Online Social Security Statement In Limbo

coondoggie writes "While the debate over Social Security benefits is heating up in Congress, one of the most basic ways everyone interacts with the agency — the yearly Social Security Statement — is in limbo as the agency struggles to move it online. The Social Security Statement had been issued every year since 2000 to more than 150 million workers serving as the government's key way of communicating with workers about benefits, earnings records and how much retirement money they have. The statement is also a key tool for communicating with the public about the long-term financial challenges the Social Security system faces. However, whether you realize it or not, the SSA suspended mailings of the statement in March citing budgetary concerns."

Comments

Grandma and the Internet

[Pete Venkman]

My grandma calls websites "double-u double-u double-u's". There's no frigging way that she could handle something like this online.

Re:Grandma and the Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

My grandma can't read. There's no way she could handle a long document with words printed on it.

Re:Grandma and the Internet

[larry bagina]

These aren't for retired people, they're the (formerly) annual statements sent to workers listing their expected benefits based on previous FICA taxes paid.

Re:Grandma and the Internet

[Pete Venkman]

You're right, baby boomers are way more tech savvy than grandma.

Re:Grandma and the Internet

[houghi]

And that is unimportant as other ways will still be available. The fax did not replace letters. Some ways of communication will fade away. The telex is one of them.

I work at a company that has just recently opened up a website for the customers to use. Although we try to push them towards the website, we will not force them and in many occasions we even discourage people to use it. This mainly with the elderly who don't understand how to type in a URL. Some even do not HAVE a computer and we do not want to loose those ones and some just don't feel like it.

Dire Omen?

[l0ungeb0y]

FTFA: "The SSA suspended mailings of the statement in March citing budgetary concerns"

When they can't even afford postage, how far off can the warnings of the SSA's eminent collapse be?

Re:Dire Omen?

[waddgodd]

In normal years, they could afford it, but the economy made it so they took in $40 billion less than they paid out last year. They expect a similar shortfall this year. This isn't bad, as the trust fund is coming REALLY close to $2 trillion, but they don't want to borrow more than they have to from interest or the general fund (I'm thinking borrow from the general fund is out right now). Basically, they're looking right down the barrel of a HUGE payout of trust fund as the baby boom retires in the next five to ten years, and don't want to take anything for granted.

Re:Dire Omen?

[ravenspear]

One problem here that not many people know about is that the "trust fund" isn't an actual account with actual money in it.

It's basically just a stack of IOUs from the Treasury dept stating that they will pay that amount when the SSA requests it, but if future government revenues or budgets are not conducive to that money being available from Treasury, it could be hard for them to get it.

Re:Dire Omen?

[AK Marc]

One problem here that not many people know about is that the "trust fund" isn't an actual account with actual money in it.

Sure it is. You might as well argue that your bank account has no money in it because they loaned it out, or that any retirement fund with stocks, bonds, or T-bills in it doesn't have any money in the account.

All accounts run like that. "Your" money isn't there. It's in some IOU form. Unless you have your retirement account stashed under the bed, you do exactly what you condemn.

Re:Dire Omen?

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that the social security trust fund *is* the federal government. The federal government lent all the money in the social security trust fund to itself, and then it spent the money. A bank would have lent the money to various third parties who would pay it back. The federal government has to pay the money back through tax revenue (or more borrowing). That's a pretty big difference. If a bank lent its deposits to its officers, and then the officers spent the money, all the bank's officers would be in jail right now. An IOU written to yourself is not an asset. The social security trust fund is insolvent. All the money being paid out has to come from taxes, borrowing, or printing money.

Re:Dire Omen?

[DragonWriter]

One problem here that not many people know about is that the "trust fund" isn't an actual account with actual money in it.

It's basically just a stack of IOUs from the Treasury dept stating that they will pay that amount when the SSA requests it

One problem here is that people posting things like the above don't know what an "actual account" is, since that's exactly what an actual account (e.g., at a bank) is.

You seem to have "account" confused with "safety deposit box".

Re:Dire Omen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, huh. So when the bank issues itself a loan to pay its top officers bonuses while ceasing to actually issue mortgages and car notes, you won't have any problems with that arrangement?

Banks take deposits and issue loans to third parties for arms-length transaction. Government takes your money, issues loans to ITSELF, and spends the money on programs of its own choosing.

Re:Dire Omen?

[ravenspear]

The difference is that the social security trust fund *is* the federal government. The federal government lent all the money in the social security trust fund to itself, and then it spent the money. A bank would have lent the money to various third parties who would pay it back. The federal government has to pay the money back through tax revenue (or more borrowing). That's a pretty big difference. If a bank lent its deposits to its officers, and then the officers spent the money, all the bank's officers would be in jail right now. An IOU written to yourself is not an asset. The social security trust fund is insolvent. All the money being paid out has to come from taxes, borrowing, or printing money.

The bolded was the point I was making.

If a bank issues a loan to a private party, that party has a legal obligation to repay the loan, so the bank knows exactly how much it can be expecting back. Sure the guy might not be able to pay, but in most cases he will. We can't accurate project what future government revenues or budgets will look like. So the gov issuing an IOU to itself is really just an assertion that they will pay back that dept based on faith in future economic growth leading to more revenue.

Re:Dire Omen?

[zeroduck]

China has a lot of those too, they're called bonds. American citizens buy those too. So do American companies.

What would you like them to do with the money? Tuck it away under the mattress of the Treasury Secretary?

Re:Dire Omen?

[homer_s]

By that logic I have a trillion dollars - I have IOUs from myself worth that much. I also have a trillion Zimbabwe dollars on my desk.

The IOUs have to be from some other credible counter-party to be taken seriously.

Re:Dire Omen?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not like that at all. The money invested in a bank or other fund has real assets behind them. The surplus social security taxes collected are used to purchase treasury bills. That money was not invested in assets, companies or real estate, it was spent in the general fund. The money is basically gone, predicated on the promise to repay someday because of the full faith and credit of the federal government. If you read the laws however, the government has no obligation to repay that money to you if they choose not too (read the statements they sent, they even say they can change the amount they pay you at any time, all the way to zero). Banks and other financial agents have the obligation to pay you, and if they don't can be litigated. Try suing the government for unpaid social security!

Social security is a tax not an investment in any real or legal sense. If you're fortunate, you might get some of that money back someday. No guarantee. Much like a Ponzi scheme, returns are paid with new funds. Backed by faith and a promise. And the returns are terrible, worse than you can get in the most conservative investment vehicle. The whole idea was a safety net, and that's gone out the window. Many people receive substantial checks each month they don't even need. The number of workers to beneficiaries was once 16 to 1. It's now almost 2 to 1. You've seen the future in Greece, Portugal, and others. That is what is going to happen when people who never planned for retirement get nothing. Good luck in 20-30 years.

Re:Dire Omen?

[rubycodez]

At one time, the trust fund *did* have money in it (yes, the electronic information that we call money), but was looted and replaced with securities, which are NOT money. There is a huge dangerous difference.

Re:Dire Omen?

[garyebickford]

Hmm. Fortunately most of us boomers were too stupid to save any money, so they can't afford to retire for another 10 or 20 years. That should actually help out SS.

Re:Dire Omen?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

We can't accurate project what future government revenues or budgets will look like.

However, if it gets to the point where the US government can't honor that debt it means the entire country is really, really screwed anyway. So much so that SS solvency will be one of more minor problems of the day.

Re:Dire Omen?

[tiqui]

No, it is NOT an account.

First, the courts have already ruled on this. According to the Supreme court, the federal government gets to decide each year whether it will pay-out to social security recipients and how much to pay. There is nothing other than public outrage that forces the Federal govt to pay you anything from social security when you retire (they ARE required to pay things like retirement packages of retired govt employees)

Second, if that was an actual account, then why do you not have a PIN number????? (Hint: it's not actually your money, and there is not any actual money there)

Third, IF it is an actual account and IF you own it, then why do your heirs not get to inherit it?

Re:Dire Omen?

[AK Marc]

An IOU written to yourself is not an asset.

Evidently you've never worked for a fortune 100 company. They do that all the time (business units owing to others). And they have to rectify those when they sell or reorg. Or all the Enron pensioners who had their retirement plans stuffed with Enron stock. It's stupid to have your retirement plan in the company you work for (the point of an IOU written to yourself), but it is still a valid IOU.

I understand your point, but I don't agree with your opinion. The only possibility of the US government defaulting on T-bills would be because of an economic collapse so large that SS being gone would be the least of our worries. And if the US government were in such bad shape that they decided to selectively fail to pay off their debts, no one else in the world would buy the securities, and the economy would fail. There is no scenario where the government could fail to pay back the IOU and still have a fully functional government.

Re:Dire Omen?

[AK Marc]

Uh, huh. So when the bank issues itself a loan to pay its top officers bonuses while ceasing to actually issue mortgages and car notes, you won't have any problems with that arrangement?

Aside from the lie by implying that the government is "ceasing" to distribute money as they have indicated they would, yes. Why? Because they do that all the time. And no one cares when the private sector does it, but goes apeshit when the government does. That indicates to me that you are either grossly ignorant or batshit insane.

Banks take deposits and issue loans to third parties for arms-length transaction. Government takes your money, issues loans to ITSELF, and spends the money on programs of its own choosing.

Yeah, that's how it works. It seems you are insanatarian. You aren't objecting to the government moving a debt on the books from one department to another, but objecting to taxes or something else. Moving the debt on the books is done every day in every company that does any size of business at all. That this is a large movement in a very scrutinized organization doesn't change the simple fact that this form of accounting is very common in the private sector. Ever code an expense to a line item in a budget? Then you've done what you are complaining about here. If you haven't, then you've never had a job with anyone but McDonalds - get out of the basement and let us know what the real world is like.

Re:Dire Omen?

[AK Marc]

The IOUs have to be from some other credible counter-party to be taken seriously.

You are stupid. Millions (tens of, maybe hundreds of millions) of people have money in T-bills. They are credible, whether they are first-party or third-party securities. Just like getting a bank backing of that would be useless because it's more likely that any individual bank will fail than the US government will (and if the US government did fail, then it's possible that many banks will fail as well with the collapse of the US economy and all backing of banks).

The US government is too big to fail, and if it does fail, then SS failing as well will happen as well no matter who the IOUs are written by.

Re:Dire Omen?

[AK Marc]

It is an account, but it isn't your account. It's like you have a mutual fund that buys stick in Microsoft. You don't own any shares in Microsoft. You can't vote in the shareholder meetings. Any dividends paid will not be paid to you. So you wouldn't get a Microsoft PIN.

You are arguing that if you own a mutual fund that owns MS stock, that unless you have a PIN for MS, that your mutual fund doesn't own any MS stock. That's just plain wrong, and in no way indicates that you don't have a relationship with the mutual fund company, or that they don't own MS stock. Come on guys, this is pre-econ 101 stuff.

Re:Dire Omen?

[Fjandr]

Except the entity who issued the bonds in this case is also the one paying the value plus interest. Therefore, you need the thousand dollars in the other jar to pay for the securities, and then you have to find money elsewhere to pay the interest on those thousand dollar securities. Assuming that, unlike the government, you haven't already spent the thousand dollars in the jar.

Re:Dire Omen?

[AK Marc]

Now, compare all that to an insurance company.

Re:Dire Omen?

[Savantissimo]

"they took in $40 billion less than they paid out last year"

False. The SS surplus was over $68 billion last year.

Re:They can have a $1 for this.

[jc42]

I will gladly pay $1 in taxes each year to pay for them to print and mail a statement.

I've seen the accounting for such things in a number of corporations, and none of them could send out statements at a cost of under $1, so I doubt that the SSA can achieve such a cheap mailing, either.

There are a lot more costs than the paper and postage. This is the reason for the inexorable move to electronic statements. It's far cheaper to move a flock of electrons or photons than it is to move the equivalent pieces of paper. Electrons and photons are much better behaved than pieces of paper, so it can mostly be handled by the computers and comm gear, without human hands getting involved. You'd be surprised at how difficult it is to fully automate paper communications.

(Unless you've done it, of course, in which case you know most of the zillions of ways that pieces of paper -- and the moving parts that push them around -- can screw things up. ;-)

And the real reason it is in budgetary limbo...

[ravenspear]

Is because whatever web design company was offered the job of setting up the site and converting the data RIDICULOUSLY inflated their quote just because it was the gov and they knew how much they could suck out given the prior precedents of waste.

Sigh

[Sycraft-fu]

Maybe you should read one of those statements they mail, or just do some reading online. Social Security in its current state will never "collapse" because it is funded by taxes. It has taxes collected just for it, from every paycheck. As such, so long as there are people working in America, it has a revenue stream.

The problem is not a collapse, the problem is that they will not be able to pay out promised benefits. Currently the SSA takes in less money than they need to pay out for benefits. In the short term, that is ok, they have a large fund which is used to fund the difference. However the difference is quite large, and nothing is being done to fix the problem. That means at some point the fund will be depleted (when depends on a lot of factors, you can look up the various estimates). When that happens, they can't pay out the promised benefits, only a fraction of them, maybe 70% currently.

It is a big problem, particularly since many people depend on social security to not be homeless in old age. However it will not "collapse."

In terms of suspending mailings, well it probably saves more than you think. It isn't just postage, it is printing costs. No, it doesn't cost a lot to print a couple page flyer. Does cost a bit to print a hundred million of them though.

Given that they are spending out more than they take in, it makes sense to cut where it is feasible. This would be a potential area.

Re:Sigh

[hedwards]

That's not true, it would be true if politicians hadn't figured out that they could borrow from it so that they wouldn't have to raise taxes or cut spending during their terms, then skip off to retirement with their Federal pensions while everybody else gets benefits cut.

At this point the Feds owe quite a bit of money to Social Security, but with the GOP refusing to allow for tax hikes or to cut the large sources of spending, it's unlikely to get fixed before things collapse.

But, OTOH it's not likely that people will get nothing, they'll just git a fraction of what was promised.

Re:Sigh

[vandelais]

Currently the SSA takes in less money than they need to pay out for benefits. In the short term, that is ok, they have a large fund which is used to fund the difference. However the difference is quite large, and nothing is being done to fix the problem. That means at some point the fund will be depleted (when depends on a lot of factors, you can look up the various estimates). When that happens, they can't pay out the promised benefits, only a fraction of them, maybe 70% currently.

Except no article on the subject goes past that point. It's just 70% and the story ends there. The mathematical unsustainability of the system in its current state means that the payments will start at 70% and decline year after year after year....
Promises were made, promises were kept, but when the trust fund runs out, hold onto your hats.

The system needs reform on the expense side of the equation.

Re:Sigh

[the eric conspiracy]

The fact is that correcting the imbalance will not take a major change in the tax/benefit ratio. Simply removing the income cap on payroll taxes would be enough.

The system is actually quite sustainable. The deal right now is that there is an unusually large generation moving through the plan. Back when Reagan was President payroll taxes and retirement ages were increased in order to account for the post war cohort. Some adjustment is now needed again to fine tune things. Once the boomers start dying off in large numbers I would think we will see some payroll tax cuts.

A big issue that is screwing things up is that the SS Trust Fund holds something like 3 Trillion in T Bills and the process of cashing them in will increase Federal borrowing costs. Basically what happened is that the Republicans (Bush + Reagan) used the payroll tax revenues as a way of partly financing the tax cuts that they put in place for the wealthy. Now of course that doesn't work as SS revenues are less than expenditures.

In the end SS is fixable with some moderate tweaks.

Medicare though - that one is SERIOUSLY broken and I would not be surprised to see some horrific outcomes with that. The only real way to keep Medicare is socialize medical care in the US, and boy that is going to be a rocky road.

Ultimately though having an economy where 20% of GDP is spent on health care where everybody else spends 10% puts you in a big non-competitive hole that can't work long term.

Re:Sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

they have a large fund which is used to fund the difference

No they spent that. They have been doing that since the recession we had in the 70s. Its gone. In its place is HUGE stack of IOU's.

Honestly that I was getting one every year was semi odd. Every say 5 years would be more reasonable. It would cut the cost to 1/5th. For a good number of people it is far off enough that would be ok.

Also the system needs about 2-4 people paying in to pay for 1 that is retired. The average pay in the united states is 40k. Which comes out to about 400 paid in per month. Most people I know who retired are making 800-1200 per month.

It is currently 100% paid by people paying in. The cushion is gone unfortunately. Long since spent.

It has *all* the earmarks of a ponzi scheme. Pay in and make money as more people join.

Re:Sigh

[Hungus]

Actually you are wrong, Currently SSA takes in MORE money than they pay out. There is no "Fund" as Congress has been "Borrowing" it to fund other parts of the budget. The best way to maintain benefits after the switchover occurs (when more money is being paid out than put in) is to raise SSA taxes now and feather the retirement age again.

Social Security brought in an excess of 68.6 Billion dollars last year. (thats what remained after all payouts were made)

Don't believe me?

The data is here: http://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/assets.html

Re:Sigh

[CMYKjunkie]

Since I am in the know on this aspect of it, I can state with certainty that the printing cost is about $0.02 per statement while the postage is about $0.18 per statement. So by far postage out weighs the printing cost.

Re:Sigh

[phantomfive]

The sad thing is there are about half-a-dozen ways to fix it, and none of them are particularly painful (slightly raise taxes, slightly raise maximum contribution, slightly raise the payout age, slightly decrease benefits) if done early enough. We've known about this for a decade now (at least) and no one has done anything, and the more time passes, the harder it will get. It's rather pathetic.

Re:Sigh

[bell.colin]

The US Govt. which has never spent within it's means should not be trusted with my or anyone's retirement fund or to provide any service, They are liars and thieves.

If you are dumb enough to rely on this and they don't pay up you get exactly what you deserve, which is nothing after the thieves are done borrowing it for their own gain.

We have known for a long time this was headed for bankruptcy (it's a damn pyramid scheme no matter what they want to call it)

I don't pay into SS but pay into something else, no way I'm falling for the SS scam.

Re:Sigh

[jejones]

It will collapse when the young finally revolt over being taxed the amounts needed to keep the elderly living in the style to which they've become accustomed.

Re:Sigh

[Savantissimo]

"Given that they are spending out more than they take in..."

No. Social Security has always run a yearly surplus, over $68 billion last year.

Re:Sigh

[Savantissimo]

Great points. I'd like to note, however, that the SS trust fund is closer to $2.5 trillion than $3T, the bonds it holds are not T-bills but rather longer-term, special-issue, unmarketable Treasury notes and SS expenditures are (and always have been) less than receipts on a yearly basis, by over $68B in the last fiscal year.

Re:Sigh

[the eric conspiracy]

That is a commonly held belief that is not correct. The Social Security reform that was put into place in the 1980's recognized the generational population issue, and adjusted payroll rates and retirement ages so the fund would run a surplus funded by that generation and accumulate reserves in a trust fund to pay for that generation.

It is quite interesting to read the reports regarding that adjustment that were written in the 1980s.

Re:They can have a $1 for this.

[waddgodd]

I will gladly pay $1 in taxes each year to pay for them to print and mail a statement.

I've seen the accounting for such things in a number of corporations, and none of them could send out statements at a cost of under $1, so I doubt that the SSA can achieve such a cheap mailing, either.

One word. Franking. It helps when you're part of the entity that charges the postage...

SSA and Web sites don't mix

[Aquitaine]

In a former job around 6-7 years ago, I worked for a major university that received a lot of state and federal grants, many of which were from the SSA and which included provisions about operating web sites on behalf of the SSA. These were not complex web sites, but they were totally clueless (as was everyone from the SSA that I ever dealt with, though in fairness we only dealt with two or three specific branches). We would get phone calls at 6AM demanding that we remove the SSA logo from a web site that we had done on their behalf, and then a phone call four hours later demanding that we put it back.

Even by government standards, these people had terrible attitudes. Every meeting with them began and ended with the SSA having the attitude that they were performing the most vital government service in existence, and therefore they knew everything about how it should be done -- not necessarily a bad position, but by definition not a terribly logical one if you are hiring outside groups to do certain jobs for you.

The paper statements they send out are a hoot, too. They have a little insert that says something to the effect of 'I've heard that Social Security will be insolvent by the year 20xx (usually around 2030). Will I stop receiving payments?'

'No! Social security will continue to operate as normal. If Congress does not authorize additional funding, you can expect to receive seventy cents on the dollar.'

Their definition of 'insolvent' must be 'nobody receives anything,' but I can lose 30% of what I'm 'owed' without government assistance.

Re:SSA and Web sites don't mix

[stephanruby]

'No! Social security will continue to operate as normal. If Congress does not authorize additional funding, you can expect to receive seventy cents on the dollar.'

So the post office and their printer didn't accept their 70% offer. They should just have mailed out 70% of the Statements (those are still good odds imo).

It's too bad they didn't seem to take into account operating expenses when they did this little back-of-the-enveloppe calculation. How can they pay out seventy cents on the dollars when the most visible part of their operation grinds to a halt at the first sign of lack of funds? Or is this a political tactic on their part, a way to rally the people to put pressure on politicians?

It's probably the latter I think.

Re:SSA and Web sites don't mix

[Kr3m3Puff]

I remember the first one I got of it... It politely informed me that I a) had fully qualified based on all my contributions over the years and b) the year I was set to be eligible to retire, they would run out of money, but Congress was working on a way to address this, so I shouldn't worry.

I don't think they even read their own forms. *sigh*

Re:SSA and Web sites don't mix

[daath93]

The paper statements they send out are a hoot, too. They have a little insert that says something to the effect of 'I've heard that Social Security will be insolvent by the year 20xx (usually around 2030). Will I stop receiving payments?'

'No! Social security will continue to operate as normal. If Congress does not authorize additional funding, you can expect to receive seventy cents on the dollar.'

Their definition of 'insolvent' must be 'nobody receives anything,' but I can lose 30% of what I'm 'owed' without government assistance.

You sir, are a liar. Having received one in March, just before they stopped printing them there was no such insert. And since I also work for Social Security, I can say you are the FIRST PERSON I’ve EVER HEARD say that. And trust me, if they planted that in a statement I would have heard at least a couple dozen complaints by now. Social Security voluntarily stopped printing the statements because no one reads them and it costs about $70 million a year to operate the service. Get some facts. The story you state is lunacy. For a Government entity that won't even give a hint or speculate about cost of living increases until the consumer price index is officially out every year, you think they would actually have an official stance on something as completely undecided as what *if* congress doesn't fix the problem in the next 15 years? Right-O!

Re:SSA and Web sites don't mix

[Aquitaine]

, I can say you are the FIRST PERSON I’ve EVER HEARD say that.

That doesn't make me a liar. It makes you unaware.

The last 2-3 annual statements I've received from the SSA have had inserts to that effect. Trust me, I'd much rather have my money than score a political point.

Perhaps it has to do with your anticipated retirement year, e.g. if you're not due to retire till after they run out of money, they include the insert?

For a Government entity that won't even give a hint or speculate about cost of living increases until the consumer price index is officially out every year, you think they would actually have an official stance on something as completely undecided as what *if* congress doesn't fix the problem in the next 15 years? Right-O!

Yes. I do and they do: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/

Your attitude reminds me a lot of the SSA. 'How dare you question us when we are about our very important business?!'

Re:SSA and Web sites don't mix

[daath93]

Im unaware? The minute the media farts about SSA and I become aware of at least 5 people complaining about it a day. No i suspect your memory is in error. And the link you pointed to is a list of "proposals" by lobbyists and congressmen.

Who cares?

[PanchoVilla]

I don't plan to ever see any of that money anyways. It's probably best that I don't get reminded once a year how much money I have thrown down that rathole..... I do my retirement planning assuming 0 dollars from SS. Any money I do get will be spent on trips to vegas, "get of my lawn" signs, and rocks to throw at "those crazy neighbor kid's dog". Oh and to buy horrible gifts for the grandkids that they probably won't even like.

Since my birthday is in April, I got a statement..

[WimBo]

I received my statement this year, and would not have known that they stopped sending them out if not for this story.

I've wondered a bit about the statements and if they imply a contract? What happens if SSA is tampered with and I show up with my statement demanding to be paid?

Re:They can have a $1 for this.

[Lehk228]

anyone doubting this should just look at a somewhat aged copy machine. in order to grip paper the rollers need to be soft, but they wear out and start slipping, paper leaves little pits of paper dust which accumulates and further renders gripping surfaces sticky, sometimes moisture will make paper stick together, sometimes there is no moisture and the paper just sticks together anyways because fuck you, usually when there is a jam it is detected and the process stops, every once in a while the jam keeps piling up and jams in so much paper that the backup gets to a spot where a sensor detects it and many pages are ruined, because fuck you.

and that is assuming that you have no toner explosions from shitty HP toner carts making all your prints and copies from the brand new $7000 multifunction piece of shit (which manages to underperform all of the aging and decrepit equipment in the office in speed, reliability, serviceability and image quality) look like they are covered in snot or bile.

"Budgetary concerns" my ass

[e9th]

This is all about politics and scaring older voters.

Re:Since my birthday is in April, I got a statemen

[Megane]

Don't worry, it's not worth the paper it's written on anyhow. Just another feelgood waste of tax money thanks to CONgress. If you're under 50 you can count on Socialist Security getting "restructured" long before you have a chance to collect on it, thanks to the Baby Boomer generation being paid from it instead of taxed into it.

Long term balance

[DragonWriter]

Except no article on the subject goes past that point. It's just 70% and the story ends there. The mathematical unsustainability of the system in its current state means that the payments will start at 70% and decline year after year after year....

Except that that's not true. Uh, no, the most recent trustees report shows, under the intermediate assumptions that the trust fund will be exhausted in 2036, allowing only 77% of authorized benefits to be paid at that time. That gradually worsens to 74% by 2085, which is the end of the projection period; the projection has it worsening at the end of that period, but at a slower rate as you get farther down the line.

The system needs reform on the expense side of the equation.

Actually, it needs reform on the revenue side; one of the reasons its out of balance in the long term is that social security taxes were set on wages only with the expectation that wages would, over the long-term, bear a stable relation to total income (or at least total income from labor); that assumption has not worked out, as wages represent a declining share of labor income, with a greater share made through fringe benefits which are not subject to Social Security taxes; simply rearranging Social Security taxes to reduce the rates but include fringe benefits, in a manner that was revenue neutral in the short term, would greatly improve long-term balance.

Re:Long term balance

[astar]

Consider:

I claim the following are the congress critters operating assumptions:

1) we want to put a lot of money into stuff that is *against* the general welfare
2) we do not want to put money into stuff that "improves* the general welfare

Now consider a possible proxy for general welfare:

increase the productive part of the economy by say 2% a year instead of negative percents

Oops, if done, no more worries about the trust fund running out of money anytime soon

On this site, we could probably come up today with 20 good ways to do 2% increases

Talk to the Chinese, today, and among the things they are actively doing there, hey, 20 things to do 2% increases

talk to DC types, the priorities are, well, we already covered that in general and we all kind of know anyway. Do we really need to be specific?

here is a url you might look at: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/insolvency

just a definition of insolvency

my thought here is that lots of people are avoiding using accurate words, if the words invoke a real context. You might look at this bit of nominalism and see where it applies around you.

Re:Long term balance

[DragonWriter]

increase the productive part of the economy by say 2% a year instead of negative percents

Oops, if done, no more worries about the trust fund running out of money anytime soon

Incorrect. The annual increase in the productive part of the economy in the projections (both the high-cost and the intermediate) that show the trust fund in trouble are greater than 2% per year, so acheiving that rather meager growth rate would not, as you claim, suffice to eliminate the problems being addressed.

Talk to the Chinese, today, and among the things they are actively doing there, hey, 20 things to do 2% increases

Ignoring for the moment the question of whether, even if they would produce economic growth rates that would be attractive if you ignored all the other impacts, you'd want to mimic the policies of the People's Republic of China in the United States, the impact of a policy isn't just determined by the policy itself, but by the context in which it is implemented, and the PRC is a very different context, politically and economically, from the US. What works for China doesn't necessarily work for the US, and vice versa.

talk to DC types, the priorities are, well, we already covered that in general and we all kind of know anyway. Do we really need to be specific?

Yes, actually, if you want to make a credible argument on that point you need to be a lot more specific (and provide a lot more support) than you did in this post. Simply claiming that unspecified "congress critters" want to avoid doing anything that supports the general welfare and want to do things that harm the general welfare with no more specifics is inadequate.

I think if you look just at public statements and other easily-locatable facts, you could probably find a reasonable degree of support for the argument that at least some Republican members of Congress want to maximize short-term disruption to the economy in the hopes that (as poor economic outcomes fortunes often are) it will be held against the sitting President and his party, and thus improve Republican electoral fortunes in 2012, and when you get to that level of specificity there is something actually possible to have a meaningful discussion about. But your claim about congressional motivations is far too general to even discuss meaningfully.

Re:Long term balance

[astar]

Thank you for your reply. Let me do a bit of nominalism. My use of the word "productive" is as a physical economy word and thus excludes, hmm, casio revenues, and .. casino economy revenues. I sort of imagine the projections you reference are using the current definitions of GDP and thus include how much profit the investment banks make off of whatever is the current bubble creation program.

work for prc not necessarily work for us and visa versa

"not necessarily" is pretty much a law of the universe. But historically, a lot of countries have had success paying close attention to the policies we used in the early days. And the Chinese still look at us and do some emulation. For instance, the leadership of the chinese man on the moon programs figures apollo gave us tech leadership of the world for 20 years, per some quotes I do not trust. No one is going to claim that apollo did not have a giant economic payoff. We cannot even manage to keep processing economically critical data from existing space assets.

I figure you want to do a nice detailed axiom based scalar analysis. Screw that. If you are actually human, try for some cartesian and recognize that we are going though policy driven negative phase shifts and your axiom set went out the window, probably about 2000, but anyone actually paying attention and sane knew it was gone in 2007. But that probably was not you.

Hah, and you want to evaluate "policy" in terms of "context". The implication of my above remarks are that "context" is changing a lot faster than your evaluation capability.

Here is my evaluation: the US will not tolerate dictatorship.

Re:Long term balance

[astar]

sorry for the flame. whoosh!

Well, maybe not for the flame, but for the "if you are human" phrasing. Aside from flaky, it is not useful in this context, which is about the same thing.

Have a great day.

Re:They can have a $1 for this.

[jc42]

Sorry; franking doesn't quite cover it. That only means "free postage", which is, lessee now ... (It's been a while since I sent a letter ;-) ... that's $0.44, which doesn't even cover the suggested $1. And typically, the cost to print the doc and stuff it into an envelope (and address the envelope) is more in the $3-$10 range. So, yes, franking privileges helps, but it's only on the order of 1/10 the total per-envelope cost.

The message the SS has is universally understood..

[Super Dave Osbourne]

If you put money into the ponzi scheme, you my american (and foreign in many cases) are totally screwed. Thanks for playing, try again on the next shit this government sells the public.

Re:They can have a $1 for this.

[the eric conspiracy]

The SSA has been making a large push to direct deposit. I am sure this is saving them far more than the statements that they have been mailing every few years.

More clueless posting with misinformation SS

[MonsterMasher]

Social Security is NOT part of the budget problem and will be fine if those bastards don't touch it.

Simple fix - raise of remove the high income 'cap' as needed. That means that people who make more then $108,000 per year will be asked to continue to contribute the same rate as the rest of us. Booo - fraking - Hoo

Oh, and if you do not understand what is meant by 'cap' you need to educate yourself.

If someone tells you something else then they either misinformed or are indirectly trying to destroy one of the few truly important safety nets this country has left .. and we have enough scum like that already - don't be mistaken for one. Many take their children's future very seriously.

Those bastards have a lot of money. and as far as I am concerned each and every one of them is an example why it would be in the nations interest if their mothers had practised selective birth control. At this point I sure as hell wish Obama's mother had.

Re:More clueless posting with misinformation SS

[Seumas]

It's awfully easy to say "boo freaking hoo" about someone else's money, isn't it? After all, if they have that income level, there's a good chance they may not need to rely on social security to retire (though I suppose that depends on what region of the country they live in). So forcing them to continue to chip into this scheme only serves to benefit everyone else. Hell, why not ask them to chip in at a *higher* rate than everyone else? Why not double? Why not triple? Why not just tell them that $50k is good enough and everything over that should be given to the old people down the street that never bothered to save a dime for retirement, because they believed social security was going to take care of them, because that's what "the government" told them?

Re:More clueless posting with misinformation SS

[MonsterMasher]

So - you must be one of those flat tax people. fine.

The issue here is not about someone not being able to afford a new computer or not. We are talking about poor old freezing or not getting medications. And their young families who already struggling to make ends meet not letting family members DIE.

I got an idea for you. Why not go volunteer at your local food-bank. Think about parents not being able to feed children. Starving children (you numb SOB) think about what you write. Yea, lets live in a society where people kill each other to feed dependents. Good plan.

Re:More clueless posting with misinformation SS

[Savantissimo]

"Hell, why not ask them to chip in at a *higher* rate than everyone else? Why not double? Why not triple? "

Good idea. The Social Security tax is highly regressive. If we adopt Reaganomics czar David Stockman's suggestion to immediately implement means-testing for SS payouts, it would come to the same thing philosophically - payouts would be decoupled from pay-ins. The difference is that removing the cap on income subject to the tax and making the rate progressive would generate far more revenue than means-testing. By recognizing the inherent pay-as-you-go nature of Social Security, eliminating the SS surplus, and having the current SS tax rates automatically indexed to SS payouts, we could starve the general fund of this easy embezzlement, assure that current benefit payment levels can continue, and reduce the tax burden on the working poor. This would simultaneously increase demand (the poor spend their money on needed goods) and decrease the malinvestment that came from the wealthy having too much free income compared to available productive investment opportunities (which is a primary root of asset bubbles and the absurd price inflation of education and status goods).

The CBO has been telling everyone for years that the poor aren't paying taxes, arriving at this conclusion by not counting the highly regressive SS taxes and subtracting SS benefits from their income tax contributions (along with the earned income tax credit and all other social programs). (Not to mention not counting the highly regressive excise taxes and the double taxation of income paid to Social Security or paid for state and local sales taxes.) In fact, counting all taxes, the poor pay a higher proportion of the income they make that is not spent on essentials than the rich do. On the other hand, the CBO does not offset the tax loopholes exploited by the rich (e.g. the low "carried interest" tax rate, which results in Warren Buffet's secretary paying a higher rate than her employer) nor the profit-padding in the government expenditures that primarily go to the wealthy, such as government contracts, nor the many and various forms of corporate welfare that end up lining the bank accounts of the master class.

If the rich don't like it, well, tough. With few exceptions, they didn't earn their money by working or creating, they extorted it by gaming the system, using bought laws to keep out competitors, recklessly risking other people's money, overcharging customers while underpaying those doing the real work, pocketing the difference, then shipping that productive work abroad. They've killed the goose that laid the golden eggs, the domestic market can't afford to buy things for itself anymore, certainly can't afford to buy the doctors, lawyers, bankers and executives all the nice things they had been arrogating to themselves as their due as protected guild members. They'll have to start paying the debt they ran up, they'll have to start paying to rebuild the society they destroyed, or they're going to end up having nothing at all.

Like every other government "shutdown"

[Darkness404]

This is like every other government "shutdown", shutting down the most noticeable parts of the government to get attention even if it makes no sense. For example, out of all the things to be shut down in a state/local government shutdown it generally won't be the things actually costing the most money, but highly visible things like state parks, or trash service all the while the things that caused the budget to be in a mess are still continuing.

Re:Like every other government "shutdown"

[artor3]

This is a good thing. The people need an immediate reminder about why they like the government, to cut through all the demagogy. If the government shut down background services, it would fester unseen and unaddressed for months.

Re:Like every other government "shutdown"

[rubycodez]

The federal government doesn't collect my trash. How about shutting down "background services" like wars and warmongering and world policing, or lining defense contractors pockets?

Re:Like every other government "shutdown"

[misexistentialist]

For the organized criminal elite in power extortion is certainly a good thing, for the demos not so much.

Re:They can have a $1 for this.

[Zebai]

I could swear you've worked in my office

Every now and then i get a very nagging message to remove paper from the receptacle tray with threes NO GD paper in it and the printer will not print until the non existent paper is gone.

Oh no!

[Seumas]

This means I might not get a breakdown of all the money I'm never going to receive, when I retire! I mean, assuming they haven't moved the retirement age to 105 years old by then!

Re:They can have a $1 for this.

[markdavis]

Sorry, but you are out of your mind if you think it costs $3 to $10 to produce and stuff and address that statement.

We do such mailings all the time for far, far less. And in THAT type of volume, with automation, the actual costs is well below $1.

Even our Xerox printer/copers at a measly 70ppm, ACTUAL COSTS, including the tabloid paper, would be about $0.03 per statement. Envelope and stuff for another $0.05. Address it for another $0.01 or so. I am guessing the actual costs of their statements, ready to mail, are in the $0.10 to $0.15 range.

There is NO WAY they are going to maintain a website design, and database, and hardware, and electricity, and ISP, AND SUPPORT THE MILLIONS OF LOGINS and HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CONFUSED elderly for less than their simple annual mailing. No way.

Re:Since my birthday is in April, I got a statemen

[larry bagina]

Per Helvering vs Davia, Social Security is a tax and Congress can spent it any way they wish. Per Flemming vs Nestor, you have no contractual or 5th amendment rights to receive Social Security payments.

Re:They can have a $1 for this.

[shentino]

You seem to be forgetting that the government is the one doing it.

Better sites

[SuperKendall]

These aren't for retired people, they're the (formerly) annual statements sent to workers listing their expected benefits based on previous FICA taxes paid.

I generally find for pure escapist fiction, I prefer Baen.

Anyone up for retirement more than ten years out better have arranged their own finances.

Re:Better sites

[TheGratefulNet]

Anyone up for retirement more than ten years out better have arranged their own finances.

you want to see pitchforks and torches? wait till the boomers retire and are told there is no money (or not enough) in the kitty.

if anything will cause a rebellion, THIS would be it. people HAVE paid into the fund and they do have a right to expect a payback after working 3/4 of their lives.

maybe if we had less wars (...) we'd be able to support OUR OWN FRIGGIN PEOPLE.

we all will retire. this affects us all.

I'm tired of stealing from our own people to line pockets of the aristocracy.

they better hope there is money in the fund. even old guys can put up a fight if they are pushed to poverty.

Re:Better sites

[SuperKendall]

maybe if we had less wars (...) we'd be able to support OUR OWN FRIGGIN PEOPLE.

Nope, whole military (and you have to admit we need some military) is a tiny portion of EXISTING social security outlays. Even cutting back the military drastically does very little to cover forward SS obligations.

Re:Better sites

[nbauman]

Anyone up for retirement more than ten years out better have arranged their own finances.

Although I enjoy cranky anti-government fantasies too, it's better to stay closer to reality. The Republicans are beating this anti-Social Security line because they want to say, "Social Security isn't going to be there for you, so let's end it and save you all those tax deductions" (which are the lowest in the developed world).

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/cockroach-ideas/
Conscience of a Liberal
Cockroach Ideas
By PAUL KRUGMAN
March 13, 2011, 12:57 pm

“the Social Security trust fund doesn’t exist”

If Ronald Reagan had said, back in the 1980s, “Let’s increase a regressive tax that falls mainly on the working class, while cutting taxes that fall mainly on much richer people,” he would have faced a political firestorm. But because the increase in the regressive payroll tax was recommended by the Greenspan Commission to support Social Security, it was politically in a different box – you might even call it a lockbox – from Reagan’s tax cuts.

Their answer to the pretty good numbers is to say that the trust fund is meaningless, because it’s invested in U.S. government bonds. They aren’t really saying that government bonds are worthless; their point is that the whole notion of a separate budget for Social Security is a fiction.

But there are two problems with their position.

The lesser problem is that if you say that there is no link between the payroll tax and future Social Security benefits – which is what denying the reality of the trust fund amounts to – then Greenspan and company pulled a fast one back in the 1980s: they sold a regressive tax switch, raising taxes on workers while cutting them on the wealthy, on false pretenses. More broadly, we’re breaking a major promise if we now, after 20 years of high payroll taxes to pay for Social Security’s future, declare that it was all a little joke on the public.

The bigger problem for those who want to see a crisis in Social Security’s future is this: if Social Security is just part of the federal budget, with no budget or trust fund of its own, then, well, it’s just part of the federal budget: there can’t be a Social Security crisis.

Re:Better sites

[slick7]

Anyone up for retirement more than ten years out better have arranged their own finances.you want to see pitchforks and torches? wait till the boomers retire and are told there is no money (or not enough) in the kitty. if anything will cause a rebellion, THIS would be it. people HAVE paid into the fund and they do have a right to expect a payback after working 3/4 of their lives. maybe if we had less wars (...) we'd be able to support OUR OWN FRIGGIN PEOPLE. we all will retire. this affects us all. I'm tired of stealing from our own people to line pockets of the aristocracy. they better hope there is money in the fund. even old guys can put up a fight if they are pushed to poverty.

The smartest thing this government could do is to stop taking taxes out of the people closest to retirement, less than 20 years out but we all know that isn't going to happen anywhere this side of year 2511. The fact that this government would rather see people about to retire, die is more likely.
It's time for these politicians to live like the majority of the population, no job, no health-care, no house, no pension after 35 of saving, then, maybe, they will get it.

Re:Better sites

[Fjandr]

Is it really a promise broken if everyone knew you were lying to start with?

Most people, at least those I have talked to, have very little understanding of the accounting fiction that is known as the Social Security trust fund.

They don't realize all those taxes are spent immediately, rather than being saved for the future.

Since the taxes are exchanged by securities that are both held by and issued by the same entity, I like to use this example: The Social Security trust fund amounts to taking a dollar from your right pocket and an IOU written to yourself from the left, exchanging pockets, then spending the dollar. You claim that the IOU amounts to savings, because it is owed to you, but omit the fact that it's also a debt because you are the one liable for payment of that IOU. So the books say you have a dollar, but when the time comes to pay, you have to come up with money from somewhere else in order to actually make good.

The US is living beyond its means. Eventually, something has to give. Politicians rarely get elected by telling the truth though, since the average voter is too stupid to be able to handle it readily. They just get mad and throw gasoline onto the fire that is current partisan politics.

Re:Better sites

[gtall]

The Lie that is social security is that you are somehow entitled to the promised benefits. That was always incorrect as anyone can see: you are entitled to amount of promised benefits that the American people can and are willing to afford. No more. So stop thinking there is a some sort of cosmic unity involved in the baby boomers getting their benefits. There isn't, there never was, and there never will be.

Re:Better sites

[maxume]

Maybe define tiny. Military expenditures in 2010 were about $650 billion. Social Security payments were about $700 billion. So 1/2 of the military budget would seem to cover a tiny 1/2 of the social security outlay.

Linky:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget

(I realize that the $700 billion present day outlay doesn't really speak to the future obligations, but you have the appearance of just making things up)

Re:Better sites

[nbauman]

Paul Krugman is a Nobel prize-winning economist and an economics professor at Princeton. You ought to consider the possibility that he understands this better than you do.

Don't you realize? No-one under 30 expects to see anything from it. To them it's just another tax with no hope of return.

That's because the Republicans and their right-wing think tanks have conned them in to believing this nonsense.

A bunch of billionaires don't want to pay taxes so they're coming up with this con to convince *everybody* not to pay taxes -- and lose the benefits of government. The Koch brothers on their guarded estates don't need government, but the rest of us do.

If they can convince enough of you, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Given that, make it official - declare we are paying in to help those in the system now, but it ends with them and we start doing something sane where we sock away money per person, for that person-

Yes, that's step 2 of the Republican plan -- convince you that Social Security will never pay out, so we should destroy it.

You can't buy an annuity on the free market that will pay as well as Social Security. Overall, people can't invest their money in the free market as safely as they can invest in Social Security. Look at all the people who lost their life savings in the technology bubble. Look at all the people who lost their life savings in the real estate bubble. Look at the people who lost half their life savings in the stock market crash, even when they invested in the safest stocks.

Do you think you're smarter than them?

Why don't you put your life savings in your back pocket, fly to Monaco, go to the roulette wheel, and put everything on black? That's what you want us all to do. Under some scenarios, people will do better in a no-load mutual fund, but under other (real) scenarios, they'll lose their shirt. It's even riskier if you try to beat the no-load mutual funds, and try to be clever.

with some extra taken to help the truly needy.

Look at the way these same conservatives are cutting taxes and the social safety net to help the "truly needy". Instead of getting Social Security as a right, you want a government bureaucrat to decide whether we're "truly needy".

Re:Better sites

[nbauman]

Is it really a promise broken if everyone knew you were lying to start with?

Most people, at least those I have talked to, have very little understanding of the accounting fiction that is known as the Social Security trust fund.

Do you think Paul Krugman, the Nobel economics laureate and Princeton economics professor, understands economics?

They don't realize all those taxes are spent immediately, rather than being saved for the future.

Since the taxes are exchanged by securities that are both held by and issued by the same entity, I like to use this example: The Social Security trust fund amounts to taking a dollar from your right pocket and an IOU written to yourself from the left, exchanging pockets, then spending the dollar.

Since at least the renaissance, accountants realized that if you put your savings in gold and hid it under the mattress, you would actually lose money compared to what you would make if you loaned it out for even the safest investments, over the long run.

Accountants also understand internal transfers. The advertising department of GE advertises washing machines, and they bill the washing machine division of GE as an internal transfer. Or they could spin off the advertising department into an independent advertising agency, as companies sometimes do, and bill them as an external payment. They would have essentially the same obligations in either case. The IOUs help GE's accountants track how much money each division is spending on advertising, so they can charge each division appropriately for the advertising (pay the IOUs).

The advertising department is GE's left pocket. The washing machine division is GE's right pocket. What's the problem with GE transferring money from its right pocket to its left pocket?

The Social Security trust fund is an intergenerational transfer. The government provides free education for children, which is a transfer from the old (the left pocket) to the young (the right pocket). Social Security is a transfer from the young (the right pocket) to the old (the left pocket).

Social Security is also a transfer to young people with elderly parents. Having to care for elderly parents can be a great burden, and before Social Security, it was even worse. Even today, people caring for elderly parents can have their savings (and inheritance) wiped out. Social Security cushions you against that risk. So you don't have the burden of caring for your parents who invested with Bernie Madoff. Social

You claim that the IOU amounts to savings, because it is owed to you, but omit the fact that it's also a debt because you are the one liable for payment of that IOU. So the books say you have a dollar, but when the time comes to pay, you have to come up with money from somewhere else in order to actually make good.

It's not a savings, it's a generational transfer fund with some components of savings.

They don't need savings at all, but some people want to pay now rather than later. The Republicans under Ronald Reagan insisted on putting (some of) it in a lockbox, so we put it in a lockbox.

Do you want the Social Security Administration to take everybody's FICA payments and put them in a vault, like Scrooge McDuck's money bin? As accountants realized in the renaissance, instead of leaving the money in a vault, you can use it for safe investments. Having one government department lending money to another, as private companies like GE do, is one of the safest investments they can get. Rather than selling Treasury bonds to the Chinese, they sell Treasury bonds to the Social Security trust fund.

The US is living beyond its means. Eventually, something has to give. Politicians rarely get elected by telling the truth though, since the average voter is too stupid to be able to handle it readily. They just get mad and throw gasoline onto the fire that is current partisan politics.

The US

Re:Better sites

[awfar]

It doesn't matter if you are right or wrong. You don't get halfway through the game and try to unilaterally change the rules, even if it is uncomfortable for you.
Many of us have paid in for the majority of our lives.

Re:Better sites

[Fjandr]

Most of this is a strawman that has nothing to do with what I said. I was talking about your average voter, of which economists and billionaire businessmen are not. As a result, it all has zero relevance to the points I made. Making them again is a waste of time, given the lengths gone to in order to avoid examining them at face value.

Re:Better sites

[ralphdaugherty]

They don't realize all those taxes are spent immediately, rather than being saved for the future.

The SS funds are borrowed. That is a choice of Congress, three of whom represent you.

Re:Better sites

[Fjandr]

3 of whom claim to represent me; they do not actually represent me.

There is a significant difference. They represent the proportion of the population who support their actions. I am not one of those people. "Representation" is usually nothing more than a convenient fiction.

Re:Better sites

[ralphdaugherty]

all right. Three of whom were selected by the majority of them people who live in your area.

I am not lucky enough to have people who's views I respect represent me either, but nevertheless they choose to borrow the SS funds each year.

And then SS would buy treasuries with the funds anyway, so I see no reason for your complaint.

Re:Better sites

[Fjandr]

If you see lying as reasonable, that's your choice. If you choose to call it something other than lying, that's also your choice. Borrowing money from yourself and calling it 'saving' is a lie, no matter how you slice it and no matter how many people think it's reasonable. It is no more sustainable than you borrowing money from yourself and not having another way to pay yourself back when the bill came due. SS simply uses accounting fiction to say it's saving anything. The budget all comes from the same place, and securities are paid from the same budget as SS payments are. Those securities on redemption draw money from the same place as if paid directly, so they are as much liability as asset. You may have no problem with it, but that doesn't mean people who do have something wrong with them. My complaint is eminently reasonable, regardless of your opinion. The 'trust fund' is, at very best, irrelevant. It is an accounting fiction to hide the fact that there is no money actually saved anywhere. It is contingent on future income, the same as if the 'trust fund' didn't exist at all.

Feel free to disagee, but if so, please tell me exactly how more money enters the general fund because securities exist that are both due to and payable by the same entity. If it doesn't somehow increase the assets available, then please provide a reasonable explanation for politicians claiming it is an asset rather than, at best, a net zero accounting entry with regard to overall budget expenditures.

Re:Better sites

[ralphdaugherty]

There were several posts that address your fallacies. I won't rehash them. Just reread the thread.

Re:Better sites

[gronofer]

There's no way the US government will meet all the payments that it has promised. It simply doesn't have the income, nor can it borrow forever. Sure, it has wasted a lot on wars, bailing out banks, and an out of control medical system, but that can't be turned back. Either they will change the rules and not pay it, or they will let inflation get out of control and pay in devalued dollars.

Re:Better sites

[Fjandr]

What is generally accepted is not necessarily what is true. None have actually answered the questions posed; they simply rehash the same old excuses about why Enron accounting is alright as long as you're the government. Accounting is frequently about disguising the truth. It's not that you won't answer, but that you can't actually answer without admitting the simple truth about the irrelevancy of borrowing from yourself without addressing the very real externalities regarding repayment of borrowing from yourself. Continue believing the fiction that you can make money by indefinitely borrowing from yourself if you like. It still won't make the bill payable without increased external resources or decreased expenditures elsewhere (or inflation of the money supply, if you're the government). All social programs have one or more of the above costs, and nothing will change that.

Loans that don't produce more than face value from the use of the money aren't financially beneficial to the person taking out the loan. The current economic climate shows that the majority of government expenditures do little to stimulate growth. They have, at best, a maintenance effect.

Securities require the same outside income as direct payments. They cannot themselves be used as payment. That makes them nothing more than an accounting trick, no matter how you try to excuse it. Nobody credible has a plan which doesn't require increased taxes, decreased benefits, or diminishing the value of the dollar through inflation (or some combination of the above). If securities had real sustained value without requiring external income, they would make those choices unnecessary. There are a lot of people who want to fool themselves or others in order to excuse the behavior though.

Re:Better sites

[Savantissimo]

Nonsense. The military consumes a literally infinitely greater share of income tax receipts and borrowing. Social Security is funded by a separate, earmarked tax and has run a surplus every year since it began over 75 years ago. In the most recent fiscal year, expenditures were $712.5B, while income was $781.1B, with the difference $68.6B being taken by the general fund in exchange for non-marketable US bonds. (This system was a Reagan-era fraud. The Social Security Trust Fund is now the largest single creditor of the US Government, holding over $2.5 trillion in US bonds.) One could say that nearly a third of this 68 billion-dollar surplus went just to providing air-conditioning for the coddled invaders of Iraq and Afghanistan, or that about 5 times this surplus was consumed yearly by increases in military spending since 2000.

The military budget has expanded from about $390B to over $700B in level dollars since 2000, and that amount is drastically understated due to the vast increases in debt and obligations for support of veterans which we have undertaken due to the fruitless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Social Security is just as it appears on the budget - but with all the expenditures liable to income tax, then most to sales tax, and virtually all staying in the domestic economy. It is paid for disproportionately by people who are not rich - no one pays any SS tax over about $100K in income. For those making under $10-12 dollars per hour, (more than half of all working-age people, when all the ~40% non-employed are taken into account) it is a bigger burden than income tax. The excess Social Security tax is appropriated by the general fund, then given to bankers who borrow for less than nothing (considering inflation) from the Fed and buy US bonds, pocketing the interest paid, and to parasitic war profiteers who feed on the "defense" budget.

Re:Better sites

[Savantissimo]

"Feel free to disagee, but if so, please tell me exactly how more money enters the general fund because securities exist that are both due to and payable by the same entity."
Because the money will be paid back in inflated currency (interest on the SS bonds is less than the real rate of inflation).
Because the government takes back part of what it pays in benefits (SS benefits are subject to income tax.)
Because Congress can cut the benefits at any time, and it has long been assumed that it eventually will.
Because Congress can effectively default on the bonds in the trust fund by any number of legislative and accounting measures without affecting its credit in the external bond market.

Your overall point is good, though - because of its size, SS cannot truly be anything but a pay-as-you-go system. This will break down within the next 20 years unless something changes. The SS surplus allows greater government spending, but this does not foster the wage base in the real economy needed to allow the program to continue indefinitely. Removing the ~$100K limit on income subject to SS taxes could easily solve the problem for decades, perhaps indefinitely if combined with a progressive tax schedule. Preventing dumping of labor products by China and other violators by assessing tariffs would also foster the US wage base and productive (manufacturing) sectors.

Re:Better sites

[Fjandr]

I agree that all those things are true. They would still be true if SS held no securities though.

Sigh Yourself, it can collapse

[rubycodez]

if the social security system either starts paying out an amount insufficient for purchase of anything useful, or starts paying out the equivalent of hyperinflated Zimbabwe notes, unsuitable and insufficient for purchase of anything, it can be accurately said to have collapsed. You also assume unemployment can not rise so high that government revenue is essentially zero for any practical purpose. We, the USA, are headed to both those problems on an ever accelerating train.

A matter of OR

[SuperKendall]

with the GOP refusing to allow for tax hikes or to cut the large sources of spending

Excuse me, but the GOP are quite willing to hit huge sources of spending.

The Democrats want to drive down tax collection further by raising rates (since it happens every. single. time. it is tried you'd think they would change the tune), and they CERTAINLY to do not want to cut even the most minor spending.

Re:A matter of OR

[LandDolphin]

The Democrats want to drive down tax collection further by raising rates (since it happens every. single. time. it is tried you'd think they would change the tune),

Any proof to back up the claim that increased taxes on the rich* (lets set the bench mark at 250k/year) reduces overall tax collection?

Re:A matter of OR

[suppo]

Since you are too lazy to do a web search (Google: tax rate revenues), the seventh hit has an article on exactly this topic: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2003/08/the-historical-lessons-of-lower-tax-rates Careful before you jump to polemics about it. President Kennedy is quoted: "the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now." Bottom line: Every time tax RATES were lowered in the 20th century, tax REVENUE increased.

Re:A matter of OR

[DigiShaman]

Not specifically the rich, but raising tax rates overall. The proof is the Laffer curve .

Re:A matter of OR

[ezzzD55J]

laffer curve.

Re:A matter of OR

[LandDolphin]

Assuming it is valid, there is nothing to say it is symmetric and the article you linked to supports the curve being around 70%. So following the Laffer Curve, we need to raise taxes up quiet a bit to reach that point.

From the article: "in other words, that raising taxes would raise further revenue"

Re:A matter of OR

[IICV]

I'm so confused.

The GOP is willing to hit huge sources of spending like what, exactly? The military? Because IIRC, the GOP is all about military spending. Maybe you meant things like funding for the NSF or NASA or other things like that? Because if you did, those are literal drops in the bucket. Sure, we can cut them, but it won't do anything - it's like putting a bandaid on a papercut when your jugular is severed.

The Democrats want to drive down tax collection by raising taxes? How exactly does that work? Are you assuming that we're on the right half of the Laffer curve? Because such an assumption is entirely unwarranted, as far as I'm aware; we recently cut taxes, and revenues fell. This kinda sorta implies that cutting taxes even more will make revenues fall even more; perhaps we should do the unthinkable and raise them, especially in the areas which we previously cut?

Re:A matter of OR

[Savantissimo]

Some people seem to think that we are always on the wrong side of the Laffer curve, but there is no evidence that this is the case now. The higher taxes of the Reagan and Clinton eras corresponded with higher tax collections as a % of GDP and more prosperity than we have today. If you want to cut, the place to do it is not in the area of the government that is more than paying for itself, but rather in the areas that have the most waste: military, intelligence, DHS, contractors (rather than employees), and expenditures (some hidden) on sectors that have vast lobbying power (finance, pharma, telecom and media being the top parasites.)

Real conservatives would want to end the foreign adventurism and war profiteering, the government-enabled anti-competitive corporate monopolies and oligopolies that destroy small business, the fiscally irresponsible federal borrowing (essentially none of which is due to social spending, essentially all of it due to war-profiteering and other corrupt corporate welfare) and the gross enrichment of the entirely non-productive and parasitic New York financial class. But most "conservatives" are nothing of the kind.

Re:A matter of OR

[DigiShaman]

Sure it would. But optimizing revenue through taxation depends on economic growth and sustainability as well. You should only ratchet up your tax rate and spend *after* you achieve economic growth, not before. To do the latter is tantamount to Keynesian economic theory. There are many (myself included) whome believe all this government spending is prolonging a much needed market correction. It's not helping, it's hurting by pushing this required correction to take place into the future.

A good analogy would be an airplane in flight. The mission of this airplane is to reach high altitude as quickly as possible while at the same time reaching your destination. The rate of climb and a sustainable airspeed is often interchangeable. You can fly straight and level, but you will not achieve high altitude. On the other hand, you can start to climb very quickly (high taxation) which can be good. But if you're not careful and climb too much, the airplane will start to stall. So not only will you start to lose altitude, but you've also lost airspeed at the expense of using an unnecessary amount of fuel.

Right now, we need airspeed before we can think about gaining altitude.

Holy false economy!

[duffbeer703]

What microscopic proportion of the Social Security budget is mailing a few statements?

The program is bankrupting the nation. Frankly, mailing statements will save money compared to launching some giant IT project with Oracle, SAIC, Lockheed and the other cast of Federal contracting characters. How many 80 year olds are going to be able to deal with an electronic statement anyway? And how will you identity-proof them?

Re:Holy false economy!

[phantomfive]

Social security is not bankrupting the nation, overall it's a fairly good program. To get a feel for it, check out this chart. Notice which program is pushing up expenses? Social security stays roughly the same, whereas medicaid is really growing in expenses.

To keep Social Security solvent for the next 70 years, it would only take a small adjustment (decreasing benefits slightly or increasing payments slightly). Medicaid is a different story.

Re:Holy false economy!

[daath93]

I love people who can sneeze at $70 million dollars annual savings and say its not worth it. Social Security is the only part of the Government that actually PAYS for itself. The news says they are running at a deficit. Yes, this year they expect to...for the first time ever...have to borrow money....from...THEMSELVES! YES they have to actually use all the money they've socked away in the trust fund to cover about 2% of their expenses. This is what happens when you have a gigantic number of people retiring and fewer people paying into the program. Keep in mind also that many people who have never paid into Social Security also collect. Many spouses, widows, children of deceased and disabled beneficiaries to name a few.

And how many 80 year olds are still working age and have yet to file for Social Security, since you had to have worked within the last 3 years to get a statement in the first place. ITS FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE PLANNING TO RETIRE SOMEDAY! *ahem* Its a tool so that tools like you can verify that your employer hasn't farked up your earnings last year so when/if you retire you get the proper amount instead of waiting until you are 67 and saying "hey...30 years ago i made more than $240 for the year".

Re:Holy false economy!

[duffbeer703]

Social Security surpluses are just spent in the general federal budget, because the "Social Security Trust Fund" is just a special class of non-marketable treasury bonds. When the surplus goes away in a few years, that money will no longer be flowing into the treasury AND the government will have to start repaying its debt to the system out of other Federal receipts and new debt.

None of this is news or sourced from Fox News. It's fact that can be found in the report issued in 1983 by Senator Moynihan, who was not a "right winger" by any standard and was an advocate for the system. Unfortunately, we have done little to address the problems in the last 30 years.

Re:Holy false economy!

[ralphdaugherty]

the government will have to start repaying its debt to the system out of other Federal receipts and new debt.

It's 2T of 14T debt. You have a problem with the huge debt, that's understandable. Don't blame it on who the money is being borrowed from.

Correct, banks do not have your money

[perpenso]

You might as well argue that your bank account has no money in it because they loaned it out ...

A person might make that argument and that person would be correct. That's why when there are runs on banks the banks fail. That's why we have FDIC insurance where the government guarantees your account, because the money is not in the bank.

Re:Correct, banks do not have your money

[ravenspear]

It self insures.

Re:Correct, banks do not have your money

[gl4ss]

it can print more money. but the value of that money is decided by everyone on the globe.

Re:Correct, banks do not have your money

[AK Marc]

And yet the vast majority of the people use banks and don't worry that they'll have trouble getting their money out. But when I suggest the same with another self IOU, people go nuts and claim it's unheard of. My argument isn't that it's "good" or "bad" but that nearly all companies will put a debt on the books with one department or another And complaining that the government is doing it is a massive "duh". Of course they are. And when they insinuate it's a "bad" thing I'm not trying to assert that it's a good thing, but pointing out that if it's bad, then nearly everyone is bad.

Re:Correct, banks do not have your money

[perpenso]

And yet the vast majority of the people use banks and don't worry that they'll have trouble getting their money out.

Because of the FDIC insurance provided by the government. Prior to the FDIC there were runs on banks because people thought they would have some trouble.
"During the 1930s, the U.S. and the rest of the world experienced a severe economic contraction that is now called the Great Depression. In the U.S. during the height of the Great Depression, the official unemployment rate was 25% and the stock market had declined 75% since 1929. Bank runs were common because there wasn't insurance on deposits at banks, banks kept only a fraction of deposits in reserve, and customers ran the risk of losing the money that they had deposited if their bank failed."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fdic

But when I suggest the same with another self IOU, people go nuts and claim it's unheard of.

Its not a self IOU because of the FDIC insurance and regulation. For example note how in the last year the FDIC shows up on a Friday afternoon at some bank, informs the surprised managers that the bank is shut down and this branch will reopen on Monday as a branch of some different bank. Over the weekend the accounts are transferred into the custody of the acquiring bank. Depositors show up on Monday and there is a new name and logo on the building but everything else is pretty much the same. Well except for the FDIC representative that greets and answers questions and reassures everyone that their money is safe.

My argument isn't that it's "good" or "bad" but that nearly all companies will put a debt on the books with one department or another And complaining that the government is doing it is a massive "duh". Of course they are. And when they insinuate it's a "bad" thing I'm not trying to assert that it's a good thing, but pointing out that if it's bad, then nearly everyone is bad.

When companies acquire debt they often put up collateral. Ford anticipated the economic slowdown and went on a massive borrowing spree putting much of their assets up as collateral, including the Ford logo. The other source of debt would be stocks and bonds. Stock holders get a share of ownership, but can be wiped out, see Enron shareholders. Bond holders are also at risk but are first in line during bankruptcy but they may still only get a fraction of their investment. Note that the current administration stepped in during the recent GM restructuring and interfered with this long standing legal precedent and bond holders got even less.

Basically, people who companies go into debt to sometimes lose, those IOUs turned out to be worth pennies on the dollar or nothing at all.

With respect to the Federal government's financing and debt practices, comparisons to companies don't work so well. The government is able to make up the regulations that it will operate under at will and to print money at will. Even Goldman Sachs can't get away with that. :-)

Re:Correct, banks do not have your money

[AK Marc]

Because of the FDIC insurance provided by the government. Prior to the FDIC there were runs on banks because people thought they would have some trouble.

I don't disagree, but I do feel it necessary to point out that when the feds back the banks, you imply it's a good thing, but when the feds back SS, you imply it's a bad thing. Again, I'm not arguing for or against the process, but for logic to be used when discussing it.

Its not a self IOU because of the FDIC insurance and regulation.

The issue there wasn't that it was self insurance, but that the insurer for banks is the same for SS and everyone trusts the feds for one and not the other. It's not logical or consistent.

Basically, people who companies go into debt to sometimes lose, those IOUs turned out to be worth pennies on the dollar or nothing at all.

For that point, I was commenting on the separate issue of not whether it was a good or bad practice, but the assertion that it was somehow unusual. It isn't. You'd be hard-pressed to find a single company with more than 100 employees that doesn't have a loan on the books from one department to another. Everyone does it. To imply that the feds are irresponsible solely for that act demonstrates complete ignorance of basic accounting. Not to drop into ad hominems, but anyone who insults the feds for doing what every other company of note does indicates a level of ignorance or irrational hatred of government that makes all the other statements suspect (and by suspect, I mean irrelevant). It seems so many people either hold the feds to a standard much much higher than private sector (while asserting that they are doing it poorly, when it seems that having the standards higher would place a much larger burden), or have no idea how accounting works for all organizations of a similar size.

With respect to the Federal government's financing and debt practices, comparisons to companies don't work so well. The government is able to make up the regulations that it will operate under at will and to print money at will. Even Goldman Sachs can't get away with that. :-)

In practice, the accounting practices in question here are well within what private companies do, short of running a deficit permanently, though even that would be fine as long as someone feels like continuing to loan you the money, which is what is happening with the US as long as T-bills sell.

Re:Correct, banks do not have your money

[perpenso]

Because of the FDIC insurance provided by the government. Prior to the FDIC there were runs on banks because people thought they would have some trouble.

I don't disagree, but I do feel it necessary to point out that when the feds back the banks, you imply it's a good thing, but when the feds back SS, you imply it's a bad thing. Again, I'm not arguing for or against the process, but for logic to be used when discussing it.

I'm not sure I've done that, I butted into an existing conversation so maybe confusion as to who said what is normal. I think my main point is that IOUs from a company, a bank, or social security are not equivalent. I'm all for backing SS although I think some tweaking regarding retirement age (my age group already had a bump decades ago so we're looking at round 2) and means testing will be needed.

Its not a self IOU because of the FDIC insurance and regulation.

The issue there wasn't that it was self insurance, but that the insurer for banks is the same for SS and everyone trusts the feds for one and not the other. It's not logical or consistent.

I do not see the equivalency between the two. When a bank fails the gov't does not crank up the printing presses or tell people they are SOL to some degree, they seem to transfer the account from an unhealthy bank to a healthy bank. If SS gets to an unhealthy point there is not some other organization to transfer your "retirement benefits" to. I think this is a critical distinction.

Re:Correct, banks do not have your money

[AK Marc]

When a bank fails the gov't does not crank up the printing presses or tell people they are SOL to some degree, they seem to transfer the account from an unhealthy bank to a healthy bank.

Only because of the grace of greed. The feds step essentially hold 9 months of bankruptcy court in 2 hours, and then sell the parts out. If no other bank elected to buy the scraps, then the feds would just be writing a check to the former account holders and there would be no bank opening up Monday and no money left in the old one. Occasionally (and more rarely than people think with all the failures), the feds write a check to the bank that takes over the accounts.

Worst part...

[jimmydigital]

The worst part about this... is that the post office was counting on the revenue from those mailings to stay solvent. Doh! No mail for you!

Re:They can have a $1 for this.

[houghi]

They could however do both and tell people that they can choose. Sure the elderly NOW won;t know how to use it, but what about the people who are elderly in 10 years? in 20?
First make it opt-in and then when the usage is 50% make it opt-out. At 80% you could charge for people using paper.

It's a joke...think about it!

[tiqui]

First, how could you login to examine your "account"? You have no PIN number...heck the social security people are so screwed-up they cannot tell the difference between you and an illegal immigrant with a different name and living in a different city who is using your number!!!!! On those occasions where an illegal uses somebody's number with a legitimate employer, and the employer makes payments to the govt using that "account number", the govt does not see the double payments under two names from multiple locations as a sign that anything is wrong!!!!

Second, Nobody used to get such "statements". The Clinton administration started sending them out in 2000 after some public polling indicated that young people had more belief in UFOs than in the solvency of social security; The federal govt panicked and generated these "statements" to try to convince younger workers that they had "accounts" just like they got statements from the bank on their bank accounts. All Ponzi schemes fall apart when the younger generation of "investors" start to suspect that all their money is being handed out to the earlier investors and not invested in some manner so that it will be there when they try to get it back. The Politicians cannot survive the wrath of a bunch of elderly voters whose checks are cut-off because the young workers lose faith and stop paying in. The time for young workers to really start to panic will be if the debt limit is increased (signalling that the feds have every intent of going bankrupt by continuing to borrow and spend until the world's investors stop lending) If we keep at this until the world's investors stop investing in our debt, then there will be no funds available to pay young workers when they retire and no way to try to push it off onto an even younger generation.

Re:They can have a $1 for this.

[Fjandr]

The push is done. As of next year (IIRC, it's been a bit since I read the notice), it's electronically-loaded debit card or direct deposit. No more checks.

where's my opt out?

[sixsixtysix]

i do not plan on living until retirement so why the can't i opt out? my payments should only be going to an account for my retirement alone. of course, the system was fucked from the beginning, so it's not surprising that it is going to crumble completely a some point.

Re:They can have a $1 for this.

[Jerry]

So, you presort all your mail and then get subsidized rates to mail it. It costs you three or four cents to mail an ad, when the same ad would cost the citizen 44 cents. So, ya, a letter does cost less to mail when you are doing it on the taxpayer's dime.