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Edited on Fri Apr-02-10 07:03 AM by ThomWV
I had to take the truck to a different garage yesterday. I take it to Darrell's place for any repairs, but he is not licensed to do state inspections. My inspection expired in March and I had to take it to Joe's garage to make it legal again. That wouldn't matter, and doesn't matter, other than Joe, who I talked to yesterday, is a Whole lot more conservative than Darrell.
I go there around 7:30, not realizing he opens later than that, but there was already one old fart (OF) in the office with Joe so I just walked on in too. The two young guys who are mechanicing for Joe these days hadn't arrived yet and there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell Joe was going to do any actual work, so I just settled in with the other two. They were already talking about how bad off the country was and so I chimed right in.
What was said really isn't very important other than there was an amazing amount of misinformation floating around. Most of what we talked about was Social Security, and the welfare system, which in the minds of the other two was somehow an interchangeable pair. I am no great expert on the Social Security system, but it was clear to me that the 'facts' that Joe and the Old Fart were outrageously wrong. Actually they were so far off base that about the only defense of the system I could offer was that I was sure that someone had told him something that was not true. As it turned out I went fact finding last night and indeed his "facts" were way off base - and I'll be dropping by to talk to him a little later this morning to make sure he knows better in the future.
That aside here is the interesting thing. Time after time he he referenced where he got his information. It was not FOX news, it was the History Channel and the Discovery Channel. Over and over again he made refferences to programs he had seen on those two channels. That is where he was getting his information, and virtually every thing he was telling me and the Old Fart (who was in complete agreement) was wrong. As an example, somewhere in the Social Security system there is some special kind of payment that just goes to welfare and it is where most of the money goes; just absurd clap-trap like that.
The Discovery Channel and The History Channel, just as inaccurate as FOX news. That was what I learned at the competitors garage yesterday.
PS: By the way, last year approximately 80% of SS payouts went to Retirees or their survivors, with the remaining 20% going to disability payments to eligible participants and small portion to their dependents.
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