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Mathematics of the Social Security "Crisis"
ScottyB writes "Here's a good start for reading into the economics and history of the much-discussed 'crisis' in Social Security. It's from the NY Times magazine, so you know the drill...'A Question of Numbers.'"
What is there to know? we (the under 35 crowd) are fucked, no matter what happens.
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In this country, fools and paid liars say whatever they want about an issue on television and, as far as viewers are concerned, get away with it. The enterprise of journalism, which is suppoesed to help citizens in a democracy sort through the sewer of increasingly sophisticated misinformation that comes from a variety of interested parties is in a state of free-fall, either actively subverted by self-interested and sociopathic organizations and individuals, or simply crumbling under the unique demands and exigencies of continued survival in the mass media marketplace.
The heart of the matter is that when Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity lie about something, no one is yet able to mod them down.
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Yes, I take every story from the NYT with a huge block of salt.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
is a crock of shit. I am sorry, but as someone in their 20's, paying into this system, I expect something back. Saying there will be no crisis until 40 years down the road is just ignoring the pending doom. We must head off the problem before it starts.
the SS "Trust Fund" is going to start cashing in their US Gov't IOU's, the only solution is to raise taxes to payback the money the government has taken out of our system. It is the politicians fault, not ours.
The goal of the republicans is not to revamp social security. The goal is to abolish it entirely, along with medicaid. The easiest way to do so is to completely break it by privatizing it, while at the same time bankrupting the government. Then, of course, the private managers will be to blame. Something will have to go to balance the budget... and then they will eliminate social security. Now the tax cuts and war start to make sense. Expect a budget crisis shortly!
What's wrong with just letting people save money on their own for their retirement? I say we end Social Security and let people plan for themselves.
Oh I forgot, they never put any of this money away for people's retirement like was originally planned. This money is part of their everyday operating expenses. It's just another way to get more tax money.
It's the battle of the minds, and everyone's unarmed.
SS reform is a sham to divert money to big stock market investors.
The net deficit from SS over the next 50yrs is significantly smaller than the net deficit from Bush's reduction in dividend and capital gains taxes.
All of Bush's domestic decisions have favored people who get more than 1 million a year in unearned income. If you work instead of having your personal money manager cash your checks, Bush is trying to screw you.
It's from the NY Times magazine, so you know the drill...
What, now I need a drill to read the article?! What's next, a freakin laser on a shark who will make his way through raw sewage up into the HQ of the NY Times magazine and copy the original article onto the USB flash drive located on his belly where his belly button would be if he were human?!
Damn the registration process! I didn't register/read the article so, I'll assume it says I won't get a million dollars from the government when I retire. Does it say if I'll get $100? Maybe even $200? That's better than my vhances at getting a job that'll keep me for 30 years and pay for my retirement.
I try not to laugh in death's face. I tend to make belittling comments and snicker behind death's back.
I was watching CNN and they had guests on from both sides of the issue. The guy who opposed any changes said the system was fine until 2038. I was born in 1977, so quickly doing the math, I realized I'd be 65 then! That's not fair.
... Canada has ~10% of the US population and one of the best social nets in the world. It constantly ranks in the top 10 of the "Best Places in the World" to live by the UN and other groups. Life is for living here, its not a race to build the biggest bank accounts and get plastic surgery. And the life expectancy is higher than in the US. Bush is going to sell your souls to the devil to make his friends richer while you starve. Then they get to call you "lazy".
Do you want to pay taxes to a government slush fund that gets distributed on a political whim (current system), or do you want to control how your money is invested and distributed? It's not rocket science, people. The Dems say that Bush's proposal is for stockbrokers and not for widowed grandmas, but it's no more complicated than a 401(k) or 403(b).
no-reg link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/magazine/16SOCIA L.html
and basically it says that there is a greate deal of misinformation coming from the right.
Over the next 75 years, SS will run at a loss of 3.3T USD. Sounds like a lot huh? Well by comparison, the Bush tax cuts (both of them) will result in less revenue to the tune of 11.6T USD over the next 75 years. So even if you revoke 30% of the Bush tax cut, you can pay for SS over the next 75 years (or maybe a little more to cover interest since they tax revenue and SS benefits demand dont have similar demand curves).
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
...and it solves both the food and the social security problem in one fel swoop.
Beep beep.
FP....
I mean 1st post....
Or is that the second post....
It could be the third....
There is a statistical probability that this is the fourth post. And using a standard deviation there is a high probability that this is going to be the ninth post.
Or in other words this post has a 99% chance of not being a first post. So there is a 1% chance that it will be the first post.
Based on this social rating system, I have a 90% chance of this being moderated high if this falls within 1%. So there is a 90% chance that this is going to be a highly rated first post.
I love numbers....
Substitute "vastly more often" for "always" and you've about got it.
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the liberals played this game. clinton called social security a "looming fiscal crisis" in feb 1998. "We have a great opportunity now to take action now to avert a crisis in the Social Security system," Clinton said, again in February 1998. "By 2030, there will be twice as many elderly as there are today, with only two people working for every person drawing Social Security. After 2032, contributions from payroll taxes will only cover 75 cents on the dollar of current benefits. So we must act, and act now, to save Social Security." http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york20050114080 7.asp
http://www.google.com/search?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ny times.com%2F2005%2F01%2F16%2Fmagazine%2F16SOCIAL.h tml&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf -8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US :official
they allow google to refer to them registration free.
Runnin' On Empty
that "fault" and "problem" are two vastly different things.
Screw social security, you're not getting it. Expect that. Try to sock away as much of your income for retirement as possible, make a lot of friends, and keep an eye out for opportunities for investment.
It's always the same. Every "debate" or discussion about the numbers behind social security and they never talk about the numbers that matter. For people under 35, the most important number is the number of dollars in an employee's pocket on payday after deductions. As things stand right now, there's at least 30 years - at least seven presidential terms - between now and when those people start collecting. Chances are some politician is going to wreck social security between now and then even if the gloom and doom predictions don't come true. That means on top of the hefty deductions from your weekly paycheck, if you're under 35, you also have to assume social security won't be there for you and you have to put that much more money away personally. That is the number that matters.
As for this article... Solving the social security budget gap by adding 2% to the payroll tax sounds great... Tax the corporations! Well, it would be great, but corporations take the payroll tax into account when they determin how much you cost them as an employee. As far as they're concerned, the payroll tax is part of the employee's compensation package... Raise the tax, and you're going to see a corresponding drop in salaries or a corresponding rise in unemployment over the long term.
Class Action Lawsuit anyone?
In 1964, it would not have been possible to foresee the dot-com boom or bust, nor today's broad societal trends. Similarly today we cannot tell with any certainty at all what the situation will be forty years from today.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
If Social Security is "broken" now, then the rest of the budget is HORRIBLY BROKEN. They currently use the surplus of SS to pay off a large portion of the deficit. The rest of the deficit is being paid for by our children and grandchildren.
Welcome to the real world...
If I started company X and implemented a retirement policy that works like Social Security, I would at best get told to change it and at worst would go to jail for a pyramid scheme. It is against the law for a company to implement a system that works just like the social security system.
In God we trust, all others require data.
Don't agree with Bush on a lot of stuff but I think his idea of privatizing the retirement is a good one. Will it still need some tax money? You bet it will. This system is screwed whether we jerry rig it until 2040 or whether we rebuild it privatized. Sometimes more is lost by inaction than the wrong decision, and I think this is one of those instances.
I don't know how it is anywhere else, but here, local drivetime radio personalities have been fielding questions about Social Security reform. People have been calling in and talking about a "brother's neighbors's cousin's boss" that opted out of Social Security in order to take that money and put it into their own retirement planning. Has anyone else heard of such things or know if it is possible? From the things I have read, it is not possible to get out of paying your Social Security out of your regular paychecks. But I'm sure someone here has the ability to enlighten me or strengthen this position.
SHUT IT DOWN!
Oh yeah, crisis in Social Security my ass.
It's Medicare
Either give up social security and keep your military budget as it is, or maybe , just maybe you could cut the military budget by a third,... that'd leave you with $133,000,000,000 to defend your country. Isn't that enough ?
I'm sure there's a few knuckleheads here that would rather dump social security, entirely.. just not pay any benefits and go to war with whoever.. build more bombs, build more b-2 bombers, build more aircraft carriers,
And none of that would prevent another 9/11... but at least you'd feel strong, manly, whatever...
There really is no crisis with social security...
Only what we allow the Government to make...
If the legislators, senators, president, and others were bound by the same rules and social security system that we (the people) currently are, then you would see just how fast this "crisis" would get fixed.
If we REALLY wanted "social security reform" we would demand that the "special treatment" of our "governmental leaders" would be stopped, and that the participate in the same system that the "rest of us" do, and the problem would fix itself...
--E--
Where's my soundbite!?
It's a ponzi scheme.
Time to face the truth.
The last ones in must pay the price.
Regardless of the solvency or lack thereof in the system, I want out.
The real problem that I see is that my parents signed me up as a child. I don't want to be in. I don't want to have to be in to get a job.
I think that is the biggest problem. I don't have any choice in the matter, and unlike any other retirement scheme (IRA, Roth IRA, 401k, annuity), I can't get out if or when I want.
So much for Land of the Free.
$u(k 1t!!!!11!
You can read that article via Google, here: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=ny+times+a+ question+of+numbers&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
It's the 2nd item right now.
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
There are several aspects:
1) There is no problem, with high certainty, for at least 40 years
2) Some predictions say that there will not be any problem in the projected future (about 60 years from now)
3) Even if there is a problem, it will not "bankrupt" the government, or mean that the program will suddenly cease to function. What will happen is that benefits will be reduced. At worst it would be a 30% reduction.
The "solution" which has been suggested would divert money from the account which pays out to people who are retired now. What would happen is that the "crisis" would be made certain and would happen in the next 10 years. The advantage is that people who are just starting out would have most of their savings in private accounts which would not be affected. The disadvantage is that those who are already retired, or at least ten years into their employment, would see drastically lessened benefits plus the costs of managing the program would increase by billions of dollars.
So as far as real solutions, there are only three: raise taxes, move money from other programs (would be very difficult since SS is expensive), or reduce benefits. Of course those three solutions can be combined in various ways.
BS Alert... title may be misleading. 10 pages long - contains no numbers, except for criticizing other peoples' projections.
...when they want to get rid of a government spending program is the following:
/md
1. starve the program of necessary funds
2. watch the program struggle to serve those who it intends to serve
3. kill off the program because it's unable to do its job as a program.
4. Profit!
We've seen it with welfare, with education (adding the catalyst of NCLB to accelerate the move toward privatizing the schools), and we see it again with Social Security.
Whether or not these things should be privatized or not is left as an exercise for the reader (although I, in the sake of full disclosure, think that the gov't should worry about defense and very little else. Not the pre-emptive type of war, but the legitimate defense of the nation and its people).
There are other effects, such as the fact that such tax hikes encourage corporations to move their operations offshore. And, depending on what part of the corporation gets taxed, this operation gets discouraged. Increase corporate payroll tax on employees? You get more downsizing.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Basically, what's wrong is that many people do not save money for their retirement. No doubt, most of these people do not read /., and yet are probably still aware that they should be saving money for their retirement, but either lack the ability or the will to do so.
The easy answer is to say, "Oh well, that's their fault," but when these people get to be in their 60's, 70's, etc., we as a society are not going to simply let them starve, go homeless, get sick, etc. Social Security could be scaled back by extending the age of collection, etc., and/or it's functionality could be wrapped up into other welfare programs, but it cannot be simply dropped.
Additionally, Social Security is something like a Ponzi scheme, and as such, if you stop paying into it now, then those who have already paid into it won't be able to get back what they put into it. So, it's either tough luck for the under-[insert age here] crowd in the future, or it's tough luck for the baby boomers now. Guess who will win that one?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
No additional risk, and with some obvious added benefits. I'd welcome any extra freedom the government threw my way, even if I did not take advantage of it. Not that I personally would invest in US Treasury debt.
Username: slashdotfreedom
Password: anonymous
Of course some idiot kid will probably change the password rather quickly, but for the sake of convenience please try to resist the temptation to.
I hate the required regisration system on any web site for "free" access.
Then I'm sure you'll love it as more and more sites start to be pay only.
It's a nusance to put in garbage in a web form and use a throwaway email address, if necessary, but it still beats paying for it.
Amazing how Anonymous Cowards always seem to make the flame posts.
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
From the depths of the 1930's Depression (that with a capital D), the social security administration has been upside down. The US govt. seems to have a continuing issue with looking to the future as anything but a bail out.
Social Security has been tapped as a source of funding in the past, and has only recently (last 10 years) been a subject of scrutiny.
A deeper issue is the entitlement complex that our parents and grandparents had. (yes i accepted pell grants to get through school)
I'm planning right now to have sufficient assets to support me in my "Golden" years.
Click here. Used NYT Link Generator.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The main problem is that no one is willing to sacrifice politically to make the tough decisions that need to be made. When Social security was started, the average person did not live to age 65. Most people WOULD NEVER COLLECT. Now the average person lives over 80, but the Senior lobby refuses to let us raise the minimum age to collect. Further more, benefits have been raised to keep up with the cost of living instead of inflation, so people are taking more out then they ever put in, even if you adjust for inflation and a modest return.
who brought you the WMD crisis in Iraq.
And, even if we give Bush the benefit of the doubt and believe that he's well-informed and being honest, who believes that the Bush administration's planning for a revamp of social security would be any better than its planning for the Iraq war?
From whence springs this unmerited confidence?
Social Security Plan, by George Bush
Step 1: Redo Social Security: Concept - "Shock and Awe"
Step 2: Old people greet me with flowers and candy everywhere
Step 3: My biggest contributors profit!
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
I had the luxury of having a Political Science professor who was a long-time employee of the Federal Reserve. If you look at the real numbers, the data that comes right from the Congressional Budget Office, you would be scared to death. Social Security and Medicare will bankrupt the system. Why? Because the law states that as soon as the money runs out the funding for these programs must come from the general tax fund BEFORE any other spending. Yes, you heard me. As soon as there's a shortage, the money comes straight from the general tax fund. There is no real legal separation between Social Security and other taxes revenue.
You can debate whether the crisis hits in 18 years or 40 years, but the fact is, it will be harder to fix this the longer we wait. If this is hard to do now, when the program is still in the black, how much HARDER will it be in 10 years when it starts going into the red?
Life is unpredictable not everyone who is down and out is irresponcible. Here is a reality check, you get cancer and your insurance policy drops you, yea it happens. your retirement just went to paying for cemo (sp) the reality is social security is there for a reason. I think you shoudl be allowed to direct the investment of a portion of yoru social security however that should be it.
The only thing I have to say about this debate over Social Security is give me back my damn paycheck! All of it!
Of course we can trust everything bush and his cronies say...look at all those weapons of mass destruction and links to al queda we found in Iraq...wait a minute... I think we should really think critically about what the administration is telling us this time and not follow blindly like oh 70% of the country did when he wanted to topple Saddam for trying to kill his daddy.
Eh, this is a troll if you ask me. The NY Times is one of the most honest and trustworthy sources of our time. It's been around since 1851. That's a century and a half. This isn't USA Today or Fox we're talking here.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Point of SS is simple, as FDR put it: Have the Government help individuals save for their retirement and have some form of "security" when they are older.
By Privatizing it, we may be able to help slashdot readers who are making 70k+ a year when they retire, but what about the disenfranchised who rely on Social Security? Their private portfolio gets screwed, and we put the blame on them? This harkens back to the real problem that America is facing: The spread of wealth throughout the US population. Poverty is growing, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. Unfortunatley, this is the situation, there is no denying it. By privitizing social security, we are effectivley letting the markets determine the fate of retirement, and for millions of americans who rely on the inflation-adjusted Social Seciruty payments, it has huge ramifications. This, in turn, will eventually force the Lorenz Curve even further askew as retirees have less of a nest egg to rely on.
I am in no way advocating no change (Lets be honest- it HAS to change), but we need to look at the affects of privatizing SS on others, not just ourselves.
Well, duh. If we're worried about running out of money, we can just print more!
is people believing it's the governments job to support them.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse (generous gifts) from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
Is that social security can be used by politicians to spend even more money they don't have and use their Enron-style accounting to hide to real size of the government spending from the people. And if some private corporation was running a similar retirement pyramid scheme, the District Attorney would be filing fraud charges.
Well I guess we don't need any help from the women. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/1 8/1317200&tid=146&tid=14
It is in secure, government bonds.
The problem is when the government cannot balance its budget. Then they have three options:
#1. Raise taxes to pay the bonds.
#2. Default on the bonds.
#3. Borrow more to pay the bonds.
NONE of this would be a problem IF the government could balance the budget.
Option #4. Declare that Social Security is in crisis and needs to be scrapped.
And many people were incapable of doing so (call them stupid or disadvantaged... it doesn't matter which).
Old people were literally starving to death and eating cat food. Social security isn't supposed to be a full retirement, it's supposed to be enough to feed you and pay property taxes when you are too old to work.
Anyway, GB's plan is for private accounts. You ask why this is wrong? Because it will cause the SS program to crash. That's fine for the personal accounts... they won't be affected. But old people won't have any money in those accounts and will be royally screwed when their SS checks are cut in half. Instead of a problem in 40 years we will have one in 5.
And on top of it all the government does have programs for retirement. IRAs and 401ks are very popular. Most middle class people who take advantage of them will be served well by their investments and won't need SS money at all when they retire.
Haha...that's what I thought they meant by "the drill" until I hit the registration page.
As long as we have illegal immigrants comming into this country posing as dead people, paying into SS and getting nothing back... We're fine!
Good job guy. Did you even read the article?
To the lonely nerd in the next cube trying to impress a girl with your knowledge of slashdot history and by reading the user comments out loud, please STFU and GBTW. Thanks.
No one was able to mod down Dan Rather either, though I guess he at least had the decency to mod himself down. ;)
All pundits fit this mold and politicians on either side of the fence are often the same.
Changing the indexing of increases in benefits is good. The problem is using wage or price inflation to adjust. Not surprisingly, the system was changed to wage inflation in an era of large price inflation. Now, with booming productivity and the subsequent large rate of wage increases, this seems like a bad idea. If you think that this is unfair to change the rate of increase, please explain to me why I deserve 50% more in benefits, in real terms, than today's retirees? Read more about it here.
Another idea is private accounts, which make a great deal of sense in terms of rate-of-return(ROR) on investments. For someone like me (age 23), this could be a difference of tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Read more about it here.
Finally, lefties should be interested in transitioning to a private system, because any temporary shortfalls will be funded by general revenues. Most people know that income taxes are progressive, but not so many know that payroll taxes are basically regressive or flat.
Read more about this here, here and here.
This thread is a bit silly in putting "crisis" in quotes. I doubt that the current system would be one devised by the right or the left if done from scratch todat. If it can be improved with changes, why not do it? Is the status quo ROR of 1% so precious?
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
Parent is exactly correct and the grandparent is not. The crucial point is that Social Security is in very good shape: the 'crisis' can be fixed with tiny adjustments. Indeed, previous time Social Security was in 'crisis' (in the late '80s), it really *was* in crisis. And the adjustments to fix that were fairly small--mostly a small increase in retirement age.
The president is inventing a 'crisis' because that's his standard method for pushing through a highly dubious plan (Iraq, tax cuts for the wealthy, elimination of environmental controls, etc.).
Oh, not really. Just kidding.
But we're REALLY NOT KIDDING about Social Security.
We would NEVER deceive the public.
Wall street has always wanted this and they are gonna get it. What happens if the markets crash? Flashback 1927 Oh My!
If they do this they should make it so that people who run large fraud schemes (Enron, MCI/WorldCom/Sunpoint Securities and others) have to face either life in prison, the death penalty or be force to live on 18,750 per year for the rest of their lives.
The NY Times has an annoying habit of espousing the rosy scenario when it is to benefit of Democrats and when the argument is needed in the other direction, the same writer will just as persuasively write about how the system is doomed and we are all going to be eating cat food while living in a box down by the river if the republicans have their way. Basically, if GW said the system was fine, they would scream about how bad it was. If he said it needed fixing, they would say it didn't. Lets try citing something with a little less yellow in its past. Slashdot can do better.
that I don't see brought up in the discussions about Social Security is that one is, generally, paid more money than one actually puts in.
So unlike your regular bank account which has a finite amount of money plus interest to withdraw Social Security keeps paying you money you didn't earn.
Stop making payments beyond what someone has put in plus interest and that would start to help keep Social Security on track without any major adjustments.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Or maybe, denying that there is a problem is a really, bad, idea.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
A corporate death penalty for any company caught shortchanging customer retirement accounts. Out of business. For good.
A career death penalty for any employees and executives directly involved: restricted from engaging in any financial activity involving funds not their own.
But this isn't going to happen under Bush, because he's more interested in setting up a big fat pipeline to his cronies.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
9 pages? Ok, if all goes well i should be able to reply by tomorrow noon.
Till then...
And of course there is no crisis other than the one George W. is trying to manufacture. Medicare and Medicaid are going to go bankrupt long before Social Security ever will(and it will never go bankrupt it will just have shortfalls leading to benefit cuts or higher taxes). Health care and drugs costs skyrocketing in this country are the crisis he should be dealing with NOW, along with seniors who abuse and overuse the medical system for every health problem as long as Medicare pays for it.
Eventually there will be a short fall and Social Security will have to cash in all the treasuries its hopefully holding which I imagine the government would prefer they didn't if it continues running the huge deficits. Social Security is running a large surplus at the moment and George W. is spending every bit of it and then some and giving the Social Security administration potentially worthless paper in exchange for it. Our payroll taxes are in effect subsidizing his tax cuts for the wealthy.
The only good thing I can say about George W's proposal is that it would give people some control over money that is now being sucked out of our paychecks and over which we have no control. If you die before you collect on it disappears and is used to pay benefits to someone you don't know. Me personally I WOULD LOVE IT IF THEY JUST GAVE ME BACK TODAY WHAT I'VE PAID IN AND LET ME DECIDE WHAT TO DO WITH IT, blow it and starve when I retire or invest it wisely and have the money at my disposal now and not gamble on not living till 65 and losing 12.5% of my income to socialism.
Its lost on most workers but by they are paying something like 12.5% of their wages to Social Security so when George W. says the low income don't pay taxes he is glossing over that fact. The hide how large the tax bite is from workers by subtracting only half of the contribution out of your paycheck but your employer pays the other half and that is money that could be used to pay you higher wages if that bite wasn't there so you do pay really pay 12.5%.
What is the main motive in George W.'s plan, he want to put even more stress on Social Security, start it down the road to withering away, and fulfill a long running conservative dream of killing it, a dream they've had since it passed in the 30's. If you have program with future revenue shortfalls reducing the money going in to the program isn't going to make it better, its going to make it worse and lead to its demise.
It also is going to be a windfall for the stock market, big banks and investment companies that are the Republican's best friends, and I'm not sure that isn't the real driving force behind this. If will lear to a big influx of money to big banks and investment companies that is now going in to T bills and bonds. Instead it will go in to gambling on the stock market and in new fees for the investment companies. They will get a windfall profit off it either in the fees, or in the inflated stock prices it will yield, or in manipulating the stock market so they win big and these retirement accounts win small. The big banks are adept at selling stocks at the top, and manufacturing ups and down in the market they cash in on, while this retirement money will just sit and ride the roller coaster they manufacture.
And of course there is always a chance they will generate a big bubble they cash in on, and then a crash that will wipe out people's retirements. Just because the U.S. stock market has trended up historicly doesn't mean it always will especially in the face of dramatic increases in foreign competition, gigantic trade and budget deficits, and very unsound fiscal policy like we have now which is cratering the dollar.
@de_machina
Last year CNN kept saying social security was in a crisis, George Bush was avoiding the problem, and Jim Kerry was the only one addressing the problem. They even had specials on Alan Greenspan saying social security was in a crisis but George Bush wasn't doing anything about it. They brought on guest after guest who said the social security crisis required draconian tax hikes to fix.
Now CNN is bringing on guest after guest who says social security isn't in a crisis. They now say there is no need for tax hikes to fix social security since it's purely fictitious. They now say the crisis is purely a political agenda to distract us from Iraq.
Is it a crisis which requires massive tax hikes to fix and which George Bush is ignoring like CNN said last year or is it an attempt to distract us like CNN says this year? Is there any right answer besides whatever is the opposite of George Bush's latest speech?
privatised ss = ss that is neither social nor secure.
the real problem, when it boils down to it, is that if it is completely done away with then you have a problem with people that have put into it all of their lives expecting it to be there when they need it only to find out now the program is done away with. So what do you do then? Just throw them to the curve? Issue them a refund? Unlikely on the refund.. but what then? People that are paying now are supporting those that paid it way back when. It's dying because there are tons of people drawing it that never put in on it. I say that if you are going to do away with it (which I"m all for because I'm still very young) then you should do it in such a way that the first thing you do is cut out people that have never put in on it or put in very little. Then, hey why don't we take away some government corporate welfare that pays for big businesses to do misc things (millions of tax dollars were spent for McDonalds to advertise their BigMac in England for example). Why not cut that out to pay for individuals.. why? Because big business runs this country.. not the people.
The Nomad
"Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active."-da Vinci
One ought to expect sudden health crises. What, you think they only happen to other people?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Lets assume social security was solvent - that modern payees were putting more money into it than beneficiaries were taking out. Now answer this: Is it just?
Social Security, were it attempted by any entity other than the Federal Government, would be considered an illegal pyramid scheme, in which expected growth depended not upon the merchantability of a tangible item, but on the number of people who can be convinced to pay into the system. Nobody with any reasonable intelligence would consder involving themselves in a multilevel marketing business because of their justly deserved shady reputation, and because the numbers prove that all they do is redistribute wealth from a large number of people to a small number of people.
Social Security is a shell game folks. It's a redistribution scheme which takes away from workers and gives to the idle classes with no regard as to who deserves what. The worst part is that it preys on the poor - it assures them that they will be cared for in their old age, when in fact they'll merely be subsidized. The middle class and wealthy? They put their money into 401(k) and IRA programs, and with good choices and discipline they can retire young and life well for years. Most of all, they do it without having to take money out of their childrens paychecks.
yup, that's it. I read the whole thing and it's so biased. And I've had the priviledge to talk about the issue with one of the member of the Board of Trustees of Social Security.
The mass media and the GOP and Democrats are setting up a frame of perspective from which we must all view this Social Security (SS) debate.
This is the frame: only YOU can pay for YOUR SS. Meaning that your SS benefits can only be paid for by you. But in reality, others have always paid for the benefits of many others' SS.
When the mass media and the Dems and GOP are trying to steer us away from are ideas like the following:
--raising the cap on the SS payroll tax (currently at $86K) and using the substantial monies from that to pay into a general SS fund.
--taxing the substantial wealth of the plutocrats, and using that to pay for SS, and many other items. Just a small 1% tax on wealth of the rich would pay for SS, universal healthcare and college tuition for all.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
SS is a generation income transfer scheme. It was never about individual accounts. The original law set contributions [SS taxes] at less than 2% when there were 13 workers per retiree. As the number of workers per retiree decreased, the SS tax was increased, now at over 12% (add both employee and employer FICA components).
Of course, the addition of COLA, coverage of disabled persons, and other additions have also contributed to the "insolvency" of SS. In any case, the SS "crisis" is a matter of definition. Depending on your assumptions, SS is either bankrupt or in fine shape, and private accounts will either make us all rich or bankrupt the Republic.
insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare
... general Welfare
provide for the
There's two instances. Of course the Constution leaves out the specific "how", that is left for the Congress, Executive, and Judiciary to hammer out.
it insures the citizens and resident aliens that if they are incapable of taking care of themselves due to old age, lack of parents, or disability, then the government will give you money.
we have retirement accounts already... anyone can invest in an IRA, and a 401k/403b is available to many.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Lots of companies do that. See insurance companies. They take money from a lot of people today and redistribute it to other people. A pyramid scheme is something completely different. That is where you are paid money to recruit people without selling any actual products and the person who brought you in gets paid as well. Obviously that only works well for the people at the top. In contrast SS take money from people no matter what. You get paid the same if you convince me to get a job or not. The government has a huge fund which absorbs bumps due to changes in polulation. Unfortunately the baby boomers are a really really big lump so the fund may or may not be able to handle it. However, the gloom and doom projections are not necessarily right... in fact the pessimistic projections have been consistantly worse predictors than the optimistic ones for the history of the program. Additionally, the shortfall isn't going to be very large... even in today's budget terms it would be fixable if we hadn't had the tax cuts. I assume the US economy will grow for many of the next 40 years so it should easilly absorb 3 trillion dollars.
If a private corporation was running a pyramid scheme and selling it to poor suckers who were too stupid to know better, where monies paid in were being used to fund corporate spending and using new dollars to pay off old claims, would you call it legal? Fraud? Predatory? Progressive? Why does the government get a pass where the corporation doesn't?
Namely, inflation. Only the stock market gives you return above the inflation level.
The Raven
at least with personal accounts the money left over when you die can be given to your children instead of staying with the government 'trust fund'
with the life expectancy between the rich and poor widening: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/315/71 22/1559/i
wouldn't it be good to give the poor the balance of the money they would have collected to their children? this could be lump sum or simply converted into the younger generations account that is 'hands off' until they retire.
its ridiculous that the way to 'fix' the system is to raise taxes both on wages and social security payouts, reduce bebefits and increase retirement age. that is what we have been doing since 1937 when the total tax was 1% - now 12.4% + medicare.
always mosh clockwise
And here's another look at why the crises is much closer than Lowenstein believes by the same author.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
I don't know about the US (no I havent't RTFA yet), but here in Mexico, Social Security is an "organization" composed by various hospitals, and personnel (it's not a database).
The problem is that the State has to sustain all the retired "Social Security" workers (and hire even more). The Mexican Institute of Social Security (that's the name) resists privatization. And all the money spent on many retired "workers" (and worse, the directors who earn lotsa money) sucks all the funds supposedly used to buy medicines and treat patients.
Hospitals lack equipment, qualified medical personnel, and medicines. I commented with my father and he tells me that the US Social Security model is heaven compared to this.
Just some info from below-the-Bravo, yee haw!
It looks like you've bought it hook, line, and sinker. Either that or you work for the NY Times.
I'm glad someone mentioned that SS is a Ponzi scheme. I'm not a supporter of Bush's proposal, but to all the people who say there's nothing wrong with the current system, then how come if I tried to run a private business on the same principles I'd be thrown into federal prison?
But then, look at how many in the slashdot crowd have free ipod ads in their sigs.
Here's the bottom line: at any given point of time, you're going to have a certain number of active workers and a certain number of people sitting on their asses consuming the output of the active workers. "Saving" money doesn't play into this. Most every meal you eat, gadget you buy, etc. is produced in the same year that you consume it, whether you have a job or not. You can't put physical goods into a bank account. You can save money or other abstract capital to a certain extent, but once enough people start doing the same thing, the value of the money starts to distort in response to the availability of actual goods in the real world.
It doesn't matter whether people are forced to buy their own stocks and bonds up front or whether the government taxes active workers year-by-year. In the first case the stock and bond markets will distort as excessive money artificially moves into and out of the stock market in response to demographic trends: baby boomers will end up buying high and selling low. In the second case, the economy as a whole distorts as government taxation fluctuates to adjust for the ratio of workers to retirees.
No matter how you slice it, the fundamental question is how many loafers each active worker is willing to support in return for a promise that they will be able to join the loafers one day. There are exactly one variable that determines this: the ratio of retirement age to average lifespan. The only thing that needs to be done or can be done to "fix" Social Security is to *raise the retirement age*. Anything else is just a pointless shell game.
Jesus. Not only are you full of shit when you try to talk about CVS, you think you're funny too! God help us. Don't you have school today?
It's not like the Republicans secretly have been promoting the New Deal since the 1930s, and all of a sudden are backstabbing their once beloved programs. The New Deal was in essence socialist, and quite contrary to the Republican policy positions of then and now.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
if he ever said one thing that made the remotest of sense. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is a manufactured crisis. They've done everything possible to invent it. The one that gets me is that they're projecting our economy will grow slowly (~1%, slower than historical) while telling us the only way we can save ourselves is investing in the stock market, in which we need to see ~3.5%-4% growth in order to get to the level we would be at if we did nothing. Both of those have to happen simultaneously & they're pretty much mutually exclusive. If Bush is right about their forecast, everybody gets screwed going the privitization route and it's better to stay status quo. If he's wrong about their forecast and the economy improves, it's better to stay status quo. And I haven't even got to mention all the countries that have tried it, only to see it go down in flames.
Since Social Security is a pay-as-you-go program, the basic equation of it's operation is:
((NumPeopleContributing * AvgAmtContributed) + AmtBorrowed)
=
((NumPeopleWithdrawing * AvgAmtWithdrawn) + AmtSavedForFutureNeeds)
Change anything on the right side, and the effects show up on the left side. It's not magic or politics (as closely as the two might resemble each other), it's simple math that says income must equal outgo.
Where the interesting things happen is in projections of the baby-boomer demographics. Since future events are indeterminate, there's room for fudging and exaggeration in them, but not in the short-term.
Chip H.
while i have various mutal funds, a roth, etc, i work for the government, and already invest in TSP, basically the equilvent of a government run 401k.
Why can't i invest all of my social security (my share plus employer share) in TSP? I would come out ahead, and be able to take out a loan against it if i needed to do so, plus i would have 28.5% of my monthly income invested (plus an additonal free 5%!), and wouldn't cause any strain on social security.
Anyone who thinks the admisistrative costs are too high for private savings accounts, should really look into TSP.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Funny how just because its Bush saying it, the left goes nuts saying it isn't a crisis. Fortunately we have the ol' completely unbiased slashdot to come along and tow the democrat party line.
... are doomed to repeat it.
The Main Causes of the Great Depression
Notice any similarities?
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
The CBO (I think) has decided that SS might run into trouble sometime way out in 2048...
However, what you have to consider is that it is based on the estimate of the average lifespan only going up SIX YEARS in the next SEVEN DECADES.
That's decades, folks. If you look up lifespan in wikipedia it notes that one of the guys who worked on the human genome thinks it's pretty likley our average lifespan will go up 10-20 years in the next THREE decades.
So what happen when the reality of longer lifespan hits the terribly wrong estimates of the CBO? BOOM!!!!
Social security is like a giant cruise ship. There's an iceburg in the distance and we cannot turn the ship 100 feet away from the thing and expect to avert disaster.
If we decide to wait and do nothing than in about 10-20 years we are going to either have a massive tax hike, or significantly drop benefits for everyone in the system.
Unlike people claiming they'd move to Canada after the election you can bet that if there was a sudden 20% tax hike lots of people would just take thier financial balls and find another playground, for real.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Exactly when was it that Social Security changed from a system to make sure that those who fell into unfortunate times were taken care of, to a retirement system? Why does everyone want to treat it like a 401(k)?
My solution would be to massively scale it back. Go to 2% deductions... pay all the disabled and the poor elderly... and be done with it. Why should professional athletes collect? Why should the wealthy collect? Why should I collect (assuming I live to 67 and don't end up broke)? Why does everyone want to use a retirement system run by the worst management firm on earth (the US Government)? Give me my damn money (in my paycheck) and let me make my own decisions!!!!
At the last House Financial Services Comittee with Greenspan some ignorant Republican asked Al if Revenue increases offset tax cuts. He started laughing at the Congressman. Sort of like I'm laughing at you.
Search CSPAN's archives. I think it was in september, they've probably got the video archived. It was classic.
Nothing to see, move along now.
Let's see how quickly Karl Rove gets a few NY Times reporters fired over this "flawed" and "slanderous" article. That or start a slander campaign against the "pinko communist", who wrote the article.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
This would be a more straightforward discussion if we'd stop taking side trips into the pros & cons of entitlements.
The question ought to be "what do we do with those who can't help themselves?" How they got that way (very old, infirm, unable to work, etc.) doesn't much affect their need for help.
Once you ask the question that way, the Administration's privatization push sounds an awful lot like a proposal to shift from answering "we'll take care of those who need it" to "those that need it can take care of themselves."
I'd rather help folks out, even if it costs me money. If I'm smart, tough & lucky, I won't need social security benefits when I retire - but I want to be able to enjoy my golden years with a clear conscience.
There is one person responsible for the mathematics of the
social security "crisis". He is the world's most dangerous and inarticulate "leader", outstooging Kim Jong iL of North Korea.
Patriotically as always,
Kilgore Trout
I might believe you if they weren't just trying to fit it instead of destroy it.
Personally I would advoate for the dissolution of the SS program, but that's not what's under discussion at this point. We're talking about like possibly 1-2% going into funds, that also would be likley to have a higher rate of return and thus really help out the SS balance far later down the road.
Or we can wait for ten or twenty years doing nothing and then just implement the Logans Run plan later on when lifespans increase far beyond the estimates and the program runs out of money early. I'd frankly rather avoid that.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well... I for one would welcome our new foresight-impaired starving-in-the-streets death-awaiting senior citizen overlords.
Its too bad we are all just one catastrophic illness away from destitution... like, say, Alheimers. Why would we want to plan for that?
from Wiki:
State pension systems lack a number of basic features that define Ponzi schemes, and so are fundamentally different:
* There is no belief that there are large profits coming from something; rather, it is clear that these are pay-as-you go systems, where workers (at any given time) are providing money to those who have retired.
* There is no growth of incoming funds driven by the enticement of high returns over a short period of time, with new investors continually entering in order to support payouts to early investors.
* State pension systems are in some way insurance rather than investment systems. A person who dies before retirement gets no money back (regardless of what he/she paid in). Someone who lives to a very old age continues to get payments regardless of the amount of money he/she has paid in.
* Because receipts (taxes) and payouts (entitlements) can be calculated quite accurately in the short term (five to ten years), and predicted (with a range of assumptions) for periods beyond that timeframe, there will never be a sudden collapse.
* General tax revenues can be used to supplement worker payments into the systems, although many taxpayers will be unhappy with such supplementation. Similarly, benefits can be reduced through the political process, either across-the-board or by reducing benefits to the well-off, although there will clearly be opposition by those who will get less.
That's why it's often called a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi schemes work until the influx of new customers (suckers) drops and can't keep up with the payouts for old members. Once that happens, it rapidly collapses. By phasing out SS, you're reducing the influx of new customers.
That's utopian thinking. It all involves this magical step where *suddenly* everybody in the world fundamentally changes their behaviour. Utopianism relies on humans stopping their human activities.
An entire generation of the fiscally responsible? When pigs fly. The children of rich, responsible people don't even necessarily tend to the responsible. There's no eugenic effect to be relied upon here.
Humans are moderately clever apes who will take drugs, drink too much, party too hard, and generally ignore that 40 years isn't a long time to save money.
If you want to let the poor senior citizens who didn't realize what money was starve, well, that's your belief. Fine. Please don't cover it up by expecting people to get better. We had six thousand years without government pension programs, and during those six thousand years, people starved to death regularly because they hadn't properly dealt with money.
There will be no advance. We will remain clever apes. Some of us would like to plan for a guaranteed standard of life.
No one asked you. And it's good that they didn't because you're clearly an idiot.
Everyone understands and knows the bias that the NY Times has.
And how does age affect bias? The WSJ was founded in 1889. They have a conservative bias.
Oh well!
Viagra and Propecia prove to be toxic with long-term usage, solving the social-security problem.
;-)
Chip H.
I grew up in Atlanta and lived downtown for many years, so I've seen the homeless, and know they exist. Like many cynical slashdotters, I don't know how many panhandlers are really homeless, but I do know that the homeless/hungry problem is real. However, if we eliminated Social Security, then the problem would most likely be far worse, and would be far more likely to include people we know. That's what we could not tolerate as a society.
I hope I'm not sounding too cold-hearted here. I do feel bad for the homeless/hungry that I don't know, I'm just suggesting that most people are far more likely to want to take action when the problem becomes more personal.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Better double-check the facts to make sure they're not lying again.
Important to keep in mind: George Bush is a war criminal. Priority: much higher than "Social Security" reform.
So if we set tax rates to 0 the goverment would have more revenue then it could count right?
Let me guess, you think Rush Limbaugh is smart.
What you link to, most of it is relative to GDP.
But it's not clear what they think GDP will do, how fast they think GDP will increase.
If they're making a conservative estimate of GDP growth, lower than is likely, then their calculations could be way off.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
July 27, 1998 Were they singing a different tune back then? Is there only a crisis when a Democrat says there's a crisis?
I'm sorry but "only two people working for every person drawing Social Security" will not work. Social Security will not be able to support itself. Now you may not agree with what has been proposed by the President to reform Social Security, but you shouldn't be so childish and stupid to deny that a problem exists.
--
It works.
Free Flat Screens | Free iPod Photo
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
Okay, sure, plenty of people have enough extra to save for thier own reitrement. But a vastly larger section simply doesn't have the resources to do that. Alot of people, right here in the United States, are scrapping to get by, even to the point of working two jobs. These are people that are going to starve to death as senior citizens... and most of them never had access to the oppertunities that those who can afford to save for thier retirement did. How much do you think a waitress, who's family couldn't afford to send her to college, who went to a substandard school and thus didn't have a fair crack at a scholarship (That she might not have gotten anyways.) can really afford to set aside? It's not that they are irresponsible; thier situation is in many ways simply not thier fault.
The same goes for immigrants to this country, probably even more so. What chances does a 40 year-old hispanic janitor, who spent everything he had to come here, have to establish even a survivable retirement?
All that ending social security will do is shift a burden onto the poor's children, and in the so doing, strip economic oppertunities away from them. It's hard to go to college when you need to work to keep your elder family memebers from dying of exposure, after all. Then the cycle repeats, getting worse and worse.
Societal factors play HUGE roles in whether or not people are wealthy enough to pay for thier own retirement. Society ought to look out for those so disadvantaged. (And, of course, those who pay into the fund now will reap benefits later, with only minor tweaks to the system, *gasp*, a slightly higher tax rate on those profiting from the labor of the poor.) Anything less would be inhuman, honestly.
Fight for something better: www.socialistalternative.org
I worked at Los Alamos, and for the time I was there...I didn't pay Social Security.
I thought the dot-com mess would end this investement idea (which has been floating around for several years). If people bet their retirement on things that crash and burn, then they will be destitute in old age. I agree that maybe a compromise can be reached such that investments are required to be diversified. But then this puts the government in the business of classifying businesses, which is ever more difficult these days.
It could also be problematic during a deep recession. The stock market would crash, bonds for companies that fold will be useless, and retired people will thus need more assistence than normal at a time when the economy does not provide enough tax revenues for assistence programs. Things tend to belly-up at the same time during recessions. Look what the dot-com bust did to California's government programs.
Table-ized A.I.
We aren't savages.
If we were, then the idea of privitizing Social Security would be no big deal. If someone misinvested by putting all his retirement money into Tyco or Enron stock, fine. We let him die broke and impoverished and that's that.
But we're not savages and we won't do that. If a person screws up and loses all their retirement we'll cover them some other way via state or local government instead of via the Feds. You'll still pay for that person's retirement, just not in a predictable way, and it'll be more expensive as more poverty retakes America's elderly.
Social Security is the SINGLE most effective government program ever. Elderly poverty was endemic in the 1930's and before. Unless you were really rich, you stood a really good chance of dying poor and dragging your children down with you. Now, that's much less prevelant.
You object because you want to invest in a free market? Great. Most investors lose money, but if you really want to invest outside of the SS program, what's stopping you? Go ahead. You just can't risk this small percentage of your earnings. That goes to make sure you won't be too much of a burden on the rest of us when you get old.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
That $1500 monthly check is equivalent of buying a $300,000 annuity at age 65. That $300,000 less you dont have to save starts look better and better as you get closer that magic age. And when your bosses are downsizing your job to India.
Even while Bush gives his oath of office this Thursday for his second term the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and their Democratic allies in Washington are already lining up to gut the necessary changes to the Social Security System (the Republicans do not have enough votes in the senate to break a filibuster). The system is desperately in need of reforms to limit government borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund and to institute private accounts. Those people who assert that the system needs no reform are being disingenuous at best. If you ask any actuary for an analysis of the social security trust fund he will tell you that we need to act soon or we may be too late to prevent the inevitable collapse should the system remain as it is today. The main problem is this: the senior citizens collectively form one of the most powerful special interest groups in the country and their interest is to maximize the amount of their monthly benefit checks, even though they will already received hundreds and perhaps thousands of times the amount that they paid into the system. Many of them are extremely militant about this after all they are "entitled" or so they have been lead to believe. It is actually not surprising that this is the case, these are not greedy people per se, but for many of them social security is all that they have left. The baby boomers especially were remarkably unsophisticated when it came to planning for their own retirements and if political history has shown anything it has show that a measure which robs from Peter to pay Paul will always have the support of Paul. Now if you are young person, and especially if you are young Democrat then listen up, the senior citizens in this country and Democrats in congress are lining up to preserve their low interest access to loans from the Social Security Trust fund AND to raise your payroll taxes over the next ten years by perhaps 50%. There is no other way that two workers can support one retiree under their plan, no benefit cuts and no age minimum increases, unless they massively hike taxes. Even if you invested all of your private account in treasury bonds you would still do better than ZERO percent interest on your money under the current system. The source of money would even be the same, the government, but the Democrats don't want that because then they would have to pay you interest to borrow your retirement money and spend it. If you are young person and you want your money to be there when it is your turn then get on board with the private accounts. The parents of the baby boomers told them the same things, or didn't tell them, about social security fifty years ago, that there was no problem and that everything would be fine, because by the time their children figured out the truth they would be too dead to care. Don't let it come to that again.
The NRO is just to the right of Mussolini.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Money In >= Money Out
Personal accounts can't solve the problem. What, we're supposed to believe that we'll magically get better returns by letting individuals manage the money instead of the government? Why doesn't the government just do a better job of managing the money in the first place?
Seems to me like there are basically five options:
-
Decrease the number of people drawing from social security. Not gonna happen any time soon.
-
Increase the number of people paying into social security. Bad idea, since those new taxpayers would eventually retire themselves. This option only works if you can sustain that exponential population growth indefinitely, which is obviously impossible.
-
Increase social security taxes. Yeah, that'll go over well...
-
Decrease social security benefits. See description of #3.
-
Reallocate funds from other federal programs. Probably the most workable of the options.
Any other "solution" to the problem just isn't going to cut it.The government, even a faux-"Compassionate Conservative" government, will likely be forced to provide a safety net to prevent the US from becoming "catfood nation".
The existence of that safety net will encourage the companies who are supposed to manage our investments to cheat and swindle Americans. By steering their money into bad investments, for kickbacks (as Edward Jones was recently caught doing), or churning their accounts with undesired short-term trades, or who knows what.
So the government will end up needing a safety net anyway, and it will probably be one instituted in a hurry, badly planned, and badly provided for.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Let's get this this straight ....
If I sweet talked an old lady out of her retirement money and had her put in an investmant that wasn't in her best interest - that would be called expoliting the elderly and is universally condemned by every religion in the world.
If I forced someone to participate in an investment scheme thru coercion or threat, then that is called running a racket and is a felony in all 50 states.
If I created an investment service where new investments paid out the interest on the old investments, that would be called running a ponzi scheme and is universally recognized as in an irrational investment in every sector.
However, if we make everybody to do all 3, and then give it a fradulent name like social security - then oh my God, it becomes a right without any worthy negative consequences! Yeah right!
Dealing with SSI is easy. We need to deal with it like any other such scheme. Stop the lies and exploitation and hold the pushers accountable, stop coercing mandatory investment, and finally - liquidate whatever's left in the most equitable way.
deficits in the future and ignore the reality of current deficits...
Bush and Co have run up 1 trillion in deficits over the past four years and they act like it doesn't matter.
Medicare\Medicaid are a far bigger crisis than
social security.
Because old people should be taken care of by: Themselves, State Government, Local Government, or Private Charities. When the federal government was asked to do it, we ended up with a ponzi scheme that did nothing more than allow federal politicians to spend more money. The MOST incompetent retirement planner is the federal government. You can't even call the federal government a retirement planner, merely a money spender. Some future legislative session will actually to the planning. And it never happens.
If we tax at 0%, revenue is $0.
If we tax at 100%, revenue is $A (where A > $0 - this is basically Communism)
If we tax at something in between, let's say 50% for the sake of argument, revenue is $B (where B > A - this is Capitalism).
Ok, now draw a single line connecting those points. Obviously you can't do it with a straight line, it has to be curved. And therein lies the heart of the matter.
If the tax rate is below a certain point, cutting taxes decreases revenue.
If the tax rate is above a certain point, cutting taxes increases revenue.
You cannot argue that cutting taxes always decreases revenue. You cannot argue that cutting taxes always increases revenue. What's arguable is whether we're currently above or below the point where it switches from one to the other.
First of all, the author's implicit criticism of the actuaries lower immigration numbers:
There are two problems with the author's argument. First of all, it ignores the very strong argument made by Wharton Business School Professor Peter Cappelli that there will be no such labor shortage. Secondly, it ignores the fact that immigration is not simply a matter of demand (from the US for new workers), but also of supply. And we have two factors that we can expect to choke off immigration in the next few years: The rapidly growing economies of India and China (which means that more Indians and Chinese will choose to remain in their home countries), and the rapidly aging population of Mexico (it is overwhelmingly younger Mexicans who cross the border into the US, so as the birth rate of Mexico continues to decline we can expect fewer and fewer Mexicans to come to the US).
My second objection with the article is that he mentions only one time that the Social Security payroll tax increased (1983), but ignores that many other times that it has increased. It would have put the whole program into a different relief if, rather than saying that we only need to increase the payroll tax another 1.89% to close the deficit, he had explained that the program had started out (in 1937), with a 2% payroll tax, and now is at 12.4%, and will require a 14.29% tax rate in the future. It would have put it into an even starker relief if he had put that side-by-side with Medicare (which is also funded by a payroll tax), which started with a 0.7% tax, is not at a 2.9% tax, and is running a projected deficit 5 times as large as Social Security. Put these two numbers together, and you find us starting with a payroll tax of 2.7%, increasing to 15.3% today, needing to rise to 24 or 25% to close deficits in the future.
I also object to a couple of misleading notions in this section:
The way the author words his comparison of the rate of return (inflation-adjusted with private accounts to nominal with current system, with the inflation-adjusted of the current system only in parentheses), he makes it sound like the current system gets a higher rate of return, when in fact the opposite is true.
Secondly, he totally misses the point when he says that "Proponents hail the plan for forcing savings on the government." Proponents advocate for the plan not because of its impact on the short-term government, but because long-term the higher rate of stock market return make it a much cheaper way to fund people's pensions. Let me put it this way - if you had the choice of getting taxed at 14%, having the government buy treasury bonds, and get back $9500 at the end, or getting taxed at 12.4
> I wonder if your bank cleaned out your account, you would claim it was your own fault, because "I'm a sucker for trusting them with all that money."
You choose an interesting analogy.
If your bank statement said "By 2042, there won't be enough other depositors depositing checks with us to pay all of the balance owed to you. At that point, there will be enough money to pay only about 73 cents for each dollar you deposited with us", would you continue to bank with them?
The fact that the word crisis in the headline is inside quotation marks speaks volumes as to how Slashdot editors perceive the current situation.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
The NY Times is one of the most honest and trustworthy sources of our time
Bahahahaha! That's a good one! Hahaha
Ever occure to anybody here that the present social security may not be the only way to help poor elderly? Or even the best way.
Much of the money taken for soc-sec is not used for soc-sec, is taken and given to the general fund.
We are told of some secure "trust fund" but such a fund doesn't exist.
After soc-sec money was wasted on the general fund for decades, we are told the system will be broke if we don't raise the rates. We were told the same thing a few decades ago.
The problem with Social Security started in the 1960's when congress saw this huge pile of money called the social security trust fund. Johnson opened the floodgates to borrow money for the Vietnam War and his Great Society experiment. Now it's full of IOU's. However, the real problem is that most people were never supposed to collect because the average lifespan was less than 65 when SS was created in the 1930's. And even at that people were only supposed to collect for 2 or 3 years before croaking because most people get back what they pay in in about 3 years. Raising the retirement age to 70 would be a start. Now SS is one giant pyramid scheme. Only IOU's in the trust fund and more will soon be paid out than collected. I'm not counting on having SS to retire on. All I can hope is that dog food will still be cheap, and cardboard boxes will still be plentiful.
http://www.slate.com/id/2112357/ "Explaining how both the "Social Security crisis" and the "privatization solution" rely on faulty math misses the point of the president's plan entirely. Like supply-side tax cuts, Social Security reform is a subject on which conservatives prize philosophy--or, if you prefer, ideology--over arithmetic."
The idea is to promote an ownership society if I read the article correctly. My favorite quote: (second hand) "Republicans control the entire federal government. If they want to cut government spending, they should do it. They don't need to trash Social Security along the way."
George II -- Spreading Freedom and American values, one bomb at a time.
The article briefly mentions that Sweden reformed their pension system a few years ago. Annika Sunden, a researcher at Boston College, has written a rundown of the Swedish Experience (I like the sound of that).
In 2000, the new center-right Swedish government passed a law that mandated private pension accounts. Under the law,Swedes pay an 18% pension tax, 16% goes to the pay-as-you-go system (same as in the US) and 2% goes to private individual accounts.
There are over 650 investment funds you can choose to invest in. You can own up to 5 funds. If you don't activly select a fund, your placed in a "default" fund, that's composed of about 75% stocks, and the rest bonds.
When the program was launched, 70% of people in year one made an active choice and picked their own funds. In subsequent years, only 10% activley select a fund. This can be explained by all the media attention the new law caused, and a government marketing campaign in 2000 urging people to pick a fund.
Most accounts have lost money since they began, and people are starting to question private accounts. Shitty timing to start this at the top of the bubble.
A big lesson here is that if you are going to create private accounts, the composition of the default fund is hugely important. It needs to be very low risk and well diversified. (And, I'd be happy to run it for a mere 0.00001% management fee)
TripInvite.com: Group Travel Made Simple Evit
George Will has a column where he takes apart some of the same projections. Also, to add fuel to the debate, Will is a conservative who has a number of disagreements with the current administration. (like me.)
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
State pension systems lack a number of basic features that define Ponzi schemes, and so are fundamentally different:
Gotta disagree with you on this one. Granted SS is not an intentionally criminal enterprise, I think it's intentions are good, but it does have a strong resemblence to a pyramid scheme thanks to demographics. People are living longer which is not compensated for in the plan. To wit:
* There is no belief that there are large profits coming from something; rather, it is clear that these are pay-as-you go systems, where workers (at any given time) are providing money to those who have retired.
Sure there is a belief. There is a belief that the profits are going to come from future taxpayer dollars. Problem is that people are living longer and the population growth isn't sufficient to maintain this, especially after the baby boomers retire. The only reason it is a "pay-as-you-go" system is because Congress can't help themselves and raid SS for every extra penny that comes in every year for purposes other than Social Security. That money should be invested for future retirees and used for no other purpose but it isn't.
* There is no growth of incoming funds driven by the enticement of high returns over a short period of time, with new investors continually entering in order to support payouts to early investors.
There is a continual growth of incoming funds from working taxpayers funding "high" returns for existing retirees (read early investors). Granted it isn't to the level (50%+ returns) one usually associates with a Ponzi scheme but the principle is basically the same. Eventually demographics will catch up and the number of retirees will be too large to be supported by the workers without changes to the program. That's exactly how pyramid schemes fail.
* State pension systems are in some way insurance rather than investment systems. A person who dies before retirement gets no money back (regardless of what he/she paid in). Someone who lives to a very old age continues to get payments regardless of the amount of money he/she has paid in.
If it were truly an insurance program that intended to remain solvent, it would have to adjust either the retirement age or the benefits paid. Besides, do you know how insurance companies work? They take in payments, invest that money and then pay out what they have to in claims. Whatever is left over is profit. But SS money is NOT invested (pay-as-you-go remember?) so it really does not resemble an insurance program at all.
* Because receipts (taxes) and payouts (entitlements) can be calculated quite accurately in the short term (five to ten years), and predicted (with a range of assumptions) for periods beyond that timeframe, there will never be a sudden collapse.
The amount of money that comes in from taxes is HIGHLY variable and is not at all easy to calculate. Don't know where you got that idea. The reason California found itself way overbudget these last few years is precisely because they planned to spend money and then ended up with less in tax revenue than expected. Predicting tax revenue is anything but a science. One good recession will screw up even the best models.
* General tax revenues can be used to supplement worker payments into the systems, although many taxpayers will be unhappy with such supplementation. Similarly, benefits can be reduced through the political process, either across-the-board or by reducing benefits to the well-off, although there will clearly be opposition by those who will get less.
You ever tried to take away benefits or salary from someone? There is a reason SS is called the third rail. A politician touches it and he dies. True, in theory benefits can be adjusted but the political reality is that taking benefits away from old people is political suicide and not likely to happen anytime soon.
The real gotcha' is that the SS paychecks people receive today bears little or no relation to the amount of money they paid while they were working.
Everyone's letting the debate settle on how best to "invest" your personal contribution, thereby accepting the premise that you're entitled to only what you put into the system.
I for on am tired of being expected to pick up the bill for people who refuse to provide for themselves or their family. Yes, shit happens, but taking care of those people is a job for charity, not the government. You seem to be confusing the two.
Want to help children? You can start by ending the bullshit myth that Social Security is going to be around to help then when they fail.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbpyr.html Check out the pyramid graphs in 1950 compaired to now. Note how back then the bulk of people were 30, and now they are 40-50. It's admitted that when the boomers retire, the program will go bust. If a new solution is to be found it's better to do it now, (where there are 2 working people to support 1 old person) than in a few years (when there will be less of a favorable ratio.)
What's wrong with just letting people save money on their own for their retirement? I say we end Social Security and let people plan for themselves.
What's wrong is that the money I would normally set aside for my families retirement is being sucked away from me in the form of social security taxes - that are actually twice as high as you think they are because your employer must match your SSI *contribution* that you get deducted from your paycheck. Only an idiot would believe that that too isn't coming from your bottom line.
Every year or so I get a statement from the SS people reminding me of how much I am *entitled* to. I bitterly resent that, because only an idiot would believe that there gonna get their money's worth out of it too. Not to mention that I resent being forced into a scheme that I find unethical at best.
The goal of Social Security has been to say, "We guarantee that our elderly will not be left to starve." It's not the best investment in the world.
If Social Security really were pay-as-you-go, it wouldn't need investing at all: today's money is supposed to meet today's expenses. The Social Security Trust Fund had to be established to make up for the Baby Boomers having fewer children than was necessary to support themselves.
You can formulate that several different ways; having more children wouldn't necessarily put more money into SS coffers. Suffice it to say that too many people were expected to retire simultaneously.
But that money isn't invested except in Treasury debt, which is a rough analog of investing in the GDP (since taxes are roughly proportional to the GDP), and the GDP grows fairly consistently. But the tie is too inexact; better directed investment could yield better results.
The stock market is the obvious place to look, but you can't invest the SS Trust Fiund; it would totally skew the markets to have a single investor make those decisions. So, the Bush administration wants to let individuals make those decisions.
But now we return to where I started. If the individuals make the decisions, some will gamble and lose. What do we do about them? We started this in the first place as a way to make sure our elderly were cared for. It wasn't about returns; it was about care.
That leads into a whole mess of issues, but I'll spare you. But I wanted to be clear on one point: just allowing people to invest in the same safe place doesn't solve the original problem: some people starve when they get old. That is "additional risk" over the current scheme.
The issue should NOT be whether Social Security is solvent or not.
The issue SHOULD be, "you have X years to balance the budget and pay off the Social Security loans so Social Security stays solvent".
The Government BORROWED the Social Security money and now the Government doesn't want to pay it back.
Balance the budget, Bush. The Social Security money is there.
...as outlined in the declaration.
r e.htm
The Constitution you mention includes the phrase and idea of General Welfare "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defense, promote the General Welfare,..."
A detailed history and description can be found here: http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/welfa
You know, I used to wonder how those guys who send out spam emails trying to get people to participate in their Ponzi schemes manage to make any money.
After reading all of the posts from people defending Social Security as it exists today, I suddenly understand.
Yes, I understand the minor differences between the Social Security system and a true Ponzi scheme, but the fact remains that the only way it can possibly remain solvent forever is if we make sure people stop living longer, and make sure the economy never ever has any kind of inflation whatsoever.
Sorry, not willing to give up modern medicine and artificially retard economic growth so that you can better redistribute my hard-earned money to people who refused to plan ahead, just so that they'll keep voting for you because they're dependant on you. Go peddle crazy to the Europeans.
We should ask all the opponents of social security privatization two questions:
1. Do you have a 401K or IRA account?
2. Why?
Given the worthlessness of such accounts -- the high risks, enormous administrative costs, etc. -- that these people are repeatedly warning us about, I wonder what their answer would be...
Unfortunately, much of the opposition seems to be less due to principles as it is Bush bashing. Consider, from www.NDOL.org (New Democrats Online), 11/1/98:
"This is no time for "hands off" talk about Social Security. Democrats occasionally scored big political points in thepast by opposing Republican efforts to change Social Security (such as GOP proposals to delay or decrease automatic cost-of-living adjustments for beneficiaries). A few Democratic candidates took a similar approach this year, blasting ill-conceived total privatization schemes endorsed by Republican candidates.
The situation is different now. Democrats, including a Democratic president, are calling for action on Social Security. Polls show that Americans are abundantly aware that Social Security will face insolvency once the baby boom generation begins to retire. They are also more open to structural change than are many of the politicians representing them. Younger voters in particular are willing to embrace radical reform. Saying "hands off!" means consciously and deliberately deciding to divert an ever-higher percentage of national wealth into the current Social Security system."
Amazing how a policy can change completely opposite in just 6 short years.
I HAVE CUBIC WISDOM THAT TRANSCENDS AND CONTRADICTS ONE DAY GODS
When the Social Security system "buys" a treasury bill, another branch of the government is on the receiving end. This branch spends the money on services or whatever, because it is running a deficit budget. So the money is gone. It can only be paid back by collecting future taxes, and/or by selling assets.
It is simply a matter of the government taking money from one pocket and transferring it to another, then spending it.
So people who think that S.S. has a big trust fund of money sitting somewhere are sadly mistaken.
Welfare programs.
Billions upon billions of dollars spent on poor people, and the problem is worse than ever. What's the problem? You've got the government handing out free money. What's the pavlovian response when the government is mentioned now? Money, money, money! 40 years, we've trained these clods to depend on the government.
Solution? Let's have the government STOP giving out free money.
Retirement money is the same way. It used to be that you worked for 30-40 years, retired with a pension plan, and used social security to pay for emergencies. Today, people don't have pension plans (they aren't as popular as they used to be), they don't plan, they might have a 401K, but they borrow against it to pay for the new house, the new pimpin' car, and big screen TVs. People DON'T SAVE MONEY! And then they bitch that Social Security won't be enough to take care of them? I'm sorry, if you can't save money, I'm not going to contribute my tax dollars to help you. END OF STORY. If you can't save money, you might go on welfare.
The left doesn't have the answer either. The answer is discipline, something that is not taught by parents and teachers anymore. The kids of the '70s, '80s, '90s and today think they're going to have it easy. None of them want to work. They don't want to save. They don't want to plan ahead. Sorry. You aren't going to raise my taxes to cover it. If you do that every time, eventually, I'm going to quit work because I won't have enough to pay taxes and live, so I might as well go on welfare, it's a lot easier to live. Especially if democrats keep propping up all these poorly-run social programs.
Except for the photoshopped front page photos of Iraq, and the completely made-up stories, yeah, it's honest and trustworthy.
That's what they call it. They've been at it for years, and it's essentially so they can shut down any kind of social welfare programs, and, once those programs aren't around, pass huge tax cuts as they're no longer required for anything.
"Starving the Beast - so rich people can keep more of the money they make from the labor of working people!"
Fight for something better: www.socialistalternative.org
So if you, or your retirement manager at your bank, decided it would be a good idea to invest in the government, since U.S. treasury bills are the world's safest investment, when it came time for you to retire and you went to cash in those bills, how would you feel when they told you sorry, all out of cash, tough luck? That's basically what you are describing, but instead of just you, it's 300 million Americans who have paid into the system.
Th
Social Security is for people who think they know how to invest. I don't know how to invest, and judging by all the bankruptcies here in the US, the people paid big money don't know how to either. Investment is a form of gambling despite what a broker will tell you. At least with Social Security there is some kind of guarantee.
State pension plans invest deductions from payroll or state contributions in marketable securities. These securities receive interest income or capital appreciation and grow over time. Retirees then draw from this fund in the form of pension payments.
Social security invests NOTHING. Current contributions are immediately paid out to beneficiaries. The only deviation from this is when collections are greater than payouts, in which case the money is forwarded to the "general fund" and spent for government programs. The social security system receives an IOU from the government in the amount of the surplus that is filed somewhere, and is sometimes referred to as a "treasury security". Unlike a treasury security, however, it cannot be traded. It is not marketable in any way. No funds are set aside to meet these pseudo-obligations. As a security, these instruments have zero value and are only a political instrument used to cover the fact that payroll taxes are in excess of what is currently needed, and is used for non-social security purposes.
The social security system really is a lot like a ponzi scheme, but one supposedly supported by the ability of the U.S. Government to raise money (through taxation). As long as the government is willing to support social security when payroll taxes don't cover benefit payouts, we're fine. It's been the other way around for years now. But I sorta doubt that the feds will be able to do that when I retire.
http://www.ncpa.org/studies/s221.html
Great Step 1 GOP.
Step 2: offer Renewal on Carousel to deal with the increased homelesness.
Step 3: Carousel can become mandatory.
Step 4: Keep rolling back age of "retirement" until sytem hits equilibrium. When you hit 30 you have:
Step 5: Logans Run....
At least the top people get rich with a Ponzi scheme. That's the whole problem with this system, it's not just a Ponzi scheme, it's a poorly run one being guarded by a group of people who made Al Capone look like a choirboy.
Never confuse volume with power.
When was the last time you saw a real journalist take the latest White House speech or press release and take it apart and either confirm or contradict (with supporting references) those statements?
TFA covers a lot of material, but not by taking apart specific speeches or quotes from Government officials.
Face it -- "social security" is the world's biggest Ponzi scheme. The crazy thing is that in the US, it is illegal to run a Ponzi scheme -- unless you're the federal government.
Our money is taken and "saved" for our retirement whether we like it or not. The politicians think that they can plan better for our futures that we can. They think that they should decide when we should retire, and how much retirement income we should have. They think that they can invest for our future better than we can ourselves.
Meanwhile, they don't "save" our money, they spend it. They don't plan for the future -- they leave it to future generations to sort out the mess. They don't invest our money, and if they did, would you trust them to make wise investments?
Social security is a sham. The fact is that those of us who are young are probably never going to see a dime of it, and if we do, it is because our grandchildren are paying even more into it than we are. Part of the problem is that people are living much longer -- and will continue to live longer -- than they did when social security started. If the average lifespan increases by just a few years, that creates a huge problem.
Every time I hear a politician on TV talk about how they "can't let people make poor investments with their retirements" and "must secure our futures", I can't help but laugh, considering that these people are using the money for a PONZI SCHEME.
Bush's ideas are a step in the right direction, I suppose, but are ultimately inconsequential. So he's going to let me invest 3% of my social security funds privately? Ha! Why not let me invest ALL of it privately? If someone feels that they are not capable of handling their retirement and wants the federal government to do it for them, then fine -- but just because some people can't drive, don't make the rest of us ride the big yellow government bus even while it goes careening off the side of a cliff!
The intuition obvious and appealing, but the theory has been studied and rejected.
Prof Slemrod @ U Mich studied this and found that it was not the case.
His book is here.
Slemrod found no evidence that the Reagan cuts in '86 nor the Bush increases in '92 affected the labor supply curve.
Exactly Correct, except that it's even more insideous.. they are currently collecting MORE than they need to pay for your grandpa's retirement and using nefarious accounting, count that as additional general revenue.
The population problem is more serious than simply having enough bodies to pay for retirement. History has shown that more affluent nations tend to reproduce less than less affluent ones. Followed to the extreme, this suggests that no advanced culture can continue indefinately without being overwhelmed by less advanced cultures. How we solve that problem (or ignore it) will say much about who we are.
That said, I'm not as convinced that the governmental budget deficit is really that alarming. Whether government takes wealth out of the economy through taxes or inflation, that wealth is still removed from the economy (where it was relatively efficiently increasing standard of living for everyone) to the government (where it almost by definition is being spent on things no one really wants--if they did, they wouldn't need to be forced to pay no?)
The real problem is: what projects are so necessary that they justify removing wealth at the national level?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
DUMBASS. you WILL pay when people have no money and KILL YOU to take YOUR stuff to live on.. they wind up in PRISON which is funded with YOUR tax dollars? oh but i bet you are a big bad republican with GUNS. but wait, say 20 ppl show up WITH MORE GUNS to kill you and take your stuff! GREAT.
What's wrong with just letting people save money on their own for their retirement? I say we end Social Security and let people plan for themselves.
What if your plan included a pension plan from Enron?
Here's an idea. Why not have the government insure pension funds? In the pre-Depression economy, a bank failure could wipe out your savings. Part of the Depression-era legislation was the creation of the FDIC, to insure bank accounts up to (currently) $100,000 per depositor per bank. A similar program could easily work for pension funds as well -- you would be insured to some basic level comparable to what you would expect under a Social Security-like scheme. The cost of insurance might be funded by a tax on annual retirement-fund investment gains.
Or, you could reform the tax system by allowing taxpayers to designate on their form 1040 which government programs they want their tax dollars going to. You'd have an optional Schedule form that would include boxes two or three levels deep in each agency or cabinet department, and taxpayers could specify a dollar amount to go to that agency or program or department or whatever. If the dollar amounts add up to more than their actual tax, then the amounts get reproportioned so that they add up properly. If they add up to less, the leftover dollars go to the General Fund. If the taxpayer doesn't file the optional schedule, their entire tax payment goes to the General Fund. In this scheme, the pension insurance would be funded by taxpayer contributions to it, with additional needed allocations coming out of the General Fund. Note that this would shut up everybody who currently says "I don't want my tax dollars going to fund X." OK, your tax dollars don't have to. Didn't file the allocation schedule? SHUT YER PIE-HOLE, you had your chance and you blew it.
Classified activities currently funded from the black budget would be funded by an automatic percentage deduction from each taxpayer; their individual allocations would be made proportionally from the rest of the amount they pay.
-- Old Man Kensey
If you have a life-threatening condition and no insurance or money to pay for treatment, hospitals are legally required to admit you the emergency room and treat you without payment.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Congress issued bonds against what was the big Social Security cash hoard a while back, no?
So those bonds (or loans, if I'm thinking incorrectly) will come calling sometime in the 2030's?
I think that is the point where many analysts are saying that SS will be calling for the replayment on that.
But who pays it?
The US Taxpayer. Somehow, somewhere, the $ to repay the $ which was taken against the social security funds will need to be repaid.
I think THIS is the bulk of the problem.
Solve this, and make it so that we can't pass expenditures that aren't already funded.... basically cut those government credit cards up.
http://slashdot.org/~tf23/journal
Living and other survival costs for the elderly will be paid from the economy at the time. Big picture wise, it does not matter if the money comes from tax collections, or from returns on investments. It is still a tax on the economy to support people who are not working. No ideology can change that. The trick is to use the best tool for the job. The current Social Security system appears to have the least cost to the economy in many ways. It is very efficient, scalable, keeps the elderly healthier and off the streets, and does not require hoards of people guessing what investments make with the money.
Look at how biotechnology can help extend folks working lifetimes.
Look at how automation and robotics can compensate for the need to support more retirees with fewer workers.
Look at why the most productive members of society are finding it difficult to raise families. Almost all of US population growth is through immigration.
I personally think that there isn't a problem with funding social security through taxes other than a payroll tax--taxes pollution or corporate wealth (as Nader has proposed) sound like good additions to the mix.
It should be optional. All the people that think it's such a great idea, can band together in the only legal pyramid scheme in this country and depend on that. (better save too!)
Just leave the rest of us alone. At the end, those of us who opted out should be ignored while sleeping in the ditches. Please. Really, please. I'd like to opt out.
A modern day witchhunt.
You really believe that the only alternative to government entitlements is bedlam and anarchy?
If that's true, this country is in worse shape than even I thought. Or are you just trolling?
If so, reply to this. Otherwise, liar, liar, commie, nazi, etc, etc, etc.
I think I'll stop here.
Most investors lose money,
Care to prove it with any stats?
Long term investing in the US stock market indexes has a positive return.
If losing money is your greatest fear, buy government bonds in their native currency.
I know many people who have made and lost paper millions, I know very few who have actually come out behind.
It was an entirely faked document. Right wing overdrive? I guess CBS is part of it (they have fully discredited the story after a review, and fired those responsible), and anyone who thinks that a "historic" document using modern MS Word fonts is fishy must be a "right winger".
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Diane Rehm had a discussion of this SS mess. The big question of this talk was whether or not it was prudent to allow citizens to take money out and invest money on their own. Many of us who advocate open-source and sharing IP may be conflicted about the implications of "taking" away from the SS fund and investing on our own. Part of the benefit of contributing in one fund is that we spread risk, even out the playing field, and ensure that those who were not well off will be taken care of---not unlike how insurance works. But on the other hand, many of us perceive SS as a government endorsed ponzi scheme---taking money from "new members" (i.e. young workers) to fund newly retired persons. By the time my 18 year old son retires, the well will have run dry and he will have to rely on other options that hopefully will be devised to fix this crisis.
Linux at home
We have lots of chances to get the people who are bankrupting our country out of office before we do go bankrupt.
All it takes is for enough voters to get out and vote.
If people vote out the Congress Critters, we can stop Bush from spending all of Social Security's money.
Then we put someone fiscally responsible in the White House.
Social Security is 12.4% of a persons income when you include the employers contribution. Eliminating Social Security would therefore increase everyones (under 90K) paycheck by 12.4%. You can't tell me that having that extra several grand a year wouldn't help people.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
for Yellow Journalism era and its impact on the Spanish American War.
Okay, I'll buy the argument that we need to do something to protect the economically unwise/unfortunate in their old age. However, could someone please explain why we need the government to provide for this, versus letting private charities handle it as they did in the past?
...is one of the great tax inequities. Tax only income up to a certain level...
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the FICA tax ceiling been in place unchanged for 30+ years? And in that same time, high wage earners who USED to pay into FICA year round now stop doing so at some point in the fall (or earlier), essentially shielding some of their income from taxes and denying FICA some of the payroll taxes it used to get, at least on an inflation adjusted basis?
To me, raising the FICA ceiling or eliminating it completely would adjust contributions to better match whatever actuarial model was used in the first place.
Just FYI...
The real rate of return to Social Security for those in the top 20% incomes born after 1970 is 0% or negative.
The real rate of return for those in the middle 20% of incomes for those born after 1960 is about 1%. Most Slashdot readers will fall into those two categories.
The real rate of return for those in the bottom 20% of incomes for those born after 1960 is 4%.
This doesn't count someone "saving Social Security" which will further cut your rate of return (for example, indexing to prices instead of wages, or raising the retirement age).
It also doesn't count the income taxes you will be paying after 2018 to pay back the bonds in the Social Security "trust fund."
Here's my sure-fire easy solution that I think everyone can agree on. There are two basic prongs to my plan. First, we're going to cut SS benefits in half. Then, when the old farts start whining, we'll merely remind them that they should be thankful that we don't throw the whole lot of them in jail for the criminal mismanagement of government finances which happened on *their* watch. Problem solved.
The problem isn't that the system will fail, and it will. The problem is that it is an entitlement program. When are these people gonna learn that the government is not here to hold our hand from birth to death? I for one would like to opt out of the program completely, both payments and receipts at old age. Cut my loses.
Someone hates these cans.
To understand the constitution you read it.
It says what it says. If you don't like it get a movement started to ammend it. A1 specificaly gives Congress the right to tax and spend for the General Welfare.
In Contract law there is a concept called "Plain Meaning" a definition of which is "Extrinsic evidence is not admissible to add to, subtract from, or vary the terms of a written contract."
If you think of the constitution as a "social contract" then you have to take the constitution for what it says, not based on some letter Madison wrote to his brother, or any other ancillary materials.
BTW Hamilton viewed the "General Welfare" clause to be a broad grant of power. For more info I'd suggest reading United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 65.
A little reality check: only ONE THIRD of payouts go to retirees. The rest goes to the disabled and survivors of workers who died pre-retirement. That's right, so what do you say to the guy who loses a leg at age 28? Sorry kid, you should have saved more.
What's even worse is the complete absence of details in Bush's "plan". Who's going to administer these private accounts? Will they charge $64 per quarter the way Schwab tried on accounts having less than $50000 in them? What will you be allowed to invest in? Big Investment Bank's brain-dead IPO dumping ground fund?
There is no social security crisis. Wall Street just wants a new supply of suckers.
Remain calm! All is well!
This we know, because Our Lords the Republicans tell us so. Yet the numbers tell a different story. You are being swindled, pal. Wise up before it's too late.
The parent poster was joking. If you feed the elderly to the poor, you get rid of starvation and Social Security in one fell swoop.
See? Funny. Or not.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
People get the government they deserve in a democracy
I know people believe in this statement but in my experience, that kind of statement is a little too glib. It smacks of religious faith. Sort of like the Christian, if you are suffering you must have deserved it. Or your suffering has an ultimate reason that will make it worthwhile. It's the kind of statement that gets people to simply accept their lot in life.
...without reading the article. Since it's from the NYT, the article says that everything that the Republicans say about social security is FUD and the Democrats hold the One True Path to the truth.
So if I'm allowed to invest my money how I choose, I'm being swindled?
Funny, that's what I thought about being compelled to pay into a system that can't possibly sustain itself.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Some "thugs" they are, trying to give us a little more control over our own money. I wonder if there are muggers like this (who put money into your wallet!).
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Question. If people aren't smart enough to save for their own retirement, are they smart enough to vote? Explain.
Two things.
...at the cost of picking their children's pockets. Nice.
0 27)
Social Security also delivers a considerable nonmonetary benefit: people who have contributed throughout their working lives know that, regardless of the ebb and flow of their careers and, indeed, of the stock market, a guaranteed pension awaits them.
Can we agree that in the first place, SS is a giant shell game, robbing from those earning NOW to pay for those who earned THEN?
1) In 1950, the life expectancy at birth of a US male was 65.6 years. (Most paid workers in the US in the 30's - when SS was conceived - were men) (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus04trend.pdf#
In 2002 the avg expectancy of the workforce is 77.3 yrs (74.5 just for men). I heard on NPR an economist making the point that SS was meant to cover the final few years of one's life for the small % that made it that far, and that, if you adjusted SS coverage to begin on (life expectancy - 3 years) or whatever it originally was, suddenly the "crisis" vanishes.
Now, many many more people are living 10-20% longer, and we're suprised that SS doesn't make it? Um....duh?
2) Personally, I'm in favor of privatization. I'm in favor of ANYTHING that de-funds the US gov't, or at least gets the money OUT of the control of the self-interested gutless weasels known as Congress. Let it end with my generation: take SS deductions from my paycheck my whole life, and give me nothing*, so that my kids don't have to fund this boondoggle in turn.
*truth in advertising, I don't expect to get anything anyway, I'm 37, so it's easy for me to say this.
-Styopa
That 12.5 % is what I payed in social security, the 20% in income tax is what I payed to maintain the system.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
that seems to be the main difference.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
get offa my internets ok
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
I present this link to Donald Luskin's piece for National Review. It's well worth reading, and provides an interesting contrast to the piece from The New York Times: Reform lies at the Times
--Matthew
"If the lights of Broadway blind me, I won't mind..."
It says what it says.
To somebody who knows no English, it says nothing, just as a document written in Latin says nothing to somebody who knows no Latin. The U.S. Constitution is written in 1780s American English, which is not the same language as 2000s American English in the same way that Latin is not the same language as Italian.
http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york20050114080 7.asp
Radical conservatives like Clinton were calling it a crisis in 1998-1999. Didn't the late-Dem. Patrick Moynihan call for partial privitzation?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Then according to you the right to bear arms does mean just my ARMS correct? As that is clearly the Plain meaning of the word ARMS.
:
I'm glad to see that the supreme court no longer has to research what the founding fathers meant when they hand down their rulings.
BTW, accoring to your reading of the "General Welfare" clause, this
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. "
Is now meaningless as power over every facet of life can be construed through your interpretation of the general welfare.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
The conventional wisdom is that Social Security is good for the poor/unlucky/incompetent.
Look closely and I believe you'll find that Social Security is bad for at least one of these groups, poor people.
Consider this:
"A February 1996 study by the RAND Corporation concluded that, because of differences in life expectancy, Social Security actually transferred wealth from the poor to the rich. The RAND study also concluded that the current benefit structure disadvantages African-Americans, who have lower life expectancies and marriage rates. According to the study, whites consistently earn higher rates of return than blacks. In fact, on a lifetime basis, the income transfer from blacks to whites is as much as $10,000 per person."
Now imagine what these people could do with an addition 12% or so of their income? Thousands of dollars a year is being taken from them only to be returned, in part, many years later. No one would use the stock market if it were this horrible. SS only survives due to politics and misinformation.
As for the others, most people I know don't want to pay out of their pockets because someone they don't know made a stupid decision. and I simply don't know how to account for bad luck of good people. Charity of friends and family is one idea. This at least is subject to the test of the givers consent, that is, if someone deserves help from bad luck such as cancer, they most likely
This is absurd. You've made a bald assertion, and it's demonstrably incorrect.
Consider James Madison, frequently called the "Father of the Constitution". Surely his opinions would carry some weight regarding what the intent of that document was. Well, perhaps his most famous statement is the following:
Given Madison's plain statement, the words you've put into the Founding Fathers' mouths are bollocks.
Do you think that in 1780s American English, "general Welfare" meant the government hand-outs associated with the term "welfare" in the 1990s and 2000s? Or are hand-outs necessary in an era when the only employers who pay a living wage tend to say "Sorry, we went with another candidate"?
and I for one plan on MM'ing your noderation as HORSESHT!
If it doesn't limit the government from providing social security then it allows it.
It appears you're not talking about the same U.S. Constitution that I've read. Try reading the Tenth Amendment:
Disclaimer: I've been doing in research on the Canadian Pension Plan and its impact upon the long term savings of Canadians.
There are a few key differences between the CPP and America's Social Security but there is a very misunderstood commonality.
The pay-as-you-go (PAYG) system. The PAYG system dictates that the money taken off your paycheque is not set aside for you. It is directly paid out to the current pensioners. Any surplus is generally invested, with the type of investment varying radically between programs and countries.
The funadmental assumption in the PAYG system is that productivity and population will continue to grow at a sufficient rate to carry the burden of the current pensioners. America's population, while aging, is expected to grow at a a very significant rate. The growing immigrant population has a much higher birth rate as compared to the pre-existing population, which will further reduce this problem.
Canada does not have the same prospects. Our pension plan started later and has had consistently lower returns than our American bretheren. True our population is growing but not nearly at the same rate, overall our population is aging to a greater extent than America as well. In Canada the Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) had a fundamentally different investment priority. The CPP's surplus investments were in the form of very low interest bonds to the provinces. This has had two effects. First the return rate for the first 25 years or so of the CPP program has been very low and simultaneously encouraged provincial debt by providing a lower than market rate for provinces looking to borrow.
The QPP invested specifically to promote provincial growth. While not being perfectly successfull in the long term it has actually resulted in the generation of capital and successfully stimulated significant growth within Quebec over a long period of time. The QPP, due to those much higher returns since the inception of the program, helps ensure that the specific program is much more sustainable in the long term than the CPP. Their is much debate as to whether the CPP has contributed or been a detriment to national savings and capital growth. National savings is different than you or I "saving" for a rainy day. I'm just a Poli Sci M.A. student I'm sure an economics major/professor can explain it a lot better than I can.
Either way. People do not fundamentally understand that their payroll contributions do NOT go to them when they retire. You are counting on the goodwill of tax payers at the time to ensure that you receive your benefits. In Canada it is very likely that contribution rates will continue to rise to address this problem.
Anyways I thought that might be of interest.
Another reason that several people are citing as indicative of SS's future failure is the lack of population growth.
Incorrect.
The population doesn't have to grow, just the payroll base. A working age generation can support a sizable retirement generation IF the folks working are making more money relative to what the retirement generation needs to retire on.
As for me, I'm proud to pay my SS payment because I respect those who have worked hard for 40-50 years: they deserve no less. You can save all you want my friends, but disasters/tragedies/economic collapses happen and you can't guarentee that you'll have savings when you're 65-70. God Bless SS and FDR.
That's a point people should consider here. It's not enough that Social Security shouldn't go bankrupt, but also that it provides a good value for the money that people put in. Otherwise, you are left in the situation where it is better to close up the program rather than continue to pay in. At least, by putting part of current Social Security investments into private funds, they'll be able to beat Social Security's return on investment over a number of decades.
Finally, there's the matter of the huge redistribution of wealth from younger generations to older. I think this is fundamentally a mistake. The money that is currently going into Social Security could be used to support a family, buy a home, or invest for the long term.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
A farmer got so old that he couldn't work the fields anymore. So he would spend the day just sitting on the porch.
His son, still working the farm, would look up from time to time and see his father sitting there. "He's of no use any more," the son thought to himself, "he doesn't do anything!"
One day the son got so frustrated by this, that he built a wood coffin, dragged it over to the porch, and told his father to get in. Without saying anything, the father climbed inside.
After closing the lid, the son dragged the coffin to the edge of the farm where there was a high cliff. As he approached the drop, he heard a light tapping on the lid from inside the coffin. He opened it up.
Still lying there peacefully, the father looked up at his son. "I know you are going to throw me over the cliff, but before you do, may I suggest something?"
"What is it?" replied the son. "Throw me over the cliff, if you like," said the father, "but save this good wood coffin. Your children might need to use it."
Just because money is spent does not mean it is good. This is a *classic* economic fallacy.
If a kid breaks a window, money gets spent fixing it, but that doesn't make anyone better off. Yeah, the window-fixer is better off, but if people had been able to keep their money, they would spend it on something they *actually* wanted. For instance, perhaps I invest in my child's education thus supporting the teachers instead and making my family and I better off.
Right now you've got thousands of people working cushy "gov'ment" jobs on your dollar. A bunch of them basically just have to process a bunch of paperwork, or do what others in the private sector could do for less money. This premium for inefficient and unnecessary work done by the gov. is the money that is wasted.
Sure the gov workers spend that money too, but if I had been able to choose how to spend my money, they wouldn't be working there at all, they'd be teaching or cooking or building something. In other words, they'd be doing something useful. As it is they, for the most part, make us all worse off.
Oh, Social Security can be fixed so it is self-substaining. Just reduce benefits or run 5% or so annual inflation that isn't covered by cost of living adjustments. But what's the point of keeping this beast running? It's never going to be a good investment.
Everyone understands and knows the bias that the NY Times has.
No, everyone doesn't. Would you care to explain so that I may prove you wrong and make fun of you?
You mean like the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation?
Nah, if it comes to that, the people with discipline, military experience, and a food supply (eg, those "big bad republicans with GUNS") will carry the day.
This, I believe, would be the most democratic solution. If you trust the next few generations or simply want to help out the elderly, pay Social Securiy. If you think you can handle monet better than Uncle Sam, go ahead. The current SS Surplus could be used to pay the current and near-future seniors who never had this option. Makes sense, no?
Empirical studies of something as enormously complex as America's economy are difficult if not impossible to pull any useful data from.
There are so many factors and so few observable business cycles that it's just like guessing the Presidential election based on a basketball game. And nobody is stupid enough to do that... oh wait.
Not to discount the necessity of attempting to discern the truth in all cases, I'd just take this claim with a grain of salt.
You can already do that. You do have an IRA or 401-K, right? We're just talking about a guaranteed floor here.
Funny, that's what I thought about being compelled to pay into a system that can't possibly sustain itself.
You're assuming something not in evidence here. If the system doesn't sustain itself, it'll be at the hands of people who wanted to destroy it all along (and won't hesitate to lie through their teeth to get it done).
It is not the federal government's job to pay for people's retirement. People are not going to starve in the street if the federal gov does not pay for their retirement. Charity, family, state government, etc are all other options.
People starve now even with the trillions we have thrown away with federal social programs.
End all social security , medicare, homeless shelters , education, etc at the federal level..
And, once you quit thinking of "promote the general welfare" as a blank check that lets the federal government do practically anything, once you realize that the Constitution puts some specific limits on what the federal government can do, then the current federal government looks extremely out of line compared to what the Constitution says it is allowed to do...
Go to their web site and pretend you're about ready to retire on a $80K salary. You'll get about $20K a year in social security. It's not enough to live on.
A codeword for government elites taking over health care. Stalin would smille.
' Labor laws that give workers a fair shake '
Leftists tend to oppose this by wanting to forcer workers into unions even if the workers do not want it.
' Keeping Roe V. Wade intact '
Fun. Violence against children with millions of casualties. It is not even in the Constitution! You are pretty radical when you hate children and delight in their death.
' Every one of these positions has majority support. '
Not true. A strong majority support some restrictions on abortion (thus denting Roe v Wade). A strong majority oppose government controlling health care. At least 92% of workers say "union no" and do not favor being forced into them.
Which past are you talking about? Not any history that I recall (and I have a M.A. in it). Before the Great Depression (just to set a marker), few people retired because they DIED BEFORE THEY REACHED 50!! Sure families stuck together, just as much as they do now: Crazy, isn't it! Did you also know that there were people without families! Did you know there were tragedies that affected those families who thought they saved enough?! And that there were tragedies that broke the backs of private charities? You can save all you want buddy, but shit has and always will happen to drain the savings of good monetary pack rats like us.
Alas, you really think things were better before your arbitrary point of "before Communism" (which I assume is the start of the New Deal)?? That's laughable. As I and other historians say, "Those who wish for the past don't know the first thing about it."
As the British experience has shown, leaving people to manage their own retirement accounts is a disaster. Result:
(a) many will make bad choices through ignorance and inexperience... leaving taxpayers to make sure they don't freeze and starve in the dark, which costs more in the long run; and
(b)as Dogbert says, "I suggest a strategy called 'Churning' to turn that idle capital into valuable commissions". This SS rewrite will be a major windfall for Wall street management types who will overcharge the usual faulty advice; and
(c) It's gotta be cheaper - and history has shown it is - to manage one big fund of several billion than 200 million funds of $100,000. You do actually get higher interest rates when you buy bonds in denominations of billions.
Finally, yes, the SS fund is Treasury bills but think...
-If the government didn't borrow the money from SS they would borrow from somewhere else (or just print it and cause more inflation). Better to owe the money to your citizens than to Japan and China's central banks.
- The note is a promise for the government to pay up later. The cash to pay has to come from the bottom line of the next years' budgets. Unless they arbitrarily repudiate that debt (i.e. the feds go bankrupt) they have to pay. And SS isn't the only one holding government bonds.
-If the SS fund didn't lend to the government, they'd lend to other blue chips - Haliburton, Enron, as well as Microsoft, IBM, Citybank, and Coca Cola. Think of the potential for abuse there! If they invested in stocks, who would decide how to vote them? Or would they stay out of shareholder votes - abandoning any attempt at governance for corporations whose profitability the fund depended on? There's a whole issue on skewing the votes by buying up a 20% share to abstain...
-even with best intentions and honest management, a multi-trillion dollar fund would be a 800-tonne gorrilla in the investment market. Every move they make is dangerous.
-Would 200 million people each investing in the same government bonds one at a time be any improvement? Would you allow the individuals to buy shares and exercise their votes? "Hey everyone in , let's all buy and vote to dump the CEO / fire their news anchor / not close the Flint plant." Could be interesting...
I have never been a subscriber to conspiracy theory, but GWB is doing his best to convert me. OTOH, David Frum did remark of his times at the White House that "there was a distinct lack of deep thinkers there..."
Like the old vaudeville joke - the White house guys couldn't all be as dumb as they look, could they?
One problem with this scenario is a budget surplus. Although we are not likely to see on again soon, you might recall that during the last administration, they ceased to offer treasuries for a while. They weren't needed. Another similar issue is a market where there is too much capitalization. Those who thought that the market would hit 30,000 assumed that continued bidding on stocks would continue forever. What happens when too much money is in the market, and it is no longer efficient? You're not likely to keep up with inflation, let alone make money.
Regardless of the whether you think the government should provide any kind guaranteed financial support to its citizens (I don't, but whatever), the fact is that the current Social Security system, is a Ponzi scheme, and in addition to being completely un-ethical, is doomed to the same eventual collapse that all ponzi, pyramid, and related financial schemes suffer from.
Anyone who thinks that social security has at any point in its history been even remotely successful at providing retirees, widows, disabled folks with financial security, has not actually looked at the numbers.
my old sig is obsolete, and I haven't come up with a stupid enough new one yet
Yeah, kinda like invading Iraq was a way to fix the terrorism problem.
Your blind hatred of Bush turns out to be, well, simply blinding in all cases. I don't think the sun revolves Bush but I've known Social Security has been screwed for me an my generation for the last fifteen years.
Only the rich will be able to afford longevity-increasing medical care, so it won't matter. They don't need social security anyway.
Not so. Prolonging life is a primary goal of everyone basically and so many people will be able to benefit, not just the rich - people will demand (and get) it. Just the improved efficency of things we do now will result in longer lifespans for a lot of people. I cannot believe that anyone would rationally argue the simple case that the CBO numbers (increase on average of only six years in seven decades!!) is correct. But as I said, you are blinded and just prefer to belive Bush is wrong instead of questioning the most silly of numbers.
What should (and probably will) happen is that people who are being paid from the program but already have a lot of money will be cut off from payments. That's will help, I don't know how much... or how much of a cry there would be from people cut off. I can't image that if you were really well off it would matter, and it would bring truth to the notion that social security is a saftey net and not really a program for all Americans (it's not right now as I know I am not ever going to see money from it when I retire regardless of my circumstances).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My favorite quote:
Only by very twisted thinking could tax cuts be categorized as goverment spending. The implication is that it's the government's money, and letting me keep it is somehow irresponsible.The article is riddled with this type of mentality. I honestly believe that many on the left can't even perceive the problem with this viewpoint.
I'm finding it very difficult to verify your "less than 1% overhead" claim, however, I can verify through the CATO institute study that Social Security offers a return on investment of roughly 2.0%, compared with the market average of about 4.8% annual ROI after fees (the worst 20 years (from 1929 to 1949) averaged 3.36% ROI, still outpacing social security).
So, your argument falls apart, given that you were looking at pure costs and not factoring the better rates of return that are inherent with a privatized system. Oh, and you can pass on any unusued income to your heirs with a private system. But you can calculate that yourself, and actually becomed informed on this issue, instead of parrotting what your party wants you to believe.
Al Jazeera is rather anti-semitic. It is not a good place to find out what is. It is a good place to find out what rabid thugs think.
This argument isn't even necessary, because the excuse that the Constitution authorizes the government to "promote the general welfare" is bogus.
Those words are in the Preamble to the Constitution. They're there to explain what the document is trying to do; that is, provide a framework for understanding WHY the founding fathers designed the system the way that they did.
Now consider that in the Constitution, specifically Article I Section 8 (which lists the powers of Congress), there is no mention of SocSec. We can only infer that the founding fathers believed (right or wrong) that EXCLUDING the power to enact social security, etc., is precisely what would be guaranteeing our general welfare.
You may disagree with their philosophy, but there really is no question that this was their intent.
"Social Security also delivers a considerable nonmonetary benefit: people who have contributed throughout their working lives know that, regardless of the ebb and flow of their careers and, indeed, of the stock market, a guaranteed pension awaits them."
Today, sure. Tomorrow, who knows. The whole point is that social security cannot pay out the same benefits in the future as they do today assuming we approach zero population growth and continue to extend life expectancy. Without any fundamental change to social security, they will either have to raise the retirement age, cut benefits, raise taxes, or some combination of the above. Conservatives hate it because it is a socialist program where the payout is skewed in favor of those who pay in less, so they want to get rid of it. Private accounts is a step in that direction
Vote for Pedro
Infant moretality is already substantially improved from earlier days, and is probably close to a stable point now...
But you are quite mistaken (as it the CBO) that average worker lifespan is plateauing for long. Instead we are at a temporary flat spot but a lot of stuff on the near horizon promises to address a lot of things that take people out, and that will greatly extend lifespan beyond the current estimates. Do you really think medical progress in even just twenty years is not going to have a lot of interesting things with that much time knowing the genome, playing with stem cells, and possibly even getting nanotechnoloy somewhere (probably out more than twenty years).
At any rate I would say it's impossible to call the estimates "conservative" with that seven year increase as a foundation for the math.
It's really funny to me that in a forum full of people that have a strong belief in the power of technology, and are generally pretty good with numbers that there is not more questioning of this flawed assumption.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You're not quite on it...the governments of the respective people were there first: Since most were so-called Third World countries, aid organizations were already there. Oh, and the U.N. is helping out: you haven't heard of UNICEF? They were there from day one (because they were already there, too). Many private donations went to UNICEF! I'm happier than you when it comes to private donations, but no private organization had the ability to manage this crisis' aftermath. It was the U.N., U.S., and other national governments that brought this all together: please go back to powerline or some other brain numbing site and return when your frontal lobe is independently functional again.
Apply for a visa somewhere more to your liking and leave.
Mostly math trickery, reducing the supposed average increase in lifespan to just six years in seven decades. To me that seems like a really stupid assumption and a very incorrect projection.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Thank you for correcting someone who's clearly talking out of his butt.
Anyone who believes that the Constitution serves to *limit* a potentially infinite government has clearly never taken the time to read it.
Since any schoolkid should know that the Constitution defines a strictly limited government, having only those powers that the document delegates to the government, and since the grandparent poster presumably is the product of our educational system, which violates these limits, we have one obvious datapoint showing that the Founding Fathers were right.
Those crazy unmoderated wikipedia folks.
No, that crazy Leroy Hood - as I said he was MENTIONED in the article, it's not just some random Wiki person.
Leroy hood invented, among other things, an automated gene sequencer and helped with the human genome project. So I think he has a little more insight on the subject than the average guy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Lets assume social security was solvent - that modern payees were putting more money into it than beneficiaries were taking out. This is true you DOLT! The projection is that in 13 years from now we will start to spend more than we take in and will have to start spending the savings that we have been generating over the years.
One concern I've had with all the discussions of privatizing SS is this: An influx of cash now will drive the prices up, making stock brokers and the already rich (i.e. current stock owners) wealthier; then, when all us boomers cash out as we retire, the stock market will drop. The cash-out problem happens whether SS is privatized or not, but privatization makes it that much worse. Same with real estate: visualize all the estate sales ~82 years after 1957. Yes, it happens over time and not all on one day, and you can hedge (i.e. short) against it, but it's still a real problem. Woe to Gen-X'ers who are "in" either market.
[place clever signature here]
From the website you cite:
Social Security Crib Sheet
Published on December 21, 2004
1. The system is not going broke. For now, it takes in $180 billion or so each year more than it pays out - even though we have only 3 workers for every retiree (down from 41 when the system was launched).
This is not relevant to my point in my post above. It's correct, but not relevent. BTW, the treasurer of the DNC is not a "leader of the Democratic party". Nor is he a member of the GOP or the mass media, actors which I cited above.
2. Yes, it would be much, much better if we had not decided to blow that annual surplus on a tax cut to rich people. (Imagine taking your daughter's hard-earned college fund and just giving it away to some rich stranger.)
Correct, but irrelevant to my point.
3. And, yes, in a few decades there will be more like 2 workers for every retiree instead of 3. At that point, instead of running surpluses, Social Security could be running deficits (which today's surpluses were meant to fund).
NOW THIS IS RELEVANT TO MY POINT. He assumes that the SS will be running deficits because there are fewer workers. Yes, there will be fewer workers, but the deficit can EASILY be made up by TAKING MORE MONEY FROM THE RICH PEOPLE AND PUTTING IT IN THE SS FUND. Does he consider this solution? NO! And that is what I told you was going on.
5. Here's one example of relatively painless adjustments that would solve the problem without "privatizing" Social Security. (I'll get to that in a minute.)
You would just take a little from column a, column b, and column c:
a. Right now the age at which you can retire with full benefits inches up to 67 by 2027. What if it kept rising one month per year, to age 68 in 2039? You could still take partial benefits as early as age 62; for full benefits, you'd have to wait one more year. But you would have 30 or 40 years (if you started now) to save a little extra to keep this from being a hardship.
Ah, the perfect neoliberal solution--make the people work longer! Same as it was back in the days of slavery and indentured servants. America never really changes...
b. Few advocate raising the already hefty payroll tax RATE, currently 6.2% each from you and your employer (plus a further 1.45% each for Medicare). But what if, instead of having that 6.2% drop to zero on income above $90,000-or-so, as it does now, it dropped to 1% instead? Annoying, but not a killer; and worth paying so that grandma - much as we love her - doesn't have to move in.
This makes my point PERFECTLY! I really hope you see the difference between MY suggested solutions and the one he gives here! My solution is to raise or eliminate the cap on the SS payroll. For those of you who have not been paying attention, the first $87K of income is taxed at about 8%, which he explains above. What he is suggesting is that instead of 0% on income above 87K, it goes to 1%. My suggestion was that all income above 67K be taxed at the same rate as income BELOW 87K, i.e., at about 8%.
c. Once you start receiving benefits, they rise with inflation, as they should. And in calculating your initial benefits, your prior years' contributions are adjusted for inflation as well. If we made those adjustments based on "price inflation" rather than "wage inflation," the system would save a fortune. Indeed, we probably wouldn't need to do (a) and (b) - just (c). But some combination of the three is likely to go down easiest.
Another neoliberal, conservative, investor-oriented, yuppie-oriented solution, which really means "cut back on benfits paid out."
Here are the things I think people should know about privatization:
c. There is no free lunch. The thought is that - even with the cost of administering 150 million new private investment
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Parent sounds better-informed than any representative of either major party I've heard discussing the issue. ;)
This week is the 5-year anniversary of the 1990s stock peak. Social Security, which invests their trust fund in a laddered set of US Treasuries, average 6.2% annual reurn, would have returned 35%. Investing in high tech stocks, which is all the rage in Y2K would be still be down 59% (NASDAQ).
If you don't like it so much, move to a country that doesn't have an income tax. No one is forcing you to enjoy both the benefits and the responsibilities of living in the US or being a US citizen.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Much of the rhetoric on SS doesn't really discuss the numbers or the implications except by hearsay. My take on the article, the state of SS and what should eventually be done follows.
SS comments
a) current benefits are paid from current withholdings
This immediately says the program is in arrears as ideally current benefits would be paid form the money taxed from the current retirees before retirement. Also note that if the number of workers decreases significantly relative to the number of retirees then the system will not meet its liabilities. When the Baby Boomers retire the number of retirees will roughly double, giving ~100m recipients. Giving them a modest round number of $1000/month each gives us $100billion / month in expenditures or $1.2 trillion/year. I believe the current SS cap is around $80K subject to ~15% tax giving $12K/worker-year. Thus the system would require 100,000,000 workers contributing todays maximum amount. Sorry, but we simply will not have that. Also the average contribution would be roughly the average wage that iirc is around $40k maximum giving the need for 200M workers to meet costs when the boomers retire. Sure looks like a real problem to me, roughly on the order of the system being ~$700,000,000,000 in arrears per year. The notion that no change at all is necessary over the next 75 years is wishful thinking out on the lunatic fringe.
b) Treasury securities are themselves little more than IOUs on future tax receipts. Fewere workers give leass tax receipts. This is without even mentioning record trade and federal deficits. A fair case can be made that this country following its present course will leak high tech jobs just as fast as it has leaked manufacturing jobs. Under this scenario the situation is even more dire. The so-called surplus isn't worth the paper it is printed on. Large movements out of foreign investment in the very same securities are sometimes witnessed even today.
c) The notion that the government will repay its borrowing from Social Security "in fifteen years" is ludricous. The idea that it will do so by borrowing is criminally insane. Borrowing is what got the government and we Americans into the current mess. It is interesting that the so-called surplus is not only IOUs on future taxes, but also on the good intention of the government to pay back the money it has ripped off from the forced pension funds of its own citizens. And this program is held up as a model of compassion!
d) There is no question that even a fraction of the money taken for SS, if invested quite conservatively, even in a money market, would easily meet the needs of the individual retiree over say 20 years of employment, much less the 30-40 commonly worked. So it is immediately obvious that the current system is a ripoff and drain on the wealth and well-being of all Americans. The question should be how to back out of something that is known to be such a rip and switch to a more direct individual investment plan as quickly and painlessly as possible. Anything less is a disservice to all of us.
The "demise" of social programs means that the goverment fails to provide a service it has already taxed people for. People made plans based on the promise of SS and the DEDUCTIONS MADE TO THEIR PAYCHECKS. If those deductions were not there, then they likely would have made DIFFERENT PLANS.
So they didnt have a choice with what to do with their money. Choice is good. Shafting people is criminal.
If they are going to phase it out, Fine! But everyone who has been FORCED to pay into it and therefore FORCED to figure it into their plans had better get what was promised.
I realize that it seems stylish under the current administration to make the word of the US government worthless as shit, but thats not going to remain the case very long without consequences. The US must deliver what it promised its taxees.
That was a surprisingly well-written summary.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
But your point is a good one. Obviously, we cannot maintain 2% growth forever, but we could probably maintain it for a long time (thousands of years, maybe even longer - IANAE?). It's been amazing how long we've been able to maintain Moore's law, or something similar to it.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
There is already a model that the gov't could use for SS reform - its own retirement system. President Bush has already explicitedly said that this is his model.
As a federal employee, I participate in the Goverment's retirement system called FERS (Federal Employee Retirement System.. it replaced the Civil Service retirement system in the 1980s). The three componets of FERS are a modest traditional pension, traditional social security (the old CS system didn't pay into SS), and something called the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). TSP is the largest component and its website is found at http://www.tsp.gov. Basically, TSP works like a modified 401(k). Each person has an individual account, contributes a percentage of their salary and the employer (in this case the gov't) matches it up to 5%. The individual can then invest in a number of government provided mutual funds. The funds are
The point here is that this serves as a model for "privatized" individual accounts and President Bush has already explicitedly said that TSP is his model. All the TSP index funds are closely monitored and highly respected stock or bond indexes. The money is in indiviual accounts and I control what funds I have my money invested in. If I want absolute safety with low payoff, I choose the "G" Fund and make myself happy with a 4% return. If I am willing to accept some moderate risk to get a higher payoff, I invest in the S&P 500 "C" Fund or the bond "F" Fund. If I want a little more risk for a potentially bigger payoff, I invest in the "I" and "S" funds. In fact, I keep it spread out amongst several to mitigate my risk. But I control where which fund my retirement is invested in. To date the return has been much higher than the goverment securities alone that social security is currently stuck with.
As far as administrative fees, they are absurdly low. If TSP serves as the model, then claims by the anti-reformers that the financial industry will sap the accounts is a red-herring. Annual adminstrative costs of the funds are typically between
Why do you assume the tax revenue-tax rate function is unimodal?
1) Raising taxes increases revenue by collecting a higher percentage of the circulating money on each pass.
2) Raising taxes decreases the circulation of money by draining resources from the economy.
3) Effect 1) is dominant at low rates, effect 2) at hight rates.
In the absense of any other mechanism, or any reason to believe that the effects are not monotonic, continuous, and reasonably smooth (except for discontinuites at the extremes such as the jump from no tax at all to some tax), the result is a curve with exactly one hump, with a location dependent on the shape of the functions responsible for 1) and 2).
Can you postulate an additional mechanism (or wild nonlinearity) that would produce an additional hump?
It's easy to claim that there might BE one (or more) additional hump(s). But until you can come up with a plausable reason FOR aonther, I'm going to continue to assert this camel is a dromedary rather than a bactrian.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Ah, the perfect neoliberal solution--make the people work longer!
Er, people are also going to be drawing benefits for longer. Don't you think some kind of adjustment is reasonable in this case? After all, fair's fair. I will admit that's the first time I've seen that attitude described as "neoliberal" though - its much more commonly seen as a centrist approach.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
The problem I have with your post - where is the fantasy in placing 1-2% of the money that I put now into social security into private accounts?
For one thing even if they are the most secure accounts imaginable they will still have a far better rate of return than whet the money gets now.
For another if people have actual accounts then family members can inherit that money if they die early, instead of having it vanish - this could actually help a number of low income peopel quite a lot (and my favorite part of the whole private account idea).
Advocating statis quo is not a plan, it is the path to some really bad problems and worse choices later on. We have to do something, and even if it's not perfect it can be shored up as we go along.
Once more I say, you hate the idea of Bush fixing the social security system far more than you actually hate the idea of anything to do with Social Security. And it is blinding you. Ditch the hate and start studying the problem with open eyes.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Bias in journalism is like drunk driving among teenagers. Some Conservatives say, let's take away the rules, since "you'll never stop those kids anyway,"
Basically, we had a successful conservative-sponsored scheme to eliminate the rules.
Fox News Network puts paid liars on TV.
nothing that separates this country from China but journalists and voting booths, and some Conservatives are in the process of crossing journalists off the list.
Speaking of bias.... holy shit, man.
I'm going to avoid too directly associating myself with your National Socialist - style railing against those you dislike by not answering any of that directly: I'll just point out that, by strict definition, any attempt to revoke existing controls is a liberal doctrine.
On the subject of moderation, (1) Moderation on Slashdot does censor things, that's the bloody point, and (2) The fact that your post is so much blind, redundant, reactionary tripe and is currently modded +3 insightful pretty much destroys your argument with regards to trolling, and probably also with "bad ideas", though I am somewhat reluctant to label ideas as "bad" in such a blanket fashion as you are.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Maybe you should look at a chart of age distribution for the U.S. and compare it to a chart of age distribution for the Congo. One of those charts looks like it could support old people while having a minimal impact on younger generations for as far as the eye can see, the other, not-so-much. And it only gets worse for other countries, like Italy. Judge for yourself.
Since dollars are no longer backed by gold and only backed by confidence in America (rapidly dropping these days), they could well be the equivalent of the Cuban peso in 30 years.
Social security was, at first, what amounted to a "Widows and orphans" fund.
Then, it was a retirement fund. Do you ever wonder why the retirement age was set at 65?
The average life expectancy at the time the system was instituted was something like 64 for your average worker, with a standard deviation of well under 10 years.
The average life expectancy for a worker is now in the high 70s/low 80s. I think it's time for some retirement time adjustments.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
I like your plan and I am sure that you personally would be successful in your savings of resources for when you can no longer generate capital. But I am confused about what your recommending for the people that opt out and then find themselves with no capital and no means to generate capital.
Do we consider that act financial irresponsibility as morally wrong and punishable though depravity of basic living standards, and recourses?
Or is your financial behavior not strictly a moral characteristic? Can person act honestly, "word hard" with the best intentions, and perform a valuable service for the society yet be abused by government or corporate entities that regulate the rewards and savings given to individuals for this service?
Is an individual morally responsible for the mismanagement of funds that occur in a market with high regulation for individuals and low regulation for corporate entities?
Should the collective assume the debut of unsustainable corporate behavior in terms of corporate bailouts, and environmental degradation?
Is the market balanced in terms of individual power and corporate power to dictate the distribution of collective capital relative to service performed? (collective capital here refers to more then just taxes, think environment and shared resources) Or do corporate entities have more clout in the distribution of collective capital? Do they share in the burden with the collective or do they primarily benefit from it?
If we had a more idealized free market system I imagine the answer to those questions would be trivial and the problem of SS would be marginal, but the market is heavily regulated by federal entities in ways that hurt certain individuals chance of contributing to their prolonged well being. One is not free to negotiate their wage at wall mart for example or have menginfull od. One is not free to collectively organize in the same way that those with capital can collectively regulate or undervalue the labor market.
If we could first establish a system that actually relates to free market principals, then we can discuss the potential of individual moral responsibility for capital acquisition. But free market principals are an idealized state of mind as unachievable as communism.
Acknowledging that we are operating in the non-idealized setting we should try and act morally and provide for the basic needs of others which can act as a small push towards balancing of the system. Its a very small request from those for which the system benefits so much. It is the least those with enough capital to sustain their needs can do given their "success" can not be separated from the genuine effort of those that worked for them, and the arbitrary primary capital acquisition which was originally taken from the collective. For example of primary capital acquisition trace back the ownership of physical property.
specifically in terms of SS reform: I don't think its a good idea to increase the amount of collective resources which are being pored into the hands of private capital entities. Not because they don't have lots of hard working people in them, just because they have no moral responsibility to the collective. That is sort of the point of a representative government is that it is directly responsible for the collective. The collective obviously does not have any representation on the private hierarchy of corporate entities. So since the free market is an idealized state of mind, we need to take that into account when we attempt to behave "morally" with collective resources.
All that you will ever see is the inside of your own head.
Good luck with that. Myself, I prefer to think about actually fixing problems than hating anyone currently in charge which you refuse to even discuss.
Your staggering level of accumulated hatred is going to hit you up for a pretty big Karma charge, I would prepare for that if I were you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And pay off the debt?
There will be no treasury bonds.
Then what?
SS was NEVER meant to be a retirement FUND. Only a retirement SUPPLEMENT! If you can't save enough for your retirement, don't get old!
No funds are set aside to pay out ANY US treasury. The concept simply doesn't exist for Federal Governments as they, unlike everybody else, have the ability to print money. The thing that you, and the neo-feudalists, call an IOU is backed by the full faith and credit of the US Government which has exactly the same obligation (nay, more so) to be paid back as any other Government bond. If you want to direct your anger someplace, direct it where it belongs, at George W. Bush and the other neo-feudalists who have embarked on a grand scheme to steal from the poor and give to the rich which they call 'Social Security Reform'. Just another Big Lie from the world champions of Big Lies. IF you are concerned that these IOU's are so much worthless paper, write your Congressperson and tell him/her to roll back the Bush tax cuts (all of them), depart from Iraq on Jan 31 and give up the Imperial vision, repeal the Medicare prescription drug bill, ... in fact, repeal every law signed by Bush II, and the budget would be in pretty good shape again.
8. ???
9. Profit!
then why are they retired on my money instead of earning their keep like everyone else?
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
As ever, everyone ignores the core truths of the story: that George W. Bush is a draft-dodger, that his father's contacts got him into one of the cushiest jobs in the National Guard, and that he disappeared prematurely from his duty. You don't see anyone disputing any of these - at least, without trying to change the subject, as I mentioned above. CBS' Independent Review Panel wrote that Mary Mapes, producer of 60 Minutes, "ignored information that cast doubt on the story" - obviously false, since the story has been around for years without any attempt to debunk it.
Interestingly, the CBS panel consists of just two people, both of whom have deep and long-running ties to the Republican party. Dick Thornburgh, formerly George H. W. Bush's Attorney General, was the guy responsible for burying the Exxon Valdez story; while Louis Boccardi, formerly CEO of the Associated Press, was resposible for burying the story of Oliver North's dealing with Iran (a story that, coincidentally, originally surfaced from the AP itself). By now, the real issue here should make a lot of sense.
Whatever. If you actually gave a damn about fair journalism yourself, you should talk to this guy.Attack its weak point for massive damage!
Having kids before you can afford them is one of the most retarded things you can do. Not only have you fucked yourself (and hence your /. whine) but you're spawning the next generation of white trash.
When the Social Security system "buys" a treasury bill, another branch of the government is on the receiving end. This branch spends the money on services or whatever, because it is running a deficit budget. So the money is gone. It can only be paid back by collecting future taxes, and/or by selling assets.
Well, yes. And when I buy a T-Bill personally, the government is borrowing from me so that it can run a deficit budget. Come to think of it, since the Social Security system is funded in part by my money, when Social Security buys a T-Bill, the government is also borrowing from me.
So what is the difference? Are you suggesting that the government should or will default on its debts? Are you saying that those of us who have invested our money in US Government securities are insolvent?
Yes, running a big deficit as the current administration has chosen to do, is unwise, and will run up taxes or require sale of assets in the future. But unless the US goes bankrupt and collapses, the government still has to repay its debts, and the people, institutions, and government departments that hold those debts are sitting on genuine assets.
If all you ever get your information from are NY Times articles, its no wonder you're such a mind numbed moron. The Federal Government subsidizes SSI with hundreds of millions of dollars each year, and on the back end SSI recipients receives severely discounted services and cutbacks. It is not solvent by any rational definition.
What I don't want to say is the depressing implication of what you are saying: That we the people, by not putting a stop to this nonsense (by force, if necessary), have de facto delegated to the government all the overly vast power that it currently has.
I know that this isn't what you said. But it seems to me to be the logical, non-statist conclusion of what you said.
The good news (?) is that it means that the government's huge power is illegitimate, and we therefore have reasonable, Constitutional grounds for demanding that they stop.
So wherea are the 4 children , 34 grandchildren of the old parents? Living in luxury and visiting grandma 3 times a year?
Save every a lot of money and double dipping and unneeded jobs/care workers, get the siblings to help out directly, buy paying for the oldies cheap apartment, or live in room, and pay for their utitilies etc... $50 per child would cover it, tax deduct it, presto all solved, unless there are people out there who hate their parents because they treated them like crap, then yeah... make em suffer and die early because they are more useless than a stray dog.
Then again a massive WW3 nuke war would fix the problem if it happens.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
by which you mean "there's no more of a problem than there's always been". The system is still a poor one, and I wish the government had the guts to just cut it. Replace it? Maybe... if they really feel they must. I intend to not rely on government to support me in old age (after I retire at around 85 years old) in any case.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
the iddle class???? what the fuck??? the idle class that makes this world go around???? can i kick your ass too?
When Social Security was started the "retirement" age was set at 65. This age was picked because it was ABOVE the expected life of the average person. The thought was that if you made it to 65 you probably couldn't work and, to keep you from being a burdon, society had an obligation to provide you a suplement to help you get along. When Social Security was formed, most people knew they would never see any money from it. I believe the average woman is expected to make it to 85. Imagine increasing the age you can collect Social Security at to 90. How many people would be happy? That is the way it was when the system was designed.
Social Security was never designed to be a person's sole source of income. It was designed to be a suplement. Also keep in mind that people over the age of 65 are the second wealthiest demographic when taken as a whole. There is no means testing for collecting SS so everyone gets a check regardless of their need. The poorest are the ones in their 20s who are in debt with kids. These are the ones who pay for SS with every cent earned up to about $90,000.
The idea that someone just "quits working" is a relatively new thing. In past centuries you worked until you died. It isn't unusual to see someone retire at 55 today. That person could easily live 30 years into their retirement. That is almost as many years as they worked. That is a very unusual thing and has never happened in history.
About 10 years ago I saw a survey of people in college. More college students believed in UFOs then believed they would ever see a single Social Security check. I'm over 30 and have no expectation that I'll ever see a SS check. That is why I invested 15% of my pre-tax income to my 401k, I maxed out on my ROTH IRA, and contributed the maximum amount to my pension. Yes I drive an old car. Yes, I can't afford go out to eat every weekend. I don't go on expensive vacations and I don't buy the latest tech toys. That is the trade off for saving for your future. I figure when I'm 90 I'd rather eat than remember the I-Pod I owned 60 years ago.
The private contributions that Republicans are planning are VOLUNTARY. If you want you can keep your investments the same as they are now. You also can't invest everything, only a portion can be invested in private accounts. It is YOUR choice. The only thing the government is really forcing you to do is contribute. Personally I like any freedoms the government gives me. If I had my choice I'd keep every dime & opt out of SS because I think I can do better on my own. I know that won't happen, but this is the next best thing. I think it is interesting that people who complain about the Patriot Act taking away their freedoms are some of the same people complaining about getting a freedom of choice from the government.
sure. give me the taxes ive paid that have went to the iraq war, to the war on drugs, and to pay bush to pretend to be a president. OH WAIT THE WORLD IS MORE THAN JUST ME@$%@#%
actually i understand how SS works, the feds were co-opted into SS about 15 years ago due to the fund becoming insolvent, much like what is being proposed for state government employees who do not participate in the social secuirty system.
.1% expense rate which is signifigantly less than SS (and SS's paltry earnings too) http://tsp.gov/rates/fundsheet-gfund.pdf.
d f
the current FERS program consists of 3 parts, a pension based on number or years worked (after 5 years you get 5% of your highest 3 years pay average), TSP which is essentially a 401k and SS. For newer workers it is a better deal since you can take your money with you if you leave the government. You actually have ownership of your own money, not a bunch of IOUs.
TSP G fund (which is treasury bonds) alone yields 6% over the past 10 years, and has a a
So the question is, why does the G fund pay better than SS treasury bonds? Well, they arent the same bonds, so i really don't know. SS is a pretty poor investment, i can buy treasury bonds on my own that pay better!
http://www.frbsf.org/images/pdfcharts/el99-34.p
(basically 1.5% if you are a middle wage earner).
A more honest solution would be, A, mandated retirement accounts ala TSP, or B, actually list SS what it really is, a flat tax on everyone, and list it as income to the general treasury.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
The parent poster suggests "If you took the worst case scenario given out by the Social Security Trustees as the future exactly as it will happen, Everyone will continue to recieve 100% of benefits until 2048, and then, after that, we'd recieve only 75% of benefits, and the system would continue to hum. "
Those that RTFA saw (p. 2) that "The agency's best guess, labeled its ''intermediate'' case, is that the system will exhaust its reserves in 2042. At that point, as payroll taxes continue to roll in, it would be able to pay just over 70 percent of scheduled benefits. That would leave a substantial deficit, but one that Congress could easily avert if it were to act now when the projected problem is more than a generation away.
"
Methinks someone has selective attention deficit disorder {clinical diagnosis - foaming democrat}.
I used to be on welfare and I find that offensive. There were times when I was hungry but I didn't steal or kill to get by.
If social security is a blackmail payment or a form of protection money ditch it now.
Because most of the people on welfare I know would be too proud/ashamed to take money if it was offered for those reasons only.
If you're interested in looking at one of the most social democratic pension systems in industrialized nations, you might want to take a look at the Finnish Pension System. Also the Swedish and other Nordic systems might be interesting.
Finland will have much bigger and much sooner retirement boom than the rest of the Europe (except Italy where the problem is even bigger) or the USA, so many are worried about the future. Well, at least the right-wing are, and they are, as usual, calling for demolishing the social security, unemployment, and pension systems before it is too late here too.
I believe that the success of Nordic welfare nations, including Sweden and Norway, gives some credibility to the social democratic economy, which essentially means balancing capitalism with social equality to fuel prosperity and justice.
Nevertheless, these economies are endangered by globalization, as global markets force them to compete on social issues.
This "IOU" is sometimes referred to as a "treasury security" because it is, in fact, a treasury security. It cannot be traded because it is held in communion with all other bonds in the Trust Fund, on behalf of American citizens. That does not mean it does not exist, any more than a publicly owned bridge, which also cannot be sold or traded by an individual, does not exist.
It is also true that no funds are "set aside" to meet these...what do you call them..."pseudo" obligations. Does the government ever "set aside" money to redeem OTHER treasury securities in the future? Where does it set it aside? Into its mattress?
Wrong. Federal tax receipts have dropped from $2.05 trillion in the last Clinton year to $1.85 trillion in 2003.
No, you're wrong. The previous poster had it right. The "decrease in revenues" did increase. Revenues decreased by an even greater amount after Bush's tax cuts.
The guy who wrote 'A FEW THINGS ABOUT SS' has his own view and it once was my view also.
That was before IBM blew my retirement away by various methods of creative accounting and other nefarious schemes.
The result is that I now really have to live on my SS and I didn't plan it that way at all. They offered us a 401K, sure , but it was in the negative earnings area and late in my career.
I always met the plateau and so paid the maximum each year. I wish I could have had the money to invest myself because this is what I saw:
People getting SSI who never worked a day in their life. Farmers suddenly could 'buy in' and had never paid a dime in their lifes. Disabled children then were added and those with whatever seemed to be prevalent thinking on what constitued 'disability'. I knew of on schoolteacher who got SS disability for having headaches. The list goes on and on.
The basic SS benefit was then extended again and again to those who should never have seen a dime of the money paid in by the workers and others.
All the lazy asses who never worked yet could draw should have been refused.
Its out of control now and there will be hell to pay. Do I care? NO! I paid my part and I want it all back with interest and I intend to get it.
The governement made the promise and took my money. I had no choice. So I want it back and with interest.
For the record: I started work in 1957 and retired
in 1993 at 55. I intend to live to 90. Its my payback time.
Take all the cheats and the deadbeats off SSI, SS and SS Disability and it will be solvent.
Doesn't matter if you are a millionaire of not. If you paid the withholding you got a right to the disbursement. Those who worked for low wages never paid in near as much as those like me and others yet due to the 'adjustments' to the formulas they get almost as much.
The truely proposterous idea is an idea that is implicit in this discussion. It's not the idea of whether or not raising/lowering taxes raises/lowers the amount of tax collected by the government, it's the idea that it's the government's job to bleed us of the maximum amount of money possible.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Fact is, Dubya was AWOL, and no one had the guts to say it loud enough.
Everyone who cared already knew that GWB neglected his duty during his later years of the guard. It was very widely reported in 2004. Hell, it was widely reported back in 2000 as well! (Though Gore couldn't really use it to his advantage since he also used his family connections to get a cushy position during the war.)
The whole point of the 60 Minutes story was that (allegedly) GWB's commanding officer was frustrated and angry at GWB's negligence , but powerless to discipline him in the face of what he perceived to be a dark and potent conspiracy.
The problem is that there's no evidence for any of this. Or, rather, there is evidence, but it is a very clumsy forgery.
And on top of that, CBS News went on telling us for a week that they were absolutely sure the documents were genuine.
I don't mind if the news people are biased, want to influence the election, or whatever. Everyone does. But to be fooled by what is obviously a slightly munged fax of a Microsoft Word document... now that's f***in' pathetic.
If everyone was like you and responsible and saved their money and didnt waste it on crap, then YOUR investments would DIE the ass because your investments in the stock market and market funds would go negative because suddenly all these companies would not get the revenue from all the idiots out there and thus your money would die.
The economy is a zero sum game, theres a looser for every winner, except its slightly faked by the fact that inflation and fractional banking creates 5-8% increase in magic money out of thin air and thus this is what creates wealth.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
First, make up your mind if it is $19 a month or a week. I'm going to assume you mean a week here. The extra $19 a week means that they earn 19/0.124=$153.23 a week. 40 hour week, that comes out to $3.83 an hour. Now lets go with the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. That comes out to $206 a week. %12.4 of that is $25.54 a week or $51.08 for two people working at minimum wage. 52 weeks a year, $2656.16 a year for two people. So YES that is a lot of money they could do more with and save with.
Every dollar you save is worthless, every dollar extra you pay on your debts is getting HUGE interest.
I know exactly how much my debts are accruing interest at and how much my savings is accruing interest at. Currently my debts are accruing interest at a lower rate than my savings. If that ever changes, I will start paying off my debts quicker.
you want to help people save? protest for federal health care, dential care, and mandarted public transportation. If most people do not have to spend most of their money on their medical needs they would be ableto save much more.
I already don't like this. I see you also think that government involvement in healthcare baloons cost. I agree. Not sure what you mean by the mandate public transportation, I don't have much in this area.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Taxes of 12-odd percent of our income are taken for SS.
That's 12.4% (6.2% of which is paid by the employer). Unless, of course, you make more that $87,000, in which case, your rate can be significantly lower. Someone with an annual income of $500,000 would pay about 2.16% in FICA Tax (Federal Insurance Contributions Act, a name we will get back to in a minute). Someone with $500,000 of unearned income (i.e. dividends, capital gains) would pay 0.00% in FICA tax. That makes the Social Security tax a regressive tax, in that low wage earners pay a higher percentage than high wage earners.
If you invested that money in private accounts, you'd be wealthy by the time you retired, even if you made some seriously bad investment decisions.
Yes, and if twinkies grew on pine trees, nobody would ever go hungry. The money is not a pension. It is not a retirement plan. It's not even yours. It's a fee you pay for the privledge of working in this country. In addition, it is an insurance policy. (Note the acronym above "Federal INSURANCE Contributions Act") It's poverty insurance. Congratulations! You're covered.
I'll assume you own a home and pay for fire insurance. I would even bet that your state or local government requires that you purchase fire insurance. With a little luck, your house will never burn down. After 20 years of good luck, are you going to start calling your insurance company to demand "return on your investment?" Feel free to try. Give them a call and tell them you're being "ripped off" because you haven't collected on your investment. Tell them that you're tired of them giving "your" money to people who weren't smart enough not to burn down their houses.
There's a difference between an investment and an expense. Insurance is an expense. Get used to it.
I know it's a social program, it's about the social contract and so on, but if the social contract is as one-sided as SS is, well, I want out. Period.
It IS a social contract. And if you want out of the contract move to Argentina, asshole. That's ssuming they'll take you. That's your way out of Social Security. Go somewhere else. Get a job making sneakers for Nike in Southeast Asia. Do it today and you'll never pay another cent in FICA.
I've never understood how so many the rich in this country think that they get no benefit from taxation. Do you think that your investments would be doing well if senior citizens were starving in the streets. Do you think that the social unrest that comes with extreme poverty is going to leave you untouched? (That's not to mention that the rich are the primary beneficiaries of most of the government spending in this country.)
You want to live here, pay your fair share and stop bitching. If you don't want to pay your fair share, what makes you think we want you here?
If you're making over $100K and you can't find another 12% of your income to stash away, you're doing something wrong. If you're making significantly less than $100K, you're probably going to need social security and you'd better hope it's there when you need it.
By the way, I'm rich... I'm also undertaxed.
Support SETI@home
Yet the numbers tell a different story. You are being swindled, pal.
And your numbers are?
I'm quite well aware of people writing up reports saying that there is nothing to worry about. Some say, for example that the assumptions of the models that predict bankruptcy are excessively pessimistic. But unless you point us to what you are using as the basis for your statement that we're being swindled, we can simply assume you are just blowing rhetoric.
On the other hand, I'm looking at a $20B hedge that one of financial history's most consistent performers has placed against the dollar. That is 15% of market cap on Berkshire Hathaway. Even more interesting, that is over 50% of the company's cash position, what it really took to position that hedge (he still has the cash, but it is a real pain in the ass to manage multiple currency positions like that). He is not the only one taking short positions against the dollar, just a trader who is well known to the mainstream. In his entire career, he has only ever made one other investment of comparable magnitude, and that is when he bought GEICO, which rocketed BRK.A to the top by essentially giving him a private venture fund to capitalize purchases of other income-producing assets. There is a first time for everything, and Buffett might be wrong, but odds are he knows something you don't.
Talk is cheap, but 50% of cash in the billions backs up a metric assload of talk. And Buffett is saying we're borrowing too much. He doesn't give specific prescriptive advice, but when you look at what we are spending on well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that even if we dropped defense to zero, we still won't dig out of our hole fast enough; and that's just the public debt. You want to talk about Social Security? Sure, let's talk unfunded liabilities. You think our current public debt hole is manageable? Okay, I'll give you a hole so deep, it exceeds the total net worth of the nation. In equities terms, the "book value" of the nation cannot cover the unfunded liabilities. The Social Security and Medicare Trustees' annual reports have to be off by almost 100% to make the unfunded liabilities even match the net worth of the nation.
Naturally, when you are talking about what you owe versus what you have, prudence dictates that you don't risk more than 10% of capital on any one class of expenditures. So you probably want the Trustees to be off by a factor of 10 to be relatively prudent. The only reason our creditors are not running screaming in the other direction is because we don't have to pay these unfunded liabilities right away, so it is not yet impacting our ability to pay them back. It's someone else's problem at this time, in other words.
I don't know what reports you're reading, but I'm looking through the Trustees' own words. If you can point to analyses that can demonstrate how the Trustees' numbers are off by an order of magnitude, hey, I might think history is being made and Buffett will make the biggest mistake of his trading career. The swindle I believe history will write, is upon the enstupidated and innumerate American voting citizenry, for believing they can get something for nothing. Thank God that we have intrinsic strengths that have not been totally destroyed yet, so we are unlikely to see Chinese Cultural Revolution scale deprivation and slaughter when the bill comes due. But make no mistake about it. If Buffett and a hell of a lot of other traders are right, we are in for an incredibly tough, whipsaw ride starting around 2010 or so. And going on for anywhere from 5 years to possibly decades, depending upon
Now i support the idea of private accounts as a person who understands finances but given what is paid in and the inflation in 40 years of working it is quite possible that you would lose. given that salaries where on avg 10k from 1960-70 lets be nice and say that salaries rose to 20k from 70-80, and lets say from 80-90 30k and 90-2000 40k. Now this is fair on the lower end, now I am 65 i am going to retire I have $100,000 by taking 10% of my total salary if I invested securely, I would have made interest on my money and I will be good.
If I let some wall street snake invest my money in George Bush's oil company and a bunch of dot bombs or enron now I have 40k left, unless you are experienced in investing you will screw up and get screwed by the wall street people. Now if you really want to fix the system this way we pool the money have it securely in diversified safe securities by a company under contract to the government, let a private entity control it make a big pool, build it using fixed income products and when people retire pay them SS out of this large dividend.
In the mean time though the elderly need to get that check, they live and die by it. Make no mistake SS helps poor people, they often are unprepared for retirement. The check comes every month and covers the property taxes on their home and some of the utility bills or their rent, or it subsidizes their care. Social Security is tremendously successful and works because essentially money paid in should be enough to support the elderly because of the increase in salaries and population grow. Now the baby boomers will be a problem because more of them are going to retire at one given time then ever before.
Now with this in mind we should up the SS tax to income over the first 88k to the first 200k, this will cover our problem. Also you only pay 6.2%, and the rest is paid by your employer, and if you think you will get this 6.2% extra if SS ends you are wrong, that is not how capitalism works and this is key the the GWB plan. Think of how much rich bastards will save when they do not have to pay into SS.
I'd say that a not-insignificant portion of my income is going away, and I will never see it again. Why can't I just invest this money on my own and promise the government to commit ritual suicide if I become too expensive to support myself in old age?
CBO == Congressional Budget Office
(They've done their own calculations.)
There's a difference between an investment and insurance, yes.
/is/ their investment money. If they had the freedom to invest it as they wanted, everyone would be better off. That's my argument, pure and simple.
But Social Security is bad insurance and a terrible investment. It offers a negative return on your money as a retirement program and negligible benefits as insurance. The death benefit, for example, is $255, which isn't enough even for the most skimpy of funerals.
I have a right to say that I want a specific fire insurance policy. If it's sold, I can buy it.
I have a right to invest with about ten billion companies. If there's an investment approach, there's a fund to support it.
Why is it that there is compulsory social insurance, a package that in my view provides lousy benefits at an extremely high price, that I cannot change?
What if I could invest in anything I wanted under the umbrella of social insurance?
That's what Social Security private accounts would do. In my opinion, it is righting a long-standing injustice, pure and simple.
If society, whatever that is, says we need social insurance, whatever that is, fine. But let us choose the policy that's best for us. At minimum, then, let's choose a policy that actually offers a positive return on our investment, and is not dependent on an increasing population to pay benefits.
That's what Bush is proposing with Social Security Private Accounts. Tell me what's wrong with that. It seems to me that it's common sense that if you invest money for your retirement, or to protect you when you're sick and disabled, you should be able to manage that money on your own.
One size fits all went out with Henry Ford.
D
PS Social Security hurts the poor more than anyone else, since they don't have the investment money we do. SS
Those who have not learned from history are doomed to repeat it. Once again. THOSE WHO HAVE NOT LEARNED FROM HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT. Modern young conservatives think social security was just put in place one day buy a bunch of save the world liberal wackos for no particular reason. The great depression was an awful good reason. That cant happen again? One of my favorite phrases: The British think 100 miles is a long distance, Americans think 100 years is a long time.
---------
No matter how thin you slice it, its still baloney.
There are many democratic countries which have neither hungry nor homeless in any statistically significant number.
Progressive taxation reduces absolute poverty.
Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.
Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world.
Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.
They will of course say it was Bush. When confronted with the fact that it was Clinton, you will notice that a large part of their memory seems to have vanished.
-nt-
It was Argentina under the Menem dictatorship in the 1980s.
For fifteen years, during the economic good times, and the handover to democracy, the system was held up to the world as an example to copy. Then a depression hit and people were starving in the streets of a previously rich country.
The point of a residual state retirement system is that it smoothes out the economic cycle for those who are least able to cope with change(which will be all of us when we are too old to work).
The provision of universal state pensions has coincided with the introduction of universal sufferage in almost every democratic country in the world. It just works.
which have appreciated against the USD in the last 18months much better than any so called smart degree qualified wallstreet junkie thief.
The USD belongs to the FRB, which denotes a DEBT probably back to asia/middleeast.
financialsense.com has everything you ever need, read it.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Social Security has gained the status of a civil right in the United States although, as stated earlier, it has been decided constitutially no one is entitled to any payout. But to be fair there are millions who have been paying into the system and deserve to see what they put in. It would be nice to allow younger workers to opt out of the whole system, but since we are the ones keeping it going that is not going to happen. I think part of the solution to this diabocle is to make changes to keep the system in line with how it was intended to work. It was developed to support old people for a few years before they die. (ignoring the whole disablility aspect for now) The key point is that it wasn't developed to support retirees for 15-20 years. When Social Security was first instituted, the age you were eligable for benefits was roughly the average life expectency. (~65 in 1935) What should have happened, and what should be happening now is that the retirement age should have been kept in line current life expectency. Meaning they retirement age in 2005 should be 77.2. The right thing to do is treat SS as it was intended and raise the age of retirement to the current life expectency, and keep it that way.
What the fuck? What the fucking fuck fuck?
If the economy is a zero sum game, why do you, I, and some 1,000,000,000 people have a standard of living (air conditioning, refrigeration, medical care, Slashdot, $1.99 Big Mac, $5.99/lb filet mignon, and $14.99 port) that would put everybody on the entire planet, including Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette, to shame?
It can print more money after all!
The important question is, can the government affordably meet its obligations?
Where there is growth in the retiring population, there will always be concerns as to whether the goverment can afford pay as you go social security to effectively support more people, and for longer. If the government cannot easily afford its spending commitments it has three options:
higher taxes, which will generally lead to lower growth;
higher borrowing or printing of money, which will generally lead to inflationary pressures; or
default on spending promises.
Strong economic growth now will remove or reduce these problems in the future, as tax revenues will naturally increase.
A switch to a market-based system for social security does not remove the above problem of choices. However it makes the third option much easier for the government to choose, in the event that the market does not help out over the next 20 years. It will provide the defaulting government with a fig-leaf of modesty: "it's not our fault the market fell on the day you turned 65".
Don't be fooled.
Social Security is a good system and was designed to take care of itself. The problem is when the government cannot quit borrowing against it. Yesterday on NPR, it was said that if the government would stop borrowing against it, it would continue to grow and take care of the system without a hiccup. As of right now $10T has been borrowed against it with government IOUs. And if something is not done about the practice of borrowing against it, it will crumble. Makes sense to me. The money should be locked up where no one can get to it.
The population of Hong Kong had very little idea of what regime would be imposed on them by the mainland following reunification. It is not surprising that so many kept investments rather than tying up all their money in expensive Hong Kong land. If the reunification had been bloody, millions would have fled.
So not really a valid comparator for individual savings rates, though I take the point that many countries beat the States.
With the controversy over the state of SS, I wonder why Bush has chosen to take on Social Security.
Prescription drug plan for the elderly and no child left behind are just the type of social program that anyone can get behind, but Social Security? Why?
Aforementioned friend answered back.
Jamestown, NY and Erie, PA were two of the areas she was looking at. She's also positive there are a number in the Midwest, but hasn't looked for them.
if you're that confident and/or well-heeled, you can self-insure. Stash away $40,000 or so you're not otherwise using in a designated account and let the Department of Motor Vehicles know about it, and you won't have to put up with insurance company bloodsucking. In other jurisdictions your mileage may vary.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
Unfortunately, congress has become a lobby playground for the wealthy and interest groups and created laws that promote the wealthy to not invest in the American worker--but merely use them as a consumer device in a system that forces us to be consumers. The Vegas bet is that our information, innovation, and education will always be sold at a premium. Looking at the dollar's value, "homie don't think so".
Hence it makes perfect sense to this administration (and wealthy, mainly rich repubs) why SS needs to be privatized. The crisis shouted by side A and flood of numbers displayed from side B is just a facade to make it look like congress is doing work. Their constituents (i.e. contributors) are only effected by how much money they will avoid paying--they still make cash business is not directly dependent on politics. Considering yesterday was MLK day makes me wonder what happened to public gatherings that really made a difference. (OK, we here, but look what happened to Howard Dean!)
Oddly, since Clinton's actions, Saddam Hussein has *not* been able to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas, or biological weapons. And it was done without occupying the country.
Incidentally, since leftists don't like Clinton, I doubt you would get the reaction you expect from a leftist.
Now a test for you: Who said (regarding Saddam Hussein), "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors", and when was it said?
I'd tell you but I'll leave it as an exercise for the student to do a Google search.
This is the second time you've mentioned ClearChannel in this thread, and I can't resist but bite this time. I don't think that there is a regulatory problem with conglomerates owning more than one station in a city. You're coming off sounding like someone who feels intellectually elite, as the only one who can differentiate between viewpoints. The average person is smarter than that, and if/when there is a problem, the market will react. In fact, I believe that the owners and management of terrestrial radio are running scared of what sattelite radio will provide to consumers, who will in turn jump ship for pay services. Sattelite radio programming seems to have channels that represent a wide range of opinions (many of which Concern would prefer to censor), with a broad diversity in programming. (I would post links to Sirius' news and entertainment sections, but their site sucks and links are fugly). Apparently, terrestrial radio management has figured out that they're going to lose, and are trying right now to make their prodict more attractive to listeners. Infinity broadcasting is cutting the ratio advertising to content time drastically, and are changing the format of many of their stations.
With all fairness to the Fairness Doctrine (and I know that you didn't mention it, but while I'm on my soapbox...), it is conceviable that a company could monopolize a market and just play their opinions and views. However, I have yet to see it happen -- the closest thing I saw to it thus far was so heavily protested the offenders had to change to avoid losing vast markets. Personally, I could care less about "public importance" -- I prefer entertainment. Furthermore, I find the idea of the federal government deciding which issues are entertainment and which are of "public importance" to be part propaganda and part censorship.
I don't want rant any further, I'm sure that you will disagree...but I had to sound off on this part of the issue.
-Turkey
Frankly with liberal anti-americanists like you as the only opposition, it is no wonder the Republicans stand unopposed.
Social Security shouldn't be a Right vs. Left issue. It should be a 'This would be a better solution because (insert data and theories here)' issue.
Love sees no species.
I'll second that. With automation, we shouldn't have to work so many hours to produce the same value. So what gives? I'd like to be able to work three and a half days a week, taking long weekends and reading, writing on Wikipedia or watching porn. Maybe all at once.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
All we did is increase the amount this generation and all future generations pays into our program so the previous generations can receive more benefit than their contributions could ever possibly be imagined to provide! Bankrupt the next generation! Live in a dream land! -- Canada needs another William Lyon Mackenzie. When he arrives, tell him I'm at Montgomery's Tavern.
This is the second time you've mentioned ClearChannel in this thread, and I can't resist but bite this time. I don't think that there is a regulatory problem with conglomerates owning more than one station in a city. You're coming off sounding like someone who feels intellectually elite, as the only one who can differentiate between viewpoints. The average person is smarter than that, and if/when there is a problem, the market will react.
Apologies. That wasn't my intention. As a matter of fact, I'm quite guilty of not doing my job in looking for the truth and/or different viewpoints - I tend to read cnn.com for an overview of the news. However, the fact that I too am devoting insufficient attention to the problem does not make it less of one. I am not intellectually elite in any sense - I am quite sure most people would concede that a broad, unchallenged voice holds tremendous power, which they can (and probably will) try to abuse. But I disagree the market will react, and that's the scary part. I think that people ARE smart but, like me, they would be unlikely to try and do anything about it (or pay serious attention to it) unless it directly impacts their personal comfort.
In fact, I believe that the owners and management of terrestrial radio are running scared of what sattelite radio will provide to consumers, who will in turn jump ship for pay services.
Possibly. However, I would have to see it to be convinced that statistically significant numbers of people would abandon a free service for a paying one. Also, if people are paying for it they may very well be doing so for entertainment rather than expanded information. I know I would be more likely to pay for entertainment than better news, although I'm not proud of that. I'm sure the land based stations are reacting, but whether to percieved or real threat will be shown only by the event.
Then they weren't very subtle about it, most likely. Twisting public opinion directly won't work. What you do is re-enforce what people want to think, are comfortable thinking, and think they already know. Then use that for your own ends. An example of subtle re-enforcement of social trends would be the fashion industry. Who decides what the "in" color is for clothing/purses/whatever each year? There always seems to be an "in" color, and I know I didn't pick it. People buying it because it's "in" didn't start the trend - they're the intended result. Who did? I'm betting they're making a heck of a lot of money off of the choice. What happens if the media starts using their (similar) influence towards similar ends in the political realm? IIRC a survey done of various news service viewers showed that FOX news viewers were under the impression that WMDs HAD been found in Iraq. Anybody who wanted to dig would have had a hard time finding the proof, but they didn't dig - it fit with their image of the war, so they believe it. Now, if FOX uses its skills to deliberately and subtly re-enforce that image support for the war would get stronger, without the detail of actual evidence. The people who are really good at this are masters of spin, and they can be very subtle and selective when they want. It's their business, particularly when you treat news as entertainment. I'm sure I'm as guilty as anyone of falling for it, but I don't like that they can do it.
Personally, I could care less about "public importance" -- I prefer entertainment.
Sadly, most people would agree with you. I myself am forced to concede that my behavior pattern indicates I feel the same way. Which is why it is all the more useful for the press to be skeptical seekers after truth, not capitalists out for advertising $$. If
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
As a federal employee, I participate in the Goverment's retirement system called FERS (Federal Employee Retirement System.. it replaced the Civil Service retirement system in the 1980s). The three componets of FERS are a modest traditional pension, traditional social security (the old CS system didn't pay into SS), and something called the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). TSP is the largest component and its website is found at http://www.tsp.gov. Basically, TSP works like a modified 401(k). Each person has an individual account, contributes a percentage of their pre-tax salary and the employer (in this case the gov't) matches it up to 5%. The individual can then invest in a number of government provided mutual funds. The funds are
The point here is that this serves as a model for "privatized" individual accounts and President Bush has already explicitedly said that TSP is his model. All the TSP index funds are closely monitored and highly respected stock or bond indexes. The money is in indiviual accounts and I control what funds I have my money invested in. If I want absolute safety with low payoff, I choose the "G" Fund and make myself happy with a 4% return. If I am willing to accept some moderate risk to get a higher payoff, I invest in the S&P 500 "C" Fund or the bond "F" Fund. If I want a little more risk for a potentially bigger payoff, I invest in the "I" and "S" funds. In fact, I keep it spread out amongst several to mitigate my risk. But I control which fund(s) my retirement is invested in. To date the return has been much higher than the goverment securities alone that social security is currently stuck with.
As far as administrative fees, they are absurdly low. If TSP serves as the model, then claims by the anti-reformers that the financial industry will sap the accounts is a red-herring. Annual adminstrative costs of the funds are typically between
Have you realized that what you're saying is that all forms of tax is socialism? D'oh!
How come no ones asking why Bush is pushing so hard for this? The real goal of this 'reform' charade is to siphon off huge amounts of money into big investment and insurance companies. They have been searching for a way to get their hands on some of it for years, and thanks to Bush, it might just happen.
The fund is still solvent after 70 years because it has been tightly controlled and could only be invested in treasury bonds. Slow growing, but the safest investment in the world.
The last few years wild ride on the stock market and the massive fraud by the financial institutions should prove that many of these companies cannot be trusted with your money. This is the same Administration that gave us Enron and WorldCom.
Always look for the man behind the curtain.
There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
See this site for a table of the current national debt broken down by category. Any corporation facing a future obligation that it must pay is required by law to state unfunded future liabilities in it's financial statements. None of these appear in the treasury reports.
Every penny of payroll taxes collected is spent. Not a single penny in excess of what is paid to beneficiaries is saved, BY LAW. If the social security "trust fund" is truly an asset, where are the assets? They're gone, and all that remains is a vague promise of the government to somehow raise the funds to repay these IOU's, subject to appropriations and future political will.
And if the government "defaults" on these IOU's, how likely do you think it will be to sue the government for the benefits it has promised but not delivered?
Don't confuse these with Treasury bills. If the government defaults on those, every source of funding for the government will evaporate, and that would be a disaster. If the government defaults on these social security IOU's (written to the government, by the government) the only party directly injured is the government.
I wish it weren't so, really. This is my future being screwed, and I'm not happy about it at all.
If deficits "don't Matter" as Dick Cheney pointed out, why then would deficit spending for social security be so problematic?
Damn logic.
**Assume that: G'(x)>0
means that an increase in x, or tax rate, will result in an increase in G(x), or tax revenue.
that is, if we want more tax revenue we should increase the tax rate.
You lost me right here. If you RTFA, you'd notice that it's not shocking news to hear that people are living longer. And in fact, it's an opposite occurrance. The rate of longevity has slowed. So while they took into account that the general population is living longer, we're not living as long as the forecasters intended.
I did RTFA and in fact knew about the relevant statistics probably before most readers of Slashdot. What's clear is that you missed my point. The precise rate at which life expectancy is changing is irrelevant to my argument. The point is that it is changing by some rate (whatever that is) and Social Security has no built mechanism for adjusting either payouts, retirement age or funding levels without an act of Congress. There have been a few minor adjustments but they do not fix the problem. Even the most optimistic assements admit that at some day in the future Social Security will go bankrupt without changes. It is a broken and IMO badly designed system. What will fix it is a matter for debate but my point was that its current funding system is at best irresponsible and at worst vaguely resembles a pyramid scheme.
Let me be perfectly clear that I'm not against Social Security in principle. The idea of a mandatory retirement savings program has some merit, especially given American's generaly reluctance to save anything. But if we are going to have one it ought to be funded sensibly. Otherwise I'm paying taxes I'd rather see put to more beneficial uses.
Social security is a social contract to take care of your elders and provide many of them with an income that enables them to live in something other than abject poverty. The right mentality is to pay it - not break the contract because you just KNOW someone will do it later when you are old.
I'm under 35 and I view Social Security as one of the smarter ways the U.S. government uses my tax dollars. Much more so than the money that goes toward supporting imperialist wars abroad and a military industrial complex (and the debt they both create) that currently consumes the largest chunk of our tax dollars.
Refering to the Social Security Program: "The program is a model of efficiency; expenses are low, as pension plans go, and participation is near universal."
Anyone who refers to a government program as a "model of efficiency" clearly has a political agenda.
"Participation is near universal" because if you don't participate, you go to prison. The American government has already spent the money that my great grandchildren will have to pay in taxes.
How can we force term limits on congress without a French-style revolution?
The life expectancy calculations you mentioned are a myth. Debunked by the NYT article. Further, the original Social Security estimates of life expectancy were almost spot-on perfect. They actually anticipated a longer life expectancy by a year or two, not a much shorter one.
Similarly, everything you said reads like a talking point list from the Republicans. And without going back and doing a point-by-point analysis of your claims vs the NYT, I think the article refutes every claim you made. If you want to argue this, start the point-by-point, quoting the NYT article or historical documents and I'll willingly commit the effort. But I won't waste my time on something I suspect is partisan astroturfing by an anti-SS advocate.
My take: the republicans have hated Social Security since day 1. They've tried to kill it at least 4 times. Now, they're saying it's doomed to bankruptcy and must be dramatically changed to be saved. Ironically, the remedy is very similar to the previous attempts to destroy it. Hmmm...
Republicans hate SS. They also hate that it's been unassailable (the proverbial 3rd rail). If they are the only ones that say it's doomed, Occam's Razor says they're lying.
You have constructed the most perfect strawman I have ever had the benefit of encountering before. Obviously, I did not say that it wasn't their fault. I was merely suggesting that blaming them was much easier than trying to fix the problem. Of course, I am a scientist and a fan of B. F. Skinner, so I do believe the word "fault" in this context is a mentalism, but as much as it is anyone's fault it is their own. Nevertheless, I believe that if we can help we should. An open question, IMO, is who "we" are. Are "we" the government, are "we" private charities, are "we" individuals doing what we think is right, or all of the above?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Social security is a social contract to take care of your elders and provide many of them with an income that enables them to live in something other than abject poverty. The right mentality is to pay it - not break the contract because you just KNOW someone will do it later when you are old.
"Contract" implies mutual agreement. The right mentality is to come up with a system that is fair to all those who participate. That in no way implies throwing people who depend on social security into poverty.
I understand that it's the youger generation's responsibility to pay for the mistakes of the previous generations, but there is no reason to do so while making the same mistakes all over again. Do you really want to burden the next generation with the care of your generation simply because you didn't plan ahead, or because you made a "social contract" with them before they could even participate in the debate? Do you trust them to pour money into the system the same way you do today?
Social contract - pretty much in all meaningful cases - implies that subsequent generations don't get to participate in the debate in the sense of establishing the framework. Did you participate in the Continental Congress or your state's constitution? Did you devise any of the laws that you live under?
I'd argue that social contracts imply a trust between generations and an obligations to treat those that came before and those that come after in the spirit of that contract - and improve upon it if we can.
As far as Social Security is concerned, the only real mistake on the table - for an otherwise successful program - is Bush's attempt to privatize it.
As far as Social Security is concerned, the only real mistake on the table...
...is Bush's attempt to privatize it.
It would be a mistake for our generation to not pay for our own retirement and remove the burden from our children if we have the means, and we *do* have the means. There is no reason for us to put the same burden on the next generation as our parents and grandparents left for us. Not only that, but if we make such a change, our generation and future generations will have even more financial security in their later years.
There are many ways we could change the system to be more secure in the future. Just because you don't like the one that is on the table at the moment isn't a good reason to be opposed to change entirely.
Starseeker, you are a rarity among Slashdoters. You didn't get angry when I disagreed, and you appear to be willing to discuss something openly without freaking out. Wow.
Like public radio/television and/or BBC? They are funded by businesses, and I don't find them to be totally impartial (they tend to lean left-centrist), but nonetheless, they are non-commercial. I don't think that the commercial and non-commercial news sources need to be mutually exclusive either.
No, you never mentioned it. That was just part of my rant pissing on the Fairness Doctrine -- that parts of it just didn't make sense to me. It was more of a response to the general thread than to anything you had said.
I tend to take a things have to get worse before they get better attitude. It's kind of bad right now, but I'm not quite sure we're there yet. When it starts getting really bad, people will seek out alternate sources. When commercial news orginizations lose all credibility and become pure entertainment, people will seek out other sources and take the commercial stuff for what it is.
Where I tend to be optimistic in this, is the use of the Internet as a news source (and a great equalizer). This way, people can seek out any opinion or perspective they want. Maybe Ted Turner was right, that he can't just go out and start another CNN because the marketplace is overcrowded, huge barriers to entry, etc, etc, etc. The nice thing is that Joe Blow and maybe a few of his friends can go out and start an Internet news site for a fraction of a percent of the startup cost of any news network. Making money off of it will be tricky, but as a labor of love, they can attain success (if success is defined for them as voicing their version of the news and reaching a broad market). I'm aware of the "digital divide", but I believe that this is changing as well.
-Turkey
There has been a lot of hype in the drive to censor them, but there are some pretty damning facts that make the case against Clear Channel to be weak:
They control less than 8% of United States radio stations. Consider this fact against the claim of a Clear Channel monopoly.
In every single market I've checked (I've only looked at very big cities), they control something between 10% and 35% of the radio stations. Far short of a majority, far short of a monopoly.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I think it is a bad idea for the rulers of a country to micro-manage media content in this fashion. If there is a public demand for such programming, surely someone will do it.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Ummm if your paying taxes you damn well be earning it....
Get up!
I agree that we should not count on having Social Security, and that a responsible person should take steps to attempt to ensure that they will not be a burden on the system (i.e., other tax-paying citizens).
As for the whole "coercive punishment" - see also repetitve redundancies as I don't believe punishment can be voluntary :) - I believe your logic to be flawed. Technically, punishment is the application of an aversive (or possibly the removal of a reward - depends on how technical you are being) with the goal to reduce a behavior. Negative reinforcement is the removal of an aversive with the goal to increase a behavior. Regardless of whether one is being technical (i.e., nitpicky), neither term makes sense unless one assumes that the goal of Social Security is to change one's behavior. That may be its effect, but hardly its goal.
The difference between effect and goal might seem to be nitpicky, but its central to your argument that Social Security is proof that you are "somehow at fault". If you accept that Social Security is not punishing you in an attempt to change your behavior, then it does not seem logical to think that its existence equates to you being to blame.
As for Social Security's coercive nature - all taxes are coercive. (Coercive actually being a good word - some people like to say taxes are forced on us, but we always have the option to not pay them and go to jail.) Many would rather their taxes not go to fund [insert objectionable activity that would be considered flamebait by some and insightful by others]. And, just like Social Security, many of these [objectional activities] are not well thought out. I guess what I'm getting at is that we can either complain about the problem, learn to accept the problem, or try to eliminate the problem. Unfortunately, most of us - myself included - usually fall into one of the first two camps.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
This is a perverse use of the word "holds."
Here's a quiz. Money invested in Treasury bonds:
A: Is "held" in G.W. Bush's mattress.
B: Is "held" in private investment (i.e. stocks).
C: Is "held" in gold at Ft. Knox.
D: Is spent, down to the last penny, by Congress.
My primary investment is Pete-Classic bonds. I give myself all of my "surplus" money to invest. I issue myself a bond, and then use the money to buy rims for my car and stereo equipment. When I need the money I will cash out the bonds by selling myself more bonds and/or raising taxes on myself.
I should run for office.
-Peter
To "prove" that Bush was AWOL, you'd have to "prove" that he was not present and did not have permission to be absent.
So it is impossible to "prove" that he was AWOL.
Much like Bigfoot and the Lock Ness monster, you will have people who, despite the complete lack of any supporting evidence, still believe that Bigfoot lives, Nessie swims and Bush served his time.
The fact that no one has been able to provide any evidence for Bigfoot or Nessie or Bush showing up for drills should be enough to conclude that they are fantasies.
Of course Warren Buffett is hedging against the dollar. He isn't doing it because of Social Security, he's watching his wealth shrink by the day as the dollar tumbles. The "50%" stake you cite isn't being put at risk as you imply, it's being protected from risk. That's what a "hedge" is. We're in a period of stunning and quite deliberate fiscal mismanagement - and an expensive, quixotic war and occupation on top of that - designed specifically to create a fiscal crisis and, as the neocons are fond of saying, "starve the beast" (intending, of course, to decide which beasts get starved). We are simultaneously running unprecedented fiscal and trade deficits. You complain about Americans "believing they can get something for nothing", but it is Bush and the Republicans that sold this idea to them. Let's all consume more now, borrow the difference, and let our children pay. And, oh yeah, we'll have a few wars and not pay for those, either. All of that cash that Bush gave back to us, to be funded through higher deficits and more borrowing, now floods the rest of the world to service our voracious appetite for foreign bling. We increasingly rely on foreign lenders to finance our ballooning deficits, but faced with a weak and declining dollar they will demand ever higher interest rates and we will have no choice but to accommodate them. High interest rates (think 70s levels) will suppress equities markets and - voila! - those private accounts will be funding paying off old deficits instead of fueling economic growth. What a shithole we're digging, and it's all by design, it's happening today, and as far as I know it's not even impeachable, because it doesn't involve any titillating sexual indiscretions.
Social Security is still running surpluses and of course has nothing to do with this (and won't for several decades to come). Demographics will put considerable stress on the system around mid-century, but that can be dealt with via measures that are far less radical than what we're being sold, which appears intended to precipitate the complete destruction of the system.
The front page of Slashdot has just outlined one reason why the projections might be suspect. Even if you take the idea of immortaliy as he describes it as out of reach, many of the areas he outlines that we are in the process of addressing will mean significant leaps in lifespan over what we see now.
The assumptions for increased lifespan were originally something like 13 years over the next 50, or something close to that - recently projections for increase have lowered because the trend of increased lifespan tapered off.
But just because we are at a shallow slope on a rising curve does not mean it can pick up again.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apparently you didn't read the parent that I was saying to mod up... Seriously, what I'm saying is not a revolutionary idea. Go back and look at the Federalist Papers to see the Founders' discussion of this.
Precisely my point. It's quite impossible to enumerate every one of the people's rights, or the ways in which government must be constrained. The Founding Fathers were smart guys. They realized this, and built the thing from the other way around. They gave a specific list of the things the government is ALLOWED to do. Don't just take my word for it; read Article I Section 8 in the actual document, and then the 9th and 10th Amendments.
As I mentioned above, the 9th Amendment:
in conjunction with Article 1 Section 8.You haven't studied this very much, have you? First, let me repeat that everything imaginable is a right of the people, unless it has been explicitly delegated to the government; see the 10th Amendment:
However, the courts have seen fit to allow a degree of wiggle room. Specifically, the Interstate Highway System is squeezed into "To raise and support Armies", because the roads are putatively built to move military materiel around.
The justification for education is even more bizarre, coming from the infamous Interstate Commerce Clause: "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States". That may be true, but the link is tenuous, considering the types of programs being pushed into education (how does sex education affect the ability of the poeple to read contracts and calculate invoices?).
Given the way that you phrased this, it's an easy question. Yes, not only do I believe it, but it's an objective fact. The thing is, the government does not have ANY rights. Only people have rights. Government has only the powers that are explicitly delegated to it by the people. For a fuller understanding of this, read Thomas Paine's Common Sense .
If I can rewrite your question properly, then yes, these specific powers are authorized in Article I Section 8 (and the 16th Amendment, in the case of taxation).
'Course, the size of the deficit shrunk by an order of magnitude during his tenure in office. I'd call that at least noticeable---especially since if the debt grows slower than inflation, the debt is in effect decreasing. Assuming that inflation was greater than 0.36% for that last year, the nation ran an actual surplus.
Neener.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
It is not clear to me what your argument actually is because you haven't fully presented one.
Your conclusion seems to be that privatizing social security is a good idea because it makes retirement more financially secure. How? In what ways is it better than the current system?
You claim that privatizing social security will remove the "burden" from children. How does it do it?
My guess is your argument probably goes along the same lines on how people argued for 401(k) plans. It removed the burden of having to pay pensions and retirement for corporations by enabling people to "take control" of their retirement - while at the same time relieving businesses of this responsibility and making other people's money more readily available to them for investment.
I won't argue that 401(k) plans are good for business and helped funnel money into stock markets. I will argue that they do not make retirments benefits more secure for workers. Nor will privatizing social security.
Privatizing social security will, in fact, undermine the financial security of the elderly and funnel more money into the pockets of the rich and powerful - following the same pattern that has been in place since Reagan of concentrating wealth into few hands - a practice that undermines our republic. It will do this while it impoverishes seniors that rely upon the current system.
Simply put, privatizing social security is bad policy. It's not a matter or what I like or don't like or whether I like change or not (which frankly, you aren't in a position to speculate upon).
I was referring to the single fiscal year of 1999-2000. But you make a good point; gridlock makes for better budgets.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Your conclusion seems to be that privatizing social security is a good idea because it makes retirement more financially secure.
Not really. I guess we both did some speculation on each other's position...
I think things need to be restructured, but you don't need to privatize it to do that. Just because we transition from a system where the people paying in now are subsidizing people who have stopped paying to one where we save money in advance doesn't mean we have to transition from a system that is managed and underwritten by the government to one that is based on private investment. I don't have a plan or a magic bullet really, mostly because I don't have the time to sit down and do the math, but ignoring the situation (which is exactly what this New York Times article seems to advocate for the most part) is probably not the best idea.
Well, I don't think it is fair to ask you for a plan or a magic bullet. I don't have one either. I don't know enough about how the present system works (and other options available when you talk about a system as big as Social Security) to suggest improvements.
With that said, I think it is fairly intuitive to understand that privatizing social security is a radical departure from the current system that -if tried - would be real easy to mess up and leave society in a worse situation than if you did nothing.
On a personal level, I don't think privatization is the right way to address society's problems. However, this is a philosophical perspective on what is right - a perspective upon which reasonable people can disagree.
I can agree that if you can improve Social Security so that it is better for everyone involved, you should do so. Few things in this world have reached a state of perfection where they cannot be made better. Social Security is obviously not one of those exceptions.
The question is: what is to be done? And this question should be asked with an eye toward what will make things better in the long term - not how I can get more money paid to me as a contributor, right now. We both seem to agree on that point.
There is no surplus. There never was. And rightly, there never should be. A surplus means an inefficent underallocation of resources when it comes to programs like SSI. The alleged surplus was a projection based on increased payments during the dot com boom, which didn't last. As for 'spending', that never happenned either. What happenned was individual allocations were restructured.
You clearly have little understanding of the matter. I see it from both ends - my girlfriends uncle works as an actuary for the social security administration, and he spends his entire day shuffling numbers and moving money around trying to keep the SSA legal and makeing its payments. On the other end, my step-brother receives payments, and has seen a sharp decline over the last four years as beauracrats trying to keep up with the flood of new recipients keep cutting back benefits. You, on the other hand, appear to only be equipped with information you get from articles in the NY Times, and we now how accurate and objective they are.
Yes. AKA retirees, though fewere and fewer are actually retiring when they start taking SSI benefits.
No, the idle class that made this world go round, and is now soundly ignored by the youth, their progeny, and pretty much everyone except the nursing home and politicians needing an issue to generate exposure for themselves.
Not very likely.
I think you need to modify your meds.
In math it's considered one of the fundamental principles of Calculus.
Dear Jackass:
When the New York Times admits that they have a Liberal Bias, you'd do best to not try and refute it.
as otherwise you are correct that force has little meaning.
However, as for the penalty/punishment issue I still disagree. It might or might not be normal to view the coercive redistribution of wealth as a penalty. Not being normal myself, it is hard for me to judge. As for it being rational, it is not (not that I'm claiming to rational myself, just that I'm closer to being rational than I am to being normal). A rational viewpoint might be to ask if it is meant to be a punishment. But then once asked it would be rational to question what the purpose of the punishment was. Since there would be no rational purpose of the punishment, it would be rational to assume that it is simply not fair, which is an entirely different beast altogether. And, of course, you know what everyone's mother taught them about not fair...
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
grew up and started paying taxes like they do in civilized countries (ie, not the few pennies they do now) the problem would be solved. And those who don't want to be civilized can go live in the jungle somewhere.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Oh, and Social Security does not resemble insurance at all. It's better compared with an annuity.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Maybe if you read your own link...
The public editor serves as the readers' representative. His opinions and conclusions are his own.
I don't see how this is NYT admitting anything. It's one person's argument. Because he works for the NYT makes for a stronger point, but it does not constitute the paper 'admitting' anything.
over the past four years and not one Republican bats an eye. But, the chance that Social Security may go into deficit spending twenty years from no is a crisis ?
The best thing that Republicans can do to implement changes in SS is balance the budget. Until then they have zero credibility on fiscal issues.
All I'm saying is that if you are trying to persuade someone to accept your argument, you had better not destroy your credibility by making a totally false statement.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
I'm sorry, did you also not read the part about the masses complaining that the entire paper was too liberal?
THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH HAVING A BIAS. It means you're human. There *IS* something wrong when you have a bias and trying to hide it, like Broadcast news and Fox News do, or trying to deny it, like you are with the New York time.
by Bush Inc....Whne theres a problem, Dubya reaches for the credit card.
Except of course that "Pete-Classic" bonds aren't likely to be trusted as well as US Treasury bonds. But go ahead, prove me wrong. I'd love to see more experimental derivatives. Tip your hat to Financial Engineering!
(Just remember that to get it to work, you need other people investing, and not just your own funds...)
"Special public-debt obligation Securities of the United States Government issued exclusively to the OASI, DI, HI, and SMI Trust Funds and other Federal trust funds. Section 201(d) of the Social Security Act provides that the public-debt obligations issued for purchase by the OASI and DI Trust Funds shall have maturities fixed with due regard for the needs of the funds. The usual practice in the past has been to spread the holdings of special issues, as of each June 30, so that the amounts maturing in each of the next 15 years are approximately equal. Special public-debt obligations are redeemable at par value at any time and carry interest rates determined by law (see "Interest rate"). See tables VI.A5 and VI.A6 for a listing of the obligations held by the OASI and DI Trust Funds, respectively. "
I would say supporting the lies behind the Iraq war agenda is a tad more irresponsible journalism than memogate.
Did you watch Fox News's review of Star Wars II, Attack of the Clones? The one where they unfavorably compared Senator Hillary Clinton with Queen/Senator Amidala?
Viacom executives have nightmares more fair and balanced than the average Fox News evening segment.
There are a mountain of FNN stunts more outrageous than the Dan Rather incident. FAIR has identified many of them. This is why conservatives now lie about FAIR so much. No choice.
I'm going to avoid too directly associating myself with your National Socialist - style railing against those you dislike by not answering any of that directly: I'll just point out that, by strict definition, any attempt to revoke existing controls is a liberal doctrine.
Do you believe Michael Powell and George Bush are fascists? They strongly believe in regulating the content of the mass media.
Your own party isn't with you on this one.
Fairness Doctrine-like rules for broadcast media go back to say, around 1937 and were in effect until just a couple of years ago. Was Nixon a fascist? Or how about FDR? This would have been news to Hitler.
Moderation on Slashdot does censor things
No. Pushes them down on the page. Makes them a link away.
though I am somewhat reluctant to label ideas as "bad" in such a blanket fashion as you are.
Yeah you like to take the high road and call people National Socialists. Dude, haven't you people heard of Godwin's law? You lose before you start.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
Then you have either not seen FNN, or have not seen the other media.
LOL, it's fucking obvious, retard!!!!!!!!!!
Fine... I stand corrected. :-P
Facist and liberal aren't mutually exclusive....
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
So, among "liberal-haters"... do you think of yourself highly?
I mean, ignorantly trolling an issue, and then calling your political opponents Nazis... Is that about the best you guys have?
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
He isn't doing it because of Social Security, he's watching his wealth shrink by the day as the dollar tumbles.
The significant bulk of earnings for BRK-A comes from insurance investment income and non-insurance business. There are some international holdings like Cologne Re, but by and large the underwriting portion of BRK-A supplies earnings but are significantly offset by long-term liabilities which he smartly insists upon fully accounting for. Basically, while the reinsurance business supplies him with plenty of cheap cash, the parts of BRK-A that really throw off unencumbered cash are the non-insurance portions. Look at his largest equities investment holdings, and survey the range of business holdings. The vast majority (100% of the major equity positions he uses as a compromise proxy for holding the business, about 90% of the subsidiaries by count, they don't break out balance sheet, earnings statements, etc. by subsidiary unfortunately) are U.S.-based businesses; they have international operations and sales, but by and large they concentrate on the U.S. markets.
So you are saying that with a pre-dominant orientation to U.S. markets, he decides that his lesser orientation to international markets justifies repositioning his cash? That doesn't make sense because there are transaction costs to moving cash around like that, and Buffett is not in the habit of paying other people a lot to hold his cash for him. That's why outside of insurance-related risk management activities, you see him tend to just sit tight on top of a mountain of fairly mundane cash instruments with hyper-low transaction expenses. Because his overseas exposure is relatively limited, he doesn't have a huge incentive to switch cash allocation strategies away from a dollar denomination unless he was convinced we're facing a sea change in the forseeable future.
Furthermore, ever since we floated after closing the gold window in the 70's, we've seen fluctuations of the current magnitude before; in fact, worse differentials. BRK-A sat through all of those fluctuations because Buffett simply doesn't care about chasing the first and last 20% of a move. He's not moving because "he's watching his wealth shrink by the day as the dollar tumbles", he's moving because something much bigger has caught his attention. On the order of what traders call a "secular" change.
What a shithole we're digging, and it's all by design, it's happening today, and as far as I know it's not even impeachable, because it doesn't involve any titillating sexual indiscretions.
So you're saying this is all caused by the Bush administration and Republicans? All or most of it? Show me the numbers for that assertion, because the record shows both sides of the aisle fed copiously at the trough. Reckless spending is an equal opportunity sin. It took decades of irresponsible spending by everyone (citizens and Congress) to get us to this close to insolvency. If you snapped your fingers, erased the last five years, and replaced Bush with whoever you prefer, it won't materially change the fact that the American electorate wilfully voted over the course of generations for deficit spending, largely on goals that result in non-income producing assets, and their duly elected representatives complied. The sooner we stop pointing fingers to assign blame for sunk costs, which only wins political points and not national economic advantage, the sooner we can address the national behavioral problems that led us into this mess in the first place.
Public finances are a funny thing, they don't quite operate like a household or business. Because they can roll over debts and tinker with taxation to raise capital, and creditors don't ever really call due the entirety of the debts, everything can go swimmingly until the creditors as a group suddenly lose faith in t
It is, only if you believe the Spanish Inqusition is about protecting religious freedom. Consider this fact: The "Fairness Doctrine" involved the government intruding into expression and banning people from saying certain things.
How is this not "censorship"? You also added that only conservatives oppose it. This is not true. Proponents and beneficiaries of free political expression do exist on both sides. Public radio all-news stations (discouraged under the "Fairness Doctrine") have flourished. These tend to be loved by the left more than the right.
You are going off on a wild tangent, as well. The "Fairness Doctrine" involved broadcast media, especially radio. You mention it because you think that if it was in place, it would censor Fox News. This is not the case. Cable TV was never regulated by the "Fairness Doctrine". If you want to censor Fox News, bringing back the "Fairness Doctrine" would not do it. Perhaps a "You Cannot Say it Unless I Like It" doctrine would do it for you?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Your posts are stepped in such bias. A left-wing group that only slams conservatives (FAIR) is called "centrist". You repeatedly call conservative viewpoints "propaganda" and call for their censorship (while not calling for the same for liberal viewpoints).
At least I am consistent. I do not falsely and pejoratively label any political opinion from any side "propaganda", and I have yet to ask for any of it to be censored.
"Conservatives run the country. Why should I refrain from dissent? Are you really American?"
Yet, you want conservative media to refrain from dissent....
"No surprise you're here defending [free political expression] on TV"
That is what I am doing.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Overall, the system serves the democratic wishes here. There is majority support only for medical marijuana: minority support for legalization overall. Prostitution enjoys small support among voters. "Legalized gambling" is complicated. Many states have a lot of casinos and lotteries, so legalized gambling is found in much of the country. However, in the last election, the voters in some places voted to restrict expansion of gambling.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
You have only used the term "propaganda" to involve political expression you do not like. For any political speech, there are never any "victims". Remember the old "sticks and stones" adage.
"out conservatives love to censor stuff, and they do it every day. They just don't like to censor political propaganda"
There are plenty of conservatives (too many) that like to censor political speech ("propaganda") of the "other side", just as you, as a liberal, want to censor the side you are not on.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
There is an element of fascism in any aspect of extending government's power over the governed. However, it must be pointed out that you believe much more strongly in regulating political speech (the term "mass media" is irrelevant) than they are.
"Was Nixon a fascist? Or how about FDR?"
They certainly had their fascist qualities (FDR with great expansion of government and Supreme Court packing attempt; Nixon with his CREEP), while neither went anywhere near as far as to equate them with Hitler.
It's pretty clear that Hitler would have banned both Janet Jackson's boob and media networks critical of him (propaganda). Which do you think is much more alarming when it comes to the health of the democracy: banning bare boobs or banning opposition political views? You have focused strongly on demanding the latter.
"No. Pushes them down on the page. Makes them a link away"
You are absolutely correct that slashdot moderation has nothing to do with censorship.
You are making a lot of sense, but moderation on Slashdot is an expression of free speech. It is not in any way censorship. Or do you think that Roger Ebert is "Censoring" a Pauly Shore movie when he gives it a thumbs-down? No, he is not. Free speech includes the freedom to criticize and "mod down".
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Your wanting to censor people just because they do not share your opinion about issues such as the Iraq war is rather extreme, isn't it? I am not surprised that someone equated you to a Nazi. I can't recall the last time a major voice of either the Left or Right actually went as far as you did and called for government to (so to speak) smash the presses of the infidel.
The best way to fight the free speech of Fox News is with other free speech, and NOT with the jackbooted oppression of government censorship. Al Franken's book, and the "Outfoxed" documentary are the way to go. Fight ideas with ideas, not thuggery.
Your idea could backfire, too: If the government did what you wanted them to and barred Fox News from cable, Fox News' reputation would do nothing but grow: "Fox News: the news the government does not want you to see!" The first court case of someone being jailed for illegally getting Fox on their satellite dish would be very interesting.
The action you want would turn Fox News into a symbol of resistance to government oppression of expression world wide.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
There is an element of fascism in any aspect of extending government's power over the governed. However, it must be pointed out that you believe much more strongly in regulating political speech (the term "mass media" is irrelevant) than they are.
"The term mass media is irrelevant" un your imagination.
This is a clever way to try to deceive or confuse people, but it will not work on me. Unless you are fooling yourself you may as well give it up.
I believe what George Bush believes, which is that Television and Radio are different from political speech, because not every American can have a Television or Radio station... The lucky few that can have responsibilities to the American people.
You, however, are a kind of radical broadcast-policy anarchist, who is additionally implying our president is a fascist, during wartime no less.
Which do you think is much more alarming when it comes to the health of the democracy: banning bare boobs or banning opposition political views? You have focused strongly on demanding the latter.
This, ladies and gentlement, is a "clever" debating trick called, I suppose "bait and switch" or "sleight of hand."
He has substituted something absurd, that is basically the opposite of what I am saying: "banning opposition political views." Then attempted to pin it on me.
Meanwhile, it was conservatives ending the Fairness Doctrine that allowed Television broadcasters to silence dissent.
The Fairness Doctrine protects political speech, by making sure it gets on the air when its opposition does, or that, if not, it's discussed in the newspapers, internet, and living rooms, like it always was.
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You have only labelled conservative views as "propaganda" and called for their censorship.
"is it alright to rebut this ridiculous statement by pointing out that German Jews would probably disagree with you?"
Maybe some would, or some would not. However, the fact remains that bad Nazi information killed not one single Jew or anyone else. Bad guys with guns did the deed.
"the propagandists at Fox, by their dishonesty in stumping for the war, have the blood of American soldiers on their hands."
This is an opinion you have about Fox, not a fact. Many share it with you. Many do not share it. It is, in fact, a very disputed issue. It is one of the hot political issues of the time. Yet you would have Fox News censored over your opinion about it: you would censor those who do not share your opinion about an important political issue that divides the country.
"I advocate restoring the Fairness Doctrine. This is precisely the opposite of what you are saying"
You advocate having AM radio stations replace Limbaugh with music (so far so good, you say). You advocate NPR news-only stations and "AirAmerica" going off the air. The Fairness Doctrine would demand this. And guess what? Fox News would be unaffected, despite your opinion that it is bad.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
It is irrelevant Constitutionally. The Bill of Rights does not include some idea to censor people if they reach "too big" of an audience.
" believe what George Bush believes, which is that Television and Radio are different from political speech"
Do you believe him on everything?
"The lucky few that can have responsibilities to the American people"
Yes. These responsibilities are served when they broadcast what the public wants. As determined by the public, not the government.
"You, however, are a kind of radical broadcast-policy anarchist"
Since when is "Freedom of the press" so radical?
"(You have focused strongly on demanding the latter.)... This, ladies and gentlement, is a "clever" debating trick called"
It is central to the discussion that you have supported censoring of political views (so-called "propaganda") you do not agree with.
"Meanwhile, it was conservatives ending the Fairness Doctrine that allowed Television broadcasters to silence dissent"
Do you have any specifics of altered TV broadcast content?
"The Fairness Doctrine protects political speech by making sure it gets on the air when its opposition does"
It censors it. Look, again, at the facts. Under the Doctrine, radio stations chose to air almost no political content at all rather than have the government control it.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Your wanting to censor people just because they do not share your opinion about issues such as the Iraq war is rather extreme, isn't it?
I am amused.
Link to the post where I said this.
Oh wait, you can't, because you're a liar. You like to make things up and pretend people said them.
Fight ideas with ideas
You are the FCC. You won't let me have a TV station. The existing TV stations won't let me on the air. You broadcast 1-sided propaganda on an issue, and refuse to allow anyone representing another side of it on the air. You have censored me.
"Go on the internet," you say. "Write a newspaper."
Sure, that's fair. I have another idea. How about we trade? You get the internet and the newspaper and give me the TV station.
No?
barred Fox News from cable, Fox News' reputation would do nothing but grow:
I do not want to bar them from cable. I want them to stay on! I just want them to stop censoring their political opposition. I want them to follow the rules laid out for broadcasters and followed from unto our grandparents days until just a few years ago.
You know what I want, though? I want you to stop being friends with Osama bin Laden. Your giving money to terrorists should not continue.
Oh wait, thought I was you there for a second. There is no more basis to say you give financial support to Al Qaeda than for you to lie about my wanting to selectively censor people.
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It is irrelevant Constitutionally. The Bill of Rights does not include some idea to censor people if they reach "too big" of an audience.
The Bill of Rights doesn't include some idea to censor people for libeling, slandering, cursing, threateting the president, making false advertising, or telling people how to circumvent copy protection, either.
It seems like all of that is too complicated for you to understand, so I'll put it another way with a simple question, which you can answer yes, or no, (or not answer at all, to show you know you're busted):
Do you support pornography on television, on saturday morning, with no warning labels required?
You can stop avoiding the question now. A simple yes or no will do.
Do you believe him on everything?
Not even Dick Cheney agrees with George on everything. It just happens to be something the President and I agree on.
Yes. These responsibilities are served when they broadcast what the public wants. As determined by the public, not the government.
I hope I can soon get you to have the entire "the governments job is to give the public what it wants" debate with me. This will be good.
If the public wants to have segregation return, is that cool with you, AtariAmarok?
Or do we have democracy to form a government tha decides what is best?
Since when is "Freedom of the press" so radical?
You don't want freedom of the press. You've always had freedom of the press. You sometimes claim to want "Freedom of Mass Media," something almost no elected Conservative wants.
You either advocate "Freedom of unlabeled Pornography on TV on Saturday Morning" or you admit you are a lying hypocrite.
I notice you're afraid to respond to this point.
It is central to the discussion that you have supported censoring of political views (so-called "propaganda") you do not agree with.
And it is central to the discussion that you are a known terrorist sympathizer who hates the United States.
Oh wait, I forgot, I'm not you. I don't make things up and pretend you said or did them.
Do you have any specifics of altered TV broadcast content?
I provided it already. The FAIR document.
It censors it. Look, again, at the facts. Under the Doctrine, radio stations chose to air almost no political content at all rather than have the government control it.
It does not censor it. It insures that it's fair. if some radio or TV stations would rather be silent than fair, that is fine. It was part of the intent. No speech was silenced; everyone was perfectly able to communicate their ideas the way they always had, with newspapers and speech (and eventually the Internet, which was around for many years before the rule was repealed), and they did so.
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"Over the objections of many of its own employees, the Social Security Administration is gearing up for a major effort to publicize the financial problems of Social Security and to convince the public that [privatized] accounts are needed as part of any solution." (The New York Times, 1/16/2005)
Ok, so one could concievably argue that the employees are worried about losing their jobs, and the SSA is worried about the American people. Publicizing problems - that's a good thing: people should know about the financial difficulties of their retirement fund. Convince...whoa, whoa, wait a minute, there, buster! First of all, precisely what is to be done about Social Security privatization is the business of the legislature, not the SSA. The organization itself should merely provide facts and objective analysis to the discussion, not opinions. If the SSA starts telling us what we should do, then there's a serious conflict of interest: shouldn't its suggestions be ones that would tend to insure the SSA's continued existance? Yes.
Wait! They're not. Now, THAT sounds fishy. Of course, you could argue that the self-devaluing nature of the SSA's recomendations supports their credibility. One could also argue that it shows that they are being manipulated by higher powers, eg the Executive Branch. We'll never know which it is. The only way to have an honest discussion of SS reform is if the SSA stays out of it.
Here is the phone # of the SSA. Tell them what you think of their role in the discussion.
1-800-772-1213
After the greeting, dial 1 for English or 2 for Spanish.
Then press 3.
Then press 0 to speak to a representative.
Earlier, you said Fox mislead people into war, and was profiteering from the deaths of our troops. Those were not your exact words, but this is a fair paraphrasing. The reason I cannot link to your post is because I could not find it in the small recent list of posts that Slashdot shows. This statement about Fox is an opinion, not a fact.
"I do not want to bar them from cable. I want them to stay on! I just want them to stop censoring their political opposition"
You mean Fox News would have to add a few token liberals? Oh wait, they already did! Perhaps this doctrine you want would make no difference. That is my hope. Not because I approve of Fox only having token liberals, but because I believe that their content (and everyone else's) is for them to determine, and not the government.
"You know what I want, though? I want you to stop [fake made-up babbling]"
You are "on the nut" again.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
So this means it is OK for the government to censor political content just because you do not like it?
"You don't want freedom of the press"
Yes, I do. Even if the press falls under the meaningless term "mass media". Let Fox, CNN, etc express political views without the government doing what you want and censoring them.
" notice you're afraid to respond to this point"
The porn point is entirely off topic, and is a diversionary tactic.
"It does not censor it. It insures that it's fair"
If you try to present or publish something, and the government comes in and says "no, you can't say this. You must say this because I think it is "fair"", that is certainly nothing but censorship.
"if some radio or TV stations would rather be silent than fair, that is fine"
As long as it wipes out Fox News, you are happy, right? As long as Rush Limbaugh is replaced with Montovani, and NPR news radio is replaced with Mahler, it is OK?
"(Do you have any specifics of altered TV broadcast content?) I provided it already. The FAIR document"
Which one? The Fox News one had nothing to do with broadcast.
"I forgot, I'm not you. I don't make things up and pretend you said or did them"
You have devoted entire paragraphs to off-topic and insulting Bin Laden babble. Indeed, you do this.
The most telling quote lately is "It insures that it's fair. if some radio or TV stations would rather be silent than fair, that is fine"... to you, mass censorship of media is fine. A big silence rather than have people express their opinion in an unfettered fashion, without having to worry if it is "fair" to government censors.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Earlier, you said Fox mislead people into war, and was profiteering from the deaths of our troops. Those were not your exact words, but this is a fair paraphrasing.
No. I never suggested Fox personally profiteers.
Their biased pro-war coverage is well documented.
You mean Fox News would have to add a few token liberals? Oh wait, they already did!
No, their content should be fair. The government already regulates them. They just started giving their propaganda a pass.
"On the nut," coming a guy who believes facts are whatever he says they are, invents outrageous libels and refuses to give even a link to back it up, who likes porn on TV, and who is either against putting warning labels on it or is an avowed hypocrite, and who is a serial liar about immediately preceding posts.
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So this means it is OK for the government to censor political content just because you do not like it?
I can't tell for sure, but now it looks like you're using your clipboard to repeat your lies. I know I can use mine to answer this.
"The Fairness Doctrine protects political speech, by making sure it gets on the air when its opposition does, or that, if not, it's discussed in the newspapers, internet, and living rooms, like it always was."
The porn point is entirely off topic, and is a diversionary tactic.
It is at the very heart of the topic, and you know it. One minute you don't accept any censorship. Next minute you want to censor things. This is the very definition of on-topic, and you are afraid to answer it because you are either a knowing hypocrite or a coward.
If you really believe putting porn on TV without labeling it is OK, just say so.
If you try to present or publish something, and the government comes in and says "no, you can't say this. You must say this because I think it is "fair"", that is certainly nothing but censorship.
The government cannot do anything else.
We can't all have television stations without rules, because the signals will overlap. So the government makes rules, divides things up, and says who can broadcast and who can't. By your absurd and illegal definition, they are already "censoring" you the second the FCC regulates anything.
It is therefore very obvious for them to impose rules on the privileged few who get to broadcast, and they do it every day.
The only diversionary tactic is you refusing to admit you are a hypocrite about it, and support the rules only when they do not apply to your love of televised propaganda.
As long as it wipes out Fox News, you are happy, right? As long as Rush Limbaugh is replaced with Montovani, and NPR news radio is replaced with Mahler, it is OK?
Repeating this baseless lie seems to be your biggest idea.
At this point, because when you have been completely rebutted all you know how to do is repeat what we've already demonstrated is wrong, I will merely supply another self-quote:
"I have never advocated partial censorship; my position on the First Amendment is on solid ground with both sides of the supreme court and a decades-long bipartisan succession of American executives; I am not a liberal, neither is advocating the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine inherently liberal or indeed partisan in any way..."
You cannot point to any place that I have advocated partial censorship. All I have ever advocated is fairness, and this frightens you, so you go into slander mode. Your credibility, your intellectual dignity makes an excellent sacrifice to the cause... you hope.
Which one? The Fox News one had nothing to do with broadcast.
Be more clear about what you want, and I will supply it.
You have devoted entire paragraphs to off-topic and insulting Bin Laden babble.
No sir, most definitely on-topic.
You believe you can make up any accusation you like and refuse to justify it. I am merely playing by your rules. By criticizing this, you are criticizing yourself. Babble does describe what you do, to an extent.
The most telling quote lately is "It insures that it's fair. if some radio or TV stations would rather be silent than fair, that is fine"... to you, mass censorship of media is fine. A big silence rather than have people express their opinion in an unfettered fashion, without having to worry if it is "fair" to government censors.
Oh, I see, you've learned a new trick: selectively quoting. I am starting to see why you are so desperate to slander fairness in broadcasting. Perhaps with this latest achievement, you may have enough tricks in your repertoire to be considered something of a junior propagandist yourself. Let's read the rest of the quote.
Maybe you will answer it next time, instead of being sc
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There are projects that are necessarily in the scope of a federal government. These include but are not necessarily limited to: a military for national defence (the #1 goal of a national government should always be to have a nation to govern), infrastructure (possibly), and regulation of interstate trade. Two of those are specifically spelled out in the constution.
My point was that whether the government spends resources on national defense or medicare or roads, that is blood, sweat, treasure that is not being reinvested into the economy and producing new real wealth. Defense and roads are reasons to slow down the economy however (there would be no economy at all without them) so are justifiable at the national level.
The nefarious accounting was not the buying of T-Bills. It is perfectly acceptable to invest the SS revinue overages in whatever products will secure that money for the future. Though it may not be acceptable to collect those overages in the first place. On an individual basis saving for retirement makes sense but on a national basis this makes less sense as the services and products are not being saved. Only the money which ultimately is just a number is being saved. The nefarious accounting came in when the T-Bill purchases were counted as general revinue rather than incurred debt. Although upon further reflection, though this seems egregious, it is an accurate reflection of what is actually happening to the extra wealth collected beyond the necessary: it is being destroyed along with all other general revinue. A question you should ask yourselves is this: when the T-Bill is exercised, who pays for it? answer: taxpayers will.. those same taxpayers who are paying higher taxes to buy those T-Bills in the first place. (or rather, their children)
My second paragraph was in my opinion the most profound and also most ignored. There will be fewer workers to retiree in the future producing the services and products that will be used. The money that is being saved in the form of T-Bills now will be worth less in the future since it will be used to purchase from the same supply of man-hours. There are only a few solutions when that time comes: Reduce benefits to all retirees, reduce the number of retirees (by increasing the age or other requirements), demanding more (on a % basis) from available workers and increasing the number of available workers through immigration or policy incentives for having more children.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Was the Tennessee Valley Authority. During the depression, The entire nation needed a kickstart. Noting how electrification had improved the economies of other areas of the nation, the Roosevelt administration undertook a massive public works project to electrify the tennessee valley region. There were to be dams and electric plants all state owned to bring electricity to the region and as a bonus, they would have to hire a whole bunch of contractors for the work. They had a make-work program that produced a useful resource for that region.
Unfortunatly, the program was such an unmitigated success (it was the ONLY make-work project that had any positive effect on the economy) that it scared the living out of Roosevelt. Like most people of the time, he was fearful of government competing with private industry, even in an area where that industry did not yet exist.
If Roosevelt could see how "successful" Social Security has been today, one wonders if he would not be equally scared.
The government never regulated the political content of Fox News. The "Fairness Doctrine" did not apply to them. If we bring it back, it would not apply to them unless it was significantly altered. The alteration of the "Fairness Doctrine" to censor such non-broadcast content would open up another big can of worms that I find also objectionable.
Howard Stern has fled to satellite (non-broadcast) radio so he could say dirty words and interview porn stars with much more freedom. If we expand the "Fairness Doctrine" to censor satellite (cable) as well as broadcast, I think Howard's going to be in trouble again. Maybe that is fine with you. It is not for me.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Not true, since it has the government censor something that is "not fair". "The government cannot do anything else."
Oh yes it can. It can let people express political views without censoring them for not being "fair".
"By your absurd and illegal definition, they are already "censoring" you the second the FCC regulates anything."
Hmmm? I agree that this is censorship.
" [you] support the rules only when they do not apply to your love of televised advocacy of issues."
Actually, my favorite source of unfettered political expression is public radio. I rarely get news from broadcast TV, and I do not find it terribly relevant to the argument personally as I do not recall much content change in the "10:00 News" pre and post fairness doctrine.
"I have never advocated partial censorship"
False. In every message, you call for censorship of "unfair" media.
""my position on the First Amendment is on solid ground with both sides of the supreme court and a decades-long bipartisan succession of American executives"
You are in agreement with none of them. They have all had hands-off when it comes to content of cable TV and satellite radio.
"I am not a liberal"
Call yourself "progressive" or whatever. Regardless, you are clearly in the left-wing when you think that a left-wing pressure group like FAIR is in the "center".
"neither is advocating the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine inherently liberal or indeed partisan in any way"
This might be true of some, but for you it is inherently liberal (anti-conservative) as your main "poster boy" for it is Fox News, which you want to stop being so conservative.
"All I have ever advocated is fairness, and this frightens you""
You bet it frightens me when the means to "fairness" is censorship of political content.
"selectively quoting."
The trick is "Accurately quoting".
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
- The government already regulates them.
- The government never regulated the political content of Fox News.
This is like an elementary school exercise. How are these sentences different? How are they the same?The government never regulated fairness on Fox News. They do regulate the content of Fox News.
The "Fairness Doctrine" did not apply to them.
This seems like another neat segue into something unrelated to the point. Come on, just think about the point honestly for a second. What's the harm in seriously considering it? You don't have to change your view - just think for a minute. All I'm saying is that the government already regulates Fox News. How does it make sense to say "free speech" is your paramount concern, even in though it's already less important than all of these other things? We keep coming back to that and you never answer it. You already regulate speech to see what's obscene, what's deceptive, what's threatening... It doesn't make any sense to turn around and say "free speech" is paramount when you've just made all these important exceptions to it already. This is not for nothing - it just happens that there are some important things that come into play and the First Amendment never meant you can say whatever you want "no matter what" - even on a street corner, let alone for the special case of the broadcaster. And this is one of the most important issues of all. If a TV broadcaster can be unfair, and keep your viewpoint off the air ("censoring" it, in effect, giving an unfair impression to eyes of hundreds of millions of viewers), the only way to protect "free speech" is actually to have a Fairness Doctrine.
If we bring it back, it would not apply to them unless it was significantly altered.
You're talking about the fact that FNN is on cable. I don't know if I would say "significantly" altered; almost the entire rule would be the same. Only one detail about new technology changes.
The alteration of the "Fairness Doctrine" to censor such non-broadcast content would open up another big can of worms that I find also objectionable.
Also? I thought you found it objectionable period. I appreciate that you're thinking past those objections a bit.
I really think you've just misunderstood how cable works. It's new technology that lets us have more channels, but the issues are really the same. I agree that with more channels you can have more diversity and it starts to be less pressing. I think as technology improves the Internet and cable will become indistinguishable and then we will agree there is no role for the Fairness Doctrine there.
But the problem is that day is still many years away. It's clear that it's much easier to have a newspaper or a website than a cable channel, and also that a cable channel reaches many more people. You still have to be selected by a group of people and there can still be a relatively small number (under a thousand?), and it is much more expensive to run a TV channel than, say, create a newspaper - which you can do with a few hundred dollar PC and a cheap printer, paper and ink, or a xerox machine...
Howard Stern has fled to satellite (non-broadcast) radio so he could say dirty words and interview porn stars with much more freedom. If we expand the "Fairness Doctrine" to censor satellite (cable) as well as broadcast, I think Howard's going to be in trouble again. Maybe that is fine with you. It is not for me.
You're right in that I don't think you would have a good argument to require fairness on cable without also requiring it on satellite.
But I think the reason it's not fine for you is that your perspective on the issues are shaped by some mistakes. Until you can have your own satelite radio show, in fact as long as hardly anyone can, then those few who can hold a major responsibility, and we are not like a laissez faire 3rd world nation; we believe in democracy and fariness, rather than letting some rich, privileged person run everything in this very pubilc, shared place to their whims.
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Not true, since it has the government censor something that is "not fair".
I've now pointed out that no censorship is involved.
Oh yes it can. It can let people express political views without censoring them for not being "fair".
As I said, they are not censored, whether they are fair or not. And you can be as unfair as you want, as long as you give others a chance to say their side.
Hmmm? I agree that this is censorship.
This is encouraging. Now you just have to think it through the rest of the way.
Actually, my favorite source of unfettered political expression is public radio. I rarely get news from broadcast TV, and I do not find it terribly relevant to the argument personally as I do not recall much content change in the "10:00 News" pre and post fairness doctrine.
I was referring to your advocacy for legal propaganda; I can't guess what your personal listening habits are, but I admit I'm surprised to hear public radio.
False. In every message, you call for censorship of "unfair" media.
No, nothing of the kind. I have been very thorough in explaining that I have never called for censorship, and in fact failing to be fair has the effect of censoring people.
You are in agreement with none of them. They have all had hands-off when it comes to content of cable TV and satellite radio.
My already-provided link demonstrates bipartisan supreme court support for the doctrine. This is not the same as saying every justice or every politican agrees with me - only that a great many justices and politicians of all stripes have supported it.
Call yourself "progressive" or whatever.
I don't. I don't think I qualify, frankly. It's hard to tell.
Regardless, you are clearly in the left-wing when you think that a left-wing pressure group like FAIR is in the "center".
Seriously, you just blew an awful lot of smoke about this and never once backed it up. If you had anything real to hold up against them you would have done it by now.
You could go find something at this point but it will be clear you are doing your research after the fact. Not that I wouldn't take anything you found about them seriously.
By the way, though, even if you demolished FAIR (which you can't, let's be honest), they are far from the only watchdog.
Your groundless insistence on smearing FAIR, and refusing to give any checkable specifics or evidence as you do it, are a big part of why I've assumed you're a conservative - in fact, a hardcore one, since what you've done so far really is, I hope you can admit, over the top.
This might be true of some, but for you it is inherently liberal (anti-conservative) as your main "poster boy" for it is Fox News, which you want to stop being so conservative.
Not really. I picked examples of prominent propagandists who happened to be conservative. This is not hard to do, because they really are in control of the state of that art right now. But imagine, it's pretty backwards to say I am advocating an non-partisan idea in an "inherently liberal" way. All propaganda is dangerous to democracy, broadcast it is deadly dangerous, and it is not my fault if liberals don't give me enough good examples to match with the conservative ones.
Conservatives have a "vast left wing conspiracy" theory about the media but they don't usually give specifics, because there aren't really that many questionable things compared to the Murdoch companies, Sinclair, the radio networks, etc.
You bet it frightens me when the means to "fairness" is censorship of political content.
I hope your mind is now more at ease.
The trick is [lying].
Accurate, huh.
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Find a big pile of money and move it.
Take a percentage.
Bingo!!
Here's a dictionary link that actually contains a definition of the word "propaganda": link. From the link: "The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause."
This is exactly what political parties, editorialists, and activists do. Ralph Nader does it. Rush Limbaugh does it. Al Franken does it. They have been doing this for centuries. The First Amendment was written to protect such activity. What you call "propaganda" (speaking to advocate a cause) is necessary for democracy.
"but I admit I'm surprised to hear public radio"
It is one of my main reasons for opposing the return of this "doctrine". NPR talk stations have flourished in recent years because the doctrine is gone.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Been there already. I remember the years when the the only cable news network was CNN, run by a significant rich left-wing activist named Ted Turner. There was no Rush Limbaugh. Regardless of opinion of "vast left wing conspiracies", NBC, ABC, CBS were then (as now) not the conservative's friend.
Did I feel ideologically impinged? Not in the least. I enjoyed CNN as the only cable news network.
"Fox News is still on the air, but now there are five or ten liberal stations for every one conservative one"
Instead of the 4 to 1 there is now?
"I truly believe that on that morning you would finally understand it."
I've seen that morning. Did not bother me.
"Really? I'm not a regular listener, but I have turned them on now and again for years and I can't see any difference between the time we had it and the time since"
Before, there were plenty of NPR stations with a couple of hours of news/comment, the rest were music. There were a very few all-news stations. Now there are a lot of all news-and-comment NPR stations.
"All public radio is different; some stations I have heard are of the Art Bell school of wacko conspiracy theory"
Thanks for mentioning Art Bell in an appropriate context. I was hoping he would come up at one point, his name is good for proving something. I thought of mentioning him before. Never got around to bringing him up.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I never did. I was hoping you would back off from making stuff up. For much of the post, you winged from this false claim, which I never made, would never make, and feel no need to bother making. I spit in the face of the idea of a "VLWC".
"Well said. They are not they conservative's friend. They were more the truth's friend"
So here we have it: on one side, conservatism. On the other side: Truth! That is why there is so little common ground between us through this ridiculous profusion of posts (except when it comes to Art Bell). I find plenty of truth in both the liberal and conservative sides. I also find plenty of bias, "propagandizing", discreditable assertions, and valid points in both sides.
"Meanwhile conservatives are the only ones with real propaganda"
Explained another way, even! Conservative views are always "propaganda", while liberal views are always well-expressed unbiased analyses/etc/etc. (You drove this point of yours home in a major way earlier when you made it as if there was some substantive difference between Franken and Limbaugh: two arrogant bullyish puffed-up comedic one-sided blowhards who have no real difference what so ever except in the "side" they advocate.)
"I wasn't expecting an apology, yet strangely, this almost feels like one"
You used Art Bell's name in an appropriate context, and I agreed with it. With this, as other times, I have indicated agreement with you. Don't read too much into it.
If anyone else is still reading this, is there a good balanced centrist media watchdog group? I do not trust FAIR for its left-wing bias, nor do I trust AIM for its right-wing bias.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
That's because of the interest accumulating on the debt. You'll note that the debt increased _less_ than the amount of interest for all the years you have listed, and it has increased _more_ than the amount of interest in 2002, 2003, and 2004.
National debt to the penny
Interest expense on the debt
There is plenty of censorship involved with this. Let's say you want to air a program. The government says "no, you can't. This time must be given to someone else for what we think is "fair"".
"because there aren't really that many questionable things compared to the Murdoch companies, Sinclair, the radio networks, etc."
There's plenty. However, about Sinclair. Before they ran that Kerry piece, I heard nothing about how evil it was all over the media, including on Fox News.
"By the way, though, even if you demolished FAIR (which you can't, let's be honest), they are far from the only watchdog"
Here's a nice list of watchdogs: left, center and right: click here
"All propaganda is dangerous to democracy"
If we look at what the word means, "The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause", it's rather clear that such advocacy is necessary for democracy. Everyone will agree, as long as we make sure they know it means "it includes advocating for your side".
"and it is not my fault if liberals don't give me enough good examples to match with the conservative ones."
You have stuck with the left wingers (mainly one) who bash right wingers. Go look at the right-wing sites and you will find examples for the other side as "good" as the ones you have given.
By the way, you earlier mentioned media consolidation. There is none. For the past 25 years or so, the number of voices has grown:
There are 6 national TV networks where there were only 4 before. All are owned by different companies. If you want, you can count the "barely there" UPN network, which is owned by CBS. This is the only example of consolidation, but UPN barely counts as a network with its small list of shows and no news presence.
There are a lot more newspapers than there were 25 years ago, due the the explosion of "alternative media".
There are 3+ MORE national TV news-and-affairs channels than there were 25 years ago. To PBS,CBS,ABC,NBC we have added Fox, CNN, and C-Span. There are several other other misc. cable networks that have at least some current-affairs documentary or news content, like Court TV, MTV, HBO and Sundance (Al Franken radio show), which I include in the +. None have been lost or eaten by others, except for the stillborn SNN which CNN took over. MSNBC and CNBC are not on my list of new ones since they are branches of NBC.
The web.
Radio. There are more and more stations all the time. Clear Channel controls less than 8% of them.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I did not provide your definition/link because I'd never heard before of a dictionary called Bennet Yee! It does not contradict me, anyway. Government silencing is not the opposite of government deleting.
"From that point on, the people who get to broadcast have a duty to the rest; "to serve the public trust" as we say in this country."
I agree. The ratings system is the most accurate measure of how much the public trust is being served.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The government says "no, you can't. This time must be given to someone else for what we think is "fair"".
Your creativeness in attributing absurd and unlikely bad things to Fairness knows no bounds.
The government would never say "no, you can't." They would say "allow this person time to respond."
What's really funny about this is that you are implying that there just isn't time to be fair, and if we forced poor broadcasters to be fair there just wouldn't be any time left over after all that fairness...
You slay me, AA.
Before they ran that Kerry piece, I heard nothing about how evil it was all over the media, including on Fox News.
I'm not surprised you haven't heard about it, since you have proven yourself really exceptionally ignorant. I would also be surprised if you would admit it anyway. Nonetheless, Sinclair's practices, which include conservative commentaries from its owners slipped into newscasts, are well documented.
Here's a nice list of watchdogs: left, center and right
We've already dispatched this fairly childish attack on FAIR.
it's rather clear that such advocacy is necessary for democracy
You have just cranked your Weaseling into 6th gear.
You claim that propaganda (on TV and radio) is necessary for a democracy.
I don't think I can really add anything to this...
You have stuck with the left wingers
Nope.
But I notice you have stuck with name calling, because you were too smart to make any actual substantive claims against them.
Go look at the right-wing sites and you will find examples for the other side as "good" as the ones you have given.
This is the heart of your lie, AtariAmarok. They are not as "good." In fact, they are not even close.
You provided a laughable hatchet job and a childish essay. You haven't marshalled a single coherent complaint against FAIR - and no links to back up any claims about them. No disputing any particular coverage of theirs.
You want to pretend they're "as 'good'" because that improves the really awful lying that goes on in these conservative propaganda instruments.
By the way, you earlier mentioned media consolidation. There is none.
That's absurd.
The biggest protest in history resulted in the FCC's pro-consolidation rules being overturned. The media companies are unhappy, because they want to consolidate even further than they are currently allowed.
AtariAmarok is, of course, hoping we will forget how his bogus arguments for the internet, cable and satellite have already been dealt with. He is also hoping we will ignore the trends underlying that court case - that increasingly, in a given market, a single company wants to own "everything" - the major television stations, radio stations, and the biggest newspapers.
Propaganda is not so bad! Let the few dozen people who control the mass media say whatever they want. Because no longer requiring them to give every american a voice... is censorship! Somehow!
Clear Channel, by the way, went from 40 stations to 1,225 since the last time the rules were relaxed, in 1996. That's a little less than a thousand more stations than its closest competitor.
But thanks for trying to weasel out of that too!
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