Last year Uncle Sam collected 1.1 billion in payroll taxes with only $145billion of it going to disabled people so maybe layoff the koolaid dispensed from a certain TV station. A total of 5 million people in a country of 327million. That's about 1% of the population. I suspect that no matter what the 3 letter TV station states, 99% of the people on the program are either disabled at birth or in their 50s with bodies that simply gave out. Not everybody gets to spend their life working a desk job shuffling paper around and posting on internet boards on their employer's time. Hard to get injured doing that.

Could you check your numbers please?

Could you check your numbers please?

Could you check your numbers please?

But...but... you live in the UK... do you vote here now?

If some of you naysayers were around in 1908 Selfridge would still be alive to fight in WW1 with bow and arrows.

I've lived a lot of places but i always vote by mail to the state of illinois
Which means my vote is largely wasted, but that's another issue unto itself.

Could you check your numbers please?

I agree with you on the Appolo program, I agree with you on the war on drugs. I strongly disagree with you that the poverty programs have accomplished nothing. You have no historical perspective of the poverty levels that existed prior to WWII, the level of malnutrition, the illiteracy rates, etc. Everybody on this board can clearly afford to fly an airplane, which leads to me belief they are sucking on the government tit to quite larger of an extent than somebody collecting few hundred bucks a month in disability payments. Tell me what you do and I'll show you how you're sucking on the tit. I enjoy living in society without stunted growth children so prevalent outside of first world countries. If it costs a few bucks in taxes, I don't care.

As to correlation between unemployment ending and disability payments, of course that there will be correlation. Layoffs are never random in today's data driven world. You lay off your least productive, older workers. Their unemployment runs out, they can no longer find a new job due to injuries, they apply for disability. A plumber I know did just that. His joints started fusing from years of hard work. It only took him 3 go arounds before he was approved so don't make it sound like it's an instant approval for anyone who applies.

This is real science, a drone on Titan.

The Mars drone is mostly a stunt that has little residual value. It doesn't carry anything, doesn't go far at only 90 seconds per day, and is extremely risky and fragile. It's main problem will be that is will stir up dust on landing that then settles on the solar array, which eventually denies it the power to recharge, stay warm, and fly again. The dust on Mars is super fine and was the main problem the first rovers had to deal with and they didn't stir up the dust themselves. Would not surprise me if the dust problem kills it quickly.

Titan atmosphere is dense, 50% higher than Earth. This means you can carry a much heavier payload including enough power to fly for extended periods, and you can carry science payloads to get some real data. With an RTG providing both power and heat, there is far more power to get real things done. Dragonfly can fly for hours each "day" and fly for 10s of km on each flight. Projected weight is 450 Kg, 250 times the Mars copter.

Dragonfly landing date is 2034, 15 years from now.

Mike C.

I don't want to drive this discussion off the rails too badly but the assignment of "disability", often rightfully and often by default, is a growing massive problem in this country. I don't see an easy solution but I do see an issue we need to address in some way to stop this multi-generational trend.

This was an eye opening Podcast and they followed up with this in-depth article. Well worth a read.

http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

yep

we have 4 rental properties in the US. 3 of them are occupied by tenants who do not work and live on disability.

All are in their early-mid 30's. One of them is a hobby triathelete, who claims his disability is PTSD from being in a car accident. Another claims a neck injury from a forklift rollover at his prior job - he now plays rugby as his hobby. The third has the disability of a ringing in her ears. She spends her evenings playing drums in a rock band at the local bars.

As a landlord these "disabled" tenants are great, they always pay the rent on time. but as a taxpayer it burns me to no end to be paid with my own money.