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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.'"
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
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!
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.
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.
no-reg link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/magazine/16SOCIA L.html
What you need to know is that if you are under 35, it doesn't take that much saving to be set by the time you are 65.
And don't depend are social security, I know that I am not.
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.
What happens to the people that don't plan, or don't plan well? Social Security was meant to help everyone, not just those with foresight.
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
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?
"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." I guess you're not over 65...
Why am I not rapping? I am rapping with you in a way.
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.
see: great depression.
For one, there is no finanical education in school, so something you are responsible for your whole life (your finances) you are not taught at all and expected to know.
Add to the fact, most people would rather buy a new pair of "kicks" compared to saving that $100 while they are 25 for retirement. People don't realize that if you save when you are young, you will be far better off than when you are in your 30's and decide to start saving.
The problem with that stance is that it contradicts the Democrat platform of making people reliant upon the government for their basic needs. Opponents of Social Security reform argue on principle, despite the facts.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
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.
What's wrong with just letting people save money on their own for their retirement?
The problem is that poor people would have to carry their own weight in such a scheme, which is something that they are demonstrably not very good at.
It would, after all, be their own fault, for failing to save properly for old age.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
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.
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.
Oh yeah, crisis in Social Security my ass.
They suffer the consequences of their inaction and/or ignorance? God forbid we expect people to be responsible for themselves...
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
A little thing called the great depression showed the error of that little scenario.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
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.
I second that! But don't require people to use private accounts for retirement. Just let them keep their money and do what they wish. If somone decides not to save for retirement it shouldn't be everyone's problem.
It's the battle of the minds, and everyone's unarmed.
Because most people have no idea how to save money for retirement. So a few people properly plan their retirement and do better than they would with Social Security, while everyone else blows their money on late night infomercial products or has it swindled away by private enterprises promising you will "Retire with a million dollars!". This puts an additional burden on the welfare system, and worse, these people are retired so they have no chance of going on welfare-to-work programs or similar things. The economic dead weight from letting people blow their retirement savings and then looking for a free handout would be tremendous.
As a 22-year-old full-time worker with a company-sponsored savings plan and a Roth IRA, I would very contently keep the money they take out my check for SS and invest it in my 401(k) or IRA or elsewhere. The return on my investment would certainly promise to be greater than it will be on our current course.
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.
What happens to the people that don't plan, or don't plan well?
Um...welfare.
Currently bidding on sig
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?
Well, Social Security does not only serve as a retirement plan for old people. There are also many physically/mentally disabled who are incapable of earning a full living for themselves, and who therefore receive some supplemental income from Social Security.
They learn. If not, they go to private charity to get assistance when needed.
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.
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.
The larger fact is that basic problem is a too large federal deficit, not a systemic social security problem, and the proposed "reform" makes the underlying problem worse, not better.
What you need to know is that if you are under 35, it doesn't take that much saving to be set by the time you are 65.
The unwashed youthful masses could stand to read some books on the subject, such as The Automatic Millionaire as an example. For as little as $5 a day, you, too, can sponsor an otherwise dirt-poor retiree--yourself.
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.
I suppose that depends on how you define crisis. You correctly identified the problem: demographic changes mean that fixed-rate Social Security payments (by us young whippersnappers) don't keep up with the payouts (for old fogeys). The built-up surplus (a.k.a. the "trust fund") won't be exhausted until 204x--which may be reassuring to some, but not to the people who won't be retiring until after that.
Does that about sum it up?
Well, that's not a crisis in my book. Why? It's happened before. More than once. The projected shortfall isn't even the largest projected shortfall Social Security has ever had. Social Security survived those much bigger problems (and if they're not crises, this one sure as hell isn't). You know how? They fiddled with the tax rate. You raise it to increase revenue, you lower it when you don't need so much--go figure that it would work like that.
So it is NOT a crisis. It is a problem that not only has been (easily) solved before, it's not even as big as the problem was when it was solved before!
Now, is Social Security, as a policy/concept inherently screwed up? My opinion is yes, but that's another topic entirely. As it is, there is no crisis.
Actually, those of us who are just a little over 35 are too.
The problem is that more and more people are drawing on the system because people are living longer. At the time it was passed, very few people lived much past the age of about 60, let alone 65. It was designed as a "pay as you go" system, so your money is not really put aside for you somewhere so that it can earn interest. Your money is used to pay the benefits of those currently collecting. Your benefits (assuming the system is around that long) will be paid by those who are paying into the system when you retire.
I've even tried to look into taking my parents onto my health policy, but federal law won't allow it for the reverse. After years of being on my dad's policy while growing up, I am legally not allowed to take him onto mine now that both he and mom are retired. Wouldn't it be nice to have an option to do something like "no medicare withholding because one or both over-65 parents are classified as dependents"? Sure, the health insurance companies would balk and probably start up all kinds of FUD and lobbying against it. Why? They've become more concerned with making money than doing what they're supposed to do... cover your health care expenses.
OCO is Loco
Yup, start a fund with $5k at 21 years of age and with an average return of 8% and another $5k/yr over the life of the investment until 65 you will retire with just under $2 million dollars. Of course that will be worth less than it is today, but still that's not bad. Kick the annual contribution up to $10k and you've got $3.7 million.
Someone near 35 will have to do some catching up but you can play with the numbers and see how well you might do.
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
The short answer is politics. The long answer is that people about to retire believe that their life's worth of social security is in a bank someone, and its THEIR RIGHT to have it. Since they are the most consistent voting block (backed by the most power special interest group- AARP), they get anything they want. The reason that younger people today cannot just do away with social security is because it is their momney that pays the benefits to old people. Since they run the political show (both parties have to lick the senior citizen boot), they can force us to pay them our taxes for their benfits.
Don't like it?
Open Source Sushi
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.
And if there isn't enough private charities, then what? They're not going to just die quietly after all.
The safety net doesn't exist for the benefit of the poor. It exists for the benefit of the middle class so they won't have to deal with the consequences of a desperate underclass.
I think the best solution would start requiring the federal government to start paying back the loans they have made against the SS Trust. If the politicans hadn't been using the SS Trust as a slush fund to pay for their pork projects, we would NEVER have had this problem. There are 26 TRILLION dollars in IOU's setting in the "Lock Box," all wasted money that we can't account for. Sad.
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.
Social commentary from someone with the username PornMaster that offends as it invokes God? It must be slashdot.
Yes, I'm still a junky. Are you still a bitch?
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.
As someone approaching 30 I'd gladly pay into it for the rest of my life AND never pull a dime back out IF they abolished it for the next generation. I'm young enough I can recover. My parents are old enough that they've paid into it and deserve what is due to them. My unborn children don't need to support me.
Lets agree that Social Security is flawed, take the hit this generation, and start something new and rational for the next.
What's wrong with just letting people save money on their own for their retirement?
Nothing, if they know how. I certainly don't recall getting any finance training in public schools. It wasn't until well into college that I had any clue what 'future value' was.
If the government won't teach people how to take care of themselves through government schools, then the government has no choice but to do it for them. Sad, but true. GWB can't do both cut school funding _and_ privatize SS, it just won't work without some real educational overhaul.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
It would, after all, be their own fault, for failing to save properly for old age.
The un-sarcastic version of this comment is absolutely correct, but fortunately for them, it would be unpolitik to let old people suffer the consequences of their own lack of foresignt (I ended up getting old--who knew?).
Exactly. You have the right to life, liberty, and the *pursuit* of happiness. There's no right to happiness. If you can't plan for yourself, then you either suffer, or look to private charity. The government exists only to protect rights, not to guarantee a level playing field for everyone when they retire.
Show me where in the constitution it says that the government should be setting up retirement funds for people. You can't; it's not there. Government does not exist to do for the people what the people are unwilling to do for themselves, though many people would like to (and seem to) think.
Find out about the Lexus Rx400h Hybrid!
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!
Please read this article, it's probably the most well researched and insightful look at the current health of our social security program. The end conclusion: It's Fine. Seriously. No Really. Totally OK.
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. That's if the worst case scenario mixture of immigration and ecomonmic slowdown happen, and absolutley NOTHING done to the system. Their realistic scenario call for complete 100% solvency of the system for the next 75 years, again, with NOTHING done to the system.
Social Security is the best running government program ever devised in this country. Everyone here will be able to recieve their retirement benefits that they've been paying into their whole lives.
The Social Security "crisis" stems from that 25% reduction in benefits in 2048. If we were to give everyone 100%, then we'd run about a $3 trillion deficit in SS over the next 75 years, in the mean time, Medicare is projected to start deficit spending in only 10 years, and will run an $11 trillion hole. And both of these self financed systems have a better outlook than out general acocunt budget, the pot of money that pays for the rest of the government. Best guess estimates are that our government will go $15 TRILLION MORE into debt over that same $75 years.
So what is more in crisis, $3 trillion that we don't need to even go into deficit for, or $15 that we absolutely must? Our current $440 billion deficit is the real crisis.
The president and all of the conservative commentors here want to reneg on the deal President Reagan made in 1983 when he reformed social security. He raised payroll taxes beyond the amount needed so we would run a surplus, and that would go into a trust fund that would pay for the burden of the Baby Boomer retirement. That trust fund was mandated by law to buy treasury bills, which have consequently been used to finance the upper class tax cuts. Basically, the president has done a transfer of wealth from the working class who payed more into the system than they had to so the super rich could mooch off the government even more.
I Repeat: SOCIAL SECURITY IS FINE! RTFA!
Th
Why stop there? If your house burns down, or your the victim of some crime, shouldn't you be likewise held accountable for the poor decisions on your part that led to it? The fact is that we tried it your way and people didn't like it.
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!
It would, after all, be their own fault, for failing to save properly for old age.
Damn straight, it would be -- and after seeing that happen, one would hope that the next generation would actually grow a bit of personal responsibility for their finances.
They suffer the consequences of their inaction and/or ignorance? God forbid we expect people to be responsible for themselves...
Are you really that heartless? Do you think it's good for society to have tens of thousands of elerly people and children starving and homeless? It's too bad they didn't save, or perhaps it's too bad their investments went sour, or they were swindled, or some other circumstance you're not considering. But it's a disgusting to deny help to those who need it because you're deciding not the rest of the population isn't as well off as you are.
We do. In fact, we encourage it. They're called 401K's. Look them up- you can sock away up to 15% of your income, before taxes, for retirement. If that isn't enough, you're free to open up your own IRAs and mutual fund investments, or open up your own stock brokerage account, and invest there for a few dozen dollars a year. If that's too much, you can start investing in DRIP for $5 a month or so. I've never heard of a time in our history when it's been so easy for people to save for their retirement, or have so many ways to do so.
Social Security isn't *investment*, it's *insurance*. It's a gaurentee that you won't have to spend your retirement years under a bridge.
I believe the grandparent poster will not purchase his fifth H2. He's gonna feed some of those starving grandparents, isn't he?
Um, he already is feeding old people. He would like to free up more of his money for himself.
I am 22 and I will be opening one up next year, putting in as much as I can, at a minimum of my company matching, as everyone should.
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.
Because a lot of people simply won't plan ahead. Then, when they reach that stage of their lives, society will either have to take care of them or watch them die. Since we are a caring society (on some level at least) we are generally opposed to letting people rot in the gutters. Since there is some large percentage of people that will not take care of themselves, particularly when so much long term thinking is required, we create institutions like Social Security to attempt to cover the costs we know are coming.
The problem is, health (particularly in the later years) is an open ended expense. I doubt we could give all the treatments available for all illnesses to all the people who need them, even if our entire civilization were to put its every resource into the task. Which we don't. So the question becomes, when do we say "we can't afford it" to keep someone alive?
As a compassionate society, we want to say "there is no limit," particularly when a family member is involved. I'm not saying this is a bad thing - in fact, I'd hate to live in a place where it wasn't true - but it simply is impossible to do on as matters now stand.
I'm almost positive what would happen with social security is too many people wouldn't save, would spend everything they have as soon as they get it, and in the end would drag society down by being a huge burden.
There are definitely some things that could help the problem, one being to stop treating any form of medicine as a for-profit affair, including the pill makers. Nationalize it, pay the researchers the same salaries they're getting now, and work for the benefit of people instead of gouging them. Try to lower the fundamental costs of health care, rather than figuring out "how to pay for it." Also, reduce available benefits for people who don't take proper care of themselves, or at least put them lower on the priority list. Limit laywer rewards for medical cases to some fixed $$ amount, so they don't have the incentive to stick it to people so hard. Up the pay for nurses and other caregivers. Tax junk food like we tax smoking.
Fundamentally, the problem is fairly unsolvable unless someone figures out how to make human beings less fragile - we're pretty much either going to break down, or break ourselves down. Which doesn't mean we don't do the best we can. But for the love of $DEITY, quit trying to make large profits off of health products. Health is too important to let capitalism in on it.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
the only solution is to raise taxes
Ah, yes. The only solution liberals every put forward. If we only take away some more money from those who are earning it, and give it to those who are not, then everything will be just peachy. Here's a suggestion: instead of raising taxes, those gaseous windbags in Washington could cut bloody spending! But, what am I saying? That would lessen their power, and we can't have that, now can we? The State is mother. The State is father.
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
Remember, there's no such thing as sudden health crises. Everyone always gets exactly what they should based on their actions!
It would, after all, be their own fault, for failing to save properly for old age.
As a matter of fact, it would. Who's fault do you think it is?
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
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
The bigger value for social security is not retirement, but for disability. If someone falls out of the workforce for reasons beyond their control, at least there is some money to buy food.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
He's gonna feed some of those starving grandparents, isn't he?
At the point of a gun, right now, he is. Otherwise, the big bad evil Feds will come and lock him away for failing to pay his taxes.
Personally, I think this is a Bad Thing. Donating to charity should be a choice.
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.
What's even sadder is that it wasn't neccesarily pork projects that sucked up the trust fund, it was Bush's insane tax cuts. Working class is asked to have their regressive payroll tax raised to fund the Social Security surplus, and istead it's used to float the recudtion in the progressive income tax for the ultra rich.
Th
Government does not exist to do for the people what the people are unwilling to do for themselves
Actually, government exists for whatever the people want it to be. The Constitution was designed to be mostly malleable, such that the government could grow/shrink/change to suit the will of the people. Although we don't agree with it, it appears that will of the people has been that the government should provide social services, like Social Security.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Things are different now from then.
Then, the country was transitioning from an agrigrian country to an commericalized industrialized country. The population balance between city and county is basically opposite, and so is the handling of aging.
These are very important things to consider. But I guess you can't even have a discussion on Slashdot or anywhere for that matter. It's jumping straight to "you're an idiot" and snarkyness.
Ok, let's assume we stop SS today. I am 38, so I would still have enough time (theoretically) to increase my nest egg.
What about those of us that are 55 or 60? If SS is stopped today, then many (if not most) of that age group is totally screwed. And, don't blame them, when they entered the workforce, they were told that SS would be there for them, so they counted on SS to at least give them some additional support, beyond what money they saved. Don't even mention 401k's. Those were not even discovered until the late 70s (my memory may be off on the extact date). 401k's didn't even become popular until the 1990's. Don't mention company pension plans, many pension plans (see airline industry) are going belly-up.
If we stop SS today, how do we take care of those that are within 10 years of retirement (given as many of them didn't have the time to build up a 401k and some of them may not have a company pension plan)? And, what about those from 10 to 20 years from retirement?
Just curious.
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.
So a few people properly plan their retirement and do better than they would with Social Security, while everyone else blows their money
This is actually why private accounts would work. If you start young, you can give yourself quite a big retirement fund without investing very much. Even Philip J. Fry ended up being a multi-billionaire (for a while) from compound interest.
The problem is that most people are so accustomed to living beyond their means that they don't save any money. But, if the government stepped in and made the saving mandatory, everything works out.
Here's a tip:
Begin by buying a house in the suburbs, close to a university. Take up a loan to buy it. Rent it out, so that someone else is paying for your loan. Since it's close to a university there will be no shortage of tenants, all short term, so they wouldn't consider buying a house. In a couple of decades, the house will be yours, in addition to the one you live in. Property values in the suburbs will probably rise. You might do this with more than one house.
When you retire, sell them all. Instant economic safety.
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.
George W Bush has not decreased government or social programs. George Bush did not decrease government or social programs. Ronald Reagan did not decrease goverment or social programs.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
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
Social security was envisioned as, and functions as, an insurance of last resort against the cruel twists of fate that lead to destitution. It is part of the social contract that we have adopted as a nation, and that helps realize our core values. In so far that it has problems, these problems are actuarial as opposed to philosophical in nature. If you wish to rewrite the social contract of our country, and of modern western civilization as a whole, find some desert compound, buy a bunch of spam, and best of luck.
Because most people have no idea how to save money for retirement. So a few people properly plan their retirement and do better than they would with Social Security, while everyone else blows their money on late night infomercial products or has it swindled away by private enterprises promising you will "Retire with a million dollars!". This puts an additional burden on the welfare system, and worse, these people are retired so they have no chance of going on welfare-to-work programs or similar things. The economic dead weight from letting people blow their retirement savings and then looking for a free handout would be tremendous. I don't see the argument here. I thought Social Security was a form of insurance, not a way for stupid people to have income after retirement. I agree that many people lack the will to save for retirement. Many people also lack the will to keep themselves from committing murder, but we don't provide special treatment to them. What we have is a scenario in which the people with the motivation to learn reasonable personal finance skills are harmed because most people are too stupid to figure it out or would rather blow their week's paycheck at Wal*Mart every Friday than put some away for their golden years.
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
I can't believe I'm going to feed a troll, but here goes...
Those seniors have a reasonable expectation that the system they pay into is going to provide for them when they need it; they would not have contributed had it been suggested that they would be no benefits.
Private investment for retirement isn't a bad thing; people are free to do that if they choose. It also means risk however. Social Security reduces risk, but offers a lower rate of return. Think of it as an insurance policy.
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
One thing to note, the plan in question would not end social security as we know it. 7/8 of the contribution would go to traditional social security. A 1/8th portion would go to a private account.
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!
Won't work. We've tried very hard to do that, but it's created a real crisis.
Private pensions charge many times what national insurance (as we call it here) costs, and a lot of people just can't afford it (it would cut my wages by 30% to have a private pension and I just about get away with paying the rent already).
So we have a whole generation who have nothing to look forward to but starvation at 65. Personally I'll probably find an inventive way to kill myself (seriously... living as a vagrant from 65-death isn't worth it).
It looks like you've bought it hook, line, and sinker. Either that or you work for the NY Times.
Lets agree that Social Security is flawed, take the hit this generation, and start something new and rational for the next.
With all this talk about slush funds, bankrupting the system, etc, nobody mentions a fundamental fact about social security. When it started, young people worked and gave their Socialist Security taxes to old people to generate revenue for them (many had only the clothes on their backs during the Great Depression). Essentially it was one facet of a large social program to redistribute wealth and jump start the economy. Problem is, it never stopped. Now that the system has been going for a generation or two, we realize that as the population increases, the fiscal disproportionism between generations becomes greater and greater. More and more people draw benefits as a proportion of the working population. Mathematically it is inevitable that the system will fail without either massive outside investment or a graceful end.
I for one am also willing to give up my SS benefits, and I plan to.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Nice in theory, but it all falls apart when the economy goes bust. I had a nice $6000 sitting in a pre-tax retirement plan in 1999. I opened the thing in 1997. After the .bomb burst sometime in the early 2000s, all I had left was a little over $2000. Today I'm back at about $4000 with a good chunk of that being money that *I* paid into it. Not any interest. Now I know that you're supposed to take the long view on these things, but damn. Am I ever going to get that missing $4000 back? I doubt it. And I expect that this will happen a few more times over the rest of my career. I think I'll be lucky to MAYBE have $30,000 or so by the time I retire. It just ain't right.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
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.
But show me one initiative by Democrats that makes people less dependent upon the government?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
What's wrong with just letting people save money on their own for their retirement?
There's nothing wrong with it that can't be cured by allowing destitute senior citizens to starve to death on the streets. Translate this: Being accountable for your own actions. If you are wasteful with your money, you will have problems later in life. Social Security was a nice hallmark moment, but its a new day in age. I dont want the government paying my MY money back.
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
Why is it flawed? Social Security has practically eliminated elder poverty. And by poverty, I mean freezing in the streets. If you get rid of Social Security, how are you planning to prevent elder poverty? Think worst-case scenarios wherein everyone loses their savings.
I have a hard time forseeing a lack of private charities for such a situation. The best thing to do is bite the bullet and kill social security. Sure, it will cause IMMEDIATE problems that will have to be aided by private charity. However, that would be the extent of the problem because only this particular batch of retired people will suffer. LONG TERM, the problem would disappear completely as future generations become more responsible and intelligent about their financial situations and the limits that they should place on their governments. If social security continues, this catostrophe will be a continuing event. In fact, it will get worse. People growing up to be child bearing age will be less likely to have children (less money availible because you have to feed retired people), and thus the old people will no longer be able to raid the pockets of the young for their retirements. Besides, where have you ever heard of a line in the constitution for "Right to a full paid retirement"? I never saw one, and I don't think there should be such a thing. Retirements are extravagance. It is a nice thing that all of our old people have a good retirement but it is not necessary and when the times get tough, we won't be able to preserve retirement for everyone anyway.
Remember, there's such a thing as risk-avoidance strategies... like buying insurance.
That said -- life is inherently unfair. Attempts to correct that, particularly through large-scale coercive action, tend to create situations where the cure is, on the whole, worse than the disease.
Because most people have no idea how to save money for retirement. So a few people properly plan their retirement and do better than they would with Social Security, while everyone else blows their money on late night infomercial products or has it swindled away by private enterprises promising you will "Retire with a million dollars!". This puts an additional burden on the welfare system, and worse, these people are retired so they have no chance of going on welfare-to-work programs or similar things. The economic dead weight from letting people blow their retirement savings and then looking for a free handout would be tremendous.
Then perhaps we should phase out the welfare system right along with SS?
You see, you've just explained that the problem is not that we are talking about phasing out SS, but that it and the welfare system existed in the first place. That people have, thanks to Congress and the bureaucrats, come to EXPECT to be taken care of by the nanny state, that is the problem.
The government is not your caretaker! It is not a replacement for family and friends!
Phase them both out. Let people who have contributed to it forever get paid something back over the next few decades. That is a debt owed by the government, racked up as they were busy spending the money they should have been investing in so-called Social Security.
Let the welfare system be replaced by private charities. Private charities have a built-in mechanism that ensures they get help to those that need it, which is lacking in government welfare. The government is held accountable to no one; private charities are held accountable by their donors. The ones that are run better are more successful and help more people.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
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.
"At the time it was passed, very few people lived much past the age of about 60, let alone 65."
Actually, much of the deaths would have been very early. If you lived to 50, you had a pretty good chance of living quite a while longer. If you made it to 60, you had a very good chance of getting well past 65.
Another thing to consider, there were more people involved in dangerous occupations, like mining and farming. And worker protections were more lax, and technology was primitive. That would create more people with disabling injuries which would put them on Social Security for the rest of their potentially long lives.
So I'm not sure the point is a good one.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
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.
the stock market is really like one big poker table though... and privitizing social security is like inviting the idiots club of america to sit down at that table.... Its more suckers for the sharks to milk.... more money in the market means more of it will be unwisely invested... which gives more opportunity to big players to take profit at the expense of the little players...
except this time, the little players stand to loose their retirement benefits.
there are plenty of way for big time stockbrokers to make an unbelievable amount of money on the privatization of Social Security.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
... 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.
Yeah and YOU will suffer the consequences when your city is overwhelmed by several million homeless people.
Perhaps liberatarian philosophy allows one to just shoot them? Just a guess on my part.
Table-ized A.I.
" They suffer the consequences of their inaction and/or ignorance? God forbid we expect people to be responsible for themselves..."
Only an extremely inconsiderate person would think of something like that. MANY people out there make such low wages that they can only afford to SURVIVE paycheck-to-paycheck. it's not their inaction to save, it's their inability to have any leftover to put food on the table without starving, let alone for saving for retirement. before you BS like that, look at the hard-working low-paying workers around you.
Your 22-year-old naivete would make you a perfect fit for a position in the company of Enron and Worldcom execs.
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
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
But I don't think it would be the insurance companies throwing up FUD if you could cover your retired parents (though your proposal is interesting). Why would they, when it would open up a huge new customer base--one that's supposed to be really really huge as the baby boomers all retire in the next decade or two? No, it would be people with vested interests in the status quo, like Sen. Kennedy, who would throw up a bunch of FUD about killing Medicare.
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I find myself in exactly that situation, yet nobody has asked me if I want to contribute.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
There's nothing wrong with it that can't be cured by allowing destitute senior citizens to starve to death on the streets.
This is what they call a false dichotomy. There is no reason why letting Americans control a larger portion of their retirement investments means old people must starve in the street.
As it stands right now, anyone who wants something approaching a comfortable retirement should be saving anyway - social security alone won't cut it at all as it's designed to be a supplement rather than the sole source of retirement income. It's either save now, have successful children who can support you in your dotage, work 'till you die, or live on dog food when you retire.
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!!!!
What if your plan included a pension plan from Enron?
...richie - It is a good day to code.
You're certainly free to help out as many poor, starving seniors as you wish, but you have no right to empower the government to demand everyone else hand over a significant portion of their income at gunpoint to help out said seniors. That certainly isn't heartless. It demonstrates the idea that property rights worthwhile and worth protecting. What do you have against private property?
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." -- Ambrose Bierce
The only way this system will work is if we only spend the social security money on social security. Sounds simple enough, but our government won't do this. There is no way in hell a bunch of politicians in Washington could let social security money just sit there in an account, and not spend it on something. Spending social security money collected today on people who are retired today is not going to work. If they would have saved that money and given that same money back to the retirees this system could have worked fine.
Therefore, since our government cannot possibly manage this system, I think it should go away.
It's the battle of the minds, and everyone's unarmed.
Yeah and YOU will suffer the consequences when your city is overwhelmed by several million homeless people.
...}. I suppose I should thank you for stripping the phony veneer of benevolence from it.
So, it's really a protection racket, eh? Give me money or {I'll make your life hell, you'll have to pay more to defend against me and those like me,
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.
A-FRICKEN-MEN!!!
If you look at your tax stubs, you'll notice that there's nothing on it labeled "Social Security Tax", or "Retirement tax". What you'll find is something called FICA, which stands for Federal Insurance Contributions Act. It is, in effect, an INSURANCE POLICY, NOT A RETIREMENT FUND. It never has been, and was never intended to be.
Insurance is not something you would expect to be paid in-full at some point (with the exception of life insurance, which you don't personally benefit from anyway), yet many people expect that very thing from Social Security. Insurance is intended to protect a responsible individual from catastrophe, not negligence.
In a perfect society, every individual saves for their own retirement. Everyone earns a decent wage and is never disabled (by means of birth defect or injury) to the point that they can't do so. In reality, there are many cases where this just doesn't work out; whether it be for legitimate or illegitimate reasons.
Enter Social Security. Now over the next few decades, enter a whole lot of very irresponsible people who take the system for granted, expecting taxpayers to fund their retirement in its entirety. Now add a bunch of politicians who attempt to appease these people by promising them that very thing. Now you have the mess that is Social Security today.
But God demonstrates his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us - (Romans 5:8)
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
EXxxccellenntt....! The indoctrination has taken hold in the larva, according to plan. Soon victory will be OURS!
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
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.
Privately-bought insurance covers your house burning down, and the government doesn't pay you if you're the victim of a crime, except in certain circumstances of there being a victims compensation fund, which doesn't cover the majority of victims of crime.
I don't really give a fuck if we "tried it my way and people didn't like it". I don't think that providing welfare to individuals is "promoting the general welfare" as intended in the constitution. Let the states do this, find everyone moving to the one that provides the best benefits, and see how long it lasts.
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You seem to be implying that that economic deadweight from private failures to save is somehow different than the economic deadweight from preventing them from saving, and encouraging them to rely on social security, which is the current name for the welfare system.
The economic deadweight couldn't be worse than the current system, and is almost sure to be less.
See what I've been reading.
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.
If we don't make some sort of transition then someday a generation will be left holding the bag and it will be ugly.
That said, I agree with other posters that the real problem is the budget deficit. It makes SS look like peanuts.
Lasers Controlled Games!
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.
I don't think anyone realistically expects SS to end now, and that would in effect be stealing what you and others have been promised. But for the distant future, it is good to investigate alternatives to SS. Speaking more generally to this and other posts about unforeseen catastrophes and people who truly can't care for themselves, most of those who posted here assume that everyone lives in isolation and has nobody else to rely upon if they run into trouble. In the past, the unfortunate's church or community came together and helped him out of his difficulty. That still happens, too! All it does is shift the responsibility from the government to the community. It's much more efficient, a lot less paperwork and fraud, and it draws the community tighter. This debate is basically a debate of socialism vs. capitalism. It's also raging with respect to welfare and nationalized healthcare. We don't want to go that way any more than we have, the rest of the socialist world needs our drug research! :-)
On the topic of privatizing SS, the UK has had no end of trouble here. The investment fees eat up more than the investments gain. You have to remember that SS deductions go up with payroll increases. By and large payroll increases with growth in the economy (inflation + productivity gains). This means that investments must beat (inflation + productivity). Investments are (inflation + equity premium - fees). Now the equity premium is (productivity + expectation of wealth gained). So you're arguing that the general expectation of stocks' growth will consistently be higher than the fees. Historically you won't fare terribly well on this bet.
The UK is currently working to de-privatize their Thatcher era pension reforms because of the troubles it has caused. And Argentina didn't work out nearly so well as the UK did.
If we do nothing to SS then sometime around 2042 it will run out of its accumulated funds and only pay out what it takes in. This amounts to roughly 70% of what has been promised to folk -- not good, but not disasterous. Privatization does _nothing_ to offset this. To offset this you must do something like:
The Bush administration is promoting door number 3. They propose indexing SS payments to cost of living increases rather than to payroll. Because cost of living = inflation, and as noted above, payroll = inflation + productivity, this means that all gains in productivity are taken away from SS payments. Over the life of SS this amounts to a 75% reduction in payments, say from $3000 down to $750. This is another way to end SS by over the long run reducing its value to nearly nothing. That is, in my opinion, the goal of the current Bush effort -- the elimination of SS.
Then we ask who the winners are under such a scenario. The clear answer is the folk who collect the investment fees, above. These folk are, not surprisingly, funding the Bush inauguration quite generously.
It is also important to realize that SS payroll deductions are taken out of the first $75,000 that folk earn at a flat rate of 12.6%. This makes it a highly regressive tax -- in that the wealthy pay very little SS tax. If we then turn around and reduce payments from SS we have effectively found a way to take the poor and middle class, while giving them less for their investment.
Cheers,
Scott
What do you have against private property?
I put the rights of human beings to not suffer above your right to have an SUV or a 42 inch instead of a 36 inch one.
Why don't we just take the FICA payroll deductions and buy T-Bills with them? It doesn't really change anything, except that we'd be able to do things like pass the money on to our heirs. The benefit of SS is supposed to be for the people, not so the govt can use the funds to spend however they want. I guess the problem is that people will figure out that they've been hoodwinked into a giant Ponzi scheme, and will want to be able to invest in things other than T-Bills, and, hey, what do you know, we've got privatized accounts.
JOIN US FOR PONG!
And as far as the class warfare "tax cuts for the rich" - please. That argument is bogus - the tax cuts were across the board. If you didn't get a tax cut, it was because you didn't pay any taxes. And as far as the "rich" go - the top 10% of wage earners pay over 75% of the tax burden - what more do you want from them?
That's wage earners intentionally - compare their tax burden to John Kerry or Ted Kennedy - who pay a lot less in taxes than a small business owner pulling in 300K a year. Is *that* fair, Mr. Liberal, that a guy who's only source of money is marrying rich widows worth 600 millionpays less taxes then a guy who owns a small business and provides jobs for 10 people? Which person helps the economy more?
Viagra and Propecia prove to be toxic with long-term usage, solving the social-security problem.
;-)
Chip H.
Your 22-year-old naivete would make you a perfect fit for a position in the company of Enron and Worldcom execs.
Ah. And you're doing a lot of good trolling around and flaming with zero explanation behind your insult.
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?
I would say a minimal standard of living, but other than I think you're right on. (People who earn at the bottom of the pay scale get something like $9K/yr from SS.)
In principle, I agree with you. You reap what you sow. In reality, though, I realise that some people have not had the opportunity to get my quality of education, had a supportive family when growing up, nor live in a neighbhourhood or environment of job opportunity. Also, those in the 'free and clear' have crap happen to them too -- e.g. "I worked for Enron for 10 years, they just entered Chapter 11, my pension is seized via receivership and I'm back-due several paycheques... and because of corporate malfeasance my reputation is mud on a resume even though I was an honest and loyal employee..." Its not always someone's fault.
Also, if people don't have social security and get REALLY desperate it might get ugly. Crime goes up, riots, neighbourhoods get depressed and real estate prices drop. Think of social security as a 'tax to maintain my lifestyle, not theirs'. Its self-serving, but a realistic perspective. Also, its an insurance policy you never, ever hope to collect upon.
I don't consider Social Security idealistic -- I consider the Horotia Alger myth that anyone can become anything to be idealistic. Social Security is pragmatic, and I think does more for the rich than it does for the poor.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
But when most of the people does not save for retirement, it becomes everyone's problem...
or just get the bugmenot extenstion for firefox. http://www.bugmenot.com
I stole this signature
The government exists only to protect rights, not to guarantee a level playing field for everyone when they retire.
It should read as: The government exists only to protect rights of upper class, not to guarantee a level playing field for everyone else when they retire.
Government steals, lies and cheats and you can't do nothing. If you are not reach, then deal with your problems yourself, but if you are, they can pass new bills to help make you more money.
A good amount of my tax money is spent putting out other people's fires and catching criminals. You don't really understand how the constitution works do you? It sets up a government that allows people to do the things that they cannot do as individuals. That's what's meant by "general welfare". How is social security any less constitutional than public sanitation, police and fire. As long as it was instituted by a legitimate act of gov't its totally constitutional. Think of this way: Social Security is how the people of the United States have, constitutionally, protected themselves from being destitute in their old age.
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.
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infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
Renting may be more work and risk than is immediately obvious.
A bad tenant can easily reduce the value of a house by $20,000 in a few months. (Students are notoriously bad tenants.)
Non-paying and destructive tenants are very hard to get rid of (depending on local laws).
Damage control and rent collection aren't necessarily work-free, even with decent tenants.
Buying rental properties may be a wise choice for you, but it's not automatically wise for everyone.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
I'm self employed meaning that I get to pay SS 15.3% of my income. And for what? If I die before I can collect, I get nothing back, can't leave it to the charity/family members of my choice, and if I do live long enough to collect, there won't be anything there anyway uless they raise the rates
I suggest an optional program to let people opt-out. Yes I realize present earners are paying for present users
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
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
First off: Lack of foresight is not the only thing that can make you poor when you're old. Lack of income during your working years (let's say you worked for minimum wage). Medical emergencies can suck up even the most carefully-planned savings (esp. if you don't have health insurance--see minumum wage). The market WILL NOT solve this problem for everyone. Some people can get better jobs, some can't. ~5% of the population is ALWAYS unemployed (and looking for work, and not in jail). The free market doesn't even provide minimum wage for them. There is nothing.
So let's say I'm tucked away in my mansion, happily retired. What does it matter to me that there's twenty 65-year-olds starving to death within a block of my house and I have more than enough to feed them for the rest of their lives. What does it matter to me? I'll give to them if I WANT to and I don't happen to want to.
Damn. The old buggers broke into my mansion and took my HDTV, hocked it, and bought (can you believe it) food. Now they're in jail and I'm paying for their food, clothing, shelter, and health care for the rest of their lives. Dang--this sounds like exactly what I was avoiding, except I missed "Everybody Loves Raymond" for like two weeks while my insurance sorted it out, and of course, the poor old people are probably not enjoying my money as much in jail as they would have if they were free.
That's not to say that all starving people will resort to crime--but it's certainly an incentive. Those who die without a fight can still get back at you by having their corpses contibute to the cholera epidemic that sweeps your neighborhood.
As a later poster said: you have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We're not asking you to make them happy. We're asking you to keep them alive. There are consequences, other than legal and moral, for our not keeping your fellow man alive when you have the means.
This is not an issue of rights. Fundamentally it's all about costs.
What do you think it'll cost to fix all the problems caused by a lack of a social security program (whether due to "incompetence" of citizens or by the government not providing one in the first place)?
I'll bet my social security benefits on that not having a social security program of the current type is more expensive than having one.
It's the same thing as when you cut social programs to save money in the city/state level, as has been happening ever since the federal government has been cutting funding to cities/states, more money starts bleeding from elsewhere (e.g. emergency care costs, law enforcement costs, mental health care costs, family services, etc.).
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
so you can guarantee, right this instant, that you are saving enough money to pay for food, insurance, clothing, and medication 50 years from now, and that NOTHING well prevent you from tending to these PERSONAL liabilities?
I didn't think so.
That is why we have SocSec.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
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.
To not suffer, or to get a handout with which they can do as they wish? At least with WIC, you don't get cash, you get stamps only valid for certain food items and cheap diapers.
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SS is a Ponzi scheme based on an assumption that population will continue to grow, and because of that it will always be easy to borrow from your children since you'll have lots of them.
That's an interesting point. I would like to point out, though, that when people effectively utilize available retirement options (IRAs at the very least), they can reduce or eliminate the burden on their children by having already saved for their retirement.
The other thing about being retirment age and nearer to death is that "borrowing" money from your children is probably not borrowing after all.
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
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.
Social Security Insurance, or SSI, was created after the stock market crash of 1929 that left millions of people who had planned for their retirement destitute. The country was heading straight towards a second, possibly even Marxist, revolution.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
well, of course, it isn't in the constitution. but the constitution does give congress the power to make laws to deal with the problems of society.
apparently congress thinks it's more important to make sure old people aren't starving on the streets than to give DataStalker an ideological hand-job.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
And with what do you suggest the Federal government suggest paying those "loans"?
You can pay them in dollars that currently exist - but only by confiscating those dollars directly out of other citizens' pockets, resulting in capital flight and economic implosion.
Or you can pay them in dollars that don't exist - but only by printing another $26,000,000,000,000 of them, resulting in hyperinflation and economic implosion.
> If the politicans hadn't been using the SS Trust as a slush fund to pay for their pork projects, we would NEVER have had this problem. There are 26 TRILLION dollars in IOU's setting in the "Lock Box," all wasted money that we can't account for.
Your first statement is true. So -- are we to end Social Security on the grounds that its accounting makes Enron look like a paragon of fiscal responsibility, or should we perpetuate it?
There are ZERO dollars in the "lock box". It doesn't exist. And we can account for those dollars -- they got spent. Some of it got turned into weapons and blowed up in Iraq. Some of it got turned into space probes. Some of it wound up in the hands of the working poor. Some of it wound up in the hands of your local neighborhood crack dealer. Most of it wound up in the hands of government bureaucrats (and government contractors) who never met pork they didn't like.
It's a shitty situation. The only ethical move is to acknowledge that SS (and the "lock box") was (and is) a fraud perpetrated on the public, and fire the hoaxters from the top down. End SS, abolish the department, apologize to the defrauded, and pass a Constitutional amendment never to do it again.
"What if all the people on welfare became lawyers? Problem solved!"
--Scott Adams, Clues for the Clueless: Dogbert's Guide to Etiquette
I've never understood this argument, since it seems to imply that the vast majority of Americans understand their finances well enough to make it work for them. Sadly, we don't do a thing to educate people on how to manage their finances (or did you take a "financial management" class in high school?). During their working lives, not many people have the time, between career and family, to educate themselves on these issues. Not everyone can afford a financial planner (they're expensive).
If you have a proposal for educating people on these issues, I'd love to see it. Unfortunately, I've never seen such a proposal.
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.
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.
If you get rid of Social Security, how are you planning to prevent elder poverty?
We've got elder poverty right now. Social Security alone doesn't keep people above the poverty line if they have no other source of income (read: some kind of retirement account).
You can't prevent poverty, but you can ameliorate the effects. We've got this thing called 'welfare' that does just that for those who are unable to work.
We've already tried it your way. Social Security hasn't always been around. In fact, it was born out of a necessity to mitigate circumstances such as those surrounding the crash of the stock market in 1929. Are you telling me that all the people who got burned in the stock market deserved to starve to death for being so irresponsible by buying into a capitalist system?
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
You're going to pay one way or the other, either you do it in an orderly fashion through a system like Social Security or you pay through externalized costs of destitute elderly. Plan on paying for increases in crime, emergency services, healthcare, etc. Or do you think this nation is going to just let old people starve and freeze in the streets? Would you really treat Veterans who hadn't been able to save enough because of constant medical problems not covered by the VA this way? How do you propose to help people whose pensions the courts have stripped through criminal mismanagement by their former employers? You're method is just tough luck, sucks to be you?
No society has been able to progress and remain competitive with the shortsighted advice you've proposed here. Social Security is just a cheaper way to protect rights than "letting the market take care of it". Wealth equals power, the Social Security payments ensure that old people have the power to defend their rights instead of depending on the government to make sure they aren't violated.
The word justice is all over the Constitution and the Federalist Papers; Social Security fits the Founding Father's idea of justice, hence it's in the Constitution. Your argument about being something that people are unwilling to do for themselves is a canard. Only a half-hearted attempt to understand this nation's founding and history could lead you to the conclusions you've vomited all over this page.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Haha, funny.
Property rights are human rights.
There are entangled as one.
If you cannot keep the proceeds of your efforts that you rightfully earned (through financial interactions with others), then you are not free at all. If you cannot keep that money or items you earned, then you cannot possibly take care of yourself, and must rely on others for help.
That is why theft is a crime. If I work hard to put food on the table and somebody steals the money in my wallet that I rightfully earned, I cannot feed my family. Hopefully, my friends will suffer a bit from the theft to help me eat, but overall humanity suffers from the theft.
When people take money that they have not rightfully earned, humanity as a whole suffers. When people squander money and don't save for retirement, humanity as a whole suffers. It is in everyone's best interest to be financially independent and smart about their investments, without dependency on others.
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
Lets agree that Social Security is flawed, take the hit this generation, and start something new and rational for the next.
Great comment! I wish more Americans had this attitude. I fall in the same age group and share your opinion.
Why not keep working after 65 if you can't afford to retire?
Try responding to my point. Before Social Security, old people froze and starved in the streets. After Social Security, the elderly can at least buy a cup of soup occassionally. Social Security has raised the standard of living for the elderly tremendously, and if you get rid of it by privatizing, you must be willing to say it's OK for those people to just starve, freeze, and die. After all, they should have sold their Enron shares sooner ...
I forgot to mention that it might be a good idea to buy a house on your block. That way you can keep an eye on them, or they will think you are.
Of course, it house prices in your neighbourhood might suddenly drop, so you might want to spread the risk too... I'd take that chance though.
Nice job trying to change the argument. I'm not defending anyone personally. I'm defending a financially sound system the prevents our country's retirees from ever having to go homeless or hungry because of market forces, like say, a recession? Social Security was created to prevent those who had saved their whole lives and lost it in a market crash.
Th
Do you not understand that people base their (albeit limited) financial planning on what they anticipate Social Security will pay when they hit a certain age?
They plan for it.
If it simply protected people from starving and freezing, then fine, but don't *plan* on taking my money so you can pay your cable bill.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Last time I checked, SS is somewhere between 12% and 15% of my paycheck (Yes, I only pay 6% or 7% of it, but I could negociate a better salary from my employer if they didn't have to pay the other half. I'm smart enough to know that the other half they are taking from me is mine, but they are smart enough not to put it on the paystubs of ever last worker in the U.S.).
I'm fiscially responsible, and given another 12%-15% of my paycheck back, I could retire 20 years earlier then the SSA will pay me a dime, and as bonus, because people in my family generally don't live long enough, I could even enjoy some of the benefits of the system I'll end up paying into right up until the day I die! Maybe, I'd even get to pass that money on to others in my family to help them form the nest egg they could use to retire on. I can't ever use a lot of the retirement funding they set up tax shelters for. Unless I'm special in my family, I won't ever get the 401K or SS benefits. I still put money into the 401K as I can use it in other ways.
This is simple demographics problem. The simple problem is that the boomers didn't pay in enough while they were younger (and also that a lot of people got benefits that never paid into the system when it was originally started). Some of the rest of the problem is that people are living much longer, and are consuming more resources then had been anticipated.
It was an ill conceived system. If you think that individuals can't manage to plan for their future. Take a good long hard look at what the Gov't is doing to try and plan for an entire countries future. I'd much rather leave it to individuals, and let them participate in other private sector mechanisms (like say, insurance).
Kirby
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
That's funny I never read the clause in the constitution that guaranteed everyone a life of comfort (let alone at taxpayer expense).
Your belief that the good of the collective supercede the rights of the individual are contrary to the concept of individual liberty and freedom that this country was founded on.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
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.
except for the fact that the life expectancy level is going to increase faster than they think. All those 85-90 year old smelly grandparents are gonna suck my savings away :(
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?
They learn. If not, they go to private charity to get assistance when needed.
Or if there is not enough private charity they will climb through your bedroom window at night, cut your throat, and take your wallet. That works too.
Whats the saying? Something like "democracy works great until the people realize they can vote themselves lunch."
Crikey. Way past time to just admit that Social Security is a crack-pot idea that only suceeds in making people dependent on government.
Why won't anyone come out and say that it is *NOT MORAL* to take a chunk of a person's income by force, before they even get a chance to see it, for whatever purpose?
If I was that drunk, I would have remembered it -- H. Simpson
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
Would you rather have a $10K or $7K raise?
You would work harder for the $10K right? Higher marginal tax rates suppress growth.
Would you hire an accountant if he could get you that extra $3K if you only got the $7K? Would you accept $2k in benefits over nothing? High tax rates cause avoidance of taxes. Low tax rates make the cost of avoidance higher than the benefit
Would you be more likely to start a business if you knew that you would be taxed on revenue even before you made a profit, making it a more risky venture? High marginal tax rates suppress growth. Look at Belgium if you're curious about tax evasion.
Decreasing taxes increases growth.
Look here for some more intuition.
The problems with the budget today have to do with overspending, and not under-taxing.
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
Because public sanitation, police and fire are all handled by the state and local governments. The COTUS talks about the Feds. You might want to actually read the COTUS before making a statement like that.
Perhaps if you didn't have 6.2% (or 15.4% if you're self-employed) of your money taken away from you, you could afford to retire.
As for your "affordable" pension plan...
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?
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.
He's referring to the policy of lots of companies that force their employees to invest some percentgae of their 401K contributions into the company they work for, instead of what they feel would be a financially sound retirement investment. This investment in the company greately increases the captial invested in the compnay, and working the books, a not-so-honest, betrayer-of-the-public-trust type executive could easily manage to make that investment drop directly in his bank account, or in a more innocent turn of events, the company tanks and the person loses the majority of their retirement, instead of having their money invested in what they wanted to. Ergo: rich ex-exec, poor hard working retiree.
Th
Hong Kong was also a small municipality with nowhere near the population or potential problems applying such a scheme to a country the size of the US would.
The HK solution, while good in theory, isn't scalable to US-sized proportions.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...
I couldn't agree with you more.
In New Zealand and particularly Australia there have been quite a few incidents during the recent real-estate boom where middle-aged (read: 50-55 year old) people have had their entire savings burned by convincing con-men with "investment schemes" to sell. If you have your lifetimes savings burned up by some dickhead with ten years left to retirement, you're pretty much in big trouble. Governments who abdicate responsibility for retirement savings had better crack down heavily on investment scammers with their "get-rich-quick-but-pay-me-$50,000-first" schemes well before doing so.
Most people just aren't that finance savvy.
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
Dude, congratulations for being one of the 5%* of Americans smart enough to plan for your own future! To the 95% of Americans too stupid to do so: that's right, "f*ck 'em!!"
Ahh, the American Way: don't educate your populace well enough to prepare them for real life, then piss on them for being so stupid.
I estimate the vast majority Americans would choose short-term happiness (spending their whole paycheck every week on crap they don't need) to long-term happiness (saving for returement) any day of the week. And what do poor, destitute old people create: a greater burden on society!!
Wake me up when that vast majority has been educated well enough to make important decisions on their own.
*note: all statistics made up, but probably pretty accurate
Not so long ago, there wasn't social security. What people did then was either plan for retirement (rare), work for a company for long enough that they were provided for after retirement* (almost as rare), or count on family (children) to take care of them in later years.
*What social security has done was to eliminate a few pieces of this. It's rare that private companies in the US provide a defined benefit plan and instead typically only offer 401(k) which is not required. Also, it's not as often that you see elderly parents living with one of thier offspring. Rather, they get along until they absolutely can't on their own and more often than not are sent to a retirement "community" where someone else can take care of them. Of course, neither of these has happened across the board, but are both quite prevalent these days.
I work for the local county now, and am required to pay into ss as well as the county mandated retirement plan. If I stay here for 21 years, I'll have the retirement plan, (maybe) ss, my 401(k) and my personal savings which is spread out in several buckets. I know, however, that not everyone can do all of that. So my fiance and I, in building our new house, are planning an extra downstairs guest room in the event a family member(s) isn't going to make it financially. My parents won't be starving in the street, they'll have their own "apartment" at my house, and as their son, I feel it's my duty to take care of them as they did for me once.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
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.
Sounds like a good way for them to get shot or stabbed in retaliation
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.
Elitist much?
Any chance that the cause and effect is the other way around? Is it possible, just possible, that people act irresponsibly because someone else takes responsibility for them?
-Peter
Last time I checked, my bank accounts didn't come with a disclaimer like this:
If a mutual fund propspectus said "By 2042, there won't be enough other investors depositing checks with us to pay all of the net asset value of the fund. At that point, there will be enough money to pay only about 73 cents for each dollar presently shown on this statement", would you invest in it?
Say what you will about Kenneth Lay and Bernie Ebbers. Neither of them pointed guns at people's heads and said "buy our stock or we pull the trigger."
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.
Uh, the "pyramid" you refer to would only terminate if everyone stopped reproducing at the same time. So, you are saying SS really does work, just as long as people keep doing what people do.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
It's a wonder huanity ever existed without SS. It's a wonder anyone could ever live past the age of 65 100 years ago. Sure, a hundred years ago, there was startvation, and a thousand years, and there will be a thousand years from now. But, giving people incentive to be less responsible won't cure any of that.
A modern day witchhunt.
I hate to let you in on this little secret, but when you walked into that voting booth a few month back, you had your say. Social Security is one of the biggest hot button issues in politics, and if you are against it (which in my opinion is foolish), you could have (and should have) made your voice heard by choosing representatives and executives who hold your same view. It just happens that the large large majority of this country thnks Social Security is a fantastic idea, and love to pay into it.
Th
Poppycock, dont' start a post with here are the facts then slip in what is very arguably opinion, the social security plan is in trouble, way trouble and much less then 40 years from now. 40 year estimate is based on todays events and demands -- whenever in history has events and demands *not* changed for the worse.
This whole "the top 10% of wage earners pay over 75% of the tax burden" thing is interesting. People say it as if it is inherently unfair just on the face of it. But they always leave out the information necessary to tell how fair or unfair it is, to wit: What percent of income do the top 10% get?
"MANY people out there make such low wages that they can only afford to SURVIVE paycheck-to-paycheck. it's not their inaction to save, it's their inability to have any leftover to put food on the table without starving, let alone for saving for retirement."
and if the government wasnt taking 6.2% of their wages for SS and 1.45% for Medicare they'd have more to live off and save as they see fit.
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.)
Social Security isn't *investment*, it's *insurance*. It's a gaurentee that you won't have to spend your retirement years under a bridge.
I don't think it's either. If it were insurance, it would only pay people who got in trouble.
As a group, retirees are the wealthiest americans, and yet *every single one of them* receives Social Security benefits - not just people who would be on the streets without them.
No society has been able to progress and remain competitive with the shortsighted advice you've proposed here.
You mean besides the entire human race? This may come as a shock to you, but SS (both in this country, and in a larger global sense) is a recent thing. Most people that have lived (read: thrived) throughout history, did it without social security.
A modern day witchhunt.
yea... but who sets the limits... the limits for you, that might help you from screwing yourself... might stop me from being successful.... Im young, so I want to invest in high risk stocks since a loss now wont wipe me out.
also this would make this kind of investment much less agile than investing your money normally... especially if you are limited to a certain number of trades per year.
and there is no denying that when all of that money hits the market prices are going to go up and anyone waiting for it (who invested with private funds) will take advantage and profits.
Its a complex problem, and I dont claim to have all the answers... but im not sure we should be jumping at privatization without looking at it from all possible sides...
but hey, this is america... we will be lucky if we look at one side before we jump
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
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 only thing your explanation overlooks is the fact that nobody can opt-out of Social Security. Sure, I can opt in to all kinds of other, optional retirement insurance schemes, but if I try to keep my Social Security payments, and put them into a plan that I'm convinced will give me better insurance, I go to jail.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Those seniors have a reasonable expectation that the system they pay into is going to provide for them when they need it; they would not have contributed had it been suggested that they would be no benefits.
What you mean is, those seniors, in their youth, before I was born, voted for politicians to take my money to subsidize their retirement.
Well, excuse me, but I have a real problem with that. And now that I've been born, and I'm old to vote, I'm voting "Hell, no!".
Sorry, but I can't muster a whole lot of sympathy for a generation of opportunistic geezers who cynically voted themselves a cushy retirement out of the pockets of people who hadn't even been born yet. Let 'em starve on the streets, and serve as an example for all time of what happens to people who cynically attempt to use government as a means for living out of other people's pockets.
Private investment for retirement isn't a bad thing; people are free to do that if they choose. It also means risk however. Social Security reduces risk, but offers a lower rate of return. Think of it as an insurance policy.
Tell me about that the day a private insurance company forces me to buy insurance I don't want under threat of fines and imprisonment.
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
So you're saying those treasury bonds are no good? If that's the case we're in a lot more trouble than social security...
In fact, repudiating any treasury bonds would cause the great depression to look like a tiny pothole...
I did: I voted Libertarian.
"It just happens that the large large majority of this country thnks Social Security is a fantastic idea, and love to pay into it."
Following your will-of-the-people voting logic, it would seem that a majority of the people think that Social Security is an awful idea, and have elected Bush to get rid of it.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
that would be called running a ponzi scheme and is universally recognized as in an irrational investment in every sector.
And is also illegal as fraud in the US. The SEC will be on you like a frat guy on a drunk cheerleader.
(Well, unless you're the government, obviously.)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
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.
If we stop SS today, how do we take care of those that are within 10 years of retirement (given as many of them didn't have the time to build up a 401k and some of them may not have a company pension plan)? And, what about those from 10 to 20 years from retirement?
The simple answer is you don't. Don't mandate a grandfather clause cutoff, that is.
Say we stop Social Security and Medicare in their current forms starting January 1, 2006. The actuaries can tell you approximately how much of a gap they anticipate you will have to fund (because the programs are pay-as-you-go). Issue very long-dated bonds to cover this gap.
Everyone born on or after January 1, 2006 cannot participate in the programs; their employers get to remit their entire gross (after deducting federal income tax, state unemployment tax and for some unfortunates state income tax and city income tax) to them. Everyone else has a one-time election: stay in or leave. They don't have to make the decision by some deadline, but once they make the decision, they cannot change it.
There are many permutations you can play with this basic plan, of course. Read up on Chile's privatization to gain a sense of the mechanics of the transition. But the general idea is you take the one-time hit to exit the programs by floating the debt on the money markets and pay it back out of general operations funds over the next several decades. You take future liabilities off the books, but at an up front hit to the nation's creditworthiness basically (although smart traders would probably recognize the beneficial free market implications right away and not discount the nation's economy so heavily). It hurts at first, but the financial pain pretty rapidly tapers off as the freed up funds find their way into various investments. Assuming that is, we even have the wherewithal to take the financial hit. America's national financial health is on a quicksand foundation.
Any number of exogenous events can seriously damage our ability to wind down these welfare liabilities in an orderly fashion. The longer seniors demand their pound of flesh, the closer we come to a day when there might not be an option except for the abrupt "Out of Business" one. Like the monkey trapped by a jar in which he thrust his fist to grab a bauble he won't let go, America as a nation might not let go of these welfare programs until it is knocked flat on its ass by its creditors.Considering how much of a fiscal mess the "Greatest Generation" and the "Boomer Generation" are leaving their sucessors, they have probably literally spent whatever good legacy they have built up, and history may remember them in a dim, unapproving light.
Not just the elderly. Social Security also helps people who become disabled and their dependents.
What will a 25 year old do, if he is hurt in a car crash and cannot work anymore?
To judge how advance a society is, just look how it is treating it's least powerful - the children and the elderly. As someone put it: "Social Security is not about making sure that YOU don't have to eat cat food when you retire. It's about making sure that the grandma living down the block from you does not".
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Would you really treat Veterans who hadn't been able to save enough because of constant medical problems not covered by the VA this way? How do you propose to help people whose pensions the courts have stripped through criminal mismanagement by their former employers? You're method is just tough luck, sucks to be you?
Yes, if he's a dyed in the wool republican.
George II -- Spreading Freedom and American values, one bomb at a time.
The constitution doesn't say what the government should do at all. It sets up parameters for the government to adhere to. Constitution mentions nothing of political parties , special interest groups, etc. Remember, the constitution doesn't define the government, it limits its' possible constructs. Don't use what the constitution doesn't say as a shield of personal beliefs.
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
Pray tell. How did it do that? Are you suggesting that the social security act brought us out of the great depression? If so, I think you would have a hard time defending that. Are you saying that SS somehow was responsible for the GD? Considering the act wasn't signed until well after the GD is generally considered to have begun, that seems unlikely. Further, it's argued in economist circles that many of the social programs of the time may have actually prolonged the depression.
A modern day witchhunt.
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
Sounds like a good way for them to get shot or stabbed in retaliation
The whole point of social security is to share the wealth with the unfortunate so that they are not desperate enough to commit crimes for money, or start a revolution to return the money accumulated by the very wealthy to the people. When millions of people were destitute after the stock market crashed (great depression) we were very close to a revolution, and crime was rampant. Social security was to stop it from happening again. If I'm 80 and suddenly find myself destitute, unemployable, but with another 10 years of life expectancy, I'm not sure what I will do. Suicide is one answer. Robbery might be another. Nothing to lose means dying in a robbery attempt might be better than doing nothing.
You would be living off the interest. It is not 2 million a month or year.
btw, my mom is 65 and in great shape.
Goes camping with the grandsons, cruises, works some, etc.
She is loving life right now.
The problem is when people get to be 65 and realize "golly I have 10K in my 401K and SS is only going to give me $300 dollars a month. They are in trouble,"
"There's nothing wrong with it that can't be cured by allowing destitute senior citizens to starve to death on the streets. It would, after all, be their own fault, for failing to save properly for old age."
This, folks, illustrates the failings of libertarian ideology. To the original poster: can you say, with a straight face, that you'd prefer to live in such a society rather than the society we have today? And even if you can, most people couldn't.
There's nothing wrong with it that can't be cured by allowing destitute senior citizens to starve to death on the streets.
I certainly don't want to be having to step over some smelly old people or their corpses every time I leave the house!
If you read the article (RTFA), it describes how the creators of the system took this into account when they designed it. At the time Social Security was started, a little over 5% of the nation was retired. They then projected that in 1990 (this was back in the 30's) that the nation would consist of abour 12.65% retirees. They were close, it was 12.4%. So when building the system, then knew that they would have to anticpate a burden further down the road, and designed the system to carry a surplus to pay for future benficiaries.
Th
Only when bad policies such as SS are put in place.
A modern day witchhunt.
Although I agree with the ideas, surely you recognize that this is a standard democrat position. You might recall how Bush's tax cut gave huge breaks to the wealthy and super wealthy. I sure remember a lot of democrats mentioning this during election time. Still, I would like to see some influential republicans acknowledging it rather than blindly repeating the party mantra.
Never underestimate the power of fiber.
In the preamble to the constitution you will see that one of its goals is to "promote the general Welfare." (which of course is not welfare in its modern sense but still, the well-being of the populace) The constititution is designed to describe the structure and limits of the government. If it doesn't limit the government from providing social security then it allows it. Given that the majority of the population wishes that social security exist and it infringes on no individual's rights (you do not have a right to avoid paying taxes), your argument that it is unconstitutional is quite weak.
You know, you're right, and nobody exists just so they can grow the wheat that gets turned into the bread that makes the bun for your big mac. Society is founded, quite simply, on the idea of shared burden. You can promote your Libertarian Utopia all you want, but the idea of Perfect Individualism is tantamount to a return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, where if you haven't killed it or culled it yourself, you starve. Society starts with "You share with me, I share with you, and when you have more, and you give me more, I return in kind" I'm not promoting communism, here. I'm promoting mere citizenship. The fact that people get so caught up in their own selfish delusions to forget that one simple foundation of SOCIETY, boggles my mind. You may think you can do everything you need to support yourself, but we have a word for that, and it's "hubris".
So, again, social security exists to ensure that society is safe from roving bands of starving geezers grabbing you on the street and phlegmatically demanding that you give them the safety they deserve after working their asses off for fifty years building your roads, buildings, and homes... cooking your meals, raising your children, all at a wage that made it impossible for them to save up for the future. Sure, social security might be expensive for you, now, but in the future, guns will probably still be cheap, and old people might find them a comfort against your selfishness
...asshat
I agree completely that the pupose of government isn't to help me plan for retirement. And at the same time we can't just kick government out tomorrow because we'd be screwing over everyone who has already paid in. There's going to have to be a transition.
Further, if we could get rid of income tax and let people see how much they're actually paying in taxes, there might be some more awareness of the folly of Big Government.
In any case, it's a pleasure to read a non-socialist post on /.
But if it all works out, when you're 60, you have money to get by on, while most of your friends are poor.
You have to work for it, but IMO, that's ok. I'm sure there are other methods of making money that require less effort though.
There's nothing wrong with it. Many people already do it. It's ususally referred to as a 401K or IRA.
Social Security isn't just about retirement, however. Many millions of Americans who are disabled depend on it to survive. And, of course, there's the single worker families with a stay at home mom or dad. What happens to them when the bread winner dies at an early age?
Also, there are very few jobs in America today that pay enough for a worker to raise a family, buy a house, afford college and save for retirement. Most people that I know who have decent paying jobs, are still struggling to just live paycheck to paycheck. It's not from bad money management, it's because rasising kids today is damned expensive.
A question for you now...
If you don't support government run Social Security, would you support a law that requires all compaines that do business in the U.S. to pay their U.S. employees not just a living wage, but I retirement wage?
I did read the article, which was quite good. I think you've mistaken some claims and exaggerated others, so I wanted to clear it up a bit.
According to the article, the actuaries make three forecasts, an optimisitic, an intermediate, and a pessimistic one. It is in the intermediate scenario that benefits are cut to 70%, while in the optimistic scenario there is 100% solvency. They did not give details about the pessimistic scenario.
I agree the currect deficit is a much bigger issue.
"'They suffer the consequences of their inaction and/or ignorance? God forbid we expect people to be responsible for themselves...'
Are you really that heartless? Do you think it's good for society to have tens of thousands of elerly people and children starving and homeless? It's too bad they didn't save, or perhaps it's too bad their investments went sour, or they were swindled, or some other circumstance you're not considering. But it's a disgusting to deny help to those who need it because you're deciding not the rest of the population isn't as well off as you are."
This is also why those of your point of view typically only consider evolution a 'theory'. Evolution is real, and it is even observable at work in your description above.
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.
Private pensions charge many times what national insurance (as we call it here) costs, and a lot of people just can't afford it (it would cut my wages by 30% to have a private pension and I just about get away with paying the rent already).
That makes no sense. Government is already taking 12.5% of your paycheck for Socialist Security, and isn't even investing it for you at a decent rate of return, yet you claim it would cost you 30% of your paycheck to invest it in something which would give you a considerably higher rate of return, even a no-risk investment like certificates of deposit.
Why can't you take that 12.5% and invest yourself?
If you can't afford to save it yourself, how can you afford to have the government take it out and save it for you?
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
By your logic you'd like to subsist at the same level as our ancestors? This may come as a shock to you, this program was created for a reason and the industrial revolution was pretty recent too. Your agrarian ideals won't work in an industrial system, the parameters have changed, it's time to rethink problems.
You're also ignoring the fact that most of those old people just died. Is your goal to just let old people die again?
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
What part of "promote the general welfare" don't you understand, buddy?
2. The 40 year date is conservative. It could be infinite. Possible ways it could be infinite:
- We kill every person as they reach retirement age.
- We set retirement age to 400,000 years old
- We buck all demographic trends and start having babies like mad.
- We use our clones to work to earn money to pay for our retirement.
Why is it wrongheaded to look and see a potential (and likely) problem 15 years out (2019, not 2042, read up on the trust fund) and try to head it off? Especially when the problem is potentially huge.3. Very small adjustments? What are these small adjustments? Small adjustments is all relative. If you've ever gotten phone calls from Senior Citizens concerned about the fact that their benefits aren't growing near fast enough, then you know that the easiest political adjustments to Social Security are to increase benefits and damn future retirees.
I personally consider it a problem that we have not bothered to look for ways to provide reasonable economic security and pre-fund to pay for the retirements. Sure we can occasionally dedicate money from general revenues to supplment this prefunded system if it falls short, but this Pay As You Go method used right now sucks as every dime I pay in FICA tax is being spent on today's seniors, and that my children will face the same problem when they are my age.
Let's see how many senators and representatives think that the re-election of the president was a public chime for the abolishment of guaranteed retirement benefits. Whatever scheme the President comes up with first has to start in Congress, and plenty of members of his own party wouldn't commit the political suicide required to go through with any sort of privitization. The AARP is mobilizing the largest voting constituency in this country against this, and that has many elected officials wary of attaching their names (and heads) to this idea.
Th
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....
Good, good! I've got three friend's with me, and we decided that we need your car/house/bike/computer/40% of your income/whatever!
:)
It's an 80% majority, you can't argue with a majority!
And it's okay because we're going to call ourselves the government! (oh, and we have bigger guns...)
In fact, it's down right MORAL because we're more than that magic number of 50%+1!
Yea, over the top, lots of hyperbole, I'm not sorry
If I was that drunk, I would have remembered it -- H. Simpson
You wrote:
Although I agree with the ideas, surely you recognize that this is a standard democrat position.
Excuse me, but that is BULLSHIT! Please, please, show me where the Democratic party leaders (Kerry, Edwards, Dean, MacAuliffe, Daschle, Pelosi, et al.) gave some of the suggestions I spoke of above, and did so on a repeated and consistent basis. PLease show me now, or admit you are wrong. I have been following this for quite some time. You do not know what you are talking about.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
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.
Bush is clearly faning the flames of crisis to generate a windfall for his friends at the investment houses...
/. is a bunch of nerds at a million typewriters. It's not a political conspiracy determined to undermine your beliefs.
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?!
Show me where in the constitution it says that the government should be setting up retirement funds for people. You can't; it's not there. Government does not exist to do for the people what the people are unwilling to do for themselves, though many people would like to (and seem to) think.
It is in the constitution: protect the general welfare. Though you may wish to debate the interpretation of that, I think its valid to argue that keeping elderly and disabled off the streets is promoting the general welfare. Note that You have the right to life, liberty, and the *pursuit* of happiness is not in the constitution.
-Blurp
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
Probably because noone will hire you and the company you work for will get rid of you since it is better for them to hire someone young, vibrant and cheap. Plus, when you are 65, your health starts to deteriorate, more or less so depending upon who you are. What you are suggesting is a neat little "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" idealism that has nothing to do with reality. My stepdad used to think this way. Now that he actually is 65 and has to deal with all the associated problems, he sees that this is a rather silly notion. Actually, the problems with keeping a job that are associated with age began at about age 55-58 for him.
I really don't see what is wrong with having a society that does not automatically throw away anyone who is not a high producer, either because they are old or disabled. Does American society really have to be based on a kind of "hook and bloody talon" capitalism? Is the value of a human being only in what he/she can immediately produce? A society based on this sort of idealogy is doomed by its own moral depravity.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
I am pro-Social Security, but the current program is not "an insurance of last resort against the cruel twists of fate that lead to destitution." It is an entitlement plan which provides money from young wage earners to statistically the wealthiest age demographic. I am all for helping out unlucky individuals, poor seniors etc, but the program is not narrowly focused in the least. Also, as the years have gone on, it has expanded to include more and more different groups.
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
Yeah and in those days the majority of children would die before adulthood. The average life expectancy could be as low as 35 and the vast majority of the population lived in poverty. >Most people that have lived (read: thrived) >throughout history, did it without social security and most people who lived did not thrive.
My appreciation of Douglas Adams is far deeper than yours.
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
As for old people dieing, its pretty much a requirement. There's nothing we can do about it. Welcome to the human existance.
I didn't say I would like to "live like our ancestors", I was just pointing out that humanity has thrived for *insert controversial timeline of humanity here* years.
Nothing about the world has changed so much, as to require goverment be our caretakers. That's not the role of government. We don't need it. They don't do it well. Financial irresponsibility in government is so rampant, it's a cliche. You think it's a good idea to put the financial welfare of millions of people into the hands of possibly the least efficient and responsible organization known to man?
Further, when you remove responsibility from people, they (surprise!) tend to become less responsible. Why promote that?
A modern day witchhunt.
This is an awfully big stretch. You could use this to argue that it would be Constitutional to regularly depose officials through force of arms, or seceed from the Union. Both of these topics were actually discussed, rather than Social Security which was unimaginable in the 18th century.
Only a half-hearted attempt to understand this nation's founding and history could lead you to the conclusions you've vomited all over this page.
Hmmm.
The problem with your statement is that it lacks a basic understanding of capitalism (it's dependency on the poor for cheap labor and in turn it's need to keep the poor semi taken care of so there's no revolution and it's dependency on the uneducated to maintain the lower class etc etc etc) and it misses the understanding that if we mismanage our finances, and most of us inevitably will, our kids will be taking care of us. Who wants that? As a kid or as a parent....
One major factor that affects Social Security is the number of recipients versus the number of people putting money into the system, which has decreased since modern medicine has enabled more people to live to older ages. As this number decreases, things get worse for Social Security.
Another factor is the increase of the gap between the rich and the poor. Those making over $80,000 don't pay the full percentage into the system. As the gap increases, less money flows into the system per person (average Social Security income is lowered).
A mitigating factor would be to raise the $80,000 limit along with inflation. The current limit means that it is effectively cheaper to pay into the system (on an overall basis) now than when the $80,000 limit was instituted. You could even remove the limit altogether, which would go a long way.
However, your point is still taken that we now have a lower recipient to payer ratio than ever before.
There seems to be 2 camps. One camp feels that everyone should be responsible for themselves. If they don't properly save for retirement, then that is their problem. The other camp says that we should have a system that everyone participates in.
The problem I see is that if everyone is on their own, we are going to have hoards of seniors who do not have enough money to live off of. Then we are really going to have a crisis.
Social Security isn't an investment into a retirement fund, it's a TAX! Just like the rest of the taxes you pay, the money gets tossed into a big bag, then spent any way Congress deems desirable to ensure their re-election goes off without a hitch.
That said, killing Social Security would be a bad thing. I'm in favour of the private investment accounts, but want to see current beneficiaries, and near-future beneficiaries, get their full current entitlement.
Then, in the longer term, the benefits should be prorated down to whatever the revised level is expected to be. About half of current benefits? Something like that, with the private investment accounts making up the difference.
Of course, Congress is essentially cowardly - they don't take on serious issues, because serious issues get them kicked out of office. Only time Congress addresses a serious issue is when they're not bright enough to realize that the issue is serious. So they won't pass this "reform".
If they ARE bullied into passing this, just as soon as the Dems get back in power, they will repeal the "reform" (right after they pass laws to guarantee that Republicans never get elected to any Federal office again).
Which will leave us right where we are now. With an increasing deficit (that SS money is being spent as fast as it comes in, and the demand on that money goes up every year), and nothing in sight which suggests that the deficit growth will reverse itself - it can't until we change the nature of SS, since SS wasn't designed to function with a couple of workers supporting each retiree for 20 years or so (it was designed for a dozen or so workers per retiree, for a couple years on average).
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
We already do save for our retirements. We have many different options. The most standard is 401k , IRA and what every you can save in taxable accounts. Our granparents relied on Company pensions. We now have good options to let our money grow tax free or tax deffered.
Repeat after me, "Social Security is not a retirement fund!" If it were a retirement fund it would be called "Social Retirement". This is a safety net for when we are physically unable to work. I am 28 if I get injured and cannot work I get social security bennefits. This is inteded to suplement any insurance or retirement savings you have. It's number 1 job is to protect us from the whims of the economy. Social Security will help the middle class retirees get by in times of economic hardships. Rich people do not like Social Security because they have enough assets to get them through bad times. However, the little guy does not. Please read U.S. history regarding the Great Depression and the New Deal. Also, consider the old saying about eggs and baskets. Think of Social Security as diversifying your investments.
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.
do you realize that more than 50% of the population CAN NOT save for their retirement because they barely make enough to live? Saving that $10.00 a month because that is all you can afford, then the transmission on that 1984 Toyota that now has 260,000 miles on it but has been economical and dependable has blown. so what do you do? without that car you are fired which makes you and your family homeless. so do you pay the $525.00 to get the car fixed spending the 4 and a half years of savings? Or do you go and Buy another used car.. you can afford maybe a $1500.00 bomber at the local Screw-em-hard used car lot and make payments to him, Oh now your insurance doubled because you now have to have Full coverage.
not to mention one of the hundreds of emergencies in life that can EASILY wipe out a poor person's savings instantly.
Just because you are comfortable enough to save hugew amounts of cash because of your very large disposable income certianly does not make you a financial expert.
Let us know when you have a taste of financial reality that 80% of the world endures and many many americans also endure.
Save for retirement, That is fricking funny!
Because most people have no idea how to save money for retirement. no most people it is IMPOSSIBLE to save for retirement.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
How is is then that we have a huge budget deficit due to Republicans, but under Democrats we had a surplus?
...richie - It is a good day to code.
This is exactly how the neocons think, at least until it is their own interests or security that is threatened. From this it should be clear to everyone that their agenda is to eliminate Social Security, and not to "rescue" it, as Bush claims. Does anyone really believe that the Republicans are going to keep spending at a level necessary to meet current obligations, once the revenue rug has been pulled out from under the program? No, no, no: This is what the conservatives call "starve the beast"; i.e., bankrupt and then eliminate it as something we can no longer afford.
I'm pretty sure the life expectancy of people in, say, the 1920's was well over 35.
A modern day witchhunt.
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.
Why stop there? Who gives a crap about these "taxes" we have to pay? Why should my money go to pay for some road across town that I'll never use?
For that matter, screw these "countries" people talk about living in. Ditch it all and let anarchy take over.
Show me where in the constitution it says
The constitution isn't all that big a document firstly, and secondly I thought the idea was it was a framework, not law handed down in stone from the heavens. Although it could be argued that Section 8 Clause 1 would apply to Social Security, under that "general welfare" definition:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States
In case you missed the point of why we have taxes, social programs, law enforcement, etc, it's all part of what we laughingly refer to as "society". We have made a deliberate decision to tax people to pay for things that benefit everyone, because 4000 years of "civilization" have taught us that the average Joe or Jane on the street is a short-sighted selfish bastard who loves the finer things in life like roads, sewers, potable water and other things, but would never actually pay for such an infrastructure to be built if they had to think about it.
We as a people have made a determination that social security is a good thing because given the choice a lot of people would just squander their money and have to work for the rest of their lives. We used to have that happen all the time prior to social programs like Social Security, until a few people got a clue and thought that it might not be a good idea to have people working into their 70s becuase they'd starve if they didn't. Programs like this are put in place for the COMMON good, not just one person's good. It's what makes us a compassionate, rational society.
However, if you wish to see what a society of "every man for himself", which has a natural tendancy to lead to "might-makes-right", please have a look at the Afghanistan of today. And let me know if you'd like your grandparents to be living there.
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.
So what you're saying is that after I've paid into the system my entire adult life, benefits will be cut just as I retire? Sounds like a great system...
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
What do you have against private property?
The fact that it can be inherited, and hence tends to accumulate into fewer and fewer hands. This results in unfair advantage for some over others. Those born of the poor tend to be poor all their lives. Those born rich tend to stay rich. That is the injustice of private property.
either you do it in an orderly fashion through a system like Social Security or you pay through externalized costs of destitute elderly.
...Social Security fits the Founding Father's idea of justice, hence it's in the Constitution.
Or you could act like a grown man, and take care of the people who spawned you. Yes I am suggesting you take your parrents into your house. It's really easy to be generous with someone elses money.
Plan on paying for increases in crime,
I can see it now: rioting, crack adicted, geriatrics running through the streets! Old people are not going to start nocking over banks and beating up young people to pay their medicare bills. This is just moronic.
No society has been able to progress and remain competitive with the shortsighted advice you've proposed here.
WTF does any of this have to do with progress? Right now elderly live in seperate communities or specialty group care facilities. They can no longer contribute ANYTHING to society, since they are cut off from the next generation. We washed our hands of them long ago with Social Security.
Given current societies involvment with their greatest intelectual assets, I don't think it would matter one little bit to our "Progress" if we let them starve in the street or die silently and alone in some sterile institution.
Wealth equals power,
Marxism, Leninism, Tratskism, Mauism, and the Kibuts are dead, they didn't work... just deal with it.
Please provide one proof, of this statement. Give me any qoute (in context PLEASE) to prove this. It's not enough that they used the word "Justice" and you have a new meening for that word.
you've vomited all over this page.
I couldnt agree more.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
There's nothing wrong with it that can't be cured by allowing destitute senior citizens to starve to death on the streets.
It would, after all, be their own fault, for failing to save properly for old age.
The lack of fear at such an outcome is exactly why so many people don't save today the way they used to in the past.
Look at the gradual decline in the savings rate. It even went negative recently. Why? Because people don't worry about their future. They believe government will bail them out.
Social services are an investment. They have been shown to increase the flow of money because people in good health are more productive. There are all kinds of psychological and physical advantages to having these programs. Why do you think that even the most money driven corporations usually force their employees at taking a huge part of their salary in benefices? It is because they know those healthy employees are productive employees. If the government provided a greater part of these things to its citizens it would increase productivity and quality of life in general. You have to increase taxes so that it is viable but the tax increase to corporations isn't as high as it looks. It won't drive companies away because they also save a lot. They don't need to provide as much benefices to their employees since the government provides it instead. The companies benefit from workers that have profited from social services all their life and are therefore more qualified, more psychologically balanced and are able to compete better in the global economy. Therefore, the number of jobs increases, specially the good ones that need higher education and that have good pay.
Some government services like roads, a legal system, police, etc... are an obvious boost to the economy. Some services have a less obvious boost but that doesn't mean we should not have those services. Experts in different fields will tell you that offering services save money. For example, a lot of psychologists and psychiatrists are convinced that if they could give free therapy to families and children with problems early in their life they could prevent a lot of them from becoming criminals and thus reduce the cost of crime police, and reduce criminal influence (criminals turn their peers into criminals) in the long term.
True, there are cheaters in the system. And there are probably lots of them. But I believe you should not go out of your way to punish them, that's just punishing yourself. You should try to do everything you can that dissuade the cheating by tailoring the system so that it is not advantageous to cheat, but only if it doesn't impair your lifestyle to do so. Cutting social services impairs your lifestyle and raises the cost of living. I know humans have an instinct against freeloaders, there's a bell that rings in our head at the thought of the possibility of being exploited. Basic instincts can help us lots of times, but we have the advantage over animals that we are intellectual beings. Don't let that basic instinct get to you when your intellect can tell you that you are better off if you just ignore the freeloaders sometimes. Be proud of your legacy to society and to America. Don't be scared it will just benefit the freeloaders. Be glad that you made a better place to live for the other hard workers which are doing the same for you. Yes if you look at it directly I can see how it can seem to benefit mostly others, but it is as much for your benefit, the benefit of the economy and of corporations. You have to look at the big picture. It will be very beneficial for you that everyone around you is competent and sane. There are high costs associated with the opposite situation. You're right taking your hard earned money and forcing you to give it to others for no reason is bad. But this is for your benefit. It also acts as a kind of insurance to you. If ever you or a member of your family gets really sick or you loose your house and everything you own in a disaster, you will have government help to fall on. One of the nice things with social services is that it is multiplicative. When people are taken car of, they can themselves help others who can help even more people.
I firmly believe capitalism (or profit maximization) is the only way for countries to work well. It is a form of economic survival of the fittest where the better, easier, cheaper alternative is the one that thrives. It is the most natural way to efficient life. But I still think you have to be intelligent about it and not view only the direct obvious
If so, reply to this. Otherwise, liar, liar, commie, nazi, etc, etc, etc.
I think I'll stop here.
Issue more debt? Seeing as I have heard that the President's early proposals have a cost of somewhere between 1 and 2 trillion dollars (I could be wrong on that figure--but it is a very large amount of money). And, the President is only talking about a limited "privatization". His plan is significantly smaller than yours.
Issuing such a large amount of debt is a very quick and easy way to increase interest rates to the point where the economy would go into a recession. You refer to some "pain", but, honestly, using debt to quickly move millions of people completely off of SS is, IMHO, completely crazy.
I have to respectfully disagree. The problem is very much with Social Security. Suppose there were no federal deficit and the budget were perfectly balanced from now until 2018.
For 70 years or so, Social Security has been taking the surplus and "lending" it to the Treasury Depatment. The Treasury Department has in turn spent all of the money and then put IOUs in a box promising to pay Social Security back.
Fast forward to 2018. Now Social Security is running a deficit and comes to collect on the IOUs. Where does the Treasury get the money to pay back the IOUs? Taxes. It has to raise taxes or cut spending somewhere. So the people paying taxes in 2018 will actually be paying Social Security taxes plus a backdoor Social Security tax (or a cut in some other benefit)
No, that's not a crisis...unless you're the one paying the backdoor tax to give gambling money to the richest segment of the society. Look at the numbers, elderly people are on average the richest members of our society. And the absolute greatest benefit of the Social Security program goes to the people who need it least.
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. -- Aldous Huxley
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.
over 1/2 of the budget is due to social programs would you consider them caused by Democrats or Republicans? Or do you believe that we need to tax the rich more because your not rich? 38% just isn't enough?
The Administration has handed out the lastest mix of koolaid, and pundits and the SCLM have started to drink. Isn't this "crisis" eerily similar to the prelude to war?
1. Manufacture crisis
2. Expect the SCLM to toe the line
3. Ridicule anyone who has doubts or raises tough questions (see 2)
4. Profit!!!!
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
Any chance that the cause and effect is the other way around? Is it possible, just possible, that people act irresponsibly because someone else takes responsibility for them? -Peter
Hi, I'm Paul. I want my money that accidentally wound up in your wallet that I deserve.
explanation of joke here for people who have never heard it before (Quote#1): http://www.losthorizons.com/gqtaxes.htm
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
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
What's wrong with it is that it has been demonstrated in the past that it doesn't work for a large group of people. This very naive view of how people are supposed to be able to take care of themselves is the main cause that compared to other 'civilized' nations the US has an embarrassingly large degree of poverty, homeless people, uninsured people, etc. And I say embarrasing because the US is one of the richest countries in the world.
A functioning social security system is supposed to counter the negative effects of this. A good social security system certainly comes at a price but it does work. The US has an unusually expensive and poorly functioning social security system (you pay quite a bit of money and it doesn't seem to work very well). For example, you guys pay lots of health insurance but receive pretty poor health service compared to for example the Netherlands where everybody is insured and the per capita fees are much lower (pay less, receive more and still cost effective). In the US people are going bankrupt because they can't afford their medical bills and people are uninsured because they can't afford the insurance fees. We don't have that problem, if you're sick you get treatment, medication, etc. If you can't work because you are sick you still get some income (so you don't starve to death and can afford to live somewhere). It's all covered by mandatory insurance fees.
Our reasoning in the Netherlands is very simple: you need to work to have income, there is a certain risk you lose your job and the government requires you to cover that risk with social security fees. So if you lose your job you are entitled to some basic income for a while. Same goes for pensions: if you stay alive you'll likely retire at some point and need a basic income to support yourself so there's an insurance fee for that too and you will have a pension by the time you retire (not much, you need to complement it if you want to retire in style). The same goes for health cost: you are going to die at some point and are likely to have some medical cost before you do so. Therefore you need to cover the risk by paying insurance fees.
Now there's a group of people that are not able to take care of themselves (for whatever reason). Every country has them and they are a problem. The US has a lot of them. These people need to eat, sleep, live, have medical care just like everybody else and that costs money. The associated criminality and people starving in the gutter with all sorts of untreated medical problems are considered to be not very welcome things in most civilized places (though the US is surprisingly tolerant in this respect).
So you need to solve that problem somehow. Obviously, no matter how much you want it, this problem is not going to solve itself (this is essentially what you are proposing). It will probably get worse if you do nothing. Doing nothing has a very high economical cost (insurance fees are a great example: in the US you are effectively paying the health insurance of those who can't afford insurance, that's why the fees are about twice that of what is common in most european countries).
The solution is called social welfare. It doesn't need to be much but such basic things as housing, a warm meal once a day education for children does a lot to keep the problem from spiraling out of control as it has in the US. We have homeless people too in the Netherlands, it's a problem and we're not proud of it but it's much less of a problem than it is in the US where for example in LA tens of thousands of people live on the streets.
Social security costs money but you get something back as well. Maybe you think you don't need it but your luck might change. I certainly wouldn't want you sleeping on a bench in front of my house and I'm sure you feel the same way about me. That's basically why social security is everybodies responsibility and not something to opt-out like you are proposing.
Jilles
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
What do you think makes property and investment even possible, you idiot? Property is a legal construct, and it comes from living under the stable rule of law. You can invest in relative security because there are layers upon layers of laws that govern securities transactions, punish fraud, and enable contracts to be enforced. Like most conservatives you take the benefits of civilization and government as your divine right, but believe that you owe nothing in return. You tell me how you're going to save for your lavish retirement without a stable government protecting your precious "property" as well as your sorry ass!
...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.
>> old people starve and freeze in the streets
You'd let your mother/father starve and freeze? It's not the government's responsiblity to care for your family, it's yours.
>> Wealth equals power, the Social Security payments ensure that old people have
Huh? What rights? What wealth? Social security isn't wealth, is a transfer payment from somebody who's working to somebody who isn't (after the gov't takes a slice). It doesn't grant you more "rights." You don't get more rights with your monthly check.
I can't imagine that the founders of the country, who did not even grant the central goverment much right to tax (or for that matter, to track individual citizens), would be in favor of something so intrusive like Social Security. Let alone that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, plain and simple.
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.
Currently, Social Security is running a hefty surplus; the payroll tax brings in more dollars than what goes out in benefits. By law, Social Security invests that surplus in Treasury securities, which it deposits into a reserve known as a trust fund, which now holds more than one and a half trillion dollars. But by 2018, as baby boomers retire en masse, the system will go into deficit. At that point, in order to pay benefits, it will begin to draw on the assets in the trust fund.
While the system may be working just fine now, there is a strong chance that in 15-ish years, the system will not be able to meet its legal obligation.
Why? It's a simple numbers game. More and more people draw on the system with approximately the same number of people contributing to it. Numbers can be adjusted for inflation all you want, but the percentages will change for one side while remaining relatively steady for the other. That's an imbalance that will eventually cause insolvency.
Social security was always meant to be a supplement to the pensions people would receive from companies for their long-term service. Times have changed. People don't necessarily stay with one company for 20+ years like they used to. In come 401K plans, which are somewhat portable. Instead of accruing pension amounts, your employer does the same thing for you by providing some form of matching funds directly into your 401K account. The money is yours up front, and by contributing smaller amounts now, your amount earned over time will be much higher.
Social security was never meant to be your sole source of income after retirement, despite what many current retirees and several baby boomers would have you believe.
Gen-X'ers had best plan on not having Social Security, if they want to survive retirement.
OCO is Loco
"Suffer the consequences"! Yeah! That'll teach them a lesson! Maybe in their next lifetime they'll know better than to be ignorant of the importance of long term financial planning!
Grow up. We're talking about HUMAN LIVES here.
Life of comfort, hmm? According to a brief web search, social security payouts to a single individual are ~$640 to $1500, based on their average lifetime salary. That's about one half to one quarter of their monthly salary before retirement, so it seems to hardly be a life of comfort.
Oh, and I'll see your cheap generalization and raise you: Your belief that the rights of an individual supercede the good of the people leads not to freedom, but to feudalism. Arguing in generalities is so fun!
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
Actually, most of that money is spent on prescription drugs...
I notice you don't cite the article that does so, and that's because there is no such power granted to Congress. The only thing vaguely related is "...promote the general welfare", but that's not giving any powers, that's only expository text to illustrate what the Constitution is for.
In the body of the document, there is a list of specific powers delegated to the federal gov't, and those are its only powers. (If you don't believe me, see the 9th and 10 Amendments). If it ain't in Article I Section 8, then Congress does not have the power (intervening Supreme Court decisions notwithstanding)
>
>In fact, repudiating any treasury bonds would cause the great depression to look like a tiny pothole...
No, we're not. It's true that the unfunded liability of the Social Security pyramid scheme greatly exceeds its assets.
Because we want to avoid the fiscal meltdown that comes from redeeming the bonds (with printed dollars or taxed dollars), and (as you correctly point out) because the catastrophe of defaulting on those bonds is just plain unthinkable, there's only one thing left to do:
Renege on the contract, because it doesn't exist.
If your bank or brokerage house pulls something that, you can sue it into the stone age. But the Supreme Court has already said that entitlement to Social Security benefits is not contractual right.
When I say that the treasury bonds are "no good", that's a shortcut. In truth, the bonds are just fine. But the people who paid for those bonds do not own those bonds -- they have no right to expect to see one thin dime.
It's an easy mistake. Most of the time, when someone pays for something, they own it. The government plays by different rules.
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.
You'd probably return with a comment suggesting euthenasia or a bullet, but since that isn't going to happen anytime soon in the real world, it makes sense to be preventative to save our tax dollars in the long run.
Tax is the membership fee you pay to live in this country. If you use the services you should pay for them.
I think a lot of the infrastructure that has been build with taxpayer's money (eg. the Internet, the interstate highway system, Universities) is used by corporation to increase their profits. The corporations should pay their due for use of these service, instead of getting a free ride.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
That makes no sense. Government is already taking 12.5% of your paycheck for Socialist Security, and isn't even investing it for you at a decent rate of return, yet you claim it would cost you 30% of your paycheck to invest it in something which would give you a considerably higher rate of return, even a no-risk investment like certificates of deposit.
Actually, this could make sense, in a very twisted way.
Social Security and National Insurance are both "progressive" taxes. That means that people who make more money pay more relative to the benefit received than people who make less money.
Imagine two people, we'll call them M and Y, and let's imagine that they are both the same age and start work at the same time and retire together. Let's say every year, Y earns twice as much as M and that both of them are under the wage base cap (for SS, there is a wage at which no more SS taxes are taken out; in 2005 that amount is $90,000).
Y will receive a larger monthly payment than M, but Y will not receive twice as much as M does, even though Y put in twice as much as M did. This is because the tax is progressive and penalizes Y for earning more money.
While Y's rate of return on the withheld tax may be 0 or even negative, this loss on Y's part is a benefit to M. M will certainly earn more on the withheld tax than Y will, and may even earn more than in a traditional investment.
I guess you passed over the part that went like this:
What's more, there is a strong case to be made that the agency is erring on the side of being overly pessimistic. If its more optimistic projection turns out to be correct, then there will be no need for any benefit cuts or payroll-tax increases over the full 75 years.
The 2018 is pretty much a worst case scenario. If the conditions occured that would make the system run a deficit in 15-20 years, the stck market would also flounder. Meaning private investments and 401K's would not be a great option to social security.
Social Security isn't truly designed to be 100% of retiree income. In fact, if you continued reading:
Social Security does not provide, and was not meant to provide, a satisfactory retirement on its own. The average stipend for a 65-year-old retiring today is $1,184 a month, or about $14,000 a year. About half of Americans also have private pension plans, but for two-thirds of the elderly, Social Security supplies the majority of day-to-day income. For the poorest 20 percent, about seven million, Social Security is all they have. Even those figures understate the program's importance. According to an agency publication, ''Income of the Population 55 or Older: 2000,'' 8 percent of elderly beneficiaries were poor, but a startling 48 percent would have been below the poverty line had they not been receiving Social Security.
So many seniors and retirees did save up, and try as they might, without Social Security, they'd be in poverty.
Th
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/
You can invest in relative security because there are layers upon layers of laws that govern securities transactions, punish fraud, and enable contracts to be enforced. Like most conservatives you take the benefits of civilization and government as your divine right, but believe that you owe nothing in return
I pay my earned and unearned income taxes. That is how I "pay" for my security. Social Security gives me the "promise" that I will get some money in return in 50 years. The people that benifit most from social security are the people who pay the least (if any) income taxes.
I could get a better return on my money in private investing and have enough left over to give to a charity to help out those who weren't as lucky. However, the government has decided it will give my money in a wealth redistribution scheme to those who haven't worked for it (wellfare, social security). Therefore, Why should I even give to charity since those people are already being taken care of by the government? If the goverment wasn't helping them out, I would. But since they are, I won't.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Are you really that heartless?
It kind of doesn't matter if he's heartless or not. His plan to let them suffer the consequences will only last as long as it takes to get a camera crew on site. Then we'll see on national tv the poor starving children and grannies, and SS-2.0 will pass by acclamation.
A lot of well-off people consider taxes to be handouts to lazy cheapskates, but they never draw the connection between poverty and how much they have to spend on gated communities, burglar alarms, and all the other fear-based industries that thrive whenever the national poverty numbers rise.
>> You're going to pay one way or the other, either you do it in an orderly fashion through a system like Social Security or you pay through externalized costs of destitute elderly. Plan on paying for increases in crime ...
.. it definitely gives new meaning to, Stop or My Mom Will Shoot.
My god, I just had an image of a crime wave by the elderly. Being beaten by a walker and then mugged
I'm hoping I won't have to. I've been saving for retirement since I started working.
My dad's still working at 68. He'd prefer not to, I guess, but he pretty much has to.
I'm not suggesting that there shouldn't be a safety net for those who can't afford retirement and yet can't continue to work.
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.
Because public sanitation, police and fire are all handled by the state and local governments. The COTUS talks about the Feds.
Doesn't change the argument any.
If The Government (city, county, state, federal, whatever) is justified in providing public sanitation service for the general good of the public it serves, than it is similarly justified in providing financial security for its elderly and disabled.
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
The thing that strikes me about your comment is that early on, you talk in ways that lead me to believe that you see the interdependancy we all have on one another as a society. Then you conclude with "without dependancy on others". It seemed to me to be an about-face.
emt 377 emt 4
Then why not design a system that helps those who need it rather than *everyone*? It would certainly cost less.
The effect of your scenario will be that social security will no longer make it easier for the government to borrow money, because social security won't be buying any more debt. Maybe that will lead to higher interest rates.
Play Command HQ online
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
Then do me a favor, love, and send me those retirement checks after you've endorsed them.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
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..."
At least with WIC, you don't get cash, you get stamps only valid for certain food items and cheap diapers.
So you're in FAVOR of the government imposing a narrow set of guidelines on how its citizens can spend?
Hey, looks like continuing to mandate contributions into a social security fund is okay by you after all.
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.
That's a false dichotomy. I see no reason why partially privatizing social security must condemn people to freeze/starve, etc.
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!
By the same argument, you could say that paying taxes to keep up the police departments is a protection racket. Perhaps we should get rid of the police as well?
Similar to the upcoming US election results
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.
Basically, the president has done a transfer of wealth from the working class who payed more into the system than they had to so the super rich could mooch off the government even more. - I find this to be funny. I mean it is funny that now the money is going from the poor to the rich ... because it never happened before and all...
You can't handle the truth.
I Repeat: SOCIAL SECURITY IS FINE! RTFA!
It was coughing up blood last night...
So if the Republicans increase their majority in the Senate in a couple of years, will the education system get better too?
I think the Democrats just don't want the Republicans writing the reform plan. From the Demodrats' point of view, there's nothing wrong with that. The Democrats don't want the Republicans messing it all up.
The problem is, every politician for the last many years has used the impending retirement of the boomers to try to scare grannie into voting for them. Now they're hostage to the rhetoric that used to serve them so well.
During the great depression, the problem was that there wasn't any money. There were goods to buy, and prices were dirt cheap, but nobody had any cash.
Welfare and Social Security guarantee a minimal cashflow at all points of the economy. On the macro level, it doesn't matter whether its a little old grandma, an out of work father, or total dirtbag that's spending money, as long as it gets spent.
Play Command HQ online
Don't assume that our economy can productively absorb a sudden surge in money available for investment, though. In the 90s we saw what happens when too much money chases too few good investment opportunities: equity prices get bid up irrationally from the demand side, and everyone thinks they're doing great until the bubble bursts, which it inevitable does. Woe unto you in this brave new world if it happens after you retire. But oh, excuse me: Only stupid people lose money in a crash.
and if the government wasnt taking 6.2% of their wages for SS and 1.45% for Medicare they'd have more to live off and save as they see fit.
They WOULDN'T. They'd have to spend all that new money (and then some) on private disability and health insurance to replace the benefits no longer available to them through SS and Medicare, and STILL have no money left for retirement savings.
Private insurers don't provide services out of the goodness of their hearts. They're in it to make money. The same cannot be said of government-sponsored, "socialized" care programs (at least not to the same extent). It's naive to believe that privatization of social programs in the United States would make them more affordable or more effective.
First of all, I'm NOT a conservative. Secondly, private property is not guaranteed by government, private property is at risk BECAUSE of government. Have you ever heard of taxation or emminent domain? How about licensing and regulation? All of these are affronts to my property and my individual liberty.
The responsibilty of protecting my own private property should lie with myself and no one else, except for those with whom I wish to freely associate in order to provide additional protection for my property (insurance, security, etc.)
The idea that the government is going to protect you from _________ is laughable. History has shown time and again that public services are inadequate and have no incentive to be anything but inadequate. When you are living off the backs of the producers of society, you don't really have any incentive to become a producer yourself.
You're right about one thing. I don't owe the government anything. I'd gladly refuse access to any and all government "services" if I could stop paying into those same services. Unfortunately, the government doesn't view such voluntary association quite so positively.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." -- Ambrose Bierce
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"?
Perhaps liberatarian philosophy allows one to just shoot them?
Better be careful with that. Libertarian philosophy (as well as basic psychology of needs) also allows the homeless people to shoot YOU if that's what it takes to keep themselves alive.
I don't envy the solitary Have in a land of Have-Nots.
Actually, no. The current top rate is 35%. And that's only on income over $146,000. Do you know how much it was before 1980? It was 70%. And yet, people still got rich. Go figure. We also pay a full 10% of our taxes to interest on the national debt! You can thank Reagan and Bush (both of 'em) for that. Welcome to the days of the Don't-tax-but-still-spend "Conservatives".
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
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:
As for "promoting irresponsibility", when SSA was created, there were a whole lot of people who were poor without being lazy slackabouts (remember the Great Depression?). There will always be lazy people trying to suck at the public teat, but it's not like SSA payments let you live like a prince, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Gen-X'ers had best plan on not having Social Security, if they want to survive retirement.
Uh...exactly who does survive retirement:)?
Sounds like a good way for them to get shot or stabbed in retaliation
Good, then everybody wins!
I must say, your plans for a merciless "kill or be killed society" sound MUCH better than letting the government take a small part of everybody's paychecks so that cripples and old people can have guaranteed homes and food without having to stab anybody for it.
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.
Sure there's a way, a way pioneered by the DAMN democrats of all people. It's called balancing the budget and avoiding deficit spending. You know, fiscal responsibility, that thing we conservatives have been talking about for ages, but, judging by the current congress and president, we have no intention of actually acting on.
Hardliners and ideologues are great talking up personal responsibility, but they sure seem to support politicians that act in ways contrary to that talk.
Anyway, I have a much better solution for this whole mess. Seniors need to serve for one year in Iraq before they can begin to collect their SS checks. This will have many obvious benefits, not the least of which is fewer beneficiaries after that one year. And if a senior gets blown up in Mosul, we won't have to watch him starve in the street here in the US.
This might seem like a short term solution, given that we probably (hopefully) won't be in Iraq in 2018, when all the baby boomers are set to begin retiring. But I have great faith that we will continue to elect visionary leaders that will continue to fight the scourge of terrorism around the globe where ever there is tyranny, injustice, and big oil reserves. (By 2018, this might be either Canada or Mexico, as I don't know if there will be any other axis of "evil countries" left.)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
The market WILL NOT solve this problem for everyone.
No system will solve this (or any problem) for everyone. However, a system that attempts to provide a solution for everyone guarantees that many people will rely on it instead of even attempting to provide for themselves.
Damn. The old buggers broke into my mansion and took my HDTV, hocked it, and bought (can you believe it) food.
Yep, some people will resort to theft. Under the current system, it's the government doing the stealing, not individuals. That does not magically change the transaction from 'theft' to 'philanthropy'.
'I ain't a liar, baby, and I ain't proud I just want what I'm not allowed.' -- Violent Femmes, 36-24-36
I don't own an SUV and the biggest TV I have is a cheap 27". Regardless, you're still advocating theft when you support the looting of the property of one group and delivering it to another, particularly when the agent of such a transaction (the State) is taking a cut off the top for themselves.
Do you really think so little of your fellow man to assume that he won't help those in need unless he's threatened at gunpoint? Do you believe violence against men is acceptable if it's for a good cause? Why is your good cause good enough to take another man's property? Shouldn't the taxpayer have some say in how you get to spend his money? Are you God?
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." -- Ambrose Bierce
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.
No, I didn't pass over that part. I took a logical stance on it: by using the more pessimistic numbers, the survival chance of Social Security goes up. If you plan for the worst and it happens, you look like a genius. If you sit back on your haunches expecting the optimistic numbers to be totally true and they turn out to be wrong, many more people will be suffering in the long run.
Nobody says we have to use the most pessimistic numbers, but with two primary scenarios looming (solvency vs insolvency), it makes far more sense to plan for the bad one, or at least formulate a plan that will cover 70% of the sub-scenarios, should the insolvency scenario be the true outcome. How will doing something like that hurt the system in the long run?
In terms of the stock market and 401K's, well, the same could be said for the banks and the FDIC "guaranteeing" deposits up to $100,000.00. No investment is truly safe, not even government T-bills or precious metals (though these have the best potential for being as secure as can be). Investment implies risk. Assume the government remains solvent-ish, in power, etc, otherwise all bets are off. Stocks have high risk, but greater potential for huge returns. Traditional savings bank accounts have little to no risk and have extremely poor returns. I vaguely recall hearing that you can actually get a better return value on your dollar by just going to a bank and taking the same amount of money and locking it up into long-term certificates of deposit (CDs).
Since the government created a dependency, the government has to do something to either keep the feeder working or eliminate the dependency. Sitting around and doing nothing is not an option.
BTW, I hope you realize that what is listed in your paycheck as "Social Security Tax" is only 50% of what is actually paid. Your employer pays the other half.
OCO is Loco
When you start handing out money, you're never going to be able to stop, because you build dependency. Where is the disincentive in the current plan? If there's no disincentive, then it will keep growing.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
I wish you armchair libertarians would get a fucking education before they open their mouths.
Let me be blunt: You pay into this program so you can benefit from it when you retire or reach an age where your earning capacity dimishes by a sizable margin. Because the program was originally set up to assist people *immediately*, the ones deemed to be the immediate beneficiaries recieved the money that the then-earners put in.
As another poster said, this isn't Welfare but rather an insurance program (and a pretty damned good one at that). It is not our fault that your lack of critical thinking skills means you can't understand the negatives of suddenly doing away with this program (think of the Great Depression, which was created by idiot Libertarian ideals such as yours).
Better yet, why don't you go tell your Grandparents what you think of Social Security, and wait for them to team up with your parents to:
A) kick your ass
B) specifically deny you any benefit in their wills.
You selfish, ignorant, little prick.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
How can you confuse death by starvation with "pursuit of happiness" right after quoting "life, liberty, and the *pursuit* of happiness"?
Might not "life" have more to do with the prevention of a cruel death than mere happiness?
I find this to be funny. I mean it is funny that now the money is going from the poor to the rich ... because it never happened before and all...
Heh, yeah, that is pretty funny in a Kurt Vonnegut "so it goes" kind of way. But remember, the reason it can keep happening (rather than them having completely sucked all the money out) is because every so often the poor decide to push back.
The enemies of Democracy are
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
They ALREADY stole it from us. We are the owners of America. The Constitution sets this country up as a country "FOR THE PEOPLE." We therefore have the right to decide the of theft and the meaning of every OTHER legal concept. You call it theft, but I call it DUES and TAXES and PROPER RESTITUTION.
Guess what? More people agree with me than with you. The problem is that the rich people and corporations have bribed our "public servants" to agree with THEM, and not heed the will of the people.
And of course there are always plenty of sheeple who go along with whatever those at the top of the heirarchy want them to do....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Umm, no. Social Security was envisioned as a means of keeping old people from starving in the streets during the Depression. It was not intended then (or now) to be "an insurance of last resort".
Unfortunately. If it were seen as "an insurance of last resort", people would, in general, be planning for their own retirement WITHOUT SS, as opposed to the current method (where retirement plans generally include SS as part of the financial picture).
It is true that much of the problem is actuarial in nature. The system was designed so that you did not become eligible until you were at the average age of death at the time the system was put into place. Alas, the average age of death has been pushed back quite a long ways, and the SS retirement age hasn't (been pushed back quite a ways).
Right now, if your SS taxes were increased to cover the current deficit (it's all the same pile of money - the SS Trust Fund is a myth), your SS taxes would increase by ~$1500 per person in your household. Mine would go up by rather more than 50%, but your mileage may vary.
This year. It would increase again next year, as more people reach retirement age. And the year after. And the year after....
The system will require some fairly drastic reshuffling of national priorities to maintain in anythng like its current semblance - reducing our military to pre-WW2 levels will fix the problem this year, but afterwards, we'd still need more revenue to pay the bills every year than the year before. And I doubt the Europeans (or anyone else) would thank us for reducing our military to the point that they needed to INCREASE their militaries to their traditional (pre-WW2) levels to maintain the security that we've been providing.
Long run solution: there is none, other than the possibility of castly increased prosperity, which prosperity increase would have to be skillfully siphoned off in the form of higher taxes before we raised our standard of living using that extra prosperity. Unlike what's been happening the last 20 years, where we've increased our standard of living just as fast as technology and industry allowed....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
You're not a conservative, you're a libertarian!
Well why don't you take your property and your liberty someplace that has no stable government or system of written laws - Sudan, maybe? - and see how well you (and the private army you're going to need) can hang onto it...
That's why guillotines were invented.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
Perhaps if you didn't have 6.2% (or 15.4% if you're self-employed) of your money taken away from you, you could afford to retire.
"Perhaps if the government didn't force you to plan for retirement, you could plan for retirement."
Um, OK...
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.
A person making minimum wage of $5.15/hr for 40hr weeks working every week will earn $10,712 a year, which is below the minimum income tax bracket. Therefore, they won't be paying ANY taxes at all. 6.2% SS and 1.45% Medicare is only charged to those who can afford to pay taxes.
Social welfare sounds like socialism, and extreme socialism would become communism. However, a civilized society tries not to leave people behind. Republicans would love people to believe that free market is good because it makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer, and thus increasing their wealth (and consequently, power).
A purely free market (idealized by republicans) will eliminate the Fed, and eliminate taxes and welfare programs. Inflation can rise randomly, the poor won't be able to catch up to inflation, while the rich can ride the inflation by increasing the rate of return on their investments, thus nullifying inflation's impact on them all-together.
Don't label people communists for nothing. Social programs fare well in Canada and Scandanavia, and we shall take a cue from them instead of resorting to elitist ideologies.
This administration is irnoic - we'll give you tax cuts yet we want to reduce the budget deficit. we want to extend social security's lifespan without increasing taxes or lowering benefits. You can't have the cake and eat it at the same time!!!!
I agree that everyone should save for their own retirement and pretend that social security won't be there. It will be an evil bonus if it is still around.
Lasers Controlled Games!
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.
FYI, the bulk of SS payments go to middle class people, not to poor people "freezing in the streets". And if you know someone freezing in the steets because of poverty, you should at least have the decency to buy them a one-way bus ticket (senior discount!) to Florida (currently 64F in Miami).
You confuse dependency with compusion. Certainly, we are all dependent upon one another to build a society worth living in - each of us has talents that other do not; however, that dependency must be built upon free association, not force or violence. When we are free to associate with whomever we please and use our property in the way we deem best for us, that is honorable. When we use the government, the police, or the mafia to enforce or restrict with whom others associate and how others use their property, that is an affront to liberty and an appeal to violent force. Living in a free society means some people will associate with people you dislike or use their property in ways you disagree with, but as long as they do not agress against you, there is no other logical way to coexist with your fellow man.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." -- Ambrose Bierce
You're prejudice against public corporations versus private corporations has no basis in reality. Was Enron more or less corrupt than any public endeavor? Someone has always been our caretaker, either the tribe or the state, take your pick. Social Security has actually beaten the Dow as a total run from 1946 till present, how is this inefficient?
You've taken your illogical philosophy to the point of diminishing returns, hungry people are only responsible to their hunger. Social Security is efficient and it eats you up, because you don't want to give public institutions credit for what they've done. There's nothing I can do to help you there, why not educate yourself before you start making wild gyrations 'bout how the guv'ment can't do anything right.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
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.
"Exactly" yourself. You have the right to LIFE, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. SocSec is an acceptable step for the government to take in protecting citizens' right to life.
Show me where in the constitution it says that the government should be setting up retirement funds for people. You can't; it's not there.
Absurd argument. There's a lot of things the government does that aren't explicitly described in the Constitution; they're called LAWS. Unless you're going to argue that those laws are unconstitutional (that is, that they actually CONTRADICT what's in the Constitution, not just that they're not covered by it), I don't know why you would make this point.
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.
Why won't anyone come out and say that it is *NOT MORAL* to take a chunk of a person's income by force, before they even get a chance to see it, for whatever purpose?
So you don't think people should be compelled to pay taxes?
What, then, would be the point of having a government in the first place? Without taxes, they certainly wouldn't be able to perform any duties at all!
You don't watch the news much, do you.
Name one company guaranteed to be in existence 40 years from now.
That is the first step towards figuring out *where* to invest your money... you have to give it to someone else.
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
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).
I hope you are taking personal responsibility for your retirement and socking away tens of millions of dollars for yourself, so that you will be sitting pretty when the fit hits the shan and inflation decimates the buying power of your nest egg. It's very likely to happen. Enjoy your little bubble of illusion... while you can.
Nullification is a valid debate. After all, didn't the English and American Revolutionaries both argue that the government was acting illegally and therefore they had a right to rebel?
It's not a stretch if it's logically consistent, which I believe the record shows it to be. When the country first started , we provided a right to opportunity for anyone willing to settle a few acres. Giving farmland away like that was the 19th century equivilent of giving someone a corner store for immigrating today. This idea that everyone created this wealth out of thin air and their own sweat is a myth, there was a coordinated effort and policies which contributed to turning this country into a viable nation after the Revolution.
Leaving your neighbors and the elderly to simply fend for themselves wasn't part of it.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
>
>No gun, but what percentage of their employee's 401k was required to go back into Enron stock?
Don't know offhand what percentage. The real crime - for which Lay should fucking hang, by the way - is that by switching 401(k) administrators at just the "right" (i.e. wrong) time, Lay prevented his employees from being able to sell their stock during the crucial period when the shit was hitting the fan. When the SEC announced its investigation and the stock started to fall, Lay and friends could sell, but the employees couldn't.
By locking his employees into the plan during that time period, Lay prevented them from recovering anything. On that basis, of the two dirtballs, I'd say Lay's actions made him even more contemptible than Ebbers.
The practical effect was that mployees who held Enron stock were denied their rights as shareholders to liquidate those shares in the open market. An effect that was practically indistinguishable from the gun-pointing the SSA does with its "investors" 24/7.
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...
Most people that have lived (read: thrived) throughout history, did it without social security.
Most people throughout history had more grueling working conditions and shorter lifespans. They would literally work themselves to death.
I'd like to think that we as a society have progressed beyond those times, no?
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."
Main Entry: 1welfare
Pronunciation: 'wel-"far, -"fer
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from the phrase wel faren to fare well
1 : the state of doing well especially in respect to good fortune, happiness, well-being, or prosperity
2 a : aid in the form of money or necessities for those in need b : an agency or program through which such aid is distributed
Consitution refers to the former, not the latter. Check the etymology, and get a clue.
I am John Hurt.
Privatising social security, by definition, means the individual is responsible for their own account. Some people will screw up their accounts, or spend the money down at Moe's Tavern. Some people's money will vanish in the stock market. It's a statistical certainty there will be a significant class of people who reach retirement with nothing in their private accounts.
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.
If I can't save a lot for my retirement, and I know there's no social security, I better do something to fix the problem. One good solution is to raise some very successful kids with great values who know that they will have to take care of me. I'll take care of them for their first 20 years, then they take care of me for my last 20 years.
It's really simple. The urgency makes it so that you don't have kids beating each other up in the streets - you train your kids good.
But in an Americanized liberal society where we can all go get a free, quick fix, greed is taken advantage of and children are NOT reared well - a vicious downward spiral.
It's time for some accountability in our citizens - and liberalism is NOT the solution for most Americans. It's a solid kick in the ass.
Berto
What a rotten idea. Social Security is supposed to be a pension program, not a welfare program. If you're gonna cap my benefits when I'm old, you can cap what you're taking from me now.
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.
This is a pretty common leftist fantasy that doesn't ever actually work in practice. Rich people aren't working 9-5 like you and me. If the tax system changes, they have the flexibility to change too. Either they'll find loopholes to avoid paying the wealth tax or they'lljust move to another country. Sigh. Maybe A.F. Tytler was right:
A democracy cannot exist as permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves money, from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship.
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
Enron was destroyed within a short time. That is the response to such things in the market. Corrupt governments can easily last for centuries.
Not sure what you mean about SS beating the DOW. Government has been robbing SS coffers for decades. That's not bias, that's a fact.
A modern day witchhunt.
You refer to some "pain", but, honestly, using debt to quickly move millions of people completely off of SS is, IMHO, completely crazy.
That is why I said towards the end of my post that we are very rapidly (within 5-10 years in my estimation) running out of time for options. If this was done two decades ago when the problem was first being heard outside of the thinktanks and outside of the Beltway, we probably could have punted the cost. We are at a particularly bad time to consider options with the Boomers retiring soon, and putting the most stress upon the system it has ever experienced.
Our financial problems extend far, far beyond this discussion over Social Security. What could be crazier yet is how we will (or will not) dig out of them. Remember what I presented was a thumbnail sketch, deliberately made extreme to keep the explanation simple. If you want to numb your mind some insomniac night, surf around and read up on all the variations I mentioned were possible. To be fair to the reform advocates, I have never seen what I presented be seriously put forth as an option, but only trotted out, like I did, as a way to convey the essential mechanism. Actual plans I have seen have almost always been small baby steps, like the President's. It will be fascinating to watch how that plays out, and if it will not be "too little, too late".
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
We should have this hugely expensive entitlement program so that the small fraction of people who fit your above criteria have a bit of a safety blanket?
The dirty secret is that Social Security and the Federal budget supports a lot of rent-seeking. Ie, people and companies that occupy government protected niches and extract public funds. That is, poor people are being used as an excuse to pad the profits of companies like Enron or Halliburton. It's time to starve the beast.
SSA is one of the most efficient government programs there is (something like 99.2% of the program costs goes directly to benefits). Far more efficient than most private charities, anyway, some of which spend up to 20% of their operating budget on "administration" and another 20-40% on "fundraising"
That's not a fair comparison. Administrative decisions are are in large part made by Congress. As for fundraising, it's cheaper to take by threat of force, than to convince people to give, and even that is included in the IRS and FBI budgets, not that of the SSA's.
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.
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.
Correct, I don't. Look at it this way -- what magical thing about a government is it that gives them the right to take without consent? Just because they can convince 50% of the people +1 to go the way they want? Even if it's not right?
And even if whatever 50%+1 of the people want to do is alright, no matter what it is (no booze for anyone! a few years later, booze for anyone!, etc.), does it matter if only, say, 60% of the population vote? and then, say, 50%+1 of those who vote want whatever it is that they're voting for? so you've now got 30%+1 of the people deciding what's right.
Exactly!
If I was that drunk, I would have remembered it -- H. Simpson
"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
Of couse we have. But not because of social security. I think it would be difficult to attribute to social security technologies (travel, health, production, etc) that have been developed over the millenia. Surely that's not what you are implying? You do know that SS only came about in the 1930's, right?
A modern day witchhunt.
Better yet, why don't you go tell your Grandparents what you think of Social Security, and wait for them to team up with your parents to:
A) kick your ass
B) specifically deny you any benefit in their wills.
You selfish, ignorant, little prick.
Perhaps the armchair libertarians care enought about their own grandparents to take care of them themselves instead of relying on the government to supply them the pittance that is SS.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." -- Ambrose Bierce
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
Poverty is linked to crime. There has been an increase in bank robberies over the past few years committed by seniors, appearently they were in fact "knocking over banks to pay for their medicare bills". But what do facts have to do with your nice clean rhetoric?
Actually, it was the Federalists who said that wealth == power. Noah Webster to be exact. Perhaps you would like to explain how the Founding Fathers were a bunch of "Marxists, Lenninists, Maoists, etc". As for a definition of justice, would you like to start with Matthew Hale or Karl Popper? I think Popper's definition is most apt at describing the ideas left behind by the Founding Fathers.
You would do well to remember how many of our famous thinkers were productive up through their later years. Your alluding to the relative value of senior citizens is quite anti-equalitarian.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Or maybe it's both. Surely you are aware that insurance can also be an instrument of investment?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
No, read the COTUS. If you change your statement to be : "If The local Government is justified in providing public sanitation service...", then you would be correct. The states and the people are not under the same restrictions as the federal government per the COTUS.
Wow! Where can I sign up to not contribute! I thought they'd arrest me or something...
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
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.
That's an interesting statement, especially about the "Dems". I invite you to stop by and take a look at Andrew Tobias (the DNC tresurer and the creator of the MYM personal finance app, among other things) personal website.
You might be interested in reading this recent column, one of many where he talks about options around Social Security.
Please don't take this as criticism - its an honest suggestion. The linked column also talks about another major issue with SS privatization - if the SSA stops buying treasuries, our economy is going to get pretty screwed pretty quickly.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
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.
And how do Senators on taxpayer-funded junkets benefit me?
Secondly, there is no "common good". If it were so common, we wouldn't have it shoved down our throats; it would naturally occur to us (like helping your neighbor, when they've had an accident). Good, the meaning of the word itself is debated. It all ties into morals: is gay marriage moral? Is abortion moral? Is affirmative action moral? Are wars moral?
Until you can get 90%+ of the public committing one way or the other, it isn't "good". Humanity, at its best, can understand and respect two laws: don't steal and don't kill. And those happen to be the only laws we really need (think about it, every other worthwhile law stems from those two (only the magnitude differs)). It's when you begin splicing hairs that issues arise ("it's for your own good, it's for the public good"). Bullshit.
I am John Hurt.
No, social security is not fine. It may be solvent, but it's not fair that everyone it forced to pay into a social security system that not everyone wants.
Besides, that article is filled with misleading statements. For example, it says that personal accounts would yield typically 4.5% where as social security yields 6%. What's misleading? It says later that the personal account number is after inflation and the social security number is in nominal dollars (3.5% after inflation).
They also assume that social security SHOULD be indexed to wages rather than inflation. This is an absurd argument. Inflation is proportional to cost of living (by definition), so providing the same benefits in inflation adjusted dollars will provide the same quality of living. The only reason wages (in real dollars) rise over time is because of advances in technology (which make living less resource intensive-or cheaper). This is not crazy thing to do, indexing benefits to inflation makes perfect sense and is a good alternative for lowering the cost of social security.
From the standpoint that the US is a place that honors personal liberty, private accounts and indexing benefits to inflation make perfect sense. It allows personal accounts, and will not let the social security administration grow over time.
The personal income tax in its present form was first levied by the federal government in 1913, at 1%.
Not having ready access to gobs of cash kept congress focused on the important things they could afford with their limited funds.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
Brilliant.
And how much of the poverty problem are private charities able to handle right now?
Or are you doing some magical hand-waving saying that people who don't have to put in social security payroll taxes will donate more? This is hogwash. Research has been done and determined that charitable donations are steady as a percentage of income. In other words, those who donate already will likely donate more if they make more, but at the same percentage of their total income.
Those who don't, won't.
Given that even with the governments help private charities are woefully inadequate to combat poverty, you're saying that without government intervention they'd suddenly be able to?
What you're really advocating is a rise in crime rate, as people unable to find legal means of support are forced to turn to illegal means.
You end up paying it in the end anyway, all that differs is if it goes to feed them in a jail cell or feed them in a slum. Except jails cost more than slums to run.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
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
You've got the sentiment right, but it's even more insidious--it's a tax on people who aren't rich because there's a cap on how much you have to pay. Imagine the firestorm if the politicians actually admitted "hey, this is just another tax we're using to fund pork barrel projects and we're effectively not going to tax the richest 5% of americans at all."
This is where you go wrong. Forget about this notion of "entitlement". The country does have an obligation to take of the retired destitute--but people are not "entitled" to get a certain amount of money from the government based on how much money they made while they were working. SS needs to be treated more like a welfare program--if you need the help you can get the help, but I'm not paying for your vacation to cancun while you're living off your 401k. Change social security so it's a need-based program that only collects the amount of money required to support it each year. (Rather than collecting a huge surplus to make congresscritters salivate.)
Both the major parties are equally guilty here. Neither has what it takes to fix things, and either would screw things up just to win a couple of seats in the next election. Vote third party (whatever that third party is) because nothing will change as long as the republicans and democrats are interchangable.
I think you're the 3rd person so far to assume that everyone has a family. Have you people really met so few people that you've never met anyone without living family, especially a senior?
Income is wealth. Cash is wealth. It's a transfer of wealth, partially based on your contributions. It's a freaking insurance policy, how hard is that concept to grasp? If you don't understand how it is harder to defend your rights with no money in the bank, versus having the ability to allow things their due course, you have never had to defend your rights. It isn't that the monthly check gives you rights, it's the means to defend your rights.
You can't imagine, because you haven't studied. Try reading the history behind our little Revolution and try to understand the beliefs and logic of the people who wrote the Constitution. They would not have seen Social Security as intrusive, they would have seen it as a mark of civilization. They would have seen repealing Social Security as barbaric. Your statements show just how little you actually understand your own heritage.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Dude, calm down. I was agreeing with you for crying out loud. This google search should bring back some memories. The only reason the big name democrats have stopped harping on this is because they think it had something to do with Gore's loss.
Anyway, even ignoring recent events, a quick look at a political spectrum will tell you which parties are more likely to adopt a position like this.
Never underestimate the power of fiber.
Bzzt. Wrong.
Private failures to save do not just disappear in a nice clean puff of economic smoke. They become an expense of the legal system, and housing a person in a 6x9 cell with 3squares and guards provided is a helluva lot more expensive to society than a privately owned slum.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
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.
If you're not willing to pay for Social Security, the solution is simple. Move to a country that doesn't have the equivalent and live and work there. Don't like having to pay taxes to the IRS? Move somewhere where the tax burden is more to your liking. Maybe Bahrain Qatar?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Because life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness are negative rights. I.e. if you decide not to work, lose your home, and starve, that's your own fault. However, if I kill you, I am at fault. If I take your home, I am at fault. If I take your food, I am at fault.
You cannot guarantee positive rights (there is nothing to back them up, except the use of force: effectively, you make other people slaves).
Life is life, take it or leave it. You may have a good life, you may have a horrible life. Such things are between you and $DEITY.
I am John Hurt.
1964 - Income tax, top rate: 77 percent.
1965 - Income tax, top rate: 70 percent.
and that made the 70's the most prosperous decade of the century right? It didn't hurt the rich just the middle class and those trying to leave the middle class, the rich stayed rich. But I guess we could jack rates up again so that the teens can be one of the worth finacial decades of this century.
That, and one of the other evils that came out of 1913 and gave the government gobs of cash to gorge on, and is the whole reason that the government can go this far in debt, and that the purchasing power of the dollar can be so shredded; the Federal Reserve.
The income tax really is one of the sickest things to happen to this country, it's made worse by way of withholding. The payroll taxes (Social Security, Meidcare, employer's portion of those) are damn sick too.
And while we're at it, I don't much care for direct election of senators, either.
If I was that drunk, I would have remembered it -- H. Simpson
Perhaps it could be better worded as:
In a Democracy, People get the Government they Earn.
I think that is the real meaning of that statement.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
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]
My point is that the old folks on SS are already on welfare, which is what the GP said that privatising would do.
See what I've been reading.
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
Support of Euthanasia -- The government shouldn't be telling us when or how we can die.
Opposition to "No Child Left Behind" -- Get the government out of mandating how our children are taught.
Support for Abortion rights -- Get the government out of determining what we can do with our bodies.
Enron left a path of destruction. Is it the fault of people who were depending on Enron pensions that Ken Lay and co were a bunch of dirty bastards? If there were no Social Security, what would be their lot?
As for your comment that corrupt governments can last, but corrupt corporations don't, please prove the assertion. The United Fruit company has been linked to numerous horrors in S. America and the Carribean, but it's still in business. Hell, it's been around twice as long as Social Security, even when it defies US law. Why hasn't United Fruit been dealt with? Do you suggest that their continued existence is proof of their innocence?
If you had put $1000 dollars in government bonds in 1946 and $1000 in the Dow, the government bonds would be worth just as much as the $1000 in the Dow. The Dow tends to beat government bonds in short term stretches, but the government bonds reflect the real growth of the GDP over a longer period. In order to come out ahead, one must actively manage their money. How many people are going to screw that up and wind up needing Social Security?
While the Government has been using SS money to pay for other things, those coffers are filled with T-Bills now. The US Government has NEVER defaulted on T-Bills, are they going to start now? Your claim that the money isn't there isn't really true, unless you want to claim anyone buying a US T-Bill is a sucker and is going to get ripped off.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
How about we cut all programs? Cut them until people scream, then cut them some more. When I got to collect my weekly check, I want to see ($2 FICA). Screw SS, I have a couple of accounts, I'll save my own money. If that doesn't work out, I'll work.
I am John Hurt.
Parent sounds better-informed than any representative of either major party I've heard discussing the issue. ;)
And obviously the fact that the government gives people money when they are old has stopped them from dying as children.
"We have got to make Stan understand the importance of voting, because he'll definitely vote for our guy." - South Park
It seems that the founders believed that the good of the collective might supercede the rights of the individual, else why does "secure the Blessings of Liberty" come last on the list?
Hmmmm, establishing justice and insuring domestic tranquility might also come into play with Social Security.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I must agree with you on the spending though I am disappointed with the republicans on increasing spending. The increase of the size of government has slowed (except terror/war related stuff) but that is still not acceptable many programs are unneccsarry and a waste of money. A greater concern is the disorder of the government: Why do we need social security to be off budget as with a special tax for it, while other social programs come from the general funds? For that matter look at the other taxes such as the Gore's tax for internet in Schools why not just take it from the general fund? Why is the tax system SOOOO complex, complexity invites abuse(as computer programmers know way too well)? Simplifying government I think should be the priority
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.
Take this:
I can see it now: rioting, crack adicted, geriatrics running through the streets! Old people are not going to start nocking over banks and beating up young people to pay their medicare bills. This is just moronic.
Add this:
Or you could act like a grown man, and take care of the people who spawned you. Yes I am suggesting you take your parrents into your house.
Remember this:
It's really easy to be generous with someone elses money.
And put them all together to understand that it won't be the geriatrics committing the crime. It'll be the poor middle aged S.O.B. who has to try and support his parents at the same time as his family.
Who's money will he be generous with? Likely the rich middle aged S.O.B. who is supporting his parents at the same time as his family.
Only it'll be a much more direct and personal robbing of a specific rich S.O.B. than taxes are, one that perhaps ends in violence or death, thus leaving not one, but two geriatric familis out in the cold as the breadwinners are dead or incarcerated.. (and incidentally, leaves you paying for the incarceration anyway)
Bravo, Sir. You managed to shift a low tax burden from everybody generally to a high burden on a very specific few people. Now so long as you can ensure you're not one of those very few, you're in a better position, and to hell with everyone else, hm?
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
That was a surprisingly well-written summary.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
I believe that your view on it is of a self-fulfilling nature. People used to save for retire in ways we wouldn't even think of today: kids and community (like the church and other charity groups). Now people have no concept of responsible saving or spending (again, giving to the church) because Social Security and other programs have stripped our culture of other safety nets.
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?
In certain cases you can't buy insurance. For example, if a child is born with a heart defect - that child becomes virtually uninsurable (except for group insurances). Obviously, the child did not plan for this - right?
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!
So you believe that a person should show deference to his government regardless of what it does? If the government suddenly decides to raise the income tax rate across the board to 95% or decides to round up and imprison everybody under 6' tall, the only acceptable choices are to acquiesce or leave?
You're a strange one.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." -- Ambrose Bierce
Even if private accounts did out perform social security, they are bad for so many reasons. But lets stick with the outperformance issue for a moment. Let's go with the article, and say SS currrent gets 3.5% where a phase out plan would earn 4.5%. That's on average. Meaning, under the Bush proposed plan, some people will earn more, and some will earn less. It's great that the average rate of return will be higher, but damned if I'm one of the ones who hits a down market when I retire, or perhaps over my working life my picks of private securities don't perform well, and I don't have enough to retire. There are two words in Social Security. THe first Social, implying this is a program where everyone is helping everyone, not MY acount and MY funds and MY money type thinking. The second is Security, referring to the fact that no matter how good I am at picking winners on the NASDAQ, when I retire, and can't earn a living for myself anymore, I'll have peace of mind knowing that I can afford to eat and sleep.
As for tying SS to inflation vs. wages, during economic growth, cost of living increases faster than inflation. People have more money to spend, so prices go up, but the things that matter more like food and housing expenses increase faster. The article points this out, that is benefits were tied to inflation back when the program was established, todays average monthly check would be ~$300 instead of ~$1100, effectively taking any meaning out of the program. Yes, costs would be lowered, but the program would be useless. This is actually what the President and supporters of his program are aiming for: the destruction of Social Security and anything having to do with the New Deal and FDR. From this standpoint, the Presidents plan makes even more sense.
Th
This debate is basically a debate of socialism vs. capitalism.
That's what it seems to have degenerated to, because of a few ideologues. (I'm don't necessarily mean you, as your comment is fair and reasonable.)
I'm a bleeding heart fiscal conservative who thinks that, shorn of it's excesses (i.e., regulating monopolies are a good thing, protecting the environment is a good thing, etc.) Capitalism is a very good thing, and the best economic system developed thus far.
What irks me is that most have us have been given this opportunity to prosper through our own hard work by being born into our society or being lucky enough to immigrate here, yet some who have been given this opportunity begrudge the responsibility of having to pay back into the society. They often point to charity as being the answer, but when you read their words, you know that their souls know nothing of it. If they ever make a charitable contribution, it's because of their tax strategy.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
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
Dear Lord, AC, where do I start with this one?
1. Budget deficits and national debt did not begin with the Bush administration, nor will they end after it.
2. Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system. There is no lockbox; there is box full of IOUs. For seventy years (not just the last 4), the government has spent every last nickel of the Social Security surpluses.
3. Social Security, being a pay-as-you-go system, will go into a deficit situation about 2018, meaning that it will pay out more than it takes in. The money short has to come from somewhere. Where? From the Treasury paying back the IOUs. How does the Treasury pay back IOUs? With current tax receipts, regardless of the whether the government is running a deficit or not.
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. -- Aldous Huxley
I had a relative with no children up in my family tree (sister of a great-grandmother). Around the 1910's, she had to take in borders to have enough money to live on. She did not starve to death.
And we haven't even mentioned the funds maintained by charities for widows and orphans....
The death by starvation argument is really insulting. You must think that seniors are idiots, or that society is 100% predatory.
BTW, my church's canned food drive ends this week. Donations of staples much appreciated. It won't reduce your Social Securtiy burden, but you can deduct the cost of goods off your AGI before paying your income tax. If you know of any seniors that need food, we have a nice amount of food available. We also pay utility bills, if that is the need (local residents only, please). Donations to help out this fund are best made by cheque, to provide a record for you and the IRS.
I was going to link to my church, but that is rather snide, considering the global reach of slashdot. The real answer is "find a church, any church nearby" and you will find people who care enough to help out the needy.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
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.
The Constitution is not so much intended to limit the federal government, as it is to define a *very* narrow list of things that the federal government can do. One of the arguements against the bill of rights was just that, actually -- that with a list of specific rights, the government would take that as the list of things it couldn't do. That's exactly what happened.
The powers that the federal government actually is supposed to have based on the constitution are things like creating the post office, national defence, establishing a (limited) copyright, and regulating (or perhaps better put as making sure there are not internal tariffs) commerce between the states.
Taken like that, most of what the federal government does today is blatantly unconstitutional, but there are still laws possible that do not go against the Constitution.
If I was that drunk, I would have remembered it -- H. Simpson
Since the majority of voters are unlikely to go along with your plan, how about this plan I cribbed from Ayn Rand. Why don't you get together with all the other would be millionaires*, and go buy yourself a secret island hideaway, where you don't have to pay taxes and you can set up your perfect capitalist society. I'm sure the rest of us are going to severely miss all that innovation and productivity you once blessed us with, but at least we won't have to put up with the constant whining.
* You would be a millionaire if The Man wasn't keeping you down.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
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. ~
These are treasury bonds. Costitutionally, the government has to honor them whether social security needs it or not.
Absolutely. The question is: with what money does the government honor the treasury bonds? Answer: Current tax receipts (or by more borrowing). In the first case, people's tax burden increases. In the second case, inflation increases as the cost of borrowing increases. In either case, the result is the same: less money in the taxpayer pocket (in terms of real dollars). And being a consumer economy, less money in the taxpayer pocket means a dragging economy...which means higher unemployment...which means..etc..etc.
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. -- Aldous Huxley
"Fairness" isn't the point of SS. The point of SS to provide a safety net so that a good chunk of our country's elderly don't end up destitute.
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
I grant you that some people will screw up their retirement accounts.
It doesn't necessarily follow that they must then starve.
Wow.
Wealth equals power, the Social Security payments ensure that old people have the power to defend their rights instead of depending on the government to make sure they aren't violated.
Ok, since you obviously know no one who gets social security...
1) Social security does not provide enough for anyone to live on. It is supplemental income at best. Or perhaps you haven't noticed all those nice friendly old people working as checkers at Wal-Mart?
If my parents didn't have pensions as well as social security, I'd be paying for them too. Note that social security *is not enough* for them to live on, so there's one reason your argument is false.
1a) It used to be the responsibility of family to take care of family - your argument about tons of destitute old people is a specious at best. If what you say is so true, then it would already be happening - as I pointed out, SS is not enough income. (And don't forget how high medical prices are rising!)
1b) Veterans are a special case. I think if fighting a war when needed, their medical bills should be covered no questions asked for life. But then again, given the state of health care in this country, that's not likely to happen.
1c) As for people who don't plan ahead, yes, it sucks to be them. That's the way life is. It's not easy, nor is it guaranteed to be. If you don't take responsibility for yourself, then either accept charity, or do not.
1d) It is the responsibility of those who are indicted with criminal misconduct of pension funds to ensure that those funds are returned or reinstated. Perhaps, if the "fat-cats" of Enron and Adelphia were forced to actually sell their million dollar homes and their $16K umbrella stands like they should have been, instead of just getting a year in jail, then maybe there could have been some restitution. But saying we need government old-person hand-outs because of the few cases where pensions are stolen and the justice system is too soft on white-collar crime is ludicrous.
2) How do government hand-outs "ensure that people have the power to defend their rights"? It sounds to me like the rights exist solely in the hands of the government! If you are *dependent on another entity* for your income, you do not have the ability to protect your rights - you must rely on the benificence of that entity to ensure that your income continues, and your rights are looked after.
3) Do you really think that people get back as much as they pay in? Ha! Even ignoring inflation (ie, when my dad started contributing in 1965 his dollars were worth more), that you would think that people get back as much as they put it is just silly.
4) There are more old people now than there ever has been, and there are going to be more and more - social security is a ponzi scheme, and the only people who will be screwed are the Gen X'ers, or at the very latest, their kids.
No socialist society has been able to progress and remain competitive at all, and that's what America is becoming. The more people rely on the state, the more people lack justice. And while my study of this country's founding is not as lacking as you may say (I'd bet I've studied it way more than you), your lack of practicality is far short of what's necessary for engaging in arguments like these.
Find out about the Lexus Rx400h Hybrid!
America lucked out - baby boomers' fertility rates reached replacement (2.1 babies) and we have a lot of immigrants. That's why Social Security is safe in America (and Canada).
So by "lucked out," you mean that things have worked out pretty much as projected, so that the system has remained essentially solvent? Some might call that careful planning.
Granted. But social security isn't an investment either. It is wealth redistribution.
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.
That was a well written post. I enjoyed reading it. Too bad it's... well, wrong.
:-P
I can, and do, do everything to support myself.
Social security is supposed to provide income for living when you retire.
It does not do this.
1) It is not enough to live on.
2) There are more people collecting now per payee, and that situation is getting worse. If I were to start a similar scheme, by having two people pay me, and having four people pay them, and then they pay me again, I would be arrested for holding a ponzi scheme. But when the government does it, it's supposedly okay?
3) No one "deserves" safety. It's something you have to achieve.
4) Their wages made it just fine for them to achieve retirement, and, in fact, more likely to have made it than anything I will ever do. Back in the day, like the days of my father, you worked and you got a pension. Things like that don't exist anymore! Have you noticed that corporations *make people invest for themselves*? I am told to get a 401K and if I don't like that option then do something else. There are no pensions anymore. No coporation will look after you - they (rightly) know that that's your responsibility. So why hasn't the government figured that out?
Asshat.
Find out about the Lexus Rx400h Hybrid!
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. ~
No, I'm saying that if you are going to enjoy the benefits of our society, which include the opportunity to work hard and better your lot in life, than expect to give something back. If you don't want to give something back, move somewhere else. Unfortunately, you won't be enjoying the benefits anymore.
Your sense of entitlement is far more grandiose than someone receiving financial assistance from the government.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
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!
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. ~
We could use a few good men like you over at Fark.com. Of course, the knee-jerking fifteen-year-old armchair laissez-faire capitalists there don't listen any better than the ones here...
Freedom: "I won't!"
If it costs more to sustain the child's life than any entity is willing to allocate -- well, as I said, life isn't fair.
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.
Or crime rates increase as robberies, etc are used to get more cash.
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.
Okay, first of all, you're not "paying federal taxes to fund tax cuts for the rich." That is an absurd piece of political rhetoric that is as nonsensical as it is false. The wealthy people in this country are taxed at a higher rate than the non-wealthy, first of all. Secondly, almost every tax cut I've seen cuts more of the tax burden from people making less than average income than from people making more than average income. It's only through obscure statistical voodoo that people can claim that the Bush tax cut only saves money for wealthy.
Fairness is central to the idea of Social Security. It is the notion that everyone is entitled enjoy a fair standard of living in retirement, regardless of their current financial situation. All I'm saying is that it is not fair to deny people the choice of participating social security. I'm sure that I can do a better job with my money than the government can, and I think I should be allowed that choice.
If people could get past their cycle of consumerism for endless wants and not needs plus donating a little more instead of getting SUVs, SS may be history. Consider donating 1% of your income to a real charity that helps people in hard times, SS wouldn't be needed anymore. I'm liberal and I have to say that since the 90's, people aren't responsible anymore, in general and myself included, and want others to hold their hands for everything.
The people who are about to retire now have paid into social security, they are now entitled to what they PAID for. The problem that needs to be addressed is the deficit and the national debt. This administration is just trying to find another scapegoat for their incompetence in managing the government's budget.
"It's an easy mistake. Most of the time, when someone pays for something, they own it. The government plays by different rules."
I said this before to something else in this story.
They get to play by different rules though, because it's their money. The Federal Reserve has the monopoly. They control the printing for the money, they control the level of inflation.
I mean you, obviously I can see you understand all that, and you know more about me economics wise.
What I want to say is that it's fair. You have no right to one thin dime because you're playing the Federal Reserve's game. You're trading their dollars, they set the rules. No one says you have to trade in FR dollars, but people decide by their own freewill to do so, because it's a trillion gazillion times easier.
When you decide to play the game, you have to play by the rules. If you want to get paid in US dollars, you have to be taxed. If you don't want to pay into social security without any guarantee, then don't use central bank money. You don't have to play, but if you do, you're in the social contract, and you're bound to it. Admittedly, if you don't, you're going to have a hard life trying to get the gas station to accept gold nuggets. The government is doing us all a favour by offering a service which we are not forced to use.
People like to reap all the benefits of being paid in an extremely functional currency like US dollars, but they still complain when they get taxed. But if they truly thought it wasn't worth it, that they were being ripped off by the government, they just would stop getting jobs that pay in it, which is completely ridiculous.
He's not spawning white trash but too many people, in my area anyways, try to have kids early as possible which does make things harder. He's not stupid but he chose his time to have a family.
I've always thought a good work around to this problem would be to do what the car insurance companies do and offer a good student discount. Have a 3.5gpa or higher, save $100+ a month on your rent, refer a friend as you approach graduation and get your last two months rent rebated, grad and doctoral student discounts, etc. Get the kids who are too busy studying to have any time to trash the place. Keep it in good shape and stop by frequently to do "yard work" and you should have good tenants.
It just happens that the large large majority of this country thnks Social Security is a fantastic idea, and love to pay into it.
t y% 20November%206.htm
BULLSHIT!!!
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Social%20Securi
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
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?
Yeah, maybe. But any politician that does that won't be a politician any more, and more to the point, the party of the politician that does that won't be a party any more either.
And I'd like to see some figures on the 'unfunded pyramid scheme' you think it is. No assumptions allowed here. The actuaries report doesn't seem to say so. RTFA
I find your retirement plan intersting. But, while he may have made claims that he wants this as a model, the real issue is of course the actual implimentation. Unfortunately, he's shown us over and over again during the last 4 years, that his implimentation of things rarely ever matches his words - and usually for the worse.
Klein bottle for rent - inquire within.
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.
This money is accounted for. To say otherwise is to imply that the SS Trust Fund has no or inaccurate records of its holdings, or that the government disputes its claims, or that the government does not dispute its claims but intends to default on them anyway. All of these are ridiculously implausible events.
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???
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.
"Most of it wound up in the hands of government bureaucrats...who never met pork they didn't like"
The money that was borrowd from the Trust Fund--and which will be repaid--is being spent, there's no doubt about that. And no problem, either, if what it's spent on is of value.
I presume your argument to be that the money was mostly wasted on things of little or no value. Obviously, that's a judgement call, but I don't think I'd be out of line to suggest that many people will regard your unsupported claim as a wild exaggeration.
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
1) I won't disagree that SS isn't enough to live on, especially with medical bills. How are any of the proposed changes going to increase the amount of income that old people have? What about the disabled?
1a) You assume everyone has family. It used to also be the case that you had 7 kids. Children are more expensive these days too. You still have the fundamental problem claimed by those who say SS is in crisis of fewer workers per retiree. What if I'm an only child? Do you propose that the average American take care of their family of 4 plus 4 retired parents on the extra 4% of their $30,000 a year they make? Plus they're supposed to save for their own retirement? My Depression era grandparents who washed tinfoil and ziplock bags and wrote down everything they spent weren't that thrifty.
1b) Well, the same guy that wants to get rid of SS cut $1 Billion from the VA budget, so more homeless vets. I feel proud to be an American, don't you?
1c) When these people show up at the emergency room with no insurance and cost the taxpayers $30,000 cause they couldn't a fford a $20 anti-biotic, guess who pays? I do. My taxes go up. I'd rather pay a little bit of preventative costs than take it up the ass on principle. The same goes for the elderly person that is in the public old folks home cause their pension got ripped off and they have no other income and can't work. You will pay one way or another, and you'll pay more the richer you are anyway. Either find more economical means of dealing with human suffering or pay through the nose.
1d) That's great, I guess Ken Lay will start writing checks with the money he swindled away? I don't think Ken Lay's personal assets will cover those Enron pensions. These pension collapses are on a scale of 10's of billions of dollars, I don't think Ken Lay even has 1 billion. What do you do with those people in the meantime, while the wheels of Justice turn? This isn't a few cases, pensions go away in bankruptcy court all the time. We've probably seen $1 trillion in pensions go poof in the last 10 years, but Social Security is still around. Quite frankly, people would freaking lynch CEOs if they pulled this shit without Social Security around, which brings us back to point 1c) in the end you pay anyway.
2) Rights do solely exist in the hands of government. You do not personally have the wealth do defend all of the rights you enjoy. Without the government, it would be way too easy for almost anyone to walk over and violate your rights without fear of retribution. It is only through the sharing of the cost of defending all these rights that someone as lacking in wealth can afford as many rights as the average American enjoys.
3) Yep, they do get back more than they pay in. I've been getting SS statements for years, each time they tell me what I'll get when I retire, looks like a good base so far. You can't measure it on the purchasing power of the dollar in 1965, you have to measure the investment power of the dollar. If you had purchased $1000 on the Dow index in 1946 and $1000 in T-bills, they'd be roughly the same. SS is like purchasing T-bills, since that's where the money goes. You'll need to use some numbers to support your assertion.
4) The Gen X'ers will not be screwed. I'm one of them, I know a bad deal when I see one and touching SS is a bad deal. I want SS around cause I know most Gen X'ers are going to need it. Financial success hasn't been as easy for them as it was for their parents. You'll notice that 20 somethings are moving back home in record numbers these days.
Your ideas about socialism are quaint. There's a difference between infrastructure and socializing competitive markets. Social Security is a catch-all, a bottom line. It's infrastructure, there is still more than enough incentive to save more than what Social Security provides, do you want to just not suffer in your retirement or actually enjoy it? The rest of your post makes no sense, but I will say that it's very difficult to understand the evolution of Liber
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Wrong wrong wrong. It's not theft. It's not theft. It's not theft.
The government only takes US dollars from you. This is their money, not yours. You may not destroy it, you may not copy it. You're only allowed to use US dollars as long as you follow the rules associated with them. Since it is their money, the government sets those rules.
The rules include being taxed. If you don't like being taxed they way you are, don't use Federal Reserve notes. You do not have an inalienable right to use Federal Reserve notes. You are allowed to use them by the goodwill of the government who owns them. You have to follow their rules, or not play their game.
The taxpayer should not have any say in how "his money" is spent, because it's not his money. It's the government's money. The government will not take your sheep away from you to spend on social security if you trade in sheep. It only takes US dollars away from you because that's in the agreement.
Yes, you have the right not to have your property taken from you. Your US dollars are not your property however. They are the property of the Federal Reserve.
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
"All I'm saying is that it is not fair to deny people the choice of participating social security. I'm sure that I can do a better job with my money than the government can, and I think I should be allowed that choice."
Well, you are allowed that choice. Work for a state government with a pension plan that exempts you from social security. They exist in a number of states. And many will allow you to direct your investments like a private companies 401k plan.
Or do you just like to whine about it?
Some other points.
"The wealthy people in this country are taxed at a higher rate than the non-wealthy, first of all."
True. Of course they do benefit the most from the system...
"Secondly, almost every tax cut I've seen cuts more of the tax burden from people making less than average income than from people making more than average income."
Really? That's funny. None of the recent tax cuts has reduced my "burden" significantly-heck I'm not even sure my burden has been reduced (outside of indexing tax tables for inflation). And my income certainly isn't above average.
"It's only through obscure statistical voodoo that people can claim that the Bush tax cut only saves money for wealthy."
By only, well, yes. But mostly beneficial for the "wealthy", well, yes.
Look, you really want to cut taxes, well then, why don't you exempt more money from taxation? That WILL help EVERYONE. And it will get money into the hands of the people who are most likely to spend it. And people who spend money, not investors, drive most of the economy.
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.
The Nobel Prize for economics a couple of years ago went to Daniel Kahneman, who demonstrated that
Kahneman also demonstrated that the Heritage foundation's intuition is poorly suited to understanding the economics and statistics of the real world.
Kahneman showed that people often prefer to choose a pair of gambles that equate to
- 25% odds of winning $240 and
- 75% odds of losing $760
over an alternative pair that equate to- 25% odds of winning $250 and
- 75% odds of losing $750
which violates the fundamental postulates of economic rationality. Specifically, economic preferences are not rational: It is easy to set up choices where people consistently prefer a to b and c to d, but prefer (b+d) to (a+c) (see D. Kahneman and A. Tversky, Eds., Choices, Values, and Frames).Kahneman's colleague Colin Camerer also demonstrated that taxi drivers work longer hours on nights when they make less money per hour and knock off early when they make more money per hour. In other words, the supply of cab drivers increases when the demand decreases and vice-versa!
Camerer's results violate the Heritage Foundation's intuition and suggests that increasing taxes might well lead people to work harder because people often work until they earn a target, after which they decide to knock off early and enjoy their leisure.
In the real world, people's choices frequently violate in a fundamental manner the postulates of economic rationality and thus refute trite intuitive assumptions that people act to maximize their income, wealth, or other measures of utility.
it's not fair that everyone it forced to pay into a social security system that not everyone wants.
Is it fair that I had to help pay for a war in Iraq that I didn't want? Where do I sign up to get my money back?
Living in a group, whether it be a family, a city, state or country (heck, even the planet) is always going to mean compromise. Sometimes you get your way, sometimes you don't.
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.
BE shocked, be very shocked. There is NO MONEY in the social security trust fund. That "lock box" is full of IOU's from the same government that is running massive deficits just to wage war in the Middle East - our SUV's need the oil, I guess. Anyway, I think we are presently "takiing care" of social security right now through a continued devaluation of the dollar. Someday you will get every penny...it just won't buy you anything. Also, go read-up on what a ponzi scheme is and ask youself why our government is not arresting and prosecuting itself. The only crisis is social security is the stupid peasants who can't think and will get what they deserve - screwed!
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.
[QUOTE]Would you rather have a $10K or $7K raise?
You would work harder for the $10K right? Higher marginal tax rates suppress growth.[/QUOTE]
Of course this ignores that their is a maximum of the amount of 'hard work' that can be increased, and that each additional dollar is 'worth less' to the individual, and that there will generally be diminishing returns. Look up 'marginal utility' and 'marginal efficiency'. Also look up 'elasticity and utility'.
[QUOTE]Would you hire an accountant if he could get you that extra $3K if you only got the $7K? Would you accept $2k in benefits over nothing? High tax rates cause avoidance of taxes. Low tax rates make the cost of avoidance higher than the benefit [/QUOTE]
Again this deals with marginal utility and marginal efficiency, and the elasticity of utility. Even a low tax rate will have individuals to whom the utility of avoidance will be significant. Some silly examples - for someone making 2$ a year, a tax rate of 100% isn't really worth avoiding since the 2$ have little or no utility. For someone making a billion dollars a tax rate of 1% is worth avoiding. If there is the death penalty for tax evasion, then it might be worth paying more than the tax rate. The utility of avoidance varies with the individuals income, the tax rate, and also with enforcement and expected penalities.
[QUOTE]Decreasing taxes increases growth.[/QUOTE]
Taxes fund things like education, communication and transport infrastructure, the military, financial institutes etc. Thus decreasing taxes can result in increased marginal cost of labor, increased logistics costs, loss of property (or increased cost of protecting property), increased cost of contract enforcement, etc. possibly resulting in a decrease of growth resultant from a decrease in taxes.
Wanniski and Laffer are not sources of quality analysis on economics.
LetterRip
Conservatives? You know, this was a major stumping point for Clinton, Gore, and Kennedy a mere 6-7 years ago. There was all this hooplah about how we had to fix it. Now that Bush is saying the same thing, we get the left saying, "What problem?"
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?
We could add the topic of what Bush thinks about wiping out the borrowed debt that Social Security has now with the government. I think that money is due here, pretty soon, and Bush probably wants to get out of having to pay back. What better way, than to reform the system, and leave the taxpayers high and dry, eh?
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.
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!)
I evade my taxes, thank you very much!
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
Yeah, it was, and they fixed it. What they did was raise the taxation rate on a couple of highest tax brackets in 1993, Clinton's deficit reduction act. This got our budget back in the black, and that surplus was, I repeat WAS going to pay for Social Security.
I also imagine you'd like to discuss the privatization plans that Clinton and Gore were pushing. What they were NOT pushing was personal savings accounts. What they WERE talking about was instead of purchasing t-bills with the surplus, they wanted to invest that money in slightly higher performing private securities as well. Things like currency markets and utilities. The idea was to increase the rate of return on SS's investments. Republicans totally shot this down, since it wasn't "gasp" secure. I wasn't really for or against Clinton and Gore's plan, since I was, well, a teenager, and didn't follow this stuff much. But if I had to guess now, I migh be somewhat for a partial investment of the security surplus in ultra low risk securities, but I'm still on the fence.
Th
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'm 37! I'm not old!
Benefits will be cut if you vote in the people who are likely to cut them.
Good point ... now if only we could do something about all that money they continue to take out of our pockets that will supposedly provide this so-called 'security'.
hmmmphhhh!
Que Deus te de em dobro o que me desejas
[May God give you double that which you wish for me]
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.
There are several problems with this:
1. Ability to Save: Most Wal-Mart employees with families are living below the poverty line. Let me explain what that's like. Each month, the person budgetting has to decide what bills go unpaid. Medical and dental problems go ignored until they reach the level of crisis. You cannot save, because to save means deferring debts which will accrue faster than your savings. Wal-Mart is America's largest employer. Are you getting the picture here?
2. Inflation. All of the deficit spending that the government is doing will eventually manfifest as inflation. The money you save today will be worth less tomorrow--much less. Inflation also favours debt, by making deferred payment advantageous because it is payment with cheaper money.
3. Investment. I know people who were millionaires who are now broke and barely able to pay rent. They saved. They invested. They lost. And it wasn't like they were stupid. They were robbed by corporate CEO and financial managers who cooked the books and made killings on insider trade deals. Banks pay almost no interest, so to get anything that's likely to stay ahead of inflation and gather value over time, you have to swim with sharks. Most people who do will get eaten. These sharks are the same people who want your retirement savings in the public sphere, where they can get at them.
4. Old Age. Maybe you'll be happy, healthy, and productive till you're 85 years old. The odds are overwhelming that you won't be, that no one will want to employ you after you're 65, and that you'll have to retire then, whether you can work or not, whether you have money or not. Keep in mind that medicine and medical insurance at this age is very expensive. And you have to pay other people to do the things you can no longer do. You're going to need a lot more money to live in your old age than you do now. So your savings probably won't last as long as you think.
The point of social security is not just for those who didn't save. So you save for your retirement? Bully for you, so do I, a lot--but I'm a lot poorer than I used to be, and I haven't drawn a penny from my savings. As millions discovered in 1929, and again in 2000, savings can vanish in an instant. If this happens to you when you're 35 and in good health, you can recover. If it happens when you're 65, you may well end eating dog food until winter comes and you freeze to death. If social security is not there to pick up the slack, for many of the people reading this, this will mean YOU.
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
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.
And who would that be? If the system stays in place as is, benefits will most likely be cut before I retire. If W's plan goes into effect, benefits will most likely be cut before I retire, but at least I will have *something* in a private retirement account. Either way, I will be putting a lot more into the system than I will ever get out of it. At least with W's plan I have *something*. FDR really managed to screw us over. He seemed to know what he was doing though. I believe the quote goes something like "No one will ever get rid of my Social Security."
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
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.
I think it's reasonable to believe that forcing some people to starve will encourage other people to take action to avoid that fate -- to deny that is to deny that we can learn from the examples of others.
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.
Some, sure. I don't think anyone ever meant to claim that everyone would suddenly become fiscally responsible -- just that the populace in general would become more fiscally responsible -- hopefully enough so that the number of people who starve to death on a regular basis is substantially smaller than the number who currently rely on social security.
The children of rich, responsible people don't even necessarily tend to the responsible.
All the better to weed out those that aren't. Some children of rich, responsible people do indeed inherit their parents' memes -- with a bit of reinforcement, those memes would be better propagated. (Not that you need to be a child of someone responsible to pick up good memes -- but it's one popular source).
I don't disagree at all wrt the "clever apes" bit -- but we're reasonably adaptable apes, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect individuals to display a bit of that adaptability in acting in their own best interests.
If deficits "don't Matter" as Dick Cheney pointed out, why then would deficit spending for social security be so problematic?
Damn logic.
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.
That's why as you get older you are suppsed to move your investments from high risk to low risk holdings. Sure, you won't get the 40% return like some of your buddies, but you also won't get the 40% bust. Common sense, really, if you're willing to play prudence against greed.
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.
If you can't live on $20k, after your house is paid off (it should be, or nearly so...or don't you plan ahead?) then you have problems. Put down that straw.
That was exactly the situation before FDR, and the NEW Deal. You might want to google "bonus army". You see, there was almost another revolution, in 1933...
Even filthy rich people decided it would be cheaper to pay off the starving, than be slaughtered in their beds...or move to somewhere paradaisacal, with no government at all...like, oh, say, Sudan? Ethiopa, maybe? Hmm, it sure is a mystery to me, why Bill Gates hasn'r moved there, already...
Only a half-hearted attempt to understand this nation's founding and history could lead you to the conclusions you've vomited all over this page.
...
Oh, really?
I gather you missed that day in your US History course when FDR's threat of packing the Supreme Court was covered?
And you seem to be ignorant of the fact that FDR made the threat due to the fact that the Court was poised to rule that the entirety of the so-called 'New Deal', including Social Security, was unconstitutional.
Go back to Jr. High. The ignorant need not discuss the issues of the day.
Decreasing taxes increases growth.
As long as you don't decrease the spending, it should[1]. But if it also means decreasing the spending, the above doesn't necesarrily make sense: Tax money spent in many areas increase growth - maybe not immediately, but in the long run. Examples of this are education, basic research, transport infrastructure and the fuzzy term "safety".
[1] Until such a time when confidence in the ability to repay or future economic prospects disappear.
Teaching good values to kids does not ensure that they will take care of you or even share any of your values. If they don't like your values, they won't accept them. I also believe it's wrong to raise children with the expectation that they'll care for you when they're older. Why should someone be forced to live with your genes and then be expected to take care of you?
Crises or no crises, it's wrong to force a person to participate in such a scheme when they oppose it. Of course, we're way past that question, aren't we? It's not a question of IF government should rule our personal lives anymore -- it's only a question of HOW.
You took his stuff. You pound him.
You're wrong. According to the constitution, the federal government is strictly limited to national defense, border control, and settling disputes between states. That's it. All other powers are reserved to the individual states.
If the constitution was observed, there would be no "social security" on the federal level. (I put "social security" in quotes because it's really just welfare for retired people. Contrary to popular belief, there's no investment, no guarantee. The money they extract from you isn't locked in a box and kept shut until you turn 65. It goes straight to people you've never even met and never will.
You took his stuff. You pound him.
The constitution limits the federal government's powers to national defense, border control, and settling disputes between states. That's it. All other powers were supposed to be reserved to the individual states.
The truth is the constitution has been ignored since Lincoln. By any measure, the cost, powers, and scope of the federal government today would have the founders spinning in their graves.
Your interpretation of the constitution is so vague it could be used to justify anything.
You took his stuff. You pound him.
But the Heritage Foundation has real world examples that show its theories to be correct, while Daniel Kahnerman has nothing but the results from his limited case studies on subjects that at best relate to the whole picture, but are vastly simplistic.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now. - Ed Howd
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?
That was in regard to the changes that would come about as the nation moved from an argrarian base to an industrial one. My interpretation of the Founding Fathers is consistent with the principles they laid out. They believed in the definition and protection of rights. They understood that in order to provide Justice and maintain the peace, those things would have to be debated and dealt with in the future. The government is bigger because it defends more freedoms than it did at the founding of the country. All of my justifications are based on a specific definition of justice and tied to a definition of rights that are equalitarian. What may appear inconsistent of vague to you is a matter of looking at what was intended for the institutions engineered and the environment from which these ideas came.
The Gilded Age would have caused the FF's to spin pretty hard, the New Deal would have been seen as a restoration of the balance of power. The FF's understood that the only threat to the Constitution was a concentration of power and wealth that would undermine the balance brought by factionalism. You're ideas behind the writing of the Constitution seem far over-simplified. You've applied an extreme Lutheran view of the law to all of the Founding Fathers, while it was an influence, there were other competing ones which your analysis overlooks.
The only way to understand the Constitution is to understand how these different views of law and government played out and the resulting institutions that were designed. These institutions were built with goals and intended to survive mistakes and continue to provide Justice throughout the centuries. The Founding Fathers never attempted to arrest change in how government was handled. They explicitly believed that change was necessary to keep a government relavent, perhaps you should read more about why they set up the government they did and which systems they studied to create this one.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Can't forget the concept of "entitlement" - the concept is part of Federal law. Some programs are defined as "entitlements" - what that means is that the budget for those programs is, by definition, a best guess. What the actual outlays of the program are is whatever it is required to be to pay for the "entitlements". Which always seems to be more than planned, interestingly....
Now, the question of whether there SHOULD be entitlements is a whole 'nother issue. But you can't pretend they're not there until the laws are changed. And you can't overlook the possibility that, even if the definition were removed from law, a new definition of entitlement might not be inserted at some later date.
Both the major parties are equally guilty here. Neither has what it takes to fix things, and either would screw things up just to win a couple of seats in the next election.
True enough. If the Dems were in power, I would have written the sentence you quoted with Reps/Dems reversed.
That said, there is no special reason to believe that any Third Party would change anything. Platforms are fictions, at best, so they can't be counted on. The voters have gotten a taste of "bread & circuses", or "voting themselves largess from the public treasury" (if you prefer a newer description of the endemic problem of democracy), and they won't lightly let go.
Until and unless the government drops back to its Constitutionally mandated functions (and I don't believe that will ever happen, even if we have a revolution - where would we find our George Washington, to prevent a "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" situation), entitlements are going to be with us - they will increase pretty regularly, and eventually our society will collapse under their weight. Then it gets ugly.
Same is true of Europe, of course. Not soon, in either case, but not so far our in time as to be unforeseeable.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Did you miss the day when Gen. Smedley Butler exposed the plot to overthrow FDR and replace him with a fascist government?
How about the day the SCOTUS decided that Slavery was perfectly fine?
The specific issue you are referring to was an interesting one. On one hand you have Justice Sutherland stating that: "the meaning of the Constitution does not change with the ebb and flow of economic events." which seems to directly counter Madison in Federalist 41. It wasn't a unanimous SCOTUS that was opposed to the New Deal, but 4 conservatives, 2 moderates and 3 liberals. The oldest judge was Brandeis, who was a liberal. The conservative wing was all old men, near Brandeis' age, so it appears that the only thing consistent about the conservative wing of the Court was that they had bought into the late 19th century views of the Constitution. These are the views that ignored concentration of power and brought us the Gilded Age. That Gilded Age brought about the oligarchs who tried to enlist Butler to help overthrow FDR.
Defense of FDR's rhetorical flourishes criticizing the court aren't necessary to defend the rights that the New Deal laid out, but since you've sought focus on the character of those involved, perhaps you should look at the character of all involved. BTW, FDR never did actually pack the court and the SCOTUS did uphold the New Deal as Constitutional, so what was your point in all of this, that Constitutional questions are never cleanly answered?
Perhaps the naive shouldn't make so many assumptions?
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Okay. You should preface your comments with: "BTW: I'm an idiot." I didn't catch your sign. Clinton and CO. did NOTHING to tackle SS. The Surplus never materialized. It was based on projections. A HUGE chunk of which was wiped out by the dot-com bust, which, btw, started under his administration. They managed to come up with the projections and then made the assertion that, "hey, this could be used for SS." That's not implementing a plan to save anything. That, at best, is saying, "Well, we expect better revenue in the future, we'll deal with it then."
And yet, even after FDR was gonem no successive supremem court struck down the new deal. Interesting fact that, and it highlights something very important than alot of people seem to miss; interpretations of the constitution can change. Most people these days wouldn't disagree with the idea that the government should help out the disadvantaged members of society, even if they might see the current insitutions as flawed. That includes both liberals and conservatives; look at how no one campaigns on "Stopping Social Security" no matter what the conservative talking heads are saying at the moment.
While this doesn't sit well with the richest members of our society, that's too bad. They got rich off the labor of those who NEED programs like SS, or SSDI, or Unemployment, or Welfare to survive.
Go back to your puritan church; the inhuman and spoiled need not discuss the issues of the day.
Fight for something better: www.socialistalternative.org
Oh no, the yellow journalism era was just typical imperialist/industrialist cheerleading. Journalism in the late 1700's and early 1800's was alot more personal and far-out than anything today.
Reading Federalist newspapers railing against Thomas Jefferson and Republican newspapers railing against Washington & Hamilton is really entertaining.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
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.
Opposition to "No Child Left Behind" -- Get the government out of mandating how our children are taught.
ummmm... excuse me.... the gov't does mandate how kids are taught. Democrats shove their agenda... Republicans theirs. This won't end unless we privatize education (not advocating, just stating a fact).
And Democrats and Republicans alike are making societry more dependent on government.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
This free society we are enjoying is brought to us by government. Property is a construct that comes after goverment. Without this goverment ( which could do a better job, and a more effiecient one ), all would degenerate to violent force.
Compulsion is an unfortunate nessesity some of the time. I think it would be safe to say that most Americans feel compelled to pay their taxes; where they voluntary, they would not be paid. Where would we go from there?
emt 377 emt 4
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.
"Only it'll be a much more direct and personal robbing of a specific rich S.O.B. than taxes are,"
So it's better to steel from the rich?
"You managed to shift a low tax burden from"
My point was that the elderly aren't a burden. They're a resource. And by making them a communal responsiblity rather than an indivdual/family one, we've deprived our society of that resource. So now they are a burden.
Incedently, it's just NOT that expensive. Raising kids (well) is by far more dificult, and pricey. The sole caveat is medical expenses, which is a seperate issue entirely, and something the USA is going to have to deal with REAL soon, as the market is not naturally correcting.
"It'll be the poor middle aged S.O.B. who has to try and support his parents at the same time as his family."
I've never met a couple that didn't love having their parrents help with the kids. Baby sitters are expensive, unreliable, and in the end strangers. Parents are the most guilt free method EVER of allowing "middle aged" parrents to have a life outside of diapers and screaming children.
That aside, the issue of simply passing on family traditions and wisdom that only someone with a full life can provide is invalueble to raising children.
Finally, every parrent should know your children do more watching then listening. They learn more from what you do than what you say, by far! And how you choose to treat your parrents will be reflected in how your children treat you. If you ever want to know if you've been a good son/daughter just look to your own children and see how they behave twoards you.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
If it was not SPECIFICALLY ALLOWED by the Constitution, then it was, by definition, forbidden to the Federal Government.
This, in fact, is why the Bill of Rights was opposed by some of the Founding Fathers - since the Feds weren't specifically given the power to limit free speech, or religion, or the ownership of firearms, then they couldn't do it, and repeating that they couldn't in the Bill of Rights was redundant. From The Federalist Papers, number 80, by Alexander Hamliton:
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the Constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it was intended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights.
I used to think he was an idiot for opposing the Bill of Rights, until I read that particular remark, and realized how much mileage the government has gotten out of exactly that sort of reasoning.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
"What about people with no family? How about if their entire family was killed in a natural disaster?"
They are, by far, the minority. And your right, they do fall to a communal responsiblity, to an extent. In the end that person, as are we all, is responsible for their own welfare. The fact they spent all their savings on cool toys instead of saving for their retirement truely is NOT a societal issue, it's an issue of that persons personal maturity.
That being said, there are still many people who fall through the cracks. And by the end of their productive years, through little fault of their own (lazyness is fault btw) came to an ill state. It may not be societies obligation to help them, but it is a measure of our humanity as a whole that we do help them. There are existing infestructures set up to deal with this, both govermental and private. I do however, sadely, believe that it is not in the US Gov't charter to provide these services, and that the task should fall to private organizations and charities.
"Poverty is linked to crime."
So is wealth. As every public official, corporate officer, lawyer, and politician with his hand out can attest too. I would like to propose that rather than poverty being the source of crime, perhaps dependence is. With no sense of nobility, there is no reason for a man to keep his path on the straight and narrow. Hand outs rob people of their dignity. There is a fine line between charity, and making someone dependent upon your generosity. Ask any one whos ever worked a soup kitchen (your truely included), as the homless slowly become accostomed to being "entitled" and not earning their daily bread, they slowly loose their humanity.
"here has been an increase in bank robberies over the past few years committed by seniors, "
Please provide sources or links. What kind of crime? Tax evaison? Steeling silverwear from resteraunts? Or selling crack to schoool kids?
"(a) an equal distribution of the burdens of citizenship, i.e. those limitations of freedom which are necessary in social life;"
in a-e you still fail to provide any evidence supporting your claim. Yes the FF had an idea of community, well yeah, that's what a "Nation" is. But did their idea of communital burdens extend to economic benefit, or civil. In numorous cases economic rights and civil rights come to conflict.
Civil rights/burdens might include, paying/fighting for the military defense of the country, or being bound by laws of common conduct (ex. speed limits), and freedom of speech vs. slander/liable. Economic benefits, found commonly in european charters, are things like the right to "Dignity", minimum standards of living, maximum work weeks to ensure enriched lives spent outside work.
All are noble ideas to be sure. We can be absolutly certain that the FF endorsed Civil rights. The bill of rights contains NOTHING but civil rights. However "(e) an equal share in the advantages (and not only of burden) which membership of the state may offer to its citizens." is an ambigious phrase to say the least. As one might view advantages as opportunies or entitelments.
In such an argument status quo alwasy has the high ground, and the burden of proof is put on the idea of change. In historic context, status quo does go against economigh rights, as all that are currently in place (save vetrans benefits), are within the last 80years; therefor far outside the perview of the FF.
"Your alluding to the relative value of senior citizens is quite anti-equalitarian."
Quite the contrary. My point, made both ironicly and explicitly, was that makeing the elderly a societal burden causes them to be degraded and their value to society lost, while they rot away in Florida 1000 miles from their nearest family.
No one is talking about thro
I would rather be ashes than dust!
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?
1. Anyone can save, I don;t care if you make 5 dollars a day.
2. As you get older you don't invest in aggresive funds.
3. It's not thathard to have a million when you are 65 if you start early.(ask the housekeeper in New Orleans about that)
Your #3 sounds like hogwash.
If the odds are good that society will abandon me at old age due to no fault of my own, what loyalty should I have to that society? Can you actually prove that these people are in a minority? What if my children turned out to be bums, even though I had done everything possible to raise them right? Your entire premise assumes cultural norms that are not normal and hardly universal.
Wealth is not linked to crime in the way poverty is. What nobility is there in dying in the streets, of having no recourse against more powerful people preying on you? Poverty has robbed far more people of their dignity than any handout. The argument for a government program rather than depending on private charity, especially religious charity is that handouts make one dependent on generosity. What is to stop cult like religious organizations from preying on the poor if that is the only place they have to turn to get fed and sheltered? Having the government take care of it insures that we don't have to have a large amount of charity enforcement. If private charity was enough, we wouldn't have ever started these programs in the first place.
As for increases in elderly crime, google for it. There have been a large number of bank robberies committed by seniors to pay for health care over the past year. I remember one in Gainesville about a year ago, followed by quite a few more and all were noted on the mainstream news. Secondly, the time of first offenders among the elderly tend to involve vehicular manslaughter while under the influence, crimes against children, drugs and white collar property crime. (http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Publications/1999/Hous e/reports/corrctns.pdf) In that report they were still debating whether or not there was a 'senior crime wave'. You're attempts to minimize this with assumptions about the elderly are illogical rhetoric not reason.
Rights are never in conflict. Your right to swing your fist ends at my face. The same logic holds for economic and civil rights. Civil rights always trump economic freedom. The only time economic freedom outweighs defense of civil rights is when one cannot afford to defend civil rights. It is the duty of the government to uphold civil rights, there are no such thing as economic rights, only a right to opportunity. That is a civil right and is expressed in part e of Popper's definition of Justice in the Open Society. That is most definitely a right to a living wage, a right to equal access to the markets. These exist as rights, because without them, enforcement of the other rights becomes prohibitive. Under a "free market takes all" system of completely unregulated capitalism, people will be in positions where the only competitive advantage they have is to give up their civil rights. If by economic reasons, one is forced to give up their civil rights to live, then how is the Constitution upheld? The Constitution's rights do not simply prohibit the Federal Government from violating the rights contained. Those rights are upheld by all of society, therefore the courts must provide the means to defend those rights from all. Since the courts are expensive and reasoned justice moves slowly, people must have the resources to defend their rights, they cannot be left to hope for justice or seek swift justice, otherwise the system falls apart as your new group of second class citizens will create chaos and disorder.
This is what the Founding Father's meant by wealth == power. That was part of their logic of power used to construct a slow moving, factionalized institution. I am not arguing against a status quo, but a popular misconception. The rights outlined in the argument between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists show exactly best system of government was the one which led to the future prosperity of all. The believed that this meant not using people as means, but as ends. Any system that creates second class citizens or that requires that people live up to some ideal will not lead to prosperity for all. You'll spend all your time trying to fi
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Fine..but i don't think the general welfare is supported by keeping people alive as long as medically possible.
The largest expense seniors have is drugs / medical attention. Maybe we should rethink the current idea of keeping people alive no matter what even if their mind is long since gone and they can't even stand without some sort of assistance.
Personally I hope I don't live long enough to get that disabled. I wouldn't want to burden anyone with my existance, and I certainly wouldn't want to be trapped in body that does not function properly.
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
The problem here is that we define minor as different things. Consistently edging up the tax rate is not a real solution. Every time we edge up the tax rate we negatively affect employment levels. The payroll tax rate is now 6x's what it was in 1938 because of a series of minor adjustments.
Meanwhile, the other side of the equation: cutting benefits, is incredibly difficult. I've worked in Congress and I know just how vehemently seniors fight to constantly expand their entitlements. Forcing cuts, or even slowing the growth of entitlements is extremely difficult as Seniors are the most powerful voting bloc in the country.
Also, currently SS is not the least bit pre-funded, so every dollar we pay goes to current benefits. It seems that developing a system that can actually build resources (instead of relying on sapping money away from current workers) is desirable. There have been problems with simplistic privatization schemes in other countries, and Bush's proposal is bad in many ways, but that doesn't mean that reviewing techniques to solve these (plus a host of other issues) isn't worthwhile. The status quo has major growth problems in the future, and the problem of SS is tiny in comparison to the Medicare issue. If we don't look at how to make thse programs more self-sustaining, and restrain their growth, they are going to eat up the whole budget. I don't know of anyone under the age of 50 who would prefer to provide massive benefits to people at the end of their lives instead of trying to help out people at the beginning of theirs.
Funny, I thought this was supposed to be a goverment by the people, for the people...so that if we don't like the gov'ts rules, we can change them.
Also, how is one a citizen of this country, in which the gov't is granted the sole ability to create currency, but not allowed to use said currency? You're not even from the US are you?
BTW, if you do happen to trade sheep, the gov't can STILL tax you.
Oh, you might also want to research just how hard it was to even start an income based tax, because early attempts were rule unconstitutional. They had to pass an amendment to give the gov't authority to tax.
So just b/c they print the money, does not mean they can just take it (since it represents property).
What's so injust about me choosing to give it to my kids?
It tends to make your kids asshole's that think the world revolves around them and their money? that giving it to them tends to make them believe they are better then everyone else? That they have no appreciate of how difficult it actually is to build your own wealth?
I'm never met the child of a rich person that wasn't an arrogant, spoiled brat, that doesn't contribute anything useful to society.
So yes, I'm against inheritence.
Property is a legal construct, and it comes from living under the stable rule of law.
No, intellecual property is a legal construct, that comes from living under the stable rule of law.
Physical property ownership does not need law. In an anarchist state, you own whatever you posses. I could claim ownership by sneaking it away from you or beating the crap out of you and taking it.
The law is merely there to say that stealing is not a valid way of acquiring property.
You tell me how you're going to save for your lavish retirement without a stable government protecting your precious "property" as well as your sorry ass!
I likely would not need to worry about my 'retirement' since w/o a gov't things would get violent. So your point is irrelevent.
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
Anyone who believes that the Constitution serves to *limit* a potentially infinite government has clearly never taken the time to read it.
I thought that everyone AGREED that the constitution serves to limit the government. You are the first to say that we are talking out of our butt to say so.
But the constitution doesn't limit the "infiniteness" of the government. That's meaningless. The constitution serves to limit the ability of the government to trample on the rights of the citizens. Can you tell me what constitutional right social security tramples? And out of curiousity, do other government programs like public education and the road system and the ports similarly trample constitutional rights? Do you really think that the founding fathers believed that government should not have the right to tax people and build roads?
No, I don't have a perfect solution (neither to SS nor to global warning) either.
Stephan
"If the odds are good that society will abandon me at old age due to no fault of my own, what loyalty should I have to that society?"
..."
Here's a radical notion: You shouldn't.
It's that very purchase of loyalty I'm arguing against. As I indept myself to an individual or institution it gains power over me. That is Wealth=Power. Money is nothing less or more than the destiled essence of survival in the physical world. As source of my material survival becomes dependent on another, so do I. The cage may even be confortable, but it's still a cage.
I believe that the individuals when left to their own devices can and will make (mostly) good decisions.
I believe that by removing the penelties of failure you dissable the innate need for survival that drives the human spirit.
I choose freedom over security.
If you are oposed to those statements we will only argue till Slashdot rots or get's sued by MS.
"What nobility is there in dying in the streets, of having no recourse against more powerful people preying on you?"
1 The Man is not out to get you. The Man doesn't know you exist. You are infetesimel and irrelevent. That's a good thing. No one notices you untill after you've succeeded.
Where is the nobility? Not in dieing. In succeding. Pride only comes from acompliment, only. People who become accostomed to not doing for themselves, not acomplishing anything, decay. They loose all pride, thinking the only way they can succede is to keep taking the hand out.
"What is to stop cult like religious organizations
What's to stop the gov't from preying on those on the dole? Watch a politician stumping. They always bring up: "He's going to cut this social program!" True or not, it's scares the hell out of people who've become dependent on it. And again, you have to trust in peoples wisdom not to take the jello-shot; some times you loose the bet.
"If private charity was enough, we wouldn't have ever started these programs in the first place."
We started welfare durring the great depression as a temporary program. No One had money, so the gov't had to step in and speed things up again. Then it got a life of it's own. When we (mostly) killed it in '96 60% of single mothers on welfare found jobs within 3 years. State welfare systems are a fraction of the size the used to be, yet the streets are not crawling with the damned. Some stayed on, because they had no choice. But obviously 60% did.
Social Security isn't Welfare. The people on it now, got suckered into it. We can't pull the chord and expect them to adapt. That's why Bush want's to phase it out. No one actually wants to hurt old folks. They just want to correct a mistake that was made, rather then giving it immortality.
"Can you actually prove that these people are in a minority?"
The average american female is survived by 2.2 children. CIA World fact book. Mathmaticaly they have to be in the minority. There simply isn't a large enough population block having 2 dozen kids.
"What if my children turned out to be bums, even though I had done everything possible to raise them right?"
Then you didn't.
"Your entire premise assumes cultural norms that are not normal and hardly universal."
They were nearly universal 2 generations ago. If they aren't now, then why?
"Rights are never in conflict."
Uh.. sure they are. I want to apply for a job. I'm not a minority. An less qualified minority applies for the same possition. Afermative action means he get's the job, not me. For many decades this was NECESARY to help correct a major social problem in this country. But many, NOT RACIST, folks didn't get that job because of that law, that was trying to balace (and rightly so) the racial scales in the USA.
I'm NOT going to debate Afermative Action, but it is a case of "Rights" comming into conflict.
"...completely unregulated capitalism, people will be in positions whe
I would rather be ashes than dust!
1. Walmart: How about some facts to back that up? Walmart provides health insurance (including dental) for it's employees as well as a 401(k) plan that they pay into even if you don't.
2. Inflation: You can't lay all of inflation at the door step of deficit spending. It's _a_ factor, not the only factor. Inflation only favors debt if you can incurr the debt on better terms than the expected rate of inflation. Practically speaking any lender prices expected inflation into their loan.
3. Investment: One word: Diversification.
4. Old Age: The current SS system doesn't fix this problem either; your benefits aren't related to your medical condition. Try Medicare.
"...cost of living increases faster than inflation..."
e _I ndex.html
A significant part of what we call inflation is the Consumer Price Index, i.e. the cost of living. It's not possible for the cost of living to increase faster than inflation!
See: http://www.investorwords.com/2452/inflation.html
and
http://www.investorwords.com/1062/Consumer_Pric
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.
>> Have you people really met so few people that you've never met anyone without
:) in my state. Social security is not insurance, not at all. It's presented as an annuity, but it isn't that either, as no asset backs the payment stream. The first Social Security check was issued to somebody who paid exactly $0 into the system; try to make an insurance claim with a company where you've paid no premium.
Few and far between. So few, private charity could easily handle these people. I worked in social services (system for social services billing), so I do have some basis for my opinion.
>> It's a freaking insurance policy, how hard is that concept to grasp?
Also did insurance work (3pd party insurance payments system) and have the training to broker insurance (it was a benefit of the job, why not?
>> You can't imagine, because you haven't studied.
Maybe. Can you point me towards a article or two of the time by one of the Constitution's authors supporting the concept of an income transfer system like Social Security?
Bogus analogy. The police aren't the ones doing the damage (in theory, anyway); they're paid to defend you. Welfare, at least by the previous poster's justification, is paying the people who would otherwise mug/murder/etc. you to survive or get money. It's the Piranha Brothers' "Other Other Operation," a protection racket.
They're not granted the sole ability to create currency. You can make a currency whenever you want, and people have. Look up the Liberty Dollar.
Yes, they can still tax your sheep.. Not for social security though, at least within the bounds of the Constitution. Look at what I said: "The government will not take your sheep away from you to spend on social security if you trade in sheep."
Yes, it is a government by the people for the people. You can change the rules. Are you though? No one else but a few people perhaps like you want the Federal Reserve gone. They like it quite like it is.
They can't just take the money from you, right. You misunderstand. They can take your value from you. Obviously the terms get confused. Just like if you bought a CD with some music that came with a license. The license said that you are allowed to keep the CD, but after one year you have to destroy the music, or the publisher will destroy it for you. They own the music, you just have a license to "use" it. Same with money, you don't own the dollars, you're just given a promise. A promise to pay.
They can take your wealth from you that you have in US dollars at any time.
All they have to do is print more of it. That creates inflation because it depreciates the value of the dollars you hold. That value goes to them, because they hold the money. That's what inflation is: the government taking your value that you have bound up in their dollars. There's nothing you can do about that short of changing the law because they control the printing.
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.
In a like manner, if you fund the police well enough, you will get a marked drop in crime. Basically, if there are good civil institutions in place, we can all live much more peacefully. You also seem to be oversimplifying the situation. Not everyone is a brutish animal who will hurt people if they don't get what they want. Plus, there are people who will wind up commiting crimes, not because they are necessarily bad people, but because they are desperate and do not have much choice.
Further, you are also ignoring the fact that, for example, businesses and corporations operate based on the precise manner in which the law is set up, as do people who are trying to survive. Exactly what are considered fraudulent business practices, for example, is specifically codified. Businesses and corporations use these laws to maximize profit. In countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, for example, certain corporations conduct their business in a manner that would be considered highly exploitive here. As a result, ordinary people in these countries are very poor, especially in the village areas, and there is a lot of crime. If your only choice was to starve or to rob a store, what would you do?
You are also ignoring the fact that people can only accomplish so much based on their available opportunities. There are plenty of opportunities that are simply unavailable to just about everyone. For example, people who grew up in a poor area and whose father raped them repeatedly as a child, refused to help them in the least when it came to going to college, and forbid them to work when they were young are basically SOL when it comes to making anything of themselves in life. Or, at the very least, they have a much harder time of it, but will still never be nearly as successful as someone who was born into a good condition.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
I think you need to modify your meds.
In math it's considered one of the fundamental principles of Calculus.
I've asked you a relatively simple question: does the federal government have the right to build roads? Does it have the right to buy land for federal parks? Did it have the right to buy Lousiana and Alaska? Does it have the right to put up monuments such as the Vietnam monument?
if yes, where are these rights described in the constitution? If no, how are they different than social security?
Furthermore, what do you think the world "welfare" means here: "Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;" According to my dictionary, welfare means: "1. Health, happiness, and good fortune; well-being. 2. Prosperity."
The nifty thing about the law is that it can change. It's not an entitlement the way, say, free speech is. It's a temporary condition. When people talk about entitlements they seem to think they come down on stone tablets and can never be altered--which just ain't the case.
Greater diversity in the congress would make it impossible for a single party (changing every few years) to enact laws by simply excercising party solidarity. That would, hopefully, force the various parties to work together to some extent.
I guess you missed my point. When President Reagan reformed social security in 1983, he had us all pay more into the Social Security system than was currently needed. This Social Security surplus was to be saved in the form of treasury bills, and when it came time for those who were paying this surplus to retire, the system would be running a temporary deficit, in which time these t-bills could be cashed in to make up for the difference. Those paying extra would therefore be saving for when the would be retiring and putting a strain on the system.
This plan works great, except when that money being saved is the immediately spent, via large federal deficit spending. So when, 10 years later, President Clinton got his deficit reduction act passed, he was putting the country on the path to a balanced budget, even a federal surplus. That surplus just happened the be the extra money being put into the system via the Social Security trust fund purchasing treasury bills from it's own surplus. What was going on, and is going on, is that the federal deficit is much larger than it really is, but it's only being floated by the payroll taxes paid towards Social Security. So simply by balancing the budget (I think he ran a small surplus in his final year) he was preserving Social Security.
BTW: I might be an idiot, but I'd be willing to guess I'm more knowledgable on Social Secrutiy then you happen to be.
Th
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?
Does it have the Power to build roads? Possibly. Probably not, though, since they don't even claim that Power today. Note that all roads (even the Interestate Highway system) are actually built and maintained by the States. The Federal government DOES provide a substantial portion of the costs of the Interstate system, mind, so perhaps they are claiming that Power.
Does it have the Power to buy land for Federal Parks? It doesn't actually have to do so, since it owns all lands not previously claimed by a private individual, or a State. Note the Homestead Act, where the Federal Government granted homestead rights to individuals who wished to lay claim to unseated land in the terrritories.
Beyond that, buying land is quite legal, pretty much anywhere. Taking land without paying is a whole other issue, but we're not talking about that.
Does it have the Power to buy Louisiana and Alaska? Yes, definitely. If it can buy land from private individuals, surely it can do so from other governments that are stupid enough to sell.
Does it have the Power to put up a monument? Yes.
Note that paying for those things comes under the Power to collect taxes, which was severly circumscribed before the Income Tax Amendment was passed.
Welfare? Not what you think it does, quite. Nor does that phrase give the Federal GOvernment Powers not explicitly granted. Though I concede that the Federal Government has been using that clause, and the Interstate Commerce Clause, to justify a great many things that would have been deemed unconstitutional 100 years ago, much less 200 years ago.
Note that words change usage over time. "Awful, pompous, and artificial" was once used to describe a Cathedral. At the time, it was a compliment to the designers and builders. It was equivalent, in modern usage to "Awesome, filled with grandeur, and made by men". In the same time period "meat" meant, more or less, what "bread" does today. At that time, a steak wasn't "meat", it was "flesh" (or, far more likely, a "steak"). As an example from a later period "regulated" once meant "trained" - as in "A well regulated militia" was equivalent to "a well-trained militia" (in modern terms).
That said, it must also be remembered that "United States" was plural at that time, not singular. "Provide for the general welfare of the United States" meant that the Federal Government could provide for the general welfare of the States, not the People of said States.
Much of this was changed with FDR. Who pushed laws through that he knew were unconstitutional (his Attorney General told him so in several cases), and threatened to pack the Supreme Court with Yes-men to get them to approve the laws come the inevitable challenge. The Supremes of that time caved, and let him have his unconstitutional laws, in order to prevent the packing of the Supreme Court (which would have destroyed the Constitutional function of the Court).
After FDR proved it could be done, every Congress/President since then has been pushing the boundaries a bit farther.
Note that FDR, by passing his unconstitutional laws, may very well have averted a military coup in the USA (such a coup was in the planning stages in the 30's), or a civil war. Note further that I am divided in my opinions of what he did. I tend to believe that he made some short-term decisions that were utterly necessary, but that had long-term consequences that were utterly deplorable. But we'll see about that, when the long term has come and gone....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Your idea that you can live off alone without need of society is ridiculous on it's face. No such existence has ever been . Before the state, you depended on the tribe. This basic "control" as you call it, has already been forfeited. You cannot reclaim what never was. Accept your cage and get on with living. Your arguments lose a lot of steam when rested upon a fantasy utopia. Not to mention the historicism implicit in your declarations.
.9 children among the remaining 2/3rds. If another 1/3rd have 2 children, then that leaves .3 children for the remaining 1/3rd. Once you factor in the male population, don't tell me you can't see that a large number in the country, 10% - 15% are going childless. If it wasn't for immigration, our population would be declining.
The penalties for failure that you propose removing are harsher than the crime. How is that justice? The entire road of progress has been about reducing the amount of arbitrary fate introduced by nature. By you're logic, why should we spend money on research to cure diseases? If the market can't get a solution to the table, then it must not be valuable.
No one said the man was out to get anyone. "The Man" is only trying to make a buck like everyone else. The idea isn't to control people, it's to keep people from a state of control which interferes with their civil liberties. If you see the failure of someone as a lesson to others, you are using that person as a means, not an ends. I'm not sure why you blame the poor for their poverty when any study of the facts show that poverty is not simply a result of making bad decisions. Most people in poverty have not had ample opportunity to get out of it.
The government is far more constrained and transparent than any private organization. We can hold the government far more accountable than we can hold a private organization. You are searching for absolute answers where the question is one of probability.
As for the results of welfare, the roles of the working poor have gone up. The number of children without access to medical care has gone up. Simple clearing the welfare roles has not increased the quality of life statistics for the people it was supposed to help. I believe that job training and a decent job are the best form of assistance, but the welfare to work programs have only succeeded in getting the poor to subsist, not break free of poverty.
Social Security is hardly a mistake. You're idolizing a past that never existed and expecting fascist like adherence to a cultural ideal. Your idea is as foolhardy as communism, which also believed that man must fit a mold in order for the system to succeed. You assume that results are mere products of human action and not factoring in the enormous unknown variables that influence a person's life. There is no way to insure a child turns out the way you expected, only a seriously naive person would make that claim. What you claim as normal 2 generations ago wasn't. If you'd like to see what it was like 2 generations ago, the Library of Congress has a large collection of Depression era photographs which documented the poverty, misery and child labor of the time.
Your math is fuzzy too. If only 1/3rd of American females have 4 children, that leaves
You're conjecture that Affirmative Action hampers your ability to find a job is unproven. You are already statistically better suited to find a job than a black man. Affirmative Action levels the odds between you, rather than simply allowing you to have complete superiority in the probability of who will get a job. The visible need for Affirmative Action may not be a easy to see, depending on what part of the country you live in, but until the quality of life statistics between blacks and whites aren't so skewed against blacks, programs like Affirmative Action need more time. You only feel like you're rights are violated because, as a credit to you, you see people as people. Unfortunately, while you may be ready to move on, the country as a whol
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
If those people had family, then why didn't they get help from their families instead of social services? Since you've assumed that all families have the extra resources to care for someone down on their luck, why did these people need something else?
I never said that Social Security was a for-profit insurance system, only that it was one. It's like the military; I don't think anyone's going to invade me, so I may not need an army to defend my territory. However, if someone did invade, I probably couldn't afford an army to defend myself. Arguably, given my W-2, I receive far more military protection than I pay for. Heck, until I was 18, I got it for free.
The Homesteading of the West was a perfect example of the nation transferring wealth to individuals. The nation owned the land, and we gave it away to anyone who wanted to settle it. Since the wealthy merchants had payed off the nations war debt through custom duties, one could easily argue that the wealth was transferred from those prosperous in business to any luckless hap that managed to survive 5 years out West on a spit of land. It's a well documented part of the nation's history, you shouldn't have any trouble finding plenty of articles on it.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
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
"Your idea that you can live off alone without need of society is ridiculous on it's face."
:)
Such an idea would be a farce, I agree. Good thing I said no such thing. I did not suggest going off to live in the woods. I suggested being independent, with a MINIMUM of gov't interference. That each attempt by the gov't to help, reduces my freedom more.
It's not a black and white world, we have no need to jump to extreams.
"The penalties for failure that you propose removing are harsher than the crime."
The penelty for not working is not eating.
The penelty for not saving, is not having a retirement.
How do the punishments not fit the crime?
"any study of the facts show that poverty is not simply a result of making bad decisions. Most people in poverty have not had ample opportunity to get out of it."
We will have to agree to disagree then. I have never in my life met anyone who had a lack of opportunity. I'm not talking about opportunity for fantastic wealth. I'm talking about opportunity for basic happyness. That may include lowering your standards from a house in the burbs to a 2 room apt downtown over a blues club. It may include working your butt off for 40 years to support your family so you can see your grand kids.
Yes, it does, rarely, happen that some poor shmuck get's a raw deal. Like getting lukemia or getting shot at random. And it would be a tremendous credit to any society that reached out to help these people, but it's not an obligation. Again, thank G_d, daily life for most of us isn't like that.
"10% - 15% are going childless"
So you now agree: Childless elderly are in the minority.
Now wasn't that easy?
"You're idolizing a past that never existed and expecting fascist like adherence to a cultural ideal."
1) How is living with your parrents fascist?
2) It's not a cultural ideal, it's a norm. I'm not talking aobut Leave It To Beaver. I'm talking about taking care of your own family. It's not exactly so far fetched. And if you go any place in South America, you'll see it does exist NOW! America doesn't lack culture because of a dirth of coffee shops, it's because we throw away our history.
"Affirmative Action hampers your ability to find a job is unproven"
Choose what ever statistics make you feel better. The theory is all I require to substantiate my point, that civil and economic rights *can* conflict. Again I AM NOT GONG TO DEBATE AA!
"I find it ironic that you don't seem to grasp that.."
I grasp the scope of my statements quite well thankyou. And I understhand where you differ.
Two people can look at the same facts and have differing oppinions. Logic is a horse, emotions are the rider.
You see "equality" with respect to living conditions, where I see it as a matter of freedom.
You see "opportunity" as financial meens to grasp the reigns. I see the reigns as being in anyones reach, regardless of social status. (some exceptions do apply)
"Without those programs, that statement will be a pipedream."
The scariest words in the english language are:
"Hi, I'm from the government. I'm here to help."
I can do it my own damn self thankyou. Now take your hands out of my walet, and if you feel so guilty for the rest of society go pay for it with your own money.
I'm just a stingy bastard who calls home every week to talk his parrents into retiring to his home. But my parrents are wiser and have their retirement already taken care of... in fact their takeing care of their parrents. My concience is clear either way. How about yours?
"That is the folly of youth. Life will teach you to be more humble."
Ahhh the sweet irony of telling somone else they need to be more humble!
BTW: How old am I?
"Huns sacking Rome"
The Romans were beasts. I can think of no greater Justice than that! But I supose that's the limitation of my imagination.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
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.
You still haven't defined how you calculate a minimum government interference. Your entire attack assumes that some people want more government interference for the sake of government interference. The real question is whether you want government or private interference, which is appropriate for the situation and which can do the least damage. Both will utilize institutions, set up jurisdictions and create rules. The issue here is determining the most efficient and least intrusive method.
You're issue with punishment only makes sense by confusing two issues. You assume that everyone who does not have the resources to retire with dignity or who has nothing to eat is suffering do to their own bad decisions. Even if one was pedantic about what constituted a bad decision and found some minor thing that that person could have done better, how would that justify starvation or begging for a living? Whom do you suggest be the arbitrator of who has screwed up enough to be worthy of compassion and who is simply a drain on society? How do you insure impartiality and fairness?
It is simply cheaper to give everyone a monthly check after retirement than it is deal with all the issues your ideas raise. In order to remain competitive as a nation, we must invest in human capital. It is not a child's fault that their parents were not prepared to bring them into this world and cannot afford the resources necessary to allow the child to be competitive in the global economy. If we want to deal with that child winding up a victim of poverty, rather than being a productive member of society, then we will need to pay for it. If not we will pay for all the problems created by another American in poverty.
Given the expense of raising a child in this day and age, asking said parents to also care for their parents in retirement is a bit of a stretch.
I never said that childless people weren't in a minority, I just said they were a larger group than private charity could handle. You're talking about a minority on the size of the black population of the US. Using a standard income distribution on that 10-15% should produce a reasonable number of people who will be in poverty at retirement age and without family.
The fascism you promote is not that of living with your parents as a child, it's the destruction of choices that those on the bottom end of the income distribution chart will face. If someone makes a mistake and has a kid while they are a teenager, we still think it's a good idea to insure that the young parent has assistance to finish school, so they can provide for their child, regardless of what you think the morality of the situation is. It is simply cheaper to do this than to do nothing and watch the parent and child sink into poverty and repeat the cycle. Under you're plan, that mother and child will have to give up their liberties, much in the way a cash-advance place works. People go there because they've got no where else to turn and need to make ends meet. Because people hope in the future, they are willing to do this. The problem lies in a quick loan that must be paid back at several hundred percent interest. Few state regulate the upper bounds of interest that these places may charge. Now the poor mother and child are indebted to this company, have poor credit, which makes it hard to get transportation, increases insurance costs and creates difficulty renting an apartment. And trying to take care of all this on a minimum wage job is insane.
We used to have situations like this in America, they were called company towns. People gave up their liberties and many lives were lost to break this cycle, you propose recreating the environment that let these institutions exist in the first place. Secondly, if you think S. America is a paragon of government non-involvement, then perhaps you should study it more. While I won't disagree that we throw away our history, I fail to see how your solution would preserve it.
I want to know how your plan reduces suffering. How does it help to inc
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
"You still haven't defined ... minimum government interference."
... than it is deal with all the issues your ideas raise"
..."
.. the destruction of choices that those on the bottom end of the income ... will face."
Yes I have. Repeatedly. Minimum goverment interference is where the G's don't have charter to force me to "do the right thing". If we as a society fail to live up to our "obligations" then we deserve what we get. But a minority should not dicate proper moral choice to the majority. (or vice versa). If people realy care about these issues let them put their money where there mouth is and leave the rest of us alone.
"Your entire attack assumes that some people want more government interference for the sake of government interference."
1) I'm not attacking. I'm explaining my view point. Attacking would imply that I expect to Counquer and Win. I have no expectation that my views will change yours. I mearly enjoy discussing the issue.
2) I also never said that it's interference for it's own sake. I think both sides of the issue are deaply concerned with helping set thing right. They just have different notions of how that get's done.
"Whom do you suggest be the arbitrator of who has screwed up"
No one! get it! no one! Nature makes that decision all by it's self! No one has to decide, because it's aparent at face value. The best part is nature can't be bribed, or screw up. Once in a while someone does get a raw deal, I would say it's more often the result of personal decisions.
"It is simply cheaper to give everyone a monthly check
Now you have a degree in macro economics? It's cheaper to create incentives for people to do the right thing, and let them choose. Then pick up the straglers in the end. At least in my opinion. Which is the current proposel in the senate.
Investment in the market creats jobs and economic development, LONG TERM investment helps to stabalize the market (as opposed to a mad rush to pull your money out and bursting the bubble). Spending it in a ponzie scheme just spreading it all too thin.
"Given the expense of raising a child
Don't kid yourself, it was never cheap. And there are still millions of Americans who do it. Some even have large families without first becoming millionares. People manage.
"You're talking about a minority on the size of the black population of the US."
10-15% represent the number of childess elderly. Not the number of childess elderly with no plans for retirement. And that was also a maximalist estimate by you, that I left unchalenged. Try to keep it in perspective. I'm also not advocating the complete removal of the system. Just shrinking it to encorage a more natrual flow, without totaly abandoning the straglers.
"The fascism you promote is
That's not fascism. It is, at worst, elietism, but it's not fascism. But since I say that ANYONE can succedde, poor or rich, white or black, it's hard to call me elietist either.
"Under you're plan, that mother and child will have to give up their liberties, much in the way a cash-advance place works. "
WTF?! When did I say this?! I'll grant you, it's a possible extraction from my views, taken to the UTMOST extream! But I'm talking about social security, not teenage mothers.
And btw: training programs are good, I would never deprive a person of the chance to improve their own lot.
"they were called company towns."
Your roots are showing...
Company towns were broken up by the gov't, and in any case were illegal to begin with (you can't print your own money). I'm not against Unions (mostly), I'm not against Anti-Trust laws. Or the gov't stepping in to set things right.
At any rate, momentery gov't involvment is not in the same category as a "Social Program" that has an unlimited life span. One is brief, and then can be examined in the lense of
I would rather be ashes than dust!
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
>> If those people had family, then why didn't they get help from their families instead of social services?
;-). Those tracts of land were held by the states, and not the federal government. Since the newly formed states each contributed separately to the war efforts, in conjunction with the weakly funded federal government, some states compensated war suppliers and vets with land grants. In fact, CT still laid claims to most of North-east Ohio in the late 1700's, selling off a large chunk to settle debts.
Like I said, these cases are few and far between.
>> Since you've assumed all families have the extra resources
No I haven't. Giving, like it is today, would be optional. The US gives generously , with an average donation of 3,658 per family per year.
>> I never said that Social Security was a for-profit insurance system.
It's not an insurance system. It is a pay as you go system. Read this for a definition of insurance. The military is not insurance, they have no obligation to protect your person or property. In fact, the US military (unlike other countries) is prohibited from performing police operations inside of the US.
>> The Homesteading of the West
Let's go one at a time:
1- At the time the US colonized, the formal grants were from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific (I'm guessing throwing out the Indians, French, Spanish and Dutch occupying the middle of the country, was their problem
2- The Merchants/taxes thing: When you tax a company, the company passes the increased cost along to customers to "pay" the tax. At the time, the US was a classic third-world country, exporting raw materials, importing finished goods; since a large amount of economic activity occurred at ports, collecting taxes there was cheap and easy. Plus, most of the federal debts were owed to countries with a large merchant marine fleets, so I'm sure they understood this business model and that helped reassure them that the country would be able to repay.
3- At the time the constitution was written, "The West" was anything past the Allegheny in the North or the Blue mountains in the South. I doubt the founders of country had considered the mechanics of the dispersing lands they didn't have. It was not until the Louisiana purchase (Jefferson's administration, bailing out French to return the favor from the war) that the federal government held title to substantial tracts of land, and we still needed to chase away those pesky Indians.
At that time, when the federal government held title to land, it owned on behalf of the citizens, so the idea behind Homesteading wasn't that the government was giving something to the people; the land was the people's to begin with, homesteading was a good way to put it back into private hands. In the past 75 years or so, the concept of public land being private property of the federal government (which I think is your point of view) has appeared.
And (sorry for the long post) you haven't answered the question: Which of the founders of the country would have advocated an income transfer system like Social Security?
They're not granted the sole ability to create currency. You can make a currency whenever you want, and people have. Look up the Liberty Dollar.
Interesting, if true. I'll look it up. While you still might be right, the Liberty dollar is not likely 'good for all debts, public and private,' however.
Yes, they can still tax your sheep.. Not for social security though, at least within the bounds of the Constitution. Look at what I said: "The government will not take your sheep away from you to spend on social security if you trade in sheep.
No, but they'll likely value whatever you got in return for your sheep, and want x * 2 amount in US dollars (one for you as employee, and one for you as employer), since the items would technically be 'income.' Note that they CAN tax corporate gifts you receieve as income to you. Thats the logic im using that you'd still have to pay tax.
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'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.
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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?
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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
"The clear answer is the folk who collect the investment fees"
Except in the US except for some very few cases in retirement funds you do not pay any fee. The companies make thier money by keeping a certain percent of monies earned from the investments not the deposits. Theses costs are not included in the interest shown in the fund, so if a fund says it earned 12% over a period it actually earned more but thier profit was already taken out. You can find funds that that do charge but that can take some work.
If they use the system that is used by US government employees and allows people to put the 2% of thier SS into that system, then the people would not see any direct costs. Even the worse case of that system has far exceeded the SS return.
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.
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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Again, you've assumed that you must contribute to reducing poverty as a method of charity. The argument here isn't over the moral argument of 'should I help my neighbor', but the cost effectiveness of 'I'm paying for my neighbor's visits to the emergency room, since they can't turn him away by law; wouldn't it have been cheaper to just buy the guy a dose of antibiotics before his flu turned into pneumonia?'
For you're argument to be valid, one would have to stop forcing emergency rooms to take patients who need care. This isn't a debate of whether or not you should pay, I have argued that you already do pay. This is a matter of cost-effectiveness.
You've managed to assume that 'Nature's' goals and our own society's somehow correspond, they don't. Nature doesn't care about democracy, principles of equality or freedom. Nature's logic is the cold logic of power. You can no more define a positivist legal system as 'natural' as one can claim an omnipotent being has given them political authority.
Society is an attempt to mitigate the arbitrariness of both nature and man. We came up with law to free ourselves from arbitrary fate, which is why European tribal legal systems were abandoned for Romano-Canonist legal systems. By claiming the moral authority of nature, you lose the force behind you're argument and tread dangerously near Spencer's 'Social Darwinism'.
Now you have a degree in macro economics? It's cheaper to create incentives for people to do the right thing, and let them choose. Then pick up the straglers in the end. At least in my opinion. Which is the current proposel in the senate.
The incentive to do the right thing already exists; if it didn't, 401k's would hardly be popular. The system, as it currently exists, does exactly what you claim this new proposal to do. You still haven't explained how a new system would handle those 'straglers' other than to wisp them all away to the magical black box of private charity.
Investment in the market creats jobs and economic development, LONG TERM investment helps to stabalize the market (as opposed to a mad rush to pull your money out and bursting the bubble). Spending it in a ponzie scheme just spreading it all too thin.
Social Security is already invested in money markets. The receipts from the fund are used to issue TBills at a percentage rate, which the Federal Government buys to finance its debt. The Federal Government's debt must be financed somehow, that money will come out of the market someway. US Federal debt is one of the safest and most reliably money market investments available and has been since WWII. You won't see any net appreciation in dollars going into the market until you've reduced the debt. If SS funds go into the stock market, rather than TBills, other money will go to TBills that might have gone to other investments. Simply not putting money in the SS Fund won't have the results you're claiming unless the Federal deficit is reduced, which can be done without touching SS. SS is no more a ponzie scheme than any government borrowing; it's even less of one since it currently has positive cash flow.
I'm perplexed at how you've managed to associate the Bush Administration's economic policies with incentives to mitigate boom-bust cycles. Increasing the Federal deficit and giving away tax cuts to the rich during wartime are not policies which spur LONG TERM investment.
10-15% represent the number of childess elderly. Not the number of childess elderly with no plans for retirement. And that was also a maximalist estimate by you, that I left unchalenged. Try to keep it in perspective. I'm also not advocating the complete removal of the system. Just shrinking it to encorage a more natrual flow, without totaly abandoning the straglers.
I said that one would have to apply a standard income distribution model to that figure to achieve an actual guesstimate of how many would not be able rely on family support. I didn't claim it to be an accurate estimate, I
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
"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.
Certificates of Deposit denominated in Euros.
between the greater and lesser infinities sleep the dreams undreamt
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?!
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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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.
I have no problem with helping the poor.
I have every problem with being hauled off to the rape rooms of an American prison for not helping the poor.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Before Social Security, old people froze and starved in the streets. After Social Security, the elderly can at least buy a cup of soup occassionally.
That's what I call a stunning improvement. From freezing and starving in the streets to freezing and starving in the streets with an occasional cup of soup. Excellent.
and if you get rid of it by privatizing, you must be willing to say it's OK for those people to just starve, freeze, and die
Are you saying it's impossible for someone to, in good faith, disagree with you? Anyone who disagrees with you wants people to starve and die? Sounds like a good way to keep yourself from ever having to seriously confront views other than your own.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
You mean besides the entire human race? This may come as a shock to you, but SS (both in this country, and in a larger global sense) is a recent thing. Most people that have lived (read: thrived) throughout history, did it without social security.
While many people replied to you with "OMG BUT OLD PPL DIE and SUFFER". I can tell you that social security for old people used to be their kids. In poor countries it still is. If you have yourself 10-12 kids, chances are a few of them will live to take care of you.
With the birthrates of today (at least among the western world) and the decay of the family unit this type of social security doesn't exist any longer.
Social security could have worked from the start, had it been implemented that each person actually pays for themselves and the government didn't touch the money. The problem is that SS was created during a bad time for our country, and the politicians have looted it as well.
While I'm not sure that President Bush has the best plan to fix Social Security, I'm glad it will be debated before we face a crisis.
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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