Posted on 08/29/2011 10:26:14 AM PDT by TruConservative
At times I find myself out of sync with my fellow Americans. All during the 1980s I was wondering what the heck was up with disco. Today my disconnect concerns social security. Why the heck do so many Americans seem to hate the wisest program our government has ever developed, a program that we all benefit from in a direct and considerable manner? And why do people think it is a “ponzi scheme,” on the verge of “bankruptcy,” or worse, a form of “socialism” that would offend the founding fathers?
...In rough numbers, every paycheck below a cumulative total of $100,000 for the year, has 6% diverted to social security. Employers match this amount. The money streams into Washington, but it doesn’t stay there. It quickly goes to those over the age of 65 in proportion to how much they contributed from their paychecks over their working lives. The government involvement is less than 1% overhead to cover record keeping. The fairness comes from the anticipation of the worker that he, in turn, will receive this benefit in his retirement.
...The lowest quartile (who have almost no savings or pensions) get a full 83% of their income from social security!
...Social security is rock solid. Being based on worker incomes, it is independent of the stock market. So long as there are people earning money, social security earns money.
And then there is inflation. Social security income increases with inflation in a very secure manner. If worker salaries go up 10% due to inflation, so does the income for social security (since it is a fixed percentage).
(Excerpt) Read more at democracyforums.com ...
That's the problem.
This Ponzi scheme should have been destroyed a long time ago.
I don’t think many people think of Social Security to be a very suitable retirement in the overall scheme of things. They more or less tolerated it not counting on it being the be all end all when they retired.
I’ve know the Social Security system was a fraud from the later years of high school, over 40 years ago.
Our leaders knew it, both Republican and Democrat. Everyone said they understood the government plan was severely flawed. Another-words they agreed with us saying so every few years along the way.
Here’s your chance. We’ll see how effectively you get things changed.
Perhaps you will get it changed, but my take is that the replacement will be every bit as big an inadequate fraud as this current system is.
I’ve been paying in since high school. I don’t want to see a dime of it back or have to pay any more into it. And quite with the “care for the elderly” angle - they should have put something aside before then or they can try to survive on charity.
Well, I guess I’m the only person who who thinks this, but I’ll respond just to prove that I read responses and consider them. I can take it.
SS is not capitalism, nor socialism; it is not a Ponzi scheme; it does not depend on investment or savings. It is an uniquely American solution born out of our historic tradition of neighbors helping neighbors. It is in the tradition of American homesteading and barn-building and great projects that made us a great nation. It is that everyone with a paycheck puts money into a pot; and everyone post-working life gets to draw money out of that pot.
The nearest analogy I can come up with is that it is like a group of people at your work getting together to buy lotto tickets. The more people who join in, the greater the odds of wining, but the smaller the personal take. Only in SS, it is everyone (who has a job) in the country joining in, the odds of wining are 100%, and the take is very modest.
I think the biggest valid complaint is that it is mandatory - but it is not! (No, I don’t mean that you don’t have to have a job if you don’t want to.) It is a program created by politicians elected by us. If you really want to end SS, you can end it like we ended prohibition. We have the constitutionally-provided ability to end SS if enough voters agree. In the meantime, it is no different than all the other laws we abide by. Yes, it is a limit on our freedom that we can’t walk naked down the street, can’t swear whole-heartedly in a public place, and have to have a license to drive a car, have to contribute to SS, and a host of other agreed upon things that we are stuck with until we the voters change it.
But it’s not a bad deal!!! It is not as good as investment with perfect hindsight, but it turns out to have been a lot better than buying stock in Enron or Lehrman brothers! And it solves the problem of devastating retirement poverty that existed in 1935 so completely that we’ve forgotten all about that problem. Now that’s a successful program - one whose success has been so complete that we forget the reason for it.
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