Posted on 10/18/2009 4:35:09 AM PDT by Kaslin
When inflation hits, every dollar in your bank account is worth less each day. Deflation is just the opposite: You put your feet up and watch your money grow in value. The latter is what is happening now to America's seniors. And politicians think they should not have to stand for it.
The other day, the federal government announced that for the first time since cost-of-living adjustments were begun in 1975, Social Security recipients will not get an annual raise in their monthly checks. This decision is not the result of a fit of fiscal austerity or a sadistic desire to punish old people. There won't be a raise to offset inflation for the simple reason that there has been no inflation to offset.
Last year, seniors got a big raise because consumer prices had jumped 5.8 percent in one year. In the following 12 months, though, the Consumer Price Index has dropped by 2.1 percent. So in the coming year, Social Security payments will stay the same and be worth more than they used to be.
But so what? Groups representing the elderly, like AARP, have come to regard the annual raise as a sacred birthright in good times as well as bad, and few in Washington want to argue with them. President Obama has proposed giving every Social Security recipient a tax-free $250 bonus in lieu of a cost-of-living adjustment. Congressional Democrats are all for it, and the Republican leadership sounds agreeable.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
What's this? This has been reported month ago
Inflation is the cruelest tax...it is the way government deals with deficits...pay back those to whom it has borrowed money with...cheaper money...it goes farther.
I am putting off retirement for another few years...who knows what my savings will be worth by 2012?
And had been discussed in the New York Times, of all places, as early as April. Whatever. I made too much to get a “stimulus” check last year, and I’m too poor to get one this year. BUT DAMNED IF I AIN’T GONNA PAY FOR ‘EM!!!!
Here is the deal...congress gave itself a cola.... sucks.
No kidding.
I was just talking to my landlord’s mom, who is 85 or so (never worked a day at a paid job in her life, but raised 5 kids...which IS a job) a couple days ago.
She is a widow, collecting SS and Medicare based on her late spouse’s earnings, which is her right, of course. She is a lovely woman in every way. Does an enormous amount of volunteer work.
But just as the article suggests, she views an increase in her SS check as an automatic. As a birthright. Or, as she called it, “a raise.”
I’m not so troubled for the people currently on SS; it’s too late to change that mindset. I’m worried about the message it sends to people my age (north of 40, closer to 50) and what they will feel “entitled” to burden the next generation with.
Especially after seeing this current crop of seniors being catered to.
Funny.
Here in North Texas the cost of cans of soup and other staples have gone up about seven cents since August.
Food is inflating.
Except that a lot of essentials are inflating.
Food for instance.
People in the age bracket you mention (40 to 50) won’t have to worry about whether or not they get their annual COLA’s. SS and the US will be bankrupt by that time. If you want a primer on conditions following a national bankruptcy go back and read the articles about the aged in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It wasn’t pretty.
I hear people my own age wax poetically about when they go on SS. Unreal.
I don’t believe SS will be gone, but I believe it will be radically changed. Because if it’s gone, there’s likely to be a revolution in this country and the politicians can’t risk that.
First off, I think the eligibility age will be raised (which I support, btw). In a big way, say 70 years old.
I also think more higher incomes will be exposed to the FICA tax, which seems almost a no-brainer (even though I don’t like raising taxes).
I also believe there is going to be an element of “means testing” despite the promise it would never happen. It’s inevitable.
Appears to be written by a guy who hasn't darkened the doors of a supermarket for about five years.
And they are the ones who need it least
and that’s the other problem.
We have a gov’t that spits out bad numbers every single day!
Whether it’s unemployment or inflation, the numbers are SKEWED. It’s possible that this is a feature of all administrations, but one cannot rely on a single statistic from this administration.
While it’s true that for now, we aren’t paying $ 4.00 a gallon for gasoline (which seniors use less of, since they often are retired and not commuting) have they been in a grocery store lately?
Sugar is at an alarming high, throughout the world. I just saw an article tonight from the UK, complaining that manufacturers are reducing the sheer amount of product, while keeping prices the same. This very thing is going on in the U.S. now. People are paying more and getting LESS.
I’d love to know what’s in the “basket” that comprises the CPI, because it doesn’t include things I buy, evidently.
I resemble that remark.
Retirement is great. I only wonder why with no COLA this year if I will be able to stay retired? /sarcasm
And if Mr. Obambi thinks a $250.00 bribe is going to get me to ever vote for him ... well lets put it this way I really hope he holds his breath!
re: buy support for their health disaster
Well, as much as I could use the $250 my pride prevents me from selling out so cheaply. I am unalterably opposed to their form of health care reform, period. I might change my mind for $10,000 or so, but I spit in their general direction for the insult of $250!
I have my pride!
I also believe there is going to be an element of “means testing” despite the promise it would never happen. It’s inevitable.
I agree with you, but then they should stop calling it Social Security and start calling it Welfare for Seniors, which it will be if those two criteria are applied. If you can't get back at least a portion of what you put into it, then it's not a mandatory retirement fund at all. It's simply a payroll tax like Medicare.
My wife describes my retirement to our family and friends as “Twice the husband, half the money.” They think she’s just trying to be funny. I know differently!
$250.00 is supposed to be some great panacea, yet when gas prices were high and Republicans proposed suspending the federal gas tax temporarily, which would have saved the average family $8.00/week ($400+/year), Obama pooh-poohed it.
“Appears to be written by a guy who hasn’t darkened the doors of a supermarket for about five years.”
Exactly. The one-pound bag of potato chips is now down to 10 and three-quarter ounces and shrinking, while the price has gone up. Same with chocolate chips. How is it possible to keep my females happy without chocolate? I make up for the shortfall by changing my taste and buying more bourbon and cigars. Not as interesting as potato chips and chocolate, but it gets the job done.
Well many of us, after the market bombed last year, are “half the men we used to be”. But I still find a way to enjoy my retirement. Just don’t do things I thought I might in the process. Some days doing “nothing” is simply fine.
Speaking as a babyboomer who may never see a retirement, how about a $250 cut in my taxes this year?
Ha ha, are you kidding? There’s nothing more the left likes as to raise taxes
I’ll take the $250, but I will not vote for any Rat and that includes him
I'm sure some types are. Others have gone down. Milk and eggs, for instance, have dropped a bunch over the last year. Milk by at least a dollar/gallon.
Chicken and pork prices have also dropped.
Some of this probably has to do with corn prices having dropped by about 50% in the last year.
Medicare is not presently means tested.
You are not a scapegoat, my friend. People like me, FReepers, and Levin are fuming because, while we are not fans of these programs as they were set up, they are the law! It’s CRIMINAL to take money from people for decades in exchange for promised benefits and then, decide to eliminate the benefits! Then refund the money with interest, you rats!
Don’t feel like a welfare patient; I don’t view you that way. You’ve contributed to a poorly thought out system by force of law...that isn’t your fault, for heaven’s sake. We can’t have you going to jail, after all. :)
And you join a long list of grandparents who care for a grandchild. Where are the kudo’s for that. (My b/f is on the south side of Chicago and his teaching partner is an AA lady who cares for 3 grandchildren!).
I’ll bet you’re not useless to your grandson.
And if we have anything to say about it around here, you’re not going to wind up on any “death list.”
(although we might attempt to pry some of the missing great recipes from our childhood from your brain)
heh :)
It’s patently obvious that inflation means one thing to the federal government and quite another to the working families in fly over country. I have never seen a correlation between the inflation numbers released by the feds and what I experience in my day to day life.
As far as I’m concerned absolutely every aspect of the federal government from Congress and the POTUS down to the lowest ranking bureaucrat, is totally out of touch with life in America. Everything they do is designed to feather the beds of themselves and their supporters. If a tiny bit of the tax funds, now borrowed money, ends up benefiting those the law was supposedly passed then it’s just seen as a cost of doing business.
Seniors on SS now, most of them at any rate, didn't ask for SS, it was forced on us, just as it has been forced on you, we paid into it for 48 years or so on the average, so some old guys/gals could get their money, now we expect a payback, just as anyone who has paid into a system for 48 years would expect.
Indeed.
That’s been my point.
I have this theory that markets are increasing their prices on a lot of lower-priced convenience-type items to make up for lagging sales on luxury items.
Have you seen the price of Arugula lately? And with the falling dollar it's getting so expensive to buy the imported European items they must have in order to maintain the integrity of the botox shots in between touch-ups.
I will be the first to condemn SS but you can't just stop it instantly, it needs to be phased out.
Calling people who will take a major hit in 2010 and 2011 on their SS spoiled brats is simply BS.
I shall await your proving that I referred to seniors as “spoiled brats.”
Until you can prove I said that (which I did not) keep in mind that I have one 74 year old parent and one 75 year old parent.
If you had reading comprehension skills, you would note that I’m on YOUR side.
Maybe it’s time for the “home” for you.
I mean, are you a complete moron or what?
I already said that seniors are being screwed over by being trapped into a system they did not design. Did you miss that part?
Did I ever say SS should be ended right this minute?
“Calling people who will take a major hit in 2010 and 2011 on their SS spoiled brats is simply BS.”
I never said that, and don’t put words in my mouth, sparky.
After my father retired he got a part-time job that he loved. My mother told everybody, “I don’t know why they pay him; I would pay them...” ( to get him out of the house)
It's all about entitlement, isn't it ? It is the scourge of our nation.
When I got one last year I remember wondering what I'd done to deserve a raise. I wasn't familiar familiar with COLA raises because we only got performance raises where I worked.
IMHO, if I understand the logic behind a COLA raise, I have to accept the reasoning behind not giving one in a year without inflation.
The thing is, most people of my generation paid into SS for their whole working lives, and we never thought to question it because it was presented to us as "retirement insurance", an annuity that we could depend upon, something that we are entitled to by right of our contributions.
But that ain't really what Social Security is, it's a Ponzi scheme that worked for awhile, but is now threatened by demographic shift, and our grandkids shoulder the burden for keeping it going. I can't, in good conscience, get whiny over not getting a raise.
It was horrible actually. I was in Russia working just after the Ruble was devalued - at the time it was going for RR 5000 to the dollar.
The old folks were devistated. If the US goes theu this, the die off will be historic - as in the history books.
I hear some Repubpukes are supporting it as well. Of course that doesn’t surprise me. Voting for a $250.00 bribe, even if it only works for a few voters seems to be an interesting concept to many politicians and voters in America these days.
OMG Daffy how do you come up with the laughs....GG
I get the notice in January when my birthday is, so I don't pay too much attention to the medicare payments..Like everything else, they go up....
The economic conditions in the country are so bad for those poor people trying to raise a family and no work that is what is sad. Not the seniors.. Medicare is not free, its deducted from the SS check before you get it...
I wonder how many of our young’uns would happily transfer their social security payments directly to their parents, instead of sending it to the .gov?
Might be a way for them to opt out of the system, and many of thier parents would be a whole lot better off financially!
/sarc/ because you will hear some real screeching, since the generational family bond has been broken.
I would rather have my kids (some close to early retirement themselves) and my grandkids be able to take what the government takes out of their paychecks and invest it themselves..for themselves...thats why I don’t take prescription coverage...My grandkids shouldn’t have to buy me my pills.....When it comes to SS you don’t have a choice. you have to fill out the form and they send you the money....You cannot refuse it, but you can give it away after you get it if you want to....
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