Social Security is a failed Ponzi scheme

Come on...SS is fine. It is not a ponzi scheme any more than any government expenditure is a ponzi scheme. It is the foundation of all seniors planning along with Medicare. If some years the short falls need to come from general funds, so what? SS tax reciepts have been used in the general fund since the 60's. The fix is easy, raise the cap on earnings that are taxable. You might have a different view of it once you get into your late 50s'. Believe me, unless you are very lucky, you will end up thanking FDR for it every day of your life once you reach a certain age.

 

Stop stealing from me and other taxpayers.

 

IMO if you start using means testing it most certainly is a scheme. If two people made the same money and paid the same taxes, but one spends his money wisely and does without so he can invest in his future and the other spends wildly and lives in excess, why should the one that saves and does with out get less? I would be more than willing to pay in 20% of what they say I should and keep my 80% and never ask for any Social security.

 

SS should just be considered a tax to help the poor elderly. The rich need no help with retirement

 

The concept isn't hard you pay for the seniors now then in turn when your old enough you get social security the younger people paying for you and on and on its a safety net program.

But I have a fix at any time before retirement age give people a choice they can agree to be killed by lethal and merciful means in return half their expected lifetime benefit is given to his estate as an untaxable sum of cash including Medicare and social welfare benefits if low income this can be left to loved ones. I would even make it immune from garnishment or collections and be given with no penalty to someone who is disabled and the money is for them. You would get lots of poor retirees to agree to this. I'm serious if you also let them sell their organs they would have more money to include maybe $500,000 to leave to a disabled adult who is their child on SSI who would also then have a big block of cash to spend as needed.

 

Go the way Australia did in 1991 with employer funded superannuation, much like the American employer funded health insurance. We don't have employer funded health insurance per se.

Employer funded superannuation becomes part of the salary and wage package where employees are able to contribute also. Employers contribute 11% of gross earnings and employees can match dollar for dollar. Industry (specific) superannuation funds perform better. There are trillions of dollars invested in superannuation funds which is a boon to the economy. It was set up to lessen the burden on the Australian welfare system with the hope people will become self funded retirees at the end of their working life instead of getting the pension.

I retired early and self funded.

 

If I was I'd be delighted. ..but I'm not and never will be anymore than anyone else....

Quit lying about SS...........IF you think that SS is stealing from taxpayers which it isn't ,and no knowledgeable person thinks so , then why are you for it...

 

I curse FDR every single day, for a variety of things that mangled and manipulated this country against our own interests, got a half-million American military personnel killed, and many thousands more ruined for the rest of their lives. The history is plain, but I won't go into any of that now....

With regard to Social Security, well, it was already the very well established, cast-in-concrete law of the land before I was even born. I began my working life when I was 13 years old, and began paying SS taxes then. Along came Lyndon Johnson, FDR's star pupil, and he dumped another mandatory socialistic program on the United States -- Medicare (and its evil twin, Medicaid). There was nothing that myself or anybody else could do but PAY, all our long working lives.

Today, in 2016, it is absolutely infuriating to me and to most of my Baby Boomer-age peers to listen to all this jive-ass, confiscatory crap about changing the deal NOW, decades after the fact. I'm SORRY that my parents' generation ever put a stupid, hyperliberal piece-of-crap like Frankie Roosevelt in the White House, and I'm just as remorseful that we ever elected Lyndon Johnson, too. BUT, I wasn't even able to vote when either of these morons were president... as I said, my generation just gets to pay and pay and pay.

So be it. And when the time comes to collect, we expect to be paid every single, stinking, damned DIME we have coming to us, based on our age and what we were forced to put into the system. If, after 2032, the government calculates that it needs more money to cover its debt to Social Security recipients then I suggest it goes to the same Central Banks who dictated that governments must enact "rescues" and bail-outs for stock market gamblers and mega-wealthy investment bankers. The central bankers can just print up more of what they printed up to save Wall Street. If it was so damned important that we rescue all these criminals and con-artists, then it can be just as important to rescue Social Security!

Hint: Baby Boomers were the last decently-educated generation this country produced, and, WE VOTE!

 

I don't want to change it. I just want to flex it. It's backloaded right now, and that's where the problem lies. Too many people claiming benefits at the same time, leading to excess demand and not enough supply to match it. So, what you do? You prioritize those at the top of the line(like you, Pollycy) and then overtime those seniors will be served, allowing the younger ones to occupy a rightful; and timed place on the priority list.

We do it in orderly fashion, just like your generation operated in many other ways. Blue-belt America will revive, I'm confident of its revival. Because those standards have never left my heart. The standards of compassion, the rule of law and ethics unto other people. We will neither leave our elderly behind, nor will the cup be bare for new generations. Americans have risen to the occasion many times in the past, we will rise no less to the occasion this time too.

It's for that reason, that those of us so philosophically inclined are attempting to save this system from the parasitic drainers of the economy, who force us to make these decisions because they either mismanaged the system or abused it to their own ends.

 

Fine then like I said let me keep most of it and have it be what it is supposed to be a safety net. But that is not what the goverment is selling us. The fact that it has not collapsed yet does not mean that this is not a pyramid scheme. The day will come when it will not be sustainable.

 

Clearly, if there's really a Social Security funding problem (and I'm not convinced that there is, or will be one until 2032), the first thing we should do is go through the lists of those claiming "SS disability" and scour out all those claims that are based on fraud, lies, and deliberate falsification by hyperliberal, radical Democrat 'social-workers' who are always ready to put slackers on unearned welfare in return for their VOTES.

The next thing we need to do is to get rid of the Social Security earnings cap, currently at $118,500. If a person makes a million bucks a year, then he needs to pay FICA taxes on a million bucks a year, and not have it capped at a much lower total.

Third, we need to go through the U. S. Tax Code like an avenging angel and strip out ALL the tax shelters, tax loopholes, and unfair write-off's, exclusions and exemptions. It's been this way forever -- the wealthy are supposed to be in a certain tax bracket, BUT, by the time they have their tax attorneys and tax accountants figure out ways to play the system, they end up paying little or NOTHING in taxes!

Through all the years, neither "Fat Cat" Republicans nor "Limousine Liberal" Democrats have ever really done anything to change this monstrous unfairness. Both of them like things just the way they are....

 

The income cap is there because SSI only pays out so much. The only way out I see is wean everyone off SSI and take care of your own retirement or have your family take care of you.

 

The breakdown in the family unit is what changed alot of this. Muli-generational families were once the norm. The plan my wife and I have is to one day have her parents live with us. I am not willing to let my family live in a poor house, maybe other families shold do the same. But taking responsibility is lost on most people these days.

 

And people like you complain about Liberals and utopia. Jesus.

 

That would be hugely expensive to pay off current retirees. You must love paying taxes

 

It has a tremendously high opportunity costs which makes it effectively stealing when you force it.

 

What age do you think should be opt out age? I am 36 and would gladly give up all I have paid in.

 

And what do we do with current retirees who you are currently paying for?

 

Something has to give. I do not feel that it is sustainable as is.

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What is wrong with taking care of yourself and your family.

 

Whatever gives does not give at the expense of current retirees to make things better for your retirement. Sorry

 

It’s ironic. Liberals think that we are too stupid to pay for our own retirement, so they took it upon themselves to sign the whole country up for this program. Now the nanny state government, which is so reliable, honest, transparent, and disciplined with money that they aren’t personally liable for, is entrusted with the responsibility that we are supposedly too dumb to handle ourselves. Politicians have every incentive to buy votes and kick the can down the road. I can’t think of a worse group to put in charge of mandatory retirement savings.

 

Because we went to school before the federal take over

 

Honestly, I don't know what a good or fair "opt out" age would be, or what it should be. I'm an old guy and I'll leave any theoretical opting-out options to you and the Millennials.

I was stuck with the original deal, I was forced to pay into these mandatory government systems based on the original deal, I honored the original deal, and now I damned well expect the government to pay me my benefits based on THAT ORIGINAL DEAL. What you younger guys are able to bring about for yourselves is up to you, and it should be.... But be warned -- you'll be trying to wrestle fairness out of the slimiest bunch of lying, deceiving, manipulating bastards in the United States -- the ones who make and twist the various policies of our government.... Good luck! You'll need it....

. "Now you see it...." POOF! "...And now you don't.... Have a nice day (you stupid sucker bastards)...."

 

Social Security had nothing to do with your intelligence. It was started because there was a need for it. Old people were living out their final years in abject poverty.

I suppose you'd like to go back to that?

 

It has quite a bit to do with intelligence when you consider the fact that this wasn’t originally sold as pure welfare. Intelligence is needed to defer gratification today in order to save money for the future. Politicians suck at deferring gratification, and that was my point. Politicians are good at soaking up votes and making promises that they aren’t personally held accountable for like people in the private sector are.

Government programs in the wealthiest country of all time take a long time to blow up, so long that by the time they do, countless people will be hurt. But in the meantime, debt creates an illusion that resources are infinite. As a result, peaceful alternatives to stealing from the future to pay off the present are politically impossible.