Well put.

Post #42,156 by mmoffitt 6/12/02 10:35:43 PM Reply	Well put. And I concur completely. Those contributions are, believe it or not, what I personally value most. My measure of success is whether or not my children will come visit me when I'm old - because they want to. Still, recognizing that most of us can contribute to only a handful of people does not, for me, give rise to the notion that the entire future generation should keep all of us old farts up. The ruling classes have most of the private wealth (iirc, top 1% owns 12%+ of all privately held wealth - dramatically up from the 70's when they held 7%). That being the case, the great unwashed of us have less to spend on themselves and their elders. I see no revolution coming, which means that some largish segment of the unwashed has to lose. IMHO, it should be the outgoing generation, not the incoming one, that sacrifices most. Quick example: all the talk about a "prescription benefit for Medicare" is out of place, imo, when 1 in 4 kids live in poverty, many millions of them with no healthcare at all. Give them healthcare first, before throwing yet more money out of the pockets of the next generation and into the elderly's. Again, sacrificing the future for the sake of the past - I just don't "get it".
Post #42,167 by Ashton 6/13/02 5:42:16 AM Reply	Interesting triage. And hard to argue with the fait accompli of the [never mind the mere 1%] 3-5%, where something over half of everything gets squirreled away: to keep the hegemony going and the illusion of Elite sustained. Nope, no revolution on any horizon I see. Of course the whole idea of inheritance is the mercantile mind's response to Life, the Universe and Everything\ufffd. This even though we know the effect upon children of their being early-on, "set for life" !! Would the desire to buy 'immortality' vicariously through offspring, be as Big a deal if.. fearfulness of death (increasing with age) were not nearly So Big a deal? (ie we're s'posed to acquire some inklings of wisdom - that used to be called maturity - thus Less fear! of a perfectly natural process involving 'bodies'. Instead: we will spend any amount available to buy 5 minutes more.) Trouble with your triage suggestion is - none of the above fits into the idea of 'rationality' (certainly not logic), since maturity has become increasingly rare in especially wealthy culture(s) and: Cosmic Joke? it appears that the more wealth accumulated - the less likely it is for that one to achieve maturity! The Xian bible's homily re "a rich man passing through the eye of a needle" suggests that the wealth aspect - has always negatively affected homo-sap's chances for er Enlightenment or at least adulthood? (Not just a Xian observation, natch) Of course there are the exceptions.. in an early stage of vulture capitalism: Astor and other moguls went down with the Titanic, with quiet dignity, it is said. (We can't know how much of that aplomb was from.. peer pressure?) Still, when pursuit of $$ is one's actual religion - I can't see that there are many (both old AND fearful) folk who could maintain the mindset which you suggest, for above reasons. (I agree it seems a much saner approach than the usual, just don't believe that many are capable of fulfilling it) Ashton
Post #42,819 by mmoffitt 6/18/02 7:03:19 PM Reply	Think there are any? Talk to some 70ish people who have the good fortune of having a net worth >=500,00 about maybe, just well, maybe they don't need that SS check and maybe since Washington takes care of those who vote and keep them on the gravy train (hence are unlikely to stop subsidizing them), maybe the 70ish person should put their entire SS check into a 529 or similar plan for their grandkids. Mind you, if you do ask such people, by all means, do not do so unarmed.

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