<p>“PS: putting money in doesn’t make something make financial sense. Its a handout if you’re taking out way more than you put in. See the Madoff lawsuits for some legal ideas about schemes like this.”</p>
<p>No…that is wrong. You just wrote off investing. I think you want to rewrite the above.</p>
<p>And I have …invested in two ponzi schemes myself…what can I say?:)</p>
<p>poetsheart, as usual, you and I agree. I suppose that, and the name, is why people get us mixed up.</p>
<p>I actually said this on another thread. They are calling it class warfare, right now, but they are failing to realize that it is generational warfare from the kids who have been given nothing but debt. It will be interesting to watch.</p>
<p>Let’s meet back here in twenty years to watch the fireworks. I will bring popcorn.</p>
<p>
It’s not that I care (well, I do) but it is just another point that shows that SS is not a retirement or pension plan. It’s a redistribution of income from people who are currently working to people who aren’t working. </p>
<p>
Wow, that’s pretty extreme. I don’t know if I see that happening.</p>
<p>Working-age people will always out-number retired people by 3 or 4 to 1, so all it really takes is for young people to get out the vote.</p>
<p>If you pay into car insurance policies for years, but never have an accident — are the people who do collect on their insurance getting welfare? </p>
<pre><code>Same with health insurance. They don’t give you back the premiums if you don’t need any medical care even though you’ve already paid.
SS is an insurance program, not an investment strategy. For what you pay in, you are assured of at least a modest income when you are old and can no longer work ---- it’s insurance against destitution in the face of other savings and investments going bust.
</code></pre>
<p>SS would have sufficient funds if it hadn’t been raided by politicians who spent the money on other areas of the budget (defense comes to mind) but just as that money was siphoned off, it can be put back. People have to demand it, elect politicians that stand by it, not buy into claims that it’s welfare and has to go. They can cut other things in the budget, and they can raise taxes.</p>
<p>“It’s not that I care (well, I do) but it is just another point that shows that SS is not a retirement or pension plan. It’s a redistribution of income from people who are currently working to people who aren’t working.”</p>
<p>It is…so what?</p>
<p>Some day…the young will be the old and the young will take care of them…</p>
<p>Dadx already showed that people who paid into the system for many years should get more back than they put in anyway.</p>
<p>I agree that congress can’t be trusted.</p>
<p>
If my policy lapses for a day (I retire) and I get in an accident (I die) I collect nothing for the 45+ years I’ve paid for insurance (paid FICA taxes).</p>
<p>
Insurance is for mitigating risk, not for creating an income stream. I pay a certain amount, losses I incur within a certain period of time (eg, a year) are paid for. The next year I decide whether to hedge my risk again. I am receiving a benefit for that year’s premium, my premium does not go to providing me some sort of future benefit.
Dadx showed that even with marginal returns, the payout should be 4x what SS provides. Which just proves even more that it is a mistake to think of it as a pension plan.</p>
<p>I read something somewhere that the issue isn’t really with retired people anyway. It’s the <em>huge</em> increases in the number of people that are collecting disability through SS.</p>
<p>“Dadx showed that even with marginal returns, the payout should be 4x what SS provides. Which just proves even more that it is a mistake to think of it as a pension plan.”</p>
<p>???</p>
<p>How much do you think annuities pay these days?</p>
<p>At least SS is no longer a handout.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>:p that’s a relief.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Exactly. So how is it so far fetched?—especially since the growing senior population will cost society ever more in healthcare dollars, as well as the need for other social services. Young bucks (like certain members of congress, who shall remain nameless, and who increasingly worship in the cult of Ayn Rand) will vote to impose all kinds of restrictions upon seniors’ political influence. Just as they’re currently attempting to make it more difficult for certain demographics to exercise their legal right to vote, they’ll impose cognitive aptitude tests (or something like it) which disadvantage seniors in the areas where aging typically takes its toll. Perhaps, if you pass the test, you can continue to vote for a certain period of time—but then you must re-test. euthanasia for very sick seniors won’t be viewed as “murder” then, either. In fact Jack Kavorkian will suddenly be seen as having been positively prescient. Probably, once you fall within a certain rubric of social liability, you’ll be humanly euthanized. For your own good and that of society, of course.</p>
<p>[TIAA-CREF</a> - Retirement Investments & IRAs: Current Performance](<a href=“http://www.tiaa-cref.org/public/performance/retirement/index.html]TIAA-CREF”>http://www.tiaa-cref.org/public/performance/retirement/index.html)</p>
<p>
I didn’t say it’s not a handout. I think it is.</p>
<p>
I would think around 3-4% or so. Historically, higher. Dadx used 5%, but only counted 30 years of paying in, rather than 40+.</p>
<p>I’m not arguing to get rid of SS. But I don’t think it helps the discussion when people treat it as something it’s not. It has expanded far beyond “insurance against destitution” as jazzymom put it. Seniors as a class are the wealthiest segment of our population. </p>
<p>I think it should be changed to an explicit “pay-as-you-go” system and get rid of the fiction of “surpluses” and “investments”.</p>
<p>With these interest rates…don’t worry…seniors will get into trouble…</p>
<p>I gave dadx the question…so you can blame me if you don’t like the interest rate or length of time in the question.</p>
<p>If the average person works for 40 years and only collects SS for 17 years…that does hurt the return…</p>
<p>Prosperity Gospel?</p>
<p>Is it possible that some support the super wealthy keeping their wealth and even growing it because they believe rich people are somehow God’s chosen? And that poor people are sinful and just getting their just desserts?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Prosperity</a> theology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology]Prosperity”>Prosperity theology - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>It is not what this author is arguing but I thought the article was interesting.
<a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/12/did-christianity-cause-the-crash/7764/2/[/url]”>Did Christianity Cause the Crash? - The Atlantic;
<p>off topic but since the discussion is already away maybe this will be okay? I keep puzzling as to why there is such strong defense of the super wealthy by some, who at the same time seem to have no concern for the disadvantaged.</p>
<p>Those hard-working folks on Wall Street are job-creators who should keept their hard-earned money? For the reading pleasure of those who think that Wall Street incomes are based on actual performance and talent:</p>
<p><a href=“Reuters”>quote</a> – Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) will pay $11 million to ousted executives Joe Price and Sallie Krawcheck, a large payout at a time when banks face protests over pay but smaller than the eight-figure packages some executives received before the financial crisis.</p>
<p>Krawcheck — a former Citigroup Inc (C.N) executive who came to Bank of America in 2009 and was one of the top-ranking women on Wall Street — will receive a one-time payment of $5.15 million, according to separation agreements filed by the bank on Friday.</p>
<p>Price, a Bank of America veteran, gets $4.15 million. Each will also receive $850,000 over a one-year period.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>and those are cash pay-outs. For failure. </p>
<p>By the way, have you heard that Bank of America announced it is planning to lay off thousands of workers?</p>
<p>
Because younger people will not need to disenfranchise the elderly in order have control.
That’s a pretty grim vision on the future. I sure hope we don’t get to that point.</p>
<p>Social security and medicare are a racist classist boondoggle. You can claim all you want that it’s insurance, but if your average life expectancy is less than 70 years–as is true for most men with lower incomes, since life expectancy rises with income and social status (and being white)-- [Growing</a> Disparities in Life Expectancy](<a href=“http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/91xx/doc9104/LifeExpectancy_Brief.1.1.shtml]Growing”>http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/91xx/doc9104/LifeExpectancy_Brief.1.1.shtml) --you pay in and you don’t get anything out. That’s not an insurance policy—since your heirs get nothing–and it’s not a benefit either. It’s a money transfer from the poor and sick to the less poor and the less sick. </p>
<p>It’s also currently not fully taxed when distributed, which is a real gift to people who don’t need it.</p>
<p>This commentary by Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post raises interesting issues: [The</a> study that shows why Occupy Wall Street struck a nerve - The Washington Post](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-study-that-shows-why-occupy-wall-street-struck-a-nerve/2011/10/27/gIQA3bsMNM_story.html?hpid=z1]The”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-study-that-shows-why-occupy-wall-street-struck-a-nerve/2011/10/27/gIQA3bsMNM_story.html?hpid=z1)</p>
<p>nre,
Personally, I AM at that point, meaning I am looking at my own life as a finite situation that I owe to others to end at the time I decide is best for them and myself (and society, too, btw.)
Why should I stay on this earth and be a burden to others, beyond the point of my being useful? And why should I not have the right to decide this?
RESOURCES ARE SO VERY LIMITED.</p>
<p>I know what I wrote is controversial and immoral to some. I think if it as my contribution, as a form of recycling, of redistribution.
Anthropologically, the time for a change in thinking has come. Infanticide was very very common in many societies in the past. I am not condoning it at ALL, just showing that mores do change depending on the circumstances (often economically driven.)
We have so much science and medicine and health care, but it costs do much, and the returns are diminishing, at least at the moment. So, my approach would a be a logical conclusion, and should be up to the individual (how American!)</p>