(no subject)

[tinosa.livejournal.com]

Comments

[richardf8]

Because you can bet you bottom dollar (and you probably will) that the republicans will have handed it all over to their corporate buddies by then.

[johnraptor.livejournal.com]

Oh so witty. Oh so original.


Oh wait... no it's not.

[nacreousflaneur.livejournal.com]

Hee hee hee.

"Department of Pyramid Schemes and Suckers."

Hee hee hee hee...

[metamadman.livejournal.com]

HA, good stuff! Burned mine years ago...

[jimb.livejournal.com]

Thank God your grand parents are refusing to cash their Social Security checks. It's just a fad that won't last more and 5 years anyway.

[thebigbadbutch.livejournal.com]

nice

[retrofire.livejournal.com]

The republicans are turning up the heat - lucky for them there are so many genuinely stupid people who eat this kind of baseless sarcastic pseudo comedic stuff up.

pyrmid scheme?

[jlassen.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't that pyramid scheme actually be the stock market? You know. The place GW wants to dump a few trillion borrowed dollars --- talk about a pyramid scheme!
.

I don’t know who is worse… The social security bashers (who may have a legitimate ideological point) or the "private accounts" suckers (who don't have an ideological leg to stand on given the plan they are supporting -- Have the government borrow against future tax revenue, give 20% of it away in handling fees, and parcel it out back to the tax payers 40 years later...) Nope... no free market libertarianism there....Just plain old cronyism, and a blatant attempt to line the pockets of the "handlers" at the expense of the American tax payer. Nice. Do those private accounts come with a reach around?

Re: pyrmid scheme?

[nacreousflaneur.livejournal.com]

Ow! Ow! Your ignorance is hurting my head!

Re: pyrmid scheme?

[johnraptor.livejournal.com]

Please tell us then, what parts of jlassen's claims were innacurate and how?

Re: pyrmid scheme?

[nacreousflaneur.livejournal.com]

With pleasure.

Shouldn't that pyramid scheme actually be the stock market? You know. The place GW wants to dump a few trillion borrowed dollars --- talk about a pyramid scheme!

I'm not exactly sure what he meant here by "dump a few trillion borrowed dollars", but I interpreted that to mean that somehow, Bush would hand over trillions of dollars, no strings attached, to...well, I have no idea. Stock brokers? Investors? CEOs? Alan Greenspan? Whatever the case, the idea is absurd. Private savings accounts will not "dump" anything--they will simply allow people to designate, if they wish, a preferred investment method for part of their intended Social Security funds. This could mean the stock market, but it could also mean mutual funds, bonds, T-bills, etc. Presumably (and I'm not clear on this part, someone help me out) if you die before you reach 65, you will forfeit most or all of your account, which is basically the way Social Security is now. If you die before you reach 65, you get NOTHING.

I don’t know who is worse… The social security bashers (who may have a legitimate ideological point) or the "private accounts" suckers (who don't have an ideological leg to stand on given the plan they are supporting -- Have the government borrow against future tax revenue, give 20% of it away in handling fees, and parcel it out back to the tax payers 40 years later...)

What?

I'd like to see a source for this "20% in handling fees" figure. Even assuming he's correct, if he meant government bureacracy and red tape, well, I'm afraid that comes part and parcel of any type of government program.

As for the rest of it...I don't know where this "parcel it back to the taxpayers" comes from. Ironically, that's exactly the general idea behind our current Social Security system--as someone in the other thread suggested, SS is basically a form of poverty/retirement insurance, except that buying into this insurance is compulsory. You pay into the system while you work, and then, when you retire, you get some of that money back.

Unfortunately, in practice, it hasn't quite worked out this way. In order for the first generation of SS recipients to benefit (which, I guess, since they did fight and die in WW2, they deserve this), the money needed to come from somewhere, so the government taxed the second generation--the Baby Boomers. When the second generation retires, which they're going to do en masse pretty soon, we'll have to start paying for their retirement. This means that either the third generation will have to bear the brunt of the costs in the form of increased SS taxes--or else SS will go bankrupt.

So, in effect, we're robbing Peter to pay Paul, and then robbing Mary to pay Peter.

During the first 20 years or so since Truman, the SS program produced a surplus in the form of tax revenues. This money was supposed to be locked away until it was needed, but guess what, kiddies? Congress kept dipping their fingers into the lockbox, filling it with IOUs that promised to pay it back later. Well, later is now, and we're as short of money as ever.

Bush's proposal will introduce an element of accountability into this failing system. Private accounts will "lock" the money--the money that YOU pay into the system in the form of taxes--away, where Congress can't get at it.

Another reason why private accounts are a good idea is the simple principle of rate of return. As anyone who has taken Economics 101 knows, anything that accrues interest, however small, over a long period of time is much preferred over something that doesn't. Now, let's assume a conservative rate of 5% return (the stock market has averaged something like 7% since the Great Depression). At that rate, $1000 invested now will return $7040 in forty years. ( n=(1+.05)^40)

Re: pyrmid scheme?

[unshavengod.livejournal.com]

I think we free-marketeers should drop the criticism of "IOU's" in SS. US currency itself is an IOU... so it shouldn't alarm us that the SS trust fund is invested elsewhere.

To have kept this money UNinvested would have resulted in a money-supply contraction for the entire economy... I'm not sure if that would have been a good thing.

Essentially we'll repay the SS fund whenever we reduce the government debt (har har). - i.e., the US t-bills will mature.

Re: pyrmid scheme?

[goumindong.livejournal.com]

Social Security ran a surplus last year of some 220 billion dollars.

Social Security money accrues intreset.

The handling fees of a system with individual control in place is significantly larger than the one with no individual controls. The 20% figure comes from similar numbers derived from nations that have similar systems in place.

Government Buerocracy is no larger or inefficient than corporate buerocracy. Government is simply larger. Similarly, larger government programs have more buerocracy than smaller government programs.

Re: pyrmid scheme?

[nacreousflaneur.livejournal.com]

(con't)

The downside to private accounts is that it doesn't address the problem of where the money will come from to pay the baby boomer generation NOW. Either 1) social security taxes have to increase--a lot; 2) the U.S. government borrows more money and goes deeper into debt; or 3) the baby boomers get screwed. My guess is that we will probably do 2) with a bit of 3) as we raise the minimum benefit age (currently at 66 and a half). Perhaps, if the next President is a Democrat, we will do 1) as well.

That's why even Alan Greenspan advises phasing into private accounts on a gradual process. That way, we can still gain the long-term benefits over time while absorbing the short-term shock with hopefully as little effect as possible.

Nope... no free market libertarianism there....Just plain old cronyism, and a blatant attempt to line the pockets of the "handlers" at the expense of the American tax payer. Nice. Do those private accounts come with a reach around?

On the contrary, we're getting screwed up the ass as it is now. The difference is with private accounts, we at least get the option of choosing KY jelly.

Re: pyrmid scheme?

[johnraptor.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :-)

Re: pyrmid scheme?

[jlassen.livejournal.com]

My ignorance? Was my characterization of Bush's private accounts plan incorrect?

Please feel free to enlighten me, if you have a better summary of where the money is going to come from, and how much the administration of the fund by private money managers is going to cost, etc. My numbers are based on GAO reports.

oh thats right. Bush keeps chaning the details of his plan, so he can't be pinned down. Any hard facts or unbiased evaluations of hs plans would be welcome. Otherwise your comments reflect a serious susceptibility to partisan propaganda...


Perhaps you were critical of my characterization of the stock market as a pyramid scheme? Two names for you: Enron. Global Crossing. I could give you a host of others, but ‘nuff said.

Re: pyrmid scheme?

[nacreousflaneur.livejournal.com]

See above.

Enron and Global Crossing weren't pyramid schemes; they were federal crimes, for which the guilty parties involved will hopefully go to jail. It is indeed a tragedy that these pieces of sh** fleeced the life savings of a lot of small investors; however, I don't think it is accurate to induce that all companies behave this way, or that all investors will get shafted.

Re: pyrmid scheme?

[unshavengod.livejournal.com]

Thought experiment for those who believe the stock market is pyramid scheme:

a) Imagine 1000's of people are dying from bacterial infection
b) A scientist discovers a new antibiotic, but needs money to research mass-production and do more testing
c) The scientist meets a business man, who sets up a company and collects billions of dollars through the sale of stock.
d) The company makes the new drug and distributes it - saving 1000s of lives, thus helping the economy grow in real terms, and paying large dividends to its investors.

How is that a pyramid scheme? Through wise investment, good ideas are materialized, and everyone benefits. That's what stock markets do. Stocks *do* function like pyramid schemes when they *HAVE NO GOOD IDEAS*. (examples: enron, "dot com bubble", etc).

Let's compare this to Social Security:

a) gov't takes your money
b) gov't gives it back to you later, if you happen to live that long, and if a younger generation is still willing to pay into the system
c) unless you're poor, you'll get less money than you contributed

Which one looks more like a pyramid scheme to you?

Re: pyrmid scheme?

[goumindong.livejournal.com]

Except its

A Govt takes money

B Govt returns it later with interest

C You recieve benefits always based on the size of your contribution. The more money you input, the more money you recieve.

[somefantastic10.livejournal.com]

Bush is losing too much of his "political capital" thanks to increased disapproval of Iraq and little scandals like the Rove leak that I personally doubt he'll have the oomph to push through his social security reforms.

[clownshoes.livejournal.com]

What I think is funny is that the red states are the ones who use up the most federal tax money, and I think only a small handful of them have a 1:1 [or below] pay:receive ratio of federal money.

[tasfourohone.livejournal.com]

Man, hasn't the social security system put so many elderly people out of their homes and on the streets for decades!

Oh, wait a second...

[nallyo.livejournal.com]

I'm just saving my reciepts for when SS goes bankrupt and I need to sue the government to give me back my money. I swear, if you want to legalize theft, just make it into a government program. There are enough ways to save through mutual and retirement funds that SS should be slowly phased out (ie, you can opt in or out of the program at any time and stop paying the stupid taxes).