Posted on 06/15/2009 4:43:56 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Old: The 1980s ushered in a lasting change: the systematic transfer of risk from the government and employers down to individuals. Tax cuts on income and capital gains, for example, were meant to encourage you to invest more in stocks, buy homes, and start up businesses. These activities became the pillars of what George W. Bush would later dub the "ownership society."
But the ownership society also forced you to take on risks and responsibilities that had previously been spread around, including paying for health care and ensuring your own retirement security.
The 401(k), which sprang up in the early '80s, calls on workers to put up most (or all) of the money for their retirement and assume all the investment risk. These plans became so popular that Bush pushed a government version, the partial privatization of Social Security, in 2005. The plan didn't fly in the bull market earlier this decade. What's happened since surely won't help revive it.
New: In "The Audacity of Hope," Barack Obama criticized the ownership society because it "magnifies the uneven risks and rewards of today's winner-take-all economy." Now, with one in 10 mortgage borrowers delinquent or in foreclosure, and with many baby boomers having lost about a quarter of their nest eggs, support for the idea is waning. How far will the pendulum swing back?
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
What a propaganda piece! Good Golly! It’s was too much for individuals to handle OWNING A HOME? It was too much for individuals to handle their own health care?
I know. It’s CNN. It’s just ridiculous!
Hello, Collectivism! Goodbye, Freedom!
Jerks.
I'm pretty sure people did this way before George W. Bush, and even before Ronald W. Reagan.
And if the "responsibilities" were "spread around," that just means they were socialized. Is it a bad thing that people took responsibility for their own needs?
...and freedom.
A few weeks ago he was an "urban theorist."
You are full of crap.
Me? Really? LOL!
It’s like reading an explanation of why apple pie and mother’s milk are under attack.
As the democrats say they want to help “you” with your mortgage, they really don’t want people to own anything.
The argument that because there was a dip in the economy, we must eliminate ownership and “risk” has to be the most ruthlessly cynical political ploy in our nation’s history.
You don’t need a private job because you can lose one of those. Stocks can go down. Money can suffer inflation. So just turn everything over to the government and there is no “risk” and no hope for you either.
Can you imagine how poor they really want to make us? I’d say Third World poor.
They change titles and job responsibilities at CNN as they slowly go down the tubes.
Next week he’ll be cleaning toilets, LOL!
Barack Obama’s book decried ownership and we elected this dangerous A hole?
“As the democrats say they want to help “you” with your mortgage, they really don’t want people to own anything.”
Exactly.
They "forced" no one. I am an 80's young adult. What they talked about then was how Social Security would not be there. And their still talking about how Social Security will run out of money, along with medicaid, medicare etc. They told us the risk being spread around would fail under government control.
What? OMG! They told us the truth. And for all those whiners about the losses to your 401K...they warned you about those risks too. What you were to scared to pay the 10% penalty to get out before you lost 50%? With risk comes responsibility.
their.....they’re
“With risk comes responsibility.”
Too bad Dear Leader doesn’t remember that with great power comes great responsibility, as well. *SIGH*
Well socialists are all for home ownership when it’s minorites recieving low interest, no consequences government back loans. Those said loans should be for townhomes and condos in decaying urban areas, where owners can put our fresh flower boxes out front and declare urban poverty has been eradciated.
I'd say stay away. They were talking about confiscation of these last fall. As fast as they are moving on stuff...it will be revisited before years end.
Williams: “So just turn everything over to the government and there is no “risk” and no hope for you either.”
That is FACT, my FRiend. Proved pretty much everywhere it’s been tried.
Government owns a huge stake in the banks. Banks have all those empty houses. Government mandates people get to live in those houses, with the government taking a healthy cut of the income flow/appreciation (not that there will be any appreciation in a risk free society and who knows about the rent).
So, it looks like there are those who are ready to take the *risk*. When the various neighborhoods with the most government renters fall into slums, the government can just raze the place. Incrementally, they *return* to *wilderness*.
Poor home *owners* who *had* to assume all that risk, are now perpetual slaves to the landlord of last resort. Behave as we say, or out you go.
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