Social security is not socialism but it needs to be privatized

Let's just establish this from the beginning. The government merely exists to provide for the common defense of its citizens and regulate interstate commerce.

The existence of a private bank that has the ability to make drastic, economically-consequential decisions with regard to the dollar and interest rates plainly does not fall under the umbrella of federal powers. The artificial lowering of interest rates leading up to the 2008 financial crisis undoubtedly lead to the collapse. The Federal Reserve is the most powerful, politically-motivated banking entity in the world. The board members are so partisan, in fact, that the suggestion of NEGATIVE INTEREST RATES was brought forth in order to perpetuate the lie that the current crony-capitalist economy is "healthy." https://www.google.com/amp/www.forb...s-the-sign-everyone-missed/amp/?client=safari

With reference to the FDIC, the concept of federally-insured bank accounts allows the banks to play with house money. This is where my analogy comes into play. If you guarantee a bailout, what is to stop the banks with gambling with depositors' money? This is basic logic and simple economics.

Any more questions?

 

Whether you like it or not it IS a socialist system and privatizing it would kill it (as that is the intention of privatization...along with making a heckofa profit for certain investment companies)

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Why should we "establish" anything of the sort?

That's your opinion and you're welcome to it...but opinion is not fact

 

Oh? Did you call that my opinion?

Express powers are powers that the Constitution explicitly grants the federal government. These include the powers to regulate interstate commerce (collect taxes, coin money, etc) and provide for the common defense (declare war, raise and maintain an army, etc). I used a simple source to keep this easy for you. Besides the elastic clause, those rights are the only ones enumerated with regard to the federal government. http://sparkcharts.sparknotes.com/history/usgovernment/section2.php

I challenge you to find more rights to which the federal government is entitled.

 

Senility is a curse.

(and could you answer my questions?)

 

that is the problem, if the market crashes, the gov would still have to pay out... the is the cost of gambling our elder folks futures

 

But over time the returns on the market are so much better than Social Security. If you take the money from Social Security and invest it even in Treasuries you get a much better return than on SS. Really the only question here is the question dealing with people who refuse to save for their retirement.

 

I think he is saying that people should not have to pay for other people's healthcare costs. Whether access to health-care is a right or not is beside the point.

 

Social Security should be privatized as an insurance program administered separately by each of the 50 States.

That would eliminate the gross disparities in the program. For example, two single retirees, each receives $1,100/month in Social Security Retirement benefits. The problem is that $1,100/month equals...

$2092.95 per month in Cincinnati
$761.07 per month in San Fransisco

...due to differences in Cost-of-Living.

Liberals of course cannot justify such an injustice, and instead seek to perpetuate it.

If States administered Social Security as a privatized insurance program, such gross disparities would not exist.

Your understanding is very poor. FICA Tax Revenues are paid out to beneficiaries, with any excess funds converted to treasury securities and the cash is placed in the General Fund for use.

When the OASI and DI Trust Funds require redemption of these securities to make expenditures, the Government finances those expenditures out of accumulated cash balances, by raising taxes or other receipts, by borrowing from the public or repaying less debt, or by curtailing other expenditures. This is the same way that the Government finances all other expenditures.

 

You can privatize Social Security as an insurance program, so that you maintain your three planks:

1] employer-based retirement programs
2] individual savings and retirement investments
3] Social Security in case the first two fail.

And for the record, 35 States had social security-like or social insurance programs. In fact, the first program was instituted in 1914 in Arizona, followed by programs in Montana, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Washington, Colorado, Maryland, California, Utah, Minnesota and Wyoming up through 1929. More States added programs between 1930 to 1935, including New York, where FDR was governor prior to being elected president in 1932.

 

The government has always repaid Social Security, with interest. Bernie Madoff did not.



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I am not an American so excuse my ignorance. Two questions:

1. Is Social Security the government's way of "forcing" people to save for their retirement?
2. Is it pretty similar to Canada Pension Plan?

Thanks.

 

Yes. The concern is that the federal government is operating at a deficit and is buying the SS securities to reduce buying debt from other sources. Some short term debt is normal and it's better that we're paying interest to another U.S. agency than to a foreign nation, but there is reasonable concern about how long we've been operating at a deficit without a clear plan to reverse the trend.



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that is my point, so if republican are so sure this is better for our elderly then Social Security, when they retire let them pick whichever is worth more

 

exactly, if republicans support #3, i say go for it....

 

Investing it in US government bonds would not be gambling, and no financial companies would need to be involved.

Why the continuing stupidity that it would have to be invested in the stock market?

 

You would be required to put a percentage of your income in your individual trust account, similar to your social security tax today.

 

We've been operating at a deficit for almost our entire existence

 

if your so sure of that, why not agree to the guarantee as it would cost nothing if what you say is true

invest it in bonds, if republicans are right then can lower the retirement age or give people more money, but don't remove what exists... make it better

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Hypothetically, that is correct. But what about the losers and azzhats, who never contribute crap? What about the jackwipe illegals that Democrat administrations love to pander to and give them citizens shares for free or subsidize? And think about demographics, (boomers who paid all their lives). Who funds their retirement if the new participants are in a private plan? SSI bailout? Remember, SS is currently a Ponzi scheme. Without new participants, there is no money to fund the past participants because the government has squandered every penny. I challenge anyone to refute this last part. PONZI and scam!

 

That would be merely your concern. Long before we had a very significant national debt as we have now, the law said that excess SS revenue would be invested in secure, safe, fixed assets: Treasury securities. It was a very proper decision and had nothing whatsoever to do with any imagined "difficulty" with buying debt from other sources. In fact, to prove the point, a bit of research will reveal that when SS needs fund from the Trust Fund to pay current obligations, -as they do every month now, -they do it by selling a matching value of Treasury securities on the open market, mostly to foreign investors who feel those securities are the safest.

The lack of knowledge among opponents of SS is breathtaking.

 

I'm not an opponent.......but tell us what the current surplus of the SSI fund is this year.

 

1. No. The money retirees receive is not the same money they paid into SS, which is to say it is not a "return on investment". So it isn't "savings". It's a tax-funded and very minimal retirement security program.

2. I dunno. How does the Canadian Pension Plan work? Social Security is funded by a 6.2% tax right off the top of the paycheck and matched by a 6.2% tax paid by the employer. And there's a cap on how much income can be taxed. Earned income in excess of $127,200 starting in 2017 will not be subject to that 6.2% tax. The benefit calculation is designed to favor low income workers so that a person earning half as much as another gets more than half as much SS in retirement. The range is narrow, -about $900/month to $2,500/month. And a retiree can start collecting anytime after age 62, but the longer one waits to start collecting, the more one will receive per month due to mortality tables.

 

Why are you "very happy"? Maybe you gleefully think you have me cornered? It's about $2.8 trillion.

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v75n1/v75n1p1.html
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/

 

There is no problem with SS selling securities. There is a problem with any enterprise operating at a deficit. I am not the only person concerned with that problem and the significant national debt that it has created. Or the difficulty created if foreign, possibly hostile, nations owned large amounts of that debt.



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People who are far more informed on the subject than you made the right decisions. As I said elsewhere, a variable investment is completely wrong for SS for the reasons I gave. Also, diversification is essential, and there are several kinds of diversification.

REALLY??? What in hell do you think it is invested in???? TREASURIES!!! (sheesh)

Or can't due to oppressively low wages.