Do you Social Security fearmongers realize you can't get something for nothing?

[OohPooPahDoo]

No.
No.
No.

Awesome. Now let's continue. Please bear in mind these are just questions.

Should we release all death row inmates from prison?
Should we drop nuclear bombs on all major cities, including in the U.S.?
Should we release an anthrax plague on the world?

Nothing you've said suggests I should ask these, but I'm just asking them to be sure.

But then, I never tried to lay out an argument that 1 out of 3 people not having sex is a problem, nor that 1 out of 3 fat people not eating puppies is a problem, nor that 1 out 3 people not sucking cock is a problem.

Great. I never said 1 out of 3 people not working is a "problem", I merely pointed out the obvious economic consequences - if 2 people work and 1 person does not, and everyone is to have what they need - won't those 2 people have to make enough for 1.5 each?

Are you saying that's not true?

OK, I'll admit, you wore me down with your consistent nonsensical questions.
Feel better now?

If 2 people work and 1 person does not, and everyone is to have what they need - won't those 2 people have to make enough for 3 people total? Is that true or not?

 

[alan1]

So how would you have invested SS Trust Funds in a manner which does not place the burden on the U.S. economy?

Let the people keep their own money.

See, you are of the false premise that SS should be given to (taken by) the government.
I thought SkullPilot already explained the weakness of that line of reasoning.

How would you fund payments to current beneficiaries?

Cut all the social programs for the leeches.
Make the 47% of income tax filers that pay no income tax finally pay their fair share.
Make SS an opt in option for people, not mandatory.
Close all our military bases over seas.
Stop using US funds for charity over seas.
Make every spending bill pass a Constitutional test.

How would you do it?

 

[alan1]

Awesome. Now let's continue. Please bear in mind these are just questions.

Should we release all death row inmates from prison?
Should we drop nuclear bombs on all major cities, including in the U.S.?
Should we release an anthrax plague on the world?

Nothing you've said suggests I should ask these, but I'm just asking them to be sure.





Great. I never said 1 out of 3 people not working is a "problem", I merely pointed out the obvious economic consequences - if 2 people work and 1 person does not, and everyone is to have what they need - won't those 2 people have to make enough for 1.5 each?

Are you saying that's not true?

OK, I'll admit, you wore me down with your consistent nonsensical questions.
Feel better now?

If 2 people work and 1 person does not, and everyone is to have what they need - won't those 2 people have to make enough for 3 people total? Is that true or not?

Yes, that is true. Is it any less true if one of those persons is a child?
Look, now we've come full circle but I still don't think you understand the question that I asked about your logic.

 

[flacaltenn]

OOpydOO:

Here's how gullible and brainwashed you are.. Tell me if I misrepresent any of your position on the "trust fund"..

In 1997, the govt STOLE $58Bill in excess FICA tax payments. Put it in the General Fund and counted it ON-BOOK as an asset. They placed a "note" in the Trust Fund promising to pay any deficits with FUTURE DEBT..

So when 2010 rolls around, and SS runs up a $40Bill deficit and the Treasury coughs up $40Bill in NEW DEBT backed by the issuance of T-Bonds that taxpayers are liable for. This FINALLY shows as a Debt entry in the General Ledger.

So you believe that the $58Bill of REAL CASH taken from the pockets of the taxpayers in 1997 is FULLY PAID by the issuance of not ONE --- But TWO debt instruments!!!! One the worthless IOU in the Trust Fund, and the other the ACTUAL T-Bond just issued.

TWO debt instruments issued versus $58Bill in REAL POCKETBOOK CASH --- you believe this is "an investment"???????????????????????????

Check the mirror kiddo -- you ARE a PT Barnum sucker....

Excess FICA funds go to retire old debt. Insufficient FICA funds are paid for by issuing new debt. That's the way it goes. When you've got a better way let us know.

Excess FICA NEVER retired any "old debt". It was spent on Cruise Missiles for Belgrade, or studies of hair loss in Schnauzers.. There have only been a couple years in my lifetime when the govt was in position to actually "pay down the debt". And those one or two years under Clinton, they used the excess FICA as an ASSET and declared the budget balanced. Totally IGNORING the liability to the Trust Fund that the IOU represented.

Two debt instruments do not equal that $58Bill embezzled in 1997... And it wasn't "an investment". It was coverup. The lost FICA cash was theft and Trust FUnd accounting is a scam..

 

[Immanuel]

The Social Security Fund bought treasury obligations with it.

Please explain what SPECIFIC choices would have been better.

Now you are changing the question.

The answer to this depends on the objective. Is the objective to maximize retiree benefits? Or maximize the amount that the government confiscates from citizens never to be paid back again? Or some other criteria?

Immie

The objective for YOU should be to complete your GED.

Well, moron, at least I don't have reading problems. Have you even completed first grade?

Immie

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Let the people keep their own money.

See, you are of the false premise that SS should be given to (taken by) the government.
I thought SkullPilot already explained the weakness of that line of reasoning.

How would you fund payments to current beneficiaries?

Cut all the social programs for the leeches.
Make the 47% of income tax filers that pay no income tax finally pay their fair share.
Make SS an opt in option for people, not mandatory.
Close all our military bases over seas.
Stop using US funds for charity over seas.
Make every spending bill pass a Constitutional test.

How would you do it?

Let's check out your idea first.

Earned Income Tax Credit - 49 billion
SSI - 47 billion
food stamps - 68 billion
TANF - 17 bil
Section 8 - 26 billion

Child tax credits ( assume by leaches you mean the children, too) - 23 billion
child nutrition - 17 billion

Foreign aid - less than 1% of the total budget.


But the things FICA funds - OASDI and Medicare - costs over 750 billion a year. What I have listed covers 1/3 of it. Can you add enough to that list to make $750,000,000,000?





Obama?s 2011 Budget Proposal: How It?s Spent - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com
How to Protect Foreign Aid? Improve It - NYTimes.com

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Yes, that is true. Is it any less true if one of those persons is a child?

No.

Look, now we've come full circle but I still don't think you understand the question that I asked about your logic.

I don't. Please explain it.

 

[Immanuel]

The objective for YOU should be to complete your GED.

How about you finish first grade.. then get back to us.

Sure, right after you explain what Trust Fund investments would remove the burden of providing for the retired from the U.S. economy.

You are an idiot.

The investments are not the issue. The issue is unfunded entitlements. The issue with Social Security is that it is not paying for itself as expected due to the lack of worker replacement and the longer life of retirees.

You made an unfounded accusation in your OP. You are a liar about the cause of the problems with SS and you think that because you said it, it must be true.

Of course, we all know the liberal mind set. If a liberal says it, it must be true.

Good God, you are an idiot.

Immie

 

[Immanuel]

Well, you could have just let us manage our money and not stolen it from us to begin with. Then you wouldn't have to worry about "investing" it.

Then what happens when you exchange your savings for goods and services in retirement? Are you telling me that the economy won't have to produce those goods and services - they'll just materialize out of thin air? What happens if you live so long you run out of money? You'll just go back to work I take it? Kill yourself maybe?

What happens to current Social Security beneficiaries when we defund the program by eliminating FICA or divert it into individual retirement accounts? Just, fuck them?

It is apparent you have no clue about what you speak. Ever hear of a lifetime annuity? No, I don't suppose you have. By the way, that is what Social Security provides when you retire.

Immie

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Excess FICA NEVER retired any "old debt".

Incorrect. When Congress borrows X dollars from the Trust fund, that is X dollars they do not have to borrow through the Treasury. It transfers debt held by the public to debt held by the Trust Fund. Redemption of trust funds do the opposite - the Treasury borrows from the public and pays the Trust Fund.

The lost FICA cash was theft and Trust FUnd accounting is a scam..

You have to say that 145 more times for it to be true.

 

[alan1]

How would you fund payments to current beneficiaries?

Cut all the social programs for the leeches.
Make the 47% of income tax filers that pay no income tax finally pay their fair share.
Make SS an opt in option for people, not mandatory.
Close all our military bases over seas.
Stop using US funds for charity over seas.
Make every spending bill pass a Constitutional test.

How would you do it?

Let's check out your idea first.

Earned Income Tax Credit - 49 billion
SSI - 47 billion
food stamps - 68 billion
TANF - 17 bil
Section 8 - 26 billion

Child tax credits ( assume by leaches you mean the children, too) - 23 billion
child nutrition - 17 billion

Foreign aid - less than 1% of the total budget.


But the things FICA funds - OASDI and Medicare - costs over 750 billion a year. What I have listed covers 1/3 of it. Can you add enough to that list to make $750,000,000,000?





Obama?s 2011 Budget Proposal: How It?s Spent - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com
How to Protect Foreign Aid? Improve It - NYTimes.com

Notice that I said all.
Cut all the social programs for the leeches. (you addressed but a small portion of social programs)

You completely ignored this one.
Make the 47% of income tax filers that pay no income tax finally pay their fair share.

You completely ignored this one also.
Close all our military bases over seas.

You completely ignored this one also.
Make every spending bill pass a Constitutional test.

And finally, you offer no ideas or proposals. I guess I am wasting my time with you.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Well, you could have just let us manage our money and not stolen it from us to begin with. Then you wouldn't have to worry about "investing" it.

Then what happens when you exchange your savings for goods and services in retirement? Are you telling me that the economy won't have to produce those goods and services - they'll just materialize out of thin air? What happens if you live so long you run out of money? You'll just go back to work I take it? Kill yourself maybe?

What happens to current Social Security beneficiaries when we defund the program by eliminating FICA or divert it into individual retirement accounts? Just, fuck them?

It is apparent you have no clue about what you speak. Ever hear of a lifetime annuity?

yes.

No, I don't suppose you have.

That's really all you do - is suppose.

By the way, that is what Social Security provides when you retire.

No fucking shit genius, thanks for your brilliance. Jeez you must be a rocket scientist.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Cut all the social programs for the leeches.
Make the 47% of income tax filers that pay no income tax finally pay their fair share.
Make SS an opt in option for people, not mandatory.
Close all our military bases over seas.
Stop using US funds for charity over seas.
Make every spending bill pass a Constitutional test.

How would you do it?

Let's check out your idea first.

Earned Income Tax Credit - 49 billion
SSI - 47 billion
food stamps - 68 billion
TANF - 17 bil
Section 8 - 26 billion

Child tax credits ( assume by leaches you mean the children, too) - 23 billion
child nutrition - 17 billion

Foreign aid - less than 1% of the total budget.


But the things FICA funds - OASDI and Medicare - costs over 750 billion a year. What I have listed covers 1/3 of it. Can you add enough to that list to make $750,000,000,000?





Obama?s 2011 Budget Proposal: How It?s Spent - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com
How to Protect Foreign Aid? Improve It - NYTimes.com

Notice that I said all.
Cut all the social programs for the leeches. (you addressed but a small portion of social programs)

Great. Then please tell us how much this would save us. In numbers.

You completely ignored this one.
Make the 47% of income tax filers that pay no income tax finally pay their fair share.

I listed the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Care Tax Credit shit for brains. You have no clue how it is that 47% of filers pay no net taxes, do you? Someone just told you it was true, and you didn't even bother to ask how.

Close all our military bases over seas.

How much would that save us? In numbers, please.

Make every spending bill pass a Constitutional test.

All laws must already pass Constitutional scrutiny. You've got to be the most ignorant person in the world.

And finally, you offer no ideas or proposals.

The 25% in expected shortfalls over the long term can be made up for in several ways or any combination thereof.
1) raise the FICA tax by 25%.
2) slowly raise the retirement age
3) up the maximum contribution limit.

I favor 2) as the predominant method. People are living longer - should we not also expect to work longer? Its unreasonable to think that if medical science can extend my life from 60 to 80 years and also make me able to work to an older age - I should get to have 20 extra years of retirement and zero extra years of actually producing goods and services in the economy? That would seem an unreasonable expectation to ask of the economy, I think. Social Security Retirement is meant to provide income to people who are too old to work, what is too old to work is on average, older now than it was 50 years ago. I favor 3) the least because although I favor progressive taxation for the general fund, social security and medicare is more like an insurance policy that you pay for than income redistribution. If the rich are going to pay higher taxes it should be in income tax and capital gains tax, not FICA tax.

Does that explain it for you?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

The Social Security fearmongers constantly bemoan the fact that the investment of excess FICA revenue in obligations of the United States Treasury means the burden of making up the projected shortfalls in FICA will fall on the taxpayer, and hence, the U.S. economy. That is of course - true.

I have to ask - what other domestic investment vehicle could have prevented the burden from falling on the U.S. economy?

If the Trust Funds had been invested in U.S.corporate debt, then it would be U.S. corporations that have to make up the shortfall - thus the burden still falls on the U.S. economy.

If the Trust Funds had been invested in U.S. stocks, the shortfall would be made up for with dividends from U.S.companies and with sale of stock positions to mostly U.S. citizens - thus the burden again, falls on the U.S. economy to make up the shortfall.

If the Trust Funds had been invested in insurance contracts with U.S. insurers -still the burden falls on the U.S. economy.


The alternative would be to invest in assets with large foreign exposure - like commodities, foreign stock and debt, etc. - but then when the Trust Fund runs in the black, its taking U.S. tax revenues and sending them OUT of the country - investing them in foreign nations instead of the U.S. economy - thus STILL the burden falls on the U.S. economy!

So how would you have done it in a manner which does not place the burden on the U.S. economy? BE SPECIFIC

I think the problem here is you confuse investment and theft. Did you used to do Madoff's books?

Do you have an actual answer to my question?

Do you have an actual question? All I saw was rhetorical attacks, strawmen, and false dilemmas. I accorded them all the respect they deserve.

 

[Liability]

Do you Social Security fearmongers realize you can't get something for nothing?

Liberoids long ago figured out that you can't get something for nothing.

Therefore, they deduced that you must soak those who produce wealth.

 

[onecut39]

hEALTHMYTH>>>>"If the worker HAD the freedom to direct the accumulation into a simple savings account that paid over 42 years 2% interest would accumulate $628,077!
Why is there ANYONE against the worker accumulating this?"

2% interest would not even keep up with inflation.

I'd sure like to see that math written out for us. Sounds a little fuzzy to me.

For instance If I had something worth $30,000 (my salary) 42 years ago (1968) In order to equal the buying power of that salary today I would have to make $195,287 Stack that up against your 2% annual gain.

Figure it for yourself.

Inflation Calculator | Find US Dollar's Value from 1913-2011

 

[flacaltenn]

Ignoring the inflammatory title of the thread -- I think OOpydOO did have a valid question..

Why did the concept of the Trust Fund FAIL to provide an adequate buffer for the crisis in SS that we saw coming for 30 yrs or more?

And how SHOULD have all that FICA overcharging been stored or invested so that TODAY'S deficits are covered? We can't claim it was a big surprise. We were collecting REAL CASH for 30 yrs to the tune of about $3Trill.

Why are we issuing MORE debt instruments to cover current deficits? I've given OOpydOO at least 3 valid alternatives for what COULD have been done. But he's more interested in defending the fiction that the Payroll money was never stolen, That the Trust FUnd is flush with cash, and that all us "rightwingers" are stupid and always wanted to kill the program.

Kindalike ----- <-- OOpydOO -->

 

[flacaltenn]

Excess FICA NEVER retired any "old debt".

Incorrect. When Congress borrows X dollars from the Trust fund, that is X dollars they do not have to borrow through the Treasury. It transfers debt held by the public to debt held by the Trust Fund. Redemption of trust funds do the opposite - the Treasury borrows from the public and pays the Trust Fund.

The lost FICA cash was theft and Trust FUnd accounting is a scam..

You have to say that 145 more times for it to be true.

What really happened to the excess FICA is that the Clown College didn't care enough about their fiduciary duties to manage and protect Soc Sec for the future and they spent it on whatever they pleased. And never set up a REAL investment program that would use those excess premiums to defer future costs..

You can't TRUST the clowns to care that much about the future. Especially when they see a pile of tax reciepts just hanging around somewhere. Lefties have a mental block on that point.. Since Govt is omnipotent to them..

Maybe we should look at the Indian Lands Trust Fund. Or the Highway Trust Fund and see how BRILLIANTLY those have been "managed" as well...

 

[Immanuel]

Then what happens when you exchange your savings for goods and services in retirement? Are you telling me that the economy won't have to produce those goods and services - they'll just materialize out of thin air? What happens if you live so long you run out of money? You'll just go back to work I take it? Kill yourself maybe?

What happens to current Social Security beneficiaries when we defund the program by eliminating FICA or divert it into individual retirement accounts? Just, fuck them?

It is apparent you have no clue about what you speak. Ever hear of a lifetime annuity?

yes.

No, I don't suppose you have.

That's really all you do - is suppose.

By the way, that is what Social Security provides when you retire.

No fucking shit genius, thanks for your brilliance. Jeez you must be a rocket scientist.

Actually, it seems to be you that has no clue what the hell you are talking about. You are just another deceitful liberal that believes if he says something it has to be true.

Get a clue.

Immie

 

[alan1]

Let's check out your idea first.

Earned Income Tax Credit - 49 billion
SSI - 47 billion
food stamps - 68 billion
TANF - 17 bil
Section 8 - 26 billion

Child tax credits ( assume by leaches you mean the children, too) - 23 billion
child nutrition - 17 billion

Foreign aid - less than 1% of the total budget.


But the things FICA funds - OASDI and Medicare - costs over 750 billion a year. What I have listed covers 1/3 of it. Can you add enough to that list to make $750,000,000,000?





Obama?s 2011 Budget Proposal: How It?s Spent - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com
How to Protect Foreign Aid? Improve It - NYTimes.com

Notice that I said all.
Cut all the social programs for the leeches. (you addressed but a small portion of social programs)

Great. Then please tell us how much this would save us. In numbers.

I listed the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Care Tax Credit shit for brains. You have no clue how it is that 47% of filers pay no net taxes, do you? Someone just told you it was true, and you didn't even bother to ask how.


How much would that save us? In numbers, please.

Make every spending bill pass a Constitutional test.

All laws must already pass Constitutional scrutiny. You've got to be the most ignorant person in the world.

And finally, you offer no ideas or proposals.

The 25% in expected shortfalls over the long term can be made up for in several ways or any combination thereof.
1) raise the FICA tax by 25%.
2) slowly raise the retirement age
3) up the maximum contribution limit.

I favor 2) as the predominant method. People are living longer - should we not also expect to work longer? Its unreasonable to think that if medical science can extend my life from 60 to 80 years and also make me able to work to an older age - I should get to have 20 extra years of retirement and zero extra years of actually producing goods and services in the economy? That would seem an unreasonable expectation to ask of the economy, I think. Social Security Retirement is meant to provide income to people who are too old to work, what is too old to work is on average, older now than it was 50 years ago. I favor 3) the least because although I favor progressive taxation for the general fund, social security and medicare is more like an insurance policy that you pay for than income redistribution. If the rich are going to pay higher taxes it should be in income tax and capital gains tax, not FICA tax.

Does that explain it for you?

OK, were back to the "shit for brains" thing as a rebuttal from you. I find it challenging to take people seriously when they have to result to schoolyard insults as part of their argument.

I see you that you did offer something as a potential solution, higher taxes and higher retirement age. Again. I say "again" because that has been done before and it still hasn't worked. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results (Albert Einstein).
Not allowing people to keep their own money.
And again, raising the retirement age is racist, I already provided those facts to you earlier and you ignored them because they didn't fit your preconceived notion about SS and how SS discriminates against blacks.