Social Security to start cashing Uncle Sam's IOUs

[drone]

The poor do not have the financial resources you seem to imagine that they have to save or invest in the stockmarket. If they make some bad investments, then it's bye bye house and hello cardboard box. Social security is not designed to yield bumper profits for grannies and grandads, it is designed to keep people out of poverty. Yes, it is a huge cost to the American government, but it is a necessary one. The problem with social security has been a massive fifty year pensions holiday, in which reform has been eternally delayed to some future-Congress, which coincidentally makes it harder to reform as more people become dependant on it.

In the US, Social Security taxes are taken automatically from employees' paychecks. The employer is also taxed the same amount. The retirement payments received is a function of the worker's wages over the course of their life, so poor people get little anyway. The point CR is making is that if the same amount of money was taken from the employer and employee and put into a standard 401k or IRA, the returns would be better, and they would also be safe from the grasping hands of the federal lawmakers who can't show any sort of fiscal responsibility. The money is being forcibly taken anyway, rich or poor still contribute, and will only get back payments relative to what they put in. Or in my case, nothing, since there won't be anything left when I retire. 6.2% of my income, and 6.2% of my employer's money, down the drain. And I don't expect to see any of the 1.45% (plus 1.45% of my employer's money) for Medicare either, that will be raided as well.

Ponzi scheme, at the point of a gun.

[Lemur]

Ponzi scheme, at the point of a gun.

I object to the "at the point of the gun" bit of rhetoric. All laws are guaranteed, ultimately, by the threat of force. So I'm more than a little over the "guvmint forcing me" bit of tub-thumping.

You can't jaywalk ... at the point of a gun!

Meat gets inspected at packing plants ... at the point of a gun!

Show your ID at the airport .. at the point of a gun!

Etc.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Well maybe, but why should I have a moral obligation to an old man who wasted his money on whiskey and whores instead of saving?

wasted?

I object to the "at the point of the gun" bit of rhetoric. All laws are guaranteed, ultimately, by the threat of force. So I'm more than a little over the "guvmint forcing me" bit of tub-thumping.

Ponzi schemes usually aren't "at the point of a gun" though.

[drone]

Ponzi schemes usually aren't "at the point of a gun" though.

Edit-> I don't think I would really be too pissed off about FICA if they would drop the charade and just call it an employment tax. Dangling the false carrot about funding my retirement is just too far. I have never had any illusions about Social Security's financial future, I've been pumping the maximum allowable amount into my 401k for almost 20 years. If I get a little beer money from the federal government at 65, I will be surprised.