"Ownership Society"

[Nimrod]

I have been doing some reading, thinking, and discussing this concept, and have come upon a bothersome thought.

Health insurance that follows you from job to job, SSI and retirement that you "own", etc etc etc. Sometimes it even sounds okay. Thing is, we won't own anything. I don't own the electricity that powers my house, if I owned it I wouldn't be paying out more money for it every month.

Now here's the real deal - how do I know I'm not getting ripped off? Just check out www.medicare.gov: Do I need Medicare, Medicare Part B, Managed Medicare, Medicare + Choice, or Medigap? What exactly does "Medigap policies B - J cover the hospital co-insurance and deductible, Medigap policy A covers the hospital co-insurance, Medicare + Choice plans vary widely in how they cover Inpatient Hospital care." mean, anyway? Who will be held accountable if I miss some fine print in the obfuscatory legalese and make a poor choice? That would be me.

With that in mind, what is to stop the providers of this lovely privatized health care and retirement from purposefully trying to confuse me into making a poor choice? That's what fine print is FOR, it's to "disclose" how exactly the seller is ripping you off so they can't be held accountable. Never mind the fact that even if you pull out a magnifying glass you need a legal dictionary to understand 90% of these disclosures. You think people WANT credit cards with 24% interest rates? What they THOUGHT they were getting was 2.1%, but they missed a few things in the four paragraphs of 2-point type printed upside down at the bottom of the back of the fourth page of the application.

To me, "Ownership Society" seems just another phrase for "Snake Oil".

[Kierkegaard]

1. It's a simple concept...

if Scrub gets another term, he and his cabal will ultimately own society.

[annabanana]

2. I can't afford a triple bypass, can you?

Not even if you can save for it in a "non-taxable" savings account?

Snake-oil ain't even in contention.

[napi21]

3. Without question, the Med savings accts are only for the wealthy!

The same as tax credits "for the poor"! What good does a tax credit do me if I need the medicine or care now, and don't have the $$? I really wonder what people are thinking when they hear this stuff? Or maybe they just aren't thinking at all!!!!

[Nlighten1]

4. Feudal system

They own it...you don't...

[Morning Dew]

6. they own IT and they own YOU as well.

eom

[Snotcicles]

5. You have to go back

to the new world order. Oldf--k bush and his cornies got the plan in place and nobody can stop it. Because God wants it that why.

[unblock]

7. it's all about convincing those who DO have a bit of money

if you make enough so that a itty bitty tax break might help you, even if only by, say, $300, then you can easily get sucked in to thinking that you're $300 better off voting for the repug.

hell, you might even donate $25.

most important, the repug proposals are ALL about getting donations. democratic proposals that help pooooor people don't produce stunning sums of donations, because the pooooor can't afford it. but tax breaks for wealthy and even middle class folks, well, THAT produces donations.

then, they use all the donations to spin and promote the image that they and their proposals are actually good for EVERYONE. remember how "EVERYONE" got a $300 tax break despite the fact that only income tax payers beyond a certain amount got that much?

everyone in the media, in a position to talk or write about the republican proposals, benefits directly from republican plans, at least to a modest extent. so they talk and write about it as if it helps EVERYONE.

[annabanana]

8. $300 ain't going to pay for a triple bypass either.......................

Even if it's earning "credit card" interest in a tax-free savings account.

[Nimrod]

9. I got a $300 tax break

Of course, over the rest of the year I lost over $7,000 as a direct result of the policies the EoP put in place. Way I see it, he owes me about 6700 bucks and counting.

[Hello_Kitty]

10. If I mis-manage my money

I get bad credit and may lose my house. When big corporations mis-manage their money they get forgiven their loans and bailed out by the gov't. If I try to deduct too much on my tax returns, I get reamed with audits and penalties. Did you know that you're more likely to get audited if you make LESS than $70K a year than if you make more? Corporations and CEOs laugh in the face of taxes. They get to deduct things you can't even imagine. It's appalling.

But the level of personal debt in this country is truly staggering. At some point it's going to come home to us. They're currently trying to restrict the ability to claim personal bankruptcy. But what are they going to do when the majority of people can simply no longer pay their credit card bills? You can't get blood out of a turnip.

[Nimrod]

12. I hate money

I really do. I hate it, and I don't understand it.

I'm also in the process of trying to drastically simplify my life. I've paid off two credit cards and tossed them in the trash, keeping just one for absolute emergency. The credit card company sends me reminders every month that I haven't used my card in X number of days, asking did I lose it? No, I'm just not using it.

I have a couple more pieces of debt to pay off (it's going very slowly because I have a typical American job at a typical American wage - i.e. enough to stay in debt, not enough to get out of it). Once that's finally gone, I hope to find myself a cheap piece of property that I can grow a few things on and raise enough animals for me and mine to eat. Maybe get a solar setup to cut back on my reliance on the outside world even more.

Ultimately, I hope to be able to have as little dependence as possible on this corrupt, evil, money-driven society we've built for ourselves.

[lefthandedskyhook]

11. Yes, the petrified party wants to return to human ownership

Their codewords are thinly veiled.