You’re right. Boortz isn’t a right-wing kook, he’s a libertarian kook. The guy calls himself a libertarian, but he comes off as that group’s very own Ann Coulter. He’s a caustic asshole whose debating style is to belittle his opponents and generally make a fool of himself.
No actually I would have made more because I would have drawn as handicapped and unable to work.
Amazing what 2 hip operations and soon a shoulder repair job will do.
If you want to stick it to grandma then invest your retirement money in tax free municipal bonds. That way you will have a retirement fund, and keep Uncle Sam from giving your wealth (taxes) to granny (social security). No voting required.
Got the idea from a rich old lady.
Well even if true, he wouldn’t be the 1st one to use the divide and conqure method.
The simple truth is hidden in those statements I get telling me how much I paid into my SS account and how much I can expect to get when I retire, if I make it that long. As you describe it, and how it is actually implemented, it’s a pyrimid scheme and is stressed beyond it’s capacity because of the baby boom not being maintained. I agree it maks some sense but it depends on a expanding workforce and an expanding eccomony.
Agreed
They should, the system as it stands will place a burden on them unseen in US history. Galvseton TX has opted out and has a MUCH HIGHER RATE OF RETURN then SS receipiants. Anyway, though there is a SS fund “lock box” safegarding the money in it for SS, there is NO MONEY in that lockbox, none, not one cent.
This is what I do have a very hard time with. Do we just say f’ you, your just SOL. I personally don’t want to see this. We should honor our commitmant, but then again we shouldn’t burder the future with a system we now know is seriously flawed.
I don’t have the answer
Interesting line. You know it will fail, but you wish to maintain it as long as possiable, which would seem to hurt more people overall. Kind of selfish of you isn’t it. If you agree w/ Bush or not, privatization is a honest attempt to fix this system.
And Microsoft for that matter. You know you are on serious thin ice here as the market has outperformed SS over the years many many times over.
SS does steal money from the workers, but I know that’s not what you ment. You have to explain how being able to invest for one’s own retirement in the way one wants to is stealing.
Which would explain his previous job. Come to think of it, that’s how politicians are created.
This is simply not true - the whole point in increasing the payroll taxes back in 1983 was to build up an excess in the system to account for the eventual retirement of the baby boomers.
I hardly call it honest when it is touted as the only option that will “save” Social Security. There’s plenty of things that can be done to the system to maintain its viability without having to push for privitization.
I really, really, want someone to explain to me the logic of using the claim that the market has outperformed SS over the years. Because to me, it just doesn’t make any sense. Social Security wasn’t initially and still isn’t today a vehicle for investment with the idea of increasing one’s return on that investment. It’s a supplement.
In other words, the logic is that people should normally set aside a portion of their savings for investment for retirement. However, there is no guarentee that the money saved and invested will be there in the future. Social Security is the government saying, in effect, “we know that the market cannot guarantee that what you set aside and invest for your retirement will be there in the future. Therefore, we will GUARANTEE that you will have some income/money coming to you every month after you retire. It might not be as much if you had invested it yourself; but getting some money is better than the possibility of getting no money at all.”
OK I’ll bite, where is/was the money stored? You know as well as I do that it goes into general funds and long paid out for $5000 screwdrivers.
OK I admit not the only way, but a proven way (again I point out Galvaston, TX). Some space alians may land w/ another time tested solution. (a bit sarcastic, I know, but I don’t really see any viable alternative, nor do you offer one)
Well, very simply because it has. The SS system I don’t even think has kept up with inflation, which in anyones book , is a horriable investment for retirement (even God Himself condems this in the Bible).
So I am assuming that you are pushing the point that it’s a guarantee. Ok well we have several thing to look at. The 1st is that the US currency is based on the strenght of the US ecconomy if the market fails then your SS payments will be worthless.
2nd is that there are government securities which are just as safe if not safer then SS and backed, in the worse case senario, by the US Gov’t having to print that money. Hyper-inflation city yes, but SS will be lucky to survive something like that at all.
It’s a poor argument saying that instead of mandating a percentage of secure investments, you must give us that money and make a smaller rate of return AND have less security.
Did anyone read the rest of the “nuze” on that page? That guy is fucking insane.
The only way young people are going to get a say in the political process is if we actually take part in the political process. And I don’t just mean voting, but also lobbying to Congress, forming organizations like the AARP, and writing to politicians. However, we won’t do any of that, because it’s a lot hipper to sit back and bitch about how America sucks than to do anything about it. I hate my generation. :mad:
The government uses the current surplus of SS payments to buy Treasury bonds. Is that what you mean here? Probably a good measure of how little I understand economics is how bizarre it strikes me that the gov’t is borrowing money from itself at interest. 
What do you mean? That the money payed out by the SS is inadaquately adjusted for inflation?
That’s what they do now, I think. They buy gov’t securities with the excess money pulled in from payroll taxes, so they can cover the shortages later.
Yeah, we need a young generations lobbying group (18-35). We can bitch about human rights, economic growth, universal coverage, social liberties, etc. But how do you start one?
Another issue that might reduce the discrepancy is that I believe a lot of this discrepancy between black male life expectancy and others is due to higher deaths at early ages…e.g., teens, twenties, and such. I believe that the difference in life expectancy between a black male who has lived to, say, 40 and the rest of the population who has lived to 40 is less. People who die in their teens and twenties haven’t paid much into social security. So, this is another factor that makes the discrepancy less than Boortz discusses.
Also, social security’s pay-out scheme is quite complicated and is, on the surface, fairly progressive…But, because of these factors like the one Boortz identifies, the actually progressivity becomes more complicated. The whole issue of whether social security as a whole is progressive or regressive is also a complicated one since there is intergenerational transfer and it depends on how one discounts money over time.
Also, Boortz makes the claim that:
This is incorrect. While it is true that social security will no longer be running a surplus each year starting around the time that he identifies, the fact is that it will have built up a few trillion dollars in the trust fund that it can use to fully fund all of the benefits out to somewhere like 2042 or so. (After which time, it is estimated that the trust fund will be exhausted and the amount taken in in taxes each year will only be able to fund ~3/4 of the benefits it is supposed to pay out.)
Now, admittedly it is true that this trust fund currently consists of treasury bills…i.e., IOUs from the government. So, in fact there is somewhat of a crisis that will occur ~15 years out…But, that is not a crisis in social security. It is a crisis in the rest of government…I.e., the rest of government will have to stop borrowing from social security revenues and actually start paying them back.
So, yes, there is a crisis coming up but to put the blame on social security is deceitful. It is like saying that my rich uncle is going to screw me because he is going to reach the stage where he no longer lets me borrow money from him every year and actually makes me start to pay it back. The solution is not to renege on paying back social security’s trust fund but to get the rest of our fiscal house in order. Of course, the Bush tax cuts went in exactly the wrong direction in this regard…They just increased the extent to which social security’s surplus revenues are subsidizing the rest of government. And, the reason this matters from a distributional standpoint is that social security payroll taxes are collected very regressively, both because they are only on wage income not unearned income (like dividends and capital gains) and because there is a cap beyond which no further taxes are taken out. [For a single person, that cap is around $90,000 of wage income, I believe.]
And, by the way, even the crisis for social security that is ~40 years off is somewhat effemeral. It is simply too hard to predict economic growth and such that far into the future. And, there are some fairly modest steps that could be taken (such as lifting the above-mentioned cap and a few other things) that would make the system solvent as far out as they even try to look (which is 75 years, I believe).
Here is a good op-ed piece today by Paul Krugman on the invented crisis regarding social security.
I agree with extending the wage base. As it stands now you only pay SS taxes on the first 87k you earn. After that, your money is free and clear of SS taxes.
I pay the taxes on every dollar I earn. But those much better off don’t.
Tell me that’s fair.
So in 1983, they raised taxes to cover future SS shortfalls, which seems an excellent and forsightied idea.
They then decided that the safest place to keep this money was to spend it and send themselves notes reminding them to pay it back at interest later!!! How was this decision decided on. It seems bizarre to take steps to solve a future problem but then just make it worse. Is there an upside to this that I’m not seeing? Why didn’t they, in 1983, invest the money in the stockmarket, or another countries securities, or for that matter just hide it under Greenspans mattress for thirty years.
You know where it’s stored - the Social Security Trust Fund. However, you are correct that the Trust Fund is little more than an accounting system. But I would hardly blame a system that’s attempting to address the baby-boomer problem (excess money being accumulated to account for their retirement); rather the blame should be directed towards those exacerbating the issue - the politicians in Washington.
In any event, then why all the hubbub regarding the system being in crisis? If it’s all money from the same pot, then why not use the money available elsewhere to help fund the program?
Gee - are you absolutely certain that the Galveston, TX plan is such a panacea?
From the National Center for Policy Analysis.
excerpt:
"A new report from the Social Security Administration on the Galveston system found that for most single workers initial benefits would be considerably higher than under Social Security (see figure).
Only low income workers are slightly worse off, owing to the heavily redistributive aspect of Social Security.
Married workers do not do quite as well, due to the more generous spousal benefits under Social Security.
The SSA study says that because Social Security benefits are indexed to inflation while private pensions are not, over time Social Security recipients do better. However, it assumes inflation of 3 percent per year indefinitely, accounting for most of Social Security’s advantage.
It must also be noted that the Galveston workers’ funds are very conservatively invested. Had they been invested in a large stock index fund they would have almost doubled their rate of return, which would at least double their benefits."
Now, clearly the system is fairly decent; but some people do better than others. On the other hand, I see nothing that would indicate that IF the market did not perform as expected, that the system would be appreciatively better than Social Security. After all, Social Security is indexed to inflation.
Well, what about alternatives? Gee, I don’t know - how about 1) increase the age when one can start accruing benefits; 2) some sort of means testing; 3) increase the cap on income for payroll taxes; 3) reduce benefits slightly (could be means-tested or not); 4) increase payroll taxes; 5) reduce spending for other government programs to name but a few.
See above - Social Secutity is indexed to inflation.
I’m not talking necessarily about total market failure - the folks who had most of their investments in Enron didn’t lose all their money because the market collapsed. They lost all their money becaue their company tanked. Besides, the system is set up so that even in the event of total market failure, those that lost Social Security benefits would be paid first whenever the market recovered (or rather, that’s how the system SHOULD work; never mind that those with the financial and political clout would, more than likely, get their money first).
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that what already being done with the Trust Fund (the money is being put into securities)?
But it’s even a poorer argument to mandate that your money 1) be put into a private account where private investment firms, banks, and the like take a percentage of that money and invest it (and they’ll take their cut no matter if you make or lose money); 2) assume that by feeing up trillions of dollars to be invested in the stock market and the like that the rate of return will remain the same; 3) and assume that the market will always increase (or increase in such a manner that it would be greater if the money had not been invested and instead paid out from the Social Security System).
In addition, SOCIAL SECURITY IS NOT AN INVESTMENT VEHICLE!!! It’s a supplement - or better, it’s insurance in the event that some happens to your (other) investments.
“Privatized” means “given to someone else,” doesn’t it? Once it’s given to someone else, I’ll pretty much consider it gone.
One should also remember…that when and if SS is privatized. The people who run whatever vehicle is used for your money…will take their cut out your money.
The thing about privatization, of course, is that it also just deepens the problem at least in the short and medium term (for some vague supposed payouts in the long term). That is, the money that gets put into private accounts is money that would have otherwise gone to pay current retirees. So what you are talking about is either cuts in benefits for the current and near-term retirees (who don’t have a chance to build up the private accounts) or more borrowing to pay them their full benefits.
And, it is worth adding that NCPA, despite its innocuous-sounding name, is a libertarian think-tank that is strongly in favor of SS privatization.
It appears that the Bush Administration, in true neocon devotion to deficits, has chosen the latter:
Though I wouldn’t rule out a simultaneous cut in benefits to fund another tax cut down the road.
And a Merry Christmas to you too, Mr. Scrooge. Hope you don’t mind if I sleep for a little while in your doorway. The snow is so cold and I get sleepy when I go hungry.