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You claim that retirees would have more money than they do today, based on what? Some math equations?
One of my undergraduate degrees is a BA in Economics, yet my Investment IQ is a friggin' ZERO.
I can set up and run an economy in a developing State, but I don't know how to invest. And I really don't want to know, and I don't even give a damn. It's a lot of time wasted that could be better spent studying something else. And I don't believe in stocks or the stock market. If it was up to me, there wouldn't be either of them. There are many ways to invest; dozens of ways to invest, without stocks.
If Joe McTrader in his McMansion with his McDesktop can barely manage without getting screwed, then how in the hell are the majority of Americans who don't have the skill or knowledge or even common sense to "play the market" going to make money for retirement?
You make an awful lot of assumptions not rooted in reality.
Oh, you want them to hire someone and pay them to manage their accounts for them. I see.
The flaw in your argument is that if it was so easy, everyone would be rich or at least comfortable in their retirement, but they are not. But none of that matters since Social Security is an insurance plan. There's nothing stopping people from saving money on their own.
So you seriously think you need an 'investment IQ' to invest in a market aggregate? You are claiming that the government should force everyone to invest in a system with abysmal returns because people like you are too da*n lazy to read a book or two on investing? I gave the most conservative figures, not the figures from people who 'play the market'.
Don't punish the rest of us for your own personal laziness.
Raise the retirement age, raise the income maximum ammount for taxation, crack down ruthlessly on Social Security fraud, especially SSDI fraud. Stop congress from stealing from it. There, fixed.
You're oversimplifying it. Raising the the contribution cap would be canceled out by raising the distribution cap. It won't really change anything.
So you seriously think you need an 'investment IQ' to invest in a market aggregate? You are claiming that the government should force everyone to invest in a system with abysmal returns because people like you are too da*n lazy to read a book or two on investing? I gave the most conservative figures, not the figures from people who 'play the market'.
Don't punish the rest of us for your own personal laziness.
but how about those that are not capable of reading and understanding a book on investing?
some people could just not deal with that.
and how about those people that never really had enough money to save anyway?
but how about those that are not capable of reading and understanding a book on investing?
some people could just not deal with that.
and how about those people that never really had enough money to save anyway?
If a person can learn to drive a car, they can learn to invest in a market aggregate. The percentage you are talking about is a very small outlier.
And people who 'really never had enough money to save anyway' currently have money deducted for social security. If the government stopped deducting that money, they would have the extra funds to invest. We need to give people the money they earn and let them account for their own retirement.
Don't punish everyone because a select few people are too lazy to plan ahead.
Basically, it breaks down to two groups, one says that Social Security is a benefit that was very beneficial. For me, when I attended college I got a monthly check from SSA since my father was retired. That paid a lot of food and book bills, since my parents were far from rich. My parent's checks were a welcome benefit to supplement their small pensions and savings.
The other group says that they would have been better off investing that money on their own -- presuming they actually did invest that money instead of consuming it -- which statistically says that most would not invest it as an alternative.
What we do know is history. Before SSA existed, most seniors were poor and if they could, lived off their children. After SSA was created this generally was not the case. SSA coupled with Medicare has done a great service to reducing elderly poverty.
Enough with mere opinion, what do the smart people who research this say?
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, "Social Security is often mentioned as a likely contributor to the decline in elderly poverty. Enacted in 1935, the Social Security system experienced rapid benefit growth in the post-WWII era. In fact, there is a striking association between the rise in Social Security expenditures per capita and the decline in elderly poverty, as Figure 1 illustrates (with both series scaled to fit on the same figure)."
Even if some people have not read the Mammon’s First Bible of Finance or even if they did and trusted a finance company to manage their investments they could still be left impoverished. I have invested my 'share’ of previous pension funds in the stock market using a well known financial company. Every few years I have, using the advice of a investment manager, revised the specific funds I bought. They suggested I invest in a fund heavily involved in ENRON when it was rapidly rising in value and later investing in mortgage backed securities when they were increasing in price. Recognizing that both of these were both highly speculative and were beyond my risk tolerance (I have no tolerance for obvious losers) I declined. The result was my retirement fund, although meager by the standards of the hyper financiers on this board, did not lose any value during the "market readjustments" following the collapse of those investments. A more trusting soul would have followed the manager's advice and suffered substantial losses. This has happened to many Americans and preventing these people from having no money to spend after retirement is exactly what Social Security is about. Social Security not only protects the impoverished retiree but also protects the landlords, the grocer, the electric company and many others from losing a customer to inadvertent destitution.
Social Security thus insures the economy as well as individuals. It can be improved by removing the cap on taxable income and restricting the payments to people with other sources of retirement income. I do not see any reason the Romney’s should be receiving any Social Security no matter how much they have paid. They do not need the insurance.
Social Security does not provide funds for the working age persons unless they are disabled. Poverty has increased because we are providing less aid and there are way fewer good paying factory jobs.
Social security is not doing a good job insuring the economy because our poverty rates have now returned to what they were in the 1960s.
That isn't true for the elderly, who have had a drastic decline in poverty. There is also research that shows that there are more businesses started by people within months of becoming eligible for Medicare because they no longer fear losing benefits.
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