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Privatize Social Security

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Privatize Social Security
Post by chuckpeterson   » Fri Jan 18, 2019 6:41 pm

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Privatize Social Security

The Social Security program provides workers and their families with retirement, disability, and survivors insurance benefits. Workers earn these benefits by paying into the system during their working years. Over the program’s 83-year history, it has collected roughly $20.9 trillion and paid out $18.0 trillion, leaving asset reserves of $2.9 trillion at the end of 2017 in its two trust funds.

With assets of $2.9 trillion, who wouldn’t want to be the owner--?

I am sure Trump's minions would like a slice of the pie !!

Couldn't Trump use this extra cash to build his wall-?

A few years ago, I drove to my local hospital because I felt a pain and went to the emergency room. The hospital implanted a stent in one of my arteries the same day. I paid “zero”; Medicare paid 100% of the bill

Last month I went to renew my driver’s license and the driver’s license department required me to get my doctor to sign a statement that I was healthy enough to drive a car. My doctor refused to do so unless I get my heart looked at.

I went to the emergency room at the same hospital and told my story. From there they sent me to a special ward in the hospital where the scanned my heat and took a few other tests. The then sent a report to my personal doctor.
Medicare paid 100% of the cost.

the above is the truth, nothing but the truth so help me God
btw: I'm 67 years old
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Re: Privatize Social Security
Post by Imaginos1892   » Fri Jan 18, 2019 7:38 pm

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Sure, assets of $2.9 trillion — and liabilities of at least $20 trillion, probably closer to $35 trillion. All those 45 million folks that paid $150,000 to $200,000 into the system, and have been promised $400,000 or more. Like me.

And, none of that $2.9 trillion is actually IN any 'trust fund'. The government has been stealing and spending the 'Social Security Surplus' for 40 years. The piggy bank is empty. Social Security is largely paid out of your current income taxes.

Social Security was sold as an insurance scheme, a little extra income for those few people who lived past 65 back when we had a huge, young workforce and the average life expectancy was under 60. It has been mutated into 'everybody's retirement plan' in a time when there are fewer workers and far more retirees, and most of them will probably live past 80.

Social Security as presently constituted is unsustainable, the train wreck is coming, and the politicians have their heads jammed up their asses.

I will apply for Social Security. I paid for more than 40 years, and I want some of that money back. I am NOT counting on getting it. I have provided for my own retirement, and will not be left out in the cold when Social Security implodes.
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Governments can only print money; they can't make it worth anything. They can make it worth nothing.
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Re: Privatize Social Security
Post by Annachie   » Fri Jan 18, 2019 8:03 pm

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You got that right Imaginos.

SS should have been invested properly, with appropriate rates of returns and all. Even if that investment was into government infrastructure.

But all governments appear to have treated it as a bucket of free cash.

Made worse by neo-lib types thinking that it could be a money making enterprise for their friends. (That would be small R republican for you Americans)

There was a clasic trial program down here to use a "benifits card" instead of paying people social security. The idea being to stop people buying drugs and alcohol.
Average payment, about $20,000.

Sounds good? Didn't work and the private company that ran the scheme charged about $10,000 per card.

Net effect, SS budget up 50% (for that area/payment), no improvement in society, and a private company (run by people with links to the government who set the scheme up) laughing all the way to the bank.

Clasic neo-lib bullshit.

SS needs to be a wholey owned government enterprise, possibly run as a private entity, and not a bottomless piggybank for unrelated expenditure.
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Re: Privatize Social Security
Post by Imaginos1892   » Fri Jan 18, 2019 9:14 pm

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Annachie wrote:SS needs to be a wholey owned government enterprise

What it really needs is to be shut down. If I had put that money into decent investments, I would actually HAVE the $400,000 they promised me. Social Security is one more example of the government fucking up something it had no business doing in the first place. People retired before 1935; there was no need to make everybody dependent on the government.

I understated the problem in that post; there are currently about 68 million people receiving a total of just about $1 trillion from Social Security. It takes up a quarter of the US federal government's budget, almost one and a half times as much as the entire Defense Department. Add Medicare and it's almost two thirds of the total federal budget, more than three and a half times Defense.

Last year there was no surplus; this year the deficits begin. They are projected to grow…rapidly. If there actually was $2.9 trillion in some 'trust fund' it would be gone by 2027. Since there isn't…

The American taxpayers are on the hook for $20 trillion or more, but we need to at least STOP taking on even more liability, and shut it down permanently when the last poor bastard that paid into it dies.

The federal government is growing three times as fast as the rest of the country. It takes a larger percentage of our economy every year. Soon there will be nothing left but a supermassive black hole of debt and The Government That Ate America!
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If a business tries something and it doesn't work, they have to stop doing it or they will go broke. If the government tries something that doesn't work, they will keep shoveling our money into it forever.
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Re: Privatize Social Security
Post by Daryl   » Sat Jan 19, 2019 6:22 am

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Lots of potential traps in comparing countries, but just possibly some lessons.
Most developed countries have universal health and welfare nets, and overall they do work OK.
I can speak somewhat for Australia as I have been a citizen for 70 years, and have actually worked in the field years ago.
Our Medicare system looks after essential and urgent medical stuff well, elective surgery and such less well. Thus those who can afford it have private health insurance which covers everything.
Our welfare net pays unemployment and sickness benefits, plus aged and invalid pensions. Not perfect but OK overall. The better off (me) have superannuation to provide a comfortable retirement.
One area that I do have intimate information on is the job market. We did have a government run agency that for 50 years was a broker, taking in job vacancies and sending out applicants. A conservative government privatised it for ideological reasons. The result is much less effective results for a budget that is 350% higher, making millions for the owners of the private enterprise firms (somewhat like US medical insurance). An ironic result was that one such owner made a net profit of $200M over about 8 years which allowed her to bankroll her husband into beating the original PM in an election. Still didn't reverse it.
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Re: Privatize Social Security
Post by Imaginos1892   » Sat Jan 19, 2019 11:47 am

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Well, our Constitution lists 'Provide for the common Defense' as one of the government's purposes. I don't see anything about 'Make everybody over 65 dependent on the government looting the economy to bribe the old folks for votes, until the scheme implodes under its own weight'.

The government has power over 68 million people in ways the Founders never anticipated. I guess they couldn't imagine anybody being stupid enough to do such a thing — and then just stand around and watch it run off the rails, wringing their hands, wailing 'Somebody DO Something!'.

Of course, anybody that even mentions Doing Something About It will be buried in an unmarked grave come the next election…

Social Security is a monumental failure. Fixing it is not possible, even if the politicians could be trusted to honestly try. Heh. 'Politicians'. 'Honest'. [resigned head-shake]
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Re: Privatize Social Security
Post by Fiannawolf   » Sat Jan 19, 2019 3:26 pm

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I'm 35 now. I will be quite surprised if I even get any SS. Not going to rely on getting any at all b/c my generation is still paying for grandma's SS benefits. And some of my dad's. He might see 10 years of SS. Mom, maybe 5-8. Me? Probably one big Zero.

Never rely on govt. for anything is my motto. Plan for the shitstorm regardless of what's happening.

I got my 401k lined up via work. And a savings account that isnt in immediate access so I'm not tempted to pillage it for anything.
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Re: Privatize Social Security
Post by Senior Chief   » Sat Jan 19, 2019 10:11 pm

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Imaginos1892 wrote:Sure, assets of $2.9 trillion — and liabilities of at least $20 trillion, probably closer to $35 trillion. All those 45 million folks that paid $150,000 to $200,000 into the system, and have been promised $400,000 or more. Like me.

And, none of that $2.9 trillion is actually IN any 'trust fund'. The government has been stealing and spending the 'Social Security Surplus' for 40 years. The piggy bank is empty. Social Security is largely paid out of your current income taxes.

Social Security was sold as an insurance scheme, a little extra income for those few people who lived past 65 back when we had a huge, young workforce and the average life expectancy was under 60. It has been mutated into 'everybody's retirement plan' in a time when there are fewer workers and far more retirees, and most of them will probably live past 80.

Social Security as presently constituted is unsustainable, the train wreck is coming, and the politicians have their heads jammed up their asses.

I will apply for Social Security. I paid for more than 40 years, and I want some of that money back. I am NOT counting on getting it. I have provided for my own retirement, and will not be left out in the cold when Social Security implodes.
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Governments can only print money; they can't make it worth anything. They can make it worth nothing.





Government employees can opt out of Social Security... I know people that have and are better off for it.
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Re: Privatize Social Security
Post by Imaginos1892   » Sun Jan 20, 2019 2:19 am

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Senior Chief wrote:Government employees can opt out of Social Security... I know people that have and are better off for it.

Well, of course! The laws aren't for THEM. Didn't you know that?

The Congresscritters have exempted themselves from Social Security and given themselves incredible pensions and medical benefits. Fool enough people long enough to get elected, spend five years in a fancy office, and you're set to collect millions.

Everybody should be free to opt out of Social Security. We've fought several wars for that sort of freedom, and we won. Why didn't we get it?
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Why do so many idiots believe that the way to solve our problems is to keep voting for the same shitheads that caused them?
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