GOP Social Security

Let me ask this, if social security is privatised and it is invested. What happens if we have another major crisis like 9/11 or some other emergency and the market goes sour. What hapens with that money then?

 

Who said the person has to invest their money in the stock market?

 

Rather than name-calling and making an idiot of yourself, why don't you actually defend your arguments?

Tell me which bullshit allegations you want proof for, and I'll try to find it. Mostly all I've been doing is refuting your idiotic statements with basic logic. I've made very few claims of my own on this thread.

So let me make sure I understand your position correctly...SS revenue is used to pay out retirees, AND to fund this so-called "trust fund", AND to fund the "Republican wars" as you so eloquently put it, all at the same time. My, that dollar certainly goes a long way!

It would be at least as good - probably moreso - to just let people spend their SS money as they wish. Working people spend money too, you know...

That's funny, as I'm a libertarian-leaning liberal.

No it isn't. Your posts indicate that you don't know the first thing about economics.

Wait...I thought you said that social security was money invested FOR YOURSELF? Or are you now admitting that taxpayers are paying for the social security of people who are already retired, and your "trust fund" does not exist? You can't have it both ways.

If we're all paying for our own retirement, then why shouldn't the top 40% of wage earners be allowed to get their retirement money?

I don't buy it. If SS is not changed, it'll begin showing creaks within ten to fifteen years, and be completely bankrupt by 2030 at the latest. Do you have a link to this CBO report?

The sheer stupidity of that statement should prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that you don't know what you're talking about. Wow.

Well I agree with this economist that the tax cut money should've first been spent on social security...but it should've been spent to privatize it, not to bail it out for a few more years.

 

The people who invested their money in safe funds aren't affected much. The people who invested in risky funds lose some money...just like if SS was NOT privatized.

The more risk you take, the greater the reward potential. A simple economic principle. What's wrong with that?

 

Although this question has already been answered, let me give you my version.

As others have mentioned, not much happens if you were conservatively invested.

But suppose you weren't, and i wouldn't recommend "conservative investing" for anybody, although that's another story. Well, you lose 50% of your money. But that's 50% from the peak. Nobody starts saving for retirement and then retires in one year. So you would have had years, probably decades of investment returns under your belt. There is no period in US history where a diversified portfolio would have lost money over decades. Sure, the retirement plans you had in mind in 2000 would have to change if you had retired in 2001, but even then, you don't spend your retirement in one year. It is still there accumulating further investment returns through your hopefully long golden years - for example after hitting the market bottom in late 2003 where I calculated the 50% loss, the market has since risen 60%. Retirees would have benefitted from these gains.

What's for sure is if people had hypothetically retired from a privatised social security in 2001, right after the crash, they would still have received a vastly higher return on their investment than they got from paying social security taxes and taking social security benefits.

 

What I have heard so far is opinionated assholes who have little knowledge of U.S History, Economics or the Federal Social Security system.

Prove what you say, show some evidence or all here will know you are full of shit. You certainly have not proven anything I have said is wrong.

For those who say Social Security is not real money, and that there is no trust fund, I suggest that you pull your head out of your ass and do a little research.

http://research.aarp.org/econ/fs40r_ss_trust_1.html#FIRST



The fact is that if Bush gets his way and privatizes Social Security, the guarantee of a pension is gone. What ever happens to stocks or bonds, the Federal Government will no longer be legally responsible to make sure retired folks get anything. This is a step in the wrong direction. It is wrong like most of King George's decisions.

 

No dumbass, first of all only part of the program is being privatised. Much more importantly, if you put government bonds in your "privatised" social security fund then they only way you lose is if the US goes bankrupt, in which case you wouldn't have been getting social security either. I keep saying this and you keep ignoring it because it is an inconvenient fact. Typical.

Another question you keep dodging is this - who is going to pay off the government bonds held in the social security trust fund. There are two possible answers:

A) The government; or
B) Someone else.

Since the answer is A, tell me WHERE IS THE GOVERNMENT GOING TO GET THE MONEY TO PAY OFF THESE BONDS? ANY GUESSES? I.E. WHAT THE FUCK DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE IF THE GOVERNMENT WRITES DEBT TO ITSELF? How exactly is that saving? For freak's sake the fund doesn't even pay real interest - they just issue more bonds for the interest! There is NOTHING IN THE FUND EXCEPT DEBT FROM THE GOVERNMENT'S LEFT HAND TO ITS RIGHT HAND! It is so plainly obvious why do I have to explain it???

Imagine this scenario: CyberFly Inc. sets aside 10% of his income per month for his social security account. Except that instead of saving it he spends it, so he writes IOUs from Cyberfly Inc. to CyberFly Trust Fund Ltd. and puts them in the CyberFly Trust Fund Ltd. account. When CyberFly Inc. retires, he takes the IOUs held in the CyberFly Trust Fund Ltd. account and cashes them (and spends them on things that people have to produce, thus boosting the economy, and hopefully has some money left over for a macroeconomics textbook).

Can you see the problem here? Don't cut and paste - THINK!

 

The fact that you constantly say things like this indicates to me that you realize that you've been beat this time, even if you won't admit it.

I ask you again: What claims have I made that you would like evidence for? I'll do my best to find links for you.

Why not cite a source that at least pretends to be unbiased?

We can agree on that. But why is that a bad thing? You can still invest your money in government bonds if you're concerned about the stock market going sour.

If government bonds go sour, there are some major problems in the economy, and the retirees aren't going to get anything from SS anyway.

People who feel comfortable investing in the stock market (which has NEVER lost money - since the birth of America - in any given 25+ year span), can do so without the federal government protecting them from themselves. People who don't feel comfortable investing can just put all their money in government bonds or a CD account at their local bank.

You seem to have the erroneous idea that the federal government - which has no more insight into the market than anyone else - can invest people's money better than they can. The government does not need to hold my money for me, to protect me from myself. I'd much rather enjoy a 9% average annual return from the stock market, instead of investing in government SS where I have doubts as to whether I'll get anything at all, including the principle.

 

A person is responsible for the money they make. If they squander or mismanange it, tough shit. I should not be forced to give the government part of MY paycheck, number one, when I could invest/spend, or do whatever with it in other things. Number two, Social Security is one of the biggest scams on the planet, you don't get half of what you pay into it.

 

Well asswipe, if you knew anything about why the "biggest scams on the planet" was created by FDR, you would know that it brought our America out of the Great Depression and has kept out economy stable ever since.

In the replies I see no proof of how Bush's plan would be better, no proof that refutes anything I have said, and no real comment of the historical facts.

Jozak are you even an American?

*************

Those who remain ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.

 

Social security probably did the least of all of FDR's programs to get us out of the depression, and pretty much every historian will agree that it really was WW2 that got us out of it.

 

Who do you think you are fooling? You ignore everything you don't have a cut and paste answer for.

Just for the record, here's the obvious points you are avoiding:

1. How is putting government bonds in the "trust fund" going to make any difference? Who is going to pay off these bonds when they come due, and if the answer is that one arm of government is going to pay off the other, what's the difference between that and never putting the bond in there in the first place?

2. If you put government bonds in your privatised social security account, how are you any more at risk than you would have been in the original social security system?

3. If you have a choice of doing 2. or putting them in the investments of your choice, aren't you better off, at least if you're the kind of person that values having the freedom to choose?

We know you can't answer the questions CyberFly, but stop pretending you don't see them.

 

Hey dipshit where is your evidence. I am not avoiding anything. It is up to you to prove your case. I have already proven mine and provided links.

More bullshit from Jozak since you are the one advocating the Bush plan to dismantle the current rights of retirees. There are at least a half a dozen republican posers here pretending to be hippies.

What historians? The same republican revisionists who claim that the holocaust never happened? Where is the proof? Let's see some names and what they wrote. I could just as easily say that most historians agree that Jozak and Kandahar are assholes who are supported by wealthy parents.

 

Well for 1 thing monthly payments of social security diddn't begin untill 1940, kind of late for it to have much of any effect, especially with the mass industrialization that was taking place to arm the country for WW2. And have you ever read a history book, I don't mean onces you would buy in any book store, but just regular school history books, even they say WW2 is what finally helped get the country out of the depression.

 

You have proven nothing. You provided ONE LINK to the AARP - an obviously biased source - and ONE LINK to the Debt Clock, which undermined your own point.

I ask you for the fourth time: If you want me to provide evidence of a particular claim I have made, tell me which claim and I'd be happy to try to find you a link. Or if it's a non-statistical claim that I've made, I'd be happy to explain why I inferred what I did from the evidence.

Of course, anyone who doesn't agree with your uninformed opinion is obviously a "Republican poser." (I for one voted for John Kerry, not because I'm a fan of his social security plan, but because I can't stand George Bush.)

And again, no one (well, almost no one) wants to "dismantle the current rights of retirees." I am the first to recognize that they've paid into social security their entire lives, and are fully entitled to what the government has promised them. I'm talking about privatizing the system so that FUTURE RETIREES can invest their money as they please, without having to worry about the government raising the retirement age, or cutting their benefits, or running out of social security money. I disagree with Bush's plan of running up an even bigger deficit to pay for it though; I'm more in line with the LP on this one. Auctioning off some of our unused overseas military bases would bring in enough money to simultaneously pay off the national debt and privatize social security.

What the hell are you talking about? What does that have to do with anything?

The way you've conducted yourself in this thread (by insulting anyone who disagrees with you) indicates to me that you aren't to be taken seriously. You've done nothing but argue with emotion rather than reason.

 

World War II was one of the main things that brought our nation out of the great depression, not social security.

Yes, asshole, and if you want to give your money to the government, by all means do it, don't force the rest of us too, especially when we don't get half back of what we put into it, especially the old folks like my mother's parents are not getting a fair deal.

 

Answere the damn questions, and the only thing I said was that you telling me I should give my paycheck to the over sized government we have right now because you are an idiot and cannot manage your own money is absurd.

I have never once claimed to be a hippie, and I am not a Republican--I didn't even vote for Bush you dumb fuck. Number two, what does my sig have ANYTHING to do with this thread? Nothing, stop diverting attention to my sig lines and stick to the topic. I am not part of the religious right, I despise them but that is for another topic. As I said Cyberfly, since you are not smart enough to manage your own money, go ahead and give it to our monsterous federal government; but you don't have the right to force others to do your bidding.

You don't know shit Cyberfly, I am far from wealthy, and you don't know my family. I am in college, I work, and pay my own way, including right now over this Winter Break from school. We all know that since you had a shitty job that you got laid off from, it's the Government's and taxpayer's money to support you. Pathetic.

 

CyberFly, you keep demanding evidence, but you fail to acknowledge the following, no matter how many times I post it:

Since you won't acknowledge this, I'll make it real simple for you. What follows are a list of claims I've made about social security. You just tell me which ones you dispute and your reasons for disputing them. I will then do what I can to resolve the dispute, either by providing you with statistical evidence via a link (if it's a simple matter of statistics we do not agree on), or by rationally discussing the point (WITHOUT the flames and insults you seem to love to use).

Here are my claims:

1. Regardless of how much money you dump in to it, social security will eventually fail due to simple demographics.
2. Raising the retirement age or lowering the benefits is NOT desirable, if people have paid into the system under the impression that they would get $X per month after they turned Y years old.
3. The federal government has no more insight into the market than any other investor.
4. All other things being equal, it is better to allow people the freedom to choose their own investments, rather than forcing them to invest in the federal government.
5. If people want to, they can still buy government bonds (the equivalent of paying in to government-funded social security).
6. People who have already retired – or who will retire in the near future – are absolutely entitled to what the government has promised them…but that money doesn’t necessarily have to come from propagating a failing system.
7. The way social security is currently structured, it would be illegal if anyone other than the government tried to run it (it’s known as a Ponzi or Pyramid scheme).

 

Still no proof, no evidence, nothing from the right wing nuts here.

You right wingers are full of shit, just as I thought.
Not one name of one REAL historian nor any quotes of what they wrote.
No surprise here. Just the same old right wing bullshit.



I know you have blind faith in Bush's Religious Right Wing plan to raid Social Security even more than he already has, long term it will lead America further into further National Debt.

 

Cyberfly, why does everyone who doesn't agree with every little thing you say fall under the label of "right wing nuts"? And it's really amazing...my fiance called LickHERish an asshole or something a while back and got banned for a week...you have called everyone here morons, assholes, dipshits, and yet you still get to post your inane little cartoons and your little triplicate posts with no punishment..... :/

oh well. I have no comment for the actual topic of the thread, just for the starter of it...