General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPeas for old folks: Three months of meals, disappeared each year. Hunger.
For an 80-year-old woman, the "chained CPI" will reduce her earned benefits by one week's food per month, for someone already living on the edge. Three months of meals gone each year.
All because the Predator Class wants more planes, yachts, houses, and other shit.
That's sick, the stuff of sociopathy.
So tell Obama and his two good friends (pictured frolicking in my sig) to go take a flying fuck at the Moon. We cannot let the elderly starve so Romney can buy more car elevators.
tblue
(16,350 posts)You will rue the day you made this choice.
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)It's all a club of which you and I are not members.
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)His MIL won't be that 80 y/o woman losing 3 months of food per yr.
Shame.
msongs
(67,476 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Stealing mine is not.
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)Carter was the last vote I cast without holding my nose, at all. Strangely, he was also my first vote. My nose has gotten more painful each cycle since.
Manny!
kiva
(4,373 posts)And they still have those peas to eat...
eridani
(51,907 posts)--what with the osteoporosis and such. We can still clean motel toilets, but way too slow for the 1%. Wondering when they're going to recommend concentration camps.
Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)Am I right? We'll just have to learn how to squeeze those peas.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)we switch to pebbles. They're reusable with a little cleaning, too, which helps make ends meet.
dawg
(10,625 posts)caseymoz
(5,763 posts)Suppose those substitute peas have half the nutritional value? There's a reason why something's cheaper.
TheMadMonk
(6,187 posts)Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)And people wonder why we nicknamed it the Catfood Commission.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)Really? I remember writing a story on this subject recently, just poverty and food insecurity.
Here, I know, it is ONLY San Diego COUNTY... but try to extrapolate...
April 7, 2013 (San Diego) ECM spoke with County Board of Education Board Member Greg Robinson today. He shared details on how extensive the face of poverty has become in the County and how this affects our children. He also spoke of sequestration cuts and why living wages matter.
El Cajon has the highest rate of poverty in San Diego County, Robinson observed, adding that poverty leads to serious problems of food insecurity as more people are going hungry.
Robinson spoke with ECM at a rally in support of workers on a hunger strike at the Mission Valley Hilton. The workers are seeking to unionize for better pay to support their families.
Earlier in the week ECM talked with Richard Barrera, of San Diego Unified District. Barrera said that two thirds of the Districts 130,000 students are on the enhanced school lunch program. This means that they get both breakfast and lunch at School. When Friday comes, that lunch is the last good food for the weekend.
http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/12944
Yeah, yeah, writing policy articles here and there, between covering forest fires.
Oy.
dtom67
(634 posts)Glad not every one at DU wants us to blindly follow the President whereever he leads.
Blind loyalty is no more a patriotic duty for Dems than it is Repubs. Many here that decry any dissent as " playing into the hands of the gop" or outright accusations of being a troll would be foaming at the mouth if President Romney were making the same proposals.
I'm sorry, but in my world, the economic welfare of the People trumps all other issues. If we address the income inequality gap first, then most of the other stuff would be easier to handle.
I don't believe in "My Country, right or wrong". Believe that we should take care of all, not just those who already have more than they need.
This isn't a game; these are people's lives we ar talking about. It should be obvious what needs to be done, but corruption rules these days.....
HangOnKids
(4,291 posts)Isn't everyone retiring to Hawaii?
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)With big $$$$ no less.
Money made from the suffering of those most vulnerable.
Shame.
BuelahWitch
(9,083 posts)durablend
(7,467 posts)That's foo-foo gourmet cat food. It'll be STORE BRAND for you and YOU'LL LIKE IT, DAMMIT!
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)what will we substitute for it? Shards of glass? Beetles?
alterfurz
(2,475 posts)ReRe
(10,597 posts)...if we don't look out for each other."
AndyTiedye
(23,500 posts)I don't like chained CPI either (and I'm due to start collecting SS at the end of the year myself) but what can Obama do? The House of Teabaggers is holding us all hostage again. He has no choice but to negotiate with them.
Obama has no leverage whatsoever over them because they don't care what happens to the people who actually live in their districts, they don't have to. They only answer to ALEC. Gerrymandering and voter suppression keeps them in office, even in the face of a Democratic landslide in the popular vote, as was demonstrated last year.
If we abandon the Democratic party next year, we will certainly lose the Senate as well, and then in 2015 Obama will have to make even worse compromises as he will be in an even weaker bargaining position than he is now.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)What is your logic?
If he doesn't push for reducing Social Security with a chained-CPI, the Teaparty folk will destroy it? They'll demand even greater cuts?
Exactly why does he have to negotiate with Teabaggers? Do you have an answer?
bvar22
(39,909 posts)Read that right here on the DU!
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)world wide wally
(21,758 posts)they just want more for the sake of having more.
carolinayellowdog
(3,247 posts)from a greater distance
Comrade_McKenzie
(2,526 posts)Mr. Obamas budget will propose a new inflation formula that would have the effect of reducing cost-of-living payments for Social Security benefits, though with financial protections for low-income and very old beneficiaries, administration officials said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/us/social-programs-face-cutback-in-obama-budget.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
No one will be starving.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)We've heard those promises before.
[font size=1]As you can see I am not happy. I am angry because you pledged not to touch Social Security and I voted for you feeling secure that you would do so. Now you are making the people who can least afford it pay for something that shouldnt even be part of the deficit discussion. The Republicans are trying to dismantle anything having to do with the New Deal. We earned our Social Security. Raising the cap on income taxed for Social Security is the correct way to solve the issue.
I hope you will see how many of us are upset with your giving away the store and that you will change direction. Otherwise you will have damaged your reputation and your party irrevocably.
Shola Friedensohn[/font]
many more here:
http://savesocialsecurity.tumblr.com/
durablend
(7,467 posts)If you already close to dead or flat broke, no problem, otherwise, bend over.
Sorry...don't think so.
eridani
(51,907 posts)--comes nowhere near lifting them out of abject poverty. The supplement for the oldest comes nowhere near compensating for chained CPI lifetime hit. The point of the chained CPI is
It would be really great if the shills for the 1% would quit insulting our intelligence by pretending that a calculation based on a bare minimal food budget multiplied by three has something to do with actual poverty. The rest of us don't live in your fantasy world where there is no such thing as rent, utilities or medical expenses, and where the unicorns never bite.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)the income they have is subsistence level at best. Some are starving now. Your posts are so misinformed and calloused that each of them makes a strong case for opposition not just to the particular policy, but the entire mindset you promote.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)So damn smug.
tokenlib
(4,186 posts)"Financial protections" is not real reassuring when so many people DEPEND on Social Security as the pillar of their retirement. Yeah, it was never supposed to be that way...BUT IT IS NOW..AND WILL BE MORE IN THE FUTURE thanks to the service economy, etc...
QC
(26,371 posts)AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)True, the response may be a form letter. But at least his office will respond.
In response to my efforts to urge him to oppose the proposed reduction of Social Security with a chained CPI index, he said that the current method of calculating the CPI "does not always accurately predict the impact of the price increase on the consumers budget."
So, the Obama Administration is not proposing a chained CPI because they want to screw ordinary Americans but because they want to have a methodology that is "more accurate".
The CPI tends to overstate inflation due in part to substitution bias. Given the widespread use of the CPI, especially when it comes to adjusting payments to inflation, its accuracy can have a significant impact on the economy. Currently, the CPI is a fixed-weight price index and does not always accurately predict the impact of the price increase on the consumers budget. Some deficit reduction plans have called for a shift to a chained-CPI calculation to produce a measure of change in consumer prices that is free of substitution bias.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...assumes that the people affected by the calculation have not already made any substitutions.
I'll wager that a very high percentage of Social Security recipients already substitute less-expensive cuts of meat for what they would have bought when working. I'll wager that a very high percentage of them already use generic brand foods and generic drugs, wherever possible.
If you're already choosing 30% fat ground beef when you buy meat, what exactly are you supposed to substitute?
If the only intent was for it to be "more accurate", then why is it being proposed as a negotiating chip, with the assumption being that it's something the GOP wants? The GOP wants it because it reduces benefits, period.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)I wonder how many more arguments that they have?
All convincing, of course.
eomer
(3,845 posts)In no way is chained CPI a more accurate measure of inflation. The cheaper substitutes that a person must resort to when their budget is cut were there all along. An accurate measure of inflation is about changes in prices, not about the things a person will do out of necessity to survive.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)22%! So you can see where Durbin's coming from.
He is right in that the CPI used for SS today is wrong: but it actually UNDERSTATES inflation for the elderly. The government has constructed a CPI formula that's specifically for seniors, and it shows HIGHER inflation than the model used today.
But accuracy ain't what Durbin, Obama and the rest of the Predator Class are trying for here. The chained-CPI that Durbin and the rest of these nogoodniks are plying is not designed for seniors, it was picked of many possible CPIs because it's smaller than the others.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)eridani
(51,907 posts)AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)Maybe that's their solution.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Your system keeps readjusting to need less, so eventually insulin resistance kicks in even if you are eating nothing.
Jakes Progress
(11,123 posts)acting as predator drones on the elderly, children, the poor, and the middle class. The wealthy deploy them at will. Our democracy is the collateral damage.
Autumn
(45,120 posts)he wants us. Rec
forestpath
(3,102 posts)indepat
(20,899 posts)moon and themselves as lagniappe and shame on our president for buying into their right-wing load of smelly shitty dung dressed as balanced when it's pure depraved right-wing hockey.
just1voice
(1,362 posts)"The Predator Class" is well said.