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It doesn't have to be stocks. It could be mutual funds or municipal bonds or other conservative investments. But it would be yours and would be returned to you in retirement, not funneled off to the generations ahead of you.
Mutual funds ARE stocks. Bonds have been losers for years now.
Maybe your generation should have had more kids so there would be enough contributors to cover your generation.
I suspect there is terrible waste in Social Security and Medicaid. I am guessing this because of examples I personally have known.
One example -- A couple has a child. The father is on disability but the mother has a good income. The child is entitled to Social Security disability benefits.
I suspect there is terrible waste in Social Security and Medicaid. I am guessing this because of examples I personally have known.
One example -- A couple has a child. The father is on disability but the mother has a good income. The child is entitled to Social Security disability benefits.
And most families require 2 adults working to get by these days.
If you think that situation is not fair, email your Congress critters. Congress.gov.
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EVERY election cycle that I can remember, going on 50 years now, the Democrats bring out the elderly and accuse the Republicans of planning to do away with Social Security and Medicare.
EVERY SINGLE TIME.
The Democrats are nothing but predictable. lol
Republicans have been proposing to end Social Security in all those years, you never realized that? The articles listed here are more recent, but the agenda is decades in the making.
The Republican Party opposed Social Security in the 1930's when first introduced, and have opposed it since.
Quote:
Originally Posted by teeej
Not happening. Seniors vote.
Too many vote for Republicans routinely.
They have no idea what they do to themselves. If they continue voting this way, without giving much thought to the issue, they jeopardize their own financial well-being.
Often, Republican leaders speak of SS as an entitlement, it comes up when they make big talk about 'balancing the budget'. However in reality Social Security is self funded. Getting rid of Social Security would not actually help the budget.
Yet, the rhetoric has been couched in this way for decades. "Help the deficit by cutting entitlement programs". They have never been serious about helping the deficit this way, it is an excuse, not the real reason to kill Social Security.
This mostly comes from the pro-business crowd of Republicans. What they are actually after is to get rid of the employer contribution, this is the quiet part that never is mentioned. If they should be successful it would be a windfall for large corporations and destroy the Social Security system.
Mutual funds ARE stocks. Bonds have been losers for years now.
Maybe your generation should have had more kids so there would be enough contributors to cover your generation.
In other words, we should have brought in more contributors, who in turn should bring in more contributors, who in turn should bring in still more contributors. That, my dear Ansible, is the definition of a Ponzi scheme.
In other words, we should have brought in more contributors, who in turn should bring in more contributors, who in turn should bring in still more contributors. That, my dear Ansible, is the definition of a Ponzi scheme.
I didn't say it wasn't. Anyone who has done even minimal reading about Social Security knows that current workers pay for current retirees. How else could they have gotten it started without a very big pot of money? (There is some excess social security money stored in special treasury bonds, but that money is being used up)
The Social Security program was conceived at a time when families had 4, or 5 or 10 children. The idea worked. There were always plenty more workers than retirees. They could not forsee that we would have a baby boom generation and later go negative with fertility rates. Something will have to be changed fairly soon to keep these programs going.
But that doesn't make these programs bad ideas. I don't think we should go back to having old people living in poverty or on the streets just because they couldn't manage to earn a good middle class salary (or better) all their lives. Medicare is a necessity because our private health insurance system would never insure the elderly on their own because they wouldn't make enough profit.
There are good reasons to keep these programs going. And as I said before, without these programs, lots of grandparents would be moving in with their children or grandchildren, and the whole extended family could face medical bankruptcy when the elders get sick.
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