Below is my column in the Hill on New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “Fair Share Myth” and other fables being spread on the left to sell the public on the “warmth of collectivism.” It is storytime for socialists. These fictitious claims make Aesop look like Adam Smith.
Here is the column:
New York City socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani is back in his element. After admitting that he cannot fulfill his campaign pledge to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mamdani returned to his class warfare narrative. This week, he taunted the city’s highest-earning taxpayers with a letter informing them of another special tax awaiting them in the Big Apple.
As wealthy citizens flee the city, Mamdani strongly suggests that those who remain are going to get burned by his promised “warmth of collectivism.” In doing so, he repeated a socialist myth about how the wealthiest taxpayers are not paying “their fair share.”
Mamdani went on X to tell those with second homes in New York City worth more than $5 million that “you’ve got mail” and a “new pied-a-terre tax.” He gleefully declared, “The best city in the world deserves the best parks, libraries, and schools in the world. That’s only possible when we all pay our fair share.”
The fair share myth is a virtual mantra among socialist and Democratic leaders, from Mamdani to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). In my book, “Rage and the Republic,” I address the false claim that the wealthy are not “paying their fair share.” In fact, the top 10 percent already pay more taxes than the bottom 90 percent combined.
In 2023, the top 1 percent paid an estimated 38.4 percent of all federal individual income taxes. One can certainly raise the need for additional taxes to support public works, but it is simple demagoguery to claim that the wealthy do not pay their fair share when the top 10 percent pay an estimated 75 percent of federal income taxes. The U.S. income tax system is already the most progressive in the developed world, even before additional New York state and city taxes are added in.
Another common fable has been repeated by socialists such as Darializa Avila Chevalier, the prison abolitionist who won a recent primary for Congress in New York. This radical, who once boasted how she wiped her hands on the American flag in lieu of a napkin, was pressed on whether there has ever been a “successful model of socialism anywhere in the world outside the U.S., in terms of both human rights and widespread economic justice.”
She responded by citing Sweden and Norway, as other figures such as Sanders have done before her. Indeed, the claim of successful Scandinavian socialist systems is a sort of Marxist bedtime fairytale, told to children about a workers’ paradise in quaint Nordic fishing villages.
But Sweden’s experience only shows the limits of socialism even in a relatively small nation. Decades ago, after disastrous results to its economy, Sweden turned away from the very kind of socialist theories increasingly fashionable in the U.S. today.
Norway has large public welfare systems, it is true. But there is a very specific reason for that: It has enormous direct oil revenues supporting a very small population. The Norwegian state produces about 120 barrels of oil for every man, woman and child living in the country. If the U.S. could produce that much oil per person through a state-controlled entity, it would be more oil than the entire world produces today and worth enough money to replace all federal individual and corporate income tax revenue.
In truth, countries like Denmark and Sweden strongly embrace capitalist principles today. They are listed among the most capitalist nations on Earth — in some rankings ahead of the U.S.
Indeed, many of their leaders have expressed disbelief or amusement at longstanding claims by American leftists about their being socialist nations. In 2015, Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen observed, “I know that some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”
Likewise, the former Swedish Social Democratic Minister of Finance Kjell‐Olof Feldt said, “That whole thing with democratic socialism was absolutely impossible. It just didn’t work.”
But to candidates eager to prove their revolutionary bona fides, none of that matters. Even mainstream hopefuls such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) are now making the bizarre claim that capitalism is no longer working. It also does not matter that, in supporting Mamdani’s new tax, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) heralded how it could raise $500 million, despite reports showing a loss of billions in annual revenue as wealthy taxpayers flee the state.
Amid a rash of capital flight, many ask why Mamdani would want to continue taunting the wealthy and portraying them as freeloaders. The fact is, wherever it gets a foothold, socialism becomes self-perpetuating. Wherever ruinous policies destroy an economy, demand increases for government services and welfare. Citizens become more dependent on government as wealth is diminished.
The most vivid example of the new socialist fabulism came this week from the new British prime minister, Andy Burnham. He declared that he wants to restore the policies of 40 years ago, before the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher.
In his own version of promising the “warmth of collectivism,” Burnham declared, “The country surrendered control of the essentials — housing, water, energy, transport — and left people exposed to higher costs.”
Burnham’s account leaves out that the supposed golden age under Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan, which he was referencing, led in 1977 to the so-called “winter of discontent.” Those policies destroyed the British economy, and the nation was faced with the humiliation of being rescued by the International Monetary Fund as if it were some banana republic.
With a record like that, it is little surprise Mamdani and his allies prefer to focus on socialist mythologies rather than realities.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
I love that the leftys are constantly pointing at Nordic countries as an example of their success when it’s actually a very capitalist country. It makes it so easy to point out how stupid they are.
“Is (name someone you don’t like) paying his/her fair share?” is the wrong question, because it is impossible to calculate anyone’s “fair share”. We have had the income tax for over a century and still don’t have an objective mathematical formula that will give us that figure. And we are the country that sent men to the moon and brought them back. Six times.
The right question is, “What is the government’s fair share of the economy?” That is also not possible to calculate objectively, but I think that 35% — the combined federal, state, and local take — is way too high.
You can’t blame Madmani or Barry for the lie of “fair share”. If our teachers and professors would have taught our children and not indoctrinated them Madmani would never be mayor. I wonder how much time is spent on Stalin, Mao, Khmer Rouge, the Ukraine famine (genocide) and all the hardships and death they brought to their followers? Madmani, Barry and Fair Share would be relegated to the garbage heap if their followers were taught the truth. Each of their followers are forging links of financial and physical slavery in believing their lies.
Bottom line regardless of how much a fair share is, we have a huge spending problem with a significant waste and fraud subset. We do not have a revenue problem
The idiom: “you can’t get blood from a turnip” means that you cannot force someone to give you something—like money, time, or information—that they do not have. It describes a useless effort or an impossible task.
Meaning and Usage
No Money: Used when trying to collect a debt from a person who is broke.
Zero Supply: Means that no matter how hard you push or squeeze, the resource simply does not exist.
Similar Sayings: Often compared to the phrase “you can’t get blood from a stone”.
Sweden also has much more regressive taxation than the US, including a very high VAT.
Ah the Clarion Call of the Socialist and Communist – FAIR SHARE!!! But they must follow up with Gideon’s Trumpet using price controls, taxes that stealthily consume the entire population, and finally build dependency on the government for all the remaining low IQ good citizens that question nothing! Nirvana is a land of Idiot Sheeple run by the Marxist Illuminati – oh so close now!!!!
..and to think it all started with ‘tax and spend’.
The DSA isn’t insincere like the done-for dumbocrats they are leaving behind.
Their website is pretty blatant old school communist ‘destroy America’ anti-Americanism.
The left has finally morphed into their final form so we can be sure what we are dealing with.
1967 through 1972 were a crazy time in this country. In 1980 we elected Ronald Regan. We go through these cycles.
@Independent Bob
No argument with your point, but not in such a wealthy and interconnected world, we haven’t. It’s different this time. I’d argue this is all unprecedented in many ways, in fact, even if thematically there are similarities.
Independent Bob and James, you’re both circling something real but neither’s got the full frame. Bob’s right that we cycle. James is right that this moment has real differences, scale, wealth, connectivity, nobody’s disputing that.
But go back further than 1967. Map this against 250 years and the shape holds up every time. 1912, a socialist rise met with the Progressive Era, more federal reach, not less. The 1930s, a bigger socialist threat met with the New Deal, an even bigger administrative state.
Each time the specifics look different, the technology’s different, the crisis wears a different face, but the underlying mechanism is the same. Citizens formed a certain way produce a government response shaped by that formation, every single time. The wrapping paper changes. What’s inside it doesn’t.
So it’s not unprecedented, and it’s not just a wheel spinning either. It’s the same root cause showing up in whatever costume fits the century. Until that root gets addressed, the pattern isn’t going anywhere, no matter how wealthy or connected the world gets around it.
Socialism is a cog that only goes in one direction. Olly, your timeline shows this. The only way to reverse it seems to be that you have to blow the cog up. And that my friends, is an ugly if not necessary burden for a generation to deal with.
Jim, here’s the real tension underneath all of this. The Constitution was built specifically to make expanding central power hard. Socialism, in any of its modern forms, requires exactly the kind of centralized control that structure was built to resist. You can’t bolt an unlimited amount of centralized administration onto a system engineered to prevent it and expect the structure to hold forever. Something eventually gives.
What we’re functioning as today isn’t the constitutional republic on paper. It’s an administrative oligarchy in practice, because that’s what several generations of citizens have been formed to accept without objection. The form never changed. The function drifted so far from it that the two barely resemble each other anymore. That gap is the actual crisis, not socialism itself.
We’ve seen this cycle before. In 1913, socialist threat and reform produced the income tax and the 17th Amendment. In the 1930s, socialist threat produced the New Deal and a far larger administrative state. The lesson isn’t that people get the government they want. It’s that they get the government their habits, expectations, and civic discipline make possible.
The lesson? Hogwash. As usual. They get exactly what they want. I’ll direct your attention to the 2020 elections. Voters got what they wanted.
Sea kelp.
I find it hilarious that these commies think we are going to try out their failed ‘system’.
Capitalism rules the world because people always want stuff and if you try to take mine I will fight you for it.
look around commies, and see how communism sucks and so do commies.
They won’t “look around”. That would not only require work, it would require some degree of education to able to interpret what they are looking at in terms of a functioning economy. And on those points alone they are already in deficit territory.
I find it hilarious that they WANT to change the current system. 536 people in a far away Capitol are effectively silent partners siphoning off several $TRILLION of GDP each and every year. They do not have the burden of managing the country’s productive economic assets. All they do is siphon off a big chunk of the money and redistribute it to clients in exchange for votes. The amount those 536 crooks confiscate and siphon off each year is more than the entire GDP of every country in the universe except for China, Germany and Japan. It’s just an amazing racket they’ve created.
But it is still not enough to satisfy the greed of voters. So not only do they confiscate several $TRILLION every year, they also have to borrow $TRILLIONS to satisfy the promises they made to try to satiate voter greed to get themselves elected and re-elected. Sticking futures generations with the bill.
Notice that lefties never define “fair share” but it’s always more than the present share. Same with “working families.” Is the guy who works the registers at Costco and has a house and more than $1 million in his retirement account a working man?
Yes.
Yes but I figured it out anyway: Their fair share is whatever any other person has that they do not. Only envy is needed to propagate this deadly political system.
I keep hearing that the Dem Party members are more highly “educated” than Republicans. Surely they must see right through the empty promises of their leaders?
So, Trump never made an empty promise?
Or biden.
So you LIKE Mamdani’s promise then and this is working out for you.
AND it does not make you angry that you were taken for an ignorant fool and supported the commie that either lied to you or was ignorant himself?
AND you believe BOTH you and Mamdani were both simply misunderstanding the extent of the NYC mayor’s powers, that’s all.
AND you do not think there will be any MORE empty promises coming from your communist overlords.
I can’t think of any of Trump’s empty promises, but remember that we Republicans are just a bunch of dumb hicks clinging to our guns and bible. You Dems are the inteligencia and too smart to have the wool pulled over your eyes, haha.
Look Mamdami is smart, he just didn’t understand the extent of the mayor’s powers.
Or, he’s dumb cause he didn’t know what is so obvious?
wait, i got it! It’s the Mamdani voters who didn’t know the extent of a NYC mayor’s powers. They are the dumb ones.
see? Mamdani is so smart RELATIVE to his voters. It’s all relative guys!
Lots of people in our world today are “highly educated”, but all you need to do is look at the percentage of professors who are liberal, vs conservatives. Reminds me of the old saying . . . “those who can “do”, and those who can’t “teach.”
““those who can “do”, and those who can’t “teach.””
Unfortunately, it seems that the prime result of “those who cannot” becoming teachers is that they make certain that as few of their students as possible will join the “those who can” ranks.
@BillyG The meaning of the word “educated” is dynamic. Today, it is synonymous with “indoctrinated” and with this definition, we can truly ascertain “Dem Party member are more highly ‘educated” irrefutably. As Dr. Turley has noted in many previous blogs, there are minimum to virtually no “educators” in post secondary education any more, they have been purged and replaced by “progressive liberal” professors and tenure (e.g., Democrat indoctrinators).
BillyG,
That is the common misconception of being “more highly ‘educated'” equates intelligence. I have met more than a few “highly educated” people who could not change a tire, their oil in their vehicle, make dinner.
For a more recent example, just look at PT, article about Goldman from yesterday.
Be honest. Name the top problems you think are wrong with the USA in 2026.
Maybe being forced into ridiculous cell phone updates, forced to buy “software” to operate your car, scammers preying in and stealing the life’s savings of senior citizens, forced to use online services with your doctors, government agencies forcing you to use online services then getting hacked themselves and social security/Medicare becoming insolvent in less than 10 years.
Without government intervention, Capitalism and Free Markets alone don’t solve these problems. Government alone without Capitalism and Free Market competition don’t solve these problems either.
America needs a healthy balance of Capitalism/Free Market Competition but also needs government – we need both!
All those evils you stated, have you personally been a victim? Didn’t think so.
I will concede that government is necessary to provide for a civil and secure society. The founders were skeptical of government power and created a system where, for the first time, the government was by and for the people to protect individual freedom and security. The Dems and now their offspring the DSA are trying to institute an authoritarian socialist system that makes the citizenry subservient to the government. Government should be like a bathroom in a business. It is a necessary expense but contributes nothing to the bottom line. As such it should be kept small, clean and stocked with paper products, nothing more.
TOP problems?
1.Liberals
2. Dopey anon comments like yours. see #1
You almost made the top.
Sweden is capitalist (with a large welfare-state/social-democratic component). It has private ownership and a market economy, not socialism.
Sweden is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy.
Sweden has ethnic/cultural homogeneity that are the social ingredients that make large welfare systems easier to sustain.
That’s what Turley wrote.
From what I’ve seen, Sweden isn’t as homogeneous as it once was. It has been very open to massive immigration, which has been a disaster.
Nordic countries are currently shifting toward restrictive, selective, and temporary immigration policies.
Sweden has moved from being the most liberal to the most restrictive, implementing temporary residence permits, tighter family reunification rules, and cash incentives for voluntary departure.
Personally I wish the leaders of my (blue) county and my (blue) state would just explain why they keep raising tax *rates* when we’ve been told for decades that increasing populations and the flood of third-world migrants pay for themselves.
Who is “we’ve” Mike?
It’s implied, easily understood and correct, but Anonymous is up stupid and ugly already.
Implied? By your response we can imply that you are stupid and ugly this morning?
BTW, its called a “common usage”, it is not an implication. SF.
I didn’t know barnacles could talk. Amazing, you learn something new everyday.
Us red-blooded patriotic Americans that’s who. Ever meet one?
I think they have grown attached to your money Mike!
They never set a limit on ‘tax and spend’.
Hamas and the Klu Klux Klan both think they’re “fair”.
To be fair Steve, your analogy is unfair. Got anything else this morning?
Stephen B. Benisch, Esq.,
And both Hamas and the KKK are/were supported by the Democrat party.
…And they are supported by Iran and the Chinese.
S. Meyer,
Good point about the Chinese.
Just read that investigative reporter, Catherine Herridge, has found evidence of the Chinese blackmailing the Biden family.
https://modernity.news/2026/07/26/shocking-revelations-emerge-about-bidens-family/
In other news, the DNC is broke, had to put up the building their HQ is in as collateral for a $15million line of credit.
The reality is that all voters want the system to work for them and their family – regardless of false labels and political parties divisive politics.
If you support Capitalism and Free Market competition, that’s great as long as that system benefits average working class Americans. When that system becomes monopolistic (less healthy competition) and harms you and your family – voters will reject that system.
Use all the labels you want and demagogue the other party, but if it doesn’t benefit voters it will fail.
Why do you assume a monopoly is harmful? Utilities are monopolies, you think they’re harmful?
Do you look at rates charged for electricity and think.utility monopolies arent in some way harmful?
“When that system becomes monopolistic (less healthy competition) and harms you and your family . . .”
Name a single example.
Comcast internet.
In those communities where Comcast is the principle franchisee to the local government their prices are often twice as expensive, and their services (speeds) as little as half of what they offer in similar areas that have healthy internet services competition.
Name a system/country that has moved more people out of poverty and into the middle class and upper middle class than American capitalism. I’ll wait.
Then why are 10’s of millions Americans receiving social security supplemental benefits, food stamps, medicaid?
Poverty is at its highest point since the 60’s. Now at 24% according to the US Census Bureau. Yeah, capitalism is great.
So what’s it like being white trailer trash? And stupid? I’ll wait.
Many these systems you speak of came from who? FDR with or without your permission.
Because your side brought in 15 million non-English speaking, non-educated, non-skilled foreigners as you decided to give people money for nothing at the same time.
Thank you Hullbobby for silencing the dopes.
Silence? You do see that an anon responded. You dope.
Your posts would be more respected, but you seem to have an affinity to bash anyone who disagrees with you. . . .just like the temperamental child who wants their parents to give them their favorite toy at mealtime.
Peoples Republic of China!
Is this what you’re talking about?
The Cultural Revolution, officially known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a chaotic sociopolitical movement in China that lasted from 1966 until 1976. Launched by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Mao Zedong, its stated goal was to preserve Chinese communism by purging capitalist and traditional elements from society, though it also served as a mechanism for Mao to reclaim supreme authority after the economic failures of his previous campaign, the Great Leap Forward. The decade-long upheaval resulted in an estimated 500,000 to 2 million deaths, profound economic disruption, and the widespread destruction of China’s cultural heritage
“When that system becomes monopolistic (less healthy competition) and harms you and your family”
The harm from monopolies results from government creating and enforcing examples that would never exist in a free market. Now, go ahead and tell us about all of the problems that a truly free market would cause (in your fevered and addled imagination, anyway). I have the refutation before you even begin: there has never been a truly free market tried in the US (or, most likely anywhere else in modern history); markets have always been distorted by the heavy and misguided hand of government. There is always some somber rationalization given for that, but those are largely or wholly BS.
Curiously, capitalism and socialism appeal to entirely different cognitive systems. Capitalism relies on tangible metric, such as data, production, and employment, to demonstrate its worth. Socialism, by contrast, operates as a belief system. It asks its followers to maintain faith in the warmth of collectivism, even when they remain left out in the cold. In this sense, socialism competes directly with traditional religious institutions: while religion promises a rewarding afterlife in exchange for virtue, socialism promises immediate material prosperity through the ballot box.
“Curiously, capitalism and socialism appeal to entirely different cognitive systems. ” No it does not. Those metrics you speak of… do you think the democrats didn’t use it when they opened the boarders in 2020, or was that simply virtue signaling? And that belief system you mention, so republicans don’t have one? Something like The Constitution or maybe capitalism, or even a religion?
“Fair Share Myth”
Still waiting for a Leftist/socialist definition of the word “fair.”
But they won’t define it. By leaving “fair” arbitrary and capricious, they are free to declare: “The word means whatever we feel it means. Now surrender more of your wealth.”
Still waiting for a rightist/fascist definition of the word “fair.”
Since we never use it, at least in this context, why should we define it?
Never? Because it doesn’t exist? At least in that context, of course?
“Still waiting for . . .”
Or you can use deflection to evade the responsibility of defining your terms.
Or you can use deflection to evade the responsibility of defining your terms. I’ll wait.
Work for it, not stolen.
Waiting for a definition of “poverty” as well. Hard to win a War on Poverty when the Left keeps moving the goalposts.
“With a record like that, it is little surprise Mamdani and his allies prefer to focus on socialist mythologies rather than realities.” Turley.
Its the same with MAGAotts. Incapable of independent and critical thought and scream insults at liberals for wanting an all inclusive society while MAGAotts congregate around an ideology that has not worked for many Americans, including themselves, while commenters here suck on the tit of federal largess (social security, medicaid, food stamps etc.) yet scream about the evils of socialism. Not one of you is independently wealthy i.e, not dependent on government to survive. Like the socialist, you too are blood suckers whether you realize it or not. The hypocrisy is stunning.
It’s way too early to be hitting the bottle.
Then you should try something less stupid.
ROFL. You think the commenters on Turleys blog are all on food stamps and medicaid? You’ve been watching way too much TV.
Well, tell us about your situation Mike Conrad? Never took or received gov. largess? Never ever, you say? Well Mike, you’re either a liar or stupid. You must be the sole example here of the independently wealthy eh?
Still waiting Mike.
Said by one who sounds dependent on government largess.
Mike Conrad,
Well said.
It is the lowest common denominator argument: All conservatives are on food stamps and medicaid, living in a broken down trailer. Nothing could be further from the truth. But as with Mamdani, reality is not a something leftists have a grasp on.
What is really stunning is that ignorance and hate such as this exist in today’s society.
Truly stunning is your hate and ignorance as it exists in your comment.
I’d be stunned if these people weren’t heavily involved in running Biden’s White House; this is who we’d be installing if dems ever have majority power again. Spanberger was a very much public demonstration of that. If anyone can’t see precisely what is afoot on the left now, I honestly don’t know what to say, particularly regarding any fools that think their money or property will protect them.
I guess you think you’re creative? deranged is more like it. Your weak passive aggresion is palatable. Try being assertive.
Then stop.
I like how the newest radical leftist joke uses Social Security, which workers like me paid into for 45 years with programs like Medicaid and food stamps, which workers like me never benefit from.
These economic illiterates like to say Social Security and Medicare are socialist plans when in reality I had the funds dragooned out of my hard earned paychecks since 1971 whereas the lefts want a socialism where an 18 year old healthy male from a foreign land who arrived here a year ago gets to have Medicare and to receive a stipend like SS with never working and contributing one day in our land. But the difference is to oblique for the keen eyed leftist to discern.
“workers like me…”? You wrote many times previously that you are a lawyer.
Still a worker you fool. And he paid into these systems.
@hullbobby
Easy for them to joke about something they’ve never paid into by not working. Their misconception that social security has EVER been sufficient for a person to retire on is also really cute, the l’il scamps. Ditto for them being too young to know what healthcare was like before the ACA, or what 9/11 was like. They also seldom any longer have living relatives connected to WWII, Korea, or Vietnam. The Cold War was over when they were born.
We have slipped from the former ‘juvenile’ to straight up ‘infantile’ in no time with these little geniuses.
The fact is that most of us who have contributed to social security could have obtained greater results and more accumulation of wealth if we had invested our social security payments into a 401K for all of our earning years. I will never get back anything close to what I contributed to social security. Never used Medicaid, Never used food stamps, had to contribute to Medicare by law. Never had a scholarship from anyone, despite my parents having an income that never exceeded $20,000/yr. My older sister did the same. Younger sister did get a scholarship from her Nursing school.
After my education (fully paid by me and my parents) I started with a Chevy Vega 2 payments already out of 36, 2 pairs of shoes, 2 suitcases of clothes (all I owned) and my books, no furniture and a 1 bedroom apartment.. My parents gave me 1000 dollars when I left home to sustain me till my job started paying me. Thats it and, most important of all, married a wife just as challenged income wise but smart, frugal, and the hardest working woman I have ever known.
This country owed me nothing but everything I have is because this country gave me the opportunity to excel .
So P. Wilson, George, X don’t equate any of the rest of us with your miserable life or algorithms. Get a new line of employment.
“if we had invested our social security payments into a 401K for all of our earning years.” For one, 401k’s didn’t exist in 1930. So your silly hypothetical is useless.
But in general it is an outright lie (confirmed by experts) that you could personally beat SS on % return (but there are several more factors to consider) on your SS contribs. Begs the question, do you know what SS has returned on one’s contribs? Of course not.
Never took anything from the government? Never ever? You stupid old liar.
Wow Youngy you must be a lefty economist with these crazy ideas of yours. Take a look at the historic price of gold if you want to see what holds real value.
YOU do not know what you are talking about. Have you ever? You’re stupid.
To the readers of this comment above, I would say the best revenge on these ignorant young people is put them in a system where they have to take care of themselves.
Our vote for Trump! was just the start of that process and it’s going very well and that’s the real problem the moochers have.
Want food stamps? Work or volunteer just 80 hours a month. Trumps just getting started so get used to it or starve. Start looking for a job losers!
Reminder: We got here: Because of Trump! this is the end of socialism not the beginning. Sorry commie!
While you’re correct in stating that 401K’s did not exist in 1930, that is not what he stated (they were passed in 1978, and begun January 1, 1980). GEB stated that if he had invested in a 401K “for all of our earning years” he would have more than what he gets today from SS. If GEB were 20 in 1980, that would make them 66 today, and what they stated would be correct. Further, the average Rate of Return for SS has, historically, been 1%, whereas the Stock Market, and good Growth Stock Mutual Funds, could return an average of 8%-10%. Also, Mutual Funds have existed for far longer than 401K’s and INDIVIDUALS could invest in them whether as a matter of growing wealth of saving for retirement.
I would suggest you learn more about the stock market for this reason: There has NOT been a 10-year period where it has NOT outperformed SS, since the creation of SS in 1935. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find a 5-year period that has not outperformed SS. While single years may be down (i.e. 2008), the Stock Market typically regains what it has lost in those down periods, very quickly. That is why some people, i.e. Dave Ramsey, call these “down” periods, known as Bear Markets, a period when stocks are on sale.
That is why you are a failure. You listen to those socialists who tell you that you cannot make it. When I was first married, I lived in a slum with 15 Amps of electricity; the first rape-murder was the second night we were there, no furniture, no nothing except throwaways and a new mattress and springs. I received no state support and stuck to my business. Capitalism works for those who are not mental failures.
Social Security and Medicare taxes stole wealth, and today I need neither. However, my Social Security is taxed, and my Medicare Part D premiums are taxed as well, as a penalty for working hard my entire life and even in retirement. You, a lazy fellow, receive the benefits I paid for. To be honest, I never was concerned with how much tax I paid. My only concern was how it was spent. I want the government to spend money as carefully as I did. You want the government to provide you with coupons, providing free Starbucks coffee and free drinks at the bar next door. When you end up in a nursing home on Medicaid, we will all be paying for you.
This is want the youth of America have to contend with nowadays, old guys who thinks they sacrificed everything and alone built this country.
You made no sacrifice. Thousands made the one true ultimate sacrifice so you could whine here daily about how bad modern USA is.
GEB
Chevy Vega. I feel for you. One of GM biggest mistake
Well said, GEB!
Wilson, you understand nothing. Globalization and open borders, the stealth policies of the Democrat Party, have damaged Western economies. The loss of an industrial base in the U.S. and the overdependence on China and Russia for trade and energy has spread poverty and chaos.
Open borders have spread drugs and congestion and imported poverty. Northern Africa is emptying its jails and back allies of useless scum and shipping them north. The same can be said for Venezuela and Mexico. Crime and the cost of renting a home have been impacted substantially. Now your buddies in the jihadist movement are jacking up war and the cost of oil.
To the extent that globalization and open borders can be described as “capitalist,” the Left might have a point, but Trump is fixing those issues WITHOUT Democrat (YOUR) help. Instead, Democrats whinge about tariffs and “stolen land” and take dark money from China. Hollywood attacks Trump because China won’t let them screen their movies in China if they don’t attack America and Trump.
Do you get it now??????????????????????
Wilson, my boy (or whatever sex your medicine bottle claims), instead of spreading lies and hate, why don’t you just join the Ukrainian Army and do something useful for a change. Really.
You could not be more wrong.
We clearly are capable of independent thought and critical thinking. We are not screaming anything at liberals for wanting to take our hard earned money and give it away to people who did not pay into the system. If I had a choice, I would not pay into SS but rather invest it. My retirement account would be that much larger than anything I have paid into SS. The majority of us are not on Medicaid or food stamps. We contribute much more to society then we take in.
Biden’s illegals cannot make the same claim.