Posted on 06/11/2018 8:09:30 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Social Security is like the classic children's tale, "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." So many warnings have been made, no one listens anymore. Well guess what? The wolf's now at the door. Are you listening now?
For the first time in 36 years, Social Security will take money out of its "trust fund" — an accounting fiction that would get you jailed for fraud in the private sector — to pay retirees. The truth is, Social Security is for all intents and purposes bankrupt.
Since 2010, Social Security has been spending more than it took in, making up the difference by tapping into the interest paid on a $2.9 trillion government bond fund. That "interest" is really your tax dollars. Congress, you see, spent the actual money that came in through your payroll taxes and left IOUs. Now, even the interest on those entitlement IOUs is no longer enough. So they're going to have to start selling off assets to pay what they owe. Last year, it was $41 billion. It will only grow.
By 2034, the entire pile of IOUs will disappear. Everything. It will require slashing benefits by at least 21%, or raising payroll taxes by 31%. That's for workers who are today 50 years of age. It is a devastating fiscal picture, one that has profound meaning for our society going forward.
As Cato Institute economist Michael D. Tanner estimated in 2015, Social Security faces a long-term funding shortfall of $25 trillion and Medicare of $48 trillion. Yes, that's trillion with a "t." No doubt, it's far bigger today. To do nothing is tantamount to an irresponsible declaration of national bankruptcy over entitlements.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Privative. Keep anybody who is already on Soc Sec, and those within 10 years of retirement, on the old plan. Then, institute a privated plan for younger folks. Put their money into a personal savings account that would go to their spouse and/or children if they don’t live to retirement. Designate a small percentage of their retirement into a pot for those not so lucky. Younger people will make out much better than we older folks.
Whatever you think of him, this was the plan that Bush 2 had proposed, but the dems used the old canard that ‘republicans want to throw grandma over a cliff” At least he had the guts to try to solve this problem. This could have been addressed then.
Neither were mine. Where is the money going to come from? (See #39 for a modest suggestion.)
Cut off the parents of immigrants who never paid a dime into the system.
If I were a keynesian economist, I would direct the Fed to print more money and place the amount needed in the SS trust fund and I would also stop SS COLAS. The result would be more funny money on the street with corresponding inflation, which would devalue SS checks to the point that the current payroll taxes and SS deductions would not increase. Shoot, there may even be a surplus of actual SS deductions/contributions with this approach, which would allow our crooked government to put more IOUs in the SS trust fund while spending the surplus on their favorite projects. /s
Seriously, we need a balanced budget amendment and a law making it illegal to spend the monies of any trust fund except for what those funds are intended. I won't hold my breath.
There is no money to give “back”. What you want will have to be stolen from someone else. How kind of you.
The tontine system allows a number of people to put money into an investment pot, which is distributed to those that are still alive in future years.
Tontines used to be very popular at the start of the 20th Century. They became so popular that they were generally outlawed as they gave too much financial power to tontine fund operators.
Old age Social Security is basically a tontine that invests in low-yield government bonds and pays out favoring lower contributors.
Can I just have all mine back now, please?
Thank you.
The only thing more reliable than Social Security is a pension from the State of Illinois. ;-)
“SS is a crime. It is fraud. It is a Ponzi scheme.”
It’s not a Ponzi scheme.
It is very similar, but unlike a Ponzi scheme it never goes bust because it always has money coming in by force of law.
It’s not a fraud because the fact that overrewarded it early recipients and shortchanges later recipients was to be expected and is well known.
Euthanizing is too good a term for what is really happening. Euthanizing implies a quick and painless death. What is really happening under Medicare is that the elderly are treated until it becomes too expensive, and then they are consigned to a lingering death.
Just wait until Medicare is consolidated with Obamacare under a single payer system. It will get worse.
That's the path of least resistance and hence the likely route. While I think others are exactly right about kicking illegals off SS and doing extreme auditing of those (fraudulently) on SSDI, kicking the can down the road actually may not be a bad idea as a lot of Baby Boomers are going to be gone in another decade or so anyway, so the program may self correct.
I think all of those are excellent ideas.
Another old method of funding retirement was the duplex.
People would buy a house with a rental unit, normally on the second floor.
The rent on this unit provided a retirement income.
Unfortunately, in the 1950’s and 1960’s these duplexes lost great value. Think Detroit and Newark.
New duplex construction has generally been made illegal as it is too great a danger to the real property tax base.
Well, first of all it is a manufactured, immediate crisis brought on by Obama’s economic malaise but they want us all to panic and blame Trump.
Who knows, under Trump it might fix itself because of the added jobs and higher wages. It won’t be long until interest rates will start climbing too.
I suppose I don’t understand the subtleties of your reply.
A deception and injustice is not exonerated by being “well known”.
There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution empowering the Federal Government to perpetrate this fraud. Americans who want a payout from it are as guilty as those who illegally enacted it.
“Demand medical re-qualification for all disability payments.”
They should have done this yesterday. I can’t tell how many people come asking for a job but they want cash because they are on disability. We don’t turn them in because they say they don’t have enough resources and they ignore it.
Democrats would blatantly engineer a nuclear war to make sure SS doesn’t get ripped away. Gotta have a way to terrorize senior citizens.
Seriously?
Do you not remember that George W. Bush and Republicans floated this almost exactly? And what was the Democrat's response, with the high-pitched squeal of the corrupt MSM?
Over and over again Democrats used the focus group tested phrase that the Republican's SS plan was a "risky scheme". They used that exact phrase over and over again... and the attempt to fix SS was killed by skittish Republicans who ran freaked-out scared.
I'd inflict MAX PAIN. We deserve to get it good and hard for aborting over 100 million American taxpayers! And that's what you get for worshipping the Ponzi gods!
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." - H. L. Mencken
RE: Another old method of funding retirement was the duplex.
People would buy a house with a rental unit, normally on the second floor.
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Plenty of such properties in the boroughs of New York City ... if you can afford them ( I mean buy them ).
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