Boomers are something else... (county, schools, city, company)

[bradykp]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

It's very hard dealing with the young today. My son is 20 and in college.
While I pay his rent, he is responsible for food, cell phone, spending money and electric. That meant he had to get a job and budget his money and pay his bills. And he has more friends than not that get everything handed to them by their parents. While he thinks I'm being the cruel parent for not funding his life 100%, I know and keep telling him that he will thank me one day for the misery I'm putting him through today Doesn't make it any easier though.

i went college from 2000-2004, and most of my friends had jobs long before they turned 20. I'd say your kid got off much easier than my peers did.

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by bradykp

It wasn't designed to "get back what you pay in". Fundamental misunderstanding of how Social Security works is unbelievably common.

Current workforce pays current retirees benefits.
One earns benefits based on their own lifetime earnings.

It has ZILCH to do with what one has "paid in".

If you don't believe in how Social Security works, that's fine, and that's a debate to have. But if you don't accurately represent how Social Security works, it's impossible to have that discussion.

You might want to practice what you preach.

Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme, like it or not. There is one and only one Element of Proof necessary to prove a Ponzi Scheme:

A "Ponzi scheme" is one "in which earlier investors' returns are generated by the influx of fresh capital from unwitting newcomers rather than through legitimate investment activity." SEC v. Credit Bancorp, Ltd., 290 F.3d 80, 89 (2d Cir. 2002) (internal quotation marks omitted). For a description of the operations of the eponymous Charles Ponzi himself, see Cunningham v. Brown, 265 U.S. 1, 7-9, 44 S. Ct. 424, 68 L. Ed. 873 (1924).

In a court of law, I need only ask one question to prove that Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme: If new entrants to the work force do not pay FICA taxes, will Social Security still be viable?

Answer: No.

Ergo, Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme. The fact that no one lied, or that there is no promise of a ridiculous return amount on monies, or that there is a promise of any return at all on monies is totally and completely irrelevant.

I need only to prove one thing: Social Security requires new entrants to pay off benefits to people who contributed earlier.

Having said that, I freely admit that Social Security is not an investment plan, nor is it a pension plan, nor is a retirement plan, nor is it a personal savings plan.

Social Security is exactly what it appears to be: OASI = Old Age Survivor's Insurance

Even so, as an insurance plan, Social Security is still a Ponzi Scheme.

Note that both Medicare, and any envisioned single-payer national health plan would also be Ponzi Schemes, and ultimately doomed to total failure.

As an insurance plan, some people have really weird misconceptions about that. They think that they should be able to cancel their "policy" and get back all the money they paid it. That would be a neat trick. Cancel your car insurance policy and demand a refund on all that you paid and see if you don't get laughed at.

If you damage your car, does your insurance company buy you a new car? No, they only pay to repair the damage.

Originally Posted by bradykp

1. Social Security excess funds were used by the government in lieu of higher taxes to fund things the government was doing.

That is an incredibly bizarre way of stating it. Government spent the surplus FICA tax revenues on things that never needed to be funded in the first place.

Originally Posted by bradykp

2. Like it or not, that occurred for decades and no one complained.

It's sort of poetically just.

What really happened...

1] Americans failed or refused to perform their duties and obligations as citizens and be responsibly vigilant concerning the affairs of government;

2] The majority of those who did participate did so only to advance their own personal agenda and satiate their own selfish needs;

3] Opportunity Cost has now raised its ugly head: What is the [opportunity] cost of performing my duties and obligations as a citizen versus the [opportunity] cost of shirking my duties and sticking my head in the sand?

The answer is forthcoming....soon....and people are not going to like it, but hopefully they will learn a very valuable lesson (but I doubt it).

Originally Posted by bradykp

So, people may have paid their Social Security taxes, and believe they are entitled to the benefits they earned from the system, but they didn't pay enough taxes for other areas of government during that time period.

Again, that is a really bizarre way of stating it. Government spent money it never needed to spend. There is not now, nor was there ever, any need for a Department of Education, nor was there ever a need for a Department of Housing & Urban Development, as examples.

Originally Posted by bradykp

That being said..asking someone who is 61 to retire 1 month after 62 instead of at 62 isn't asking for a lot of that person. To say that you "can't" do that is simply untrue. You can, and it's a good gesture from the soon-to-be-retired to the rest of us who are making larger sacrifices from our expectations.

What expectations?

You are responsible for ensuring that you have a pension plan, or that you are participating in your employer's 401(k) plan, and you are also responsible for ensuring that you have a personal retirement savings plan.

If, for whatever reason, you don't have those things (and that is neither here nor there), then the insurance plan known as Social Security kicks in. The purpose of Social Security is to ensure that older citizens are not sleeping under bridges or roaming around as bag-ladies and eating out of trash cans.

It was never intended that Social Security pay the 30-year mortgage on the $250,000 McMansion that you stupidly bought at age 60.

Originally Posted by bradykp

I'm not saying to change it for a single person currently collecting. I think raising the early retirement age modestly, and the full benefits age modestly, has a pretty large impact when calculations are run. And most of those calcs were assuming changes only to those 55 and younger.

In addition to being completely ineffective, that would be incredibly harmful to the future existence of Social Security. If you want to raise the early retirement age from 62 to 64 or 65 for those born after January 1, 1978, then that is fine, but that alone will not save Social Security.

There is a correlation between your labor force participation rate and the default date of the Trust Funds. As your labor force participation rate has steadily and slowly declined over the last decade, so too has the default date.

Note that by keeping older workers in the work-force longer, you bar new entrants to the work-force and in doing so, you harmfully skew their Salary Curve so that Social Security would collect even less revenues in the future, thereby guaranteeing its demise.

Originally Posted by bradykp

Social Security should be a baseline sum of money for all of us to be able to have in retirement.

That is not how Social Security was envisioned, planned or intended to function. What you're asking is also impossible. If you want proof, look out your window, read the newspapers, and peruse this Forum.

The question before you is simple: Are you willing to accept a substantially lower standard of living and quality of life?

Understand that "substantially lower standard of living" means (in part) that many Americans, perhaps about 30% will have absolutely no choice whatsoever but share living accommodations with other families that are similarly situated. Yeah, I'm talking about two married couples each with two children sharing a 3-bedroom apartment.

Are you willing to do that?

Originally Posted by bradykp

I don't see why everyone can't sacrafice just a little. Those very close to retirement seem to be off limits, and I understand the logic, but to say we're changing it for everyone younger than 55 is a bit arbitrary also. My dad is 54, and if SS changes for him, that changes the next 8 years of his life not in a small way. Why not have people over 60 work something like 3 more months, or 6 more months, than inititally planned? Then start gradually pushing the retirement age a tad up for each year younger?

Because that will effectively do nothing.

Originally Posted by bradykp

Then, increase the cieling on taxable income for Social Security. it cuts off at $106,000ish right now, right? Why? What's the logic behind that?

No, at $110,100.

I'm not sure you fully understand what it is that you are suggesting.

The majority of people have been brainwashed drinking the ******* federal minimum wage Kool-Aid.

Those people are so blind that they cannot see the reality that the cost-of-living varies dramatically in the US from State-to-State and often from city-to-city within a State. Unless and until those blind fools are willing to muster the courage to admit that the cost-of-living is not uniform, then the US is headed for disaster.

Those people falsely believe that everyone who makes $150,000 is "rich." That is simply not true. It is an outrageous lie. Some people who earn $150,000 are quite well off, but there are many who earn $150,000 and who have nothing and are worse off than someone earning $50,000 per year.

Why?

The cost-of-living.

Someone who earned $150,000

1] was paying $547/month in FICA taxes

2] will be paying $568/month under the cap

3] will be paying $775 under no cap

4] will be paying $1,504 under the 16.4% rate SSA suggests (with cap)

5] will be paying $2,050 under the 16.4% rate SSA suggests (with no cap)

Alright, so under the current cap increase, they are paying an additional $21 per month. That doesn't seem like much, except that is also $21 the States cannot collect Sales Tax on.

It doesn't matter? It does matter. At 7.5% that's only $1.50 but then times 1 Million that $1.5 Million in tax revenues a State cannot afford to lose. Why? Because that is actually a $3 Million loss for a State. The State just lost $1.5 Million in sales tax revenues, and now it must cut the budget by $1.5 Million to divert that to State, county and city government employee pension funds (so they don't collapse).

Y'all need to look at the big picture.

Originally Posted by bradykp

It would be nice to see the calculated benefits fixed also. It's out of whack with real inflation

No, it isn't. It's in perfect line with Real Inflation. Is it in line with Cost Inflation? No, but then that is not my problem. That is everyone elses' problem and everyone else needs to deal with it.

There is one and only one solution for Cost Inflation: STOP CONSUMING.

Everyone see how easy that is?

But I gotta have my NetFlix and X-Box games. Not my problem and I don't care. Sell one of your 5 cars, or stop throwing away money on corporate coffee at Starsucks, stop eating out at fast-food restaurants 37 times per week, or move in and share a 2-bedroom or 3-bedroom apartment with someone else.

If food price have gone up, then start buying cheaper cuts of meat. There is no law that says you have to buy boneless chicken breasts. You can buy bone-in breasts cheaper and de-bone them yourself. You can buy a whole chicken for even far less than that, and cut it up and de-bone the breasts yourself. You can eat gizzards and livers that are even cheaper.

You can't afford a rib-eye steak? Sucks for you, start buying flank and round steaks. You can throw some Bearnaise sauce on them.

But if we cut our consumption our economy will fall. That's right. See how that works? You people figure it out yet? No? You will soon enough.

Fundamentally...

Mircea

[bradykp]

Originally Posted by scarlet_ohara

An older friend sent the following to me. I thought you might enjoy it.

Checking out at the grocery store recently, the
young cashier suggested I should bring my own
grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for
the environment. I apologized and explained, "We
didn't have this green thing back in my earlier
days." The clerk responded, "That's our problem
today. Your generation did not care enough to save
our environment for future generations."

She was right about one thing -- our generation
didn't have the green thing in “Our” day. So what
did we have back then…? After some reflection and
soul-searching on "Our" day here's what I remembered
we did have.... Back then, we returned milk bottles,
soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The
store sent them back to the plant to be washed and
sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same
bottles repeatedly. So they really were recycled.
But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.
We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an
escalator in every store and office building. We
walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a
300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two
blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in
our day. Back then, we washed the baby's diapers
because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried
clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine
burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really
did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got
hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters,
not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right. We didn't have the
green thing back in our day. Back then, we had one
TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every
room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a
handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size
of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended
and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric
machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a
fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up
old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or
plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an
engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We
used a push mower that ran on human power. We
exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a
health club to run on treadmills that operate on
electricity.

But she's right. We didn't have the green thing back
then. We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty
instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every
time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing
pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we
replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of
throwing away the whole razor just because the blade
got dull.

But we didn't have the green thing back then. Back
then, people took the streetcar or a bus, and kids
rode their bikes to school or walked instead of
turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We
had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire
bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we
didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a
signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in
space in order to find the nearest pizza joint. But
isn't it sad the current generation laments how
wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't
have the green thing back then?

Please share this so another selfish old person who
needs a lesson in conservation from a smarty-pants
young person can add to this...

some good points and some bad points in this. not having so much "disposable" containers was good for sure. walking/riding more was good. but times have changed, and we do consume more, but resisting "reduce, reuse, recycle" now and then saying "back in my day we didn't do xyz" doesn't really score someone points.

How about...use a reusable bag and move forward on getting things more similar to those times instead of resisting it because it's something "smarty-pants young people" talk about?

my generation didn't invent styrofoam.

[bradykp]

Originally Posted by Fox Terrier

AND...

The corner store or grocery store didn't always put your purchases into paper bags. Usually, groceries were packed into boxes from the store. Stores didn't automatically break down and 'recycle' boxes.

I'd be all for this! I remember some of the local grocery stores when I was younger still doing this. My family has been using canvas bags for years as well. It really is amazing to me that people will use plastic/paper bags so willingly. The cost seems miniscule, but we consumers are paying for the cost of those bags in the products we're purchasing. Then the downstream costs and effects...it's just sad that so many people resist going back to some of these older ways. I'm moving away from plastics even in the items I buy (jelly, peanut butter, soda, etc.). It's tough, but then I have jars I can use for other things.

[bradykp]

Originally Posted by beachmel

THANK YOU! I had to chuckle when I read this post. After reading the post about "green" youngster know-it-alls, to my 25 yr old daughter, I said, "Please! When we were growing up, and even when you were little, the cashier would ask you, '"Do you want boxes or bags?"' " YES! I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers this. I and my parents before me, always purchased our "store-bought goods" in large quantities, in order to avoid having to make multiple trips to the stores. It blows me away that more stores no longer have boxes. As far as bringing my own bags to the store?..... really? Where exactly would I put the food I'm buying? My 20-30 canvas shopping bags would take up a good 1/2 of the shopping cart!

http://envirothink.files.wordpress.c...uce-bags-1.jpg

http://mylittlepail.com/wp-content/u...bag_detail.jpg

i love these bags, personally. take up no space til you expand them to pack them full of stuff. I fit about 3-4 plastic bags worth of groceries in one of these. I'd love to use the containers from the store, but that's not really my choice.

What's *wrong* with reusable bags?

[bradykp]

Originally Posted by beachmel

Yes, I can honestly say that I know MANY in that same age bracket who do that very thing. Seriously? Who has TIME to play games for hours in a day!? I'm far too busy being....well, BUSY!....conserving, working, accomplishing things...not whining and waiting for someone to do them FOR me!....or whining because I can't afford to pay someone else to do them for me, because SOMEONE screwed up the economy and woke me up from my "American dream!"

what some people call "whining" others call participating in government beyond voting by contacting their representatives and trying to get their attention on the 364 days that aren't the first tuesday in November...for the small percentage of Americans who even pay attention on that day.

[bradykp]

Originally Posted by beachmel

How in the world can you disagree with this statement!? I didn't say he's the ONLY one! I also didn't say that there weren't 20-somethings out there working hard, either. I said "There are TOO MANY...etc." I've got a 21 yr old who is in the Navy, trying to do something productive with his life. I've got a son who is nearly 16 yrs old who has worked summer jobs since he was 14, in order to have money of his own. I've got an incredibly responsible, hard working 25 yr old daughter with a small child. I ALSO have a son who is nearly 30, who is one of the "entitled" crowd, who spends more time trying to figure out how to get out of working than he EVER has actually working.

i would say your nearly 30 son is the exception, while your other 3 are more the norm. I just turned 30, and I know far more people like your 3, and a handful like your 30 yr old.

[bradykp]

[quote=softblueyz;22395935]Are you speaking about college students collectively?? in all 50 states? Did I say ALL? I said most. Did a make a statement about partying madly?? Please try to stay on track.

Here's someone speaking from experience:

and how does HappyTexan know so much about what other college kids' parents are doing? His son may think he knows how they get their stuff, but all too often we see things aren't what they seem with other peoples' finances. Maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong, but I graduated in 2004, and most of my friends worked on top of going to class, participating in philanthropy through their fraternities/sororities, and yes, had some fun too.

[bradykp]

Originally Posted by softblueyz

*sigh* You speak for a handful. Let me correct myself: Not most, MANY that I've experienced personally. Does that work for you??

how about this little edit?

[bradykp]

Originally Posted by katygirl68

Wow! What exactly do you think needs to be done? Should they all collectively commit suicide for the benefit of their ungrateful children?

Your rant is absolutely ridiculous. I'm a member of Gen X, and I have to say I'm ashamed for people like you. My boomer in-laws have suffered tremendously due to lay-offs and are unable to find work in this economy because companies don't want to invest in training someone who is probably only going to work for a few more years. And considering someone who is 67 could reasonably expect to live another 20-30 years, it's asking a lot for them to retire now and live on whatever social security they've got (and paid for).

Not everyone is in a union or has a pension. Many of these boomers saw their 401(k)s and IRAs diminish due to market volitility. They can't afford to retire right now. Too bad for you the life expectancies have increased so much. I guess your cure for that would be to go to a "Logan's Run" type system where we kill off people who reach a certain age.

funny thing...my boomer in law suffered lay-off also. happens that they were immigrants though, and he took the layoff a few years before retirement in stride because:

1. his house was paid off
2. he didn't tap into the home equity to build extensions on his house
3. he saved for retirement instead of hoping the promised pension and social security would be enough

seems like people got to different spots from the same experiences, eh?

The people shouldn't have seen their 401k or IRA diminish due to market volatility if they invested more conservatively, and they would have already rebounded from that dip in 2008 if they reacted with level heads during that.

life expectancy for a 67 year old male right now is 15 more years. a female, 18 more years.

the few who make it 20 help bring that avg up. 30 more? sheesh...jack lallane?