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The Problem With Privatizing Social Security...

yobarnacle said:
When SS started, the debate was should it be a savings program or an entitlement.
Entitlement won.

Imediately elderly who had never paid in a single penny began receiving SS benefits. and continues, those working pay for those receiving. It NEVER was a savings plan.

The sad part is so much excess SS was being paid in, it could have been both. But the govt couldn't keep their hands off all that money.
Eisenhour used the surplus SS funds to pay for the interstate highway system.

Next time you are driving on an interstate 4 lane or 6 lane doing 70, 75, 80 mph? That's the SS money YOU are using that others paid in in the 50s.
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Not a bad deal at all if you look at the GDP growth after that. Just like the transcontinental railroad, we needed the thing.
 
Henrin said:
There is nothing to study that would make anything you have said needed for capitalism to exist.
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Capitalism has some rather strict requirements. A good government is one of them, with courts, judges, police, etc. Check it out.
 
TiredOfLife said:
Capitalism has some rather strict requirements. A good government is one of them, with courts, judges, police, etc. Check it out.
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Is that honestly your argument?

Btw, we can get back to talking about FICA at any point.
 
Henrin said:
Ignore what? An opinion by some nobody? Whatever.
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What you are ignoring are the facts of life. I can't help you there, not with what little understanding you have.
 
TiredOfLife said:
What you are ignoring are the facts of life. I can't help you there, not with what little understanding you have.
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I'm ignoring nothing but your stupid opinion piece that has no bearing on the argument that taxes are NOT an obligation on the people.
 
Henrin said:
I'm ignoring nothing but your stupid opinion piece that has no bearing on the argument that taxes are NOT an obligation on the people.
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Oh but they are. And your share of the national debt is about 60k. Hope you brought your checkbook?

Maybe you'll like this one: Capitalism

And with that, I'm done teaching for the night.
 
specklebang said:
My brilliant plan is LESS than employers pay now so the Corporations will idolize me. Imagine those huge bronze statues. But the congresscrooks, not so much. Right now, it's about 7.5% from each. In abn effort to propose something even vaguely plausible, I shifted the burden to 10 and 5. But at least you know thats YOUR money, not a tax. You'll get it back later or your heirs will get it.
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The AARP will get the blue and no hairs in a fremzy if you try to change SS. That is a non-starter.
 
TiredOfLife said:
Oh but they are. And your share of the national debt is about 60k. Hope you brought your checkbook?

Maybe you'll like this one: Capitalism

And with that, I'm done teaching for the night.
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The first paragraph from your link...

That means no one forces you to do anything or interferes with you. If you want to trade or buy or sell, it's between you and the guy you trade with, and no on else. The only condition is that you both agree to the trade. Trades must be voluntary.
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Notice how your tax model is not voluntary? How you insist that taxes are dues that people MUST pay? So basically your taxation model that is based on forced exchange is needed to hold up a system based on voluntary exchange. How bizarre is that?
 
Henrin said:
The first paragraph from your link...



Notice how your tax model is not voluntary? How you insist that taxes are dues that people MUST pay? That this model is needed to hold up a system based on voluntary exchange?
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Keep reading.
 
specklebang said:
How many people do you know that have substantial savings? Any? A few?

Maybe in some parallel universe, you'll find a bunch of guys like me. When I made $40 a week, I used to bank $18. But I always lived below my means and I had the good fortune to have a few successful businesses. I ended up paying $180K to SS over my lifetime and now I'm forced to keep on living in order to get even.

Actually SS isn't a bad deal. For probably 90% of the population, that's what they'll live on in their dotage.
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You get less than you put in you would get more if you just put it in the bank.
 
TiredOfLife said:
It was sold as a safety-net for the aged, now it's a retirement plan. Deal with what is not what was.
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It was sold as a is visual acount and lock bock type program lbj finished breaking the lock bock and started taking money out meaning it ended up being more of a redistribution program than a retirement one.
 
specklebang said:
The difference between 401K type savings and a quasi-private SS replacement is that it would be mandatory. You would have to buy T-Bills until you accumulated enough to be allowed to invest more aggressively and even then you would be limited to well rounded funds, not individual stocks. You would have to reach retirement age and take distributions on an actuarial basis. I call this Mandatory Savings Accounts and I would expect 10% to come from you and 5% from your employer. So this is doable but utterly unlikely.

Instead, we have SS which can be robbed by congress and thats the way they like it, ah-ha, ah-ha.
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I am unaware of any plan which requires investment in government securities at any level. Can you show me a plan that does require it.

All contributions come from the employee, either through wage garnishment or in the form of lower wages. Employers set wage based on costs like this. The employer isn't going to pay anything.

Why are you using the word "Mandatory"? This is not a "mandatory savings" plan when people can adjust their personal savings lower.
 
Fisher said:
No we should require employers to contribute an additional 2.5% of pay to portable ira's with SS as the payable on death beneficiary.
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That is an interesting idea other than the requiring employers to contribute. The 'employer contribution' comes from the employee in the form of lower wages. You also need a new name. IRA is an "individual". If the account has no ownership, you can't call it individual.
 
YoungConserv said:
Right cold turkey but why can't I as 23 year old just starting out not pay in and guarantee ss for those 10 years out and those reviving it the rest you give it back to them as a tax cut over the rest of their life.
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You do not understand the depth of the problem. Today - with you paying 12.4% of your wages - the Trustees say that we can't guarantee it for those 1 year out. The Trust Fund has sufficient resources to cover about 3 years of benefits.
 
JoeTheEconomist said:
That is an interesting idea other than the requiring employers to contribute. The 'employer contribution' comes from the employee in the form of lower wages. You also need a new name. IRA is an "individual". If the account has no ownership, you can't call it individual.
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If you do not force employers to contribute, then there will be no contributions; the account does have ownership, it is just defeasible by death; and a problem a lot of people have run into over the years is that when they change employers, they end up being unable to port the IRA so they end up with multiple IRA accounts (and fees to go with them) and often end up cashing in their old ones just to avoid having to manage multiple accounts.
 
TiredOfLife said:
I see. Won't happen. The entire system is based on I pay for your mom and dad, you pay for me, my kid pays for you. It ends when the US ends, not before.
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This is the cliche that I am talking about.

The system has not been based on I pay for your mom and dad. Historically, the system reached insolvency because no one was paying for the first 40 years of workers. We raised the cost of SS on the late boomers and GenXers who paid for their parents, their grandparents, and great-grandparents all of whom had enjoyed the free ride.
 
YoungConserv said:
And even then why not make it optional so those with no investment knowladge stay in and those with some opt out.
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The system has a shortfall of 23 trillion dollars. If you open the front door of a burning house, is it really "optional".
 
Paschendale said:
The only purpose for privatizing social security is to allow the Republican party's rich business cronies to get even more of our tax dollars on a silver platter. Because how dare anything in this country operate to help people without rich people getting even richer because of it.
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Ever more cliche. We use this cliche because no one takes the time to think about whether this is a good idea or not.

Oddly enough, a privatized SS would displace 401K savings, which is a massive gravey train for Wall Street. So if this is a plan for rich to take money - it is a stupid idea.
 
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