🚀 go-pugleaf

In ca.general Gunner <gunner@lightspeed.net> wrote:

...

> "When I left office, there was a substantial amount of biological and
> chemical material unaccounted for. That is, at the end of the first
> Gulf War, we knew what he had. We knew what was destroyed in all the
> inspection processes and that was a lot. And then we bombed with the
> British for four days in 1998. We might have gotten it all; we might
> have gotten half of it; we might have gotten none of it. But we didn't
> know. So I thought it was prudent for the president to go to the U.N.
> and for the U.N. to say you got to let these inspectors in, and this
> time if you don't cooperate the penalty could be regime change, not
> just continued sanctions."
> --Bill Clinton, July 22, 2003

     And that's exactly what happened, and Saddam did let the UN
inspectors back in, and they found nothing.  And the rest of the
world believed them, and Bush said the UN inspectors were wrong
and invaded, and found...nothing.  As the rest of the world (not
blinded by ideology) knew, the UN inspectors were right.

> Btw...being allowed to put 3-4% of your social security funds in a
> private account is hardly "destroying the system"

    It's not 3-4% of "your" Social Security funds, it's 1/3.  You
see, Social Security is about 12% of "your" funds (6% from you and
6% from your employer, unless you happen to be self-employed, in
which case you have the honor to put the entire 12% in yourself.).
    So 3% of "your" funds would be 1/4 of Social Security, and 4%
would be 1/3 of Social Security.
    But that's really beside the point.  The point is that the
purpose of Social Security is to provide a minumum guaranteed
income to everybody, regardless of the state of the economy, or the
state of the stock or bond market, or the quality of investment
choices made by the individual.  Social Security should do just 
that--take the minimum in taxes necessary to provide that absolute
floor of retirement income.  Individuals should have the complete
responsibility for providing for themselves above and beyond that.
The government should help, with tax deferral for IRAs, 401k's,
etc., but that's all.