubt you'll ever adjust your biases.


It's not easy, but I'm aware of them and working on changing. How
about you?



And where is your compassion for your fellow man? Are you so
contemptuous of humanity, that you would condemn millions of innocent
people to poverty just to save a few dollars? I hope not.


Absurd.

Just for a moment try to imagine a nation where the poor old folks who
have given the toil of their youth to increasing the GNP (or whatever
its called these days) littering the pavement of your city so thick
that you can't walk down the sidewalk. Isn't that what you're
advocating? Or are you reluctant to address that issue in this
discussion?




Social Security is not a charity; it is insurance. There is an
inescapable loss of human dignity that occurs to those who receive
charity. Social Security recipients can be proud of having worked
hard during their lives, and owe no debt of gratitude to anyone other
than the FDR administration.


Social Security is not an insurance policy, it is a ponzi scheme.

Interesting. That notion is exacerbated by fluctuations in the age
distribution in the population, but given a linier rise in population
over time and infinite time, its difficult to justify such a belief.




Educate yourself:


http://www.boston.com/news/globe/edi...cial_security/
FDR believed that Social Security should be simple, guaranteed,
fair, earned, and available to all Americans. President Roosevelt
was adamant that Social Security was an insurance program to
provide basic needs in retirement.

Today, thanks in large part to Social Security, the number of
older Americans below the poverty line has dropped from almost 50
percent to only 8 percent.


So how much of that was done by social security, how much was done by
changing the definition of "older Americans", and how much was done by
lowering the poverty line?


You tell me.

"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in message
...
Larry Dighera wrote:

I am not taxed for Social Security. I contribute into it.

If it is required by the government it is a tax. If anyone gets more out
of it than they put into it is a income redistribution welfare program.

When taken together about 15% of every dime I have earned in my 30 years
in the labor pool has been paid into SS & Medicare. If I had been allowed
to keep that money and invest it in even a conservative investment I could
retire right now, finish my airplane and never be in anyway a cost to
society. The Social Security Administration is a terrible investment
manager and Medicare is a mediocre health insurance policy at best.

And don't loose sight of the fact that your employer has to double it.
Everything deducted by your employer has to be matched by him. So when you
make your estimates of where you would be with a private investment, double
it.

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 22:14:20 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
wrote in
. net:


"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
.. .

I understand your concern. If the solution were simple, it would been
put into action long ago.


Actually, the solutions ARE pretty simple.

Are you able to articulate them? How would you address the implicit
mandate in a Capitalistic system, that drives corporations to
continually seek cost reductions to the point of absurdity and
_dishonesty_ just to meet the competition's price and remain viable in
the marketplace? Do you believe outsourcing US jobs is good for our
nation? Do you believe that forcing US corporations to move to other
countries in order to escape income tax liability on income earned in
the US is desirable? Let's see how simple you can make the solutions
of which you speak.

They're not put into action
because doing so would not help those in power stay in power.

Are you also suggesting that the solution is to dismantle the US
government?

And don't loose sight of the fact that your employer has to double it.
Everything deducted by your employer has to be matched by him. So when you
make your estimates of where you would be with a private investment, double
it.

Well, if your employer didn't have to double it, your salary might well
be higher by that amount.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 06:02:44 GMT, Jose
wrote in :

You are using the fallacy of "all things being equal".
I am? I fail to infer your meaning as it relates to this discussion.

I explained that subsequently, he

The doling out of money =causes= people to
reach their hands out -

to which you reply:

If true, that is an inescapable side effect. It's a spurious argument
tantamount to refusing to take a life saving medication that may cause
nausea.

No, it's not spurious. It's tantamount to not taking a nausia
medication because it might be addictive.

So your choice is to expire rather than take the life saving
medication, because it's possibly addictive? That is what you are
saying. Is that what you mean?


Are you arguing that people shouldn't retire after thirty or
forth years of toil?

No. I'm arguing that they shouldn't retire on my dime. If they failed
to accumulate =their= dimes, they have no right coming to me.

Aren't you overlooking the fact that SSI recipients have paid into the
SSI fund, so it's not your dime?


Are you saying, that those retired workers who have
paid into SSI should not receive a SSI check commensurate with the
amount they contributed during the time they worked and paid into SSI?

No. I'm saying that those people who are getting SSI should not be
getting it from my dime. Or, in other words, I should not be required
to pay into SSI to begin with (and if I end up impoverished because I
failed to provide for my own retirement, say, by living too large while
I was working, then I am not entitled to =your= dime either.)

I still have trouble with your insistence that it is your dime given
the fact that the SSI recipient has contributed into the SSI program
over the life of his working career.

I also think that you would find the consequences of tens of millions
of additional poor homeless souls littering the pavement more
repugnant than the objections to SSI.

Aside from those issues, what sort of person abandons his aged
parents, because he doesn't want to fund their existence? Eliminating
SSI would be roughly equal to that to me.

Or are you saying, that we, as a country, are not big enough to show
compassion toward those who were created with less than optimal
mentality and manual skill, even when it is in our collective best
interest?

Compassion comes from individuals, not from laws. And I do not agree
that it is in our collective best interests.

So the way you see it, government should not provide for the
inevitable portion of its population that is unemployable? Isn't it
deliberate blindness to pretend the inevitable unemployable segment of
any population doesn't exist?

I don't necessarily
disagree either; there are many facets to this that are being
oversimplified here.

Guess what that encourages.
What what encourages?

Doling out money based on the recipient having made poor choices (not
saving for retirement, for example).

Jose

Is that being done? It seems to me, that recipients of SSI receive a
check commensurate with what they have paid in over their productive
life span. SSI isn't based on poor choices; it's based on how much
money was paid into it by the recipient.

"Jose" wrote in message
...
And don't loose sight of the fact that your employer has to double it.
Everything deducted by your employer has to be matched by him. So when
you make your estimates of where you would be with a private investment,
double it.

Well, if your employer didn't have to double it, your salary might well be
higher by that amount.


That is probably correct, and much more to my point.

Just for a moment try to imagine a nation where the poor old folks who
have given the toil of their youth to increasing the GNP (or whatever
its called these days) littering the pavement of your city so thick
that you can't walk down the sidewalk.

Imagine for a moment a nation where the young folk spend recklessly and
go into debt instead of saving for their retirment, knowing that when
they come of age, somebody else will take care of them. This is the end
result of a slow creep of large organizations (including but not limited
to government) making benevolent decisions for us.

What kind of nation will that lead to? Certainly not a strong one - not
a world leader.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Larry Dighera wrote:

big snip

Is that being done? It seems to me, that recipients of SSI receive a
check commensurate with what they have paid in over their productive
life span. SSI isn't based on poor choices; it's based on how much
money was paid into it by the recipient.

That is not entirely true for everybody.

It is possible to receive benefits without ever having worked a day
in your life or contributing one cent to SSI.

Granted, those that qualify are small in number.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

Larry Dighera wrote:
On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 13:37:44 -0500, "Gig 601XL Builder"
wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in
:

Larry Dighera wrote:

We are getting pretty far a field here, but I believe it's fair to
say, that Democrats' spending tends to benefit the people, and
Republican spending tends to benefit large corporations.
We are way far a field so I added OT to the subject.

It is in no way fair to say that. The Democrat's spending tends to benefit
people who choose not to work. Republican spending tends to benefit those
that do.


Isn't it the Democrats who support labor unions?

Labor Unions are not people any more than Corporations are people.

"Phil" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Apr 26, 2:28 pm, Larry Dighera wrote:

Maybe one reason there are fewer pilots now is that the pilots who
learned to fly in World War II have been leaving us in the last 17
years. The war exposed a lot of men (and some women) to flying, and
many of them continued to fly after the war. In 1990 many of those
pilots would have been in their 60s.


I think that is a contributing factor, but I also think the whole world
turning to recreation through electronic gadgets is a big part of the pie as
well. I know several pilots that were very active 20 years ago, that now
spend those same dollars on home entertainment, and progressively larger
belts as well.