Posted on 08/29/2011 12:04:46 PM PDT by tobyhill
Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry continued his attack on Social Security over the weekend, calling it a "Ponzi scheme" and a "monstrous lie" to younger Americans who should not expect to get back their contributions upon retirement.
"It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people. The idea that they're working and paying into Social Security today, that the current program is going to be there for them, is a lie," Perry said, according to the Houston Chronicle.
"It is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can't do that to them," Perry told a crowd a The Vine Coffeehouse in Ottumwa, Iowa.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
He knew he was running when he wrote Fed Up.
The easiest way to do that is to set the SS cost of living adjustment at 1/2% below the wage increase - including allowing an absolute drop if the wage increase for the year is less than 0.5%. Considering the howling from having a 0% COLA for the last two years (primarily because the COLA calculation period in the 3rd quarter of 2008 matched a price spike in food and fuel giving a relatively large COLA of 6% in 2009), just imagine how much worse it will be if the increase is a further 0.5% less each and every year for the next few decades.
Oh, are we not allowed to put comments on this thread? My bad.
I don't know of a single politician from either party who isn't aware that Social Security is in trouble. Or a single one who has offered a plan to solve the problem. Perry is stating the obvious and offering nothing new. Same as everyone else.
You've got it all wrong. I was not criticizing you for posting your proposals, but kind of hoping you were planning on running yourself. At least you're offering some solutions for discussion. It'd be refreshing to have a candidate that does that.
“It may be a ponzi, but until a better solution presents itself...”
There are no doubt many soultions, but here’s one: just stop. I’ll take care of my own retirement, thank you very much. That’s the way it was before the 1930s, and unlike what we’re taught we can go back to the bad old days. We just don’t wanna.
Now, I realize this is an entirely impractical suggestion, would cause a lot of problems—not so much from poor old people dying but moreso from Euro-style mob violence—sounds nutty, and furthermore will never, ever, never, ever, never happen. I’m only saying better solutions have presented themselves. No SS is better than having an SS, even if no one likes it.
“Now once Perry’s critics tell me where they’re going to find that $17.5 trillion...”
Um, investment in infrastructure, green jobs, and semi-permanent childhood, err, I mean student loans.
Sorry SoJo. I was just under siege from a couple of loones at the same time your response came through!
Frankly, I don't think he would have run if Carney and team hadn't gotten disgusted and quit Newt when he went on vacation. Regarding this, someone was quoted as saying, "Rick Perry is the luckiest politician alive."
And Perry credits his wife as a big influence, recently looking him in the eye and telling him he was "too comfortable" and needed to "step up" or words to that effect.
I know what you’re saying. And I know Nita, too. : )
“Not if we keep getting markets like the last decade; not that the decline in the standard of living in this country affords many folks to put back money in that quantity anyway. Face it folks, privatization is dead”
This sort of idiot argument is oddly popular. If privatization is dead, then by definition so is the public system. Where does the government get its money from, anyway? Private enterprise. If the markets aren’t good enough for privatization they’re not good enough for public support, either.
We’re left with balancing the likelihood of the government meeting its SS obligations despite ever-shrinking receipts and ever-increasing spending in other areas, or people supporting themselves, just like they are expected to do in every other field of life that government doesn’t promise to cover.
The demographics say that it is NOT fixable. There just aren't enough new high-wage workers to support us baby-boomers.
Considering how the government keeps adding more folks to the SS dole who never paid in a dime, the problem just keeps getting worse.
What kind of fix did you have in mind? The only 'fix' I've heard folks talking about is to convert it from a minimum retirement plan to a means-tested welfare plan - i.e. stealing from anybody who bothered to save a dime for a retirement above and beyond SS provides.
“So Social Security is a ‘monstrous lie’ for the younger generation...but they’re going to have to continue to plow their money into it anyway?”
Yes, exactly. Isn’t that conventional wisdom?
Well, if you know them personally and have inside information, then I stand corrected. :-)
“This, as well as exported jobs not paying into the system and lock-box robbers”
There was no lock box.
“This, as well as exported jobs not paying into the system and lock-box robbers”
There was no lock box.
You’re buying into “their” argument, namely the classic all or nothing choice, that is no choice at all.
In this instance, it’s the false choice that the ONLY alternative to the current (bankrupt and corrupted) system is to invest in stocks.
Privatization, in reality, means that people are allowed any number of wealth assets - stocks, bonds, real estate, etc. The real key IMO, would be that the accounts be setup similar to a 401k or I.R.A., and allow for ownership versus a claim on future “revenue”.
“The overhead for SS is less than 1%. SS delivers 99 pennies out of every dollar to retirees. That is not a Ponzi scheme; that is a straight-forward, honest way developed by smart people 76 years ago to provide a minimum safety net for retirees without having to rely on savings interest, the stock market or anything else with investment risk.”
You are a dupe. People, not the ones who made decisions carried the day, but people nonetheless—knew 76 years ago it couldn’t work and would eventually collapse, and they were dead, smack, right-on. Neither was it honest, as they explicitly referred to it as “insurance,” which it obviously was not, to trick people into thinking they’d get back what they paid in, which no one did.
It was, and is, a wealth transfer program, nothing more.
Unfortunately the vast majority of the people have no idea how successful Chile and Galveston have been.
Both had the essential requirement, participation in a retirement plan that is self directed in investment stratagy amongst a group of low overhead conservative investment programs.
“without having to rely on savings interest, the stock market or anything else with investment risk.”
Yes, who would want to rely on those things when we can rely on taking money from productive people to support us. Except, that is, when people in general are getting less productive, when the medium via which we measure value is being diluted, and non-working people outnumber working people. Whoops.
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