On Social Security

[shira]

Originally posted by: zendari

Originally posted by: shira
So, again, how is a 1.23% return "more than their fair share"? Seems to me the SS retirees are getting much LESS than their fair share.

Note: I'm not arguing for private investment of SS contributions. Not at all. I'm disputing your nonsensical idea that receiving SS payments is taking advantage of future generations.

By the way, where does this "lving for another 30 years" come from? Do you really believe that typical SS retirees live to age 95? FYI, The average life expectancy in the U.S. upon reaching age 65 is approximately 16 years for men and 20 years for women. Get your facts straight.

Compare the return of a retiree who lives to 95 to one who lives to 85. Why does the former get a higher ROR than the latter?

And some live to 64 and die before receiving a penny. Why do you have a problem with this? It's true of all pension plans.

Yet another problem with the lack of personal private control of your finances. You claim the elderly are getting less than their fair share, yet by not supporting privatization are delegating me to a -3.x% return, last time I checked on the same calculator. And that's before the 2042 ending of the fake surplus.

But what you seem to forget is that those that are near SS retirement age were never given the opportunity to invest their SS contributions privately. Rather, they were promised certain benefits. And note that they've held up their side of the bargain: they paid into the system for 40+ years. Yet now that they're ready to claim the promised benefits, you want to screw them so that YOU can get a better deal. Sounds pretty selfish to me.

As to privatizing SS. The problem is that converting from pay-as-you-go to private accounts would be an extremely expensive process. Diverting any appreciable portion of the money being paid into SS and using that money for private investments would starve SS of funds that are needed to pay retirees. Unless defined benefits are cut significantly (and how would that be fair for those who never were given the privitization option?), the only option for SS would be massive government borrowing.

 

[Jhhnn]

Yeh, Zendari, and that liability will largely be met as it comes up by those who ultimately end up as the beneficiaries. In perpetuity is a long time... SS contributions were deliberately raised 20 years ago in an effort to create the trust as it exists today, and to ease the pay as you go burden of boomers on future generations.

The day is rapidly approaching when annual debt maintenance will exceed the cost of the military, and also exceed the cost of all of HHS combined. It will even exceed the cost of SS, if current trends continue. And that's paying off nothing, just covering the interest... So what's the cost of maintaining the projected debt from 8 years of repub sponsored looting, anyway? In perpetuity, as you say...

 

[Jhhnn]

How far will you go to distort what I've said, charrison?

Or are you perfectly willing to go down the same path that the Admin took wrt Iraqi intelligence- the truth doesn't matter, unless it supports what you want?

SS surpluses have to be spent, by law, and the Trust is issued special Treasury notes- the ones GWB described as worthless, which should be some indication of what Repubs have in mind. Nonetheless, he seems to think that the notes issued to wealthy investors and international bankers are not worthless, at all... Nearly $450B worth, last year alone, in addition to the $150B borrowed from SS.

Confronted with spurting arterial bleeding and a broken arm, anti- SS pro- Repub apologists point to the broken arm as the "real" problem... which might even be funny, if it weren't so serious. There's no point in trying to "fix" SS when the fiscal integrity of the govt is being destroyed through other debt. It's an exercise in futility, but you already knew that, right? The Bush Admin certainly does, which is the point of the whole exercise in distraction.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
How far will you go to distort what I've said, charrison?

Or are you perfectly willing to go down the same path that the Admin took wrt Iraqi intelligence- the truth doesn't matter, unless it supports what you want?

SS surpluses have to be spent, by law, and the Trust is issued special Treasury notes- the ones GWB described as worthless, which should be some indication of what Repubs have in mind. Nonetheless, he seems to think that the notes issued to wealthy investors and international bankers are not worthless, at all... Nearly $450B worth, last year alone, in addition to the $150B borrowed from SS.

Confronted with spurting arterial bleeding and a broken arm, anti- SS pro- Repub apologists point to the broken arm as the "real" problem... which might even be funny, if it weren't so serious. There's no point in trying to "fix" SS when the fiscal integrity of the govt is being destroyed through other debt. It's an exercise in futility, but you already knew that, right? The Bush Admin certainly does, which is the point of the whole exercise in distraction.

I dont think SS bonds were ever described as worthless. But yes there is a significant portion of SS that will require higher taxes because the goverment wrote an IOU rather than properly handling the funds. TO say this program is not worth fixing until everything is fix es quite foolish. This and other out control goverment needs to be fixed as well.

But as an fyi youshould be glad that debt to gdp is starting to decline and defecits are coming back down. Hopefully this trend will continue, but this will only chip away at your argument.

 

[zendari]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
Yeh, Zendari, and that liability will largely be met as it comes up by those who ultimately end up as the beneficiaries. In perpetuity is a long time... SS contributions were deliberately raised 20 years ago in an effort to create the trust as it exists today, and to ease the pay as you go burden of boomers on future generations.

The day is rapidly approaching when annual debt maintenance will exceed the cost of the military, and also exceed the cost of all of HHS combined. It will even exceed the cost of SS, if current trends continue. And that's paying off nothing, just covering the interest... So what's the cost of maintaining the projected debt from 8 years of repub sponsored looting, anyway? In perpetuity, as you say...

I like your thinking. The country can meet and fund an $11 trillion liability but not an $8 trillion one.

The cost of the debt into perpertuity is simply that, the cost of the debt, which isn't due to reach $11 trillion anytime soon.

 

[zendari]

Originally posted by: shira
And some live to 64 and die before receiving a penny. Why do you have a problem with this? It's true of all pension plans.

True, but pension plans are optional.

As to privatizing SS. The problem is that converting from pay-as-you-go to private accounts would be an extremely expensive process. Diverting any appreciable portion of the money being paid into SS and using that money for private investments would starve SS of funds that are needed to pay retirees. Unless defined benefits are cut significantly (and how would that be fair for those who never were given the privitization option?), the only option for SS would be massive government borrowing.

No, it's completely fair. If the elderly want to stand in the way of privatization, simply cut their benefits to the same -3.x% return I get, and roll it over every year to match an 18 year old entering the workforce.

Since me paying in my life merits a -3.x% return, they should get the same.

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: zendari


Since me paying in my life merits a -3.x% return, they should get the same.

WHAAAAAA!!!!! It's a conspiracy!! LMAO.

Really, your are just a spoiled little brat with no compassion or even any conmprehension of the problem. Nobody even cares what you think on this subject. You are totally out of touch with reality on this one.

Have a nice day.

 

[HombrePequeno]

I think one reason the Bush SS reform plan failed was the fact that he wouldn't allow for a tax raise to pay for it. Had he just told the committee to fix the problem without setting any constraints, I'm sure people would have considered it more.

Anyway, the lock box idea is not very good. There's the problem of taking over $100 billion out of the economy each year or paying more each year on the interest of the debt because we ran higher deficits to cover the cost of the programs we have.

I still say the best option is to add a transition tax onto the payroll tax to help fund privitization. The government would also have to stop spending out the wazoo if it ever wanted the possibility of it getting passed.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: HombrePequeno
I think one reason the Bush SS reform plan failed was the fact that he wouldn't allow for a tax raise to pay for it. Had he just told the committee to fix the problem without setting any constraints, I'm sure people would have considered it more.

Anyway, the lock box idea is not very good. There's the problem of taking over $100 billion out of the economy each year or paying more each year on the interest of the debt because we ran higher deficits to cover the cost of the programs we have.

I still say the best option is to add a transition tax onto the payroll tax to help fund privitization. The government would also have to stop spending out the wazoo if it ever wanted the possibility of it getting passed.

There is nothing wrong with financing the transition either. Spending a trillion now to save a 10 trillion later is a no brainer...

 

[Jhhnn]

The numbers being tossed around by the anti- SS crowd are moronic. The trust is already owed over $2T, and today's seniors are being paid $450B/yr from the contributions coming in. Anybody with enough sense to pour piss out of a boot will easily realize that it'll cost one helluva lot more than $1T to privatize SS.

Republican numbers are kinda like the claims of snakeoil salesmen- the senior drug benefit (pharmapork) was touted as costing ~$400B over 10 years, but now it's really looking more like $800B, and the WOI was only supposed to cost ~$40B total, remember? Oh, yeh, and the 2005 budget deficit was only $320B, even though the country is $550B deeper in debt...

The problem for the lootocracy is that they can't bankrupt the govt w/o bankrupting SS at the same time, which would definitely hurt them at election time...

And we get a lot of doublespeak, like charrison claiming that SS needs to be "saved" from the govt, yet that deficits don't matter, either... if the latter were true, then the former would be unnecessary...

Which pretty much sums up their whole economic policy, anyway- if supply-side economics worked as claimed, then deficits to mask the effects wouldn't be necessary, either...

Too simple? Obviously. It's like any other con-job, flimflam or hornswoggle- once convinced you can win at a rigged game, you're a loser...