Hello all,

This is my first post, and I am looking forward to being a regular here. My question pertains to the current economic status of our Country, and how it will effect the VA Pension plans. If the country does in fact go into a Recession/Depression will our pensions be effected. I am currently a 100% SMC Permenant & Totally disabled veteran, and would be devastated if I lost my income. Does anyone know if we would lose our pensions or have them decreased? Thanks in advance for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Marinesniper

[quote name='Marinesniper' date='Sep 24 2008, 11:03 PM' post='107584']
Hello all,

This is my first post, and I am looking forward to being a regular here. My question pertains to the current economic status of our Country, and how it will effect the VA Pension plans. If the country does in fact go into a Recession/Depression will our pensions be effected. I am currently a 100% SMC Permenant & Totally disabled veteran, and would be devastated if I lost my income. Does anyone know if we would lose our pensions or have them decreased? Thanks in advance for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Marinesniper
[/quote]

[size="3"]Veteran, I am also afraid. My life is very hard right now, even with the VA Compensation. I would be devastaed as well. ~Wings[/size]

[color="#0000FF"]Welcome to Hadit.

I don't think that Veterans on Pension and other Federal benefits have a lot to worry about. As it stands we are looking at a COLA around 5 to 7% and our compensation is pretty good if you considered it as retirement money

Yes times are hard but if you went through the process of getting benefits and waiting for them you learned how to deal with hardship.

I look for ways to cut expenses and right now I defer buying new stuff. My computer is almost 5 years old as is the printer and monitor but I have two sons who keep it running like a top.

We just finished making 12 months no interest payments on our bed and have agree no more buying unless emergency.

My Daughter in Law just was laid off from her job. We are getting ready to help out as much as we can.

I think that anyone getting money from the government should count them selves as lucky. I feel sorry for people my age that are losing investments on their pension and their homes and have a lot of bills.

I am not saying that anyone here is home free but mostly we at least have a dependable check that we can count on.

So hang in there and look for ways to reduce your expenses. I am thinking of taking in someone to share expenses at our home.

Good Luck to all[/color]

[size="3"]Thanks Pete,
I bet there are several of us with these concerns as well.

Jmack[/size]

Yes, I'd say that if you weren't concerned about what is now going on, financial/market/depression/recession/Wall Street, etc., then WE should all be concerned about YOU!
Having said that, my wife and I have totally eliminated all monthly debt obligations. It was hard (I've been fighting the VA for 5 years now, and finally just received my 100%P&T, etc., and it was really tuff going up until then) what with a son in university that we were trying to help out as much as possible (he's working on his masters degree and has full scholarship plus an assistant professership now, so he's become less of a financial obligation....finally).

And, my wife's an RN with 25 years under her belt and in a very demanding speciality, and a very "IN demand" speciality, thank goodness. So, we aren't really worried about her job.

But, we took a look at some of our other family members and we are really worried about them.
My wife's little sister (38 years old) is in the financial business. I don't really understand what she does, something about computer systems, but she has a pretty high paying job (she just bought herself a new Lexus with her yearly bonus) and she has only a junior college education and there are other people that she is supervisor over, that are more educated than she, so, they'll dump her at the first opportunity and promote someone younger and better educated that'll work for less.......happens every time, to a lot of people, when we have a "financial downturn", happened to me after 15 years with GTE/Verizon. Only difference is, we didn't have a $3,000 a month house payment, a new Jaguar to pay off, and well over $80,000 in credit card debt. She is gonna wind up, upstairs in our house, in one of the spare bedrooms.

De Shite, she is gonna hit the rotors before this is all over and done with. I'm afraid.

The VA compensation and pension is 60 years old. They need to be increase 30% across the board,now





4

I have been investing for 25 years, and I have big losses on paper. I don't really care because as long as I have a decent cash flow my life does not change. Not to say I enjoy seeing my investments decline. I still resent the idea that taxpayers are going to have to foot the bill for bankers and Wall Street "Masters of the Universe" who got us into this mess. The big shots are not worried about small business or people getting kicked out of their houses. They are worried about themselves. These people consider average taxpayes as fools and smucks.

I don't think the government can go bankrupt because they can always print more money. Inflation, yes but bankrupt, no. Depression, yes, cutting off earned benefits, no. You dollar would just be worth nothing if we had a big inflation to pay off debts. That's how they do it when a government has debts. They inflate the currency. Horrible for the average citizen. This is what really created Nazi Germany was a hyper inflation.

"smucks"

Naw.

s*c*h*m*u*c*k*s

schmucks.....trust me on this.....remember, I have English as my second (or is it third?) language.