Retirees on Social Security are getting screwed.

[boedicca]

SS has been a Ponzi Scheme for years. At best, taxpayers receive a paltry 1.3% return on their "contributions" when they retire - while the massive increase in government spending and debt fueled by the SS pool deflates the value of their benefits.

It's time to privatize retirement ala the Chilean model.

Tell me more about that Chilean model, please.

Always interested in discovering new social solutions to society's problems.

Milton Friedman consulted on the design:

On November 4, 1980, Chile, under the leadership of José Piñera, Secretary of Labor and Pensions under Augusto Pinochet, implemented with the collaboration of his team of Chicago Boys (a group of libertarian economists influenced by the Chicago school of economics of American economist Milton Friedman) the first comprehensive change of a state-run, defined-benefit pension scheme to a defined-contribution system managed entirely by the private sector (by pension management companies called "AFP"), under the supervision of a dedicated government agency, the Superintendency of AFP.

The Chilean system of personal retirement accounts started operating on May 1, 1981. Civilian workers covered under the previous defined-benefit plan had the choice of opting-in to the new system or of remaining under the previous system, such election being irrevocable. Workers hired after Jan. 1, 1983 must join the new system. Today 97% of civilian salaried workers are officially in the private system. According to the Superintendency of AFP, the system had accumulated USD $100 billion at October 30, 2007, an amount equivalent to 70% of the GNP of Chile.

The Chilean system provides that all civilian salaried workers must contribute 10% (plus around 2.5% of commission) of their salary to a privately run pension fund, that sum being remitted on their behalf by their employer (there's a maximum established for very high wages). The worker can choose one of six private pension administrators and change at will and also choose from among five funds (A to E, with A being the riskiest). Self-employed individuals may contribute voluntarily, and salaried workers can also enhance their pension through additional voluntary contributions. The Chilean armed forces and police remained covered by separate defined-benefit plans.

Chile pension system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Granny]

Anyone who expects to live just on their SS income have screwed themselves by not setting up alternative retirement income sources.

Not necessarily. I, unfortunately, lost some of my retirement to a charlatan ... who when faced with SEC problems and state licensing problems decided to commit suicide. Every piece of property/asset that could be found, including life-insurance payout to his wife has been confiscated for repayment to his victims. I hope that repayment will come during my lifetime.

 

[georgephillip]

I sympathise. Yet they are reaping the reward for a lifetime in believing that the state exists to take care of the individual, his needs and desires from cradle to grave. At best a fallacy, at its base, a cruel lie.

What purpose is there for a state except to serve all its citizens?

 

[Neubarth]

I sympathise. Yet they are reaping the reward for a lifetime in believing that the state exists to take care of the individual, his needs and desires from cradle to grave. At best a fallacy, at its base, a cruel lie.

What purpose is there for a state except to serve all its citizens?

A country can go bankrupt doing that.


Oh that is right. We are presently trying to prove that to be true.

 

[JWBooth]

I sympathise. Yet they are reaping the reward for a lifetime in believing that the state exists to take care of the individual, his needs and desires from cradle to grave. At best a fallacy, at its base, a cruel lie.

What purpose is there for a state except to serve all its citizens?

The state exists to accumulate more power to the state. Any appearance of service to it citizens is the ruse that keep the sheeple compliant and coming back for more.

 

[georgephillip]

Bankruptcy is becoming as American as apple pies and All Star Games.

Weren't we on a similar course during our previous Great Depression without any social safety net?

On a (possibly) related note when you write about being able to borrow interest-free through the Fed, it sounds like the same thing Dean Baker writes about here.

He claims countries like the US and UK who control their central banks don't need to issue debt to finance budget deficits.

"(The US and UK) can simply can simply buy up the bonds used to finance the deficits. In this story the interest payments on the bonds are paid to the central bank, which is in turn refunded to the government.

"This means there is no interest burden created by these deficits."

 

[georgephillip]

I sympathise. Yet they are reaping the reward for a lifetime in believing that the state exists to take care of the individual, his needs and desires from cradle to grave. At best a fallacy, at its base, a cruel lie.

What purpose is there for a state except to serve all its citizens?

The state exists to accumulate more power to the state. Any appearance of service to it citizens is the ruse that keep the sheeple compliant and coming back for more.

Do you think it's true that for thousands of years before anyone coined the word "socialism" one principle function of government was to socialize cost and privatize profit?

 

[JWBooth]

Do you think it's true that for thousands of years before anyone coined the word "socialism" one principle function of government was to socialize cost and privatize profit?

Socialism is just another means by which the state displays its means of control. And what is the state? It is simply a class of persons whose desire is to rule over others, they cannot do so individually, they are too weak. They band together and dominate through (in our time) government. Albert Nock says this in his work Our Enemy the State:


"It may now be easily seen how great the difference is between the institution of government, as understood by Paine and the Declaration of Independence, and the institution of the State. ... The nature and intention of government … are social. Based on the idea of natural rights, government secures those rights to the individual by strictly negative intervention, making justice costless and easy of access; and beyond that it does not go. The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing."

 

[Oddball]

I sympathise. Yet they are reaping the reward for a lifetime in believing that the state exists to take care of the individual, his needs and desires from cradle to grave. At best a fallacy, at its base, a cruel lie.

What purpose is there for a state except to serve all its citizens?

The operative word there being "serve", not to be the defacto master of the people....The modern socialistic welfare/nanny state flips that model on its head.

 

[Neubarth]

Bankruptcy is becoming as American as apple pies and All Star Games.

Weren't we on a similar course during our previous Great Depression without any social safety net?

On a (possibly) related note when you write about being able to borrow interest-free through the Fed, it sounds like the same thing Dean Baker writes about here.

He claims countries like the US and UK who control their central banks don't need to issue debt to finance budget deficits.

"(The US and UK) can simply can simply buy up the bonds used to finance the deficits. In this story the interest payments on the bonds are paid to the central bank, which is in turn refunded to the government.

"This means there is no interest burden created by these deficits."

Indeed! We will have adequate coverage from Social Security in your lifetime. By the way, the US FED is different from the British Central Bank. Our creation of the FED was the greatest thing in the history of world economics. Another thing to consider, our recent national loss of an estimated Eight Trillion Dollars has not been offset by the FED's generation of electronic money to try to get the economy going again. If it were to be a Tit for Tat type of thing, the FED would need to more than double their efforts. The FED is being cautious as we have never been down this road before to this degree.

 

[georgephillip]

Do you think it's true that for thousands of years before anyone coined the word "socialism" one principle function of government was to socialize cost and privatize profit?

Socialism is just another means by which the state displays its means of control. And what is the state? It is simply a class of persons whose desire is to rule over others, they cannot do so individually, they are too weak. They band together and dominate through (in our time) government. Albert Nock says this in his work Our Enemy the State:


"It may now be easily seen how great the difference is between the institution of government, as understood by Paine and the Declaration of Independence, and the institution of the State. ... The nature and intention of government … are social. Based on the idea of natural rights, government secures those rights to the individual by strictly negative intervention, making justice costless and easy of access; and beyond that it does not go. The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing."

Thanks for your information.

There appear to be similarities between Nock's views on how certain classes band together to inflict their will on society and what Baker writes about in his online book The Conservative Nanny State:How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich...

 

[georgephillip]

I sympathise. Yet they are reaping the reward for a lifetime in believing that the state exists to take care of the individual, his needs and desires from cradle to grave. At best a fallacy, at its base, a cruel lie.

What purpose is there for a state except to serve all its citizens?

The operative word there being "serve", not to be the defacto master of the people....The modern socialistic welfare/nanny state flips that model on its head.

"Serve" is the key word.

Right now it appears to me that Wall Street is serving Americans the same way Stalin served the Russians...or Hitler served his countrymen (and women)

 

[Oddball]

What purpose is there for a state except to serve all its citizens?

The operative word there being "serve", not to be the defacto master of the people....The modern socialistic welfare/nanny state flips that model on its head.

"Serve" is the key word.

Right now it appears to me that Wall Street is serving Americans the same way Stalin served the Russians...or Hitler served his countrymen (and women)

Deflection.

Welfare handouts are welfare handouts, no matter who gets them.

 

[Neubarth]

Anyone who expects to live just on their SS income have screwed themselves by not setting up alternative retirement income sources.

The vast majority of those self screwing people do not have the means to set up other retirement income sources.

Your response comes across as totally insensitive to the plight of the sixty percent of the population who are too poor to be able to save. Shoot, most of them are just happy to have the money for their rent every month.

 

[Barb]

I sympathise. Yet they are reaping the reward for a lifetime in believing that the state exists to take care of the individual, his needs and desires from cradle to grave. At best a fallacy, at its base, a cruel lie.

What purpose is there for a state except to serve all its citizens?

A country can go bankrupt doing that.


Oh that is right. We are presently trying to prove that to be true.

Oh, that's right, is it? It wasn't working people or the interests of US citizens that tanked the economy, it was the captains of industry and craven political hacks that did that.

 

[Neubarth]

What purpose is there for a state except to serve all its citizens?

A country can go bankrupt doing that.


Oh that is right. We are presently trying to prove that to be true.

Oh, that's right, is it? It wasn't working people or the interests of US citizens that tanked the economy, it was the captains of industry and craven political hacks that did that.

Captains of Industry. Which ones were responsible?

Craven Political Hacks? Who are they?

Economic cycles are economic cycles. This one was aggravated by poor management on the part of government.

Personally, I believe the thieves and crooks who operate as officers of the major banks were responsible for the degree of our collapse. Not one of them would be considered a captain of industry. They were just thieves who had been elevated to positions of tremendous responsibility in their banks and misused their positions of trust. For that they need to be tried for treason and then put to death.

 

[georgephillip]

The operative word there being "serve", not to be the defacto master of the people....The modern socialistic welfare/nanny state flips that model on its head.

"Serve" is the key word.

Right now it appears to me that Wall Street is serving Americans the same way Stalin served the Russians...or Hitler served his countrymen (and women)

Deflection.

Welfare handouts are welfare handouts, no matter who gets them.

My bad.

This is what I should have said:

Wall Street and the Republicans AND Democrats are currently serving Americans the same way Wall Street and Lenin served the Russians in 1919 and the same way Wall Street and Hitler served the Germans.

This is a CLASS war.

 

[Againsheila]

I sympathise. Yet they are reaping the reward for a lifetime in believing that the state exists to take care of the individual, his needs and desires from cradle to grave. At best a fallacy, at its base, a cruel lie.

The government took their money out of their paychecks...with the promise that they would get the money back with interest for their retirement. Why shouldn't they expect our government to live up to their agreements? We are a first world nation after all...oh, wait a minute..huge income gap, fascist state...maybe we aren't anymore.

 

[Neubarth]

This is a CLASS war.

Absolutely! A class war between those who have no "class" or ethics or concept of honesty versus those who have religious values and old fashioned ethics.

The religious values and ethics crowd are being eaten alive. That is the reason while I favor trials for treason against the American people for those thieves who have taken over Wall Street and use it for illegal personal gain.

I would execute every officer working for Goldman Sachs without hesitation. Just like the dutiful Mormons who volunteer for the firing squads in Utah, I know I would be doing a good thing.

 

[Oddball]

"Serve" is the key word.

Right now it appears to me that Wall Street is serving Americans the same way Stalin served the Russians...or Hitler served his countrymen (and women)

Deflection.

Welfare handouts are welfare handouts, no matter who gets them.

My bad.

This is what I should have said:

Wall Street and the Republicans AND Democrats are currently serving Americans the same way Wall Street and Lenin served the Russians in 1919 and the same way Wall Street and Hitler served the Germans.

This is a CLASS war.

Fair 'nuf.