Howard Lutnick says the only people who would complain about not receiving Social Security checks would be fraudsters, do you agree?

It’s garbage. He’s telling fraudsters how to behave.
If’n my check didn’t get deposited these days I would go nuclear.

I’d be in trouble without my SS, which I earned fair and square. I would have to complain loudly. It just about covers my insurance premiums, and I would be in a lot of trouble without it.

disdain

@Jeruba, yes, thanks for the correction, but maybe destain as in removing a stain. LOL Only kidding.
As for what you and @filmfann wrote, I agree. They seem to think all old people are sitting on a ton of money and can afford to go a few months without payments because their rich relatives don’t have that worry. So everyone else must be thieves. Or at least they want the general public to believe that anyone complaining about not getting their social security must be a thief so you must ignore their complaint.

Once you had a country run by the people for the people, now you have a country run by billionaires for billionaires.

Worst government ever!

These people come from such a position of entitlement and privilege that they’re totally clueless as to how many people struggle with budgets and just trying to get by.

Even if they’re not struggling, why would one not be concerned about a fund that obe worked and paid into, very likely for a lifetime?

It is the fraudsters that would stay silent, because complaining would open them up to scrutiny.
But sure, honest people would just stay silent and obediently die from exposure and hunger in the streets like good little serfs.
“close your eyes and think of england”

This is not just about money. This is about power. They want absolute control over you, not just physically or monetarily, but mentally. When you complain, that is seen as resistance, as defiance. As a challenge to their power. A signal to others to stand up. That is why they want you to be silent. Because when you silently acquiesce, their power over you is complete.

Hell I wouldn’t die quietly in the streets! But then, I’m not a “serf”.

“This is not just about money. This is about power. They want absolute control over you, not just physically or monetarily, but mentally. When you complain, that is seen as resistance, as defiance. As a challenge to their power. A signal to others to stand up. That is why they want you to be silent. Because when you silently acquiesce, their power over you is complete.”

Well of course, that’s obvious. What about that surprises you?

I saw this quote going around on Facebook. It is ridiculous to me. I wasn’t able to read the article.

I think most people would be calling. Maybe not the next day, but within a few weeks. Especially people who live check to check relying on their social security check. Someone who does not rely on it might not notice until a few weeks later if they don’t regularly check their bank account.

As far as children working to buy lunches, I am against that, but I think it is Japan (yikes I might be confusing it with another Asian country) has the children in school help with some “chores” at the schools, and there might be some merit to their philosophy, but income level does not impact it, and it is not about being fed or not, and it shouldn’t be. There was a CEO in Japan who has been quoted as saying everyone should clean toilets. Something like that, and he was being literal. The Japanese see it as a sign of respect for oneself and for others and good hygiene and brings luck. I don’t know how often that is practiced across Japan.

Maybe the children working thing somehow ties in with how parts of the Christian Right look at chores and how to become a productive adult. I do not agree with their POV, because it is not really applied like the Asian culture I mentioned and there is often racism in the conversation. I have had Christians tell me white people are more successful because they go to Christian schools and are used to dressing for a job because they wore uniforms in school, and their families and schools threatened them with physical punishment so they behaved, and they had chores to learn a strong work ethic. I mean really I was just flabbergasted and disgusted the first time I heard someone talk like that. I am not a fan of lots of chores nor the threat of physical punishment. I think modeling is the best teacher, and children can certainly do small things to learn how to take care of themselves and their environment, but I reject making them slaves to make an adults life easier.

I think people committing fraud would be loath to complain and call any attention to themselves. Defrauding the government is a serious crime with serious punishments.

Absolute garbage. People everywhere will stand up for what they are due.
In fact, those who don’t stand up are the ones that are the known fraudsters who don’t want to attract attention.

Social Security is not a gift. We all paid into it our whole working life. It is our money. I disagree with those that say rich people might not notice right away.
I’ve worked in a doctors office with many doctors who have wealth, but each and every one of them start checking their accounts the day before payday for their pay. And if it’s not in their accounts that day, they complained to me and I was calling payroll immediately.
This would include if a doctor only had one day of pay coming to them.
Only fraudsters would not complain so as not to get caught.
Many people in my state are very poor and can’t afford their medicine or enough food.
Some of these children only get the free lunches at school and nothing at home.
The teachers in my town have worked out a program in the summer to continue feeding these kids that are hungry.
Some of these politicians have been born into wealth and have no idea what it’s like to be hungry and poor.

Do I agree? Of course not!

Lutnick is of course in the category of people who should not be allowed into any position of authority over anything.

Of course not. The great majority of retired persons depend on SS for at least a percentage of their retirement income.

So much is going wrong, it’s hard to keep track. On another site, I accidentally attributed the saying to someone else. There was also a statement by (an official) that child working laws should be relaxed, and another saying if they can’t have fresh food, then why not switch to canned?

@chyna I don’t think its a lack of understanding. Its that they don’t care. I’ve have had lean times in my life but never to the point of going hungry, yet I understand that it is bad for anyone to go hungry. Its like cancer. I never had cancer or a bad physical accident or been set on fire but I know these are really bad things. They understand, they just don’t care.

In my experience people against Social Secuty altogether or school lunches don’t want to pay for other people and they want to keep their money.

Most people I know who don’t want to pay into social security (SS) simply are against being taxed, they want to keep their money. You pay into SS, and you never get it if you die young. You pay in, and your children can’t inherit it. People who are wealthy feel they can manage and grow the money better than the government. People who are middle class and don’t want SS are generally anti-tax and think they want the use of their money that they earned. Especially if they feel the government mismanages the money.

They don’t care about other people when it comes to government help. They might be doing other charitable things, so when someone accuses them of not caring about others it won’t compute for them.

School lunches is another way the government helps the rich get richer. People aren’t starving and so companies can keep paying very low wages and have their profits.

@JLeslie The problem is that people don’t understand social security. It isn’t for only when you retire. It also covers you if you have an accident and become disabled. It’s meant as a kind of life insurance. If you become disabled and you are a single parent, it will help provide for you and your family.

Also, the reason why the rich hate social security is because as employers they have to match what you put in. I bet you if social security was fully funded by each employee, they wouldn’t care.

@Pandora I agree it is insurance.

The rich often don’t pay for life insurance; they rather have use of their money.

As medical insurance goes up, many Americans are opting to risk not having insurance. Health insurance feels like a racket and scam to me at this point, I completely understand the mindset of not wanting to pay for it, but I do.

Your point about employers paying half the dollars for SS is true, but just pointing out if the contractor or employee has to pay their own in full it is still a part of the pay equation. We are basically agreeing on this point though.

Most people aren’t future oriented, especially if their current situation is extremely difficult.

@Pandora Kids working for lunch… Japanese schools make the kids clean the schools every day. I don’t know if they make them do everything, but certainly they empty the trash and sweep up.

I also don’t know what age they start making them empty trash and use brooms, but I would think cleaning up starts in preschool, with age appropriate chores of course. I think kids in the US would benefit from such a practice.

I will ask my daughter. She works in a Japanese school.

Videos from Japan.

School clean up: https://youtu.be/jv4oNvxCY5k

Lunch video: https://youtu.be/hL5mKE4e4uU

It probably varies around the country. There are plenty of videos if you are interested.

I don’t think most Americans would go for it, especially to the extreme of Japan in these videos. Some Americans won’t want their kids doing the work, certainly some Americans would reject the kids wearing a mask, so that mart of the video we can probably just ignore. Some Americans will complain it takes jobs away from adults.

A friend of mine had her kids in a Montessori school and she said there was an emphasis on the kids cleaning up and using organization al skills. She said it taught her how to organize at home and the kids used the system.

One more about the clean culture: https://youtu.be/BOGMkgnc2YY this video is in Tokyo. The school lunch above was in a more rural setting.

@JLeslie I lived in Japan and have a Japanese nephew who went to Japanese school when he was little. What they make the kids do is basically clean up behind themselves. Eat, put clean your tray and wipe the table you were at. The same for your desk. Before break it goes a little more detailed, but they still have janitors that work and clean up. It’s about teaching children a lesson about being responsible and working as a team in society.

When I went to Catholic school, we also did the same thing. And when my son was in public school in South Carolina, before breaks, parents volunteered for major cleaning before summer break. I ran the machine to strip the floor wax in the classroom. The janitors would apply the wax after the class was cleaned thoroughly. Parents and kids all helped out.
But back to Japan, the class chores are quickly done, since they learn not to make a mess that they will have to clean up.
Its also more about keeping things sanitary.

@JLeslie When kids are taught to clean up in nursery school, it’s more of a tidying up of the toys, maybe wiping the tables after snack, stuff like that. Light cleaning, and someone comes after them to do the real job. It’s not heavy duty with brooms, mops, cleaning toilets.

I don’t want the kids to clean toilets either.

Did you see the video with kids serving lunch?

General question! How did this get onto kids in Japanese schools all doing chores which would be very different from making kids in America work for their lunch?

Japanese school children cleaning classrooms is part of the education and culture. Everyone has a responsibility for the preservation of society.
Proponents of having western children work for food is based on transactionalism. They think children have to earn the right to live.

@janbb In my first answer I said maybe the Christian Right is conflating or arguing that what Japan does with having children helping clean is a-ok and even good for the children. It’s completely different to have poor children work for lunch.

@JLeslie Speaking as someone who used to be a janitor in more than one school, if the school doesn’t have to pay janitorial staff extra to do the messy cleaning that they find in at the end of the day in every school in the US, certainly that would cut costs.

@snowberry I can’t imagine being able to not have a janitor in the school. Not unless the adult school staff is actually cleaning also.

He has obviously not worked in a bank where people call to see if their SS payment happened to go in a day early. Then call again on the day it’s due to make sure it came in.

Oh my word, @JLeslie! When did anyone say that children would do have to do all the cleaning and replace janitors? That isn’t the case!

If the kids in the US were made to tidy up similar to the way the Japanese schools teach, everyone would benefit, and our schools would save money.

@snowberry I’m not sure what you are saying to me. This thread is partly about people saying poor kids should work for lunch.

I said in my first answer before you ever answered that in Japan kids help clean up after themselves, I think it is generally more than the typical clean up in the US, but it varies by school.

I said I am against poor children working as janitors to pay for their lunch, which is different than all kids participating more in clean up. The OP mentioned children working for lunch. I’ve seen reports of a suggestion that children work cleaning the school. I think Newt Gingrich was one of the first people to really put the idea out there. Here’s an old article. https://www.politico.com/story/2011/11/newt-fire-the-janitors-hire-kids-to-clean-schools-068729

I said I knew Christians when I lived in the Bible Belt who talked about Black children needing more practice dressing appropriately and more practice working so they can be successful in the workplace as adults (which I thought was horrible, racist, and incorrect). Maybe the Christian extremists take that too far. Most people here just talk about the proposal as slave labor and not how people suggesting it might rationalize it as helpful to the minority children including poor white children.

As a side note, I actually think high school kids should work unless they have a very full academic schedule beyond typical or if they are very involved with sports. All kids not just poor kids. Some of the child work laws are too strict in my opinion, but completely doing away with them I am totally against.

@JLeslie “I can’t imagine being able to not have a janitor in the school. Not unless the adult school staff is actually cleaning also.” Of course there would still be janitors in schools. School kids shouldn’t be using chemicals such as cleaning restrooms, mopping floors, stripping and waxing floors, etc. Janitors are still necessary to do all the things that ordinary people don’t do, adults or children. I agree, the way the Japanese kids do it, it is more than what kids in the US do.

I totally agree it’s inappropriate to single out any group of children and make them work to get a basic necessity. However, there are lots of wealthy children who could learn elementary cleaning skills. A side benefit would teach them respect for themselves and others and how to work together.

As for dressing skills, I’m sorry about what you heard. Today, many people (adults and kids) could use lessons in dressing appropriately for the occasion. One of my daughters teaches in a public school. Her principal had to impose a dress code for all the teachers because they had two teachers who were coming in with skimpy tank tops, ratty jeans, or pajama pants.