The only question is whether these mismanagers should be fired or shot.
Going hand in hand with this is the rule of law has also left the building.
Rand, do you even read the articles that you link to anymore?
With respect to your glib remark about Social Security being a Ponzi scheme, would you care to remark on this discourse in the comments section between Harry, Geeze, and BooMushroom?
From a Libertarian perspective, but maybe from the perspective of the Right/Conservative/Libertarian blogosphere being the “Walter Mondale wants you to swallow your bitter medicine” in this the 2012 election.
I mean, what do want people to live on in their retirement? I mean it is a Socialist program after all, but people have paid into it with their taxes, but the Libertarian response is Social Security, Ponzi Scheme. Pension, fuggetabout it, if you still have a pension you must be one of those PSE “looters.” Savings, yeah with rising energy, food, and medical costs when we are supposed be in deflation, near-zero interest earnings on anything not high risk, yeah, save your money in 401K, IRA, and other savings by investing in the stock market, sucka!
This place has gotten to be like The Oil Drum of retirement finance. The folks at The Oil Drum have a point, the glib post about a vast yet difficult-to-extract resource in the form of Oil Shale in the Green River Formant not withstanding (which is not Shale Oil). There are problems with our oil-based economy just as there are problems with Social Security, and there are problems with “the little guy” getting a fair shake in the financial markets given those Wall Street Types who are not moochers or looters but are somehow courageous Titans of Industry and Finance.
But just as The Oil Drum feeds on Gloom and Doom, and if you comment over there that maybe there are some reasons to be optimistic about oil, you get beaten about the head with sections of drill rigging. Here, the suggestion that maybe Social Security isn’t as bad off if people think, especially if we could pump some of that domestic oil and restart the economy, around here, someone will hold an adult sanitary garment over your face to simulate waterboarding or something.
What am I so exercised about? America is not about Gloom and Doom. It didn’t work for Walter Mondale, and it didn’t work for Al Gore. It isn’t working for the Climate Change lobby because the average person is tired of hearing about their “Carbon footprint.” And the average person won’t want to hear us complaining about their “Pension footprint.” You guys are going to get Mr Obama reelected if you keep it up.
I mean, what do want people to live on in their retirement? I mean it is a Socialist program after all, but people have paid into it with their taxes, but the Libertarian response is Social Security, Ponzi Scheme. Pension, fuggetabout it, if you still have a pension you must be one of those PSE “looters.” Savings, yeah with rising energy, food, and medical costs when we are supposed be in deflation, near-zero interest earnings on anything not high risk, yeah, save your money in 401K, IRA, and other savings by investing in the stock market, sucka!
Well, are you going to cover the tens to hundreds of billions a year gap between what the Social Security program takes in and what it supposedly will dish out? As I see it, it is fair for everyone including current pensioners to take a fairly large haircut on Social Security in order for it either to remain solvent or to be discontinued. Keep in mind that the current pensioners had many decades to fix Social Security and they didn’t. Why should they benefit from their lifetime of irresponsibility on this matter?
Paul, it’s every bit as bad off as stated. It isn’t “doom and gloom” to point out that a house is actually on fire – that’s called sanity.
And, for all that interest rates suck, you get much better returns on shoving money into a bank account than Social Secuity (a) pays now, or (b) pays after the massive looming reforms.
Even just sitting down and totaling up “How much money have I and my employers stuck into my personal SSA account?” and comparing it to the SSA’s mailer on how much they expect to pay you is pathetic.
A pension manager with this sort of results would be shot. If they could stop the lynch mob.
And that’s -before- the unavoidable massive revaluation. And you just -know- that the people who are going to take a haircut are the ones that have -already- paid more into social security than they will ever recoup.
We -can- do better. The only ‘doom and gloom’ aspects are that there exist people who can look at the exact same charts and insist with a straight face that SSA is too big to fail.
It isn’t “doom and gloom” to point out that a house is actually on fire – that’s called sanity.
And then there is that comment related to insanity of continuing to do what you’ve been doing and expecting a different result. I don’t understand the mentality that Social Security is so sacred that we can’t note its problems. It’s like being on the Titanic and insisting that was meerly an iceberg incapable of sinking the ship. If that’s “doom and gloom”, fine. Personally, I rather look at what options still exist, like saving as many people as possible and trying to find a better way next time.
What do want people to live on in their retirement?
That is an excellent question worthy of some deep thought. Deep thought doesn’t really work in politics, but let’s give it a shot.
First of all, social security has been fraudulently defined. It’s not secure at all, as Obama threatening not to pay it (twice) indicates. These hustlers have made it abundantly clear that they can take money from your paycheck for years with no obligation to give back a cent (other than face the uproar if they actually tried to do that.)
The money is taken is not given back anywhere near what it should be had it been actually invested for you.
People react to their environment. Knowing they alone are responsible for their own retirement would make them act accordingly.
What about the poor that can’t save for retirement? Social security is not the answer. That doesn’t mean there isn’t an answer. It’s actually pretty simple. You could even make it a law. Let’s call it the private social security act.
Let business compete for those that would make voluntary contributions to an annuity. At any time, people could choose to have the annuity provide them with a monthly income. This would allow them to see exactly how much retirement they’ve saved up to that point. Even if they’ve taken a monthly income, they could continue to contribute to the annuity, raising the monthly amount.
People are currently forced to make forty quarters of payments to social security. If you like that, you could force them to pay for an annuity as well. I don’t like that, but that’s what government does… it threatens and uses force.
The only question is whether these mismanagers should be fired or shot.
Going hand in hand with this is the rule of law has also left the building.
Rand, do you even read the articles that you link to anymore?
With respect to your glib remark about Social Security being a Ponzi scheme, would you care to remark on this discourse in the comments section between Harry, Geeze, and BooMushroom?
From a Libertarian perspective, but maybe from the perspective of the Right/Conservative/Libertarian blogosphere being the “Walter Mondale wants you to swallow your bitter medicine” in this the 2012 election.
I mean, what do want people to live on in their retirement? I mean it is a Socialist program after all, but people have paid into it with their taxes, but the Libertarian response is Social Security, Ponzi Scheme. Pension, fuggetabout it, if you still have a pension you must be one of those PSE “looters.” Savings, yeah with rising energy, food, and medical costs when we are supposed be in deflation, near-zero interest earnings on anything not high risk, yeah, save your money in 401K, IRA, and other savings by investing in the stock market, sucka!
This place has gotten to be like The Oil Drum of retirement finance. The folks at The Oil Drum have a point, the glib post about a vast yet difficult-to-extract resource in the form of Oil Shale in the Green River Formant not withstanding (which is not Shale Oil). There are problems with our oil-based economy just as there are problems with Social Security, and there are problems with “the little guy” getting a fair shake in the financial markets given those Wall Street Types who are not moochers or looters but are somehow courageous Titans of Industry and Finance.
But just as The Oil Drum feeds on Gloom and Doom, and if you comment over there that maybe there are some reasons to be optimistic about oil, you get beaten about the head with sections of drill rigging. Here, the suggestion that maybe Social Security isn’t as bad off if people think, especially if we could pump some of that domestic oil and restart the economy, around here, someone will hold an adult sanitary garment over your face to simulate waterboarding or something.
What am I so exercised about? America is not about Gloom and Doom. It didn’t work for Walter Mondale, and it didn’t work for Al Gore. It isn’t working for the Climate Change lobby because the average person is tired of hearing about their “Carbon footprint.” And the average person won’t want to hear us complaining about their “Pension footprint.” You guys are going to get Mr Obama reelected if you keep it up.
I mean, what do want people to live on in their retirement? I mean it is a Socialist program after all, but people have paid into it with their taxes, but the Libertarian response is Social Security, Ponzi Scheme. Pension, fuggetabout it, if you still have a pension you must be one of those PSE “looters.” Savings, yeah with rising energy, food, and medical costs when we are supposed be in deflation, near-zero interest earnings on anything not high risk, yeah, save your money in 401K, IRA, and other savings by investing in the stock market, sucka!
Well, are you going to cover the tens to hundreds of billions a year gap between what the Social Security program takes in and what it supposedly will dish out? As I see it, it is fair for everyone including current pensioners to take a fairly large haircut on Social Security in order for it either to remain solvent or to be discontinued. Keep in mind that the current pensioners had many decades to fix Social Security and they didn’t. Why should they benefit from their lifetime of irresponsibility on this matter?
Paul, it’s every bit as bad off as stated. It isn’t “doom and gloom” to point out that a house is actually on fire – that’s called sanity.
And, for all that interest rates suck, you get much better returns on shoving money into a bank account than Social Secuity (a) pays now, or (b) pays after the massive looming reforms.
Even just sitting down and totaling up “How much money have I and my employers stuck into my personal SSA account?” and comparing it to the SSA’s mailer on how much they expect to pay you is pathetic.
A pension manager with this sort of results would be shot. If they could stop the lynch mob.
And that’s -before- the unavoidable massive revaluation. And you just -know- that the people who are going to take a haircut are the ones that have -already- paid more into social security than they will ever recoup.
We -can- do better. The only ‘doom and gloom’ aspects are that there exist people who can look at the exact same charts and insist with a straight face that SSA is too big to fail.
It isn’t “doom and gloom” to point out that a house is actually on fire – that’s called sanity.
And then there is that comment related to insanity of continuing to do what you’ve been doing and expecting a different result. I don’t understand the mentality that Social Security is so sacred that we can’t note its problems. It’s like being on the Titanic and insisting that was meerly an iceberg incapable of sinking the ship. If that’s “doom and gloom”, fine. Personally, I rather look at what options still exist, like saving as many people as possible and trying to find a better way next time.
What do want people to live on in their retirement?
That is an excellent question worthy of some deep thought. Deep thought doesn’t really work in politics, but let’s give it a shot.
First of all, social security has been fraudulently defined. It’s not secure at all, as Obama threatening not to pay it (twice) indicates. These hustlers have made it abundantly clear that they can take money from your paycheck for years with no obligation to give back a cent (other than face the uproar if they actually tried to do that.)
The money is taken is not given back anywhere near what it should be had it been actually invested for you.
People react to their environment. Knowing they alone are responsible for their own retirement would make them act accordingly.
What about the poor that can’t save for retirement? Social security is not the answer. That doesn’t mean there isn’t an answer. It’s actually pretty simple. You could even make it a law. Let’s call it the private social security act.
Let business compete for those that would make voluntary contributions to an annuity. At any time, people could choose to have the annuity provide them with a monthly income. This would allow them to see exactly how much retirement they’ve saved up to that point. Even if they’ve taken a monthly income, they could continue to contribute to the annuity, raising the monthly amount.
People are currently forced to make forty quarters of payments to social security. If you like that, you could force them to pay for an annuity as well. I don’t like that, but that’s what government does… it threatens and uses force.