On Wed, 25 May 2005 07:41:06 -0700, Frank Gilliland
wrote:

On Wed, 25 May 2005 07:13:35 -0400, Dave Hall
wrote in :

snip
One question begs for an answer: what is the divorce rate in this country?

According to the stats from:

http://www.census.gov/population/soc.../tabA1-all.xls

the percentage of divorced people is 9.6%. For some reason, Frank was
unable (or unwilling) to read the columns and see the actual numbers,
but if you believe the census bureau, that's what it is.


For some reason, you were unable (or unwilling) to accept the clear
statement by the Census Bureau that they do not keep track of marraige
and divorce rates.

Who cares about the RATE? The total amount of divorced people,
according to the chart is 9.6% as of 2003. You can break the numbers
down by age, race, gender, and income, but the total combined results
are 9.6%


And for some reason, you were unable (or unwilling)
to explain how you derived the divorce rate from the table you cited.

It's not the divorce rate, it is the percentage of the population that
is divorced. If you would read the spreadsheet, you'd see that.


Care to help Social Security?

The best way to help it is to remove it, and divert all former SS
withholdings into individual 401K accounts. Of course that penalizes
those who have already given into the SS program for their entire
working lives. So the transition has to be gradual so to be fair to
everyone.


So your solution is to simply eliminate Social Security? Hey, neat
idea, but you can't "divert" what you don't have, and the Reps have
tapped the SS trust fund so deep that there isn't anything to
"divert".

Care to substantiate that statement with some hard facts?

Bush's solution to SS is a "credit-card" retirement plan,
which isn't any better. Maybe you two should get together and figure
out what "promote the general Welfare" means.

America was never meant to be a "Welfare state", despite the
objections of liberals who would socialize every program and service,
at the expense of the people who actually earn money.



I'd suggest that once a couple divorces, they
can no longer give nor receive Social Security benefits from another person
(sole exception being to children). I've heard the divorce rate is close to
50%, but I honestly don't know.

9.6% according to the 2003 census.


http://www.census.gov/population/www.../marr-div.html

So what part of "The U.S. Census Bureau does not collect the number of
marriages and divorces that take place in a given year" do you not
understand?

What part of 9.6% of the total population is divorced do YOU not
understand?




snip
Nope, I'm not for gay marriage, but I question what is it that drives these
big knee-jerk reactions.

I usually apply Newton's law of action vs. reaction. Someone does
something extreme and the opposite side responds with a equal and
opposite reaction. There wouldn't be such an outpouring of opposition
to gay marriage if there wasn't such a push to legalize it.


"In a free society, you don't need a reason to make something legal.
You need a reason to make something illegal."

-- Donna Moss, "West Wing"

And you accuse ME of watching too much TV?

Dave
"Sandbagger"