Posted on 08/18/2009 10:21:19 AM PDT by Lorianne
The debate over health care has captured everyone's attention, but it appears the next big government program that needs to be addressed will be Social Security. That's the focus of the July 30 article "The next great bailout: Social Security" by Allan Sloan, Fortune's senior editor at large.
Those who've been paying attention have long known there is no money in the Social Security Trust Fund -- it's all been spent. Thus, former Vice President Al Gore's famous assessment that Social Security receipts should be placed in a "lockbox" was actually correct.
Given that so few people really understand the Ponzi nature of the current Social Security financing scheme -- created in 1983 by a commission chaired by none other than the world's greatest serial blower of bubbles, Alan Greenspan -- I decided to reprise Sloan's article. (The Social Security problem is especially important because it likely will put additional pressure on the dollar and on bonds, and exacerbate the funding crisis down the road.)
The story begins: "In Washington these days, the only topics of discussion seem to be how many trillions to throw at health care and the recession, and whom on Wall Street to pillory next. But watch out. Lurking just below the surface is a bailout candidate that may soon emerge like the great white shark in 'Jaws': Social Security.
"Perhaps as early as this year, Social Security, at $680 billion the nation's biggest social program, will be transformed from an operation that's helped finance the rest of the government for 25 years into a cash drain that will need money from the Treasury. In other words, a bailout."
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.moneycentral.msn.com ...
Deport illegals and no amnesty. Baby boomers are going to find Soc Security bankrupt. These “bailouts” will end upo to the insolvency of the country.
No “bailouts” are necessary. Simply pay back what they have taken (stolen) from Social Security and do it now. It has become just another tax system under a different name.
Just add up all the money Obama has promised. I bet it exceeds the Gross Global Product for the next ten years. Social Security needs to be ‘fixed’ and certain presidential candidates even tried to make it happen
The democrats insanely deny there is a social security crisis.
This, and Medicare, which is also due to go broke very soon, are the main causes for the Dims’ panic at the idea that their plans for government run health care will not be passed this year.
Years ago I said that we, the Baby Boomers, would get our Social Security as promised but by that time, we would all be using hyper inflated dollar bills for toilet paper.
Well, the day is just around the corner it would appear.
These are not two different issues. The "health care reform" proposed by Congress contained those end-of-life provisions specifically because euthanizing the elderly is seen as the best way to "address" Social Security.
“there is no money in the Social Security Trust Fund — it’s all been spent.”
Our life savings have been watched over by financial wolves.
I’ve been thinking that’s why there is this hard push for obama’s death care bill for a while now.
Below is a response I made to a post last week:
The more obama and his thugacrats push his health care plan the more it looks like death care to me. And I’m beginning to think they see some of us as being worth more dead then alive.
Baby boomers are ready to go on social security by the millions. But our moneys not there! They blew through our social security savings and wouldn’t let President Bush do anything to try to fix the problem. But if you can force us all under gov. controlled health care, let our illness’s kill us off by refusing to pay for our care, then you don’t have to worry about paying us our social security savings do you? So baby boomers become worth more dead then alive!
Why else would they turn against the public like they have? Why else would they push so hard to try to shove this death care down our necks?
And the only suckers for more Gov't are those at the Tweet or never took an accounting course.
THe Dem's must have s streak in their undies that almost 50% of the public knows the truth and won't stand for their latest shell game of something for nothing....
How would this even be done? Have the Mint print up some $1,000,000 bills and sell them to the Social Security administration, which would then lock them up in Ft. Knox?
THE OLD AGE PENSION CHECK
Roy Acuff & His Smoky Mountain Boys - 1939
When our old age pension check comes to our door,
We won’t have to dread the poor house anymore.
Though we’re old and thin and gray,
Good times will be back to stay,
When our old age pension check comes to our door.
When her old age pension check comes to her door,
Dear old grandma won’t be lonesome any more.
She’ll be waiting at the gate,
Every night she’ll have a date,
When her old age pension check comes to her door.
Grow a flowing long white beard and use a cane,
‘Cause you’re in your second childhood, don’t complain.
Life will just begin at sixty,
We’ll all feel very frisky,
When our old age pension check comes to our door.
Powder and paint will be abolished on that day,
And hoop skirts will then be brought back into play.
Painted cheeks will be the rage,
And old maids will tell their age,
When their old age pension check comes to their door.
All the drug stores will go bankrupt on that day,
For cosmetics, they will all be put away.
I’ll put a flapper on the shelf,
Get a grandma for myself,
When her old age pension check comes to her door.
There’s a man that turned this country upside-down
With his old age pension rumor going ‘round.
If you want in on the fun,
Send your dime to Washington,
And that old age pension man will be around.
The Dems invented social security. They are the ones who have been falsely telling the American people for 70 years that it is a safe place to put your money and a good investment. They are the ones who have been telling us that if you invest in private accounts then you’re taking a risk that you won’t have with social security. The are the ones who have been demagoguing the everytime the GOP has tried to inject some sanity into the system. This is a problem that the Dems created and now it looks like the Dems are going to break the sacred promise of social security and medicare.
I agree. But, why are people paying into SS for only one person, then upon retirement age 2 people take out funds, even though only one has donated to the fund. I think that if a person is married and working and has a spouse that isn’t, SS should be taken out for both. Why should others pay for another person’s spouse’s benefits, Much money would be saved.
I agree. But, why are people paying into SS for only one person, then upon retirement age 2 people take out funds, even though only one has donated to the fund. I think that if a person is married and working and has a spouse that isn’t, SS should be taken out for both. Why should others pay for another person’s spouse’s benefits, Much money would be saved.
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
SS revenue’s are declining along with payrolls. The money flow is drying up and will speed the colapse.
At the same time, congress is going to propose giving more SS money away to illegals with amnesity.
We need to stand up for our rights and fight this thing.
That’s why the baby boomers have to go. Let’s jail our Congress. No pensions and make them pay back every dime they stole.
Nam Vet
Really good article linked within the MSN article:
Social Security: The Next Great Bailout
http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/29/news/economy/fixing_social_security.fortune/index.htm
parsy, who is not surprised
The baby boomers have shouldered the majority of the payments into social security over their lives. They have received almost nothing for all those contributions. What do you mean by "the baby boomers have to go"? Would you deny them collection of benefits after a lifetime of contributions? Are they not entitled to collect what they have paid into their "account"? It's not their fault that the corrupt politicians stole the money.
I think you misunderstood my comment. I know the baby boomers well since I am one.
We are the largest group ever to take SS.
Just give it all back to me in the form of a tax deduction and we’ll call it even, no need to pay me later.
Lets get Social Security straightened out FIRST, then Medicare before we tackle anything like healthcare. I swear the answer is to kill all the lawyers as Shakespeare expoused and execute all the cheaters.
There ya go! an actual stimulus plan.
Mr. Bernie Madoff
paging Mr. Bernie Madoff
please pick up the white courtesy telephone
President Baraq Obama is asking you to become Social Sec Czar.
fun to see this
how many others like me are going from 40 yrs of paying the maximum SS tax to paying zippo and collecting benefits?
and I guarantee there’s nobody at my company that they hired to replace me to replace my tax paid.
and boys and girls.....despite what AARP tells you....the “trust fund” really doesn’t contain hundreds of billions
'You !#%^@$ed up, you trusted them.'
It's not the Madoff suckers fault the money was stolen ether. In any case it's gone.
Unfunded liabilities
Medicare/msdicaid $39.6 Trillion
Social sec $10.7 Trillion
Prescription drugs $8.6 Tillion
We’re so screwed
I guess this means I am not going to get my socialized security check from the imperial socialist commies in Moscow, DC in a couple of years.
How would this even be done? Have the Mint print up some $1,000,000 bills and sell them to the Social Security administration, which would then lock them up in Ft. Knox?former Vice President Al Gore's famous assessment that Social Security receipts should be placed in a "lockbox" was actually correct.
That "lockbox" concept is precisely what got Social Security in the trouble in the first place. Because there is no difference between printing billion-dollar bills and printing billion-dollar government IOUs. Dollars are US government debt.The problem is not that the government can't print billion dollar bills any time it so chooses. The problem is that those bills are government debt. That isn't a problem as long as the government just prints the dollars and locks them up in Ft. Knox, and that is precisely what all those T-bills in the Social Security Trust Fund amount to. But that is no different than if you or I wrote an IOU for a trillion dollars, and kept it in a safe somewhere - it is a moot exercise. If the government actually puts those notes on the market, the bluff will be called. And increasing government debt weakens the government's credit rating - and the government's credit rating is the only thing that sustains the value of the dollar and prevents hyperinflation.
All of which is the long way of saying that the "Social Security Trust Fund" is nothing more than a claim on the Treasury, and when the cash flow of Social Security turns negative the Treasury will perforce have to print, and put into circulation, the dollars to cover the shortfall. And when the dollar supply increases as fast as that process implies, the value of the dollar will sink like a stone. At that point, Democrats will be talking about "wage and price controls" in an attempt to censor that information. Shortages and precipitous drops in quality will immediately ensue.
And it will be cold comfort when we conservatives say, "I told you so."
Solution:
End prescription drug benefit.
Mandate anyone using Medicare/Medicaid to follow a fitness program. Failure to comply ends enrollment in it... ie: get yer own d@mn insurance now! (and allow hospitals to refuse treatment to anyone without either insurance or a means to pay)
Increase *LEGAL* immigration rates for skilled labor, ie: those with college/professional degrees. The more of them around, the more people with better paying jobs to tax.
Lastly, charge illegals for all government services used and then deport them. If they fail to pay, seize their funds.
I think it exceeds the Gross Galactical Product of the next 10 years.
“End prescription drug benefit”
I’m good with that.
“Mandate anyone using Medicare/Medicaid to follow a fitness program. Failure to comply ends enrollment in it... ie: get yer own d@mn insurance now! (and allow hospitals to refuse treatment to anyone without either insurance or a means to pay)”
If they want to reimburse me plus interest for everything I and my employers paid in in my name then I’m fine with cancellation.
Mandatory fitness regimes is another thing entirely. The gov’t doesn’t have the right to mandate how I spend my retirement. They are headed down a road of determining every aspect of our lives because of “the cost it imposes on society”. Red meat,gone...snack foods, gone...alcohol, gone.....You name it and they will decide.
The no treatment in hospital is fine if it is across the board but don’t make me insure someone else and then deny me.
This is just like an insurance company mandating the use of certain doctors or medical centers. If you don't follow their 'suggestions', they don't pay out.
And it's be the same here. You wouldn't be forced to do the PT, but it you didn't... you'd be dropped from Medicare/Medicaid. And with hospitals no longer required to provide service to those without insurance or a means to pay, well...
““Mandate anyone using Medicare/Medicaid to follow a fitness program. Failure to comply ends enrollment in it... ie: get yer own d@mn insurance now! (and allow hospitals to refuse treatment to anyone without either insurance or a means to pay)”
Please keep in mind that they not me Mandated my particapation in this. So it is my own “d@mn insurance”.
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