America's Largest Newspaper Launches a Nasty Attack on Grandma and Grandpa

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/150930/america%27s_largest_newspaper_launches_a_nasty_attack_on_grandma_and_grandpa/


The conservative playbook isn't difficult to decipher. They rely heavily on the politics of resentment – point to someone in our society, claim they're a lucky-duck using unverifiable anecdotes or cherry-picked data, and then urge people to ask, "Why does that person have it so good when I'm busting my ass to make ends meet?"

It was apparent in Ronald Reagan's “welfare queen” rhetoric, and also in the ubiquitous references to “young bucks” buying T-bone steaks with their food-stamps. Now the Right's using the exact same play for those greedy public employees supposedly living large on their fat salaries.

This week, the Wall Street Journal featured an excellent example of the genre by John Cogan, a fellow at the corporate-backed Hoover Institution. The piece, titled, “The Millionaire Retirees Next Door,” is a shining testament to the dishonesty surrounding our discourse on “entitlements.”

Cogan's pitch is this: “The typical husband and wife who reach age 66 and qualify for Social Security ... will begin collecting a combination of cash and health-care entitlement benefits that will total $1 million over their remaining expected lifetime.” They'll get an average of $1 million in cash and health-care bennies over the rest of their lives, which makes them millionaires! Why aren't you?

More at the link --

[meegbear]

1. When I read this stuff, I always think of a Mad Magazine cartoon I saw as a kid ...

it shows an old woman eating from a can of cat food with a fork, watching a TV show where a woman in furs is swooning with her hand on forehead saying to her bulter: "My diamond necklace is GONE. How will I ever survive?"

I wish I could find it - that was back in the 70s and is so relevant today.

[Nickigrace]

2. I'm a 44 year old single mother of three

by the time they get to me, I'll be lucky if I'm not living under a bridge somewhere digging through trash! I can't believe people are actually buying this crap. It's so frustrating!

[spinbaby]

3. Unbelievable

So now heart-bypass surgery counts as income. :mad:

[LiberalLoner]

4. They are making it clear. If you aren't adding to the wealth of the top tenth of one percent,

It's time for you to die. And die horribly, of starvation, or of untreated cancer, or out in the streets. And with nothing but the contempt of all the rest of your society as you are in the process of dying. After all, you are old and worthless. Or you are part of that evil baby boomer generation that used too many resources so you deserve to die horribly now. Or you are a conservative so you deserve to die horribly now. Or you are a liberal so you deserve to die horribly now. Or you are...whatever...so you deserve to die horribly now.

We are being divided into ever smaller factions, and being persuaded to hate everyone else, and to think of them as less than fully human.

Where do all of you guys see this ending up? Because I don't see it ending well at all.

I think we are headed for something like what happened in Rwanda, or at the least Pottersville.

[rurallib]

5. WSJ would much rather that money go to Wall Street banksters

[HereSince1628]

9. All part of the privateers "leave no pile behind" strategy

pile as in stash of cash. Makes no difference where the pile is or how it accumulated, WS supports the notion that more and more of that cash should be in fewer and fewer, larger and larger piles under their control.

[Bandit]

15. It always ends up there anyway.

Give money to the poor and they spend it. Every time that money gets spent it advances up the ladder and it is no longer a "trickle". The money is accumulating at the very top at a rate unheard of in this nation's history.

[Sal Minella]

18. But the trickling up creates jobs!!!

You think all those bankers in Switzerland and the Caymans work for nothing???

[Hubert Flottz]

6. Rupert's magic touch...

[TomClash]

7. Where was this guy when they (and their employer) were paying into the system for 40-50 years?

What nonsense.

[Raven]

8. $1200 SS a month (average) for 25 years (average) is about

$360,000 over a lifetime which is $14,400 a year. A average senior on Medicare pays about $300 a month for Part B, a gap policy and a drug policy. I'm sure seniors will be thrilled to know how wealthy they really are. I think if I had been able to hold on to the $ I paid in to SS and Medicare over the last 47 years and invested it, I would be a real millionaire by now.

[RebelOne]

27. No, it is actually $1,400 a month.

At least that is what I am collecting minus $110 for Medicare.

[hfojvt]

28. depends on the investment

and the government pays about $12,000 a year for each person on medicare, according to what I looked up yesterday. That seems kinda pricey. I wonder if most of it is going to nursing homes.

According to the numbers I run in my spreadsheet, the money I paid into social security plus 5% interest would give me $144,280.76 by the time I am 62 (and can (and maybe will) start collecting benefits). 5% of that is $7,214 a year. Social security will only pay me $599 a month, or $7,188 a year. So, not only does Social Security pay less than a 5% return, it also keeps the principle of $144,000.

If, on the other hand, I work until I am 67, I will have accumulated $194,065.63 (at 5%) and 5% of that is $9,703.28. Social security will pay $880 a month, or $10,560 a year - slightly better than a 5% return.

I think I also get better returns because of my low income. People who make/have made much more may not get as good a return.

[hobbit709]

10. My 80 year old mother

who is living on $800/mo SS and about $150/mo more from her retirement fund certainly doesn't consider herself a millionaire.

[izquierdista]

11. HOOVER institution

Now there's a name that conjures up images of prosperity -- lost prosperity.

[vssmith]

12. Is it my imagination or is the WSJ getting

more right wing since its recent takeover by RM. I know it was never a liberal rag but now...

[Fumesucker]

13. The editorial page has been falling-off-the-edge right wing for as long as I can remember.

[starroute]

26. It used to be that the editorials were RW but the news was objective

But from what I read, the Murdoch difference is that the entire paper has now lost its objectivity.

[End Of The Road]

14. It's those pesky "health-care entitlement benefits"

Get old, get cancer, get treatment, and yeah, it might approach a million, depending on the illness.

But how is that my fault? Or anything I should be punished for?

Are they saying I should curl up and die?

If I'm lucky enough to have those kinds of health benefits when I retire (still a few years away), it doesn't mean I won't be having to eat cat food when I get home from the hospital. My SS & retirement benefits are not going to give me a luxurious lifestyle.

[LiberalLoner]

19. Yes, they ARE saying you should just curl up and die instead of using

health care. That, in fact, is EXACTLY what they are saying.

[GeorgeGist]

16. Why do people bust their ass ...

to support rich people?

[trotsky]

17. Ruben Bolling has been nailing this phenomenon for years...

in his "Tom the Dancing Bug" strip which regularly features a millionaire who is frustrated with just how "wonderful" the Lucky Ducky has things.

http://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2011/04/08/

[madrchsod]

20. wow i`m making 750 or so a month.....

yup, i`ll be a millionaire in a couple more years.....

[DenverDad]

21. That is a ridiculous and repulsive position for Cogan to take.

” They'll get an average of $1 million in cash and health-care bennies over the rest of their lives, which makes them millionaires!"

How long is the "rest of their lives"? 15 years? 20 years? That would average out to $50,000-$67,000 a year "cash PLUS benefits".

These were the same people crowing that teachers in Wisconsin made $86,000 salary PLUS benefits. One can't dismiss the value of health benefits. They amount to much more than pocket change.

These "senior millionaires" are likely living off about $2500 a month. I guess if they get a long-term debilitating illness they could "scam" they system for over $1 million. Those conniving bastards!

[LiberalLoner]

23. His point is that they are sucking up assets that would be better used by

the ultra-rich. Even though the old people actually paid for these benefits all of their lives, and are not responsible for the exorbitant rise in healthcare costs.

It's just another variation of, "only rich people deserve to live. You aren't rich or contributing to the wealth of the rich? Then die already. If God liked you, you'd be a millionaire. Since you aren't, it is clear God hates you, so you deserve to die anyway." Calvinism at its finest.

[Nye Bevan]

22. Well I for one feel *good* that Grandma and Grandpa are going to get an average of $1 million

in cash and benefits. They absolutely deserve it. So I guess the WSJ article did not have the desired affect on me. I suppose they wanted to get me angry about the fact that we treat our seniors with dignity and respect.

[mistertrickster]

24. According to this article, a person who works for 100 years at 10K a year

is a "millionaire."

That's not how one defines millionaire . . . the real definition is someone with a million dollars in assets.

[liam_laddie]

25. Amazing math skills!

The WSJ's publishing an article by a math-challenged ideologue? "No one could have known." As many posters have noted, the $1mm figure was pulled out of his ass like a paper tape out of a broken adding machine. Reich-wingers who graze on the high plateaux of The Street simply have no conception of the financial circumstances of 99% of us. Out of touch and out of their minds! Murdoch's media empire should fail, based on its distortions of reality; i.e., constant lying, whether out of ignorance or malice, matters not. To the guillotine! :puke:

And today we learn (thank you, ProudToBeLiberal) of Murdoch's News Corp's Sky Italia TV subsidiary dropping Al Gore's Current TV because it will soon carry Keith Olbermann. Between Rupert and Silvio, I certainly feel badly for the Italian public. Why IS the worldwide reactionary right so afraid of sunlight, fact, contrary opinions and serious investigative journalism? Because they fear they will be exposed for their greed and fascist belief system. :kick: