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Old 09-26-2007, 08:59 AM
 
Location: Your mind
2,935 posts, read 4,990,102 times
Reputation: 604

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Do you have no responsibility to your fellow man? We're all in the same boat, really.
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Old 09-26-2007, 09:11 AM
 
19,198 posts, read 31,404,183 times
Reputation: 4013
Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW View Post
Social Security is not a pension based on compound interest but is a pay as you go system where current payments are covered by current taxes.
So far, so good.

Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW View Post
Or at least it should be but the creation of a social security Trust Fund limited to buying Federal bonds turned it into a regressive tax fraud.
Thud! The Trust Fund is what it says it is...a reserve against known future liabilities. Who would consider it 'fraud' to use a funded liability to replace an unfunded liability? The central problem with many failing private sector pension programs is that they were allowed by pro-business and pro-bottom-line types to be carried for years as unfunded liabilities. Then those liabilities start to become due and suddenly it's Old Mother Hubbard time. Corporate officers have to go into court and explain that the reserves that should have been dedicated to assuring promised pension benefits for workers were all converted instead into capital gains benefits for the stockholders. Tuffshytzkee for the workers once again...

Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW View Post
SS taxes should be levied on all income from all sources and the rate set to cover the current payments.
Needs work, but a reasonable approach.

Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW View Post
Payments should be limited to persons below twice the median income.
Converts a universal social insurance program into a targeted social welfare program. Lies outside the purposes of the Act.

Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW View Post
Payment amounts need to be indexed for the real inflation not our current system that leaves out the price increases in food and fuel.
SS benefits are adjusted for both CPI and standard of living changes. I have no idea of where you are getting the idea that food and fuel are excluded from the CPI-W which is the specific measure incorporated into the formulations that determine the annual COLA for SS. Indeed, the SS COLA in 2006 (4.1%) was unexpectedly high due primarily to rapidly rising fuel and energy costs that resulted from Hurricane Katrina. The only thought that I have is that you might have become overly accustomed to the media's references to core inflation, which does exclude food and fuel. The latter are seen as the two most volatile components of CPI, and many feel that a truer picture of the underlying inflationary trend in the economy is obtained by subtracting them out. But food and fuel are most definitely included in CPI-W itself (and in all other formal CPI measures) and therefore are regularly reflected in SS COLA's...
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Old 09-26-2007, 09:14 AM
 
Location: Near Manito
20,170 posts, read 24,262,341 times
Reputation: 15285
Quote:
Originally Posted by saganista View Post
Has nothing to do with entitlement syndrome. Has to do with effective management. These 'private markets' that so many see as so precious routinely fail to provide satisfactory solutions to a wide range of problems. Your answer to that is...

Seriously, now: if the private investments and diversified portfoilos which constitute the investment portfolios of people seeking growth and income are unsatisfactory to some unspeciified "wide range of problems" (), why are so many people comfortable with their retirement mutual funds, IRAs, Roth IRAs, and other instruments designed to provide long-term financial stability? You know those people: the ones with RVs, homes in Florida or Costa Rica, the ones who can afford to take their grandchildren to Disneyland. There are millions of them, you know.

I might go so far to ask you why are YOU well-positioned for retirement; how did you get that way; and further, why would you deny this opportunity to other people?

No one is arguing that we should remove Social Security as a safety net for folks who have no other source of support in their later years. But why shouldn't those younger people, who desire to do so, be given the chance to invest a portion of their retirement taxes in carefully structured mutual funds, which offer a historically high rate of return at relatively low levels of risk?

I'm getting a disconnect here between two perspectives. You are suspicious of rich people getting richer; I am arguing that everyone ought to have at least a chance to be well-off.

Forgive me, but I prefer equality of opportunity over class envy.
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Old 09-26-2007, 09:18 AM
 
Location: Your mind
2,935 posts, read 4,990,102 times
Reputation: 604
The issue for me is that

A. Most people probably aren't very good investors and might not have the money to pay for a good advisor/consultant

B. Privatizing part of SS would therefore leave people up for exploitation (especially the poor/uneducated) and therefore remove the SECURITY aspect of social security. Not everyone does well in the stock market, even if they think they will.

I don't really have a problem with everyone having some type of optional savings account/IRA type deal similar to Bush's plan as long as it doesn't require you to later forsake SS benefits, creating the risk of massively increased poverty among the elderly/disabled.
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Old 09-26-2007, 09:27 AM
 
Location: Near Manito
20,170 posts, read 24,262,341 times
Reputation: 15285
Quote:
Originally Posted by fishmonger View Post
The issue for me is that

A. Most people probably aren't very good investors and might not have the money to pay for a good advisor/consultant

B. Privatizing part of SS would therefore leave people up for exploitation (especially the poor/uneducated) and therefore remove the SECURITY aspect of social security. Not everyone does well in the stock market, even if they think they will.

I don't really have a problem with everyone having some type of optional savings account/IRA type deal similar to Bush's plan as long as it doesn't require you to later forsake SS benefits, creating the risk of massively increased poverty among the elderly/disabled.
These are excellent points. They would need to be addressed before I would sign on to any privatization plan.

A. That's why I would propose a variety of "packaged" plans with varied levels of risk, similar to the choices provided in many 403b plans. I would not recommend letting people buy individual stocks, for example.

B. Agree, to an extent. No one wants to see people ripped off. That's why some folks could opt for a very conservative portfolio, of bonds, money market funds, etc. I agree with you that the stock market is a cruel mistress (remember 2002-2002?)...but historically, stocks do very well. Any plan would have to emphasize moderate, long-term growth.

I also believe that we could institute a plan under which your private account funds would belong to you -- say, after the age of about 35 -- so that if something happened to you, your beneficiaries would receive your funds -- not have them confiscated, as is the case with SS (until your spouse or other reaches 65).
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Old 09-26-2007, 09:36 AM
 
19,198 posts, read 31,404,183 times
Reputation: 4013
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greatday View Post
Why should I?? The Democrats have offered NOTHING, Not one darned thing in the way of a proposal to save and modernize Social Security - thats a fact
It's not a fact, so you should cease and desist from claiming it as one. In their 2005 collective campaigns of townhall-type meetings with constituents convened to explain the titanic perils and problems of privatization ideas coming out of the Bush camp (no actual plan or proposal ever did), Democrats put forward a variety of ideas for reforms that would further stabilize Social Security in the problematic out-years. Some of those you've heard in this very thread. Raise the wage ceiling. Cover additional types of income. Increase the full-retirement age. Increase means-testing. Make more SS benefits subject to the federal income tax. Some of these are good ideas, and some aren't. But any of them is a saner step than the death-knell of privatization, and taken together, they certainly comprise as much of a plan as anything that Bush ever put forward.
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Old 09-26-2007, 09:48 AM
 
19,198 posts, read 31,404,183 times
Reputation: 4013
Quote:
Originally Posted by amichel View Post
Personal responsibility.
In the 1930's, free markets produced an equilibrium in labor markets that fell at about 75% of full employment, leaving one in four American workers out of a job. Are you saying that these one in four Americans were personally irresponsible and that's why they were unemployed? Or are you promoting an Ownership Society (where all you own is risk) through a Katrina-style attitude of hey, shiite happens, and it's on these down-and-outers to deal with things on their own?
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Old 09-26-2007, 10:26 AM
 
Location: SanAnFortWAbiHoustoDalCentral, Texas
791 posts, read 2,218,137 times
Reputation: 195
Quote:
Originally Posted by elizamary View Post
Your point is>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Actually, it was your point. I was only helping you to celebrate your point of view, that by Bush assisting the Senator, he will destroy her.
/



Quote:
Originally Posted by elizamary

And I will tell you again.........Bush destroys everything he touches...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Willys

THAT is very good news....
Quote:
Washington, D.C. - President Bush is quietly providing back-channel advice to Hillary Rodham Clinton, urging her to modulate her rhetoric so she can effectively prosecute the war in Iraq if elected president.
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Old 09-26-2007, 10:31 AM
 
Location: Pinal County, Arizona
25,100 posts, read 39,168,834 times
Reputation: 4937
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yeledaf View Post
No one is arguing that we should remove Social Security as a safety net for folks who have no other source of support in their later years. But why shouldn't those younger people, who desire to do so, be given the chance to invest a portion of their retirement taxes in carefully structured mutual funds, which offer a historically high rate of return at relatively low levels of risk?
BINGO~~~~

That is the primary proposal that Bush made - and, while I disagree with him on many issues, I fully concur on this one

I think that the Democrats fear it though because a) they do not think that population you mentioned is smart enough to care for their own investments and b) they want the population beholding to the government -
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Old 09-26-2007, 10:32 AM
 
Location: Pinal County, Arizona
25,100 posts, read 39,168,834 times
Reputation: 4937
Quote:
Originally Posted by saganista View Post
It's not a fact, so you should cease and desist from claiming it as one.
No, I will not "cease and desist" as you demand

What proposals have been brought to the Congress for debate??
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