Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The payroll taxes are paid as a percentage of the dollars earned, so it makes sense to calculate the benefits based on the same thing. The more payroll taxes you have paid into Social Security, the more your retirement benefits should be - that is fundamental fairness. The payroll taxes have a cap, but the benefits are capped at that same level.
Besides, there are enormous practical difficulties in introducing a system where the W-2 forms show the number of hours worked. What about salaried people whose work hours are not specified - they just have a job to do and are expected to do it? School teachers come to mind in that regard; although school is in session certain hours, if the teachers worked only those hours, there is no way they could begin to do their jobs. What about self-employed people who run their own small businesses?
It's amazing how people can come up with impractical, unworkable, not to mention unfair ideas just to benefit themselves. Thought needs to be given to the system as a whole.
Did anyone ever bother to check to see how much money in the SS trust is actually going towards Social Security? Washington has been raiding this piggy bank for other intrests for years. Bush 43 tried to steal it away for him & his cronies use wih 401k vochers. Thank God that did not happen.
Did anyone ever bother to check to see how much money in the SS trust is actually going towards Social Security? Washington has been raiding this piggy bank for other intrests for years. Bush 43 tried to steal it away for him & his cronies use wih 401k vochers. Thank God that did not happen.
you have no understanding of how it works. the SS trust fund is "invested" in us treasuries. so our government can use social security money for anything they want to basically. the idea of 401k vouchers or anything private would be the opposite, since you would actually be giving people a portion of their money. right now, it is all in the federal governments hands to waste.
i think it should be welfare so we dont have so many destitute seniors. but i think we should also recognize that these seniors were always poor defenseless grandpa's and grandma's. they were teens, adults and middle aged before becoming geezers and they had the responsibility to plan and save for their own retirement. now, i understand sometimes things happen beyond people's control and its nice to have a safety net. but most of the time those things are within a persons control and they should pay or prosper for their decisions.
Most of them had their life unrolled before them when they were way too young to "exercise personal responsibility". They grew up as children in marginalized famiies or faced other challenges over which children have no control.
There is an important mathematical absolute that you have to keep in mind. 50% of all children have below average intelligence, below average opportunity to develop, below average home environment, below average peer group influence, and attend below average schools with below average teachers, and exercise below average personal responsibility for their adolescing and maturing lives, not to mention below average luck. And because of their childhood challenges, they will mostly grow up to be below average adults and, finally, below average geezers.
Huddling in masses while you say they should pay for their decisions, which were pretty well fixed when they were 5 years old. Any competent pedagogist can walk into a kindergarten, and with 80-90% accuracy, predict which kids are going to "exercise personal responsibility" when they grow up. In other words, which ones will need social help to make it through life with the dignity that you are so quick to deny them. It's already too late for most of them to reverse their course and escape the eternal torment that you wish to visit upon them.
Except in Lake Wobegon, it is simply not true that "all children are above average". No matter how ardently you wish something were true, that by itself does not make it true. It must be wonderful to be one of the lucky few who found all the right motivations in life to exercise personal responsibility enough that you can just blow off those who didn't, and say they all should have been above average, but lblowing them off is hardly "exercising responsibility" to deal with the hard fact that 150-million Americans are below average.
It's true that any man can become president, but it is not true that ALL men can. Some, for whatever reason, will always need help to meet even the basic level of dignity that most of us Americans have worked so hard to raise them to. Stop trying to destroy the system that achieved so much.
Most of them had their life unrolled before them when they were way too young to "exercise personal responsibility". They grew up as children in marginalized famiies or faced other challenges over which children have no control.
There is an important mathematical absolute that you have to keep in mind. 50% of all children have below average intelligence, below average opportunity to develop, below average home environment, bedlow average peer group socialization, and attend below average schools with below average teachers, and exercise below average personal responsibility for their adolescing and maturing lives, not to mention below average luck. And because of their childhood challenges, they will mostly grow up to be below average adults and, finally, below average geezers.
Except in Lake Wobegon, it is simply not true that "all children are above average". No matter how ardently you wish something were true, that by itself does not make it true. It must be wonderful to be one of the lucky few who found all the right motivations in life to exercise personal responsibility enough that you can look down your nose at those who didn't, and just blow them off and say they all should have been above average, but looking down your nose is hardly "exercising responsibility" to deal with the hard fact that 150-million Americans are below average, and most of the rest are beneath you.
this is such a sick way of looking at people. having below average intelligence doesnt mean you arent capable of managing your finances. unless someone has a real deficiency, i would hold them responsible.
this is such a sick way of looking at people. having below average intelligence doesnt mean you arent capable of managing your finances. unless someone has a real deficiency, i would hold them responsible.
How do you propose we hold the below average, the less aggressive, the unambitious and the lazy or apathetic accountable exactly? By denying them human dignity? Because remember, there is a social cost to doing these things, that affect everybody's bottom line.
The fact remains the socially conservative and self-righteous in this Country have never spent a second in a South American Nation to realize, second world countries live and die by the mantra that a Nation of sharp contrasts (ie. steep gradients in income distribution among the proles) is a Nation where one is a target. I don't want to live in a place where I'm a target among my neighbors. I want to live in a place where the stupid masses are content enough not to want to torch the marginally better off than them. You don't need to give every man a Castle to accomplish this, but you can't just shut the door and let them pile up on the outside of the gate either. They will break the door down. We're civilized, we're not islands. I for one do not support the Brazilization of this Country (i.e. build castles for the few, above gated sealed walls of expanses of shantytowns for the rest).
You have to manage the dispossession of the many by providing a construct where the many are happy with their dispossession. Cold turkey approaches to any of it will never work towards that end. You have to graduate everything. This is basic governance for Christ sake.
How do you propose we hold the below average, the less aggressive, the unambitious and the lazy or apathetic accountable exactly? By denying them human dignity? Because remember, there is a social cost to doing these things, that affect everybody's bottom line.
it doesnt require above average intelligence to be able to save money for retirement. nobody is asking everybody to split an atom. just dont spend all the money you earn in a given period. im also not opposed to a social security system that is fully privatized, which means that the money taken from someone's pay is actually their money. its not theoretical money that the government wastes. besides that, im also ok with welfare benefits but they should provide for nothing more than what someone needs to live. rice, beans, shared residence, medical care that doesnt cover more expensive medicines and procedures, etc.
this is such a sick way of looking at people. having below average intelligence doesnt mean you arent capable of managing your finances. unless someone has a real deficiency, i would hold them responsible.
Why do you think it is sick? I suggest you go back and read jtur88's post#45. He puts it in better words than I could possibly say it. Many people could manage their finances if they had enough money to manage.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainNJ
it doesnt require above average intelligence to be able to save money for retirement. nobody is asking everybody to split an atom. just dont spend all the money you earn in a given period. im also not opposed to a social security system that is fully privatized, which means that the money taken from someone's pay is actually their money. its not theoretical money that the government wastes. besides that, im also ok with welfare benefits but they should provide for nothing more than what someone needs to live. rice, beans, shared residence, medical care that doesnt cover more expensive medicines and procedures, etc.
Let me try to put this in perspective for you. Not so long ago, there were tens of thousands of men employed in manufacturing, coal mining and railroads in the Western Pennsylvania and surrounding areas of West Virginia and Ohio. Generations of these men had retired with defined benefit pensions. Those jobs and pensions don't exist for today's generation and for the ones who didn't work long enough at those jobs. Many guys that I went to high school with in the 70s went straight to the mills or mines. They bought new cars, got married and bought houses. Some continued to work for 10, 15 or even 20 years before the mill or mine shut down and they could not find a similar job. Most of them continued working doing whatever they could find to make a buck but were making considerably less then they had previously earned. They still had house payments and kids to feed. How much do you think these guys have saved for retirement?
Once people stop looking at Social Security as a 410K and look at it as subsistence for retired people, it starts to make sense.
It is interesting that some of the SS and Medicare discussion inside the beltway is becoming about the many who receive SS and Medicare who never worked or contributed to them. Yes if you never contributed to Medicare you have to purchase part A which is free to contributors but you are not it is being suggested paying the full cost. Spousal and dependent benefits are given for SS to folks who never contributed or worked enough for eligibility etc etc. It is being recognized that part of the cost is from benefits and contributions not being consistant.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Hours worked versus dollars earned
