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Social Security Fix

Your Identity and For/Against this SS Reform model

  • Total voters
    75
iamitter said:
Those that don't can continue to pay into SS.
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Pooling of funds for insurance coverage does not work as well with a small pool.
 
It is broke my friend...you do know that there is no "lock box"?

Now..I am a Conservatarian...and I am for it ;)

pbrauer said:
Social Security is not broken. Also SS is not a retirement plan, it's insurance against poverty either in old age or if you become incapacitated when your young enough to work. I can't confirm this, but I've heard as much as 30% of current recipient are young enough to work, but can't.
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phattonez said:
More investment in total means more capital in total which means more production in total which benefits all of us. We would have more wealth if the money was invested. Even if some people did fail, we would all be richer and they could either have a savings in backup or find some charity or live off of their now richer kids.
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You forget the more risk part. And your only answer for the millions that could fail is that it is the responsibility of charities? What do you need more money for anyway? You said you could live comfortably with a family of 4 on $22,000.
 
OhISee, Then - "Why do you think charities would fill the void
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?


phattonez said:
Because they have in the past and today are much more effective than government spending at lifting people out of poverty to make them independent.
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So you expect someone else to care about the poor so you don't have too? Does it get in the way of accumulating personal wealth?
 
iamitter said:
It isn't meant to be, but that's what it became.
If it was a pay as you go, where one person now pays for another's retirement in exchange for the same later, the benefits provided by it are way too high.
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Benifits do seem too high and should be adjusted along with the retirement age
 
OhIsee.Then said:
Oh I see cpwill, so SS is not a retirement investment program; i.e. you put your money in, it’s invested and you get that money back later.

Then SS is a pay as you go program that is in trouble because not enough people are paying in, benefits too high, and we spend the extra that should help get the program through poor economic times, etc. (I must say that I don’t feel disabused.)

Now, to the root of the matter, if there isn’t a forced savings for retirement program or a pay as you go program, what will there be for retirees that haven’t saved? Back to poor houses? There are millions of them. Charities will be over whelmed. I don’t want them begging on my streets. Could we just make being stupid and poor illegal? Are you just frustrated with the stupid and poor; or, cpwill, do you have a solution for this?
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if you will look back at the original post, you will note that i designed this specifically so that it would provide a special benefit precisely for the working poor. at no additional cost to themselves (and, it should be noted, with no change in their bahavior away from consumption and towards spending) they have the ability to grow privately invested wealth.

so A) they still don't have a choice, and B) under my program, on top of SS becoming sustainable with a differently shaped demographic pool (which we now have), people get larger benefits.
 
phattonez said:
More investment in total means more capital in total which means more production in total which benefits all of us. We would have more wealth if the money was invested. Even if some people did fail, we would all be richer and they could either have a savings in backup or find some charity or live off of their now richer kids.
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do you see American's moving to a 10% savings rate any time soon?
 
cpwill said:
do you see American's moving to a 10% savings rate any time soon?
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Take away their benefits and they'll have much more of an incentive to do just that. Of course, with inflation being the devil that it is, savings is penalized, and I see that as being the main obstacle to saving for a retirement.
 
Catawba said:
You forget the more risk part. And your only answer for the millions that could fail is that it is the responsibility of charities? What do you need more money for anyway? You said you could live comfortably with a family of 4 on $22,000.
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Doesn't mean I would want to live at that level. I want to become more prosperous, and having more money invested in the economy does just that.
 
Catawba said:
So you expect someone else to care about the poor so you don't have too? Does it get in the way of accumulating personal wealth?
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I like how you portray me as greedy. What do you know about me and my views toward charity? Absolutely nothing. You make the assumption that because I don't support the thievery of government paying for the poor that I must hate the poor. It's far from the case. I fully support voluntary charity as it does not require an immoral act.
 
phattonez said:
They seemed to be doing pretty well. We didn't have a mass of starving people before social security came about.



These are just statistics you made up in your head, so why should I care?



Because they have in the past and today are much more effective than government spending at lifting people out of poverty to make them independent.
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I put up a straw man for you to knock down with your assumptions or research. (I’ve visited the charities you think can pick up the slack. Put a relative in one after doing some research. It wasn’t good.) You made a claim with no thought at all. I challenged it with some thought. A first order approximation shows your assumption is just wishful thinking. Support you position. Bet you can’t.
 
OhIsee.Then said:
I put up a straw man for you to knock down with your assumptions or research. (I’ve visited the charities you think can pick up the slack. Put a relative in one after doing some research. It wasn’t good.) You made a claim with no thought at all. I challenged it with some thought. A first order approximation shows your assumption is just wishful thinking. Support you position. Bet you can’t.
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What was wrong with what I said? The fact is, there isn't much of a reason for charities to do a lot of work because government is doing a lot of the work for us. Trying to find examples of the kind of charity I'm envisioning in today's age is asking the impossible.
 
phattonez said:
And that will be the end of the savings? They won't have insurance to take care of the catastrophe? Please.
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Are you insinuating that there won't be any people that will use their retirement savings for something else. If the government can do it, surely there will be those that will use their funds for other things when they are in dire straits. Then come retirement time = zilch. No SS, no nada.
 
phattonez said:
Doesn't mean I would want to live at that level. I want to become more prosperous, and having more money invested in the economy does just that.
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Yes, we all want to become more prosperous but we all have to do it together. The trickle down theory and deregulation have been a failure of accomplishing that. We have 3 decades of experience to show that. It has brought us an unmanageable National debt and a declining middle class, the exactly opposite direction we need to be going in.
 
Mickey Shane said:
Are you insinuating that there won't be any people that will use their retirement savings for something else. If the government can do it, surely there will be those that will use their funds for other things when they are in dire straits. Then come retirement time = zilch. No SS, no nada.
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There will be more of an incentive to save without government assurances.
 
Catawba said:
Yes, we all want to become more prosperous but we all have to do it together. The trickle down theory and deregulation have been a failure of accomplishing that. We have 3 decades of experience to show that. It has brought us an unmanageable National debt and a declining middle class, the exactly opposite direction we need to be going in.
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Unimaginable national debt is due to out of control spending not dwindling revenue. Furthermore, the middle class is not dwindling, they are becoming richer. How many times do I have to point this out to you?
 
phattonez said:
I like how you portray me as greedy. What do you know about me and my views toward charity? Absolutely nothing. You make the assumption that because I don't support the thievery of government paying for the poor that I must hate the poor. It's far from the case. I fully support voluntary charity as it does not require an immoral act.
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You have made it quite clear your views on acquiring personal wealth, and of how it is the responsibility of others to help our fellow man.
 
phattonez said:
Unimaginable national debt is due to out of control spending not dwindling revenue. Furthermore, the middle class is not dwindling, they are becoming richer. How many times do I have to point this out to you?
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that's untrue. the middle class IS dwindling.

Analysts Concerned as Statistics Show Steady Decline of American Middle Class - DailyFinance

So how did the middle class become second class citizens -- or, as Smith puts it, "Debt Serfs"? Not surprisingly, the answer is complicated, involving factors like the rising cost of education, the loss of pension funds and affordable health care, falling middle class wages, and the skyrocketing price of housing. Yet one clear answer lies in manufacturing. When looking at the declining American middle class, a good number to start with is 42,400. That's the total number of factories that the U.S. lost between 2001 and the end of 2009. Put another way, this translates into the outsourcing of 32% of all manufacturing jobs in America.
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See full article from DailyFinance: Analysts Concerned as Statistics Show Steady Decline of American Middle Class - DailyFinance
 
phattonez said:
Unimaginable national debt is due to out of control spending not dwindling revenue. Furthermore, the middle class is not dwindling, they are becoming richer. How many times do I have to point this out to you?
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It is due to both. If you are having trouble paying your bills, would you suggest that cutting your income while increasing your spending is a good plan? That has been the reality during the last 3 decades, mostly under Republican rule. To avoid debt, you first have to cut wasteful spending and then establish adequate revenues through taxes to pay your bills, which include repaying SS for the money stolen from it.

Liblady has kindly addressed your mistaken notion that the middle class is not declining. :Sun
 
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OhIsee.Then said:
People are unemployed and not paying SS. And, if they are living with their parents they probably aren’t collecting SS. So, please explain what this has to do with SS. thx
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It's about possible potential... Circumstances could change and force some of them to find employment. Even five percent would make an impact.

ricksfolly
 
Catawba said:
It is due to both. If you are having trouble paying your bills, would you suggest that cutting your income while increasing your spending is a good plan? That has been the reality during the last 3 decades, mostly under Republican rule. To avoid debt, you first have to cut wasteful spending and then establish adequate revenues through taxes to pay your bills, which include repaying SS for the money stolen from it.

Liblady has kindly addressed your mistaken notion that the middle class is not declining. :Sun
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When did we ever spend less under Democratic control? Never.
 
American said:
When did we ever spend less under Democratic control? Never.
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When did we ever spend less nominal dollars under basically any president?
Annual_federal_outlay.png
 
haymarket said:
Two-thirds of American favor it. I don't care if a small minority have a problem with it.
I
don't
care.

If 93% of people who earn money can pay the tax on ALL their earnings then the other 7% can also.
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This will never happen as long as the wealthy conservatives are in power..
 
phattonez said:
What was wrong with what I said? The fact is, there isn't much of a reason for charities to do a lot of work because government is doing a lot of the work for us. Trying to find examples of the kind of charity I'm envisioning in today's age is asking the impossible.
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Check history, housing the poor in the US before SS, housing the SMI before SS, etc.
You just can't support your position factually.
 
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