How to save SS? (independent, how much, companies, dollars)
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The fact is, Jet, that there isn't any money. It is imaginary. I don't have any money. Maybe 50 bucks. And a piece of plastic that can be put into a machine that promises to give me a couple hundred more. And a drawer full of printouts from my bank that they promise to give some money on demand. But they don't have any money either, as you will quickly learn if you walk in with a gun and a brown paper bag and demand all they've got.
I think the total amount of US currency that exists on the planet is something like $1,000 per American, and I've heard that more than half of that is not even in the USA. So if all the cash in the US were equally distributed, it would come out to maybe $300 per person. Which is enough to buy what we would eat in a month or so, and nothing else. In the next year, all cell-phone bills and charges alone will exceed all the money in the USA. The American people will be charged more credit card interest and fees this year than all the paper money that exists.
Maybe I'm missing something. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.
I think some people think FDR introduced SS because of the evil socialist plot to destroy America. No. Discarded aged workers were littering streets. Private charities dried out. Of course, American oligarchy was not in mood to pay wages adequate to carry (modestly) old geezer through their unproductive years and they came up with "tax younger wage units to pay older wage units" ponzi scheme.
I don't see mathematical impossibility for SS to be treated as just another cost of business without "stalling" economy. Yes, it will drive prices little bit up, but so did prohibition of child labor and prohibition of leaded gasoline. There must be corporate SS tax similar to mineral rights tax. Everybody making a single penny using hired labor (and "contractors") should pay similar "wage laborer mining rights" tax. Unlike mineral commodities which are just laying underground, human wage commodity takes some public care and public education for the private entities to use. Conservatives like to repeat that "there is no free lunch" yet corporations prove that maxim wrong again and again. If you use it and get rid of it - pay for it. Say NO to socialism for the few, say no to investor class freeloading.
The fact is, Jet, that there isn't any money. It is imaginary. I don't have any money. Maybe 50 bucks. And a piece of plastic that can be put into a machine that promises to give me a couple hundred more.
The fact is that money can be any object (inanimate, alive or imaginary) that humans agree to be money. In other words money is faith, it's not an object, it's not a paper bill. Printing press doesn't make money to be money, your faith in dollar bill having value makes "money" from a piece of paper. You do know that it took mighty efforts and rivers of blood to teach humans that "paper bill" has monetary value to it. Now you take this idea of paper money for granted.
Your Ponzi Scheme (correct spelling) metaphor is flawed, in that a true Ponzi scheme initially doles-out stipends to early members in the form of lump-sum payments; payments that have been acquired via the start-up fees garnered from later-joining arrivals. Thus, the Ponzi scheme never had any real capital to begin with, and was never running solvently in the black.
SS on the other hand, has run in the black for the entirety of its life; people only surmise about its eventual bankruptcy. And the whole risk of SS ever going broke can be fixed very, very, easily, by simpy removing the maximum pay-out cap that the wealthy enjoy.
Your Ponzi Scheme (correct spelling) metaphor is flawed, in that a true Ponzi scheme initially doles-out stipends to early members in the form of lump-sum payments; payments that have been acquired via the start-up fees garnered from later-joining arrivals. Thus, the Ponzi scheme never had any real capital to begin with, and was never running solvently in the black.
SS on the other hand, has run in the black for the entirety of its life; people only surmise about its eventual bankruptcy. And the whole risk of SS ever going broke can be fixed very, very, easily, by simpy removing the maximum pay-out cap that the wealthy enjoy.
Read the SS trust fund documents regarding what would work, your tax would not even come close. Plus what happens when people are successful in ridding the nation of the evil rich menace, where will the money come from?
Your Ponzi Scheme (correct spelling) metaphor is flawed, in that a true Ponzi scheme initially doles-out stipends to early members in the form of lump-sum payments; payments that have been acquired via the start-up fees garnered from later-joining arrivals. Thus, the Ponzi scheme never had any real capital to begin with, and was never running solvently in the black.
SS on the other hand, has run in the black for the entirety of its life; people only surmise about its eventual bankruptcy. And the whole risk of SS ever going broke can be fixed very, very, easily, by simpy removing the maximum pay-out cap that the wealthy enjoy.
In ponzi scheme money brought in by new "investors" are used to pay off contributions + dividends to the first investors . As a rule, the dividends received are well above average. Trailblazing investors are getting "excited" and normally reinvest all the money they received (the word about exciting investment opportunity is out) so there is no lack of new investors. The nerves and greed of ponzi scheme operators determine quantity of pay back cycles. The finale of Ponzi scheme is always the same - organizers are vanishing together with money. However, a few people unaware of a scheme may make a "legit" buck in a Ponzi scheme, if they get out in time.
If Ponzi scheme doesn't have capital, why all the trouble? Sure, one can set up a Ponzi scheme without a dollar to his name (providing right charisma and people's skills) yet that at the end a successful Ponzi scheme may snowball into a small fortune if the number of new investors is on the rise. If supply of new investors dwindles, Ponzi scheme falls apart.
SS was in black only because supply of new SS "investors" was always on the steady rise.
Last edited by RememberMee; 03-09-2010 at 01:13 AM..
Read the SS trust fund documents regarding what would work, your tax would not even come close. Plus what happens when people are successful in ridding the nation of the evil rich menace, where will the money come from?
It seems you think that "rich evil menace" hatches money as a good mother hen to bestow monetary bounty on undeserving, ungrateful, freeloading & lazy masses just because of kindness of hen' heart. Where will slaves get the money if not for plantation owners and supervisors, right?
It seems you think that "rich evil menace" hatches money as a good mother hen to bestow monetary bounty on undeserving, ungrateful, freeloading & lazy masses just because of kindness of hen' heart. Where will slaves get the money if not for plantation owners and supervisors, right?
It does? Read my post, plus read up on the meaning of Sarcasm. (harsh or bitter derision or irony.)
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