Who's worried about Social Security?

[GregFL]

Depends on when you are talking.  But when I fled St Pete (the story is online), I lived in my car for a while, then I lived in a foster home, then I ended up living in Ft Lauderdale. I paid rent at 16 to my mother, and  At 18,I got my own apartment.  I have scraped and worked for every penny I ever got.

I guess it really isn't fair to blame Art for having to flee St Pete, but on some level the insanity of my family and the "tough love" and "Greg needs help" mentality all came from lessons they learned at the seed.  But I will concede right now without Art and the Seed, my Pop had problems.  The Seed just let him focus his ultra-control tendencies into a direction that was not healthy.

So, in a sense I retract that statement...but not totally.

[Ft. Lauderdale]

Hey for all you've been through...I've got to hand it to you.  You have done OK for yourself.
Even though we don't agree on alot of things...you are a pretty likable guy.   :scared: )

[notworking]

I am also an advocate of social programs to help the needy, but when my millionare neighbors all laugh at their SS checks while they are golfing and gulping down anti depressents and driving around in their "jazzys" all on my tax dollar, I take offense.

I'll be your huckleberry, Greg.

It seems to me that your problem is not really with poor people wanting something for nothing, it's rich people who ARE getting something for nothing.  Which, I agree, is offensive.

People who are collecting SS (retirement) now will draw more out of the system than they've ever paid into it.  They spent their working lives during the most peaceful, profitable time in this country's history, they've had more technological and health advancements than in all other generations combined and did they use all of that to save for their future and provide for their children?  Hell, no.  They went on cruises and bought fancy houses and now they want to whine about having to choose between buying medicine and buying food.  Well, grampa, maybe if you hadn't bought a new car every two years and you'd skipped on that cosmetic surgery (but, hey, you don't look a DAY over 57!) and saved your money, you wouldn't be facing the food vs. meds decision now.  

I agree the answer is to means test.  And means test TODAY, not twenty years from now.  But we also need to eliminate the income ceiling for FICA/Medicare contributions.  We need that money to keep the system going.  Also, for debt service on W's most excellent idea of having an entire country basically live off (and finance a war on) its credit cards.  Oh, and pyramid schemes.

If Social Security doesn't keep going, none of us is going to get a damn thing, never mind about proportionate benefits.  When you eliminate medical benefits for anyone, much less several million medically needy people, it causes the overall cost of health care to go up.  Which raises insurance premiums for individuals and, yes, small businesses.

If this country can't service its debt and we become more banana republic than we already are, your property values are going to go down, inflation will go up and so will crime.  Creating a Dickensian underworld of disenfranchised people is NOT going to help your business unless, of course, your business is prisons or personal protection.  Supply-side economics has run its course.  

While we're at it, we might as well put some of these old people back to work.  They're healthier than they've ever been, they're going to live about forever, they seem to have all kinds of time to lobby the government for more benefits, let's give 'em jobs.  Have them do all the low-paying, no-risk-taking, PETTY things the rest of us are doing for chump change.  Like taking care of you when you're sick.  Or educating your kids.  Or cleaning your house, checking your groceries, keeping your local water system working, servicing the airplane you're getting on.  Then we'll all have time to make REAL money.  

If you don't like the word "tax," think of it as a "convenience fee."

[cleveland]

I am no expert on economics and I can't argue the numbers. All I know is, I have seen third world contries where the poor live in squalor and the rich live in walled compounds with private security. Greg, I think you're a great guy, but it's always the self-made who think they are god's gift, and that the reason the other poor schmuck didn't make it is because he's a lazy ass. And you may be right. I've met quite a few poor folks in my life, and many of them are lazy. I've met a lot of wealthty folks too, and many of them are lazy as well. There's a guy in my neighborhood, collects aluminum cans and scrap - works it like a job, rides his bike with a tin man made of cans on the handlebars - what's his story? Don't know, but he works hard every day. When I was in my early 20s, and making min. wage jobs, hell yeah, I couldn't pay for health insurance and all the niceties. I remember prayimg my checks would clear.

My mother is now dependant on SS. Lives in a subsidezed apartment, and scrapes along. She put herself through law school at age 42, after raising three kids in the suburbs. Ended up an alcoholic, and I wonder, was that her fault? It certainly wasn't because she was stupid or lazy. Her own father, a wheeler and dealer, an Idaho farm boy who fought his way to the top - owned his own businesses, had warehouses in New York, Chicago and Cleveland. Lived in a fine house, had the best of everything. Drank and smoked and ate himself to death at age 54, leaving next to nothing for his three children. I'm sure he would have argued against paying the same taxes that are now taking care of his daughter. I wonder if anyone appreciates the irony.

I'm not sure what the best social system is, but we have to provide for those who can't, while encouraging everyone to be their best. And some will never get off the dime. Hitler wanted to euthenize them. What's our solution?

[Anonymous]

On 2006-05-19 07:17:00, Ft. Lauderdale

(Is something wrong with me :scared: )"

Ohhhh Yeah baby!

 :grin:

[Anonymous]

On 2006-05-19 10:35:00, cleveland wrote:

"I am no expert on economics and I can't argue the numbers. All I know is, I have seen third world contries where the poor live in squalor and the rich live in walled compounds with private security. Greg, I think you're a great guy, but it's always the self-made who think they are god's gift, and that the reason the other poor schmuck didn't make it is because he's a lazy ass. And you may be right.

Maybe, But I DONT THINK THAT.  Many people are poor for many reasons.  I am offended by people who won't try. I fully support social programs like welfare and food stamps.  I think people should be treated humanely and fairly.

HOWEVER, Social Security has become a great vehicle for REDISTRIBUTION of wealth.  Rich, poor..needy, greedy...we all line up for our check.  It is pure and simple not a retirement program anymore, it is a winning lottery ticket for those lucky enough to survive to 65.

 It is also a self defeating ponzi scheme that will collapse under its own weight, and we are the generation, along with our children, who ultimately will pay.

So yes, it pisses me off when people say..."we can cure it just vote the money out of the pockets of those that have it and give it to us".  Bullshit I say.

On your first point, my current girlfriend comes from Colombia, and I lived there part time for two years.  When you get sick, you die.  When your hungry, you don't eat.  If you don't have legs, you pull yourself along the concrete until you get to your destination.  That is a horrible way to live, and I support social safety nets.  It is one of the things that makes a society worth living in.

  That being said, how in the hell can you really define social security as a social safety net?  While you are doing that, explain why the elderly and the poor deserve socialized medicine while the rest of us are choking on our poor health care and high insurance premiums...whilst paying their way?

[Ft. Lauderdale]

I knew I was asking for trouble on that one :roll:

[Anonymous]

On 2006-05-19 09:34:00, notworking wrote:

"

I am also an advocate of social programs to help the needy, but when my millionare neighbors all laugh at their SS checks while they are golfing and gulping down anti depressents and driving around in their "jazzys" all on my tax dollar, I take offense.

I'll be your huckleberry, Greg.



It seems to me that your problem is not really with poor people wanting something for nothing, it's rich people who ARE getting something for nothing.  Which, I agree, is offensive.



People who are collecting SS (retirement) now will draw more out of the system than they've ever paid into it.  

Good points.  These things I find offensive.  Rich people collecting social services.  Poor people who expect, not appreciate social services.  Everyone who looks to another social class to solve their own ills.  Socialized medical care for a portion of society, but not all.  People who go on disability because "they can" not because they need to.  All this and more drains our economy in a horid way.

The libertarian in me is coming out...maybe I will shut up.

[GregFL]

No, can't shut up yet.

Lets talk about what a "fair" tax would be.  A society costs money to run.  We need defense, we need roads, we need some law enforcement, etc.   This is almost without controversy.  Every person more or less uses the necessary  services of the government in the same manner.  It costs no more to defend me than it does you, and when you drive on the road you damage it more or less to the same extent I do.

If the world (or our country) was "fair", we would divide the budget by the number of people...you would get a bill for the governments services once a year.  Got 5 kids?  Send in five checks.   This would cost everyone about 6500 dollars per year, last time I researched this.

This is the *only* "fair" system in the world.  Unfortunately it won't work.  But when people talk about ideas that will introduce "fairness" in our  tax system they invariably talk about taxing one segment of the society at a higher rate than the other, and this turns the "fairness" claim into a ridiculous Orwellian version of the term "fair".  

 The dynamics of this economy are that some people will be unable to pull their own weight, and the rest of us will have to make it up.  I accept that responsibility as a citizen, and accept that as a consequence of being successfull and even appreciate the situation I am in enough not to mind.  I actually enjoy helping needy people,   But when this stuff starts getting punative and ridiculous I just have to comment,and the most punative and ridiculous of all these *schemes* is the social security and medicare system we are under now.  It is a doomed pyramid scheme that Will collapse under its own weight.  Here is another statistic for you.  When Social Security started out it was a retirement program and there were 37 people working for each person collecting, and the first monthly check paid out was for $22 bucks a month. Social security has expanded to be much much more than a retirement program and grows like a multi headed monster.

Now we are at 3 to 1 and the average  check for a worker and spouse was $1576 month in the year 2000!  That means that Cleveland, Ft. Lauderdale and I have adopted one happy  bouncing baby to the tune of over $500 bucks a month a piece, but the problem is Junior is 65 and in a leisure suit, hanging out at the country club trying to hit on our Auntie.  Projections are grim and soon to be 2 to 1, so sorry Cleveland, Junior is going to soon fly your nest (but not mine)  and you will be getting a new, more expensive "baby", and Junior will be demanding more money from Ft Lauderdale and I.


 Can no one see the elephant in the room?  42% of our tax dollar just being printed and mailed to all the old people?  What the hell are we doing?


So when People say "tax the rich to save social security, it is only fair" they are pissing on their shoes. It is not "fair" by any measure of fairness.   The only support for this type of argument is emotional, not rational.















[ This Message was edited by: GregFL on 2006-05-19 12:47 ]

[marshall]

Excellent debate / posts on Soc. Sec. everyone. Here's my 2 pennies: It's a complex issue with no easy answers, imo. Seniors tend to vote in disproportionate numbers and this gives them extra clout on the issue. One of my son-in-laws & I have discussed this issue often. He advocates simply dropping the program or at least adopting GW's suggestion of giving people the option of investing in the stock mkt. instead. Since the average age at which americans die has risen so sharply since s.s was enacted, I favor a gradual increase in the age for qualification...slowly raising the retirement age to 70 or 75. If medical science announced tomorrow that some discovery has pushed average american life expectancy to 150, the country would go broke pretty quickly from s.s. alone unless there was a corresponding rise in the age for eligibility. Yet this is exactly what has happened gradually since s.s. was enacted. Raise the retirement age and the problem is greatly mitigated. However, given the strong (and growing stronger with all of us approaching retirement) senior lobby, this isn't likely to happen. Then you can add some form of means-testing and the crisis would be solved, imo. People often oppose this on the grounds that the money they paid into s.s is theirs and they therefore are owed the money back regardless if they actually need any supplemental income. Strange that when (as is usually the case now that americans live so much longer) they recieve 'more' than they have paid into the system, few complain that they are recieving money they didn't pay in. How many wealthy seniors begin to send the s.s. checks back to the government when the total exceeds their lifetime contribution? You can't have it both ways. Either the money is yours simply being stored by the government in which case your checks should end when the amount you paid in equals what you have recieved OR it's a program to stave-off extreme poverty that often used to be associated with old age. In which case means-testing is entirely valid. As to the whole socialism / capitalism issue, I realize my pov is distasteful to ideologues of both camps (extreme socialist / communist & extreme capitalists) but history seems to show us that some mixture of the two gives the best economic results in the long haul. I say this purely from a pragmatic standpoint since I've been a business owner & employer (thus responsible for making those withholding payments) most of my adult life and actively trade in the financial markets.  Of course we may all log on here in a few more years as genuine old geezers and insist upon our right to government handouts...'how the heck can I be expected to make my yacht payment without my s.s. check?'

[Stripe]

As for medicare, recall that just this past week the "NEW" medicare program went into effect.  The plan "choices" (and I use that word very loosley) are based solely on the COMPANY that manufacturers the medications each participant takes.  Woe to that person who is not in the pocket of just one drug company.

Hmmm, suppose maybe the government is in league with big business here?  The real wealth distribution is not from my pocket to Mom and Pop down the street. It's from me to Pharmaceutical companies and the oil companies.  Personally, I find this part of the program the most offensive.  Longevity is killing us financially.  Longevity brought about in great part by drugs and we have the dubious honor of paying for it - the age group that has borne the brunt of the fallcaious war on drugs. The irony does not escape me.  How about you guys?

[Anonymous]

Picture this:  1 million people refusing to pay the balance owed on Line 60 of the Form 1040.
There are not enough courtrooms, prosecutors or federal jail cells to accommodate the activity, even with this small percentage of the tax paying public.

That'll put a crimp in the federal budget and make 'em think twice.  For a week.

[Anonymous]

http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/pensions.asp

Claim:   Members of Congress receive lavish pensions but are not required to contribute to the Social Security fund.

Status:   False.

[GregFL]

On 2006-05-19 23:48:00, Anonymous wrote:

"http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/pensions.asp



Claim:   Members of Congress receive lavish pensions but are not required to contribute to the Social Security fund.



Status:   False. "

snopes is a great resource, and that information sure clears it up.  I hade already searched to see if congress pays into SS, and they do, but they are priviledged in ways not common in the public sector.  To wit:

from the scopes link:

"Right now, members of Congress in the FERS plan must pay 1.3% of their salary to FERS and 6.2% in Social Security taxes.
It  
is true that, if current pension levels and cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) for Congress members continue to apply in the future, some former members of Congress could conceivably collect millions of dollars in annuities over the course of their lifetimes."


Anyone else here work for 20 years, only paying roughly their SS taxes  and getting millions of dollars in retirement benefits?   This is just obscene.  People are supposed to go into politics because they are patriots that want to represent the people, not to become multi millionares.

The system is broke.

[Anonymous]

If they knew what they were doing, I wouldn't care if they all made three million bucks a year. It's a shame that they don't.

"Social security" is an autocontradiction.