Posted on 02/07/2011 9:06:51 AM PST by Route797
Americans have been used, strung along, ripped off, manipulated and frightened for decades by runaway gangs of power-mongering, deceptive politicians.
I give you Social Security. As usual, it is the exact opposite of what we have been told. This classic Ponzi scheme is anti-social and insecure.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt created Social Security 75 years ago. As with many other Fedzilla programs, Americans got suckered into believing Social Security was a healthy, wealthy and wise program.
Social Security is bloated, broke and busted. FDR’s New Deal turned out to be the Rip-off Deal.
There is an IOU for $2.5 trillion in the Social Security trust fund. Our elected bandits stole all the Social Security taxes collected over the years and spent it on who knows what.
The Congressional Budget Office recently stated that Social Security will pay out $45 billion more this year than what it takes in. Deficits such as this are projected until Social Security rolls over and goes completely belly-up 25 years from now.
The only way to truly reform Social Security is to sink it. Settling for anything less than the total destruction of this financial sinkhole would be perpetuating the problem and allowing Fedzilla to continue to pick the pockets of future generations of Americans.
We must have the guts and national resolve to remove the crushing tax burden of this Ponzi scheme from the backs of future Americans. Only Fedzilla and Bernard Madoff think robbing Peter to pay Paul is good business.
Eliminating Social Security isn’t our Sputnik moment. It’s our sink-the-Bismarck moment.
We can’t sink it today, but we can begin planning today how to sink it.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Hey Ted has a head with some smarts. The Motor City Madman is a good one to have on our side.
I don’t think Tonya pooped her pants to avoid the draft.
The Democrats will soon hate it because it is no longer a cash cow. The money they have to pay over what they collect from now on takes away from the pot they can redistribute.
Details please.
They can just send me a check for what I’ve contributed since 1961, plus market rate interest compounded, and I’ll gladly forgo the monthly stipend.
Nugent is one of many who are RIGHT. Something has to be done about SS. It’s a lie, it’s broke, and it is going to hamstring our kids and grandkids. It surprises the hell out of me that even in HERE, where most of the posters are a damn sight smarter than your average Kos poster, most still buy the lie about SS. We have to get smart about this or bankrupt our kids.
SS1
No way does any politician have the guts to privatize this, means test it, and everything else that needs to be done.
Yes, you are correct and some in here claim that it is an entitlement. Boomers have paid heavily into a program that they had no choice, forced into paying, and in some cases paying the top rate every damn year... Welfare is an entitlement, food stamps are an entitlement. SS for retirement is NOT. It is bought and paid for!
I would do the same thing, accept every penny that my husband and I have paid in and gladly invest it on our own to stay off and away any govt program. Until the govt agrees to that...pony up! I want my money and electric scooter!
Sometimes a “safety net”...is a trap.
Could you clarify what the hell you’re talking about?
>Yes, you are correct and some in here claim that it is an entitlement.
If you think that Social Security is not an entitlement, then you have no idea of the definition of entitlement.
With a $45 billion ONE year ongoing deficit, NObama lowers the SS payments from employees down to 4.2% from 6.2%.
It is already in the red on an annual basis & this move will put it further into the red.
Each & every Congress is & was complicit in taking money out of the SS fund & spending it elsewhere.
Long-timers like Dirty Harry Reid should be punished accordingly.
Can you tell me how much money welfare recipients have paid into that system?
Free school lunches??
WIC??
Section 8 housing??
Food stamps?
I have paid into Soc Sec since 1955. I didn’t have a choice. I was forced to do such. My employers were forced to match those ‘donations’. Since I was self-employed for over 30 years, I paid the ENTIRE amount myself!! Tell me again that this is an ‘entitlement!!!
Was I supposed to die early so I could only be a person who paid into the system & never got the withdrawal???
What have YOU paid into the Soc Sec system in your years here in the USA?
“Sometimes a “safety net”...is a trap.”
Sort of like the Roach Motel: people check their money in all during their working years, but may never get it out once the system goes belly-up.
The dirty little secret about SS is that it used to be a “good deal” with lifetime benefits exceeding lifetime taxes for the average beneficiary (of course, that’s also what started the system down the road to fiscal instability).
Moreover, that no longer is true. A man who retires in 2010 who earned an average wage will have paid $290K into SS, but will only get back $256K in lifetime benefits. By 2030, lifetime taxes will exceed lifetime benefits by $74,000. http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/social-security-medicare-benefits-over-lifetime.pdf
When Bernie Madoff does this, it’s called a Ponzi scheme. When the Feds do it, it’s business as usual.
I paid a lot more than that.
I've been been working full-time for 30 years, including about 6 years of part-time work before that, I've paid over $700,000 into Social Security.
A clarification: that includes the employer contributions, plus the actual interest that was being paid on the longest-term Treasury bonds during that period. I chose this interest-rate benchmark because that's what the SS "trust fund" is supposed to be invested in.
I made the (conservative) assumption that my contributions for each year were invested at the end of the year, at the average long-term rate that Treasury bonds were sold at auction that year. And each year, the interest earned from all the bonds was reinvested into the same Treasury bond with my contributions for that year -- so, there's no false compounding.
Looking out to when I actually plan to stop working, and when I plan to start receiving Social Security benefits, I would have over $1.8 million. And no, that's not a typo.
Again, taking the time value of money into account, I'd have to live until 110 to "break even" -- i.e. receive a stream of payments that are equal in value to the balance I would have had if I had invested the money in long-term Treasury bonds myself.
BTW, that's if I wait until age 70 to start receiving benefits. If I start at my "full retirement age" a few years earlier, I'd have to to live to 122.
Tonya joined other knee-breakers in Chicago, but found her assault skills a little lacking when she wasn’t backed up by her ex and two other thugs.
Laid off from the knee-breakers, she’s now collecting unemployment and SSI.
/sarcasm
Tonya Harding is a despicable pig who, short on skating talent, had her ex and two other worthless creeps attempt to cripple a competing skater. I wouldn’t urinate on her if she were in flames.
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