Let's decrease or even elminate corporate subsidies to lower government deficit.

[notyoueither]

Yeah, I want to see exactly what they're thinking on limits in terms of means testing. In the last 10-12 years, between myself and my companies contributions are over 120k. I'm getting close to 57 so I was contributing for over 20 years even prior to that. I'm sure well over a quarter of a million dollars in total. It would be nice to get some benefit back from all that.

I've looked at our programme as something that was nice for a while, but will not last. I am happy with the idea that either I will not retire, or I will have to make my retirement entirely myself.

There's also that pesky curve of the population. By the time I am near 65, there wil likely be legislation that retirement is 75. Society will simply not be able to afford everyone getting everything promised. Someone will have to work, and keep working.

And our system is relatively well funded compared to yours. Still, there will be too many other pressures.

[rah]

I do find it funny when those that have state or federal pensions tell me that SS is so screwed up that I shouldn't expect to have it as a crutch for retirement because of the aging population, but defend to the death their overly generous pensions saying they deserve it because they paid money into it.

[MrFun]

I'm sorry you don't have the intellectual capacity to wrap your mind around the logic. It's very simple really. You use X as a weapon, from that we can determine that X is viewed by you as providing value as a weapon. You claim that without X you can do the same thing, from that we can deduce that X is viewed by you as no value as a weapon. I'm just pointing out your self-refutation of your own action, and doing so in a way that my own view of your attack on rah (eg "worthless") can be read from the same statement as well.

[MrFun]

A few points here:

1) Yes, "corporate subsidies" (generally in the form of various tax incentives for specific activities like research&development) are bad
2) On the other hand, corporate taxes in general are extremely distortive, do not raise very much money despite very high marginal rates in the US (due in large part to all the tax incentives) and don't actually have the distributive effects that a lot of people think they do (most estimates of the relevant elasticities find that capital only bears a minority of the tax burden)
3) Given (1) and (2) I am ambivalent about closing tax loopholes/subsidies without a concomitant reduction in the headline rates. On the other hand, closing the loopholes while reducing the rates could easily increase tax hauls while also improving efficiency (no, this isn't a supply-side argument; I'm talking about a simple static analysis, although of course there would be some supply-side effect)

Oh my god. Is this the first time in the history of Apolyton that you've replied to a thread topic with whom you disagree with, without using insults?

[DaShi]

I do find it funny when those that have state or federal pensions tell me that SS is so screwed up that I shouldn't expect to have it as a crutch for retirement because of the aging population, but defend to the death their overly generous pensions saying they deserve it because they paid money into it.

Federal pensions come out of their salary, just like a 401K.

[DaShi]

What stupid things did they say?

The CEO just quit saying that she's too much for NPR to handle and that she'll start a new station with her fists of fire.

Chief Executive of NPR Resigns
By BRIAN STELTER and ELIZABETH JENSEN
10:41 a.m. | Updated NPR announced on Wednesday that its board had accepted the resignation of its chief executive, Vivian Schiller.

Ms. Schiller is leaving NPR after a two-year tenure at the helm of an organization that has been beset by controversy. Her departure comes a day after the latest episode, in which a political activist released a video showing one of NPR’s fund-raising executives expressing harsh personal views of Republicans and Tea Party supporters in a conversation with people posing as prospective donors.

NPR said that Joyce Slocum, the organization’s senior vice president for legal affairs and general counsel, would serve as interim chief executive while a committee was formed to seek a permanent replacement for Ms. Schiller.

“I am sorry to be leaving NPR,” Ms. Schiller told Media Decoder in a telephone interview. “I think it’s an extraordinary organization, and while the organization is on the right track there’s much work to be done. I regret I’m not going to be part of it.” She praised NPR’s journalists as “heroic and uncompromising in their work.”

Of her tenure, she said: “I arrived at NPR in January 2009, and the organization was in terrible financial straits.” Now, she said, “it’s in the black and expanding its journalism and it’s breaking new ground in terms of digital journalism.” She said that while she alone could not take all the credit, “I had a very clear vision for NPR that I hope will continue, and I’m very proud of the work that I’ve done.”

In the activist’s video, the fund-raising executive, Ronald Schiller, who is not related to Ms. Schiller, was heard telling people posing as Muslim philanthropists that the Republican Party had been “hijacked” by the Tea Party and that Tea Party supporters were “seriously racist, racist people.” Mr. Schiller, who was already scheduled to leave NPR soon to take a job at the Aspen Institute, said on Tuesday that he would leave immediately.

Referring to the videotape, Ms. Schiller said in the interview, “I obviously had no prior knowledge” of the executive’s comments, “and nothing to do with them, and disavowed them as soon as I learned of them all. But I’m the C.E.O., and the buck stops here. I’m hopeful that my departure from NPR will have the intended effect of easing the defunding pressure on public broadcasting.”

She told Media Decoder that she spoke to the NPR board at about 7 p.m. on Tuesday and then had a conversation with its chairman, Dave Edwards, later in the evening. She declined to elaborate on the conversations.

NPR has been beset by controversy for months. Ms. Schiller drew criticism last fall over the organization’s handling of the dismissal of a political analyst, Juan Williams. Republicans in Congress who view NPR as biased have been trying to cut the financing it receives in the federal budget.

Before Ms. Schiller joined NPR, she was a senior vice president at The New York Times Company, where she was general manager of nytimes.com.

She was respected by many at NPR for helping re-orient the organization in the digital media age. But she was chastened by the NPR board for her handling of Mr. Williams’s dismissal, and she recognized on Tuesday that the video of Mr. Schiller was a new hurdle for her and her organization.

In a speech on Monday at the National Press Club in Washington, Ms. Schiller made a passionate plea to continue federal financing for NPR. She said the organization made up “10 percent of the public radio economy” and was a “a critical cornerstone of public media” of particular importance to rural stations.

According to the Public Media Association, a new group that is lobbying to keep federal financing for public broadcasters, $89 million in federal money goes to public radio stations each year by way of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. “The fiscal solvency of up to 100 public radio stations will be put in serious jeopardy immediately if federal funding for C.P.B. is eliminated, and a great many more will be dealt a potentially devastating blow,” the association said in a recent statement.

The text of the NPR announcement about Ms. Schiller’s resignation follows:

It is with deep regret that I tell you that the NPR Board of Directors has accepted the resignation of Vivian Schiller as President and C.E.O. of NPR, effective immediately.

The Board accepted her resignation with understanding, genuine regret, and great respect for her leadership of NPR these past two years.

Vivian brought vision and energy to this organization. She led NPR back from the enormous economic challenges of the previous two years. She was passionately committed to NPR’s mission, and to stations and NPR working collaboratively as a local-national news network.

According to a CEO succession plan adopted by the Board in 2009, Joyce Slocum, S.V.P. of Legal Affairs and General Counsel, has been appointed to the position of Interim C.E.O. The Board will immediately establish an Executive Transition Committee that will develop a timeframe and process for the recruitment and selection of new leadership.

I recognize the magnitude of this news — and that it comes on top of what has been a traumatic period for NPR and the larger public radio community. The Board is committed to supporting NPR through this interim period and has confidence in NPR’s leadership team.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/chief-executive-of-npr-resigns/?hp

Geez, a CEO taking responsibility for her organization to the point of resigning. What do they think this is? Japan?

[Hauldren Collider]

I do find it funny when those that have state or federal pensions tell me that SS is so screwed up that I shouldn't expect to have it as a crutch for retirement because of the aging population, but defend to the death their overly generous pensions saying they deserve it because they paid money into it.

So you're saying they are wrong simply because they also get too much government pork? Rah, get off your self-interested high horse and accept the obvious truth that you have no right to that SS money simply because you were a victim of program while it was still solvent.

[notyoueither]

And 'they' have a right to 'theirs' because?

I see his point. SS is not going to work, and SS contributors are going to have to take a large part of the hit.

How is that different from other beneficiaries of incompetent governments of the present and the past being similarly affected when reality sets in?

[KrazyHorse]

Federal pensions come out of their salary, just like a 401K.

Fed govt employees are not IIRC subject to ss withholding. And the pensions rah is likely referring to are their ridiculously underfunded defined benefit plans, not like 401ks which are defined contribution

[C0ckney]

And in fact, you would expect spending to be higher today

Actually, I'd expect it to be far lower, given that the USSR doesn't exist any more, China is (relatively) friendly, and the biggest security threat is a few thousand people with boxcutters.

this.

wars are changing, big conventional military forces are fast becoming obsolete.

[rah]

Federal pensions come out of their salary, just like a 401K.

And where did MY SS contributions come from? My salary combined with matching employer contributions that would be part of my salary if they didn't have to give them to the government.
THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE, which I why I find it funny.

[rah]

So you're saying they are wrong simply because they also get too much government pork? Rah, get off your self-interested high horse and accept the obvious truth that you have no right to that SS money simply because you were a victim of program while it was still solvent.

If I'm not entitled to the money I contributed, then they shouldn't be either.

[Jon Miller]

But what you pay isn't what you put in (for SS).

Rather, SS is more like an insurance.

There wasn't a promise that you would get out a total of X dollars. If there was, then there would be no problem with SS.

JM

[Jon Miller]

If I'm not entitled to the money I contributed, then they shouldn't be either.

You aren't entitled to the money you contributed. You are entitled to Y per month, where Y can be defined as the government sees fit (basically).

Y doesn't depend on what you contribute, it depends on what the government defines.

JM

[Hauldren Collider]

If I'm not entitled to the money I contributed, then they shouldn't be either.

I agree with you on that. The fact that they are also self-interested whiners doesn't excuse your self-interested whining.