jazzboCR Wrote:Social Security was never meant to be just for retirees, as can be told from its full name--Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance. Please don't go with a "Blame the Victim" edge and do trust the SS workers with being discriminating enough to turn away or even prosecute fraudsters. If you want a real shame it's these: only money earned from labor is taxed, not capital AND nothing over $114,000 is taxed. If it was extended to cover more earnings from capital and the earnings limit abolished, we could cut the rate to 1-2% and be just awash in SS fund money. It is the way it is because of various and sundry political deals cut over the years so we'd have at least something.
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/types.html

Oh, and about England's Royal Family--they are not welfare recipients in the commonly-used meaning of the term. They are rentiers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rentier This is increasingly common in Corporate Capitalism, patent trolls being a prominent example but monopolies/oligopolies are thriving too. It's that extra money we pay because somebody controls the supply and thus the price, usually of a necessity or very highly desired can't-imagine-life-without-it good (think: cable TV or Internet distro). I'm not a Socialist, I'm a "constrained capitalist". Corporate welfare assuredly exists (and is a growing problem) but this is not an example of it.

Music Head Wrote:just stay out of it Ed

CRAZY-HORSE Wrote:the UK royal Family used to get income from the UK Govt because it was estimated that half of all UK tourism was derived around their existance,but that stopped a few years ago.
the Govt used to also pay for the upkeep of their castles/palaces etc because they owned them,the Family were custodians of the property which was deemed as being "owned by England".
nowadays, the Royal Family have to work in order to derive income...
now work would generally mean(in their case) being on boards of companies,selling their image to promote charities...that sort of thing.
but the younger Royals do tend to have menaingful employment ie: Harry spent time after his military training as a helicopter/chopper pilot, he actually completed several tours of duty in the Mid-East(afghanastan/iraq) and yes, he was on the 'front lines' with the rest of the guys and not in some well secured bunker away from the fighting which is why i believe a lot of non=royalists actually admire him for not taking the easy way out with his so-called "god given birthright".
he has also completed chartity events(like walking to the South and North Poles) to raise monies for disabled military vets etc. his name alone would have probably doubled the donations alone....he seems like a good lad who is trying to live as normal a life as he can. he is often seen at Rugby matches in the stands witht he average punters chanting for the team he supports and drinking beer with the lads also.

rebelgirl Wrote:[video=youtube;EgnsKHnGRzA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgnsKHnGRzA[/video] Put this in Politics because it was on Hannity and this is a news channel. I found it interesting. I had not watched Hannity for awhile but this caught my attention. There are 5 parts to this program. Hope you watch them all!! Feel free to voice your opinion as the audience did.