Social Security Expected to Dip Into Its Reserves This Year

You have been Trumped.

 

Thank the money spigot at your beloved FED for financialising the economy over that time.
Every time the 99%ers lived beyond their means, took on exorbitant amounts of debt to buy homes, autos, vacations, electronic gizmos and RVs they couldnt afford, the rich got richer. And when their financial pyramid blew up in their face, you cried for joy as the FED rescued them to continue their feast.

Now you sit around thinking about dumb **** like tax codes and Republicans as an explaination for conditions

 

Partisanbull!

 

We'd all be rich if Social Security was privatized.

But it's better to utilize a failed socialist program.

 

We'd be rich if the entitlements addicts would repay their student loans. But the majority drop out and never achieve their "anticipated earnings potential" and even graduates, Sociology / philosophy / poli -sci majors, won't take jobs that they feel are beneath them. Some of these highly educated idiots undoubtedly wind up on SSI.

 

Texas, we missed the boat! Like I said in a previous post; Back in the 90's when Republicans and Democrats were JUST arguing about reforming SS, several first world countries were in the process of privatizing their SS trust funds, thus, hiring professional money managers for the sole purpose of investing surplus contributions.

Canada, Australia, Denmark, Switzerland, and even "socialist" Norway have been playing the capitalist game with their surplus contributions.

Thus, what derailed Uncle Sam's social program is the status quo, and an eagerness to keep operating a slush fund.

 

So if not for that, we would not need SS for we would have no poor old people? No disabled people? Wow. The poor will always be with us and have always been with us, regardless of what economic system you have. So you either do the moral thing, as a gov't by and for the people, or you just treat them as hindus treated their own poor and say do not be concerned about the poor for that is their karma. So fu*k em.

 

ha ha ha. You do know it is impossible for every american to be rich, I hope. Being rich has always required that the people who do the work, do not get rich by their work, for an employer.

Wealth is created by two primary elements, the workers and the owner. The owners can get rich, but the workers cannot.

If every american was rich, how did they get there? By other rich people doing their labor? lol Sorry, man, reality has never worked like that.

 

It is stated her routinely and bragged abiutt by Obama himself.
But if you want to show him giving credit to the Republicans have at it.

 

Ordinary people can buy stocks and then eventually become the owners of the corporations.

The truck drivers and floor sweepers at Home Depot in the 1980's bought stock in the company and got filthy rich $$$.

The leftist goal is not to do what's best for our citizens. The goals are to punish the rich and crowd out the private sector.

 

Even an IOU is an asset in business and must be included as such in accounting.

 

Seldom do ordinary people end up owning corporation by being able to buy their "common stock". One exception was the secretary to Kroc, the founder of the McDs chain, who was paid in common stock. Most people, ordinary people do not own nor will ever be able to buy common stock.

Now ordinary people, if they have the disposable income can buy preferred stock, when a company is new, and then see capital gains if the company takes off and grows. They can gamble on it, and win or they can lose. Right?

But the point remains, under capitalism that requires workers, only a few can ever be rich. For the wealth creation and building equation demands others, the non rich to do the work for the owner, who can then become rich through the work of his laborers. His employees. That is how reality works. And if we go to AI and robotics, needing only say 20 percent of our workforce, that 80 percent having no place in such an economy will never be rich unless they get lucky, or have an idea that can be turned into wealth.

Capitalism has it built into the system that only a few can be rich using it. Because of the factor in the equation that requires workers who do not get rich, for if all did, there would be no labor for the owners to use in order for the owner to get rich. Just basic common sense really that transcends the field of economics that began its life as being politically driven. So you have left economists and right side economists, which tells me this isn't even approaching being a science at all. ha ha ha.

 

And what benefits are those?

 

I agree, employees of such corporations who gambled by investing in company stock and got rich by doing it just got lucky.

In fact, the smart thing to do as an employee is TO NOT invest in company stock, much less be paid in it. The reason for it is diversification to reduce risk. If the company you work for goes south, you are being hit twice, not only are you likely to lose your job, you also lose your savings as the company stock tanks. Ask Enron employees how well it worked for them having their life savings in Enron stock.

Of course, the proponents of vulture capitalism will always use anecdotes of few people having gotten rich by doing this or that, as propaganda for the system. That's a dishonest approach because the component of luck is not taken into account, but rather the idea is peddled that everyone can get rich easily. Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

This isn't worth arguing any longer. We all know that anyone can invent a nice-sounding counter-argument until it is actually examined, and that is all that is happening here.

 

Obama astutely knew he would end up reducing Bush's deficit by half before the end of his first term, it wasn't a miracle.

First; TARP......Congress passed a bill which clearly stated; After five years, any disbursements not returned to Treasury will be added to the debt, and within 5 years, over 95% of TARP's disbursements were returned to Treasury. Well, Bush deficit included near $350 billion in TARP, thus, a debit for Bush, and a credit/revenue for Obama. In other words; including TARP and other reimbursed aid packages, Bush NET deficit was actually lower that $1.2 trillion.

Also, the Federal Reserve returned to Treasury most interest earned on approx. $2.5 trillion in Treasury securities......some payments were well over $100 billion, and THAT HELP!

In addition, Obama's stimulus ($800 billion), tax holiday ($200 billion), increasing the top tax rate to 39.6%, which generated $80 billion in annual revenues, and overall "a recovery" boosted Obama's revenues/reduced his deficits.

Once again, I'm an independent Conservative/fiscal conservative, and I've been non-partisan since the financial crisis, thus, my warning to both repubs and dems in this forum; Don't try to fool me with numbers as I know them all.

 

Hard work does not guarantee wealth either. While it is needed, just hard work by itself with no consideration for other variables does not yield guaranteed wealth.

I found out early on in life that it is not always "what you know" but "who you know", connections that our elites have from being rich, that further enriches them. Common people have a very difficult time in developing these connections.

The myth that hard work and motivation, parroted by the right side, will make one rich and that all can be rich is just hyperbolic nonsense. Reality does not agree with their beliefs, I am sorry to say.

IMO, I think it is very difficult to get rich unless you are willing to exploit other human beings, with no conscience. This exploitation is what we call good capitalism. You can read how our earlier rich folks got rich, and many were scumbags, immoral, but then capitalism we are told is amoral, but it is told to us by the people at the top, the immoral who want to be considered amoral. ha ha ha

Of course capitalism does not have to operate like this, but the base side of human nature governs the lives of many humans and is much more powerful in practice than reason, logic, rationality. To have a form of capitalism that impoverishes your own people, ships their jobs off to slave labor, creating more spending, greater debt is not rationality, logic nor intelligence in operation, but quite the contrary.

 

Add to that the evil people who want to get their hands on everyone else's stuff and use "the rich" as an excuse

 

The Last Bush deficit was 2007 at $161B when he and the Republicans continued to bring it down from their peak of $400B what are you talking about? The Democrats including first Senator Obama and then President Obama took it to $1,400B in just two years with a 10% spending increase in 2008 and then a 20% spending increase in 2009 on top of that, that's a 32% increase in just those two years, and kept the deficit over $1,000B for the next three years until the Republican sequester and austerity programs.

TARP was paid back and rather quickly and with interest. It has nothing to do with Obama's phony claim he reduced the Democrat deficits.

Was an abject failure even by his own admission and did not alleviate the unemployment situation as it claimed it would hold unemployment to just 8% for one quarter. Instead it shot to 10% and stayed of 9% for the next three years and with his routine extension of benefits hugely ran up government spending and the deficits.

The fact is Obama did not lower the deficits, his budgets were routinely dismissed out of hand. It was the Republican sequester and austerity that cut them Obama just tried to take credit as did Bill Clinton for the Gingrich/Kasich surpluses which were due mostly to their tax rate cuts and welfare reform and spending restraint.

I've been fiscal conservative for over 40 years, you attempts to claim a higher authority notwithstanding

 

I don't know anyone in that group. People who want to take all that the rich have. And I am 76 years old and never met a single person like that.

But if you are trying to call everyone who believes in a Commons, social safety nets, evil people, then you have gone off the deep end. Into radicalism. And the radicalism of the right is just as harmful as the radicalism on the far left.

 

When Obama was POTUS, I had him under my microscope, and in several political and current affair chat lines, libs have often accused me of being a right-wing, which I'm not. In other words, if you disagree with a left-wing, then you must be a right-wing, and vise versa.....what a stupid mentality, and the main reason why problems don't get solved.

 

Other than by inheritance, rare, or winning the lottery, even more rare, who gets wealthy by not "working hard"?

Well what do you define as "rich" and I certainly am about to retire based on my "hard" and productive work throughout my life.

And former Soviet Union was not immoral? The Chinese government was not immoral? They both had the best interest of all their citizens at heart?

You are keeping up with employment numbers are you not. We have MORE jobs than job seekers available. Good jobs. There is no reason for an abled bodied person to be impoverished in this country. This country offers more chance to improve ones lot in life than anywhere in the world and it is because we are one of the most capitalist economies in the world.

 

OK, I don't engage in such nonsense so what is your point. I point out the facts.

The last Bush deficit was 2007 at $161B when he and the Republicans continued to bring it down from their peak of $400B what are you talking about? The Democrats including first Senator Obama and then President Obama took it to $1,400B in just two years with a 10% spending increase in 2008 and then a 20% spending increase in 2009 on top of that, that's a 32% increase in just those two years, and kept the deficit over $1,000B for the next three years until the Republican sequester and austerity programs.


TARP was paid back and rather quickly and with interest. It has nothing to do with Obama's phony claim he reduced the Democrat deficits.

Again for Obama to claim HE cut the deficits was laughable on it's face.

 

I don't place a lot of credibility in tabloids.

 

Shadowstats disagrees with the official numbers. Jobless rates are still double digits. The official numbers incorporate the old saw, figures do not lie, but liars can figure.