Here's how Elizabeth Warren would change Social Security

Most people are getting paid WAY more than they ever paid into the system. SS is a ponzi scheme (esk) and is unsustainable! It was never truly meant to be a retirement plan but rather a subsidized plan to help retirees.

 

But now Warren wants to go after wealth and the institutional investors and corporations in which my retirement funds are invested.

 

I don't doubt that what you say is accurate, but remember -- Social Security is a GOVERNMENT-run program. Anything having to do with the private sector is "fair game" to a Leftist-Socialist. Also, please remember, Warren, Sanders, and others of that type hope to marshal support from people who do not (NOT) own stock, or have much of anything to do with stock markets at all.

Any Democrat can tell you that Trump will get the "rich people" vote... but in 2020 that may not be nearly enough.

Here's a breakdown of the economic sectors that own stock, from November 2017: https://www.politifact.com/californ...-khanna/what-percentage-americans-own-stocks/

 

I don't doubt that what you say is accurate, but remember -- Social Security is a GOVERNMENT-run program. Anything having to do with the private sector is "fair game" to a Leftist-Socialist. Also, please remember, Warren, Sanders, and others of that type hope to marshal support from people who do not (NOT) own stock, or have much of anything to do with stock markets at all.

Any Democrat can tell you that Trump will get the "rich people" vote... but in 2020 that may not be nearly enough.

Here's a breakdown of the economic sectors that own stock, from November 2017: https://www.politifact.com/californ...-khanna/what-percentage-americans-own-stocks/

 

Those in the lower half of earners and especially at the bottom where those who received the EITC effectively paid nothing into the system. As you go up the contribution levels that disappears. I could be getting far more in a monthly income had I had that money in just a stock index fund all these years AND THE MONEY WOULD BE THERE. If I died my heirs would get what remained. That is the folly of those saying to just remove the caps in income subject to SS contributions but keep their benefit the same, that's not how a retirement system works. Imagine in your your 401k sent you a letter saying that any further contributions by you will simply be given to someone else as you have reached the cap but you STILL have to contribute.

 

Well not so fast

" But this is fine for Yglesias because, he claims, it’s only the ultra-rich who own stock: the richest 10% own 81.4% of the stock market, and the top 1% own 38% of the stock market wealth. But the study he derives these figures from focuses exclusively on household wealth based on a government survey, the Survey of Consumer Finances, so it excludes from its calculations “wealth” owned by individuals in the form of promised future pension benefits (and backed by pension funds), and takes no interest in the amount of stock market wealth owned by nonprofits or other institutions.

Take a look at the estimates from Pensions & Investments: 80% of stock market equity is held by institutions: that means, mutual funds, pension funds, 401(k)s, and the like. In particular, 37% of stock is owned by retirement accounts; when subtracting out foreign owners of US stock (26% of the total), 50% of US-owned US equities are owned within retirement funds. "

 

But you should pay higher tax now to fund the ponzi scheme fairy tale that the boomer generation bought into, while they spent way beyond their means and gladly let the government do as well

 

They don't care. They just want somebody else to hand them money and fix it for them

 

Again, I do not disagree with your facts. Nevertheless, if the "Everyday Joe" has his retirement fund, which is ensconced in the stock market, negatively impacted in any way, then he will expect the government to come up with a offsetting mechanism. And, Social Security, which is firmly in the hands of the GOVERNMENT will be the perfect vehicle.

See the dynamic? Move people and money OUT of the stock market and into government programs! Like it or not, by crushing people's interest rates on savings accounts (which compared to stock market 'casinos' are secure), and completely IGNORING Social Security cost-of-living increases, Trump is playing right into the Democrats' hands....

 

It's just a matter of educating which if Warren ends up the nominee there will be a lot of educating going on.

 

Our gov will never be able to raise interest rates again.

CPI is a government rigged number.
The gov will print so much money to prevent collapse that no SS dependent retiree will be able to keep up with real cost of living increases.
They spent their wad and didn't stop their government while they had the chance.
Their children won't be able to shoulder the burden of the can they kicked kicked down the road, while enjoying the benefits of trillions in wasteful government spending, year after year after year.

Yes, they will use the gov to rape their children, but in the end they will lose big

 

I never voted for any measures which entitled the federal government to raid the SS funds.

 

You voted for the reps that did, and your whole generation stood by and watched, enjoying the trillions upon trillions in gov spending and the debt fueled economy of the past 30 years.
Time to pay YOUR tab.

But instead it's....
Money for nothing, let your kids pay the tab

And I'm the greedy one?

 

I don’t want anything.
I think society will fare better with a fair system.

If you disagree we will just have to disagree.

 

Fair means someone else has to cough up the dough. We both know how "fair" works

 

I did not at all enjoy the way our government has pissed away our money in idiotic trillion dollar wars, drug wars producing prisons and mass incarceration and corruption whereby huge corporations and billionaires have bought our representatives in exchange for trillions in tax cuts and loopholes exempting them from paying taxes. Meanwhile, the cost of college, healthcare, gasoline and almost every other necessity have skyrocketed. Our whore politicians have sold us out to international bank swindlers and corporations for decades now. It is their (our Federal and State governments) responsibility to restore the money they have raided from our SS accounts to us. They should get the money back from the entities they gave it to by hook or by crook and discontinue the drug war, mass incarceration, pointless wars, and end government corruption as Warren and others propose.

 

Hey I agree with those things, but it was still your generation that didn't take your politicians to task.

You all enjoyed the debt fueled boom.
Now your kids are stuck with the high prices you created and you want them to pay extra for you, so you dont have to feel the sting of your generation's choices. Boomers broke the bank and want their kids to pay the price

 

Again, you are confusing SS tax with income tax. EITC is from income tax. Everyone pays SS tax, even those making $1000 a year (my first lesson in taxes when I was 1.

 

There really aren't that many people that earn over a Million a year. Most get their money from investments and only pay the 15% cap gains with no SS tax. Your plan would not generate much income at all.

 

I did not enjoy or approve the the debt fueled boom. Corrupt politicians and the bank swindlers and corporations they sold us out to reaped all the benefits of that, not me or other working Americans who funded it. Now it’s time for them to pay up and keep their commitment to us. Warren’s plan is a good start.

 

The purpose of the EITC is to reimburse the FICA contributions lower incomes. They effectively do not contribute and the lower incomes actually get a return on their contributions where the upper incomes loses money.

 

Wrong. 35 years. It's amazing that a program has been in existence for 84 years and people are clueless about it.

Wrong. Read the Social Security Act of 1935 and get back to us. It's amazing that a program has been in existence for 84 years and people are ignorant about it.

Yes, it is a Ponzi-scheme, however adding 1.8%-2.2% to the current FICA payroll tax for employers and employees will fund Social Security for the next 200-400 years.

That is a false subjective view based on a lack of understanding of Economics.

It is true that the total Inflation rate since 1990 is ~98%.

That breaks down like this:

~11% Monetary Inflation
~17% Cost-push Inflation
~70% Demand-pull Inflation

COLA increases have constantly exceeded the rate of Monetary Inflation.

Cost-push Inflation is not caused by the Federal Reserve and the Federal Reserve is powerless to stop it. You and others like you are the sole cause of Cost-push Inflation.

Demand-pull Inflation is not caused by the Federal Reserve and the Federal Reserve cannot stop it.

You are the cause of Demand-pull Inflation.

Demand-pull Inflation is a built-in safety feature in Economics. Its sole purpose is to prevent the over-consumption, over-use or depletion of goods, services and resources.

It does that by ensuring higher prices to curtail demand.

It is immoral, unethical and illogical to enable consumers to over-consume, over-use or deplete goods, services and resources, because it results in nothing except even higher prices rising at continuously faster rates until Demand Destruction results.

When Demand-pull Inflation exists, you have three and only three choices:

1) Stop consuming. That's one thing the elderly do. You'll need to be more discriminatory with your money and what you buy.
2) Seek substitutes: That's another thing the elderly do.
3) Increase the rate of Supply to match or exceed the rate of Demand.

Those are your choices. You are not entitled to anything and everything simply because it exists.

Note that it is not always possible to increase the rate of Supply. That is especially true for housing. There are 11,539,000 housing markets in the US and some of those are saturated, meaning it is impossible to build new housing or the only way to build new housing is to displace families, destroy their housing and then build vertical housing --- multi-story hi-rise condos and apartments.

Sometimes profit is a barrier to new entrants to the market. The price might be high, but the profit margin zero or negative, in which case you must wait until Demand-pull Inflation drives prices even higher, so that you can enter the market and turn a profit.

Those taxes are unconstitutional, or would create economic problems.

Barring a constitutional amendment, Warren's wealth tax must be apportioned by population, so as an example, people in California would be taxed at 30%, Texas 28%, New York 27%, Ohio 22%, Kentucky 14%, Wyoming 4% and so on.

 

Government can't pay.
Citizens pay. You know that.
And those citizens are your kids.
Now you want to steal from them after your generation spent like drunk sailors and ran $90k homes too $300k and $7 automobiles to $35k