I have been building a SHTF kit over the last couple of years. Do you think that gives me a better chance of survival?
HellifIknow... Nobody knows "how bad", "how fast", and "what form" things will take.... none of which would be inevitable if greedy politicians would ever get their heads out of their butts!
The future pension liability is very well accounted for. It will take only two more cents on the dollar earned to assure nominal Soc. Sec. pension trust fund soundness into the foreseeable future. But the separate disability trust fund is not in quite as good shape. The problem for future Social Security pensioners is this: There is too little revenue to pay the Trust fund what it is owed. Consequently the difference will have to be borrowed, and some of that debt will surely be monetized. Consequently inflation will eat into pensioners buying power. This is because, even though S.S. is indexed to inflation and the S.S. actuaries take inflation into account, the government cheats to some extent on the actual inflation rate; thus cheating pensioners. The main factor, however, that threatens the soundness of social security, besides heavy government deficits, is the risk that the government will look increasingly to pensions for tax revenue. Those in upper tax brackets may find that eventually their entire social security payment is subject to taxation as regular income. Taxing social security is already being phased in, and only for the lowest income pensioners are the payments tax free. Then too, medicare contributions are not protected the way social security contributions are, and that, together with run-a-way medical costs, threatens future social security payments, as we now deduct medicare payments from social security checks. And that is only going to get worse. Over a working lifetime, most of us pay enough into medicare that if the funds were invested at ~6% there would be enough to cover our medical expenses in old age, in spite of absurdly high U.S. medical expenses. However medicare contributions are not protected and invested as they should be. So while Social Security was a beautifully planned safety net , the original planners could not foresee, and thus not account for, the peripheral events that threaten the value of Social Security going forward. Three actions, if taken soon, would reduce the threat to Social Security. One would be to protect medicare funds the same way social security funds are protected, and invest the contributions, as social security contributions are invested. Another would be to bring military spending in line with that of other developed nations. And a third action that is needed now is to increase the contribution rate by about two cents per earned income dollar. (See the most recent Social Security Administration Summary Report for details.) And, if somehow medical costs could be brought in line with those in other advanced nations, that would be icing on the cake. Needless to say, Wall Street, the origin of much Social Security misinformation, has worked tirelessly to kill Social Security. They may well succeed. Forget welfare, foreign aid, pork barrel projects, and all the myriad of other government expenditures including entitlements, it is irrationally high military and medical expenditures, payed for with borrowed money, that is none too slowly bankrupting the United States.
Close to 15 trillion dollars in private retirement accounts here in the US. Couldn't that money be "nationalized"? Or would the push-back from such a plan be too much, even for the democrats? I'm now thinking about the millions coming into retirment age here in the US, with very small 401K/retirement accounts...The government will want to keep the masses passive, so take/re-distribute form the investing classes... The democrats first aired this idea in the 1990's under President Clinton, but the republicians shut it down... On May 18, 2011, a similar idea was introduced. Both democrats and republicians are sponsoring this new bill... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c112:1:./temp/~c112N6u814::
I would think it is far more likely that trillions of future social security contributions would be privitized. What a disaster that would be!
You mean, "if the government took everybody's retirement money, their MIGHT be push back"? I would think so...
No, they will not get pensions anywhere close to expetations, it's just not mathematically possible, as the money that was supposed to be saved was already spent on high interest loans for jet skis.
I disagree. The 2nd amendment has been very successfully demolished in all aspects but name. Likewise pensions and retirement funds of all kinds will be demolished. :eek: I don't know exactly what form it will take, but here are some ideas: Govt approaches Fidelity/etc and various mutual funds/etc. Quietly, they are *ahem* encouraged to raise their holdings of govt-issued scrip. Esoteric new taxes will be designed and implemented which makes holding foreign bonds/stocks/etc less favorable. When you login to check your account, it retains all the appearances of being yours and with many wonderful fund choices for how to allocate your money. Under the hood, the funds will be mostly the same devaluing junk. The few people who notice the decline in purchasing power will bicker over whether to blame unrelated-A or unrelated-B. As a show of goodwill, the powers that be will raise the chocolate ration by 4 grams a week.
Well, the tried and true methodology is for the Feds to inflate their way outa this mess. So, if you're a boomer at/near retirement, you'll still get that $2000 check each month; however, everything'll be so expensive, you'll still be broke. Only problem w/infating out of the mess is that worker's wages aren't likely to go up much, given global outsourcing. Plus, high interest on G'ment debt. So, the Feds are painted into a corner on this one...