President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

I’m 63 and I took the buyout. I have seen a co-worker drop dead at his desk at age 66 and I want to enjoy my life while I am healthy enough to do so. I am fortunate I have the means to do just that.
Why raise the retirement age? Just apply the Social Security tax to all salary instead of capping it at $120,000. I’m sure rich folks won’t even feel it.

 

I think part of the disconnect we see between the public and the government is the lack of accountability we are expecting from our elected officials. No one is forced to run for office; if in doing so, and winning, you find yourself subjected to occasional ridicule or applause while dining out, then so be it.

That's my way of saying I'd have no problem with President Obama or Sec. Clinton being asked to leave an establishment due to their political track-records.

 

Easy for you to say as a guy who sits behind a desk and flaps his gums for a living... Would you say the same thing if you were a carpenter?

While it would be nice if Democrats were more market oriented--the economy really is a rather wonderful thing--it seems like your political prescriptions for the left are just as full of identity politics as theirs are.

 

Congrats on getting out and good points.

I do see a lot of people who are miserable in what they do. Factory work. Manufacturing. Construction. Nursing. Prime candidates to get out when the bridge to retirement opens to them.

People who take care of themselves are living longer than any previous generation. I’ll probably hit mid-90s unless I decide to quit exercising and start eating cupcakes all day.
Most people don’t have discipline — we all see it every day. Go to a Walmart or a Trump rally. Go to a teacher’s union rally. Yet both sides have to pander to these groups — because now they’re in the majority.

Taking out PE classes is a sneaky way to keep the federal budget under wraps. De-emphasize exercise when they’re kids. They grow up obese. Die at 58 having paid in for social security and maybe cigarette taxes while collecting nothing.

 

Glad you brought that up.

It’s easy to say that now that I sit behind a desk and flap my gums for a living.

What people don’t see if that I was highly disciplined in the years getting to this point. In my teens and twenties. Had to leave college at 18 because I had no money to attend. So I worked for a year and built up cash to pay for tuition. Didn’t get anyone pregnant to wreck my life.

I spent ten years driving in snow, ice and storms with heavy cameras to shoot and report sports. I learned how to operate live trucks, taught myself HTML/web design a decade ago to stay viable in a recession in a newsroom. I’d cover fires on a hot day, change my shirt, wash my hair and be on the anchor desk an hour later smelling my smoke.

Hell, I survived a horrific marriage and divorce with a bi-polar alcoholic that probably should have given me that heart attack at one point!

The reason I’m in this spot now - in my mid 40s - is because I took the long view decades ago. If something wasn’t working out, I would make shifts to find a better path. Didn’t get where I wanted in sports so I learned new skills... and I still am.

It’s always a chase to be relevant.

If you’re doing backbreaking work at 24, that’s fine. But you have to be willing to make a shift - even on your own time - so that you’re not hunched over a roof on a hot day when you’re 61 and already have three Aleves in your system.

 

You do know that then VP Biden was refused service in a bakery (what is it about bakers?) in 2012? He left and didn't say a word about it. Whining about how it's all so unfair is a prime attribute of Trumpers, starting with Trump himself. They can dish it out, but they can't take it.

 

That's a bit of a non-sequitur . You linked raising the retirement age to 73 with your own desire/plan to keep working. You have a job where it's easy to say that--good for you for working hard to get to that point. But I'm not really sure how that speaks to the policy question you raised, though. If we raise the retirement age to 73, all of a sudden a bunch of 45-year-old carpenters are going to teach themselves Python and become computer programmers instead? Incentives matter, so maybe at the margins some will. But my point is that the reality is there's many people who have jobs where it's not realistic to work until that age--and you supporting your policy prescription based on your own experience (even if you earned it) doesn't really make sense.

 

The bakery was asked to hold a CAMPAIGN STOP for the 2012 election, a media event on the way to his scheduled speech at Virginia Tech.

He was not sitting to dinner as a regular patron.

But that's OK. CNN fucked it up, too. As will everyone else, I assume.

 

As a note, I never explicitly said to raise it to 73. Just that I plan to work until I’m 73.

I’ve seen my mother and both my former in-laws see a major decline in their health upon leaving their jobs and both left before 65. They’re recluses and quite angry at the world. I wish they had something to do that was productive or enhanced the greater good.

If you’re 24 and working in a physically-demanding job, that’s when you have to take the long view. Take management classes at night.

I delivered food and dealt blackjack that year I was 18/19 and had to drop out and make money.

Made a lot of money (and escaped college without any loans because of it) but I’d see people in their late 30s/early 40s doing those jobs but with no plan for later. Especially at the casino. We would all work 40 minutes on and 20 minutes off. They’d just smoke in the break room and play Euchre.

 

Watch: Border Agent Expertly Flips Script on CNN, Leaves Host Speechless

He is 100% correct about the things that go on down there.

Great read:

http://dennismichaellynch.com/exclu...er-reveals-another-side-to-immigration-issue/

 

The Red Hen story broke at 2:18 AM when at least one of the employees tweeted the 86 instruction. And they spelled Sarah incorrectly.

Perhaps Sanders wouldn’t have said boo if the news hadn’t come out earlier. It would have been far better for the owner of that farm to table had her employees STFU.

Speaking of which, I wonder how her farm supply lines will hold up. She may be left holding the table.

 

OK--but you suggested raising it, and then mentioned your own desire to keep working. Whether or not you suggested raising it to 73 is beside the point.

I'm not sure it is realistic--or socially desirable or necessary--for every person in a physically demanding job to "[t]ake management classes at night."