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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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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.
> ...misinformation coming from the right.
Yea, from the newpaper to the left of Stalin. If you want to read a more balanced discussion of the problem try here:
Donald Luskin on Social Security Reform & Crisis on NRO Financial
Democrat delenda est
Joe H. SixPack on a pogostick!!! WTH do you think the government is supposed to do?
I, for one, welcome the demise of the social security system, government sponsered welfare, and all of the other crap that the government does "for the good of the people". When will people start taking responsibilty for themselves and get themselves out of their own messes that they put themselves into?
I've lived by one simple philosophy, and will continue to do so until I die: You don't work, you don't eat. Period.
I've worked fast food. I've pumped gas. I've worked telephone support. I've washed dishes. I've dug holes and poured concrete. All of these things in the name of putting food on the table and a roof over my head, and many for minimum wadge. I've finally gotten to where I work somewhere that I can actually use my brain with, and even though I don't get paid near enough for what I do, I still try to put some back into an IRA. So if social security doesn't pan out (I'm not holding my breath), then I at least have something to fall back on *if* I can't work until I leave the planet.
Grow up. The national government isn't your mother and father.
Oh, and to those people who say that you can't have a family on minimum wadge? The question I would ask is the following: Was it fiscally responsible for those to can't work at a higher level than minimum wadge to have a family?
Personal responibility. Learn it.
EveryDNS. Use it. It works.
AC's need not reply
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.
standard M.O. for the Dems
1. Invent a crisis.
2. Create a new small program to fix it.
3. increase size of program until it takes up 1/4 of the budget.
4. Threaten that evil republicans will end the program.
5. Profit!
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.
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.
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 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.
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."
Then I want every last cent which came out of my paychecks for the last four years which went into the approximately $200 Billion which we're spending on Iraq.
Doesn't quite work that way, does it?
Now be a good boy and give Mommy back her AOL account.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
I agree, but who is going to force the government and it is the government not just Bush. I don't like him and he may be the leader, but he does not make all of the decisions. So how does one go about collecting on a defaulted loan to the government?
The obvious way is massive, violent revolution...failing that, you don't.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
> do you even have any idea WHO Stalin was? WHAT he did? HOW MANY he killed?
Yup, 'ol Joe Stalin killed just about as many as the maniacs at the NYT would if their kind ever truly came to power. The road to hell is paved with the 'good intentions' of the sort of idiots who publish the NYT, twist the 'news' over at CBS and form the moveon.org base of the Democratic Party.
Democrat delenda est
Without social programs and a government that subsidizes these rural boob (red) states it's unlikely they would be any better off than Mexico.
Average Oklahoman thinks "We sure do need smaller government." while the reality is without government subsidies our state would be a bigger piece of shit than it already is.
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?
I'm sure you were just as morally outraged when you found out your President (if you are American) and the administration lied to you about WMD in Iraq weren't you?
I bet you're just about ready to start protesting the fact that no-one has been held accountable for those lies, aren't you?
By the way, the document may have been faked, but the supposed author of the document was interviewed on CBS and admitted that she did not write the document (choice of wording in the fake didn't match her style) but that she had written an almost exact document with the exact content around the time the fake was supposed to have been produced. But of course, with all the coverage of the fact that a fake document had been used to accuse the President of going AWOL, the fact that he really did go AWOL didn't really get much airplay afterwards.
Face facts. The current US President is a liar, a deserter, and believes the world is only 6000 years old. And half the US population looks up to him. It's kind of sad really if it wasn't so scary.
Shitdrummer.
Insurance is an expense. Get used to it....
And if you want out of the contract move to Argentina, asshole....You want to live here, pay your fair share and stop bitching....
By the way, I'm rich... I'm also undertaxed.
How does this condescending little commie rant get modded insightful?
Fvck you and the horse you rode in on. Some of us don't want arrogant twats like you stealing our money and using it to turn this country into a giant padded playpen for the rest of us. We'd rather live and die on our own terms. Its a concept called individual freedom. It's what made this country. And the erosion of that freedom is whats killing it.
You told the previous poster to move if he doesn't like your views. The problem is, many people moved here to get away from socialists like you. But it never works. You follow us around, trying to turn everywhere we go into one of your little socialist Utopias.
Why don't you move? There are a dozen western countries with the kind of cradle-to-grave social contract you crave. It doesn't matter where we move. As soon as we make a success of it, morons like you will start crawling out of the woodwork again.
As for being undertaxed - it's your fvcking money for crying out loud!!! If you want it spent on social good, there are an unlimited supply of charities available. You don't need the government to take it from you. Your problem isn't that you feel you are undertaxed. It's that you don't feel enough is being forcibly taken from everyone else.
What world do you live in? I live in a world where the dead don't really vote, but in almost every state there are areas where the dead vote and the total number of votes exceed the number of people actually living in the area.
This becomes extremely important in cases where the margin of vitory is very small. America needs more strict voting proceedures to prevent things like this from happenning. Voter fraud is a reality and the Democrats are the primary users of it.
Everytime a person tries to challenge what a person is trying to vote more than once (or if they are legal to vote) in the innercity, Democrats cry racism or voter supression. Anytime someone tries to come up with a way to prevent voter fraud, the Democrats cry voter supression.
As for the Washington Governer's race, the only fair thing is to require a revote.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that