Jug Hussein Ears Downgrade channeled his inner Gephardt the other day when he talked about “lottery winners” AKA “the rich” being “asked” AKA demanded to pay their “fair share” AKA more and more of their money to “invest” AKA waste money on poverty programs. Yannow the top 1% pay over 1/3 of the taxes in this country. I think it’s closer to 40% while making less than 20% of the income. As for this “life’s lottery” bullshit? Yeah. I really won life’s lottery didn’t I?
As I’ve written many times on this blog, this lottery winner and his sister grew up poor in a dysfunctional household with an alcoholic father and a mother who had to go to work to help support the family. My father wanted to go into business for himself and he and Mom refinanced the house so he could buy a service station, unfortunately, he bought a bar instead. He told my mother, “You can’t drink and make money with a bar.” He proved that statement.
Both my sister and I worked odd jobs growing up. She was the smart one who worked hard in school and won a four year scholarship to college. I flunked out of junior college. I joined the Navy to avoid the draft and learned electronics. I went to college for three years but dropped out. I did get a job with IBM.
I started with the Mattel Office Products Division and after 4.5 years, a friend pulled some strings and got me into the Field Engineering Division. I went from fixing typewriters to fixing large mainframes and the stuff connected to them. I worked 5.5 years on third shift to make more money and to get trained on more stuff. In a previous post I wrote about how that training got me hired as an instructor.
I was doing OK until I really hit the lottery jackpot and broke my back. Did I sit back and whine about how hard it was? Nope. I worked harder. I didn’t want anyone saying the only reason I had a job was because of Diversity (All Hail Diversity!). I worked with too many of those people and I didn’t want to be one of them. I outworked my peers and took every opportunity offered to me. I couldn’t work in hardware so I taught myself programming. I did a good enough job that I could teach programming. There were a lot of 60 hour weeks for this lottery winner and times when I was working two full time jobs delivering as many teach days as full time instructors while maintaining all of the operating systems I supported which was a full time job in itself. For part of that time, I worked for a manager who knew what I did and awarded me accordingly with good ratings and good raises. He even moved me into a higher paid job category which got me two pay raises in one year, one of 12% and another of 7% when they reevaluated the category.
During this time, I always paid myself first by saving and investing my money. IBM had a good employee stock purchase plan where one could take 10% of his pay and purchase IBM stock at 15% off the market price. This was a return on investment of 17.6%. Free money. When IBM started a 401-K plan, I participated in that to the maximum amount.
So I’m sorry Obungler, I am sick and tired of you calling SRFs like me lottery winners, people who have worked their asses off to get to where they are. I made it to 31.5 years at IBM by making sacrifices (5.5 years of third shift destroyed one of my personal relationships), working my ass off (many 60 hour weeks on salary so no overtime, coming in weekends), seizing opportunities, and making myself a valuable employee. I retired on my terms. I could have worked longer and after I left, I could have gone back to work as a contractor doing my old job. The CDSM© who hated me and was happy to see me go turned around and offered me my job back the year after I left and then again two years after I left. The contractor he hired to replace me couldn’t do my job. Nothing was handed to me unlike you who have been handed stuff all his life. If anyone is a lottery winner, it’s you. You are prolly the most unqualified man to ever hold the office of president. Sarah Palin was more qualified to be president than you. She had run a town and a state. All you had ever run was your mouth so I wish you would just STFU about lottery winners and how people “didn’t build that.”
Yannow who wrote sumpin about this topic better than I have? Thomas Sowell Here’s the start.
In a recent panel discussion on poverty at Georgetown University, President Barack Obama gave another demonstration of his mastery of rhetoric — and disregard of reality.
One of the ways of fighting poverty, he proposed, was to “ask from society’s lottery winners” that they make a “modest investment” in government programs to help the poor.
Since free speech is guaranteed to everyone by the First Amendment to the Constitution, there is nothing to prevent anybody from asking anything from anybody else. But the federal government does not just “ask” for money. It takes the money it wants in taxes, usually before the people who have earned it see their paychecks.
Now read the rest.
Sarah Palin has huntin’ skivvies that are more qualified than that pantload that is stinking up the oval office will ever be. Off topic; what rate? Skimmer or boats?
ETN3 Gator Navy. !4 months on an LSD (Long Slow and Dismal) and 22 months on an LST (Long Slow Target).
STS1 /SS, 3 boats. Thanks for your service!
I consider myself a sort-of lottery winner in that I grew up in a nice, safe, small town with good schools and complete freedom to be a kid, raised by grandparents who’d already raised 8 kids, so they had a pretty good handle on the job. Got a scholarship to college, but decided I’d rather learn how to do stuff, so after 2 years with an A- average I joined the USN.
Met the perfect woman for me, got good assignments, made rate, finally earned a commission, accumulated a decent retirement along with a BA and an MA and then a second retirement income from teaching.
None of my kids or grandkids are in jail or dead, my house is paid for, I’m leanin on 75 (never thought I’d live this long), got money in the bank, and don’t owe anybody anything.
Yeah, I admit to some luck . . . like not gettin kilt in ‘Nam or Subic (where I lived with my family for many years), but especially for growin up WHEN I did WHERE I did . . . and havin the good sense to pick a woman I could live with for 54 years with nothin but the occasional “Goddamit, woman, get off my ass!” and then sittin down with her to dinner of somethin she cooked to perfection.
Lucky sumbitch. Took some work, tho . . . . makin Chief ain’t exactly a gimme, nor is retiring with a commission after startin out as E-1. Pickin up the BA & MA took a little thought, too. Still, lotta “right place at the right time” and I don’t mind admittin it.
So you’re a taxpayer funded double dipper. Big deal.
There are millions of people like you. TY for your Navy service btw. Govt workers don’t pay taxes. Govt. does not create wealth. Govt. consumes wealth, therefore you only give back a bit of the wealth that ONLY privately employed citizens and companies have created and pay to your employers thru forced taxation.
Dude. Be nice. That’s Ron you’re talking to.
Denny, you’re nice enough to just say “be nice” but I’m tempted to tell the mofo to STFU if he just wants to run his mouth without engagin’ his brain.
Rrddbb, if government workers don’t pay any taxes, what the fuck are all those deductions that come out of my check? FICA, SocSec, Mediscare, state income tax, the list goes on. I don’t get paid if’n I don’t show up for work, unless I take vacation time I’ve already earned, or use sick leave (saved up a couple of thousand hours) that I’ll lose when I quit/retire. Speakin’ of retirement, I’ll collect less a month from that before it’s also taxed than I might get if I take SocSec. I get to keep my health plan but my cost will about triple, and even when I kick the bucket and my wife gets a check for about half my retirement every month, she’ll no longer be able to keep my health plan.
Oh, yeah, I’m double-dippin’ too, with my couple of hundred bucks a month VA disability ’cause I was dumb enough to to let a grenade booby-trap go off between my feet, so, yeah I must be another one of those leeches suckin’ at the dot-gov tit.
Go get hosed!
Rob J AlphaCo,4th/47th,9thInfDiv USArmy RVN ’68
I’m sorry I’ve offended with facts.
I wouldn’t classify career military along with other gummint workers. My nephew is career military and did two tours in Iraq. That’s hardly the same as the gummint drone at the DMV. I’m sure Ron spent some time in ‘Nam as I did.
Rob J AlphaCo,4th/47th,9thInfDiv USArmy RVN ’68
A question for you. I’ve reread your post and I believe that my late bro in law served in this unit when he was in Nam, after he got out of high school. His name was Ken Hillenbrand and he was from Solon, Ohio. He was a .30 cal machine gunner on a APC. Ring a bell?
After reading what he said, I can’t see how it’s applicable . . . to anything. And actually, using his criteria, I’m a QUADRUPLE dipper since I’m drawing Social Security and MediCare bennies, not to mention TriCare and G.I. Bill for my MA.
Guess I’m just a socialist parasite. Didn’t earn any of it, right? “Facts” prove it. ‘Course my not seeing any of ’em is immaterial, I reckon.
My long-standing policy is to avoid direct response to critics who’ve completely missed the point, especially those who fail to see the purpose of the “delete” key.
The military is a worthy recipient of the pensions. You must separate the emotion from the logic that govt., in any form, does NOT create wealth. ONLY the private sector can do that. I too served in the military for one enlistment after high school but monetary facts are facts. Govt. only can distribute what it takes from the private sector thru wages, benefits, road building or whatever, but to say that cuz you’re a govt worker and pay taxes is impossible because of my true prior statement of wealth creation.
Maybe I’ve said it here before, but I think we can work out an arrangement with the commie/marxist/modern-democrats. The deal is they get some more on the marginal tax rates, and for the next 5 years or so, anytime a democrat says the rich still aren’t paying enough, any random person can come up and put a slug through said democrats head. We know they’d never go for the deal because we know no amount the rich ever pay under 90% is ever going to be enough. Never. But could you imagine the pile of dead dimmies who after years of training couldn’t help reflexively bitching and moaning about the rich and not paying their “fair share.” A boy can only dream.
And can we stop the “investment” bullshit. Our “investments” seem to be paying Apple prices for penny-stock while not getting the minimal payoff a penny-stock might bring you.
Ever notice how the rich guys who bitch about not being taxed enough tend to have almost all of their money in low-tax shelters or off-shore? Last year I read an article somewhere that the big-name actors have recently started asking that they be paid in the local currency of whatever nation the movie they are acting in is being filmed. All so they can avoid US income taxes on it. Yet they bitch that Americans don’t pay enough taxes.
Two-faced hypocrites, all of them.
“Investment” is one of those focus group tested words used for spending. I think the Dims started using that euphemism during the Clinton years. The only “investments” in poverty programs that I would consider are sterilization clinics for women going on welfare. That would actually be a worthwhile investment.
Euthanasia for Black StreetThugs would also be a good investment. So would bringing back Selective Service todraft them to be able seaman on a Naval gunnery tow target
The biggest ‘lottery’ winner in the history of the planet is Jugears Obama….
a man with NO accomplishments of his own aside from being head of his
HS Choom gang being picked, groomed and set up for office, having literally
BILLIONS of dollars spent in order to put his useless ass in to the White
House, what was at least when he was first elected, the MOST POWERFUL
POSITION on the planet. If that isn’t hitting the jackpot nothing is. By all rights according to his abilities and accomplishments he should be living in
a beat up van on the beach higher than a kite.
In this country, one is entitled to one’s own opinions but these aren’t necessarily facts. If I may quote Rrddbb, “Govt workers don’t pay taxes” sounds like it’s bein’ presented as fact, whereas I cited some of the taxes taken from my own pay. I ain’t offended by “facts” or even most opinions, but the poster needs to recognize which is which. Hey, sir, I appreciate your service when you chose to enlist, and I’m glad you served, whether it was as a bloodthirsty killer or REMF.
If Ron’s career as a teacher gave us minds that were trained to be analytical and not making decisions based on emotional drivel and nebulous “social justice” claptrap, I’d say his “work” was productive in our society. I wouldn’t say the same about some drone shufflin’ paper at HUD or IRS. Now, Rrddbb, do we have some common ground for discussion?
Yes we do.
See, great minds think alike. Between the pair of us half-wits, we’re about four times as smart as Obummer.
I was neither a killer or a REMF. I started USCG boot camp in 7/75 and served until 8/79 when my enlistment was up. I was staioned at a motor lifeboat staion in N Lake Michigan and left the guard as an EM3 in which I was a striker.
It was OK but I knew that as a career, it was not for me. I recieved my DD214 and it was adios.
You took one step forward, raised your right hand and wore a uniform, so you’ve done more that what, 97 % of our citizens? Coasties are all right. Seems to me that we even had some workin’ with the Brown Water Navy over in the Delta. Thanks for havin’ served, and may you and all the other vets and their families have a peaceful Memorial Day.
We used to make jokes about the Coast Guard like if their boats sink, they can walk to shore. All joking aside, I saw Coast Guard ships off the coast of ‘Nam, so you guys are OK with me.
Rrddbb- I was only there from April ’68 to June, as I was the boob who stepped on the booby-trap, on Memorial Day. We worked off of USNavy ships most of the time, the rest was humpin’ out of the base camp at Dong Tam. Sounds as though your b-i-l was with one of the Mechanized units, maybe 3rd/60th. I never got to ride in the APCs, and IIRC they had the M60, which was 7.62 (.308) but I ain’t sure. I know that when we went out in choppers, they had the M60s as door guns.
http://mrfa.org/ is one place that might have some info, as is http://riverinesailor.com/9thLinks.htm and there’s even info out there about the Donut Dollies who were there. I managed to connect with Emily Strange, who was over there at Camp Bearcat. Gotta love those girls, as they were there voluntarily, God bless ’em.
TY for your reply. He graduated from high school in May 67′ then drafted a month later and he said he was in Nam by Oct. that same year. Sounds like he was a bit ahead of your time there. He died in 2012 from cancer which everybody and their brother, but not the Army, say was caused by the agent orange defoliant. I understand that AO killed as many of our guys as the enemy did, only much later in their lives. He was a terrific guy. 30 cal vs. .308…you’re the expert on that.
My guess is that the Army had changed to .308. by the time Nam came along. I own a 1955 M1 Garand chambered for 30.06 but I know that M1 .308’s were also made but I’m not sure when.
If he made it through a year in Vietnam and got back to the World unscathed, he was obviously better at the infantry game than I. As for Agent Orange, the water’s been muddied so much that I’d have trouble now believing that there are really any deaths that can be proven to be caused by it. It’s now presumptive that lung cancer will be attributed to AO exposure, so if I come down with it they won’t think that it’s from all the years I’ve been smoking. Whatever the cause of his death, Mr. Hillenbrand wore this Country’s uniform, which is more than most will do in the US of A. Next time you visit his resting place or say a prayer for him, please pass along my thanks.
TY for your reply. Yes, he made it home but was always sad about the thousands of young men like both of you, that did not.
Best of luck and best of life to you.