Re: Brilliant Idea -- Give the SS Trust Fund a private account.

royls_at_telus.net
Date: 03/05/05 

Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 21:15:28 GMT

On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 21:28:58 GMT, "Scalia Next Chief Justice"
<pantload@NancyPelosi.com> wrote:

><royls@telus.net> wrote in message news:4228d21d.13521781@news.telus.net...
>> On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 22:31:08 GMT, "Scalia Next Chief Justice"
>> <pantload@NancyPelosi.com> wrote:
>>
>>>"Jeff Welch" <prouddem@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>>news:1109888589.0354a4adeaf3a502ae48e4a278447ca3@meganetnews2...
>>>>
>>>> "Socialism is a Mental Disease" <root@localhost.> wrote in message
>>>> news:aire21tdkksfc5qmhs8o6ibq8vjdccr0jc@4ax.com...
>>>>
>>>>>>Social Security is insurance.
>>>>>
>>>>> Bull***! What is the risk Social Security covers?
>>>>
>>>> Poverty.
>>>
>>>How does a check for $1000 a month lift a person out of poverty, Jeff??
>>
>> Very simply: if their current standard of living is less than
>> $1000/month below the minimum level that is not poverty.
>>
>>>Isn't the official Poverty Level that the Democrats like to quote a bit
>>>higher than $12K a year?? I thought it was something like $24K a year or
>>>less constituted a person "living in poverty" here in the United States,
>>>according to the Democrats?
>>
>> Wasn't that for a family of four?
>
>OK, so you've got a family of four, and the Social Security "insurance" for
>that family is giving them about $12K a year to cover their housing, food,
>utilities, clothing, and entertainment.

I thought the $1K/month was for a single _retired_ person, not a
family of four.

>Please tell us again how that
>"insures" that they are not living in abject poverty?

OK. They live in the basement of an older house in a small town where
land is cheap, get almost all their clothes except shoes from
charities, eat simple food cooked from scratch, etc. It's not that
hard to do if you don't have to live near a place of employment.

>Can you give us a
>rough breakdown as to how that family of four apportions that $1K a month to
>cover housing, food, utilities, clothing, and entertainment? That's $250 a
>month each. Can you give us a reasonable approximation of how that $250 a
>month "insurance" covers each of them?

Rent: $500
Food: $250
Clothing: $50 (charities send thousands of tons of good used clothing
to Africa every year)
Utilities: $200 (depends on climate, of course)
Entertainment: $0 (public library, free ISP, pirated PC games, etc.)

Of course they would need some kitchen equipment, furniture, maybe a
TV set, DVD player and computer, etc., but those are capital costs,
not ongoing expenses.

Feel free to make adjustments. But don't try to tell me an adult
can't eat tasty, healthy (if somewhat monotonous) food on $2/day.
I've done it.

-- Roy L