Are you in the top 1%?

[dstark]

<p>“I think if there isn’t money to feed children, there must not be money for prescription meds either… asthma, diabetes,”</p>

<p>Yeah…makes sense to me…</p>

<p>I guess those children aren’t working hard enough…they need to get jobs…we should repeal the child labor laws… ;)</p>

[alh]

<p>^^but that is a serious discussion in some quarters now, right?</p>

[dstark]

<p>I don’t hang out in those quarters. ;)</p>

[alh]

<p>all I know is what I read in the papers - the on-line versions.</p>

[nj2011mom]

<p>Our school district would not be considered ‘poor’, however 20% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. There is a huge income range in the district, however it is recognized and the social workers conduct a huge backpack drive at the beginning of the year, as well as a Christmas toy drive that are well supported by town residents. </p>

<p>Proudly, approx 95% of our HS grads go on to college (including community college).</p>

[dstark]

<p>As far as post 114 goes…</p>

<p>There are many economic proposals…and the following intrigues me…</p>

<p>I would know like to know how cutting tax rates for those that make over 350,000 a year…while cutting medicare and SS…is not a transfer of income and wealth from the wealthier to the less wealthy…</p>

<p>I would like to know this because…if this is not a transfer of income and wealth to the wealthier from the less wealthy…this would be a mathematical discovery for the ages…</p>

[qdogpa]

<p>Well just to prolong the debate, cutting the taxes on those who EARN over 350k is not a good idea, but it could be said they earned their money, while those who get SS and medicare have likely taken out more then they put in…my mother for example ,has without question, received significantly more then she ever put in…Is it fair,no, but it is the way the system is…fwiw,she has little assets aside from a house,paid for</p>

[dstark]

<p>qdogpa…there is something called the time value of money…</p>

<p>I guess…when I buy a zero for $250 a bond…and 20 years later…I cash it out for $1,000 a bond…I should give back $750 a bond because I only paid $250…</p>

<p>Taking that $1,000 isn’t fair…</p>

[alh]

<p>Those who make over 350,000 get the tax breaks.
Those that make much less than 350,000 get their medicare and SS cut.
Those that make close to 350,000 may need the medicare and SS programs they support cutting, after they have to spend their assets in retirement at a rate they didn’t anticipate.</p>

<p>dstark: I have trouble following. Is this what you are saying?</p>

<hr>

<h1>148: I don’t see how taking retirement money out of SS is different than taking retirement money out of an employer sponsored 401K. Except it is a guaranteed benefit like an old-fashioned pension. I don’t see how it is regarded as some sort of welfare program. But I don’t understand any of this.</h1>

[dstark]

<p>That’s all true …;)</p>

<p>You are not having any trouble following the discussion… :)</p>

[dstark]

<p>That is because SS is not a welfare program…</p>

[qdogpa]

<p>No, SS is a Ponzi scam. ;)</p>

[parent1986]

<p>Concerning Medicare and those who oppose it:</p>

<p>My husband recently started collecting Medicare. To get complete coverage costs $350.00/month - and he is 100% healthy, not obese, doesn’t smoke or drink.</p>

<p>My private health insurance is about the same.</p>

<p>Previously we were both covered under one program by an employer for $120.00/month, including dental.</p>

<p>Those of you who think Medicare is a free handout are in for a BIG SURPRISE.</p>

<p>There is a campaign to write to your Reps. Anybody concerned about getting their Medicare or SS cut should write. Even if a 1%, if you care about those who aren’t, write.</p>

[alh]

<p>post 150</p>

<p>so, for the last decade or so, the 99%ers have voted against their own interests to enrich the 1%… and now the bottom of the 1% is supporting policies that will probably not be in their best interests over the next 30-40 years.</p>

<p>this is really true? not my imagination?</p>

[alh]

<p>

The Logic of Pay-As-You-Go Systems</p>

<p>In contrast to a Ponzi scheme, dependent upon an unsustainable progression, a common financial arrangement is the so-called “pay-as-you-go” system. Some private pension systems, as well as Social Security, have used this design. A pay-as-you-go system can be visualized as a pipeline, with money from current contributors coming in the front end and money to current beneficiaries paid out the back end.</p>

<p>graphic of a pipeline</p>

<p>There is a superficial analogy between pyramid or Ponzi schemes and pay-as-you-go programs in that in both money from later participants goes to pay the benefits of earlier participants. But that is where the similarity ends.</p>

<p>So we could image that at any given time there might be, say, 40 million people receiving benefits at the back end of the pipeline; and as long as we had 40 million people paying taxes in the front end of the pipe, the program could be sustained forever. It does not require a doubling of participants every time a payment is made to a current beneficiary, or a geometric increase in the number of participants. (There does not have to be precisely the same number of workers and beneficiaries at a given time–there just needs to be a fairly stable relationship between the two.) As long as the amount of money coming in the front end of the pipe maintains a rough balance with the money paid out, the system can continue forever. There is no unsustainable progression driving the mechanism of a pay-as-you-go pension system and so it is not a pyramid or Ponzi scheme.</p>

<p>In this context, it would be most accurate to describe Social Security as a transfer payment–transferring income from the generation of workers to the generation of retirees–with the promise that when current workers retire, there will be another generation of workers behind them who will be the source of their Social Security retirement payments. So you could say that Social Security is a transfer payment, but it is not a pyramid scheme. There is a huge difference between the two, and only a superficial similarity.</p>

<p>If the demographics of the population were stable, then a pay-as-you-go system would not have demographically-driven financing ups and downs and no thoughtful person would be tempted to compare it to a Ponzi arrangement. However, since population demographics tend to rise and fall, the balance in pay-as-you-go systems tends to rise and fall as well. During periods when more new participants are entering the system than are receiving benefits there tends to be a surplus in funding (as in the early years of Social Security). During periods when beneficiaries are growing faster than new entrants (as will happen when the baby boomers retire), there tends to be a deficit. This vulnerability to demographic ups and downs is one of the problems with pay-as-you-go financing. But this problem has nothing to do with Ponzi schemes, or any other fraudulent form of financing, it is simply the nature of pay-as-you-go systems.

</p>

<p>[Social</a> Security Online - HISTORY, Ponzi Schemes vs. Social Security](<a href=“http://www.ssa.gov/history/ponzi.htm]Social”>http://www.ssa.gov/history/ponzi.htm)</p>

<p>

Not quite. As everyone in Washington knows, the trust fund contains not cash but IOUs. Payroll taxes don’t go to some vault in Fort Knox, and they certainly aren’t invested. When Social Security runs a surplus, Congress spends the money immediately on something else and then the government claims its owes a debt to itself. Where the money will come from to pay these IOUs is anybody’s guess—though Mr. Obama is hoping it will be higher taxes.</p>

<p>Trust fund balances only exist in “a bookkeeping sense,” as Bill Clinton’s budget director put it in 1999.

</p>

<p><a href=“http://cafehayek.com/2011/07/the-fraud-of-the-social-security-trust-fund-exposed-by-a-most-unlikely-source.html[/url]”>http://cafehayek.com/2011/07/the-fraud-of-the-social-security-trust-fund-exposed-by-a-most-unlikely-source.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>One thing I have read “in the papers” is that the problem is the money was spent on other things. I do not understand how it all works.</p>

[qdogpa]

<p>Similar to Ponzi schemes or pyrimad schemes, the whole SS structure is based on continuing increase of participants, and that is simply unsustainable</p>

[dstark]

<p>maybe alh…a lot of it depends on how long a person is going to live…inflation…return on investments…health…etc…</p>

<p>and we haven’t cut SS and medicare…yet…</p>

[alh]

<p>Is it possible to estimate how many individuals manipulated the system to enrich themselves? hundreds? thousands? 10s of thousands? If this even happened? If it isn’t a really off the wall question?</p>

<p>or maybe it’s cumulative… they will give us this, why don’t we try for this + 100?</p>

[parent1986]

<p>Typical R wing rhetoric. SS is well funded. </p>

<p>For those unaware, Bush greatly increased the cost of Medicare to seniors to benefit Big Pharma.</p>

[notrichenough]

<p>

I would know like to know how cutting tax rates for those that make over 350,000 a year…while cutting medicare and SS…is not a transfer of income and wealth from the wealthier to the less wealthy…</p>

<p>I would like to know this because…if this is not a transfer of income and wealth to the wealthier from the less wealthy…this would be a mathematical discovery for the ages.

So, in your universe, getting to keep more of what is mine to begin with is somehow stealing from poor people?</p>

<p>

I don’t see how taking retirement money out of SS is different than taking retirement money out of an employer sponsored 401K. Except it is a guaranteed benefit like an old-fashioned pension. I don’t see how it is regarded as some sort of welfare program.

There’s nothing guaranteed about SS. Unlike a pension, you have no legal right to a benefit, except what Congress grants you. Unlike a pension or a 401k, , there’s no pile of money that has been invested on your behalf to pay your future benefits - this year’s SS benefits are financed by this year’s taxes. Unlike a pension, you will get a zero percent or less return on your SS “investment” - a pension fund with this kind of return would have put people in jail.</p>

<p>Congress could eliminate SS tomorrow, and legally you have no rights.</p>

<p>That’s what makes SS a welfare program. People don’t like it when it is called that, because “welfare” has a negative connotation, but in a nutshell SS takes money from this year’s taxpayers and gives it to a group of people who meet some sort of qualifications defined by law. It’s no different than AFDC or any other program that gives people money.</p>

<p>If you think your SS taxes have been “invested” in a “pension”, you’ve been snookered.</p>