CBS:
Because federal tax dollars are free, of course, the CBS story covers what Medicare beneficiaries will pay ($50/month) and doesn’t mention what it will cost the young taxpayers who are being hit to pay for keeping Boomers alive forever (ChatGPT says $6 billion/year would be easy to hit since the drug companies are getting a lot more than $50/month).
The federal government starting paying for a lot of the calories that made today’s older Americans fat when it created the food stamp program, now “SNAP”, in the 1960s. By paying for weight loss drugs, therefore, we have a complete SNAP-to-GLP-1 circle of life. What about rewriting the Disney classic song to fit the current situation? ChatGPT refuses to do this, claiming that it would be a violation of Disney’s copyright to create some new lyrics for their existing melody. Grok apparently doesn’t care.
Circle of Life (SNAP Edition)
(Zulu-style chant, sung with dramatic flair)
Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba
Sithi uhmm… SNAP-onyama!
Here comes the benefit, father
Oh yes, it’s the EBT card
A feast we’re gonna fund here
A burger, a soda, a leopard… wait, that’s just the spots on the fries
Verse 1
From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the store
There’s more to eat than can ever be eaten
More to buy than can ever be bought
There’s far too much junk food to take in here
More calories than can ever be burned
But the government check rolling high
Through the welfare sky
Keeps the great and small on the endless round
Chorus
It’s the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Taxpayers fund the snacks
Then the drugs for the sprawl
Through obesity and hope
Through waistlines and scope
‘Til we find our place
On the Ozempic path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life
Verse 2
Some of us eat the surplus cheese
While others pay the mounting fees
We are all connected in the great chain
From the SNAP aisle to the pharmacy lane
The taxpayer’s wallet gives what it can
To the processed foods and the injection plan
It’s the wheel of fortune, it’s the leap of fate
It’s the government gate… that swings both ways
Chorus
It’s the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love… and rebates
‘Til we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life
Bridge/Outro
Wegovy rising like the morning sun
GLP-1 flowing when the damage is done
From the grocery cart to the needle’s prick
The federal cycle does the trick
Nants ingonyama… SNAP-onyama!
It’s the Circle… of Life!
👏👏👏 Bravo Grok, way to drive home such an obvious connection made by a human.
I guess we would have to ask Neo Hippy how MMJ supplied by Medicaid would fit into The Great Circle of Life, if that glorious day ever happens. Other people here probably don’t know this but MJ increases appetite and helps with nausea (a common affliction when reading about government waste). Grok refused to answer unless I “logged in”.
I’m surprised I beat H. Biden asking for free Medicaid cocaine laced with fentynal here, but meh, free weed wouldn’t be much of a benefit. In places like Michigan — where they have their shit together and even a 25% percent supply-side tax on it won’t make the price budge — the retail price much isn’t much higher than generic aspirin. I mean it’s a plant, it grows itself, not some complicated synthetic lab-grown monoculture like semaglutide. HTH, OAG.
Huh?
[Kids, don’t be like Neo Hippy. Stay off drugs, even free ones from Uncle Sam. And be cool, stay in school.]
Drug based weight loss seemed to work for Elon briefly, then lose effectiveness like cough syrup. Like every other government program, it’s a temporary fix which the voters forget about & demand another program on top of.
This shit sending me 😂😂😂
Oh? Do you have the cyclospora that’s been going around? Wrong emojis. [Unicode poo and butt emojis elided.]
One question: Should I take my SS now at 62 before it all implodes?
LB: I’m also 62 and had the same question! It looks to me as though it doesn’t make sense to start on it because I still have wage income and, thus, wouldn’t actually receive SS checks.
https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html
> As a result of changes to Social Security enacted in 1983, benefits are now expected to be payable in full on a timely basis until 2037, when the trust fund reserves are projected to become exhausted. At the point where the reserves are used up, continuing taxes are expected to be enough to pay 76 percent of scheduled benefits. Thus, the Congress will need to make changes to the scheduled benefits and revenue sources for the program in the future. The Social Security Board of Trustees project that changes equivalent to an immediate reduction in benefits of about 13 percent, or an immediate increase in the combined payroll tax rate from 12.4 percent to 14.4 percent, or some combination of these changes, would be sufficient to allow full payment of the scheduled benefits for the next 75 years.
There goes my tip money for $100 hamburgers, either way.
So we probably should be pumping Phil for ideas on how to build our nest eggs to $100M or taking up risky sports like ropeless mountain climbing as a retirement plan. Rather than how to maximize the extraction of sunken money from a failed pyramid scheme. :/
OAG: Thanks for the link to that 2010 article. We’re informed that SARS-CoV-2 killed nearly one million Social Security beneficiaries whose best years were ahead of them (i.e., they would have been collecting through 2030 or 2040). We’re also informed that low-skill immigration is the key to “pay-go” pension system solvency and immigration between 2010 and today was at record levels, especially during the Biden-Harris administration.
Yet the 2026 equivalent says that the trust fund runs out in 2032, five years earlier than the 2010 forecast. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TR/2026/II_E_conclu.html#86802