Social Security either needs to be ended OR...
Reorganized into a giant pension fund with a proper investment arm... and bar the rest of the government from raiding its funds in ANY time good or bad.
The current iteration of Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme pure and simple, a reorganized Social Security Pension Fund wouldn't.
It would also have the effect of greatly prolonging the useful life of the program as well as generate jobs from investment into private ventures.
You're tax $$ at work!
It's a ponzi scheme in the sense that the government expects the population and incomes to increase. A big lump will be when baby boomers go to collect. After they all croak (and MastaMetz eats their carcasses), SS should be able to recover just fine. Oh, it will also help if we can reduce the deficit without hurting our beloved Military Industrial Complex too much.
The early Boomers already have started to retire and like the swarm of locusts they have been through out my life they will consume everything in their path leaving me holding the dregs and paying for it as well.
I'm the definition of Gen X and have come to expect that NOTHING will be there for me, and so far I haven't been wrong once. After all I've watched the industry that drove the US economy collapse. The city I live in turn from a beacon of middle class hope into a world wide word for don't live here. My gender and race has went from an unfair leg up and to become a liability for advancement iin the industry and schools that equal the good life where I was raised. I sincerely am not btiter about any of it just the luck of the draw on where, when, and what I was born. Don't get me wrong I'm still doing waaaaaaay better then billions of people on this planet, just it has been a continuous decline pretty much my whole life. Those under twenty one must feel like Gen X 2.0 is my guess
Regarding the boomers at least I sleep better with the idea that at least my Mom and Dad along with their parents probably won't be effected to much by the changes coming to SS.
Anyone over sixty is pretty much fine
Anyone over fifty five may be fine
Anyone under fifty is almost certainly screwed
Im screwed
It is simple math Raum
I'm the definition of Gen X and have come to expect that NOTHING will be there for me, and so far I haven't been wrong once. After all I've watched the industry that drove the US economy collapse. The city I live in turn from a beacon of middle class hope into a world wide word for don't live here. My gender and race has went from an unfair leg up and to become a liability for advancement iin the industry and schools that equal the good life where I was raised. I sincerely am not btiter about any of it just the luck of the draw on where, when, and what I was born. Don't get me wrong I'm still doing waaaaaaay better then billions of people on this planet, just it has been a continuous decline pretty much my whole life. Those under twenty one must feel like Gen X 2.0 is my guess
Regarding the boomers at least I sleep better with the idea that at least my Mom and Dad along with their parents probably won't be effected to much by the changes coming to SS.
Anyone over sixty is pretty much fine
Anyone over fifty five may be fine
Anyone under fifty is almost certainly screwed
Im screwed
It is simple math Raum
Last edited by MrChaos on Mon Apr 18, 2011 2:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
Ssssh
When the money leaving the program exceeds the money entering the program...nothing happens. Even when Social Security starts losing money, it'll still take decades to burn through the hefty surplus it's built up. Under current estimates, both you and I will be eligible to receive Social Security benefits by the time the program is in any actual need of changes.TakingArms wrote:QUOTE (TakingArms @ Apr 17 2011, 05:10 PM) It would only be perfectly ok if it was expected that we would continue to run surpluses. But you and I both know that at some point in the near future, the money going out of that program is going to exceed the money coming in... and then the program either gets cut or we have massive tax increases. What's your preference? Personally I prefer cuts because I'm not expecting to get anything out of the program anyway.
And even then, there's plenty of ways to keep the program afloat without resorting to draconian cuts. For example, we could remove the FICA tax cap which means that Bill Gates pays exactly as much payroll tax as any doctor worth his salt. No, I don't mean that they pay the exact same percentage, I mean that they pay a precisely equal number of dollars, because income over $100k is completely exempt from the Social Security tax!
Also, we could increase the FICA tax back to its 1965-2009 level! Obama's 2010 tax deal included a significant cut to the FICA tax, making this the first and only president to cut Social Security's only source of revenue! Keep that in mind the next time some @#$%@# politician steps up and talks about how there's just no choice but to slash Social Security; their rhetoric about tough decisions and unsolvable deficits rings hollow when they defunded Social Security five goddamn months ago.
Here, I'll give you the quickie version of what the future of SS looks like. Approximately twenty months from now, Congress is going to either extend that tax cut for 5+ years or make it permanent. Approximately twenty-one months from now, the Congressional Budget Office is going to recalculate Social Security's projected budget, taking into account the heavily reduced revenue - and discover, unsurprisingly, that the program is suddenly in a big crisis! Then the same double-talking @#$%@#s who sacrificed Social Security on the altar of tax cuts in the first place are going to stand there on national news and tell the entire country that there's just no choice but to cut our goddamn retirements and that there is absolutely nothing else they could possibly do about it.
Camaro wrote:QUOTE (Camaro @ Apr 17 2011, 08:10 PM) Jimen proposed tax increases to save Social Security (which will negatively impact the economy) while I propose no tax increases, and increased investment in the economy while greatly improving the sustainability of the program.
So whose shall it be?
Until the bottom falls out of the entire economy and all your money you've invested goes * poof * ... you know like just what happened to us all.
I like the idea of stop $#@!ing spending the surplus today, invest it in the safest of safe way and hope to goodness that we don't get an economic cornholing like we just got say in the nexy fifty years ( I think the world's economy can pull its pants up now).
Raising taxes and cutting benefits seems inevitable too. Cutting SS taxes seems silly to me too. It won't cause endless hardships but living in your own home and in comfort during your retirement years is about to become the exception rather then the rule.
Again there is no money, there is nothing to invest, there is no funds waiting to be dipped into just lots of IOUs from the government to the government. Its about to bite us in the ass and the only silver lining is we aren't some of the European countries that traded low wages for golden retirements (like England)... they are really in the soup. After all misery loves company.
Ssssh
I'll take my economic information from someone who understands the difference between a contraction and the possessive, thank you very much.raumvogel wrote:QUOTE (raumvogel @ Apr 17 2011, 09:36 PM) It's a ponzi scheme in the sense that the government expects the population and incomes to increase. A big lump will be when baby boomers go to collect. After they all croak (and MastaMetz eats their carcasses), SS should be able to recover just fine. Oh, it will also help if we can reduce the deficit without hurting our beloved Military Industrial Complex too much.
Terran wrote:QUOTE (Terran @ Jan 20 2011, 03:56 PM) i'm like adept
Broodwich wrote:QUOTE (Broodwich @ Jun 6 2010, 10:19 PM) if you spent as much time in game as trollin sf might not be dead
Negative. That is what reserves are for. In the long run there will always be money to be made. By taking the extremely short sighted view that every once in a while when things go south and thus we should never invest that money, you doom the system to ultimately fail.MrChaos wrote:QUOTE (MrChaos @ Apr 17 2011, 05:23 PM) Until the bottom falls out of the entire economy and all your money you've invested goes * poof * ... you know like just what happened to us all.
.Gov is on the hook for Social Security shortfalls now, and they still would be under my system. There should never be a shortfall for a period long enough to deplete reserves with a proper investment arm... hell look at CalPERS, they have recouped much of their losses over the 08-09 bust already!
Although in reality this isn't much different than what Bush proposed, my only assumption is that people are idiots and need the government to manage their money for them... as is the proper philosophy for any socialist program.
Last edited by Camaro on Mon Apr 18, 2011 2:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
