Social Security

[hooper1961]

People should be allowed to opt out of Social Security and be able to set up a private retirement plan.

Why is it if we have inflation they increase payments and yet when there was a bit of deflation benefits were not decreased?

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[JanS]

again with the balancing the budget stuff on the backs of those who can least afford it. What’s up with that? What ever happened to taxes…we want, we want, but we don’t want to pay? It doesn’t work that way, no matter how much you want it to. At some point something will have to be taxed to pay for something. Prices aren’t gonna come down..we’re past that. My only hope is that it’s the Repubs that get stuck with having to make the decision to raise taxes…and their cred goes out the window. We leave these decisions up to the people, and then we have to live with the consequences of emotional voting, not educated voting.

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[Carson]

If we ever get the chance to opt of anything, it would be the war in Iraq. Imagine if they listed that option of your taxes and the cost if you elected to support it. I suspect we would have been out of there years ago.

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[redblack]

i’d like to opt out of subsidizing big oil, big coal, big agribusiness, big insurance, big pharma, and big bombs. and japanese cars.

like jan said, why put it on the backs of the bottom 90%? we’re the ones suffering while big industry ships jobs overseas, dodges their tax burden, and gouges consumers.

if defunding social security is on the table, teabaggers will eventually come running over to the progressive way of thinking in droves.

hooper, the folks who are trying to get you to give up the only guarantee that you will ever have that you won’t live in a cardboard box when you’re old are trying to distract you from the giant pork and subsidies that go to the top 2% and big industry. that includes the biggest scam of all – taxation.

they’re picking you clean, buddy boy. they’re using your own government to do it, too, and they’re convincing you to say, “thank you, sir! may i have another?”

so why are you lobbying against your own self-interest?

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[dhg]

I can think of one really good reason why you can’t opt-out of Social Security: If you screw it up and end up with nothing then what are you going to do? Fall on your sword? No, you’ll have to be subsidized by the taxpayers because we don’t want you stealing in order to survive. That is why we have Social Security. You pay it not just for yourself but for others. It keeps the wolves away from your door. Don’t like it? Move to Haiti. I think they have the freedoms you’re looking for.

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[Smitty]

“then we have to live with the consequences of emotional voting, not educated voting.”

Are you talking about 2008? Oh wait, the electorate was so enlightened that go-round.

Sheesh. Get over it. You lost. The Republicans will lose in two years if they don’t back up their talk with walk (see Kyle in AZ as example #1).

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[hooper1961]

social security is a ponzi scheme and a rip off. my wife passed away suddenly several years ago after contributing to the system for years; the pay back a lousy 30 cents on the dollar.

if social security had remained as envisioned; supplemental (not intended to be only retirement) retirement income it would be solvent today. today’s retirees are getting far more out of the system than they paid in.

are we going to leave our children a bankrupt country?

i am not a republican

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[elikapeka]

Hooper, Social Security on its own is solvent today. The problem is that Congress has raided it for other purposes. Remember Al Gore’s lock box?

Privatization is just another giveaway to the financial services industry. Most of us are not knowledgeable enough, nor do we have the time, to manage our own accounts – we’d just be paying commissions to someone else to do it. Historically there have been huge crashes in the stock market – would you want your retirement funds in there in 1929, 1987, 2007? You’d have lost about 40 percent in the last market downturn.

Simple fix for the future – just raise the cap.

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[hooper1961]

or raise the retirement age and adjust the cola to a lower amount or all of the above including raising the cap. doing all 3 successfully pisses everyone off thus must be the fair answer because everyone has to contribute to the answer.

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[JoB]

hooper1961..

cutting social security and education and health care is cutting off your nose to spite your face.

if you keep cutting off your nose..

it’s going to get pretty hard to breathe..

and where will health care and social security and those educated health professionals be when you need them?

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[dhg]

Social Security was one of the best benefits this county has created. It stands right up there next to public health. It is, at this time, not intended to be your sole retirement plan. It is supposed to supplement personal savings and work pensions. Have you set aside anything? Great! You’re living the American Dream.

Without Social Security, what would we have? Charles Dickens’ Scrooge wandering down the broken streets berating the beggars, asking, “Do we not still have POOR HOUSES?”

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[JoB]

hooper1961..

all insurance is a ponzi scheme.

the only difference is that there are no “profit centers” leaching dollars out of this one.

oh… and that this one actually pays off if you live.

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[redblack]

so which is it, hooper? in one paragraph you state:

“the pay back a lousy 30 cents on the dollar. “

and in another you state:

“today’s retirees are getting far more out of the system than they paid in. “

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[hooper1961]

my wife died and my son’s survivors benefits were a lousy 30 cents on the dollar. and in fact married people in the work force today who both work pay far more in than they will ever get back.

it is current retires who when working paid i believe 1.5% (+{ 1.5% employer) of their wages into the system. the current total is 12.4% (6.2 + 6.2) that are receiving far more in benefits than what they paid in.

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[redblack]

hmm. survivor’s benefits. is that the same as getting full SS retirement benefits? different pay-out for different criteria?

and from what i understand, the first generation to pay into SS, the war babies, paid double into the system to pay for their parents’ generation and seed the system. once fully funded, the gov then sunsetted that provision. war babies and the baby boomers got full SS benefits and their money back from seeding the system, and the system is and has been solvent since.

the only problem i have with SS – provided that its trust fund isn’t destroyed by politicians – is using the account number for identification.

i think the cap should be raised clear up to $250,000, where the “tax breaks” end.

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[hooper1961]

and gradually raise the retirement age, reduce the COLA increases (and allow benefits to go down if deflation occurs) and increase the income subject to tax. all 3 are needed to spread the pain evenly to all.

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[dawsonct]

Raise the retirement age!? Do we not currently have enough trouble in this country with unemployment? And you solution to a SS program which, if untouched and left as it is now, is solvent for at least 30 more years, is to hand off a portion of it to the same Wall Street banksters who perpetrated this latest financial melt-down? (Without an personal consequences, of course).

Your son received benefits when your wife died; that is what SSI was set up to do. Be thankful that another program championed by Democrats has benefited you. Now that your family has benefited from it, you want to destroy the program? Damned short-sighted and selfish.

We should LOWER the retirement age, which will increase the DEMAND FOR LABOR, which will increase everyone’s pay.

And we should raise the tax cap on SS, so the rich and super-duper-hyper-wealthy can start paying their fair share for a portion of the commons of this Nation that has made them, or realistically in almost every case out their, simply kept them wealthy from inherited money earned by an earlier generation of their family.

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By the way, nobody is stopping you from taking a portion of your wages and creating a personal retirement account. You don’t want to have to depend on SS, as it is really only there to keep grandma and grandpa from starving to death on the street.

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Again Hoop, why do you think the only Americans that need to tighten their belts and get used to a less than ideal lifestyle, are the 90+% of us who are already having problems make ends meet. Time for the top 10% to start paying their way. They’ve been getting a free ride long enough, and the supply-side economic principles they espouse are obviously and provably wrong. Time for the hyper-wealthy to take some PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY (it’s not just for Democrats, you know) and start paying their way.

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Not a Republican my ass.

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[JanS]

hmmm..when the cost of living decreases, I suppose I’d agree with lowering the COLA increases…but only then.

But heaven forbid we take those tax cuts to the wealthy away. Because, as we all know, it causes them to be generous, create more jobs, and hire all the unemployed. Wait..no? What’s that? Oh, they’re keeping their money? Oops!

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[DP]

hoop: Deepest condolences on your wife passing, my friend . . .

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[hooper1961]

the benefits received were 30 cents on the dollar hardly a good return. i would have preferred the option to set up a private account that would have generated a far better pay back.

the bush tax cuts (other than fixing the penalty on dual income households) were a big mistake. looking back clinton was a very good president (but why monica; you are the pres). clinton with some counterweight in the house brought some fiscal sanity to the federal government.

raising the retirement age to be in line with increased life expectancy is a no brainer.

the current economy is causing a lot of hurt for a lot of people including me. my industry (housing and new development) is in a flat out depression and i am not making enough to pay bills either. my brother has been out of a job for over a year. the only thing that provided us a small cushion (we gave ourselves a small amount to help us out) was selling our mom’s home at a very depressed price. the bulk of the proceeds are to take care of her in assisted care that is very expensive.

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[JoB]

hooper 1961

your industry is in trouble because people are unemployed.

Do you really think “spreading the pain” by forcing those who would retire (and cede jobs to people who would buy houses) to work longer is going to help your industry?

Yup.. it’s true that you are getting screwed along with the rest of us..

but it isn’t true that the big bad government and the social tit it created is doing the screwing.

You only have to look at those who are prospering in this “downturn” to figure that out.

believe in the great American con job if you want to..

but blaming the victims isn’t going to save your bacon

shooting the safety blanket out from under them

only destroys it for you.

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[redblack]

hooper, i echo DP’s condolences about your wife. i’m sorry you had to endure that.

i’m still curious about survivor’s benefits. you said they went to your son. but why not to you, her spouse?

and if they had gone to you, would the pay-out have been higher?

my guess is that she didn’t pay into the system long enough – much like if you retire early and try to withdraw from an IRA or collect from a pension fund.

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[JoB]

redblack…

i believe monthly survivor benefits are only paid to children of the deceased if the spouse is still of working age.

those benefits typically end at adulthood.

So.. the older the kid..

the shorter the benefit period.

what hooper 1961 neglects to mention is that he can still collect his social security benefits until death.. or half of hers if that amount is larger than his …

the total of which may well exceed what he and his wife contributed.

the story is still playing out on that one.

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[dawsonct]

Hoop, better take a look at the statistics. Life expectancy in the U.S. is ONLY RISING FOR THE WEALTHY. The rest of us aren’t living as long.

Increasing the retirement age is an onerous tax on the elderly, and floods the labor market, cheapening the price of labor. Another way to look at is it further erodes the incomes of middle- and under-class Americans. It is a VERY basic and simple economic principle called supply and demand, and if there are more workers in an already stressed labor market, wages will be driven through the floor.

The Invisible-Hand-of-the-Free-Marketeers ALREADY want to eliminate the minimum wage. What do you suppose would happen if the labor market was flooded with a few million extra workers?

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We should LOWER the retirement age, reduce the labor pool, and increase demand for American workers.

THAT is a no-brainer.

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[hooper1961]

so you want to crush the next generations with debt? gradually raising the retirement is appropriate. and the demographics indicate a labor shortage is to occur in the future (i wish sooner than later)

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