OT: How to Save Social Security

[Eddie Brimer]

hmmmm...not sure how this got here, but it deserves a reply. to understand SS, you don't really have to understand anything but simple math and economics. problem 1. you can't pay out more than you take in. problem 2. the aging babyboomers and the overall population explosion here on planet earth. problem 3. the mindset of people that they are supposed to "took care of" by their goverment.

not alot you can do about 2 or 3. number 1 is a big problem too. everybody can't retire comfortably. everybody can't even retire. you can't produce money from thin air. everybody can't win. for every winner, there must be a loser. money is not "earned" in an investment, it is an exchange of wealth. for every person that wants to buy a piece of stock at XX dollars, there is someone who wants to sell it just as bad. to undermine this, promotes inflation. if the timing is good, then you will make better money with your private account. if it is not, then someone must lose..... or someone else must guarantee your return. guarantees cost "everybody else" instead of you. (back to square one) so there you have it. either pay more as individuals, pay more as a society, or accept spiralling inflation for decades to come. any way you look at it, it is a losing proposition. the privately funded accounts are only a band-aid...a temporary fix. better than what we have but there still has to be losers. when we accept this, we as a society will be better off.

[Uncle Peter]

Social Security barely keeps people out of the poverty level. Actually, here in the Northeast SS is the poverty level. You can lose everything you own, but at the least the SS payments will keep some food on the table, and no one can take that away from you.

People, AND THEIR EMPLOYERS, have paid into the fund for the duration of their working careers, and should expect to have something paid back when they reach 67 yrs. and 8 mos. With the number of folks in the 40 to 70 year age bracket I see making the daily obits, I would think the fund would be cash rich??

At worst, wasn't the projected decreased payment at 75% for 2042? By law the payments would be reduced to meet available funds. The idea that the fund would bankrupt is Bush bullshit. Bush would be better served by stating the truth, instead of stretching it. And I did vote for him.

Why are immigrants coming to our shores, who have never paid a dime into SS, being able to collect SS immediately? If there isn't enough money there, the government should to themselves as being the cause.

We can spend billions on wars in Iraq to preserve our oil interests; we can take care of our own as well.

[Uncle Peter]

Worth reading, if you really are wondering where the SS funds are going..

problem was addressed in 1983, and here's the results. What "lockbox"???

[Rick]

First, SS was created as an extra kick after retirement, not as a sole source of income.

When SS was created, there were 50 people paying in for every person collecting. Now there is 2 people paying in for every person collecting. As the baby boomers continue to retire, there will be more people collecting than paying in. That is where the problem is. I would love to be able to take some of that money and be responsible for investing it myself. There are a lot of good funds and IRAs that can help it grow over time. Not to mention, the SS system does not truly guarantee that you will collect as the money is the property of the government and they can dictate what to do with it. By privatizing it, the government can't touch it as it is soley the property of the individual that earned it.

[Uncle Peter]

Source? When it was created, it was a sole source for many Americans.

A big part of the problem is the government using funds to reduce the deficit. And, giving SS benefits to folks who never paid into it.

I

Various IRAs, 401ks, invest as you wish!!! Who is stopping you? I certainly am.

There are a lot of good funds and IRAs that can

and more importantly, it can't be legally attached as an asset, and taken from you. One good illness, and you might see all of your 401Ks, IRAs and bank accounts wiped out by medical bills.

Wouldn't SS be nice to fall back on then?

Pete

[Eddie Brimer]

well, at least william is honest. it never ceases to amaze me how people think you can "make" money on an investment. where does this money come from??? pete...stewart? a good answer please. not...we should "take care of each other".... taking care of each other costs money. are you willing to double your contributions so everyone can be "took care of." are you willing to accept the inflation that the "everybody wins" scenario brings. you people aren't thinking this through at all. we must cut payouts or increase taxes to fund SS. it is the big elephant in the room nobody will talk about because they don't want to be deemed as uncaring....or be the bad guy who promotes the biggest tax increase in the history of the world. time to get real people. it is a system that will fail eventually. the question is when and at what cost. do we suffer the costs, or do we pawn it off on our kids and grandkids as past generations have done?

[Larry Jaques]

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 21:43:46 -0700, the inscrutable "xrongor" spake:

'Cept for Alaska, AMEN, dude. And put CONgress on the same SS benefit package as the rest of us. That'll save billions per year right there.

[John Stone]

Indeed, this whole thing comes down to the philosophy of the so-called "ownership society". As if privatizing social security would really give individuals any real control over their own money. Gimme a break. It will still be a huge government mandated and operated program, heavily limited in scope compared to true individual accounts like 401k's or IRA's. And it won't do anything to fix the solvency issue. Even Bush now admits to this.

Honestly, I think the whole idea is a non-starter. There isn't a single Democrat who will go for it, and there's plenty of very nervous Republicans too. They don't call it the "third rail of politics" for nothing. Far right conservatives are angry at the very suggestion by Bush that raising the cap on payroll taxes to fund it is on the table, yet no Republican moderates can justify the switchover without at least partial funding.

Worse yet, I think the public is very skeptical. Most people see it as a problem but not a crisis, and Bush has even dropped the word in his "sales pitches". This then begs the question why Bush has made this a front burner issue in the first place. Since he started beating the drum on this in November, public opinion for or against hasn't budged a bit. And right now, the majority is not convinced it is the right thing to do. Poll folks about the basic idea of private accounts and they like it. Mention the risks associated, or the cuts in guaranteed benefits, and support drops like a rock.

[Steven Dinius]

Yes, do nothing...maybe it's the way to SAVE it also.

[William Sommerwerck]

Basically, wealth is produced by human labor. The money you make on an investment came indirectly from people growing crops, or working in a factory, or whatever.

There is a clear distinction by creating wealth by working to produce something of value, and receiving money via a paycheck.

For example, a gunsmith who makes and sells rifles can easily quantify the added value that represents the wealth he has created for himself. It's his wealth, and no one (including the government) has any real right to take it from him. In fact, I'm in favor of abolishing Federal taxes for unincoporated individuals who own their own manufacturing or service businesses and do all the work themselves.

On the other hand, managers and directors don't actually do anything to create wealth, other than seeing to it that their companies are run efficiently. That certainly deserves a reward, but millions of dollars every year, year after year?

Tell me... What did Carly do to justify a $20M golden parachute? She left HP in worse condition than she found it. She ought to give her salary back.

As to "helping each other..." Here's a question I don't have an answer to. Suppose our gunsmith hires an assistant. Shouldn't the assistant receive a wage that allows him to live in reasonable comfort, without living in a rat-infested tenement or having to worry where the next meal is coming from? This means the assistant would have to produce sufficient goods and services such that their profit covered at least that "living wage."

But employers tend to try to pay as little as possible, so they can profit from the employees' labor. Should the employer look after only his own interests? If the assistant is unusually productive, should he share the extra profits?

You see, the problem with both Capitalism and Communism is that there is no real incentive to work hard to create wealth.

As long as the wealthy have the right to take wealth they didn't create, I see no reason why working people shouldn't try to take it back.

PS: Montaigne wrote that, in his opinion, wealthy people were wealthy due to avarice.

[Scott W. Harvey]

Actually that has very little to do with it. The real problem is that people just aren't dying at the age they are supposed to. DEATH is what has kept Social Security going all these years. Back in the old days, most people would die within a couple of years after retirement, and they usually retired at 65. Now, a lot more people are living into their

80s and 90s, and some of them are retiring at 55.

Privatization is an idea that is certainly worth debating, but the plan that Bush is floating is a dog that won't hunt. Saddling our children with an additional 1.5 trillion dollars in debt (The amount needed as a stopgap for revenues to social security reduced from privatization) for the sins of flawed policies that will never benefit them is simply immoral.

The privatization plan itself has SCAM written all over it. It really amounts to a lot of money going to business interests on Wall street....I've no doubt there are going to be aspects to the plan that will encourage a lot of churn, churn, churn to jack up those commissions.

Earth to Bush and Congress: I don't WANT Social Security! I don't need Social Security! Just give me all the damn money NOW and let me invest it AS I CHOOSE. I'll bet I can do it better than you can, and If I don't, it's my own damn fault and nobody else's. The focus of this debate is always conveniently centered on what is needed to save Social Security. It's high time that people in high places started raising the question of whether it's worth saving at all.

Around here, the people I know who collect Social Security use it as an additional source of income to buy such things as dog food and movie tickets. That's essentially all it's good for these days (other than Medicare, which is another train wreck waiting to happen). NO ONE that I know uses it as a primary source of income. Those that believe you can actually live on those payments probably also believes that deficits are good for the economy, the Iraqis will pay us back all the money we've spent over there, and that the Easter bunny and the tooth fairy really exist.

-Scott

[Todd Fatheree]

Karl Marx must be your hero.

Whew! What a relief to know that we can stop paying actors and singers and athletes since they don't produce something. And we can get rid of all managers since they don't add anything and just trust everyone to do their jobs with no supervision. Sounds like we should just either disband all companies or just turn them all into cooperatives so that everyone gets paid the same amount. Then we can all hold hands in a big circle and sing "Kum Ba Yah". Yep...the dream of the socialist: misery spread around evenly. In a capitalist society, people get paid in part by taking risks. When someone invests his life savings into starting a company, he should expect that that risk will be rewarded in the future. If you choose to be a worker bee, you will be paid what someone else thinks you are worth. The great thing about capitalism is that if you think there's a big disconnect between the value of your labor and your wage, you can start your own company. And if you work enough 80 hour weeks and turn your company into something, you can eventually look forward to some liberal coming along and deciding how much of your investment you should give to them.

Since he himself was rich, I guess he was speaking from personal experience.

todd

[GregP]

Democrat politicians like to spend money and raise taxes on people who make more money. Republican politicians like to spend a huge amount of money and charge it to future generations that they do not have to look in the eye and who can't vote against them.

[xrongor]

and when YOU have nothing to say, call everything you dont like propaganda like you have been taught.

praise the lord and damn the yankees!!

randy

[Larry Blanchard]

Perhaps you could, as could I. But that does not address the need for a forced savings plan of some type for those too poor to divert income from present necessities to future ones.

And the average under-40 type in this country, poor or not, doesn't think much about the future. That's human nature.

Somehow I can't see us letting all those people starve when they get too old to work.

Of course, we could always bring back the poorhouse.

[xrongor]

while republicans claim the democrats are the tax and spend people, republicans are the dont tax, but spend anyway people.

and the nation is apparantly too stupid to figure this out.

randy

[J. Clarke]

Giving SS benefits to folks who never paid into it or giving them more than they paid into it _is_ the problem and always has been. Social security doesn't carry anything over from year to year or invest anything, all that it takes in in a given year it pays out in that year.

Nice of you to admit it. Certainly you can invest in an IRA. But you can't invest any of your social security into an IRA.

There's something called "insurance" that you might have heard of.

[GregP]

He would never have been president if he had.

[GregP]

Right. If Bush were truly into an "ownership society," he would push through a reduction in SS taxes and benefits payments by 25% starting next January, recalculate future benefits to be in line with the revised payment schedule, remove the 25% returned from personal taxes, and give tax breaks oriented to small savers and investors, and let people decide for themselves what to do with the money they retain, including investing it for retirement.

Instead the administration will create another corporate boondoggle, like the "drug benefit" that will add a mammoth cost to people who actually pay taxes - the latest in the $800B range, close to double what the administration claimed (and lied about) when it was ramming it through congress; reduce benefits to seniors; and disallow price negotiations with drug makers. I wonder how much the drug makers "invested" in "campaign contributions" to pull off this monster transfer of wealth ?

[GregP]

It's about half the nation, the half that believes someone else - their children, their grandchildren, the Iraqi people, and our 18-20 yr old servicemen - should pay for what they waste & spend.