With the end of the year in sight my mind turns to things financial. Today is as good a day as any for a short history lesson on the ever so popular Social Security Program. Back in the day my parents thought that FDR could walk on water because he saved us all from imminent destruction by fending off the economic disaster that was the Great Depression. It’s true to a point but what he did has evolved over the ensuing years into a serious liability instead of an asset. His world saving programs have morphed over time and are currently responsible for some of the misery we are experiencing today. Here’s your history lesson . . .
Social Security Cards up until the 1980s expressly stated the number and card were not to be used for identification purposes. Since nearly everyone in the United States now has a number, it became convenient to use it anyway and the message, “NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION” was removed from the card.
President Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) program. He promised:
Participation in the program would be completely voluntary. No longer voluntary.
The money the participants elected to put into the program would be deductible from their income tax for tax purposes each year. No longer tax-deductible.
The money the participants put into the independent “Trust Fund” rather than into the general operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other government programs. Under President Johnson the money was moved into the General Fund and spent.
The annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income. It is now taxable thanks to Clinton/Gore.
Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month and then finding that we are getting taxed on the money we paid to the federal government to put away for us. I thought you might be interested in the following:
Q: Which political party took money from Social Security and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it?
A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically controlled House and Senate
Q: Which political party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?
A: The Democratic Party
Q: Which political party started taxing Social Security annuities?
A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the tie-breaking vote while he was Vice President of the United States.
Q: Which political party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?
A: That’s right! Jimmy Carter and that Democratic Party
Immigrants moved into this country and at age 65, began to receive Social Security payments. The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into the system. Then, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away. The worst part about it is that millions of uninformed citizens continue to believe these lies. Take the time to explain it to your family, especially your kids. They’ll ask questions you may not want to answer.
Three garbage men were doing their Christmas rounds and collecting their well-earned Xmas tips and gifts from the grateful householders when they arrived at a pleasant house at the end of a cul-de-sac.
The first garbage collector went up to the door to be met by the lady of the house in very revealing attire, who said, “Oh yes, I know what you want!” as she dragged him upstairs to the bedroom to have her wicked way with him.
A short while later he returned bedraggled to the garbage truck and told his colleague what had happened.
His mate like the idea of some of that so he went to the house where once again the lady appeared, this time in even more revealing attire. “Oh yes, I know what you want!” she said as she dragged him upstairs to the bedroom to have her wicked way with him as well.
Afterwards, he also returned bedraggled to the lorry and told the driver what had happened.
“Hmmm, I’ll have a bit of that!” thought the driver and walked up to the house. The lady opened the door and gave him $5. “Hey!” said the driver, “What about the fun and games you gave my colleagues?” Oh that,” said the woman “You can blame my husband for that.” “What’s he got to do with it?” asked the driver.
The lady answered, “Well, he said to give $5 to the driver and screw the other two.”
While we are all waiting for Christmas to arrive, let me rant on for a few minutes. I’ve been reading a book called Number Freaking. It’s a book of statistics about things you would never normally think about. It allows you to discover how far you might have walked in your lifetime, how many people have lived since the beginning of time, and how to cure the world debt. I’m going to use some of the information gleaned from that book to convince anyone in their right mind to never smoke.
I began smoking cigarettes at age 14. I never bought cigarettes, but I stole most of them from my parents who were both fairly heavy smokers. I did it to look cool because it was the thing to do in high school at that time. I continued smoking more than two packs a day from the time I attended college until 1983. That was the last time I ever held a cigarette which makes me a former smoker who hasn’t smoked for 38 years. As always, I seem to be arriving late to the game, but good sense finally prevailed. Here are a few facts you might find interesting or maybe not, but here goes anyway.
The average smoker in America smokes 13 cigarettes a day. One of the maxims of the anti-smoking lobby is that every cigarette smoked knocks 11 min. off your life. Based on this truism, about one year will be lost for every 10 years that the average smoker smokes.
95% of smokers start at or near the age of 16. The average life expectancy at birth in the United States is approximately 78 years, i.e., 62 years after the age of 16. We’ll assume the life lost due to smoking is deducted from these 62 years. Here are three questions to make things a little clearer.
Question: How much life does an average American smoker lose per year of smoking. Answer: 36 days, six hours, 30 min., and 45 seconds
Question: At what age, approximately, will average American smokers who start smoking at age 16 reach the age that the habit is predicted to kill them? Answer: 71 years and six months.
Question: At what age, approximately, will 40-a-day American smoker, starting at age 16, reach the age that the habit is predicted to kill them? Answer: 62 years and nine months.
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By this calculation even one cigarette a day would cost you nearly 6 months of your life.
If the nicotine in 200 cigarettes were to be taken as a single dose, you would die.
Santa comes down a chimney one Christmas Eve and to his surprise finds a gorgeous brunette waiting for him, wearing the sexiest lingerie imaginable. “Santa,” she purrs, “Can you stay for a while?” Santa says, “Ho, Ho, Ho, I’ve gotta go! Have to deliver toys to children, you know!”
She comes close, starts playing with his beard, whispers in his ear, “Santa, don’t you have a gift you would like to give me?” Santa says, “Ho, Ho, Ho, I’ve gotta go! Have to spread Christmas cheer, you know!”
The brunette takes off her straps, giving Santa a view of her breasts and says, “Santa, are you sure there’s no gift you’d like to leave?” Santa says, “Hey, Hey, Hey, might as well stay. I can’t shimmy up the chimney looking this way!”
With all the hullabaloo around the holiday season, I thought a little dose of weird and odd trivia would be just the thing. Trivia is always good for taking the mind off of stressful activities and might even give you a reason to laugh a little. Here we go . . .
Fingernails grow four times faster than toenails.
The first of the five senses to go with age is smell.
More boys than girls are born during the day; more girls are born at night.
The strongest muscle in the body is the time.
If you yelled for eight years, seven months, and six days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
When we blush, I stomach lining also turns red. Women blink nearly twice as often as men do.
On a square inch of our skin, there are 20 million microscopic animals.
If you fired continuously for six years and nine months, enough wind would be produced to equal the energy of an atomic bomb.
The average human eats eight spiders in his or her lifetime at night Erie it
It takes just 1 min. for blood to travel through the whole human body.
Volleyball is the most popular sport at nudist camps.
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
Only one person in 2 billion will live to be 116 or older.
The average person’s heart beats 36 million times a year.
Right-handed people live on average, nine years longer than left-handed people.
Well, there you have it. A little weirdness to add to your holiday spirit and possibly distract you for a little while. I hope all of you are prepared for Christmas because there are only:
everyuselessthing.com 