Social Security: It's worse than you think

[Toro]

It should be noted that some government workers opt out of SS and contribute to their own pension systems, which invest in stocks.

So the idea that SS is meant to be a safety net for everyone really doesn't hold.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

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
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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

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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

Dante trolls again.

 

[JakeStarkey]

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.

Not it is not, period. No matter how much you want to redefine terms, the terms themselves still remain the same. Please stop torturing us with the nonsense.