Hear, hear!

No wiser words have been written on this thread.

Mike

Preferably those that have attended UK; Whatcha think?:D

Thank God your's a minority view. Social Security an incredible success story. It is efficient and hasn't missed a check yet, AFAIK. It's on the short list of the all-time greatest things this country has accomplished.

Yes, I think SS is fine. That's why I'd like it to be there when I get to that point, especially since I've paid into it for so many years. Fact is, when you do the math, that it won't be there in its current state. Hence my wish; the boomers retire, crash the system, it gets fixed - the sooner the better and the less painful it will be than if the "fix" occurs farther off in the future.

I don't know about you guys, but most contractors that I have worked with or known just want to get the work done and move on.

Working with space suits on, just is not going to fly.
That may be drama but the point is that more regulations and fancy instruments will just put more change in pockets and not be abided by.

Sounds screwy to me.

Exactly. It IS going to fail, it's just a matter or how long it can limp along before doing so.

My gripes with SS are threefold:

1. Participation is coerced. I have no choice whether to participate, and neither do you. This is never a good thing, and is the worst aspect of the whole plan.

2. The return-on-investment is poor. Even a moderately smart individual can turn that same money into a LOT more money by investing it elsewhere.

3. It is unfair. The individual, or his/her heirs, has NO guarantee of ever getting a penny of their money back. Let's say you work for 45 years, dutifully paying Social Security payments the entire time (as if you had any choice), and you die the day you are due to retire and begin receiving payments.... Guess what! You get NOTHING. Your heirs get NOTHING. All of your hard-earned money is gone. That money COULD have gone to your heirs, if you had been allowed to keep it and save/invest it as you saw fit. As soon as you die, no matter how much you have paid in, that is the end of your money. Your spouse, your children.... they SHOULD be able to continue receiving the money that you have paid in over the years.... But this is not allowed.

Mike

Legal Ponzi scheme is rapidly reaching the point of failure in all Ponzis.

Yep.

Damn, you sure do inspire me to say "yep" a lot. :D

Mike

Along the lines of the original post . . .

Did the California Air Resource Board get approval to impose penalties on residential developers for the impact their building would have on air quality in California? I recall reading that they were considering that, and that the incentives to the developers was that they could avoid the "tax" if they provided bike lanes, wider sidewalks and positioned commercial lots within walking distances to the homes.

I follow you now. I take back all those mean things I said.

I agree that the coercion is problematic, but it's the cost of living in a civilized society, IMHO. If we rely on free markets and free will to take care of people, then we will have people living below the standards that should be permitted by a civilized society.The problem with that part of your criticism is that it is hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison, especially since the goal is to have the benefits be backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. If I remember, I will try to google some articles on this point later.Wouldn't work otherwise. That's the socialist part of the program and it is absolutely necessary, IMHO.

I don't know about that aspect of CARB. I do know they have effectivly killed diesel engines in CA - mostly based on the scientific premise that "it smells icky".

Not my problem.

With the exception of those people with obvious mental or physical handicaps that cannot be overcome, FAILURE is a CHOICE. Or more accurately, the result of a long series of bad choices. If one makes his bed, one should lie in it.

If I am too stupid to save and/or invest to ensure that I am prepared for retirement, then that is not your fault, and you should not be forced to cover my a$$. And vice versa.



Sometimes apples are just better than oranges.

Besides, I have a LOT more faith in my own investing decisions than those of the federal government. Since it's my money, because I earned it, I should be able to invest it as I see fit, instead of as a bunch of politicians who don't even know me see fit.


Which is exactly why I have a BIG problem with it. It is a socialist program that you readily ADMIT is unfair and inefficient... with no guarantee of getting even a LITTLE of your investment back, even though it is "backed by the full faith and credit of the US government" .... yet you support it????.... Tell me how this makes sense to you.

My retirement should not be your problem, and your retirement should not be my problem.

Additionally, the reason it "wouldn't work otherwise", as you say, is because it is impossible to keep politicians from dipping into the cookie jar, and it is impossible to keep some people from abusing the system. To keep functioning, Social Security MUST take in a LOT more than it pays out, because of these problems. This is wrong.

If they were to guarantee that every individual would get back every penny they paid in, as they rightfully should (perhaps minus some administrative costs), the system would fail almost IMMEDIATELY. This is another reason that it is a flawed plan, an unfair system, and is doomed to failure.

The average social security payment is already near-inadequate for most retirees.... The system is NOT keeping up with inflation and the economy. It's almost impossible for retirees to live a quality life on social security checks alone, and it is only getting worse.

However, if they had been allowed to invest that same amount of money, for the same period of time, in something that had even a MEDIOCRE rate-of-return, they could have lived their senior-citizen years quite comfortably and financially worry-free.

Once again, that pesky 'ol human nature comes into play: If there is a system in place that allows people to be slack and irresponsible, far too many WILL be.

Because they know that they have a "safety net", put in place at someone ELSE'S expense, then they will not do what they know they SHOULD do to provide for their own future.

Mike

I admit no such thing. If I said anything that admits either of those things, then I retract those statements because SS is fair and efficient. I will see if I can google some articles about SS efficiency, but I think it highly efficient.I'm not following you. I am guaranteed to get my SS unless (a) Bush and his people succeed in abolishing it; or (b) I die first. If you are talking about (b), then I have absolutely no problem with my payments going to pay the benefits of others, because if those others die before me, then I get the benefit of the money I paid in.

I have never studied socialism much beyond what they taught us in school. From the first time I heard about it, I've thought it was the fairest form of government that could be conceived, in theory. In reality, though, the incentives are all wrong and it just doesn't work. Nor does pure capitalism. What we need is capitalism with a touch of socialism here and there.I disagree. In fact, I think a strong majority of Americans disagree with you on this one.No, the reason it wouldn't work otherwise is that the current level of withholding is based on the assumption that many people paying in won't see a dime because they will die first. If you made the benefits inheritable, then the withholding would have to go to unacceptable levels.True.Not true. It is none of those things.

EDIT: I take that back. It is flawed, but the flaws can be fixed.That is a shame, but it is the lesser of two evils, IMHO.

I really don't understand the "A) Bush will abolish SS" argument. To my knowledge he is the only one who has suggested what MikeMover also suggests which is the ability to direct some of your own "investments" into the SS system. The system he proposed is exactly like the Thrift Savings Plan utilised by federal workers today. Had one been able to invest a part of their SS income in this system over the last year - as Bush had proposed - he/she would have made a considerable increase in their investment.

To this idea, however, the Democratic party cheered and celebrated the lack of SS reform whilst whispering that the American public is too stupid to make these kinds of investment decisions (there's that fun-loving arrogance again) - that's just classic...