Transfer Payments

Since I have been called to task by our moderator for referring to Soc. Security as "transfer payments", I thought maybe a definition was in order.

http://www.investorwords.com/5050/transfer_payments.html

Not that I personally have a problem with transfer payments.

I am in favor of more transfer payments.

But what galls me is people who themselves rely on transfer payments getting on their hi-horse and preaching against gvt. programs or activities designed to bring about a more equitable distribution of wealth.

And especially insulting others who do in fact provide a useful service in exchange for remuneration from the government.

Such as teachers.

Which both Sam and Stephanie enjoy criticizing on a fulltime basis.

Sherm,

Proudly, I receive no government transfer payments. I do receive a paltry amount of child support from my exhusand to help care for our daughter. In the spirit of full disclosure, I will tell you that the State of RI Child Support Enforcement Bureau has a garnishment on his wages. They receive a direct deposit from his employer each week and they then directly deposit that money into a bank account. My private attorney set this up for me, but I am sure there is some small administrative cost involved for the state of RI.

I have complimented individual teachers in the old forum. We haven't had much discussion about teachers in this new forum, yet. I demand teacher accountability. Teachers unions refuse to give an inch on this issue. I don't believe all teachers are bad. My problem is that collectively, they stick together and refuse to weed out the bad ones.

When teachers start practicing a little self-policing they'll stop hearing so many complaints from me. The fact that your wife is a wonderful teacher doesn't mean a whole lot if the teacher her students had the year before is incompetent, ineffective, or simply cruel and she does nothing about it and never does anything about it.

Well Steph I thought I was being fairly specific.

I never said you received transfer payments.

I said you called me to task for saying Soc. Security is a transfer payment.

Which, by definition, it is.

And the contempt for school teachers in general by both you and Sam is very thinly veiled.

Nothing improper about that is implied, people are free to have whatever attitude toward teachers as they choose.

But it does permeate your posts.