# How the baby boomers destroyed everything **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 26, 2017, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-baby-boomers-destroyed-everything/780878 "2017-02-26T21:30:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-baby-boomers-destroyed-everything/780878/101 "2017-03-12T04:03:09Z")
> [@sear](#): > > a) Ponzi in the sense that current payments are NOT provided by prior revenues (which have already been squandered on alternate budge priorities); but instead by current revenues. I just had a wonderful thought. How do private businesses work? Do they run on \*prior \*revenues? No. They spend the money first on factories and materials and worker salaries. Then they sell the product and hope to make enough money from \*future \*revenues to stay afloat. Over the long term they strive to make the cash flow, i.e. \*current \*revenues, equal or greater to expenses, otherwise they have problems with their creditors. And as we all have been saying, the government works on the same principles. The taxes collected over the course of a year pay back the costs of providing programs. In fact, there’s really only one sort of business model that runs on prior revenues. You’re going to laugh when you hear it, although by you I mean everybody but sear. A Ponzi scheme. The definition of a Ponzi scheme is that it takes prior revenues and hands them out as investment returns rather than the returns of real investments. So the _one thing_ that works the way sear wants Social Security to work… is a Ponzi scheme. This is almost too beautiful to be true, except, well, you know, the Internet. If I tried to create a character in a book who thought this way, every critic would berate me. That can’t be real, they would say. His argument is _beyond fiction_. I’m going to bed now and have happy dreams. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-baby-boomers-destroyed-everything/780878/102 "2017-03-12T05:36:35Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > y’know, I’m kind of tired of this whole thing. “Generations” don’t inherently do this, that or the other thing. every generation is a product of the preceding one, and views the world through the lenses their parents (and grandparents) gave them. As **Amateur Barbarian** correctly points out, the Boomers are a product of being raised in America’s post-WWII boom. We got out of WWII relatively unscathed; aside from Pearl Harbor nobody was bombing us into rubble. We had nothing to rebuild. We had thousands of returning servicemen who would need jobs. We had pent-up demand for consumer goods like appliances, cars, etc. and houses since so much of industry had been re-purposed to make military hardware. In contrast, Europe and Japan were in shambles. they had to spend so much of their resources rebuilding. > > We were so successful from 1945-1960s because we didn’t have much competition. Post-WWII America was an anomaly. anyone promising to return us to that is selling you a bill of goods. …or planning to blow up Europe, Asia and MENA again… ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-baby-boomers-destroyed-everything/780878/103 "2017-03-12T19:46:19Z")
All of this nonsense has already been refuted by others, but I have to add a few more words. > [@sear](#): > > My reservations about Social Security include: > > - It’s compulsory; 401K is not. > - SCOTUS has already ruled that citizens have no legal right to any of the $money they’ve paid into Social Security. That their “entitlement” is only whatever congress says it is. Yes, Social Security is compulsory. Guess what? So is growing old. That’s why the two compulsory things work rather well together. The entitlement being predetermined is the very nature of any defined benefit pension plan. The “whatever Congress says it is” line is just typical libertarian bumper-sticker sloganeering because they hate government. > [@sear](#): > > Why not set an income% standard? > 10% of whatever the citizen / tax payer’s yearly income is? > And grant each tax payer some leeway; within the limits of the plan, to choose which investment vehicle best suits their investment profile? > Is individual choice really so bad? Those are good questions, if you mean that everyone should be required by law to set aside a designated percentage of income in retirement savings that would presumably be tax-exempt and restricted from arbitrary withdrawal. This does address the matter of the irresponsible types who’d rather buy beer than put the money in a retirement fund, but I thought you were against the evil gubbermint “forcing” you – at “gunpoint”, yet" – to do anything? However, even if you accept such a mandate, there is still the huge problem of whether such a form of _de facto_ privatized social security would be responsibly managed, and even if it was, it’s unlikely that it could match the performance and economies of scale of a highly capitalized professionally managed pension fund like the one I cited before and cite again below. One further difficulty compounds the problem of self-managed private funds, and that’s the concept that since it’s “your money”, absolutely and indisputably, you not only have the “freedom” to mismanage it or take undue risks, but depending on how it’s regulated you may also have the ability to withdraw all or part prematurely, claiming poverty, a personal emergency, etc. When it’s gone, it’s gone. You can’t do that with a defined benefit plan like SS because the capital isn’t yours, you only “own” a predefined entitlement to be paid out of it. That’s actually an advantage. It’s only a problem if you hate and distrust government. > [@sear](#): > > It is a pyramid scam. > But perhaps the more important detail is that disempowering a nation, an entire People is a savage blow. It weakens and thus threatens us as both a People, and as a nation. Repeating “pyramid scam” over and over again doesn’t make it true. And ISTM that creating systems of social security in the broadest sense of the word to ensure that the elderly who can no longer work can actually afford to retire, and can be provided with at least a subsistence income and nominal health care, is what _ **strengthens** _ a nation and a people. > [@sear](#): > > A 401K is an investment in future (life long) financial security. > iirc it was Albert Einstein that called compound interest the 11th wonder of the world. > What do you propose to do with the corpses? > > [http://images.yuku.com/image/jpeg/c5725774c467b13b9b8771277ae74b7774e6098.JPG](http://images.yuku.com/image/jpeg/c5725774c467b13b9b8771277ae74b7774e6098.JPG) > > Where do you draw the line? > > Reductio ad absurdum: > What % does government confiscate from U.S. worker salary for SS? Betw. 6% - 7%? > Well if that’s so optimal, why not 10%? > And if 10% would be an improvement, why not 22.539%? > And if 22.539% would be more than twice as good; why not 50%? > But why all the half-stepping?! > If government can handle my finances better than me; why the $#@! am I allowed to handle any of $it? My main comment on this mishmash of nonsense, besides the matters that have already been addressed by myself and others, is that you never answered the main questions except with snark: - If you don’t have some form of mandatory social security, what do you propose to do with those who have never saved for retirement (or have tried and have squandered or otherwise lost it) and now can’t afford to survive in their old age? Is the destitution of the elderly really the mark of a strong society, or is it more the result of libertarian bullshit? - If social security is such a terrible scam, how come [I was able to cite one that works extremely well](http://www.cppib.com/en/what-we-do/)? It’s fine to quote Einstein about the wonders of compound interest, but it’s a good deal less wonderful when the highest return you can get on a five-year CD is [an annualized rate of 0.75%](http://cd-rates.credio.com/l/1132/US-Bank) and very much less on shorter terms. Meanwhile the CPP I cited [achieved a 10.6% five-year annualized rate of return](http://www.cppib.com/en/our-performance/). True, this doesn’t directly benefit the payees who are on a defined-benefit system, but it does speak to the long-term sustainability of this (according to you) “pyramid scam”. The income is guaranteed for life with annual cost-of-living increases, and that is a very powerful financial resource. I know it offends libertarian sensibilities to be shown that government can do something right and benefit the citizens that it serves. Too bad for libertarians. Finally, the answer to the question about how much should be deducted for SS (the use of the word “confiscated” suggests an interesting antisocial perspective) is that it should be sufficient to provide for at least a minimal subsistence income at retirement. Many believe that the CPP plan I mentioned should be deducting more and providing higher payouts to future retirees. There is certainly no sane group or person I’ve ever heard suggesting that it should be deducting less or be dismantled in favor of, basically, nothing. Private tax-deductible retirement savings plans already exist and people are free to use those, too. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-baby-boomers-destroyed-everything/780878/104 "2017-03-16T00:43:02Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > And when you talk about individual people and families, it’s all mixed up. My parents are from the Silent Generation. My sister and I are both late Baby Boomers. Her daughter is a Millennial. My son, born in 2009, is whatever comes after the Millennials, if it has a name. Heh. Going by the figures provided by NDP, my wife and I are both Baby Boomers (as is one of her sisters). My brother and sisters, however, were from the Silent Generation, and her other sister is a late Generation X. That’s a forty-year spread… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-baby-boomers-destroyed-everything/780878.md?page=5)