Should the US end the practice of giving automatic citizenship to infants...

[bshole]

All the times before, when our population was half or less of what it is today.
Does anyone really want to see it double again?

You only need it to fuel ponzi schemes, but like Bernie Madoff eventually you do run out of capital, or in this case resources. Infinite growth is a plan for the small minded.

As long as I live I would like to see it grow rather rapidly. When I retire I want enough people around to pay for my social security benefits. SS doesn't work with a static or declining population.

 

[Vic]

Social Security is insurance, not a Ponzi scheme.

 

[glenn1]

Social Security is insurance, not a Ponzi scheme.

Really? If it was then I should be able to offer my own "Social Security Insurance Company" using the same underwriting, monetary reserves, accounting, mandatory participation, and other features currently used by the actual Social Security "insurance" plan, correct?

 

[Jaskalas]

As long as I live I would like to see it grow rather rapidly. When I retire I want enough people around to pay for my social security benefits. SS doesn't work with a static or declining population.

Is that like playing hot potato with a nuke? Pass it to the next sucker generation.

Now I appreciate the consideration of population is parallel or even aside from automated citizenship, but it's a larger issue of our open borders and continuing importation of as many people as humanly possible. Infinite growth within a finite space is just not possible. It is going to end badly for someone.

As to the topic at hand, there are forms of abuse our legal system is just not capable of handling. We're all aware of this, and in a reasonable country a constitutional amendment to fix loop holes or serious errors shouldn't be that controversial. But this is America and human beings love taking sides on issues. Soon as someone announces a position someone will be there to oppose it. Then there are the ride-alongs. Can't just fix the loophole, gotta do everything at once. 2,000 page bills to dole out public cash like candy, and attempts to force other controversies to ride within a bill. Our system of government is paralyzed and broken.

It shouldn't be that difficult to stop the rich from dropping by for a visit and instantly popping out a new US citizen, then flying back home.

 

[theeedude]

Stop with corporate globalist profit only matters bullshit that has brainwashed you and many others to believe that nationalism doesn't matter.

Like John f Kennedy said "ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country"

The truth is you need immigrants to do tech jobs that Americans won't do for the lower pay and benefits that immigrants will because you have no sense of country but only what's good for your own pocketbook even at the expense of everything and everyone else.

Nationalism doesn't matter. Profits at least somewhat reflect value being created, nationalism is just a bunch of BS in people's heads, that they are somehow special based on the geographical location of the vagina they came out of at the time they came out of it. There are not enough Americans to do high paying tech jobs that need to be done. And if tech companies can't bring people they need here, they'll just expand overseas, and then Americans will have to move to India to compete for them if they can compete for them at all. How is that going to make us better off?

 

[Vic]

Really? If it was then I should be able to offer my own "Social Security Insurance Company" using the same underwriting, monetary reserves, accounting, mandatory participation, and other features currently used by the actual Social Security "insurance" plan, correct?

Well, that's a non sequitur. The differences between insurance and a Ponzi scheme have nothing to do with the presence of a state-enforced monopoly.
Social Security's insurance plan is called OASDI or the Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance.

 

[Vic]

Something to keep in mind: the 14th amendment also overrides the 9th and 10th with regards to due process and equal protection of the laws, and keeps your state and local governments from infringing on your 2nd amendment rights (among others). Try not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

 

[glenn1]

Well, that's a non sequitur. The differences between insurance and a Ponzi scheme have nothing to do with the presence of a state-enforced monopoly.
Social Security's insurance plan is called OASDI or the Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance.

So the name is what confers "insurance" status and not its features, regulatory status, underwriting, reserves, voluntary contract, or anything else? Okay then, should Charles Ponzi just called his operation "Ponzi Insurance" and then he'd be in the clear?

 

[Vic]

So the name is what confers "insurance" status and not its features, regulatory status, underwriting, reserves, voluntary contract, or anything else? Okay then, should Charles Ponzi just called his operation "Ponzi Insurance" and then he'd be in the clear?

Does Social Security promise a fixed rate of return to ALL of its investors the way that a Ponzi scheme does? Or does it not operate like insurance, paying out only according to pre-established criteria?
Also, unless people stop having babies and America closes its borders altogether, Social Security is never going to run out of "investors."
Look, I'd be all for getting rid of Social Security except that, if we did, it would put people who save for their retirement at a competitive disadvantage to those who didn't. Then the government would have to come back in after the fact and pay for all of the people who gambled or (more likely) squandered their retirement and lost.

 

[glenn1]

Does Social Security promise a fixed rate of return to ALL of its investors the way that a Ponzi scheme does? Or does it not operate like insurance, paying out only according to pre-established criteria?
Also, unless people stop having babies and America closes its borders altogether, Social Security is never going to run out of "investors."
Look, I'd be all for getting rid of Social Security except that, if we did, it would put people who save for their retirement at a competitive disadvantage to those who didn't. Then the government would have to come back in after the fact and pay for all of the people who gambled or (more likely) squandered their retirement and lost.

There are no "pre-established criteria" for SS. Congress could end the program at any time without recourse and nobody has a guaranteed interest in their "premiums" paid in. SS is a tax, nothing more and nothing less and sure as hell ain't "insurance." Calling it that despite it's title is Orwellian doublespeak on the order of "Ministry of Love."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemming_v._Nestor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvering_v._Davis

 

[Vic]

There are no "pre-established criteria" for SS. Congress could end the program at any time without recourse and nobody has a guaranteed interest in their "premiums" paid in. SS is a tax, nothing more and nothing less and sure as hell ain't "insurance." Calling it that despite it's title is Orwellian doublespeak on the order of "Ministry of Love."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemming_v._Nestor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvering_v._Davis

Well then, you should be happy that it's a "flat" tax.

 

[glenn1]

Well then, you should be happy that it's a "flat" tax.

Yes, the fact that it's a flat tax and "contributions" are capped probably done more than anything else to maintain its popularity; while some people get more benefits than others the delta is reasonably small compared to more traditional welfare / redistribution programs. Removing the cap or subjecting SS to strict means testing would likely greatly diminish its popularity. That being said, that has nothing to do with SS not being insurance because it ain't, just like the PATRIOT Act has nothing to do with actual patriotism.

 

[theeedude]

It's kind of silly to say that removing the $110K cap is going to greatly diminish SS popularity when most people don't make that much.

 

[bshole]

Nationalism doesn't matter. Profits at least somewhat reflect value being created, nationalism is just a bunch of BS in people's heads, that they are somehow special based on the geographical location of the vagina they came out of at the time they came out of it. There are not enough Americans to do high paying tech jobs that need to be done. And if tech companies can't bring people they need here, they'll just expand overseas, and then Americans will have to move to India to compete for them if they can compete for them at all. How is that going to make us better off?

Quit lying. I AM A FUCKING TECH WORKER. Its a scam to keep our salaries down. The value of the average tech worker brings to a company is leveraged into the millions. Engineers design a thing once and that thing is then built hundreds/thousands or millions of times. Realistically engineers should be paid a million or so a year to reflect their leveraged value. Instead they are paid a paltry pittance around 100k a year. And then we have people like you doing their damnedest to keep us down by importing the best engineers from Asia to usurp us.

Another thing, America is special. If it wasn't everybody and their fucking mother wouldn't be trying to get in. Western Europe/Japan/South Korea/etc... are also special in the same way. Secular Western civilization is the absolute pinnacle of all civilization throughout the entirety of human history. Nothing else in human history comes within a country fucking mile.

 

[agent00f]

Stop with corporate globalist profit only matters bullshit that has brainwashed you and many others to believe that nationalism doesn't matter.

Like John f Kennedy said "ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country"

The truth is you need immigrants to do tech jobs that Americans won't do for the lower pay and benefits that immigrants will because you have no sense of country but only what's good for your own pocketbook even at the expense of everything and everyone else.

It's simply reality that capitalists find the cheapest source of competing laborers. Ideological rhetoric has nothing to do with how the economic system functions.

Quit lying. I AM A FUCKING TECH WORKER. Its a scam to keep our salaries down. The value of the average tech worker brings to a company is leveraged into the millions. Engineers design a thing once and that thing is then built hundreds/thousands or millions of times. Realistically engineers should be paid a million or so a year to reflect their leveraged value. Instead they are paid a paltry pittance around 100k a year. And then we have people like you doing their damnedest to keep us down by importing the best engineers from Asia to usurp us.

Another thing, America is special. If it wasn't everybody and their fucking mother wouldn't be trying to get in. Western Europe/Japan/South Korea/etc... are also special in the same way. Secular Western civilization is the absolute pinnacle of all civilization throughout the entirety of human history. Nothing else in human history comes within a country fucking mile.

That competing labor pool naturally encompasses the whole world. It's only through political restrictions that it's typically limited to arbitrarily defined borders/lines. As mentioned to the commentator just above, it's just business, which doesn't care for what the peons think about this or that.

On the salary issue, it's in some way the engineers' own fault that they don't unionize or whatever to collectively increase their bargaining power.

 

[Subyman]

Maybe its been discussed, I didn't read the entire thread... I thought if you were an American citizen you had to pay American taxes no matter where you worked in the world? Why on Earth would wealthy people come here, have a kid, and then go home so that kid is a citizen? Have fun paying American tax when you get older 🙂

 

[agent00f]

I seriously doubt they're aware of this anyway, and the promo material like sort SSSnail obliviously linked certainly isn't going to mention it.

For the customers it's in practice largely a hedge against where china/chinese policy might be headed, that and fulfilling an "american dream" of sorts.

 

[theeedude]

Quit lying. I AM A FUCKING TECH WORKER. Its a scam to keep our salaries down. The value of the average tech worker brings to a company is leveraged into the millions. Engineers design a thing once and that thing is then built hundreds/thousands or millions of times. Realistically engineers should be paid a million or so a year to reflect their leveraged value. Instead they are paid a paltry pittance around 100k a year. And then we have people like you doing their damnedest to keep us down by importing the best engineers from Asia to usurp us.

Another thing, America is special. If it wasn't everybody and their fucking mother wouldn't be trying to get in. Western Europe/Japan/South Korea/etc... are also special in the same way. Secular Western civilization is the absolute pinnacle of all civilization throughout the entirety of human history. Nothing else in human history comes within a country fucking mile.

You made a fool of yourself with the bolded. Kind of hard to take you seriously afterwards.

 

[Jhhnn]

Maybe its been discussed, I didn't read the entire thread... I thought if you were an American citizen you had to pay American taxes no matter where you worked in the world? Why on Earth would wealthy people come here, have a kid, and then go home so that kid is a citizen? Have fun paying American tax when you get older 🙂

Americans who live in higher tax jurisdictions pay Uncle Sam nothing. Those who live in lower tax jurisdictions pay Uncle Sam the difference. There's a whole set of rules, exclusions, so forth & so on.

 

[Svnla]

Maybe its been discussed, I didn't read the entire thread... I thought if you were an American citizen you had to pay American taxes no matter where you worked in the world? Why on Earth would wealthy people come here, have a kid, and then go home so that kid is a citizen? Have fun paying American tax when you get older 🙂

You have to make pass the threshold $100,800 as of 2015 FY to pay income tax if you live outside the US full time.

Stinking rich people around the world (especially developing countries) WANT their offsprings to live in the US very much, because of schools, especially colleges and clean water and air and rules of law and all the good stuffs that Americans taken for grant.

 

[Jhhnn]

It's simply reality that capitalists find the cheapest source of competing laborers. Ideological rhetoric has nothing to do with how the economic system functions.




That competing labor pool naturally encompasses the whole world. It's only through political restrictions that it's typically limited to arbitrarily defined borders/lines. As mentioned to the commentator just above, it's just business, which doesn't care for what the peons think about this or that.

On the salary issue, it's in some way the engineers' own fault that they don't unionize or whatever to collectively increase their bargaining power.

Please. We can't allow multinational capitalism to be transcendent over the Government of the People, that it serves our interests to cave to an insurgent plutocracy. We have the right to define and demand good corporate citizenship.

That means we need to think about it differently & use the means at our disposal to get that.

 

[agent00f]

Please. We can't allow multinational capitalism to be transcendent over the Government of the People, that it serves our interests to cave to an insurgent plutocracy. We have the right to define and demand good corporate citizenship.

That means we need to think about it differently & use the means at our disposal to get that.

I'm just pointing out how the economics and/or politics works, which is a baseline for worthwhile value judgments.