Bush lying when he says all options on table. Cheney admits it on Fox News

[flpoljunkie]

 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,150205,00.html

CAMERON: Democrats say take personal retirement accounts off the table and it's time to talk.

CHENEY: Won't happen.

CAMERON: Which means we go where? Because the president, according to the critics and according to the plan, hasn't really addressed the solvency issue himself. That's the part that's missing.

CHENEY: But we've encouraged people to participate, engage in that debate. At the appropriate time, we'll be willing to zero in, sit down and negotiate with Congress. Congress ultimately will write the legislation. But we'll be a major part of that.

_________________

Don't bother to read more. Cheney doesn't answer the question about solvency--because he can't and furthermore, they are not interested in the solvency of Social Security--but of course, Dubya and his party will never admit that.

[cthrumatrix]

1. soc sec is a "distraction issue" who is going to be worried about soc sec

in 50 yrs..when we are at peak oil...and all is gone in 30-35 yrs..?

[w4rma]

2. life will go on and folks will be using solar panels, nuclear power plants

electric cars, hydrogen cells, wind farms, instead of burning ultra high priced hydrocarbons.

Of course the prices on everything will be higher since all these methods cost more than burning relatively cheap hydrocarbons.

[cthrumatrix]

4. it would take 10,000 nuclear power plants to replace oil use today

the world populations is growing 1.6%

Out usage of oil (energy) will double in 20 years...

Tell me...how are these issues addressed.

[w4rma]

5. "solar panels, … electric cars, hydrogen cells" (nt)

[shraby]

7. And horse and buggies.

[w4rma]

8. LOL, maybe. (nt)

[bklyncowgirl]

11. Cool! Hot damn, I'm in business!

Horses go from luxury item to transportation necessity. People who know how to handle and train them go from marginal eccentrics to vital enablers of the nation's transportation.

Better hold off on sending those mustangs to the slaughterhouse--we just might need them.

[bvar22]

6. A Well Funded Ten Year Plan as National Priority!

A TEN YEAR PLAN to develop Alternative Energy Sources, Conservation, and Energy Efficient Community Planning as a National Priority would do nicely!
Funding HomeGrown technology would also have a positive effect on OUR economy.

The $300Billion wasted in Iraq would go a long way toward solving the problem.

[Old and In the Way]

9. Exactly what the Democrats should be pushing.

Our energy policy is directly linked to our foreign policy and our domestic economy.

Republicans = oil = war = declining standard of living = Dead End.
Democrats = renewable/alt energy = no blood for oil = jobs at home = a real future.

[bvar22]

10. Which begs the question....

How much of the Democratic Party is owned by Big Oil?

[Ian David]

13. Don't forget nuclear fusion and space-based solar power.

Geothermal, wind, tidal energy, biomass, hydrogen, and others.

Granted, some of those are way off over the horizon.

I really don't have a big problem with fission nuclear power as long as we use the safer pebble-bed reactors and all the waste gets dumped in the rural areas of the red states.

But once we have fusion, we can just dump the waste into the fusion reactor and reduce it to plasma.

And maybe someday (and this is a MAJOR stretch) we might have zero-point energy. And don't anybody tell me you can already buy zero-point generators from the ads in the back of Popular Mechanics.

Oh, and here's an irony.

Guess what region of the world may be best-suited to containing huge arrays of solar panels?

Think of someplace bright and sunny and hot. With huge open deserts. Yes, that's right. The Middle East. We'd better beat them to it.

[rodeodance]

3. old stone face is on the trail to 'educate' the dumbies!!!

[Ian David]

12. I have a much better idea. At least, I think it's a better idea.

I could be wrong.

I've had shitty ideas before.

Anyway, here's my idea.

Pass a law that says brokers can charge fees only for making trades on stock accounts, not for holding your investment for you, unless you have more than a certain amount of money.

The idea is for the small investor to put money in the market and avoid the situation I had.

I bought $500 worth of SpaceDev and SpaceHab stock back in 1999 through Prudential. Since then, my "service fees" have become greater than the value of the stock.

Yes, I know they were probably stupid stocks to buy. But I remembered a story The Motley Fool talked about on NPR.

He told about a Harley Davidson motorcycle guy he met at a bar. The Harley guy said his broker told him to invest his money in a couple of companies he knew nothing about, and never understood what the companies did. He got a lousy return and regretted it.

The Motley Fool guy asked him, "Why didn't you invest in Harley Davidson?" It turns out, if he'd invested the same money in Harley Davidson, he would have done great. The moral of the story is to invest in things you understand and that you like.

So, I invested in SpaceHab and SpaceDev, and told Prudential that I wasn't planning on selling the stocks for at least another 70 years. With that in mind, I somehow wasn't adequately informed about yearly service fees.

SpaceHab
http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?company=SpaceHab&CIK=&filenum=&State=&SIC=&owner=include&action=getcompany

SpaceDev
http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?company=SpaceDev&CIK=&filenum=&State=&SIC=&owner=include&action=getcompany

Actually, I would have done better if I'd invested in Bio-tech firms using a formula I'd come up with. I had a list of companies that had at least one money-making product and at least one other completely novel product at stage III in the pipeline and a stock price under $5/share. I'd picked three of my favorites and watched as they did fantastically, but I never invested in them. This is not advice, this is anecdote.

Anyway, my idea is to allow consumers to invest in stocks and mutual funds without service fees, except to make a transaction.

This would be completely separate from Social Security.

And there should be a tax credit for up to four transactions per year, up to a maximum of $1,000 in fees per year.

Anyway, how stupid is my idea, and is it more stupid than what I invested in?

[applegrove]

14. They need to be humiliated for not saying what is involved in SS. Someone

tried to sell my parents a time share and would not answer the basic questions about costs, etc. Apparently if you sell something before you know the costs, and you make the decision to buy it ... you'll still buy it after you find out the details (or are more likely).

What is that type of sales tactic called? I mean other than manipulation?