Americans Shocked To Learn There Is No Social Security Crisis

[merrill]

Americans Shocked To Learn There Is No Social Security Crisis

Americans shocked to learn that there isn?t actually a Social Security crisis - Salon.com

==========================================================

The opponents of Social Security will stop at nothing in their long crusade to destroy the most efficient retirement system in the world. Opponents have taken two tracks to attack Social Security.

The first is to claim the system as it is will fail, and the second is to claim that privatization is a better way to provide for retirement security. The first claim was the favorite from 1935 to about 2001.Then the privatization claim became the vogue. Now the first is back on the table.

With corporations routinely defaulting on their pension promises, more and more workers must rely on their individual wealth to make up the difference. The stock market collapse at the turn of the millennium wiped out much of the financial wealth of middle class Americans, and the collapse of the housing bubble has wiped out much of their remaining wealth.

Making any cuts to Social Security now, either by raising the retirement age or cutting benefits, would have a huge impact on their remaining retirement income and are not necessary to “save the system.” In fact, to make the most of the modifications currently being proposed by Obama's commission would be the height of folly.

More info not rhetoric:
Social Security Q&A | Dollars & Sense

 

[Sunshine]

There is no crisis at this red hot minute. The crisis is down the road a bit.

They are even changing name to something like US Retirement Benefit. I don't recall the exact moniker. IMO they are planning to make it JUST for retirees and dump all the disabled out onto the states. As it stands right now a lot of people get SS Disability who have never paid in a dime. I think they are going to change it to make it only for retirement. I don't really object to that. Young people are eating themselves into disabling diabetes every day, so why should those of us who have paid in all our lives suffer because of it. The mentally ill get benefits, so do young children who have never worked but have some disabling condition. I think the states are in for a rude awakening.

 

[Two Thumbs]

So let me get this right

When Bush was Pres, liberals said he needed to save SS, and when he didn't do enough, he hated old people.

But now obama is Pres and magically the facts changed.




hy·poc·ri·sy
[hi-pok-ruh-see] Show IPA
noun, plural hy·poc·ri·sies.
1.
a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.
2.
a pretense of having some desirable or publicly approved attitude.
3.
an act or instance of hypocrisy.

 

[Toro]

Or, rather than running an anachronistic plan that would probably be ruled imprudent under ERISA, we can be progressive and run it like Canada, Norway or the Netherlands, and construct it like a real pension plan. That way, we can ensure the viability of SS for centuries and give people a tax cut, all the while diversifying the trust away from what will almost certainly be the worst investment over the next 30 years.

Under current projections, the annual cost of Social Security benefits expressed as a share of workers’ taxable earnings will grow rapidly from 11.3 percent in 2007, the last pre-recession year, to roughly 17.4 percent in 2035, and will then decline slightly before slowly increasing after 2050. Costs display a slightly different pattern when expressed as a share of GDP. Program costs equaled 4.2 percent of GDP in 2007, and the Trustees project these costs will increase gradually to 6.4 percent of GDP in 2035 before declining to about 6.1 percent of GDP by 2050 and then remaining at about that level.

The projected 75-year actuarial deficit for the combined Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds is 2.67 percent of taxable payroll, up from 2.22 percent projected in last year's report. This is the largest actuarial deficit reported since prior to the 1983 Social Security amendments, and the largest single-year deterioration in the actuarial deficit since the 1994 Trustees Report.

Trustees Report Summary

More

http://www.usmessageboard.com/politics/271361-social-security-it-s-worse-than-you-think.html

 

[merrill]

There is at least 20 years before any changes may or may not need to take place. Doing homework makes that quite obvious.

Most people wanted BUSHCO to keep their dirty paws off Social Security Insurance because the name BUSH is a threat
to taxpayers and their tax dollars.

There has never been a Social Security Insurance crisis except in the eyes of make believe who want those trillions of dollars flowing into that high risk casino known as Wall Street which guarantees nothing.

Privatization is money laundering

Privatization funnels YOUR TAX DOLLARS and MINE into the corporate bank accounts. THIS IS A CORPORATE ENTITLEMENT. Billions and trillions of tax dollars caught the eye of corporate America = easy and guaranteed profits guided by fascist politicians.

Now Wall Street becomes evermore dependent on government in addition to skimming tax dollars off the top which get laundered into :

CEO pay packages

Bonus Packages

Golden Parachutes

Shareholders

special interest campaign cookie jars

Yes our tax dollars are now getting spent recklessly instead of efficiently.

 

[merrill]

Have opponents actually lied to the public about Social Security?

Yes. Former President George W. Bush repeatedly claimed that those who put their money in private accounts would be “guaranteed a better return than they would receive from the current Social Security system.

But every sale of stock on the stock market includes the disclaimer: “the return on this investment is not guaranteed and may be negative” for good reason.

During the 20th century, there were several periods lasting more than ten years when the return on stocks was negative. After the Dow Jones stock index went down by over 75% between 1929 and 1933, the Dow did not return to its 1929 level until 1953.

In claiming that the rate of return on a stock investment is guaranteed to be greater than the return on any other asset, Bush was lying.

If an investment-firm broker made this claim to his clients, he would be arrested and charged with stock fraud. Michael Milken went to jail for several years for making just this type of promise about financial investments.

In fact, under the former President Bush’s privatization proposal, a 20-year-old worker joining the labor force today would have seen her guaranteed Social Security benefits reduced by 46%. Bush’s own Social Security commission admitted that private accounts were unlikely to make up for this drop in guaranteed benefits.

The brokerage firm Goldman Sachs estimated that even with private accounts, retirement income of younger workers would have been reduced by 42% compared to what they would have received if no changes were made to Social Security..

Former President Bush also misrepresented the truth when he claimed that Social Security trustees say the system will be “bankrupt” in 2042. Bankruptcy is defined as “the inability to pay ones debts” or, when applied to a business, “shutting down as a result of insolvency.” Nothing the trustees have said or published indicates that Social Security will fold as a result of insolvency.

Until 1984, the trust fund was “pay-as-you-go,” meaning current benefits were paid using current tax revenues. In 1984, Congress raised payroll taxes to prepare for the retirement of the baby boom generation. As a result, the Social Security trust fund, which holds government bonds as assets, has been growing. When the baby boomers retire, these bonds will be sold to help pay their retirement benefits.

If the trust fund went to zero, Social Security would simply revert to pay-as-you-go.

 

[jwoodie]

Libtards like to claim that Social Security is a solvent, stand alone program, but they also use its current surplus to offset federal deficit/debt calculations. They can't have it both ways.

 

[merrill]

Libtards like to claim that Social Security is a solvent, stand alone program, but they also use its current surplus to offset federal deficit/debt calculations. They can't have it both ways.

That is party line rhetoric...

 

[Toronado3800]

Americans Shocked To Learn There Is No Social Security Crisis

Americans shocked to learn that there isn?t actually a Social Security crisis - Salon.com

==========================================================

The opponents of Social Security will stop at nothing in their long crusade to destroy the most efficient retirement system in the world. Opponents have taken two tracks to attack Social Security.

The first is to claim the system as it is will fail, and the second is to claim that privatization is a better way to provide for retirement security. The first claim was the favorite from 1935 to about 2001.Then the privatization claim became the vogue. Now the first is back on the table.

With corporations routinely defaulting on their pension promises, more and more workers must rely on their individual wealth to make up the difference. The stock market collapse at the turn of the millennium wiped out much of the financial wealth of middle class Americans, and the collapse of the housing bubble has wiped out much of their remaining wealth.

Making any cuts to Social Security now, either by raising the retirement age or cutting benefits, would have a huge impact on their remaining retirement income and are not necessary to “save the system.” In fact, to make the most of the modifications currently being proposed by Obama's commission would be the height of folly.

More info not rhetoric:
Social Security Q&A | Dollars & Sense

Would you agree that changing the tax and retirement ages around now would help reduce the level of increases and decreases we would suffer if we wait?

I love Social Security but don't want to pawn off changes on my kid.

 

[merrill]

Americans Shocked To Learn There Is No Social Security Crisis

Americans shocked to learn that there isn?t actually a Social Security crisis - Salon.com

==========================================================

The opponents of Social Security will stop at nothing in their long crusade to destroy the most efficient retirement system in the world. Opponents have taken two tracks to attack Social Security.

The first is to claim the system as it is will fail, and the second is to claim that privatization is a better way to provide for retirement security. The first claim was the favorite from 1935 to about 2001.Then the privatization claim became the vogue. Now the first is back on the table.

With corporations routinely defaulting on their pension promises, more and more workers must rely on their individual wealth to make up the difference. The stock market collapse at the turn of the millennium wiped out much of the financial wealth of middle class Americans, and the collapse of the housing bubble has wiped out much of their remaining wealth.

Making any cuts to Social Security now, either by raising the retirement age or cutting benefits, would have a huge impact on their remaining retirement income and are not necessary to “save the system.” In fact, to make the most of the modifications currently being proposed by Obama's commission would be the height of folly.

More info not rhetoric:
Social Security Q&A | Dollars & Sense

Would you agree that changing the tax and retirement ages around now would help reduce the level of increases and decreases we would suffer if we wait?

I love Social Security but don't want to pawn off changes on my kid.

I would suggest to put Social Security Insurance on the back burner for three years. There is no rush considering we have at least 15-20 years.

Then come back to discuss a change that would remove the cap on the Social Security payroll tax.

A second option is to follow the lead of other industrialized countries. Social Security funding currently relies on taxing only wage and salary incomes. Over the past three decades, as corporations have driven down the real wages of the vast majority (80%) of employees, the share of total national income going to wages and salaries has declined, and the share going to capital income (from financial assets) has gone up.

This erosion of the wage share of total income has reduced the share of total income flowing into the Social Security system.

The retirement systems of the rest of the industrialized world are funded out of general tax revenues. The logic is that everyone in society benefits from the efforts of workers, so all should contribute to the support of retired workers.

In the two years after the end of the recession in 2001, real wages had gone up by only 2.8%, but corporate profits had gone up by 62.8%.

If we expand the Social Security tax to cover all forms of income, the revenue from this vastly increased profit income would allow the tax rate on wages to be significantly lower.

This would provide an enormous benefit to small businesses and the self-employed as well as to everyone who works for wages and salaries.

 

[jwoodie]

Libtards like to claim that Social Security is a solvent, stand alone program, but they also use its current surplus to offset federal deficit/debt calculations. They can't have it both ways.

That is party line rhetoric...

...and it is the truth.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Libtards like to claim that Social Security is a solvent, stand alone program, but they also use its current surplus to offset federal deficit/debt calculations. They can't have it both ways.

That is party line rhetoric...

But yours isn't?

How about you stop posting to biased Web sites and start using some mainstream objective sources and maybe then you'll be taken seriously.

 

[merrill]

Libtards like to claim that Social Security is a solvent, stand alone program, but they also use its current surplus to offset federal deficit/debt calculations. They can't have it both ways.

That is party line rhetoric...

But yours isn't?

How about you stop posting to biased Web sites and start using some mainstream objective sources and maybe then you'll be taken seriously.

Mainstream is bias....

 

[merrill]

Shouldn’t we consider benefit cuts today to help prevent a potential shortfall in the future?

Congress, correctly, has not been willing to cut benefits. They don’t need to, and they shouldn’t. Telling your kids today that they only get to eat one plate of rice each day and have to get their clothes at Goodwill because there is a chance that you might lose your job 40 years from now would be irrational. It would be equally irrational to implement benefit cuts immediately on the chance that the trust fund might go to zero in 2042—especially when future recipients would still be getting more in real terms than recipients do today.
=========
Other economics writers, such as Newsweek’s Robert Samuelson suggest lowering benefits to wealthy people. Is this a good idea?

Lowering benefits just for the wealthy is also a bad idea. That’s like proposing that, after an accident, someone who drives a Lexus should only get half of the replacement value of their car, while someone who drives a Ford Focus should get the full replacement value. Social Security is a universal insurance system. This change would make the system less universal and pit one group of workers against another.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Americans Shocked To Learn There Is No Social Security Crisis

Americans shocked to learn that there isn?t actually a Social Security crisis - Salon.com

==========================================================

The opponents of Social Security will stop at nothing in their long crusade to destroy the most efficient retirement system in the world. Opponents have taken two tracks to attack Social Security.

The first is to claim the system as it is will fail, and the second is to claim that privatization is a better way to provide for retirement security. The first claim was the favorite from 1935 to about 2001.Then the privatization claim became the vogue. Now the first is back on the table.

With corporations routinely defaulting on their pension promises, more and more workers must rely on their individual wealth to make up the difference. The stock market collapse at the turn of the millennium wiped out much of the financial wealth of middle class Americans, and the collapse of the housing bubble has wiped out much of their remaining wealth.

Making any cuts to Social Security now, either by raising the retirement age or cutting benefits, would have a huge impact on their remaining retirement income and are not necessary to “save the system.” In fact, to make the most of the modifications currently being proposed by Obama's commission would be the height of folly.

More info not rhetoric:
Social Security Q&A | Dollars & Sense

Why is a troll thread in the CDZ?

 

[merrill]

Americans Shocked To Learn There Is No Social Security Crisis

Americans shocked to learn that there isn?t actually a Social Security crisis - Salon.com

==========================================================

The opponents of Social Security will stop at nothing in their long crusade to destroy the most efficient retirement system in the world. Opponents have taken two tracks to attack Social Security.

The first is to claim the system as it is will fail, and the second is to claim that privatization is a better way to provide for retirement security. The first claim was the favorite from 1935 to about 2001.Then the privatization claim became the vogue. Now the first is back on the table.

With corporations routinely defaulting on their pension promises, more and more workers must rely on their individual wealth to make up the difference. The stock market collapse at the turn of the millennium wiped out much of the financial wealth of middle class Americans, and the collapse of the housing bubble has wiped out much of their remaining wealth.

Making any cuts to Social Security now, either by raising the retirement age or cutting benefits, would have a huge impact on their remaining retirement income and are not necessary to “save the system.” In fact, to make the most of the modifications currently being proposed by Obama's commission would be the height of folly.

More info not rhetoric:
Social Security Q&A | Dollars & Sense

Why is a troll thread in the CDZ?

You too are a troll. All of us are trolls.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

There is at least 20 years before any changes may or may not need to take place. Doing homework makes that quite obvious.

Most people wanted BUSHCO to keep their dirty paws off Social Security Insurance because the name BUSH is a threat
to taxpayers and their tax dollars.

There has never been a Social Security Insurance crisis except in the eyes of make believe who want those trillions of dollars flowing into that high risk casino known as Wall Street which guarantees nothing.

Privatization is money laundering

Privatization funnels YOUR TAX DOLLARS and MINE into the corporate bank accounts. THIS IS A CORPORATE ENTITLEMENT. Billions and trillions of tax dollars caught the eye of corporate America = easy and guaranteed profits guided by fascist politicians.

Now Wall Street becomes evermore dependent on government in addition to skimming tax dollars off the top which get laundered into :

CEO pay packages

Bonus Packages

Golden Parachutes

Shareholders

special interest campaign cookie jars

Yes our tax dollars are now getting spent recklessly instead of efficiently.

If we wait 20 years to change Social Security we will have to change the payouts to people who are actually receiving benefits and raise the retirement age for people that should be retiring then. If, on the other hand, we make changes now we can phase those changes in over a period of time, and avoid disrupting the benefits for current retirees and people over the age of 50.

Your way is the more disruptive than anything proposed by even the most distract reformers.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Americans Shocked To Learn There Is No Social Security Crisis

Americans shocked to learn that there isn?t actually a Social Security crisis - Salon.com

==========================================================

The opponents of Social Security will stop at nothing in their long crusade to destroy the most efficient retirement system in the world. Opponents have taken two tracks to attack Social Security.

The first is to claim the system as it is will fail, and the second is to claim that privatization is a better way to provide for retirement security. The first claim was the favorite from 1935 to about 2001.Then the privatization claim became the vogue. Now the first is back on the table.

With corporations routinely defaulting on their pension promises, more and more workers must rely on their individual wealth to make up the difference. The stock market collapse at the turn of the millennium wiped out much of the financial wealth of middle class Americans, and the collapse of the housing bubble has wiped out much of their remaining wealth.

Making any cuts to Social Security now, either by raising the retirement age or cutting benefits, would have a huge impact on their remaining retirement income and are not necessary to “save the system.” In fact, to make the most of the modifications currently being proposed by Obama's commission would be the height of folly.

More info not rhetoric:
Social Security Q&A | Dollars & Sense

The opponents of Social Security will stop at nothing in their long crusade to destroy the most efficient retirement system in the world.

It's only short about $12 trillion, over a 75 year time frame.

The first is to claim the system as it is will fail

It's true, it will not provide promised benefits.
It will also provide crappy returns.

the second is to claim that privatization is a better way to provide for retirement security.

I've put much less into my 401K and it will provide much more in retirement than my Soc Sec contributions. And if I die before retirement, my 401K goes to my heirs, my Soc Sec is lost, unless my kids are still minors.

 

[merrill]

Americans Shocked To Learn There Is No Social Security Crisis

Americans shocked to learn that there isn?t actually a Social Security crisis - Salon.com

==========================================================

The opponents of Social Security will stop at nothing in their long crusade to destroy the most efficient retirement system in the world. Opponents have taken two tracks to attack Social Security.

The first is to claim the system as it is will fail, and the second is to claim that privatization is a better way to provide for retirement security. The first claim was the favorite from 1935 to about 2001.Then the privatization claim became the vogue. Now the first is back on the table.

With corporations routinely defaulting on their pension promises, more and more workers must rely on their individual wealth to make up the difference. The stock market collapse at the turn of the millennium wiped out much of the financial wealth of middle class Americans, and the collapse of the housing bubble has wiped out much of their remaining wealth.

Making any cuts to Social Security now, either by raising the retirement age or cutting benefits, would have a huge impact on their remaining retirement income and are not necessary to “save the system.” In fact, to make the most of the modifications currently being proposed by Obama's commission would be the height of folly.

More info not rhetoric:
Social Security Q&A | Dollars & Sense

The opponents of Social Security will stop at nothing in their long crusade to destroy the most efficient retirement system in the world.

It's only short about $12 trillion, over a 75 year time frame.

That's not the of fault of Social Security Insurance IF what you claim is true. I've not seen that yet.

The first is to claim the system as it is will fail
It's not failing anyone. It has not failed anyone. Politicians are misinforming USA citizens...imagine that.

It's true, it will not provide promised benefits.
Says who?

It will also provide crappy returns.
This is insurance that pays consistently unlike risky Wall Street.... too bad Wall Street is not allowed stand on its' own without bailouts and congressional intervention. No free market here.

I've put much less into my 401K and it will provide much more in retirement than my Soc Sec contributions. And if I die before retirement, my 401K goes to my heirs, my Soc Sec is lost, unless my kids are still minors.

If you collect at 62 it is unlikely anyone loses. 401k's can hit bottom SSI cannot. Social Security investments are safe.

 

[merrill]

Every sale of stock on the stock market includes the disclaimer: “the return on this investment is not guaranteed and may be negative” for good reason.

During the 20th century, there were several periods lasting more than ten years when the return on stocks was negative.

After the Dow Jones stock index went down by over 75% between 1929 and 1933, the Dow did not return to its 1929 level until 1953..... 24 years.

In claiming that the rate of return on a stock investment is guaranteed to be greater than the return on any other asset could be lying.