Social Security - Raise Retirement Age?

[Exterous]

Here's a novel concept - let's fucking phase it out.

What, and expect people to actually save and plan for their retirement??!! Rubbish!

 

[nonlnear]

They can raise it to 90 for all I care. The sooner the better too. I'm not counting on a penny from SS when I'm silverback, and I don't have much sympathy for the baby boomers who elected governments to spend their contributions early. Now the boomers expect the young 'uns to thank them for fucking the boomers' grandchildren over by paying the boomers what they "deserve".

 

[ericlp]

Don't worry Obama will fix it!

I swear that being a president is like playing hot potato.. Now that you got it in your hands the only thing you gotta do is somehow keep the cluster fuck moving along for the next 4 years and hope to god you don't drop it on your watch.

Change you can believe in right?

 

[piasabird]

If SS is pay as you go I want all mine back now.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

So many ways to fix SS, but nobody really wants to fix it they would rather use it as a political football.

The first three things I would do
1. Seperate SS from medicare and raise medicare taxes to make it self supporting
2. Implement means testing, millionaires shouldn't be recieving SS
3. Remove SS funds from the general budget

 

[Zebo]

nm

 

[Mursilis]

So many ways to fix SS, but nobody really wants to fix it they would rather use it as a political football.

The first three things I would do
1. Seperate SS from medicare and raise medicare taxes to make it self supporting
2. Implement means testing, millionaires shouldn't be recieving SS
3. Remove SS funds from the general budget

1. Won't happen. Politicians hate raising taxes, because it causes them to lose elections and have to find real work.
2. Hate this idea. Means-testing is just more of gov't rewarding the stupid who are spending their money now and not putting it away for retirement. I've got a co-worker who actually earns more than I do, but spends like a drunken sailor - he redid the kitchen in a brand-new home, put in a pool, bought a new 'vette convertible, etc. Really living it up. He also contributes NOTHING to his 401(k) because he "can't afford it". Meanwhile, I'm driving a 13 year old car that's paid for and maxing out my 401(k). So if I retire with more (of course), he'll get SS but I won't? Screw that!
3. What's that going to accomplish? As if accounting tricks will really change anything.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

1. Won't happen. Politicians hate raising taxes, because it causes them to lose elections and have to find real work.
2. Hate this idea. Means-testing is just more of gov't rewarding the stupid who are spending their money now and not putting it away for retirement. I've got a co-worker who actually earns more than I do, but spends like a drunken sailor - he redid the kitchen in a brand-new home, put in a pool, bought a new 'vette convertible, etc. Really living it up. He also contributes NOTHING to his 401(k) because he "can't afford it". Meanwhile, I'm driving a 13 year old car that's paid for and maxing out my 401(k). So if I retire with more (of course), he'll get SS but I won't? Screw that!
3. What's that going to accomplish? As if accounting tricks will really change anything.

You prove my point precisely, rather than discuss options you would rather keep the status quo and bitch and repeat tired talking points

 

[ElFenix]

You prove my point precisely, rather than discuss options you would rather keep the status quo and bitch and repeat tired talking points

i like how the concerns of the ants about the grasshoppers are 'tired talking points'

 

[Mursilis]

You prove my point precisely, rather than discuss options you would rather keep the status quo and bitch and repeat tired talking points

You're not smart enough to have a "point".

 

[JS80]

Odds are only a small percentage of people will live until 70. Once they start rationing health care dont expect many people to live past the age of 70. A lot of poor and hard working people can expect do die before retirement age. A lot of people now die in their 50's.

Teacher's dont receive full social security. Neither do lots of government workers.

Social security system will go bankrupt soon. Dont worry because you will never reach retirement age. When you get older they will raise the retirement age to 85. It is time to quit letting the government steal all that money. Lets just end the Social Security Drain. May as well cut off health care at age 60 and just let people die.

Let grandma die on the streets. Old people are a drain on society.

This is what O'Bammah is heading toward. Is this the direction you want your life to go?

Clearly, in human history, when we didn't have social security and socialized healthcare grandmas were dying on the street. How did humans survive all these years?!?

 

[Red Dawn]

Clearly, in human history, when we didn't have social security and socialized healthcare grandmas were dying on the street. How did humans survive all these years?!?

And it won't happen now. Instead of getting Social Security they'll be getting Welfare.

 

[Jadow]

they should put it into effect for people under the age of 32, that way I don't get fucked

 

[boomerang]

they should put it into effect for people under the age of 32, that way I don't get fucked

The only way to not get fucked in the SS debacle is to become a politician and serve a term.

 

[Hacp]

You can't just fold Medicare into the current system. Elderly people do not have jobs to get employer based insurance, and private companies won't insure them because the risk is too high. And they are the demographic who needs healthcare the most. The only way to fold it into the system is if the system is single payor, government insurance across the board for everyone. But that ISN'T what this healthcare law is, nowhere close.

- wolf

For everyone? No. Why should the high school drop-out get free health care?

 

[ModerateRepZero]

Thats what the SS website will tell you- its a PAY as you GO system. But guess what the two have in common? If people stop paying into it, it will fail almost immediately. The government would be unable to keep SS going if people stopped paying into it right now. Ponzi/Pyramid schemes are the same way. You have 3.3 workers paying that one retired worker, each hoping that their will be 3.3 workers to pay their benefits when they retire. You can call it whatever you like, it still behaves as a pyramid scheme.

That's like saying a swimmer is like a duck if both are in the water. The only thing ponzi/pyramid schemes have in common with a pay-go system is that both need money to be able to generate a return for people.

There are crucial differences; ponzi schemes engage in fraud and duplicity to attract investors, since they promise unrealistic returns and lie about the profit method. SS "pay-go" system relies on people paying into the system with the understanding that they will be compensated when the are eligible to cash-in. And of course SS would fail if people stopped paying into the system; logically and mathematically speaking, any endeavor would suffer if it was running a loss with their output (benefit/return) greater than their input (funding)......

 

[BoberFett]

promise unrealistic returns and lie about the profit method

How is that not applicable to SS?

 

[JS80]

For everyone? No. Why should the high school drop-out get free health care?

It's a right. It's in the Constitution!

 

[JS80]

And it won't happen now. Instead of getting Social Security they'll be getting Welfare.

Get rid of welfare. Oh wait, people were dying on the streets before the days of welfare.

 

[Mursilis]

That's like saying a swimmer is like a duck if both are in the water. The only thing ponzi/pyramid schemes have in common with a pay-go system is that both need money to be able to generate a return for people.

There are crucial differences; ponzi schemes engage in fraud and duplicity to attract investors, since they promise unrealistic returns and lie about the profit method. SS "pay-go" system relies on people paying into the system with the understanding that they will be compensated when the are eligible to cash-in. And of course SS would fail if people stopped paying into the system; logically and mathematically speaking, any endeavor would suffer if it was running a loss with their output (benefit/return) greater than their input (funding)......

And that is exactly why SS is a scam, whether or not it's a Ponzi scheme - you simply have no contractual right to receive anything back from the system. People really need to read the U.S. Supreme Court case of Fleming v. Nestor to understand what SS really is. The Court held:

It is apparent that the noncontractual interest of an employee covered by the Act cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of an annuity, whose right to benefits is bottomed on his contractual premium payments.
...
This is not to say, however, that Congress may exercise its power to modify the statutory scheme free of all constitutional restraint. The interest of a covered employee under the Act is of sufficient substance to fall within the protection from arbitrary governmental action afforded by the Due Process Clause. In judging the permissibility of the cut-off provisions of 202 (n) from this standpoint, it is not within our authority to determine whether the Congressional judgment expressed in that section is sound or equitable, or whether it comports well or ill with the purposes of the Act. "Whether wisdom or unwisdom resides in the scheme of benefits set forth in Title II, it is not for us to say. The answer to such inquiries must come from Congress, not the courts. Our concern here, as often, is with power, not with wisdom." Helvering v. Davis, supra, at 644. Particularly when we deal with a withholding of a noncontractual benefit under a social welfare program such as this, we must recognize that the Due Process Clause can be thought to interpose a bar only if the statute manifests a patently arbitrary classification, utterly lacking in rational justification.

The Court clearly stated it's a social welfare system, not a retirement plan, and you have no contractual right to a single dime - Congress can simply say, thanks for all the money, but we spent it all on bridges to no where, so sorry, tough luck! Would any sane person give money to Fidelity, for example, if your contributions to Fidelity legally became theirs, not yours, and they only had to pay back to you what they felt like paying, including nothing at all? Of course not.
Your only protection, as noted by the Court, is the Due Process Clause (and the Equal Protection Clause), which only protects you from being removed from SS on an arbitrary basis, such as for reasons of race, sex, religion, etc. For example, Constitutionally, Congress simply can't say we'll save money by refusing to pay SS to blacks and females, but they CAN say we'll save money by refusing to pay SS to anyone (because that's race/sex/religion neutral).

 

[classy]

I think it should be raised. People live longer, healthier, and more productive lives in later years now. 70-72 for full benefits is not a bad age.

 

[Zebo]

Would any sane person give money to Fidelity, for example, if your contributions to Fidelity legally became Feds, not yours,

Just wait.

 

[Thump553]

It's already been raised at least once a decade or more ago. When I started working the retirement age for full SS was 65. Now, for me (currently mid-fifties) I can draw normal SS until age 66, age 70 for the full amount.

 

[StageLeft]

Of course it has to be raised. The longer the baby boomers and older, who have put this in great part on the backs of my generation, act like spoiled little bitches and resist this, the more my generation (and following) will have to pay for their greed.

How many people nearing or at retirement age realize that they are stealing from their children with this chronic deficit spending they passed through year after year? Is it any wonder my generation is supposed to be the first not to live better than our parents?

 

[Mursilis]

Of course it has to be raised. The longer the baby boomers and older, who have put this in great part on the backs of my generation, act like spoiled little bitches and resist this, the more my generation (and following) will have to pay for their greed.

How many people nearing or at retirement age realize that they are stealing from their children with this chronic deficit spending they passed through year after year? Is it any wonder my generation is supposed to be the first not to live better than our parents?

Exactly, which is why I loathe the boomers - these stupid 60's left-overs think so well of themselves, wanting to give so much to others (themselves, really), like free healthcare, a strong social security net for the poor, etc., but they won't actually pay for it! And this and prior generations are drawing much more from SS (and medicare) than they actually paid in, but resist any attempts to cut either. If the example set by the elderly is of short-sighted greed and selfishness, you can hardly expect the young to be any different.