Well said. There is no reason to tax individual, except to keep them in check all the time. AKA, make sure they stay poor.
<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TKe2rBbGGEA&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TKe2rBbGGEA&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>
Yeah, the Republicans don't even attempt to hide the fact that they work day and night to maintain their power and wealth. The democrats have nobler intentions but are too dumb to realize that their efforts are destructive too. At the end of the day, the productive among us are the ones getting fleeced by both parties.
Saw this in CBSmarketwatch., social security is fine Commentary: Social Security's not likely to run out of money anytime soon Reports that the Social Security system will soon run out of money have been greatly exaggerated. As surely as day follows night, the annual report from the board of trustees of the OASDI fund (Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance, otherwise known as Social Security) has brought forth alarms that the fund will run out of money in the not-too-distant future. Although flush with cash now and over at least the next 10 years, the Social Security system is expected to gradually begin paying out more in benefits than it takes in from payroll taxes with the result that by 2041 its assets, in the words of the trustees, will be exhausted. More from MarketWatch.com: ⢠Three Ways to Plan Now for a More Rewarding Retirement ⢠Wish Your Social Security Benefits Were Higher? There's a Way ⢠Your Most Pressing Social Security Questions Answered For those who look at only the summary page, this conclusion is nothing new. Indeed, the trustees have come to the same conclusion every year, the only exception being the year the fund is expected to run dry. In 2000, the system's actuaries thought the assets of this fund would be exhausted by 2032. Two years later it was 2037. Now the projected exhaustion date is 2041. Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office, which makes these projections as well, recently thought the system will remain solvent until at least 2052. I don't make these projections personally, but I would like to point out that this year, as has been the case every year in the past, the actuaries have made and released not one but three projections. They call them low cost, intermediate and high cost. The projection that has provoked these alarms is the intermediate projection. This reflects the trustees' consensus views regarding such inputs as economic growth, productivity, inflation, earnings, employment and interest rates. Judging by past history, assumptions underlying the intermediate projection are very conservative, especially when it comes to economic growth. And as you might imagine, the speed at which the economy grows has a lot to do with the other variables, including the interest the fund earns from investing its surplus in Treasuries. The intermediate projection assumes that the economy will grow by an annual rate of 2.3% per year between now and 2085. This may be higher than the 1.9% per year that was projected as recently as three years ago, but it is still well below the 3.4% that the economy grew on average between 1960 and 2005. The actuaries' own low cost projection assumes an average annual growth rate of 2.9% between now and 2085. This is higher than the 2.3% pace embodied in the intermediate projection, but it is still well below the 3.4% average of the past. Guess what? Under the actuaries' low cost projection, the Social Security system never runs out of money. That said, you might ask the question why this more realistic projection has escaped politicians from both major parties. I don't know why, but I can only theorize that it's because they haven't taken the time to read the entire report, which is available on the system's Website. If you go beyond the highlights section to the projections section, you will see exactly what I mean. In other words: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I am making an assumption that you are on ET because you are a trader: do not confuse TRADING with being 'productive'. It makes us money but does nothing to improve society or solve its problems.
There is a huge amount of misinformation in this thread. Pay as you go simply refers to the fact that the system is to be self supporting and not require subsidy from general tax revenue. That is exactly how it operates in reality. There really is a social security trust fund, and the money in it has been loaned to the government at ~3% interest. These are loans and must be paid back. The government has not "stolen" the money. The system is in relatively good shape but requires some minor tweaking to assure its soundness into the future. I am always amazed to find that so many people haven't a clue as to how the S.S. system works and just assume that the money they pay into it goes down a rat hole and that they will never benefit from it. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you sit down and calculate what your monthly contributions must be into an individual IRA or 401K to assure a constant withdrawal in perpetuity (let alone one that is indexed to inflation) you will find that, to achieve the same withdrawal rate in perpetuity, the required contribution into social security is actually less (using the same yields and assumptions). This is because of the insurance aspect whereby those who die early subsidize those who die later. This is a very attractive feature of soundly-structured defined benefit plans, because those who are at the lower end of the economic spectrum can afford at least a subsistence retirement, whereas if they were to try to accomplish the same with an individual retirement account they could never afford the necessary contributions to assure that they would not exhaust their savings before death. The downside, of course, is that you will not create an estate with your social security contributions. But that is a very small price to pay considering the tremendous benefit to be derived from not leaving a sizable fraction of the population destitute in their old age. Social Security is a wonderful bargain for all, even the well-healed. And for those of means, there are plenty of individual retirement account options to choose from as supplements to social security.
If that's the case, I would love to have an option to opt out. I know for sure, I don't need social security, it will not be enough anyway. I assume, the money in social security is earning a 3% a year, that's for lease the real inflation. So we are really worst off.
For everyone talking about the "truth" I have not seen it printed here. There is currently a SS surplus meaning that ss payments are less than ss receipts. The surplus is spent as the surplus is less than the deficit spending. SO currently congress is spending all the ss surplus and more by a few hundred billion dollars every year. It is true that the SS trust fund is stocked with IOUs; non-marketable bonds. SO in 2017 when the ss is no longer in surplus and payments begin to exceed receipts what are the politicians going to do? The non-marketable bonds will have to be converted into treasuries and sold. OR, they will have to take funds out other tax payments to repay these bonds and make the ss payments. OR they raise taxes to make these payments. OR they print money to make these payments NONE of these solutions will be feasible if government continues operating as it has for the last 40 years. Action will need to be taken as soon as the payments exceed receipts so that leaves less than 10 years to come up with a solution.
Yep...the guys at the end of the scheme always get screwed. People never like to face reality. The first beneficiary paid in $25.00 yet received $23,000.00 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_May_Fuller :eek: