Republicans, If you raise retirement age again, are you providing Seniors with jobs too?

[DainBramaged]

It's bad enough to have a tired, broken, sick body at 6o let alone 65 and finally 67, but to be told you have to work longer at a menial job JUST to live a couple of more years in squalor instead of peace after working all of your life is inhumane and cruel.

I am 61, I have MANY ailments. I highly doubt I will make it to 67 for full retirement, let alone 65 for partial. The Republicans are simply playing poker with our lives, and they have all of the high cards.

This country is going off the cliff in more ways than one. Fight this. You will understand one day when you're 60 and can't even find work at a Burger King because you can't stand for hours on end you can't retire for SEVEN or more years.


Goodnight.

[LisaLynne]

1. Well said.

[freshwest]

2. This fact is the reason why the GOP was screaming bloody murder about Obama allowing more on SSDI.

That is the retirement plan which protects those who have worked themselves into disability by virtue of the kind of work they do. Those who never did that kind of work, think no one has any problems. Total disconnect from what it takes to make the world work. We know better.

[ReRe]

16. Rather...

...I think they are fully aware of it and just don't give a damn. They don't care.

[freshwest]

21. They care in a way. They know we're coming to get our fair share. No more, no less.

That's why they squeal when the slightest whilf of taxation is discussed. The masters of the universe don't believe in sharing the costs of civlization. They believe they created and own it, and can do with it as they please. And to us as they please. It's nowhere near over with these guys.

[ReRe]

33. You can bet your bippy on that...

...all the fear mongering is due to the fact that they know their patutties have been had, that their GW tax cuts are going to disappear FINALLY. I just don't buy into their blackmail hype. And I wish others wouldn't either. But some people do and my heart goes out out them...

[JimDandy]

24. Only 30% of SSDI applications

are even approved as it is. It's a high bar set to weed out all those who can't afford the money it takes to appeal (75% of appeals are approved). Ends up being not much of a safety net for manual laborers.

[freshwest]

30. I'm discussing the changes made to favor awards based on age, which DB mentions.

I've posted links on this before on several threads. His complaint is that as one gets older one is not able to work. Not able to work is a thing that is medically proven. I want the age of retirement lowered, not raised.

There was an excellent OP posted here that shows the problem exactly. 'Why Rich Old Men Want to Raise the Retirement Age,' or close to that and it was devastating to their argument. There is a good video by Bernie Sanders on this same issue posted today.

The AFL-CIO has been having post-elections meetings with the White House on this issue. They have put forward their plan to take care of working men and women and why it is just.

We need to find a workaround for the mandate to raise the age to 67, a Reagan era law on the books and is now close to coming due. The 67 age is not at all new legislation or anything that Obama wanted. It's been on the books for all these years and not been repealed.

The revenue increase Obama is insisting upon first is the way to keep the disability system working better. Many of those denied were let languish because there were not even hands to process the papers. And other laws were put into place to make it harder.

We'll keep moving forward with a majority in 2014 and a Democrat in the White House in 2016 to have the time to reverse this lousy last 30 years we've suffered under.

[SummerSnow]

3. Of course not....

They will tell those Seniors to ask their children for money

[shanti]

25. and if they have no children?

they're SOL.

[Generic Brad]

40. Let's hope it's not their adult children who live at home with them

[LiberalEsto]

4. +100

Most places won't hire anyone over 50, let alone 60.

As I've said before, what are we supposed to do for the next 10-20 years? Starve?

[RKP5637]

5. It's such a bunch of crap, they make it sound like there are all of

these jobs available for seniors and they're just too lazy to work. I can't believe this bullshit even makes it to the headlines. It's just such a load of crap. I give this country about 10 maybe 20 more years and it's going to fall flat on its face if this crap continues, in many things. People are fed up with nonsense like this.

[2naSalit]

11. It would appear that

that's exactly what they have in mind... use us up and then throw us away like so many used tissues during a cold.

[ReRe]

17. Their answer to your question...

Like Allen Grayson said about health care: Die.

[Flatulo]

23. Why, yes.

[xtraxritical]

41. Logically, lowering the retirement age would be a big stimulus for the economy

and help significantly reduce unemployment for young people putting more tax revenues on the books too, thereby reducing the deficit.
You can forgeddabout RepubliCONs doing anything logical.

[spanone]

6. k&r...

[JaneyVee]

7. K&R! It would do wonders to free up the job market for the next generation as well.

[patrice]

8. Cheer up, kitteh, we gainz momentum now . . .

Btw, me too! Don't know about any health probs, because I haven't seen a doctor in about 3.5 years.

But every time I get into an interview, the skills hurtle has been raised and the wage has been lowered, not real motivating to someone who lost her last job for being too productive.

Hang in there!

Love your kitty-sig!

[shanti]

26. too productive

i heard that one. when i worked for the state (i'm now retired), everyone told me to slow down....presumably, because it made THEM look bad.

[patrice]

32. If you've never been in certain kinds of positions, people probably have a hard time understanding

how that can happen.

There are positions that are like crossroads for many other positions, e.g. administrative assistants, but also other kinds of nexus in work flow, and if you're too proactive, too detail obsessed, too innovative for efficiency, you can be a problem to certain others, especially in more institutionalized kinds of cultures. I didn't know this. You're just reveling in the work and all of the sudden you're a problem. It was a shocker for me, because I loved what I was doing. It's happened to me 3 times now: 2 with big corporate wide layoffs, and one of those was a national scale layoffs, and 1 out of the absolutely clear blue. Not one of the 3 times was it even my own boss who did this to me.

[Douglas Carpenter]

9. by cutting taxes when we stop taking from the makers and giving to the takers - when we reward the

job creators instead of punishing them with regulations and taxing them to the high heavens - when we stop rewarding failure and sloth with food stamps, health insurance, education and other government give aways - again paid for by the makers and given by this socialist government to the lazy takers - when we tell the greeedy geezers to get off their lazy asses and do some work instead of living on this socialist ponzy scheme AKA socialist security - when we allow our labor market to compete with China instead of gouging the makers with artificially high wage scales - the biggest giveaway of the all to the takers - when we do all of this - we will create at least 50 million new jobs over night our nation will be restored to the Biblical Christian principles established by our founding fathers.

[bobhuntsman]

12. FReepoid got lost??

[OnionPatch]

22. If by makers

If by "makers", you mean all the millions of hard workers who keep our country going, like nurses, cops, teachers, shop workers, office staff, janitors and so on, then I agree. We won't get anywhere until the makers get their fair share of the pie instead of punishing them with low wages and no benefits.

[JimDandy]

27. Missing a Sarcasm alert, right?

[Douglas Carpenter]

34. is it really necessary to post a sarcasm tag?

sheeeesh....lighten up folks

[patrice]

37. k, sorry, #35 is NOT directed at you, Douglas, but at those whom you describe.

[patrice]

35. Those statements are based on the assumption that NOTHING has intrinsic worth in its own efforts.

You assume ONLY the whip or "candy" that will motivate work and those, of course must come from power, not from an individual's own sense of themselves in their own behaviors and how all of that fits into their own world.

It is precisely the kinds of assumptions that you describe that have produced the very imbalances that you sketch. You are justifying the system in terms of the system itself, because apparently you cannot perceive authentic value in any other way, so the system's inherent flaws, in-authentic value, are conserved and, hence, dysfunction increases until it achieves critical mass.

[Douglas Carpenter]

38. for crying outloud - I have posted here for seven years and have over 14,000 post people cannot

detect a bit of irony. I was simply listing all the standard wingnut cliches? Is it really necessary to state openly that I am being ironic and that my beliefs are the opposite of these right-wing cliches?

For crying out loud - lighten up!!

[patrice]

39. I was wondering how you got to 14K with an attitude like that. I should have asked. nt

[TDale313]

10. Of course not...

They want us fighting over the scraps. It keeps us in line.

[xfundy]

13. I just recalled when Bush & Dick

... tried to reclassify burger flipping as "manufacturing jobs." Mostly, IMO, because their buddies were sending real jobs to other countries with low wages so the owners, 'scuse me, "job creators" could make massive profits.

Repigs are traitors to America. There's no other word for it.

[Mnemosyne]

31. Ketchup is a vegetable since the 1980's. not sure if that was corrected or not. nt

[Ilsa]

14. I know someone who was cut back to parttime. He's in

his 50s, but he said the company laid off older people who probably won't be able to find work. They'll collect their unemployment and live off their savings and hope they don't get sick until Medicare kicks in.

[0rganism]

15. if you haven't made it big by the time you're 55, the GOP wants you dead

they simply have no use for seniors who won't dump $$ into their campaign coffers, plus any form of social safety net is anathema to the "rugged individualism" platform they're pushing. In GOPworld, in the absence of a fat pool of investment returns, the best you can do in your later years is mooch off the kiddos. too bad if you don't have a family capable or inclined to support your retirement.

[rurallib]

18. And also thus clogging the system so youngsters will have a harder time

entering the workforce.

Enlarge the labor pool so everyone will kill to get scraps.

[John2]

19. We

have done it through an Election. I mean telling them not to raise the age limit. If they do, I call it Tyranny and the Constitution does speak about that situation. I hope Mr Boehner read it.

[Curmudgeoness]

20. They are just looking for a solution to the Social Security/Medicare problems.

This seems "reasonable" to them....make miners and mill workers work until they drop dead on the job instead of retiring. And the rest who can't find work will starve to death....thus not collect benefits. And who cares if they can't find a job, the people in power have a job, and that is all that matters.

And just in case.........

[DainBramaged]

44. What medicare and social security problems?

Medicare has a 3% cost of doing business, you extend the SS dollar ceiling it's solvent for two more generations.

[Curmudgeoness]

48. Sigh! Facts and solutions!

Some people just take the joy out of delusions and conspiracies.

[ReRe]

28. They won't do it...

... Dear DainBranaged. This, too, shall pass. Don't allow their frightening threats to make you worry and fret. Fear is very debilitating to your psyche. It's stressful. If you believe in their threat, they win. Just remember what FDR said: "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself."

[TheKentuckian]

42. It has already been done once (without blow back as well) in most of our lifetimes

I'm thinking an error on the side of caution is in order.

It is also a stone fact that the TeaPubliKlans have no such power. It takes politically suicidal, corporate thrall, Turd Way Democrats to make any such thing happening, including one to sign the shit into law.

It takes a whole damn gaggle of dumpster fucking devils to pull a stunt like that and it would demand unlimited response to regain control of our government and sure as hell our party and more importantly our movement toward a more perfect Union, better days for all people, and a return to a path toward stewardship of our world which I believe is supposed to be our niche not plundering extinction monkeys.

[ReRe]

43. We do seem to be living on the edge, don't we?

Inside of us are two beings.... and optimist and a pessimist. Sometimes I live on the pessimist side. On others, like today, I'm an optomist. Anyway, that's how I manage to walk on this tightrope we call the American way of life. I guess you have to be bipolar to exist in this country anymore. With what..only a few ups, and a whole lot of downs?

Hey...we survived GW didn't we? We won what seemed like an impossible election to win in spite of Citiizens United, didn't we? Shit happens, then we have to go back and clean it up. It took time to screw everything up, it will take time to unscrew it. It's like two steps forward and one step back, and seems like we're not getting anywhere. But we are...gradually.

We all want those things you mentioned. We just have to learn how to hang in there while continuing to maintain and make corrections as we press forward. We don't have any alternative, do we? Just keep pressing on, OK?

[Curmudgeoness]

49. Exactly. It has already been done once.

And you know that the first chip in the armor is the hardest....then it is easier and easier.

At the time, we all sat around and let them raise the Social Security age. I remember when I was young, and people would suggest that they would take SS away, I said it would be "impossible"....that this would be something that would cause rebellion. Imagine my surprise when they made that first hole.

[MotherPetrie]

29. K&R

[The Wizard]

36. Every retirement

leaves a job opening.

[99Forever]

45. Add to that...

... if you are over 55...


Almost NO ONE will even interview you, let alone hire you. I'm living it. Suicide has become a viable option that was once unthinkable to me. Thank you, "free market" capitalists.

[newspeak]

46. but you won't do it, right?

because that would be exactly what these truly sociopathic, evil compassionless arseholes would want. they, with the help of the media, have pitted the young against the old, whites against every minority, once middle class against the poor, unionized labor against slave labor. and they've done this solely to keep the focus off of CEOs getting obscene amounts of moolah, the real class warfare, sending jobs overseas, and the wealthy accumulating too much wealth and power.

if they keep screwing with the people, sooner or later, even the teabaggers are going to catch on that it's a fixed system and they're not included. and when that happens, there is not going to be enough corporate media propaganda to keep the tsunami from flooding this country. when most of the people finally figure out that they've been suckered out of their pensions, their 401ks, their decent jobs, their SS by a bunch of cons, including those on WS, i'd say they might start now thinking about focusing what's happening on main street.

we've got some congresscritters who care absolutely fekkin nothing about this country-they care about any and all multi-national corporations and their "rich" friends who have been given an obscene tax break by the last corporate tools and have done nothing but put this country further into a deficit and creating no jobs or shitty jobs or sending those jobs overseas on our dime. we've got some congresscritters who would gladly sell us and the country down the road to the highest corporate bidder. it seems since little boots, that the main goal was to bring down this country economically while quickly giving all who are deemed worthy money, money which should have gone for our public institutions, the majority of the people, our infrastructure. you don't give tax breaks during times of war, unless one is attempting to bankrupt the country-maybe for privatization purposes?

[99Forever]

47. All of that is quite true.

You'll get absolutely no argument from me on any of it. On a personal level, I have been stripped of not only my self-worth, but of any sense of dignity, as those who have sworn to protect me either stood idly by and let it happen or actively participated in it. So, I can't honesty say that I won't at least hang on to the one thing they can't steal from me. My life and the choice of when it's not enough just to survive anymore.

[libdem4life]

50. Granny units are a reality in the real estate/construction world. But you can't have a kitchen

for it to be legal so as not to be considered a "second residence" on a R-1 "single residence" lot. Kind of like a detached extra bedroom. But you have to have a child who is a homeowner/mortgagee to even consider it.d

Sad day in America.

[99th_Monkey]

51. Precisely!! This needs to be shouted from top of Capital Bldg by DEMS.

As it completely topples the bogus argument for raising retirement age
in middle of recession/depression.

[AAO]

52. Dain, at 58 I agree 100% !

[OldHippieChick]

53. I'm with you Bro

Nearly 62. Am lucky to have an advanced degree and be able to get sit-down jobs, but only contract work. Have to watch bus schedule and then walk or park and figure out how to get to the most recent project. And projects are few and far between. Always hoping the unemployment doesn't run out before the next job, but unemployment only pays 1/2 my regular pay, so doesn't pay my bills. Can't sell my house because I'm not employed so can't move anywhere else. Have no health insurance because I never know how much money I'll have and it would be cost-prohibitive anyway w/ pre-existing. Full SS won't pay me enough to really stay in my house either, so will hope I can sell then and move to small apt. This is why I've worked for 40 years? Sheesh!

[HiPointDem]

54. that would defeat the purpose, which is to cow & kill people.