Posted on 11/15/2009 4:55:08 PM PST by The Magical Mischief Tour
You still aren’t thinking.
If SS has been running a surplus since its inception, but there’s nothing but IOUs in the piggy bank...then OBVIOUSLY it’s quite a bit more than a scam to transfer wealth from youngsters to old people, isn’t it??!?!
Think some more.
“I’d settle for them returning all the money I’ve dumped into Social Security over my last 20 years.”
I’m 38 and I’ve been paying in for almost 25 years. I will do you one better and let them keep my money if they will let me and my employer out now.
This goes to a few others as well. This is starting to become a real point of contention for me on FR. Gen X-ers are not the bunch of slackers that you seem to think they are. I’m 38, a classic Gen-Xer. Let me tell you something. I’ve worked hard my whole life, since I was 13 years old delivering newspapers. Then I worked as a bagger in a grocery store that was so busy you had to raise your hand and ask for a bathroom break (usually denied). My parents never pampered or spoiled us for a minute. I’ve never been unemployed in my life. My wife takes care of our three boys and I bust my ass, picking up extra work whenever I can to make ends meet. I have to do so because of the punishing taxes which are being taken from me to fund the retirements of others. And guess what? When I reach “retirement age” that money will be gone.
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See, that right there is bullshit, and it's the first line of this whine. Cream rises. When I was younger I advanced over older guys and when I was older I worked for younger guys. I repeat...cream rises.
Your post refers mostly to Gen Y - don’t lump us Gen Xers in with them. Most Gen Xers don’t have boomer parents. Our parents were depression and WWII babies. That was a particularly small generation, which is why Gen X is also a small generation. They also taught us, by and large, to be more self-reliant than the boomers taught their children to be, since the idea of wealth redistribution as a good thing really caught on with the boomers.
The good-for-nothing boomers spawned the smug little jerks known as Gen Y who don’t read, won’t write, still have Mommy doing their homework for them while in college, bring a parent to job interviews with them, and expect to earn $100K fresh out of school.
I say this last part with some authority as I’m tenure-track college professor currently teaching Gen Y/Millenials and I’ve seen these things first-hand. Oh, and before you call me a lazy Gen X college professor who likes to have her summers off, it’s one of the four paying jobs I work in order to pay off my student loans and get ahead while the governement takes more and more of the profits from my work.
No. All “surplus” means is that one revenue stream (payroll taxes) was once enough to pay retirees receiving SS and Medicare and to provide revenue for other government boondoggles. Now the payroll tax is insufficient, so now general revenues and deficit spending are needed to transfer money to retires.
SS was always a wealth transfer scheme. It was never “insurance” or actuarially based. This was pointed out when it was adopted, and there is a vast conservative literature pointing out that how words and phrases like “trust fund”, “surplus”, “old age insurance” are just cynical misuses of words to mislead the public.
SS is not “insurance”, there is no “trust fund” (the IOUs aren’t backed by anything other than a willingness to tax the daylights out of working people for the benefit of geezers, which means that it is no different from any other statutory income transfer program.), and nobody has an “account”.
Why not? You seem to enjoy toying with those that work for you until you get tired of them and fake up some reason to get them fired.. rather surprised they aren’t on to your pattern there yet.
Amen, brother.. the boomers (with very few exceptions) are the most self-indulgent group of whiners and children.. racing to their ultimate end to see who winds up with the most toys
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