Why were the 70s such a tacky decade?

[LizzieMaine]

Didn't I say I didn't want to hear anymore ? [huh]
You're just a bundle of good news Ms.LizzieMaine...

Oh where is Mr. snowplow driver !....

Trigger, at least, was not two stagehands in a horse suit.

 

[HudsonHawk]

My family was, largely because my father was, and remains to this day, a man of absolutely no personal integrity or morality who refused to support his children. And alongside that, our economy was in the tank for pretty much the entire decade of the seventies. There were an awful lot of people around the US besides us who were living on AFDC, surplus Spam, and government cheese. I suspect there's more than a few of them around the Lounge who haven't yet stepped forward.

We were too. Not my whole life, but a good part of my growing up. My dad was a blue-collar/working class union man, and the 70s were not good times. Especially when the company you work for is so corrupt in its dealing with its workers that they eventually get prosecuted under RICO in the largest federal labor lawsuit in in US history. I don't remember the peanut butter though.

 

[2jakes]

[/COLOR]

Trigger, at least, was not two stagehands in a horse suit.

Well Thank goodness for that !

I don't know about Ms. Dale...but I'm sure Roy would appreciate your comments.
In fact, you can still see them at the museum.
Trigger that is...




btw: I'm truly sorry about your father. If you were my little girl, I woulda spoiled you &
wouldn't care who or what thought about it . Actually I would've done whatever it takes
for you to remember me by saying, He was there when I needed him & I was loved.
but that's just me !

 

[TimeWarpWife]

I remember my great-grandparents getting the big tin cans of peanut butter and blocks of cheese from the government. Loved the peanut butter, hated the cheese which was like orange rubber. Although both worked, my great-grandmother as a picker every apple season for years, they didn't have any kind of pension or retirement savings. They existed solely on Social Security and a little extra their children gave to help them. Although their children fared better financially, they were still considered the working poor. It wasn't until my parents' generation (the grandchildren) who were able to start reaching middle class status. Unfortunately, after the 2008 crash, many Boomers probably aren't going to be doing any better in their retirement years than my great-grandparents did. And my generation, the later Boomers, aren't even going to have Social Security - not that it would buy much more than a loaf of bread. Do they still make the orange rubber government cheese? When I'm about 70, it might start to taste better when there's nothing else to eat.

 

[LizzieMaine]

When I'm about 70, it might start to taste better when there's nothing else to eat.

Both my grandparents, adults during the Depression, worked themselves to death in the early eighties, and left nothing substantial behind to show for it. Retirement was something for summer people.

I expect to be holed up in the basement of the theatre when I'm 70, being fed leftover popcorn and Milk Duds by the kids, who have promised to take care of me when I'm no longer of value to society. Of course, that's just eighteen years away, so I should probably start cleaning out a good spot next to the boiler now.

 

[Harp]

... when I'm no longer of value to society.

You are of an intrinsic treasure far beyond mere measure, and will always be of value to society.

 

[sheeplady]

I remember my great-grandparents getting the big tin cans of peanut butter and blocks of cheese from the government. Loved the peanut butter, hated the cheese which was like orange rubber. Although both worked, my great-grandmother as a picker every apple season for years, they didn't have any kind of pension or retirement savings. They existed solely on Social Security and a little extra their children gave to help them. Although their children fared better financially, they were still considered the working poor. It wasn't until my parents' generation (the grandchildren) who were able to start reaching middle class status. Unfortunately, after the 2008 crash, many Boomers probably aren't going to be doing any better in their retirement years than my great-grandparents did. And my generation, the later Boomers, aren't even going to have Social Security - not that it would buy much more than a loaf of bread. Do they still make the orange rubber government cheese? When I'm about 70, it might start to taste better when there's nothing else to eat.

If I am reading the US SS website correctly, the minimum benefit for someone in 2014 with 30 years of paying into SS is $830 or so, with a maximum family benefit (such as two spouses married for 10 years, with one spouse who didn't work for at least 11 years) is slightly over a thousand. Now, paying in means any year your ss qualifying income is above 0, if i am reading it correctly.

I'm not saying this to argue, but that is not peanuts and vital to people who have no other retirement; and proof that SS isnt shelling out peanuts.

It does go down dramatically if you do not pay in 30 years.

Now, there are a whole bunch of rules that go into collecting ss, one of which is you have to have a job that pays into ss (many contract jobs that poorer individuals have do not), you have to pay in the right number of years to get anything meaningful out, you have to be married 10 years to collect half your spouse's ss, etc. So you can end up with very little after a long time working, but I think it's unfair to say the system can't buy a loaf of bread when that $800 or $1000 can mean the world to someone. Even half that can mean substantially reduced working hours for an older person who can no longer work or cannot find a full time job.

Now, current political shenanigans are excepted. Social security, and the programs it was modeled on, have largely improved poverty among the disabled and those too old to work while freeing up the labor market for younger employees- which was it's original intentions. It has not solved those issues, but the world would be a much darker place without it; or at least it would be for many I know.

 

[jamespowers]

stop it trashing the 70s

I loved Discoteques

:faint:

 

[ChiTownScion]

sit fur, sit sacrilegus: at est bonus imperator (Verr. v. iv). [angel]

I even question Patton's attributes as a leader. My old boss wasn't the only vet I knew who'd served under him who thought that he was a strutting martinet. It was a fairly common opinion. In that vein, I really enjoyed reading Andy Rooney's assessment of him in his book, My War. Not flattering at all, but honest. Patton never grasped what Eisenhower knew all too well, that the average World War II GI under him was a citizen soldier- not a Regular Army soldier, and his toleration for what was referred to at the time employing another term for poultry excrement was nil. As far as his ability in battle: I'd like to know of a single instance where he defeated an enemy where he didn't enjoy superior resources.

To tie this back to the 1970's, that 1970 George C. Scott movie was highly entertaining and even arguably a bit of much needed Hollywood flag waving at a time when this country's military was suffering from a lot of misdirected ill will. Objective and serious history, however, it was not.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Anybody who was in, or sympathized with, the Bonus Army had little use for Patton.

 

[Zombie_61]

If I am reading the US SS website correctly, the minimum benefit for someone in 2014 with 30 years of paying into SS is $830 or so, with a maximum family benefit (such as two spouses married for 10 years, with one spouse who didn't work for at least 11 years) is slightly over a thousand. Now, paying in means any year your ss qualifying income is above 0, if i am reading it correctly.

I'm not saying this to argue, but that is not peanuts and vital to people who have no other retirement; and proof that SS isnt shelling out peanuts...

It also depends somewhat on where you live in the U.S.. Receiving $830-$1,000 a month is better that a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but it's far from being enough to live on if you live in one of the more expensive cost-of-living states like California where it wouldn't even cover the rent or most mortgages, not to mention whatever other common monthly payments a person might have to make. Yes, it will buy enough food to sustain a person month-to-month, but they'll likely be eating that food in their split-level cardboard shack under the freeway overpass.

 

[jamespowers]

It also depends somewhat on where you live in the U.S.. Receiving $830-$1,000 a month is better that a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but it's far from being enough to live on if you live in one of the more expensive cost-of-living states like California where it wouldn't even cover the rent or most mortgages, not to mention whatever other common monthly payments a person might have to make. Yes, it will buy enough food to sustain a person month-to-month, but they'll likely be eating that food in their split-level cardboard shack under the freeway overpass.

Exactly! $1,000 a month is laughable here.

 

[sheeplady]

It also depends somewhat on where you live in the U.S.. Receiving $830-$1,000 a month is better that a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but it's far from being enough to live on if you live in one of the more expensive cost-of-living states like California where it wouldn't even cover the rent or most mortgages, not to mention whatever other common monthly payments a person might have to make. Yes, it will buy enough food to sustain a person month-to-month, but they'll likely be eating that food in their split-level cardboard shack under the freeway overpass.

But you have to remember that is the minimum; most people pay in (and therefore get out) much more. If you paid in $10 a year for 30 years, you are guaranteed $800 a month. And honestly, at $800 a month you are likely qualifying for other aid: food stamps, medicaid, heap, and low income housing/ housing assistance; all of which are part of the social safety net. Now, the minimum being higher is another story, but pretending that social security provides nothing when you've paid in for three decades is entirely untrue and often used to discredit the system to abolish it; and most calling for that want these people to get nothing. Also, that minimum is collecting at 62, which very few working poor do; most wait and work until at least 65 if not 70, if physically able. You will never see me argue against increasing the minimum, but the minimum being too low is a poor reason to throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

[Zombie_61]

But you have to remember that is the minimum; most people pay in (and therefore get out) much more. If you paid in $10 a year for 30 years, you are guaranteed $800 a month. And honestly, at $800 a month you are likely qualifying for other aid: food stamps, medicaid, heap, and low income housing/ housing assistance; all of which are part of the social safety net. Now, the minimum being higher is another story, but pretending that social security provides nothing when you've paid in for three decades is entirely untrue and often used to discredit the system to abolish it; and most calling for that want these people to get nothing. Also, that minimum is collecting at 62, which very few working poor do; most wait and work until at least 65 if not 70, if physically able. You will never see me argue against increasing the minimum, but the minimum being too low is a poor reason to throw the baby out with the bath water.

I don't disagree, but for most people Social Security payments are still not much more than a band aid on a severed limb--it'll sustain you for a relatively brief period of time, but eventually you're still going to run dry. Admittedly, I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that the people who are supposed to by trying to find one think the answer is to stop providing band aids. :mmph:

 

[ChiTownScion]

Anybody who was in, or sympathized with, the Bonus Army had little use for Patton.

And don't even get me started on his racism and anti-Semitism.

But even beyond that, he never grasped the realities that land forces in the West played but one part in the defeat of the German Reich, and that it was the Red Army that bled the enemy white on the ground while Allied strategic bombing eventually destroyed armament production. In the end it was an Allied victory, not an American victory, and an egotism that blinded that reality- as well as others- can never be an asset.

As I have said elsewhere: he was the second most overrated general in American history.

 

[Stearmen]

Anybody who was in, or sympathized with, the Bonus Army had little use for Patton.

Of course, most people who admire Patton, would me shocked to find out he was a devout Francophile! He was fluent in French.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I don't disagree, but for most people Social Security payments are still not much more than a band aid on a severed limb--it'll sustain you for a relatively brief period of time, but eventually you're still going to run dry. Admittedly, I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that the people who are supposed to by trying to find one think the answer is to stop providing band aids. :mmph:

I don't think I have an answer either but I would think that the first small step is to remove Social Security monies from general funds where it has been for nearly fifty years.

 

[LizzieMaine]

As I have said elsewhere: he was the second most overrated general in American history.

Exceeded only by his commanding officer at the Siege of the Anacostia Flats.

 

[stevew443]

I don't disagree, but for most people Social Security payments are still not much more than a band aid on a severed limb--it'll sustain you for a relatively brief period of time, but eventually you're still going to run dry. Admittedly, I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that the people who are supposed to by trying to find one think the answer is to stop providing band aids. :mmph:

My sweet wife began collecting her Social Security at age 62, not by choice but because she can not find a full time job. She currently is working as a freelance writer for 4 magazines and a weekly newspaper and is putting in more hours a week than she would at a full time job, but she is viewed as a contractor and is making far below the amount that would cut her Social Security payments. It is a band aid, but one that is keeping us afloat. We have cut as many expenses as we can, and I am still working full time just to have insurance. I fear that if I can, I will keep working full time until I can no longer work and start collecting my Social Security at age 67 (just about 4 1/2 years from now). Most of my working career I paid the maximum into the Social Security fund and I know that I will never get back what I put in. I can take comfort though that my wife is getting her share out. No matter what the laws say about not viewing age as a factor in hiring, 60+ year old workers cannot get the jobs for we are qualified to do.

 

[Harp]

I even question Patton's attributes as a leader.

Patton's leadership qualities were real and he possessed an imaginative mind that seized the initiative.
George Patton obviously had faults, and there is no doubt that in hindsight his conduct toward subordinates
left much to be desired; however, his cumulative outweighed all and in the annals he is writ a Great Captain.