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

[flacaltenn]

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.


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.

Don't you love how these compassionate lefties who fancy themselves as defenders of Social Security just glibbly enjoy raising the retirement age?

Ever see a 70 yr old roofer on top of your house? How about 12 thousand of 68 yr old long haul semi drivers on your roads? Sure a few could do it. Kinda hard when the bersitus and arthritis sets in. Living longer doesn't mean capable of continuing to work in your profession.

And anyway -- that's not a call I'm gonna allow the govt to make for me. They can shove their cheap-ass bickering up their skirts. Go ahead -- make it into a program that even fewer people get benefits from or want to participate in.. It'll virtually guarantee a couple generations that don't trust the govt to handle their life decisions..

 

[westwall]

How about this even simpler method. One worker works and takes care of his family and puts money aside for later. He gets old. He retires. He uses the money he banked and invested to support himself and his family in perpetuity. .

How does he use the money? Does he eat it? Does he cloth himself with it? Or does he have to convince an actor in the economy to produce something for him in exchange for it? How has the fact that if 2 people are working out of 3, 2 people still have to produce what 3 need? If the non-working retiree has a higher income than the workers and can thus afford to spend more money, all it means is the 2 that are working will get less than 2/3 of what they produce - and vice versa.

I don't know, maybe he or she saves up and buys a house outright then rents it to someone who doesn't want to own a house. Here in my neck of the woods I can get around 16,000 a year for a nice rental property that almost anyone can afford. Multiply that by a few and you have a nice retirement.

Of course if you choose to be dependent on someone else for your room and board then you have my sympathy but you're responsible for your predicament...not I.

 

[westwall]

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.

Yes, poopy is a "factual posturer" as my wife calls them. A wonderful example of a pseudo intellectual.

 

[Skull Pilot]

[

If demand exceeds production then more is to be made not less. In fact you have it completely backwards if one million people are trying to produce for 3 million then demand is high and profits are high.

And prices go up - meaning workers have to work longer hours to take home the same share of the economy.

Price might go up on a few things but not across the board.

If 1 million people only have demand enough to produce for 1.5 million then their profits will be lower and in fact people will have less work and therefore make less money.

And prices go down.[/quote]

And people get laid off

You can't seem to comprehend the simple fact that the workers still have to make enough for them and enough for those who don't work (in this case, retirees, but also, obviously, children and the disabled). If there are fewer workers then the burden of producing the goods and services is more per worker. How can you not understand that?

children are the burden of the parents. Parents use money earned from their work to care for their children. There is no burden on anyone else.

The more that needs to be produced, the more opportunity there is. More opportunity means more prosperity. More prosperity means less burden.

By your stupid logic, the economy would be booming the best if 299,999,999 people didn't work and 1 person worked.

And you can't seem to comprehend that we do not live in a subsistence economy. If you want to roll back the clock to the 1700s then why don't you buy an acre of dirt and scratch out just enough to feed yourself. That way you won't be a burden to the economy.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Do you have an actual question? .

Yes. Why yes, I do. Its in the OP. But I'll restate it here, for your convenience.


How would you have invested the Social Security Trust Funds in a manner which does not place the burden on the U.S. economy?

Let us know if you have any ideas, thanks!

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

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.

FICA is a regressive tax.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

I've given OOpydOO at least 3 valid alternatives for what COULD have been done:

Great. Summarize for us. Here, I'll help you

Three valid alternatives for investment of SS Trust Funds:

A)....

B)...

C)...

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

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. [/B]

That's not true. The excess FICA funds were used to reduce the amount of borrowing from the global market the Treasury had to do - $1 of excess FICA funds takes $1 of debt owed to the global market and moves it to $1 in intra-governmental debt.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

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.

Really? It stopped working? Maybe you can tell me when they stopped paying Social Security benefits, I wasn't aware that had happened.

Maybe you should ponder the fact that people living longer necessarily implies an adjustment in retirement age and/or FICA tax levels - its simple logic.

Not allowing people to keep their own money.

We already tried not having a government backed pension system - it resulted in hundreds of thousands of old people who didn't have money to eat on that the government had to feed anyway.

And again, raising the retirement age is racist,

No it isn't. Please stop pulling the race card. Blacks don't live as long because they can't get access to health care as good as whites because they tend to have less money to pay for it - and since you're a rightie, you should be fine with that.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Ever see a 70 yr old roofer on top of your house? How about 12 thousand of 68 yr old long haul semi drivers on your roads? Sure a few could do it. Kinda hard when the bersitus and arthritis sets in. Living longer doesn't mean capable of continuing to work in your profession.

You are correct to suggest certain professions can't work longer than others, however, Social Security Disability covers those whose professions disable them before retirement age. So you have no real argument.

And anyway -- that's not a call I'm gonna allow the govt to make for me. They can shove their cheap-ass bickering up their skirts. Go ahead -- make it into a program that even fewer people get benefits from or want to participate in.. It'll virtually guarantee a couple generations that don't trust the govt to handle their life decisions..

Another way to tweak the program would be to allow people to choose later ages to retire. Right now I think you can start at 62 an have to take it by 67 1/2. We could set up a system where people can start drawing as late as they please, with increased benefits for every year they wait.

 

[grunt11b]

SSI is broke, for those of us that work and pay taxes our monthly payments are going into it and directly back out of it into someones pocket, because politicians have for many years stole from the system, so in essence...I am paying into something that wont even be there for me when the time comes. It's theft by government, nothing less.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

I don't know, maybe he or she saves up and buys a house outright then rents it to someone who doesn't want to own a house. Here in my neck of the woods I can get around 16,000 a year for a nice rental property that almost anyone can afford. Multiply that by a few and you have a nice retirement.

Don't forget to subtract about 50% for expenses.

Of course if you choose to be dependent on someone else for your room and board then you have my sympathy but you're responsible for your predicament...not I.

Social Security beneficiaries are not dependents. They are beneficiaries of an government sponsored insurance policy that they have paid into over the course of their working lives - now, 15% of their income.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

[

If demand exceeds production then more is to be made not less. In fact you have it completely backwards if one million people are trying to produce for 3 million then demand is high and profits are high.

And prices go up - meaning workers have to work longer hours to take home the same share of the economy.

Price might go up on a few things but not across the board.

Wrong. Prices would go up on everything that the retirees purchased. You clearly don't understand supply + demand. Supply is limited (among other things) by the number of available workers - demand is limited (among other things) by the supply and velocity of money - when the amount of money remains the same but the number of workers goes down - or vice versa - PRICES GO UP. If there are more people retiring than entering the workforce, the supply of available workers goes down while incomes remain nearly the same (presuming the retirees planned properly) - prices will go up.

children are the burden of the parents. Parents use money earned from their work to care for their children. There is no burden on anyone else.

Money is just a system for the exchange of goods and services in the economy, its presence doesn't change the fact that if there are X people and Y workers, each worker will, on average, have to produce X/Y the amount needed for one person.

The more that needs to be produced, the more opportunity there is. More opportunity means more prosperity. More prosperity means less burden.

Increased demand can only be met by increased supply until that supply is exhausted. There is a physical limit to the amount of goods and services our economy can produce. Once that limit is met, increased demand will necessarily lead to increased prices.
It occurs around 4% unemployment. Unemployment can't really drop much lower than that because there are always people between jobs and there are always people who are simply incapable of holding down steady work. Once you hit that limit, increased demand means increased prices.

And you can't seem to comprehend that we do not live in a subsistence economy. If you want to roll back the clock to the 1700s then why don't you buy an acre of dirt and scratch out just enough to feed yourself. That way you won't be a burden to the economy.

It has nothing to do with whether or not our economy is subsistence. All economies have a maximum amount of goods and services they can produce. The maximum can increase or decrease over time - with changes in the labor supply and the supply of raw materials and efficiency increases - but at any given point in time, an economy can only produce so much. When demand exceeds supply in a maxed out economy, inflation is the inevitable result.



Or - to put it more simply - the workers have to make everything that the workers and the non-workers need. Its really just that simple, I can't believe you don't get it.

 

[Skull Pilot]

And prices go up - meaning workers have to work longer hours to take home the same share of the economy.

Price might go up on a few things but not across the board.

Wrong. Prices would go up on everything that the retirees purchased. You clearly don't understand supply + demand. Supply is limited (among other things) by the number of available workers - demand is limited (among other things) by the supply and velocity of money - when the amount of money remains the same but the number of workers goes down - or vice versa - PRICES GO UP. If there are more people retiring than entering the workforce, the supply of available workers goes down while incomes remain nearly the same (presuming the retirees planned properly) - prices will go up.






Money is just a system for the exchange of goods and services in the economy, its presence doesn't change the fact that if there are X people and Y workers, each worker will, on average, have to produce X/Y the amount needed for one person.

The more that needs to be produced, the more opportunity there is. More opportunity means more prosperity. More prosperity means less burden.

Increased demand can only be met by increased supply until that supply is exhausted. There is a physical limit to the amount of goods and services our economy can produce. Once that limit is met, increased demand will necessarily lead to increased prices.
It occurs around 4% unemployment. Unemployment can't really drop much lower than that because there are always people between jobs and there are always people who are simply incapable of holding down steady work. Once you hit that limit, increased demand means increased prices.

And you can't seem to comprehend that we do not live in a subsistence economy. If you want to roll back the clock to the 1700s then why don't you buy an acre of dirt and scratch out just enough to feed yourself. That way you won't be a burden to the economy.

It has nothing to do with whether or not our economy is subsistence. All economies have a maximum amount of goods and services they can produce. The maximum can increase or decrease over time - with changes in the labor supply and the supply of raw materials and efficiency increases - but at any given point in time, an economy can only produce so much. When demand exceeds supply in a maxed out economy, inflation is the inevitable result.



Or - to put it more simply - the workers have to make everything that the workers and the non-workers need. Its really just that simple, I can't believe you don't get it.

And what you don't get asswipe is that with the production methods and technology of today that 1 man can easily produce exponentially more than he could have years ago. No one is sitting around making one shirt at a time by hand anymore. It's easier now than ever before to produce goods but you seem to still think that everything is made by hand one item at a time YOU FUCKING MORON

 

[flacaltenn]

I've given OOpydOO at least 3 valid alternatives for what COULD have been done:

Great. Summarize for us. Here, I'll help you

Three valid alternatives for investment of SS Trust Funds:

A)....

B)...

C)...

I've done that OOpydOO.. If you weren't reading my posts -- you missed out I guess.

You were too busy propagating the Trust Fund myth or some damn thing to notice..

I've worked hard on these Whack-A-Mole threads.. But I'm not a personal tutor..

 

[flacaltenn]

Ever see a 70 yr old roofer on top of your house? How about 12 thousand of 68 yr old long haul semi drivers on your roads? Sure a few could do it. Kinda hard when the bersitus and arthritis sets in. Living longer doesn't mean capable of continuing to work in your profession.

You are correct to suggest certain professions can't work longer than others, however, Social Security Disability covers those whose professions disable them before retirement age. So you have no real argument.

Gee OOpydOO, I thought just a post or two ago -- you were DEMANDING that 70 yr olds perform their DUTY to society that they continue to work and contribute! That's pretty hypocrital to now allow them to paid for NOT working. DEMAND that former heart surgeons with unsteady hands take that greeters job at WALMART!

That and the fact that age related disabilites are NOT limited to "career ending" disabilities. You could have 20 good golf years with even severe arthritis (which I doubt is covered under DI). And I don't want to see the arguments for aging physicists who can't keep up with the demands of intellectual accuity at age 69 or 72. Not your call bud..

And anyway -- that's not a call I'm gonna allow the govt to make for me. They can shove their cheap-ass bickering up their skirts. Go ahead -- make it into a program that even fewer people get benefits from or want to participate in.. It'll virtually guarantee a couple generations that don't trust the govt to handle their life decisions..

Another way to tweak the program would be to allow people to choose later ages to retire. Right now I think you can start at 62 an have to take it by 67 1/2. We could set up a system where people can start drawing as late as they please, with increased benefits for every year they wait.


No that system wouldn't be "increased benefits for every year they wait".. It would in reality be "decreased benefits for retiring earlier than the govt ALLOWS you to"..

FlaCalTenn

 

[flacaltenn]

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. [/B]

That's not true. The excess FICA funds were used to reduce the amount of borrowing from the global market the Treasury had to do - $1 of excess FICA funds takes $1 of debt owed to the global market and moves it to $1 in intra-governmental debt.

See OOpydOO -- this is why the political left is getting spanked right now. It's your assumption that increasing the amount of tax money available will make Congress more fiscally responsible and go to debt reduction.. They saw a pile of tax reciepts and continued to spend them. Doing NOTHING to actually reduce future SS liabilities.

It's the SPENDING stupid. And asserting that every dollar of that stolen FICA went to debt reduction is as brain-dead as your party leadership.

Did I miss the bill or Resolution from the CLown College that specified every dollar of excess FICA would go to "debt reduction" and not spending? When you lose MORE control of govt in 2012 --- remember -- this is the main reason you are losing it...

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Gee OOpydOO, I thought just a post or two ago -- you were DEMANDING that 70 yr olds perform their DUTY to society that they continue to work and contribute!

Then your thought is wrong, I've never made such a demand.

DEMAND that former heart surgeons with unsteady hands take that greeters job at WALMART!

A surgeon who can no longer perform surgery due to physical disability can claim Social Security Disability.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

See OOpydOO -- this is why the political left is getting spanked right now. It's your assumption that increasing the amount of tax money available will make Congress more fiscally responsible and go to debt reduction.. They saw a pile of tax reciepts and continued to spend them. Doing NOTHING to actually reduce future SS liabilities.

There is nothing we can do to reduce future retirement liabilities. Not unless you want to start stockpiling food, clothing, and all the shit that people in retirement need. With the exception of a house - most everything a retiree needs in retirement has to be produced by the economy during his retirement.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Price might go up on a few things but not across the board.

Wrong. Prices would go up on everything that the retirees purchased. You clearly don't understand supply + demand. Supply is limited (among other things) by the number of available workers - demand is limited (among other things) by the supply and velocity of money - when the amount of money remains the same but the number of workers goes down - or vice versa - PRICES GO UP. If there are more people retiring than entering the workforce, the supply of available workers goes down while incomes remain nearly the same (presuming the retirees planned properly) - prices will go up.






Money is just a system for the exchange of goods and services in the economy, its presence doesn't change the fact that if there are X people and Y workers, each worker will, on average, have to produce X/Y the amount needed for one person.

Increased demand can only be met by increased supply until that supply is exhausted. There is a physical limit to the amount of goods and services our economy can produce. Once that limit is met, increased demand will necessarily lead to increased prices.
It occurs around 4% unemployment. Unemployment can't really drop much lower than that because there are always people between jobs and there are always people who are simply incapable of holding down steady work. Once you hit that limit, increased demand means increased prices.

And you can't seem to comprehend that we do not live in a subsistence economy. If you want to roll back the clock to the 1700s then why don't you buy an acre of dirt and scratch out just enough to feed yourself. That way you won't be a burden to the economy.

It has nothing to do with whether or not our economy is subsistence. All economies have a maximum amount of goods and services they can produce. The maximum can increase or decrease over time - with changes in the labor supply and the supply of raw materials and efficiency increases - but at any given point in time, an economy can only produce so much. When demand exceeds supply in a maxed out economy, inflation is the inevitable result.



Or - to put it more simply - the workers have to make everything that the workers and the non-workers need. Its really just that simple, I can't believe you don't get it.

And what you don't get asswipe is that with the production methods and technology of today that 1 man can easily produce exponentially more than he could have years ago. No one is sitting around making one shirt at a time by hand anymore. It's easier now than ever before to produce goods but you seem to still think that everything is made by hand one item at a time YOU FUCKING MORON

Doesn't change the fact that if there are 3 people and 1 is retired the 2 will have to make enough for 3, does it?