McCain says all options are on the table including putting Social Security into the stock market...

[cynatnite]

GREEN BAY, Wisc. - Wall Street turmoil left John McCain scrambling to explain why the fundamentals of the U.S. economy remained strong. It also left him defending his support for privately investing Social Security money in the same markets that had tanked earlier in the week.

The Republican presidential nominee says all options must be considered to stave off insolvency for the government insurance and retirement program, and top McCain advisers say that includes so-called personal retirement accounts like those President Bush pushed in 2005 but abandoned in the face of congressional opposition.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080919/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_social_security

[marmar]

1. To quote Darth Vader:

"He's as clumsy as he is stupid."


If he's talking to Americans about putting anything to the whims of the stock market right now, he's a damned fool.

[Lifelong Protester]

2. Leave that in Vegas...

read Friedman this week in the nytimes...

[AllentownJake]

3. Thank you John McCain

Social Security in the stock market should be played over and over and over in PA, OH, MI, and FL. Even the old racist will vote for Obama.

[Cha]

12. UnFreakin'Believable!

You may be right!

[greyghost]

22. The ad needs to be put together yesterday! Another gift from

McLame. You are absolutely correct, the old whites will come out everywhere for Obama.

[vaberella]

4. He said Healthcare should be run like the stock market. Link below:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x385737

[Plaid Adder]

5. I would say that this is too stupid to be true.

However, based on what I've heard so far about his health care plan, I think I would probably have to eat those words.

I couldn't believe this when I heard it: McCain's plan involves making employer-provided health insurance taxable income. WTF? WTF?!?!?!!!!

One can only hope that people now better understand the concept of the SAFETY NET. As in, when the stock market @#$! IMPLODES, you need to be able to fall back on something that HASN'T imploded.

:argh:

The Plaid Adder

[cynatnite]

10. Here is more about it if you're interested...

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=5844867&page=1

We are in serious trouble if he wins.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

27. Taxing health benefits is Republican ideological gospel, received directly from Milton Friedman

himself. According to Friedman, when wage and price controls during World War II led employers to compete for workers using better fringe benefits, a "distortion" of the price system occurred. Untaxed health insurance became "too cheap" relative to tax-inclusive prices of other things workers buy, and thus employed people began to buy "too much" health insurance.

McCain's plan, touted by other simplistic ideologues such as Martin Feldstein, longtime President of the National Bureau of Economic Research and documented scientific fraud, is to solve the "original problem" by uncoupling healthcare from employment. Absent the "distortion", so the theory goes, people will voluntarily buy crappier private market insurance policies that cap medical services at low levels, and thus prices of medical care will fall due to reduced demand.

Never mind other much more important practical features of the current healthcare system such as tens of millions of uninsured and lack of coverage for "pre-existing conditions" by most policies bought directly from insurance companies rather than through employers; the "price distortion" is seen through ideological lenses as the primary problem.

And never mind the government-sponsored oligopolization of the pharmaceutical, hospital, and insurance industries that makes the 19th-century pure competition models of Freidman and company inapplicable.

See, for example, http://www.galen.org/content/chapterone.html .

[whistle]

6. Oh yes, McCain is HOT today, just sell all of those U.S. IOUs to the Social Security

...Trust Fund Bush sold out through the tax cuts to the wealthy and $3.5 trillion on the Iraq Afghanistan Wars, sell those to Wall Street speculators for say ten cents on the dollar and that should dry up any further talk about future governemnt social safety nets, eh McCain? Those rethuglican cock suckers!

[Waiting For Everyman]

7. He really is stupid. His whole team must be.

[greyghost]

23. McCain was never the brightest bulb in the bunch, but now that

dementia is coming on...:nuke:

[DeepBlueC]

8. unbelievable

Alzheimer's is starting to sound all too plausible. He sure is getting "mixed up" a lot.

[Imagevision]

9. Senator McDork should be intertaining when the debates begin...

[FVZA_Colonel]

11. This will make the elderly and soon-to-retire baby-boomers comfortable.

I'm sure of it.

[Triana]

13. That's right, John. Keep talking about the economy...

...blazing idiot.

[scarface2004]

14. i hear he wanted to invest our soc sec in aig, lehmans, and wamu!!

'my friends, if we privatize social security you will be allowed to choose investments in aig, lehmans, wamu, or other similarly safe investments!' mkane screamed today while campaigning in the state of dumbfuckistan!!

[BrklynLiberal]

15. Obviously that man is totally insane.

[subterranean]

20. Yes, sir, very much so, sir. Obviously insane.

(from Apocalypse Now)

[Lugnut]

16. Atta boy, John.

He obviously forgot the first rule of holes. When you're in one stop digging. He's lost his mind.

[Marsala]

19. That's not the way his campaign works.

The McCain campaign believes that one can never admit a mistake, ever. If you're in a hole, you should not merely keep digging; in fact, you should announce that you're trying to establish closer ties to China.

[Unsane]

17. Does he WANT to lose?

[MadMaddie]

18. That's all we need is for Americans to lose their social security

to the fat cats on Wall Street...shanty towns anyone? McCain is insane!

[Blackhatjack]

21. Talk about 'Bad Timing' .... LOL will somebody save him from himself??...

Obama needs to run an ad with that quote ASAP.

People may not understand Wall Street, and the Economy, but they understand their retirement accounts losing half their value in a couple of days.

[Arugula Latte]

24. I hope this is the straw that breaks his back.

Damn! How frickin' stupid is this guy?! :wow:

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. DISASTER CAPITALISM... DISASTER CAPITALISM

this is argentina...

[windbreeze]

26. Well, that should unite all the elders....

I know I sure as hell don't want them gambling with my SS...let's gamble with McCain's SS AND his disability pay AND the money he gets for being absent from the Senate...wb

[TheKentuckian]

28. Its time to go absolutely viral with McShame's Health and Social Security plans

Anyone that would vote for such a nutcase is certifiable themselves.

[and-justice-for-all]

29. FUCK YOU MCINSANE!!

FUCK YOU!

The repigs want to destroy SS.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

30. IMO the fundamental insanity of Social Security privatization lies in the destruction of

social retirement insurance. Think about it. When someone on Social Security dies now, the money that person would have received is freed up to go to someone else who just reached retirement age. Social Security now serves the limited social purpose of supporting retirees until they die.

Under McCain's Republican privatization plan, money would NOT be freed up to support other people upon death of a retiree. Instead, there might be a lump sum left that would go to the retiree's heirs. That's not social insurance--that's an IRA that might be fine for someone at the top of the income distribution but would leave many seniors with pittances that would not even pay for dogfood, let alone rent and other necessities.

IMO, we need to keep Social Security as a defined-benefit plan that gets most people most of the way to a livable income, rather than convert it to a defined-contribution plan that guarantees nothing.

[FrenchieCat]

31. Make sure to go to that article and give it 5 stars!

You'll be glad you did! http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080919/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_social_security

[FrenchieCat]

32. This needs to be the big story starting Monday.

This is lethal to the McCain campaign!

I'm emailing it to everyone, and I suggest that you do too.

This will take seniors out of McCain's column....a demographic that we need, if we can get them.

[OneBlueSky]

33. what a fucking fool . . . n/t

.

[BumRushDaShow]

34. K&R

This definitely needs to go in an ad - and especially played in Florida and Pennsylvania, which both have the oldest populations, per capita, in the nation!

:kick: