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Soak the Youth: Ageism in America
Rancor News ^ | February 25th, 2013 | Tyson

Posted on 02/25/2013 2:02:14 PM PST by FreeMerica

The Simpon's Helen Lovejoy iconized the phrase, “Won't somebody think of the children?,” but in an age where every “ism” has a special interest group and being called any sort of “ist” is the ultimate character assault our youth receive very little consideration on the big issues of the day.

Social Security, often presented as an investment in your future, is merely a wealth transfer from the young to old. Many youth today see the demographic writing on the wall and understand that, like all ponzi schemes, Social Security can't outrun arithmetic forever. Youth are forced to subsidize the lifestyles of the elderly which are typically far more lavish than their own with little expectation they will receive the same. It's outright ageism.

The national debt soaring toward Greek levels with no sign of stopping is the same transfer of wealth to the elderly. A government packed with old men and women vote to spend money today leaving a bill that comes due long after they've had theirs. Call it the dine and dash philosophy of government. The last one left at the table is stuck with the bill, the youth.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and more specifically the community rating is designed to subsidize the costs for the sick and elderly at the expense of the young and healthy. Shifting costs to the young and healthy combined with weak penalties and eliminating discrimination based on pre-existing conditions means many youth won't enter the market until they are sick and only as long as they are sick. This creates the dreaded death spiral leading to a market comprised of more elderly and sick individuals and fewer healthy and young individuals. Regardless it's ageist policy. It's no secret when you get older you will be less healthy. Subsidizing those who didn't plan ahead limits the youth's ability to save and plan ahead and like Social Security, even if they had proper incentives for youth to buy in (they don't), the gravy train only lasts as long as demographics support it.

Government is quick to celebrate our young men and women in the military. They are good enough to bleed and die for our country but not good enough to serve in Congress, run for President or drink a beer. This stems from a flawed ageist perspective that your years on this planet serve as some magic validation of your ideas. Seeing how poorly our country has been run by the elderly we might as well open the political realm to people of all ages. Ideas are what matter. It would be nice to have politicians with a real investment in the future, politicians who will be around to see the fortune or folly of their policy. Perhaps we'd see a more enthusiastic voice from youth if they were allowed a representative option on the ballot.

While we have champions for racial equality, women's rights and gay rights, the youth in our society lack a champion. Politicians like to talk about their concern for “the children” while saddling them with an ever increasing burden of debt and plundering their future. The youth need to wake up, organize and fight the ageist thieves in government before our children's futures are squandered on the selfish hedonism of our elders.


TOPICS: Government; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: ageism; debt; discrimination; policy; redistribution; soakthetaxpayers; socialism; ussa
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1 posted on 02/25/2013 2:02:23 PM PST by FreeMerica
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To: FreeMerica

“From each according to his means to each according to his needs”

The old need it. That’s socialism kid. Welcome the world your professor’s tricked you into voting for.

I have no sympathy. They young overwhelmingly voted for the Obamanation of Desolation.


2 posted on 02/25/2013 2:14:49 PM PST by Fai Mao
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To: FreeMerica

The young of today vote democrat.

The old people vote against the democrats.


3 posted on 02/25/2013 2:18:51 PM PST by ansel12 (Romney is a longtime supporter of homosexualizing the Boy Scouts (and the military).)
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To: FreeMerica

This brings to mind some of the interviews from the Occupy Wall Street event. Several wanted a government system that guaranteed them a comfortable living, even if they “made the choice” not to work. One young genius wanted to eliminate money as the panacea. The quotes were truly a treasure. I don’t think the author of this article was a favorite in that crowd.


4 posted on 02/25/2013 3:00:36 PM PST by Avid Coug
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To: ansel12

While it saddens me to see so many youth voting for Democrats it also saddens me to see so many voting for RINOs believing they are different in any significant way from Democrats.

Regardless though I don’t think an age group voting a certain way is justification for generational theft. It’s wrong whether they vote for it or against it. If their was a party that devoted any significant time to fiscal conservatism I think that party would be a force to be reckoned with.


5 posted on 02/25/2013 3:35:32 PM PST by FreeMerica
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To: FreeMerica

There is no “generational theft” unless you mean the young, who are truly fighting and voting for brand new ways to transfer wealth into their hands from others.

SS for instance was created generations ago, it is the young who are responding to real-time, current democrat calls to vote for legislation to take money from others, and fighting against SS reform.


6 posted on 02/25/2013 3:52:42 PM PST by ansel12 (Romney is a longtime supporter of homosexualizing the Boy Scouts (and the military).)
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To: ansel12

I object to any kind of wealth transfer and openly admit that given that many youth vote for Democrats. That being said however, deficit spending today is a wealth transfer on the backs of the young and SS and Medicare are a massive wealth transfer from young to old and Obamacare only exacerbates this problem.

I wish we would eliminate SS and Medicare along with Medicaid and Welfare but we don’t have a party making any push in that direction.


7 posted on 02/25/2013 4:37:32 PM PST by FreeMerica
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To: FreeMerica

I’m 62. Just give me back every dime I’ve been forced to pay into this Ponzi scheme and I’ll call it even. And I won’t even charge interest.


8 posted on 02/25/2013 4:44:36 PM PST by ought-six ( Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.)
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To: FreeMerica

When one age group votes conservative and for reform and less government spending, and one votes liberal and for more programs and for more government spending and against reform, I know who I would be defending, and who I would be criticizing.

Nothing is being transferred to the young, the young are voting for deficit spending, and are defeating the old in the voting booth.


9 posted on 02/25/2013 4:50:43 PM PST by ansel12 (Romney is a longtime supporter of homosexualizing the Boy Scouts (and the military).)
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To: ansel12

What age group votes for conservatives, reform or less govt? Certainly not anybody who voted Democrat or Republican. I don’t consider being slightly to the right of Democrats on spending but still overwhelmingly for more govt and spending to be conservative and I think it is one of the greatest tragedies in America that so many believe that is a conservative position.

Debt is being placed on the backs of the young while we spend away on the here and now.


10 posted on 02/25/2013 5:03:04 PM PST by FreeMerica
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To: ought-six

Your money is already gone, spent by your parents. The generation in charge now voted for this their entire life. At some point you have to say enough. I’ve been paying in for 20 years knowing my money isn’t in a locked box. It’s been spent by big govt politicians and I don’t expect any of it back and I won’t ask my kids to take on debt to get my money back that my generation continues to support as do the boomers in office.


11 posted on 02/25/2013 5:06:26 PM PST by FreeMerica
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To: FreeMerica
What age group votes for conservatives, reform or less govt?

Older Americans do, regardless of your ramblings and whining.

12 posted on 02/25/2013 5:09:23 PM PST by ansel12 (Romney is a longtime supporter of homosexualizing the Boy Scouts (and the military).)
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To: ought-six
I’m 62. Just give me back every dime I’ve been forced to pay into this Ponzi scheme and I’ll call it even. And I won’t even charge interest.

You see that response here on FR a lot.

Trouble is, it's completely disconnected from any reality. The money they force from us in the name of "social security" is just another tax. The supreme court has ruled on several separate occasions that you have no interest in the money collected from you in social security. If you did, you could pass it on as a part of your estate. You've been lied to by politicians. (surprise!) One would think 'conservatives' would understand that.

13 posted on 02/25/2013 5:31:27 PM PST by zeugma (Those of us who work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a living.)
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To: ansel12

Then I agree to disagree. If the party of W. Bush, McCain and Romney is conservative, for reform, and less govt then I want nothing to do with that kind of “limited govt fiscal conservatism.” It bears no resemblance to my views of smaller govt and fiscal conservatism.

Once again I think one of the worst things that has happened to society is that we willingly confuse not being as left as the other guy to mean being conservative. It’s the primary as a country we have leaped to the left and struggle to even find a conservative politician in govt today.


14 posted on 02/25/2013 6:51:47 PM PST by FreeMerica
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To: FreeMerica
"Obamacare" should really be defined as the bureaucratic extinction of the old dressed up as a "we care about the old" package.

Old people in this country were lied to by the media and their government their entire lives. Everything concerning those programs that imprisoned them were a fraud dressed as icing on the cake by design. It is only now that many have awakened to the truth that our very own government is, has been, and will be our biggest obstacle to regaining the liberty and freedom we were given by our nations founding fathers. Unfortunately for many, their misplaced trust in what their government and media have preached to them over and over has been abused.

I am approaching retirement age. I want social security abolished entirely. It is nothing more than government ownership of the elderly. The way to do this is simple. It must be done over a long enough period of time to be enacted in such a way that everybody wins something and gives something up in return.

1. Everyone currently on social security who actually paid into the system remains on the system until they die. Their cost of living increases would be adjusted as to amount and how often they occur. This means that over a four year time span, those who should never have been on the system in the first place, the real freeloaders, can receive a twenty-five percent reduction in benefits per year until they no longer receive anything and are off of the system.

2. Offer a one-time buyout to anyone within ten years of retirement such that they would be removed from the plan entirely and would never receive benefits. Their paychecks also would now be totally untouched by social security taxation making them an experienced, dependable, less expensive group of employees for anyone who hires them. This step alone would remove a considerable amount of future expense from the program making it a bit easier to manage as it is eliminated over time. Anyone who decides not to take the buyout will have to live with whatever adjustment are made to the plan in order to manage its cost. Whatever you borrow to fund this "buyout" will be easier to pay off and far less over time than having to pay the benefits they replace.

3. Those in the ten to twenty year range can be offered a smaller buyout or be stuck with whatever they end up with as the plan changes to contain cost.

4. Anyone over twenty years from retirement would be ineligible to receive benefits but their paychecks would still incur social security taxes until such a time as those taxes are no longer needed to fund paying recipients. Their net pay would rise as the number of those receiving social security die off. In a forty year time span, the program can be totally gone. This means that in twenty years time, you can get rid of social security and allow those who won't get it enough time to start saving for a personal retirement plan that THEY own, not the government.

Once this has been done, the real problem (the government itself, not the "old" people) will have been dealt with and permanently removed from the scene of the crime.

15 posted on 02/25/2013 7:29:58 PM PST by Uncle Sham
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To: FreeMerica

Like I said, you ramble, that post had nothing to do with me, or my posts.

You just want to talk about yourself and tell most everyone here what they already know, that it would be nice to have more conservative options and that you don’t like either party, big whoopie, who does.

When one age group votes conservative and for reform and less government spending, and one votes liberal and for more programs and for more government spending and against reform, I know who I would be defending, and who I would be criticizing.

Nothing is being transferred to the young, the young are voting for deficit spending, and are defeating the old in the voting booth.


16 posted on 02/25/2013 7:34:55 PM PST by ansel12 (Romney is a longtime supporter of homosexualizing the Boy Scouts (and the military).)
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To: FreeMerica
"I don’t think an age group voting a certain way is justification for generational theft."

We are beyond your generation with this theft and well into your unborn grand kids generation.

The Constitution in Article Four, Section 4 prohibits this kind of spending yet no one holds them accountable.

""The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."

A "republican form of government is one where the citizen is "represented" by someone at the Government table. Your son, before he was born, could not possibly be represented by anyone. Yet, those who claim the ability to represent him have spent HIS money without him being there to have the ability to vote them out of office. He is not getting that "Guarantee that was made in writing right there in Article Four.

17 posted on 02/25/2013 7:36:59 PM PST by Uncle Sham
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To: ansel12

“When one age group votes conservative and for reform and less government spending, and one votes liberal and for more programs and for more government spending and against reform, I know who I would be defending, and who I would be criticizing.

Nothing is being transferred to the young, the young are voting for deficit spending, and are defeating the old in the voting booth.”

Ansel, I am sorry if I am not being clear or rambling. I disagree with your opinion that voting republican is any different than voting liberal. I lamented the attitude that simply because it is a bit less liberal than Democrats that somehow it is conservative. That is the reason, in my opinion, that we have seen a giant political shift left overall and in the Republican party.

I also lamented that many youth vote democrat but regardless of their vote when we spend money we don’t have right now, that debt falls on future generations. That is a wealth transfer. Their money is being spent right now.

Uncle Sham I absolutely agree with everything you said.


18 posted on 02/25/2013 8:45:28 PM PST by FreeMerica
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To: FreeMerica

If you wanted to talk about the sameness of the two parties, then you should have posted another topic, or find someone who shares your interest in that topic.


19 posted on 02/25/2013 10:05:40 PM PST by ansel12 (Romney is a longtime supporter of homosexualizing the Boy Scouts (and the military).)
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To: FreeMerica

This wealth transfer to the elderly has been the trend. But the yutes got even with the seniors by voting for Obama(care). Once the Death Panel kicks in, the trend will reverse itself.


20 posted on 02/25/2013 10:16:06 PM PST by kevao (.)
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