Social Security: It's worse than you think

[Quantum Windbag]

My MATH in the above statement says that Social Security only needs to be adjusted to keep outflows at or below the level of income.

NOW, you tell me what is wrong with that math?

The math tells us that the only way to make those adjustments is to make small changes in how it is paid out by 2000. Since that did not happen, and cannot happen, the only way to keep expenditures below the level of expected income is to make radical changes by last year. Once again, that is clearly impossible, so we have to do something drastic now. Once again, that is highly unlikely, which leaves us with the math telling us that the longer we put off the needed changes the more drastic those changes are going to have to be.

You even linked to the Trustee report that said exactly what I am explaining, yet you still insist that the math supports minor changes that can wait until 2033.

Social Security was within 1 year of insolvency in 1983 when it was reformed.

And don't lie about what the Trustee report says you dishonest twat.

The trustee report doesn't say that Social Security is in drastic need of reform?

 

[Toro]

I knew it was bad, but it turns out that the numbers I have been looking at depend on an erroneous assumption about life expectancy. It seems they expect everyone my age to be dead by 2028.

CONGRESS and President Obama have pushed through a relatively modest stopgap measure to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” but over the coming years, the United States will confront another huge cliff: Social Security. In the first presidential debate, Mr. Obama described Social Security as “structurally sound,” and Mitt Romney said that “neither the president nor I are proposing any changes” to the program. It was a rare issue on which both men agreed — and both were utterly wrong.
For the first time in more than a quarter-century, Social Security ran a deficit in 2010: It spent $49 billion dollars more in benefits than it received in revenues, and drew from its trust funds to cover the shortfall. Those funds — a $2.7 trillion buffer built in anticipation of retiring baby boomers — will be exhausted by 2033, the government currently projects.
Those facts are widely known. What’s not is that the Social Security Administration underestimates how long Americans will live and how much the trust funds will need to pay out — to the tune of $800 billion by 2031, more than the current annual defense budget — and that the trust funds will run out, if nothing is done, two years earlier than the government has predicted.
We reached these conclusions, and presented them in an article in the journal Demography, after finding that the government’s methods for forecasting Americans’ longevity were outdated and omitted crucial health and demographic factors. Historic declines in smoking and improvements in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease are adding years of life that the government hasn’t accounted for. (While obesity has rapidly increased, it is not likely, at this point, to offset these public health and medical successes.) More retirees will receive benefits for longer than predicted, supported by the payroll taxes of relatively fewer working adults than projected.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/opinion/sunday/social-security-its-worse-than-you-think.html?_r=1&

There are charts at this link.

Social Security?s Flawed Forecasting - Graphic - NYTimes.com

The solution is clear - we should give a ton of money to Wall Street.

As opposed to giving all our money to the government, which is what we are doing right now.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The math tells us that the only way to make those adjustments is to make small changes in how it is paid out by 2000. Since that did not happen, and cannot happen, the only way to keep expenditures below the level of expected income is to make radical changes by last year. Once again, that is clearly impossible, so we have to do something drastic now. Once again, that is highly unlikely, which leaves us with the math telling us that the longer we put off the needed changes the more drastic those changes are going to have to be.

You even linked to the Trustee report that said exactly what I am explaining, yet you still insist that the math supports minor changes that can wait until 2033.

Social Security was within 1 year of insolvency in 1983 when it was reformed.

And don't lie about what the Trustee report says you dishonest twat.

The trustee report doesn't say that Social Security is in drastic need of reform?

That's not what you claimed. You claimed the Trust fund was being depleted in the last 2 years. That is false. They paid out a part of the earned interest in those 2 years but the Trust fund actually grew,

because the unused interest was added to the Trust Funds balance.

 

[Toro]

Here is some bond math for those of you who think SS is safe.

Today, the 30 year bond is yielding 3.17%. 20 years ago, the yield was 10%. A security issued at par with a coupon of 3.17% falls in price from $100 to $35 if yields rise to 10%. That won't happen instantly, but it could happen in 15 years. A 30 year bond with a $3.17 coupon issued at par falls to $48.05 in 15 years if yields rise to 10%, a decline in price by over half.

Treasury bonds are not safe, at least not when yields are near multi-century lows. And that's what SS is invested.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Here is some bond math for those of you who think SS is safe.

Today, the 30 year bond is yielding 3.17%. 20 years ago, the yield was 10%. A security issued at par with a coupon of 3.17% falls in price from $100 to $35 if yields rise to 10%. That won't happen instantly, but it could happen in 15 years. A 30 year bond with a $3.17 coupon issued at par falls to $48.05 in 15 years if yields rise to 10%, a decline in price by over half.

Treasury bonds are not safe, at least not when yields are near multi-century lows. And that's what SS is invested.

And if invested par the privatization scheme, tell us what the worth would be now?

 

[BluesMistress]

Well perhaps after pot is legalized nationally life expectancy will decline as lung cancer prevails.

See, you need to begin to appreciate the silver lining of unintended consequences

Good News ~
Pot does Not cause cancer!! It has been shown to actually help stop lung cancer


Marijuana Fights Cancer and Helps Manage Side Effects, Researchers Find - The Daily Beast

Marijuana Doesn't Increase Risk of Lung Cancer, Mental Illness or Death | 10 Reasons to Revisit Marijuana Policy Now | TIME.com

Uhm, wrongo...

Does Smoking Marijuana Cause Lung Cancer

Hey Soggy ,
Uummm ~ Wrongo ~ do a little more up to date research...
I have 2 great links to your 1 old weak link. I also have 22 years of experience treating cancer up close & personal the Stanford Way. Never once have we seen a case of pot causing lung cancer.. That's Not the discussion I was just pointing out a well studied fact that pot does not cause lung cancer.
Soggy Dude, Your own link is a study that was done in 2006...Old Weak Link ~
Latest study was Done in 2012 ~
Pulmonary means LUNGS.....

A 2012 study published in JAMA and funded by National Institutes of Health looked at a population of over 5,115 American men and women to see whether smoked cannabis has effects on the pulmonary system similar to those from smoking tobacco. The researchers found "Occasional and low cumulative marijuana use was not associated with adverse effects on pulmonary function." Smoking an average of one joint a day for seven years, they found, did not worsen pulmonary health.

Dr. Donald Tashkin commented on the study, saying it confirmed findings from several other studies showing “that essentially there is no significant relationship between marijuana exposure and impairment in lung function.” He noted despite containing similar noxious ingredients, one reason cananbis smoke may not be as harmful as tobacco smoke may be due to the anti-inflammatory effects of THC. “We don’t know for sure but a very reasonable possibility is that THC may actually interfere with the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease”, Tashkin elaborated. In his own research, Tashkin unexpectedly found that smoking up to three joints a day appeared to have no decrease in lung function. Tashking said, "I think that the bottom line is that there does not appear to be any negative impact on lung function of marijuana smoking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_(drug)

Marijuana doesn't appear to harm lung function, study finds | Fox News

I've now provided 2 more currant links to studies done in 2012 ~
They have found a connection with Pot and Testicular cancer...If you smoke enough pot you might lose a nut

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

I knew it was bad..

Yeah, and you probably knew Obamacare would be ruled unconstitutional and Romney/Ryan would win the 2012 Presidential election.

The lesson here is be vewy, vewy carefuew of trying to be a wascawy wabbit...because when you do and you fail you inevitably come across like Elmer Fudd
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your linked article is co-wrtiten by: "Samir S. Soneji, a demographer, is an assistant professor at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice."

These people are very academic-minded and clueless {soooo progressive (right or left doesn't matter)} as to seriously suggest retirement as a cause of premature death?

They give options to protect Social Security...so the alarm is as it always is...how bad things would get if n-o-t-h-i-n-g is done, which of course is a straw man poistion

Any fix will meet with outrage by you and right wingers just as Health Care Insurance in 2008 was supposed to be so bad it needed fixing or else {'the end!'} , once a remedy was attempted the shrill and angry haters came out of the woodwork

---

To save Social Security, which has lifted generations of elderly people out of poverty, tough choices have to be made. One option is to continue raising the retirement age, perhaps to as high as 69 or 70. While the full retirement age is gradually increasing to 67 (for people born in 1960 or later) from 65, this increase is not enough to counterbalance the gains in longevity.

A second option is to increase payroll taxes, for example by taxing wages over $113,700, the current earnings limit. A third is to limit the annual cost-of-living adjustments, possibly by changing how those adjustments are calculated. A fourth is to reduce benefits — for example, by lowering the initial benefits for workers whose lifetime wages are above the national average (currently $43,000 a year). Other choices, in numerous combinations, are possible, too.

One factor that might be considered is new research suggesting that retirement itself, although popular, may reduce life expectancy by breaking lifelong routines and disrupting deep social connections. One might question how much government policy should actively encourage retirement, as opposed to merely making it an option.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/opinion/sunday/social-security-its-worse-than-you-think.html?_r=2&

The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice (TDI) is an organization within Dartmouth College "dedicated to improving health care through education, research, policy reform, leadership improvement, and communication with patients and the public."[1] It was founded in 1988 by John Wennberg

Lowering Medicare Costs

"Americans have assumed that the fact that we spend so much more on health care than any other country stands as proof that we have the best health-care system in the world. But over the past 20 years, work done by Dartmouth’s Wennberg and Elliott Fisher has forced U.S. health care leaders to acknowledge that this simply isn’t true."[5]

The potential savings under such an ideal arrangement are immense. If every Medicare provider in the country spent at the same rate as the lowest 10% of providers in the program, overall costs would be slashed by 30%. That alone is enough to pay for the elusive Medicare drug benefit. Additional savings might well accrue if we could implement shared decision-making, reduce underuse of preventive services, and reduce medical errors.[3]

John Wennberg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Your sources and their position and agenda

 

[Toro]

Here is some bond math for those of you who think SS is safe.

Today, the 30 year bond is yielding 3.17%. 20 years ago, the yield was 10%. A security issued at par with a coupon of 3.17% falls in price from $100 to $35 if yields rise to 10%. That won't happen instantly, but it could happen in 15 years. A 30 year bond with a $3.17 coupon issued at par falls to $48.05 in 15 years if yields rise to 10%, a decline in price by over half.

Treasury bonds are not safe, at least not when yields are near multi-century lows. And that's what SS is invested.

And if invested par the privatization scheme, tell us what the worth would be now?

If it were invested 50 years ago, the privatized would be much higher. If it were invested 20 years ago, they'd be the same. If it were invested 10 years ago, SS would be higher.

SS is a perpetual fund. It has no end. That means it exists over the very long term. Since the founding of this nation 236 years ago, since stocks have been traded, there has never been a 40-year period when government bonds out-earned stocks.

Since SS started in 1939, total returns from stocks have been 144,900%. Government bonds - of which SS is invested in its entirety - have gained roughly 3,700%. Data is from Robert Shiller's site. You can download it yourself. Tell me which is better?

Had the government entirely in stocks rather than government liabilities, SS would be totally solvent.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Toro dodged the question. Please, everyone, take notice that he cannot defend his position.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I knew it was bad..

Yeah, and you probably knew Obamacare would be ruled unconstitutional

Just like you knew it wasn't the biggest tax increase in American history.

and Romney/Ryan would win the 2012 Presidential election.

I was actually hoping he would lose so the Republicans would get their act together, even started a thread about it.

Next.

The lesson here is be vewy, vewy carefuew of trying to be a wascawy wabbit...because when you do and you fail you inevitably come across like Elmer Fudd

If you are comparing me to Bugs Bunny and yourself to Elmer Fudd I have to agree 100%. Can you site a single example of Elmer ever outsmarting Bugs?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your linked article is co-wrtiten by: "Samir S. Soneji, a demographer, is an assistant professor at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice."

These people are very academic-minded and clueless {soooo progressive (right or left doesn't matter)} as to seriously suggest retirement as a cause of premature death?

What?

They give options to protect Social Security...so the alarm is as it always is...how bad things would get if n-o-t-h-i-n-g is done, which of course is a straw man poistion

It is a straw man to point out that, if nothing is done, Social Security will be unable to meet its obligations? That must make the annual Social Security report a straw man argument in and of itself, because they have been saying that for years.

By the way, if pointing out the truth is a straw man, what do you call ignoring reality?

Any fix will meet with outrage by you and right wingers just as Health Care Insurance in 2008 was supposed to be so bad it needed fixing or else {'the end!'} , once a remedy was attempted the shrill and angry haters came out of the woodwork

There you go again, lumping me in with everyone who disagrees with you about anything, which is, essentially, the entire planet. You do understand that, just because we disagree with your pronouncements, does not mean we agree with each other, don't you?

Think about that for a bit.

---

To save Social Security, which has lifted generations of elderly people out of poverty, tough choices have to be made. One option is to continue raising the retirement age, perhaps to as high as 69 or 70. While the full retirement age is gradually increasing to 67 (for people born in 1960 or later) from 65, this increase is not enough to counterbalance the gains in longevity.

A second option is to increase payroll taxes, for example by taxing wages over $113,700, the current earnings limit. A third is to limit the annual cost-of-living adjustments, possibly by changing how those adjustments are calculated. A fourth is to reduce benefits — for example, by lowering the initial benefits for workers whose lifetime wages are above the national average (currently $43,000 a year). Other choices, in numerous combinations, are possible, too.

One factor that might be considered is new research suggesting that retirement itself, although popular, may reduce life expectancy by breaking lifelong routines and disrupting deep social connections. One might question how much government policy should actively encourage retirement, as opposed to merely making it an option.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/opinion/sunday/social-security-its-worse-than-you-think.html?_r=2&

Let me guess, you have never met anyone who, after they were forced into retirement because they were old, had no idea what to do with themselves. Am I supposed to accept Dante's version of reality simply because it comes from Dante?

The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice (TDI) is an organization within Dartmouth College "dedicated to improving health care through education, research, policy reform, leadership improvement, and communication with patients and the public."[1] It was founded in 1988 by John Wennberg

Lowering Medicare Costs

"Americans have assumed that the fact that we spend so much more on health care than any other country stands as proof that we have the best health-care system in the world. But over the past 20 years, work done by Dartmouth’s Wennberg and Elliott Fisher has forced U.S. health care leaders to acknowledge that this simply isn’t true."[5]

The potential savings under such an ideal arrangement are immense. If every Medicare provider in the country spent at the same rate as the lowest 10% of providers in the program, overall costs would be slashed by 30%. That alone is enough to pay for the elusive Medicare drug benefit. Additional savings might well accrue if we could implement shared decision-making, reduce underuse of preventive services, and reduce medical errors.[3]

John Wennberg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Your sources and their position and agenda

They agree with the Dante, so that proves they are wrong.

Gotta love that argument.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Toro dodged the question. Please, everyone, take notice that he cannot defend his position.

I might be wrong, but I am pretty sure that Toro has never said we should privatize SS. What he did do was counter your argument that investing the Trust Fund in stocks would mean no one could retire.

 

[Toro]

Toro dodged the question. Please, everyone, take notice that he cannot defend his position.

I did defend it. You just don't understand it.

 

[Toro]

Toro dodged the question. Please, everyone, take notice that he cannot defend his position.

I might be wrong, but I am pretty sure that Toro has never said we should privatize SS. What he did do was counter your argument that investing the Trust Fund in stocks would mean no one could retire.

If that's the argument he's making, it is beyond idiotic. I mean, it's really, really stupid.

I do agree that not everyone - in fact, most people - are not informed enough to run their own investment program. So most people should stay invested in the fund. But those who want to invest their SS savings should be allowed to do so.

However, there are thousands of pension plans across the country, and I cannot think of a single one which invests solely in government bonds. Why? Because its an extraordinarily bad idea because returns are the lowest one can receive over the long run.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

I knew it was bad..

Yeah, and you probably knew Obamacare would be ruled unconstitutional and Romney/Ryan would win the 2012 Presidential election.

The lesson here is be vewy, vewy carefuew of trying to be a wascawy wabbit...because when you do and you fail you inevitably come across like Elmer Fudd
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your linked article is co-wrtiten by: "Samir S. Soneji, a demographer, is an assistant professor at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice."

These people are very academic-minded and clueless {soooo progressive (right or left doesn't matter)} as to seriously suggest retirement as a cause of premature death?

They give options to protect Social Security...so the alarm is as it always is...how bad things would get if n-o-t-h-i-n-g is done, which of course is a straw man poistion

Any fix will meet with outrage by you and right wingers just as Health Care Insurance in 2008 was supposed to be so bad it needed fixing or else {'the end!'} , once a remedy was attempted the shrill and angry haters came out of the woodwork

---

To save Social Security, which has lifted generations of elderly people out of poverty, tough choices have to be made. One option is to continue raising the retirement age, perhaps to as high as 69 or 70. While the full retirement age is gradually increasing to 67 (for people born in 1960 or later) from 65, this increase is not enough to counterbalance the gains in longevity.

A second option is to increase payroll taxes, for example by taxing wages over $113,700, the current earnings limit. A third is to limit the annual cost-of-living adjustments, possibly by changing how those adjustments are calculated. A fourth is to reduce benefits — for example, by lowering the initial benefits for workers whose lifetime wages are above the national average (currently $43,000 a year). Other choices, in numerous combinations, are possible, too.

One factor that might be considered is new research suggesting that retirement itself, although popular, may reduce life expectancy by breaking lifelong routines and disrupting deep social connections. One might question how much government policy should actively encourage retirement, as opposed to merely making it an option.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/opinion/sunday/social-security-its-worse-than-you-think.html?_r=2&

The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice (TDI) is an organization within Dartmouth College "dedicated to improving health care through education, research, policy reform, leadership improvement, and communication with patients and the public."[1] It was founded in 1988 by John Wennberg

Lowering Medicare Costs

"Americans have assumed that the fact that we spend so much more on health care than any other country stands as proof that we have the best health-care system in the world. But over the past 20 years, work done by Dartmouth’s Wennberg and Elliott Fisher has forced U.S. health care leaders to acknowledge that this simply isn’t true."[5]

The potential savings under such an ideal arrangement are immense. If every Medicare provider in the country spent at the same rate as the lowest 10% of providers in the program, overall costs would be slashed by 30%. That alone is enough to pay for the elusive Medicare drug benefit. Additional savings might well accrue if we could implement shared decision-making, reduce underuse of preventive services, and reduce medical errors.[3]

John Wennberg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Your sources and their position and agenda

Quantumwindddddddddd again misreads a post. Her forcepted abortion of this post in a previous reply is hilarious

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

I do agree that not everyone - in fact, most people - are not informed enough to run their own investment program. So most people should stay invested in the fund. But those who want to invest their SS savings should be allowed to do so.

However, there are thousands of pension plans across the country, and I cannot think of a single one which invests solely in government bonds. Why? Because its an extraordinarily bad idea because returns are the lowest one can receive over the long run.

Individuals already do thin k they are qualified to make their own investments with their own money, for retirement. They do this in addition to social security. Instituting a two tiered SS program where some people get to opt out and some stay in is a recipe for disaster on a scale not seen since...the days before social security.

Why was Social Security enacted? what was the condition of retirees, the elderly and handicapped before SS? Most discussions of reforming SS in the way you are doing demand you take SS out of a full context of pre-social security America

The Social Security program is a safety net program not meant to be a risky investment looking for larger returns. The safety of the investment is of utmost importance...not the rate of return mixed with higher risk

 

[JakeStarkey]

Toro does not understand the discussion is the problem, Dante.

 

[Toro]

I do agree that not everyone - in fact, most people - are not informed enough to run their own investment program. So most people should stay invested in the fund. But those who want to invest their SS savings should be allowed to do so.

However, there are thousands of pension plans across the country, and I cannot think of a single one which invests solely in government bonds. Why? Because its an extraordinarily bad idea because returns are the lowest one can receive over the long run.

Individuals already do thin k they are qualified to make their own investments with their own money, for retirement. They do this in addition to social security. Instituting a two tiered SS program where some people get to opt out and some stay in is a recipe for disaster on a scale not seen since...the days before social security.

Why was Social Security enacted? what was the condition of retirees, the elderly and handicapped before SS? Most discussions of reforming SS in the way you are doing demand you take SS out of a full context of pre-social security America

The Social Security program is a safety net program not meant to be a risky investment looking for larger returns. The safety of the investment is of utmost importance...not the rate of return mixed with higher risk

As I mentioned earlier, government bonds aren't always "safe." Currently, the real value of the SS trusts is being eroded because the implied rate of return is at or below the rate of inflation. IOW, your savings are being destroyed.

That SS was created for one reason does not mean it can never, ever evolve. Society has evolved in most ways since 1939. Our savings should too.

Also, there is a real financial problem this country is facing. It's simple math. Entitlements are growing faster than the economy. This will eat up more resources, and facilitate an increasing transfer of wealth from the young to the old. The truth is, people have not contributed enough to the trusts to keep them fully funded. They must be fixed. And the easiest way is to stop treating them like an anachronism. Every single other saving scheme in America does not invest this way, including the ones for employees that can opt out of SS.

Finally, more socialistic countries such as Canada and Norway have moved towards a modern pension system because they understand the unrelenting logic that will eventually burden if not destroy the entitlement system in the future.

 

[Toro]

Toro does not understand the discussion is the problem, Dante.

I don't know why I ever try to talk to you.

Maybe I shouldn't from now on.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

I do agree that not everyone - in fact, most people - are not informed enough to run their own investment program. So most people should stay invested in the fund. But those who want to invest their SS savings should be allowed to do so.

However, there are thousands of pension plans across the country, and I cannot think of a single one which invests solely in government bonds. Why? Because its an extraordinarily bad idea because returns are the lowest one can receive over the long run.

Individuals already do thin k they are qualified to make their own investments with their own money, for retirement. They do this in addition to social security. Instituting a two tiered SS program where some people get to opt out and some stay in is a recipe for disaster on a scale not seen since...the days before social security.

Why was Social Security enacted? what was the condition of retirees, the elderly and handicapped before SS? Most discussions of reforming SS in the way you are doing demand you take SS out of a full context of pre-social security America

The Social Security program is a safety net program not meant to be a risky investment looking for larger returns. The safety of the investment is of utmost importance...not the rate of return mixed with higher risk

As I mentioned earlier, government bonds aren't always "safe." Currently, the real value of the SS trusts is being eroded because the implied rate of return is at or below the rate of inflation. IOW, your savings are being destroyed.

That SS was created for one reason does not mean it can never, ever evolve. Society has evolved in most ways since 1939. Our savings should too.

Also, there is a real financial problem this country is facing. It's simple math. Entitlements are growing faster than the economy. This will eat up more resources, and facilitate an increasing transfer of wealth from the young to the old. The truth is, people have not contributed enough to the trusts to keep them fully funded. They must be fixed. And the easiest way is to stop treating them like an anachronism. Every single other saving scheme in America does not invest this way, including the ones for employees that can opt out of SS.

Finally, more socialistic countries such as Canada and Norway have moved towards a modern pension system because they understand the unrelenting logic that will eventually burden if not destroy the entitlement system in the future.

SS is NOT our savings,...it is a safety net program. The SS program and inflation? Why focus so intensely on that? Because it brings you back to a rate of return and risk strategy.

All the studies say SS is in trouble -- if nothing is done. Who is proposing doing nothing?

Moving towards a more modern investment system to s-e-c-u-r-e SS is a worthy and wise goal...but your words and understanding of the larger issues is lacking where you need to make a case.

You are probably being misunderstood (and misunderstand yourself), because of language in a day and age where words have been focused grouped and tweaked for partisan purposes over real and true civil debate with concerns for what is better for retirees as opposed to what is better for the 'markets'

the right wing managers and some progressives are in the tank like they were with Medicare Part-D and parts of Obamacare...where making money is the key to support for a particular program or fix

 

[Toro]

Individuals already do thin k they are qualified to make their own investments with their own money, for retirement. They do this in addition to social security. Instituting a two tiered SS program where some people get to opt out and some stay in is a recipe for disaster on a scale not seen since...the days before social security.

Why was Social Security enacted? what was the condition of retirees, the elderly and handicapped before SS? Most discussions of reforming SS in the way you are doing demand you take SS out of a full context of pre-social security America

The Social Security program is a safety net program not meant to be a risky investment looking for larger returns. The safety of the investment is of utmost importance...not the rate of return mixed with higher risk

As I mentioned earlier, government bonds aren't always "safe." Currently, the real value of the SS trusts is being eroded because the implied rate of return is at or below the rate of inflation. IOW, your savings are being destroyed.

That SS was created for one reason does not mean it can never, ever evolve. Society has evolved in most ways since 1939. Our savings should too.

Also, there is a real financial problem this country is facing. It's simple math. Entitlements are growing faster than the economy. This will eat up more resources, and facilitate an increasing transfer of wealth from the young to the old. The truth is, people have not contributed enough to the trusts to keep them fully funded. They must be fixed. And the easiest way is to stop treating them like an anachronism. Every single other saving scheme in America does not invest this way, including the ones for employees that can opt out of SS.

Finally, more socialistic countries such as Canada and Norway have moved towards a modern pension system because they understand the unrelenting logic that will eventually burden if not destroy the entitlement system in the future.

SS is NOT our savings,...it is a safety net program. The SS program and inflation? Why focus so intensely on that? Because it brings you back to a rate of return and risk strategy.

All the studies say SS is in trouble -- if nothing is done. Who is proposing doing nothing?

Moving towards a more modern investment system to s-e-c-u-r-e SS is a worthy and wise goal...but your words and understanding of the larger issues is lacking where you need to make a case.

You are probably being misunderstood (and misunderstand yourself), because of language in a day and age where words have been focused grouped and tweaked for partisan purposes over real and true civil debate with concerns for what is better for retirees as opposed to what is better for the 'markets'

the right wing managers and some progressives are in the tank like they were with Medicare Part-D and parts of Obamacare...where making money is the key to support for a particular program or fix

I've spent most of my career around pension plans, including government plans. I understand this issue intently.

SS is a savings mechanism. That's what a "safety net" means. The government takes a portion of your earnings and "saves" it for you. Your SS number is debited an amount equal to your FICA tax then is debited an amount over time that equals an implied return to government bonds. It works in principle exactly as if you took the money yourself and invested that amount in government bonds. Then, when you retire, your account is credited with distributions over time. Actuaries make assumptions about your life span, and balances are supposed to even out between individuals in the trusts who live for different time periods. The OASI and Medicare and Medicaid trusts work exactly like a private defined benefit plan that invests 100% in Treasury bills, notes and bonds.