Social security is not socialism but it needs to be privatized

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by sawyer, Feb 22, 2017.

  1. sawyer

    sawyer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Leftist in here love to accuse old white Conservatives like myself of participation in socialism because we get our SS check. The only way SS is socialism is that you are forced to participate in the program and the government takes money out of your paycheck your entire working life whether you like it or not.
    Other than that SS is basically a a very poorly run deferred annuity. A well run insurance company annuity which I voluntarily purchased uses your money to invest for a certain length of time and then starts paying you monthly until you die. These annuities use the same statistics that SS does and assume you will die at eighty years old which not so coincidentally is when you start getting more money than you paid in. Insurance annuities use profits made from investments to pay this extra money to people who live longer than they statistically should.
    Government on the other hand spends your money instead of investing it and depends on ever more people forced into the system to finance those getting monthly SS checks from day one. This is where SS becomes a Ponzi scheme instead of an annuity and this is why SS should be privatized.
     
    Reality Land likes this.
  2. Quantum Nerd

    Quantum Nerd Well-Known Member

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    It is not surprising that those who think they have money and have been lucky enough to have been able to pay into the SS system for a while (you) are interested in privatization.

    Of course, this opinion disregards the fact that people will be able to receive SS benefits who never paid a dime into the system. These could be disabled people, people who suffered from a debilitating accident/disease early in life etc. These people would not be covered under your privatization scheme, since they never paid into it.

    I actually don't mind that part of my SS contributions do not generate return for myself, but rather go to help these unfortunate folks who cannot take care of themselves. You never know, your kid or grand kid could be unlucky to be one of them. And then you'd be glad SS will be there for them.
     
  3. Andrew Jackson

    Andrew Jackson Well-Known Member

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    Great points.

    Also, not a chance that SS will ever be privatized.
     
  4. Dirty Rotten Imbecile

    Dirty Rotten Imbecile Well-Known Member

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    Social Security is a drop in the bucket compared to the military. That is the biggest cost that is socialized in America.

    Prison is probably up there too.
     
  5. lemmiwinx

    lemmiwinx Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Why should people be allowed to decide where their SS taxes are invested? You pay the tax then if you live long enough you get some of it back. It's been working fine for 75 plus years don't mess with it.
     
  6. sawyer

    sawyer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    SS should be a stand alone retirement program. People that never paid into it and are victims of accident or disease need an entirely different program
     
  7. sawyer

    sawyer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm not so sure of that. There's a new mood in the country and if a private company ran an annuity like the government runs SS people would go to prison. There may well be a drastic change in SS in the very near future. This Ponzi scheme is going broke and needs a big fix
     
  8. sawyer

    sawyer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    But SS is in worse trouble every day as baby-boomers retire. It needs fixed or it will go tits up.

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    Problem is SS taxes are not invested, they are spent. An insurance company that did this with an annuity would be the scandal of the century and people would go to prison
     
  9. Dirty Rotten Imbecile

    Dirty Rotten Imbecile Well-Known Member

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    So buy three less airplanes or reign in the pentagon's black budget.


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    Problem is SS taxes are not invested, they are spent. An insurance company that did this with an annuity would be the scandal of the century and people would go to prison[/QUOTE]
     
  10. Quantum Nerd

    Quantum Nerd Well-Known Member

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    That would be fine with me. However, then you'd lose the advantage as well, since someone will have to pay for that other program, and that someone will be people with jobs.

    As to a pure retirement annuity program, a private provider could probably run it as well as the government. My fear, though, would be that instead of paying some lazy government employees, you'd pay fees to greedy financial managers. The administration of the vast majority of IRA and 401k plans by private providers does not instill confidence that there will be gains for the average investor. Will financial managers have a field day? Yes they will, which is why they are always the first ones advocating for privatizing SS.

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    And thank goodness for that. 401ks and IRAs are already dependent on stock market performance. We don't need SS benefits to take a haircut as well in each recession.
     
  11. Sampson Simpon

    Sampson Simpon Active Member

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    When has privatization been good? The companies rob people all the time. They only care about profit. What happened to the housing crisis, when people lost their entire retirements because of shady business by the banks to make themselves money at the expense of everything else? What a horrible idea.

    What has privatization to prisons done? Led to increased prison times, a system where prisoners get penalized by the prison with so called violations so they get longer sentences, all so the company makes more money. You have judges that were giving harsher sentences to people while getting payouts. yeah, privatization is really great.

    How much more evidence of malfeasance from corporations do people need to stop this nonsense that privatization is all good? That there should be no regulations against companies. Those regulations protect us from the predatory ways of corporations, who only care about one thing, and one thing alone, as big of profits they can possibly make
     
  12. sawyer

    sawyer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    SS is beyond a haircut,it's not invested at all, It is spent,gone, up in smoke. SS depends on new money to pay old debt and is nothing more than a collapsed Ponzi scheme.

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    There has never in US history been more corruption and malfeasance than in the administration of the SS program

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    There has never in US history been more corruption and malfeasance than in the administration of the SS program
     
  13. lemmiwinx

    lemmiwinx Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Do you people even know FDR was a polio cripple? How dare people make bad speech against a handicapped person.
     
  14. Dirty Rotten Imbecile

    Dirty Rotten Imbecile Well-Known Member

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    Really? Do you have a way of measuring that, maybe some examples, or is this just a statement tossed out to support your opinion about privatization?

    Is SS more corrupt than having bankers write their own financial regulations?
     
  15. undertheice

    undertheice Well-Known Member

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    the words we choose tell a great deal about us. for instance, your choice of describing government employees as lazy and financial managers as greedy. does it ever enter into your mind that not only are the denizens of the public sector lazy, but greedy as well? these bureaucrats operate within a structure where their compensation and benefits packages are not dependent on their performance, but on their longevity in a system that makes it nearly impossible to be terminated. meanwhile, these private sector managers you malign must perform, they must prove their worth or forfeit their reputations and their careers. the problem is not one of greed. though we attempt to mitigate it through moral teachings and the rule of law, greed is a demon to which none of us are truly immune. the problem is a lack of oversight. in the private sector that oversight is the responsibility of governmental agencies, all of which are run by those same lazy bureaucrats, and of the people themselves, most of whom are too indolent themselves to take much care with their investments. in the public sector we have the same dilemma, but with the added problem of the fact that it is government acting as watchdog over itself.

    i realize that it is easy to blindly place your trust in the government that is supposed to have your best interests at heart, but the wall between the bureaucracy and the public is just too opaque to ensure that this trust is not misplaced.
     
  16. sawyer

    sawyer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Satire?
     
  17. sawyer

    sawyer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Where is all the SS money that has been paid in and not yet given out in benefits? It's gone! Spent as part of the general fund and now retiree's that paid into it all their lives are dependent on vast new numbers of people paying in that demographics say dont exist. The Ponzi scheme is exposed.
     
  18. lemmiwinx

    lemmiwinx Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    FDR invented Social Security I'm just saying it might have had something to do with his disability at the time. He may have had mental issues that affected his judgement.
     
  19. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    I find it frightening how easily conservatives are duped by 1%ers into willingly making them even wealthier and more powerful. Of course those in banking and finance would absolutely love to get their greedy mits on Social Security! SO MUCH MONEY!

    I think a proper conservative solution would be not having any such program, but allowing people to invest on their own. I absolutely would never support having the federal government mandate that I pay money to private bankers, which is what a privatized SS program would amount to. Talk about oligarchy and plutocracy! We're practically already there, with the wealthy buying the politicians they want through campaign donations, and probably through other favors. This is one major reason both parties fail us so miserably, why both have been fully championing globalization. And now we have a freaking rich tycoon as president, one who got in pretending to be opposed to those politicians and "for the people." Yeah. Watch what happens. He's got his nose completely buried up the butts of the wealthy. He is fully in line with what the wealthy ruling class want - more privatization, more transfer of power and wealth from government and the public to them. That's what privatizing schools would be, same as SS, and both would suffer as a consequence, and so all of us who aren't in the wealthy elite will only suffer in the end for it. While privatization can make things efficient, that efficiency often entails cutting corners where possible and can lead to a "race to the bottom" in terms of quality. They have to worry about profits and overhead in a way that government institutions do not. This gives them the wrong priorities to run such institutions as K-12 education and SS, and they also lack requisite oversight to handle such important things, which absolutely have to work and be there for us, no matter what.
     
  20. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    " Social security is not socialism but it needs to be privatized "

    no it does not
     
  21. sawyer

    sawyer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    SS was originally intended strictly as an old age protection act and has morphed over the years into the mess it is today.

    "The Social Security Act established two types of provisions for old-age security: (1) Federal aid to the States to enable them to provide cash pensions to their needy aged, and (2) a system of Federal old-age benefits for retired workers. The first measure was designed to provide immediate assistance to destitute aged individuals. The second was a preventive measure intended to reduce the extent of future dependency among the aged and to assure workers that their years of employment entitled them to a life income.

    For needy persons already aged 65 or older, old-age assistance was provided, by title I, through Federal grants-in-aid to pay half the costs of the pensions, provided that the Federal share did not exceed $15 a month per person. In Mr. Cohen's judgment, the most significant long-range congressional modification of the original proposal was the deletion of the condition that States should provide a "reasonable subsistence compatible with decency and health. "

    https://www.ssa.gov/history/50ed.html
     
  22. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That is accurate and I share much of your frustration. To be clear though, the U.S. government does not spend SS assets on other programs. It invests the SS balance in loans guaranteed by the federal government. Other U.S. programs are preferred for those loans in return for that guarantee and pay interest on the money borrowed from SS.

    There are problems with this practice, but it keeps a government otherwise operating at a deficit from being vulnerable to manipulation by external parties to whom they would otherwise be deeply indebted. We would be in a hard place with China and Japan if not for this practice. The deficit is the real problem.



     
  23. Daniel Light

    Daniel Light Well-Known Member

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    Privatizing Social Security is a nice thought ... until one steps into the real world.

    In the real world. the majority of Americans do not invest in the stock market.
    In the real world, the majority of Americans do not understand investing for long term returns.
    In the real world, the majority of Americans are not great savers of money. If they have access to it, they will spend it.
    In the real world, there are about 35 million Americans with physical and mental deficiencies that preclude them from gainful employment.
    In the real world, stocks and bonds can lose value - as can real-estate holdings.
    In the real world, people have entire portfolios devalued by investing con-men.

    Social Security was born out of the suffering of the Great Depression - where a number of people were left with nothing after the stock market crash.
     
  24. sawyer

    sawyer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Privatized social security would be nothing more than a deferred annuity where your money was invested instead of spent as it is now.
     
  25. Quantum Nerd

    Quantum Nerd Well-Known Member

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    Is it because financial managers want to provide a good service that they want to get rid of pesky regulations that requires them to be a fiduciary? No, it is because they want to stick it to the consumer through undisclosed commissions and front end or back end fees. They can do that because the average retirement investor is too uninformed to realize what's going on. In essence, this is legalized predation on the weak.

    The ONLY positive thing privatization is going to achieve is fat wallets for the financial managers. The investors will be fleeced. As an additional "benefit": Those that are not lucky with their investments will end up on the street in old age. That's not a world I want to live in.
     

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