Social Security to start cashing Uncle Sam's IOUs

[Crazed Rabbit]

You mean his plan to privatize it, which would have meant private investment into the stock markets? The ones that at the end of 2008 tanked.

That would have worked great.

Yes, I do mean that. I did a little bit of research after the crash, and found that the stock market right after the crash was high enough that if you had been investing for 30 years, you'd still have made more money than from social security.

Source? And it's not like the Republicans have a stellar record on efficient use of the federal budget, y'know.

Um...didn't think it needed a source. Bush proposed a sort of privatization back in 2005 and the democrats opposed it.

admit it social security is screwed because people are greedy.

It's flawed because it's a ponzi scheme and the government won't arrest the perpetrators.

CR

[a completely inoffensive name]

Have fun watching the economy grind down when two workers have to support the social security of one person with only social security taxes. That is, on top of federal income tax, state income tax, property taxes, paying for food and housing, etc. etc., each worker in America will have to pay half of the social security cost of someone.

So, yeah, taxes could work in gathering money. But the system needs to fixed (damn you FDR), and that means allowing people to have control over where they invest.

CR

That's why you don't tax the workers. You tax the rich. Now before you go off on your rant about how that will kill the economy even me more, let me ask you a question:
If taxing the workers will slow the economy to a halt and taxing the rich will slow the economy to a halt (because they all flee from the country where they got their billions of dollars or something due to paying a couple million more) then we must either stop taxing altogether to save the economy or we must accept that taxation is will be a necessary hinder to our economy, now if we accept that we must tax (since we like to have a government to protect us) then since we have determined from your present and past comments that taxing period (rich, poor, middle) will hurt the economy then why not tax those with the most money to be gained from?

I would have "saved" it by phasing it out. Workers under a certain age could divert their contributions to private retirement accounts, while their employer contributions could have been used to continue paying for those currently recieving benefits and those soon to be recieving benefits. The idea would be for Social Security to have a nice, soft landing while going away insteading cratering- like it's going to.

Of course, I said "would have" saved it- because now that it's running in the red, I don't really see any other end to it than to crash & burn. The fact that it's projected to happen before I'll collect a dime for it is kinda sad.....

What money? There isn't any. The government has "borrowed" all the money that's in the trust fund and replaced it with treasury bonds. Now that Social Security is running in the red, the government has to start paying out those IOUs in order to continue paying benefits. Naturally, the only way for the government to pay those bonds is to sell more bonds (debt) to China, Japan, ect. I know it's cliche, but just imagine if we ran our personal finances so irresponsibly.

1. People can't handle money. It's a sad but unfortunate truth to our society. I'll be ready to hear about how awesome you are with money, which totally disproves my point.
2. Your last paragraph is illogical. You make the changes to ensure that future influxes of money wont be taken. Obviously the money already taken in has been looted. Also, lol at last sentence:
I know it's cliche, but just imagine if we ran our personal finances so irresponsibly. They do.

You mean the stock market that's already bounced back despite a still soft economy? What a lousy track record, huh? No matter how bad my 401k performs, it's still going to pay out infinitely more returns than what Social Security is projected to pay.

I guess those that had decided to retire in 2007, 2008 and 2009 can be swept under the rug.

Yes, I do mean that. I did a little bit of research after the crash, and found that the stock market right after the crash was high enough that if you had been investing for 30 years, you'd still have made more money than from social security.

CR

I did some research that shows the exact opposite of your findings. interesting....

[Xiahou]

1. People can't handle money. It's a sad but unfortunate truth to our society. I'll be ready to hear about how awesome you are with money, which totally disproves my point.

It's irrelevant. At most, the individual only has to select a fund for their contributions to go into. For 401ks and the like, you don't go shopping around for individual stocks- you pick a plan. I'm still fairly young, so I picked a plan that was heavily invested in stocks and fairly aggressive. When I'm closer to retirement, I would switch it to something more balanced. That's the extent of my involvement. You don't need to be a financial wizard.

I guess those that had decided to retire in 2007, 2008 and 2009 can be swept under the rug.

You don't take out your retirement in a lump sum. Their plans would have rebounded just like everyone else's.

[a completely inoffensive name]

It's irrelevant. At most, the individual only has to select a fund for their contributions to go into. For 401ks and the like, you don't go shopping around for individual stocks- you pick a plan. I'm still fairly young, so I picked a plan that was heavily invested in stocks and fairly aggressive. When I'm closer to retirement, I would switch it to something more balanced. That's the extent of my involvement. You don't need to be a financial wizard.

No, you don't need to be a financial wizard. You just need to know what a 401k is and a basic knowledge of what stocks are and how the stock market works....oh yeah, about that....

You don't take out your retirement in a lump sum. Their plans would have rebounded just like everyone else's.

Depends on their retirement plan. You speak with certainty when you know nothing about the finances of others.

[Xiahou]

No, you don't need to be a financial wizard. You just need to know what a 401k is and a basic knowledge of what stocks are and how the stock market works....oh yeah, about that....

What percentage of our population do you estimate as having no idea of what a stock is? Regardless, they still wouldn't need to know. They could throw darts at a menu of plan options and any one of them would payout better than Social Security is going to.

Depends on their retirement plan. You speak with certainty when you know nothing about the finances of others.

Seriously? What total nonsense. No government mandated retirement would let participants lump-sum their contributions.

[Strike For The South]

Remind me again why we're giving a pay out to people simply becuase there hearts are still beating?

[a completely inoffensive name]

They could throw darts at a menu of plan options and any one of them would payout better than Social Security is going to.

The absurdity of this statement puts your entire reasoning skills and your argument into question. Please dont become a financial planner and tell people that throwing their money randomly into a free market plan with no prep or research is smarter then trusting the government.

Remind me again why we're giving a pay out to people simply becuase there hearts are still beating?

I don't know, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" wasn't put in the Constitution, so it's not really something we have to follow.

[HoreTore]

Remind me again why we're giving a pay out to people simply becuase there hearts are still beating?

Because letting people starve to death is barbaric, Strike.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Remind me again why we're giving a pay out to people simply becuase there hearts are still beating?

It started because FDR wanted votes and buying them is easy. And continued because the government took their money in the first place and said it would save it for them for retirement.

The absurdity of this statement puts your entire reasoning skills and your argument into question. Please dont become a financial planner and tell people that throwing their money randomly into a free market plan with no prep or research is smarter then trusting the government.

It is smarter. That's was so ***-****** awful about social security; picking any sort of 401k plan between any two points of 30 years - even if the end is at the low point of a stock crash - would give a better payout that social security. Social security is not some kind of alternate retirement investment plan that's near as good as a 401(k) plan.

Social security is so mind bogglingly stupid, and has such a low yield, that basically any form of investment outside of hiding money in a mattress will give a better return*.

So, naturally, it is the system the government insists on enforcing at gunpoint on every person in the USA. That's because the government is stupid.

CR
*When social security crashes, the mattress may have become a better choice as well.

[m52nickerson]

Yes, I do mean that. I did a little bit of research after the crash, and found that the stock market right after the crash was high enough that if you had been investing for 30 years, you'd still have made more money than from social security.

2005 was not 30 years ago.