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Title: Bush: People Should Work More Hours To Grow Economy
Source:
Daily Caller
URL Source: http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/08/b ... rk-more-hours-to-grow-economy/
Published: Jul 9, 2015
Author: Blake Neff
Post Date: 2015-07-09 09:31:10 by buckeroo
Keywords: None
Views: 8168
Comments: 97
The Republican presidential candidate was conducting a recorded interview with New Hampshire’s The Union-Leader and was answering a question about his tax plan, which he used as an opportunity to state his goals for economic growth. Democratic operatives are all over Jeb Bush for declaring in an interview that Americans need to “work longer hours” for substantial economic growth to return. The Republican presidential candidate was conducting a recorded interview with New Hampshire’s The Union-Leader and was answering a question about his tax plan, which he used as an opportunity to state his goals for economic growth. “My aspiration for the country and I believe we can achieve it, is 4 percent growth as far as the eye can see,” Bush said. “Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means that people need to work longer hours and, through their productivity, gain more income for their families. That’s the only way we’re going to get out of this rut that we’re in.” According to OECD data, U.S. workers average 1789 hours of work per year, above the global average for developed countries. Among those with full-time jobs the average work week is 47 hours, according to polling by Gallup, while for part-time workers the average is about 26 hours per week. Democratic operatives are all over Jeb Bush for declaring in an interview that Americans need to “work longer hours” for substantial economic growth to return. The Republican presidential candidate was conducting a recorded interview with New Hampshire’s The Union-Leader and was answering a question about his tax plan, which he used as an opportunity to state his goals for economic growth. “My aspiration for the country and I believe we can achieve it, is 4 percent growth as far as the eye can see,” Bush said. “Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means that people need to work longer hours and, through their productivity, gain more income for their families. That’s the only way we’re going to get out of this rut that we’re in.” According to OECD data, U.S. workers average 1789 hours of work per year, above the global average for developed countries. Among those with full-time jobs the average work week is 47 hours, according to polling by Gallup, while for part-time workers the average is about 26 hours per week. According to the Department of Labor, about 6.5 million Americans are stuck in part-time rather than full-time jobs due to economic conditions. An aide told the AP that Bush’s intent was to highlight how many Americans have been working less than they want to due to President Obama’s policies. “Under President Obama, we have the lowest workforce participation rate since 1977, and too many Americans are falling behind,” the statement said. “Only Washington Democrats could be out-of-touch enough to criticize giving more Americans the ability to work, earn a paycheck, and make ends meet.” The average hours worked of part-time workers has fallen sharply from just 15 years ago, something critics claim is partly due to Obamacare classifying a 30-hour job as “full time.” (RELATED: Obamacare’s Biggest Impacts: Americans Losing Hours, Losing Coverage) Update: A transcript of the event forwarded to The Daily Caller News Foundation by a Bush campaign spokeswoman shows that Bush clarified his comments to New Hampshire reporters Wednesday night. When asked whether working “more hours” meant more Americans getting full-time work, Bush replied people needed to be “given the opportunity to work.” “Incomes need to grow,” Bush said. “It’s not going to grow in an environment where the costs of doing business are so extraordinarily high here… If anyone is celebrating this anemic recovery, then they are totally out of touch. The simple fact is people are really struggling. So giving people a chance to work longer hours has got to be part of the answer. If not, you are going to see people lose hope. And that’s where we are today.” Democratic operatives are all over Jeb Bush for declaring in an interview that Americans need to “work longer hours” for substantial economic growth to return.
Get the lazy, fat, do-nothing bureaucrats off their asses and force them to get a real job. OOPPSS! I forgot, they can't. In effect, a governemnt job is just another form welfare.
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#1. To: buckeroo (#0)
Bush is a pandering POS, just like the rest of his family. Unfortunately, I still think he will be the "chosen one" for the Republicans. In a Cop Culture, the Bill of Rights Doesn’t Amount to Much Jebby is just like the rest of his clan. He is a first class idiot tool. No mention of reducing the size, and expenditures of government. No mention of bringing industry,and jobs back to America. And he does not favor stopping the flood of illegals that are drowning the nation. F Jebby ! Si vis pacem, para bellum
Considering the huge numbers of people who have dropped out of the workforce because they CAN'T find work, this is more Republican stupidity coming from the poster family of Stupid Republicans. Want longer hours? Then raise the working hours across the board on Federal Workers. That is something the President CAN control. Commanding people to get jobs when they can't find jobs, BECAUSE OF Republioan "free" trade policies, is just stupid. Bush isn't going to be President anyway, so it doesn't matter. If it's him versus Hillary, Hillary wins (without any help from me).
What is most disappointing here is Bush's total lack of ideas. Rather than asking the 50% who do work to work longer hours, unemployed people should be returned to work instead of getting endless checks and "food stamps". And the retirement age should be raised, say, a couple months per year until the minimum age is 65. Or 67. Social Security was never intended to be a retirement plan lasting 20 years or more for most retirees. It was predicated on half of all payees dying before retirement and the majority who did retire collected 5-10 years on average. To see real economic improvement, you have to raise the employment rate and the retirement age. I would give bonus points to any pol who just admits this fundamental but unpopular fact.
In jobs that have been sent out of the country.
Yet I and my employers on my behalf (in lieu of paying higher wagers to me) paid more into the SS system than I will ever get got, even if I live to 100. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
His name is "Bush." Isn't that enough? I expect ZERO ideas from Senor Jeb (R-D) about anything substantial. Nothing but the usual cliches and platitudes -- presented in the most insincere-sincerities. Same as his mirrored image, Frau Hitlery (D-R). They are two self-entitled empty suits. One's goal is to turn the US into Northern Mexico, circa 1840; The other into the Soviet Union, circa 1925.
Where's is the white America middle class male represented in that commie-inspired cartoon? Oh wait -- they're UNDER the boat. Weighted by anvils.
It was something like ten or fifteen years ago, we were talking about the Bush Crime Family.
Awe the bushes. Just stay out of the bushes because you never know what you will find! Well I guess I could give up sleep. 7 hrs is alot to waste on sleep. Then I could just skip a meal once a day. OMG we are ruled by idiots! I suppose he read that article that claims Americans only work 30-35 hrs a week. I tell you I work 60+ and get paid for 20! There are times when I just ask myself why do I work so much for so little pay! Then I remember the federal government is fucking things up so bad that I have to work all the time to make a living!!!!
So Jeb will like you.
I think you mean to say, "I have to work all the tyme to pay the phuckin' parasites that are US/State/County/City and other local bureaucrats."
Statistically, you will break even on SS but consume 3 times as much Medicare/Medicaid as you ever paid into it.
You would expect he would offer something that sounds like serious policy. He is a lot smarter than Dumbya ever was. No doubt, he understands the problems. He just won't talk about them honestly.
Not true at all. My employer and I have paid the maximum Social Security tax on me for the past 16 years, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The amount has changed over the year, as the cap on the amount of the income taxed moves upward. In 1999, the cap was at $72,600. This year, the cap is $118,500. Social Security tax is 6.2% from me, 6.2% from my employer. So, using 2015 as the measuring point (highest it's ever been), my employer and I pay a combined total of $14,694 per year. If I were age 70 and retired right now, having paid into the system at the top rate for most of my working life, my monthly benefit would be $42,002 per year, which is $27,318 per year more out than I pay in this year. Also, if I die first, my wife will get my Social Security until she dies. And it will all be adjusted upwards over time for inflation. Fact is, there is no investment program you could have done with that Social Security money that pays better, or that has better features (inflation adjustment and survivor benefits are huge advantages). And if you get crippled between now and retirement, you get disability insurance. And if you die, you kids get survivors benefits. Fact is, Social Security is an investment whose combined features cannot be purchased in the private sector at a reasonable price, or at all. Add Medicare into the picture and it becomes even better. Social Security will be the primary payor in your retirement, for your income, and for your medical costs, which will spiral upwards. Without Social Security, most people would be destitute in their old age.
Document this. I will bet that you are wrong about on both counts. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
It's totally true. You neglect the imputed interest rate that would be earned on what you and your employer "invests" into your SS account. Over a 30-50 year period of contributions that will much more than double the amount paid in. And what about those whose spouse also works and pays into SS? The surviving spouse is only entitled to the payment they have earned or just 1/2 of what the deceased spouse has earned, which ever is higher. As for Medicare, I have private insurance which is primary over Medicare. It is unlikely that I will ever enroll in Medicare B or D. FYI we just had a super major medical event which to date has racked up over $300,000 of medical bills and Medicare hasn't paid one cent and will not pay anything in the future. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
By your own description, you are not an average voter or consumer. When I spoke of average citizen outcomes, I meant average, not high-end earners who naturally do pay more. Because some pols like to transfer their income taxes to poorer people. Surely we don't need to explain income transfer for you. The upper brackets must always get hit hardest in any progressive taxation scheme. Dems would naturally assert that you are paying the cost of freight for living in a modern industrial economy with a big transport system and a global military reach and the other accoutrements of Big Government. This was the subtext behind the "You Didn't Build That" brouhaha in the 2012 election, the subtext being "you couldn't have built that if you didn't live in a modern Western country that possesses substantial resources and military and economic might". It's the old argument for "infrastructure".
clearly he stumbled over this response and did not convey what he means . All you have to do is look at the labor participation rate (lowest since 1977) to see that Americans are not working at levels needed to grow the economy . The emperor keeps on touting the creation of a couple hundred thousand jobs which in fact doesn't keep up with the replacement rate ,let alone grow the economy . Bush has been saying the economy should be growing at 4%( which in itself is low expectation of where it should be ) . But clearly to get to that level of growth ,more Americans need to be working ,and working longer hours . Instead of attacking him , Republican candidates should be harping on the reasons that Americans aren't working .(ie Obamacare gives incentives to employers to hire workers who work no more than 30 hr/week) .
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
ping Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I did neglect that imputed interest. (I also neglected the taxation of the interest in any real account.) This is an easy calculation. Actually, the amount I have paid in over my working life is easily determinable: I get that Social Security statement every year that says what I have paid in, and I can double that number for the employer contribution (which, lest we forget, is tax-deductible to the employer). Then we look at the IRS imputed interest chart on long-term loans or, if you prefer, at the treasury rate, the bank deposit rate or CD rate during each year since 1981, when I started working and paying taxes. One aspect of this investment is that it's a government entitlement, so the risk is the same level as treasuries: full faith and credit of the US government. I guarantee you that after going through all that work, we'll discover that, no, the total will not "more than double the amount paid in". Especially not on a risk-adjusted basis. Also, bank interest, CDs and bond interest is taxable, so we'd have to chop down your return every year for taxes. I suppose we could go ahead and consider that some of the money was invested in an IRA, but IRA's have upper- levels. It all depends on how detailed you want the analysis. I'm going to do it back of the envelope now, and demonstrate it.
Medicare may never pay a dime. But if your private insurer goes bankrupt and ceases to exist because of corporate events or internal corruption - things you can neither foresee nor avoid - then you'll be old, heading into the sickly years, without that health insurance. But once you've paid down your resources, you will still have Medicaid. You won't be allowed to die for want of money for your care. Instead, you'll be cared for in your destitution, which happened because you trusted in a private company that was not trustworthy and which blew itself up through no fault of your own. And those taxes you paid will have supported that insurance. Ultimately, that's what Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security are: social insurance. But let's get to that calculation.
REALLY? You actually consider Jeb smarter than Dubya? Based on accomplishments? Policies? Opinion? (Not that Dubya was brilliant either.) IF so, that can't be based on Jeb coming up totally empty on ANY proposals or solutions (other then grant Amnesty to 40 million illegal invaders.) After witnessing the blatant sabotage of America for for 6 1/2 years and the mayhem created by 0blabla, Jeb's lack of revealing what should be a bunch of solutions that address the economy, sovereignty, security, etc. is incredibility short-sighted, lazy, and....DUMB. But then he's counting on a DUMB electorate. No doubt, he understands the problems. He just won't talk about them honestly. Jeb has not proven to demonstrate ANY understanding or curiosity for the plethora of serious problem besieging America other than his single pet project -- AMNESTY. "Honesty" is the last thing I expect out of Jebster. He's an absolute puppet, as self-entitled and centered an elite as Hitlery. NO proposals. NO solutions. NO creative suggestions. He's a coward who insults our intelligence. EDIT: I just noted that Jeb HAS indeed made a proposal posted here at LF: 'People (aka SERFS) Should Work More Hours To Grow Economy' What a lazy, elitist POS.
More Americans yes. Longer hours no.
And the taxes that may have to be paid on the SS payments if one's total income exceeds a very modest level. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
I'm going to do it back of the envelope now, and demonstrate it. I want to consider all material aspects of the determination. I assure you that when you do the imputed interest calcualtion for a 50 year pay-in period it WILL more than double the contributions made by you and your empolyer(s). If you are a white male with a life expectancy as of Oct. 2014 of 76.4 years and you retired at 70, you would collect the $42,002 per year you cited in your earlier post and you would have recieved $268,813 in SS payments. Let's assume that you didn't have to pay taxes on any portion of that amount. Let's also assume that you started paying into the SS system when you were 20 years old, or for 50 years. How much would you and your employer(s) have paid into the SS system in those 50 years? Then add the imputed interest earned in an qualified tax deferred IRA. Please get back to me when you complete your back of the envelope the calculation. HINT: $268,813 divided by 50 is $5,376 total average SS contribution per year. HINT: Use the rule of 72 which says that the interest rate times the number of years to double the invested amount to double is 72. So to double an invets of $1 in 50 the compounded interest would have to be 1.44%. To triple use the rule of 121, so to triple a $1 investment in 50 years the interest rate would have to be 2.42%. What has been the average interest rate on 30 year Government Bonds over the past 50 years? On tax exempt A+ 30 year Municipal bonds? The average annual return on the S&P 500? The average 10 year bank CD? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Libtards: people should work less and get more tax funded welfare to improve the economy.
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
Medicare may also go bankrupt or be changed by Congress or Potus. I'd say that is of equal or greater risk these days. "But once you've paid down your resources, you will still have Medicaid. You won't be allowed to die for want of money for your care." On what planet do you live? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Those taxes on the SS Payments are deferred for 50 years, assuming an age 70 retirement. The taxes on the interest are due and payable at once, year by year. The average savings account interest rate since 1981 when I started working was 6.007%. It's a lot lower today; it was higher in the early 80s. The mean over that time is 6.007%. Income taxes have been around 28%, which puts the net interest rate earned at approx. 4.325%. I'll base the calculations on that.
The real one. Medicare will not go bankrupt. We will, instead, go to a single payer system, have tort reform and medical school tuition and malpractice reform, increase immigration quotas for primary care doctors and nurses, impose price controls and raise taxes to cover the difference. Universal health insurance is a fundamental feature of the modern world. It is not going away, it will be paid for - through taxes. The inexorable logic of the real planet on which we live means that the economy, and legal system, and tax code, will all be adjusted as necessary to pay for it. Just watch. Resist it all if you must, but you will not stop the tide. Nor will the world in fact come unraveled and fail because of it. Universal health care, pensions and education will be maintained, and socio-economic structures will be adapted to provide for those needs. It's just a matter of getting there.
Payments into the SS sytem are with after tax dollars, i.e. - you paid income taxes on the contributions when made. So add that into your calculation as well. "Income taxes have been around 28%, which puts the net interest rate earned at approx. 4.325%. I'll base the calculations on that." You may start at that but I suggest a better rate would be on tax free A+ bonds and forget about the tax on interest earned. Also, one may total defer any accumulated interest until the retire or 70 1/2 which ver is older for a traditional IRA or never for a Roth IRA (remember the tax free traditional IRA to Roth IRA rollover period in you calcualtion if you wish to be totally accurate). If you use 4.325% investments made 50 years ago will more than quadruple. Investments made about 29.9 years ago would have tripled. In fact investments made just years about 16.5 years ago would have doubled. Are you going to assume that the maximum payment into SS is made by you and your employer in each of the 50 years? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
And the quality of our lives will be the less for it. In addition to aborting the unborn (or perhaps even the new born) we will be aborting the elderly (65? 70? 75?) as well. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Has anybody stopped to think that this maybe a jab at the Demoncraps for making the work week 30hrs via the legislation they passed called ObozoCare???
“Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”
No, because that is not the life that I've lived or that most people live. I'm going to use the actual amount I earned and paid into Social Security during each of the years. I can see that a back of the envelope is not going to work, because you're going to pick at the result. So I shall have to be precise, and use the actual IRA contribution limits each year. And there will be a few other things that must be factored in. One is the cost of disability insurance, because Social Security is not simply a retirement fund, it's also permanent disability insurance. My uncle had a massive heart attack in his late 40s, did not die, but could not work. He had two children. He got disability until retirement. Had he died - a distinct possibility - his wife and children would have gotten survival benefits, inflation adjusted. That is real, valuable insurance that would have to be purchased in the private market (if it existed). Likewise the death benefit for the surviving spouse. Inflation-adjusted insurance annuities don't exist, so a discounted present- value of money calculation will have to be made. The cost of that premium must be factored into the expenses of the "without Social Security" model. You don't get to take the ENTIRE Social Security amount and invest it at 3% interest. Some of that money has to pay for disability insurance, and for survivor benefit annuities, year by year. And the amount has to be adjusted upward for age and inflation. And a guaranteed insurability rider has to be placed on it. Private insurance will cut you off if you don't pay the premium, or when the policy expires and is reupped, and you can't buy the policy with a pre-existing condition. But Social Security disability insurance adjusts upward for inflation, has guaranteed insurability, and has guaranteed "premium payment" (it's paid out until retirement) with no further contributions. Some of these features don't exist in private insurance. Some do, and they are expensive, and all of the money spent on that insurance each year is not available to sit and grow without interest. ALL of the features of Social Security must be priced out and paid for, to REPLACE Social Security in all of its protections at each stage. We cannot pretend that Social Security is merely a retirement annuity. It's also disability insurance and a survivor annuity.
Social Security has immeasurably improved the lives of the elderly, the disabled, and survivors of both, and will continue to do so.
Don't forget to add what employers paid into your account as well. "I can see that a back of the envelope is not going to work, because you're going to pick at the result. So I shall have to be precise, and use the actual IRA contribution limits each year." Do you want it quick or do you want it right? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
How was the amount of your Uncle's disability payment calculated? In case you haven't noticed in recent years the rapid run-up in disability claims is a scandal of massive fraud to which the Fed has turned a blind eye. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
I will add it in, but that's a tricky one. Employers would not simply pay that money to me if they weren't paying it to the government. They do not consider it part of my salary. They consider it a tax they have to pay. How do I know? Because it is precisely on payroll taxes that employers who hire illegal aliens cheat. They don't pay the illegal aliens more money, or give them the benefit of the payroll tax that they'd pay. They just pocket the money. So, although I will include that money in my calculations, truth is, that money is the employers, was never mine to begin with, and if the payroll tax went away or were reduced, employers would never pay me or anybody else the difference. It's a cost of doing business employers bear, grudgingly. If the tax were taken away, it would NOT flow to me. So really that money should NOT be accounted as "mine", because in the absence of the law, it would not be credited to me at all.
It's not a scandal, it's a public policy. Thanks to "free" trade, we have permanently destroyed a substantial portion of the available US jobs. They're gone forever. And that means that there are huge numbers of men, especially, who would be working class guys working jobs, who instead dwell on the unemployment rolls, and then the welfare rolls. This is a political liability across the board. By finding the cumulative effects of stress on them to be "disabilities", and paying them a check, a solution is found that provides them an unemployment check, for life until they get Social Security retirement, they are removed from the unemployment rolls and cease to be a political liability. The numbers look better than they are. AND, instead of being desperate people, they are transformed into political allies of the system that provides for them. Part of the political game of the right is to pretend that this is all "fraud", as opposed to the deliberate policy of socializing the unemployed of free trade. But that's what it really is. It's not fraud, it's intentional.
Go ahead, add in the cost of the equivalent cost of a 50-to-life time term life insurance policy that your Uncle could have bought when he was 18 or 20 (which probably was well under $500/year average over the past 50 years). Also add the cost of a similar disability insurance policy (which was also likely well under $500/year average over the past 50 years). However, I will concede $1000 year as the average cost over the past 50 years for the private equivalent of what you claim is de facto SS life and disability insurance policies. If you choose a different amount please document the basis and justification for it. HINT: The cost of a $1 million today for 20 year term life policy for a 30 year old man in good health is less about $37/month. For a 40 year old man it is about $56/month. These are to costs today and are much, much higher than what they were in 1965 or 1975. BTW, did your Aunt and any of her dependent children that were factored into the SS disability payment have to pay any taxes on those payments? If so please factor that in. But remember what TooConservative claimed, i.e. - that ON AVERAGE (statisically) one will get back from SS what one had been paid into one's account. So you may wish to tailor your analysis to the AVERAGE SS recipient, e.g. - a white male who paid into the system since 1965 and retired at age 66 at full reitrement benefit and a life expectancy of 76.4 years old. If you chose to do this I would use the assumption that this person earned the national median individual (not family) salary for each of the 50 years he worked and what he and his employer(s) paid into the system each year was based on this earned income amount. Good luck to you. “Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
Paul Craig Roberts
#2. To: buckeroo (#0)
#3. To: buckeroo (#0)
#4. To: buckeroo (#0)
#5. To: buckeroo (#0)
#6. To: buckeroo (#0)
Bush: People Should Work More Hours To Grow Economy
#7. To: TooConservative, buckeroo, All (#5)
Social Security was never intended to be a retirement plan lasting 20 years or more for most retirees. It was predicated on half of all payees dying before retirement and the majority who did retire collected 5-10 years on average.
#8. To: TooConservative (#5)
What is most disappointing here is Bush's total lack of ideas.
#9. To: A Pole (#4)
#10. To: Stoner (#2)
#11. To: buckeroo (#0)
#12. To: Justified (#11)
I just ask myself why do I work so much for so little pay!
#13. To: Justified (#11)
Then I remember the federal government is fucking things up so bad that I have to work all the time to make a living!!!!
#14. To: SOSO, Vicomte13 (#7)
Yet I and my employers on my behalf (in lieu of paying higher wagers to me) paid more into the SS system than I will ever get got, even if I live to 100.
#15. To: Liberator (#8)
I expect ZERO ideas from Senor Jeb (R-D) about anything substantial. Nothing but the usual cliches and platitudes -- presented in the most insincere-sincerities. Same as his mirrored image, Frau Hitlery (D-R).
#16. To: SOSO, Too Conservative (#7)
Yet I and my employers on my behalf (in lieu of paying higher wagers to me) paid more into the SS system than I will ever get got, even if I live to 100.
#17. To: TooConservative (#14)
Statistically, you will break even on SS but consume 3 times as much Medicare/Medicaid as you ever paid into it.
#18. To: Vicomte13, TooConservative (#16)
Not true at all.
#19. To: SOSO, Vicomte13 (#18)
#20. To: buckeroo (#0)
#21. To: All, TooConservative, Redleghunter (#20)
clearly he stumbled over this response and did not convey what he means . All you have to do is look at the labor participation rate (lowest since 1977) to see that Americans are not working at levels needed to grow the economy . The emperor keeps on touting the creation of a couple hundred thousand jobs which in fact doesn't keep up with the replacement rate ,let alone grow the economy . Bush has been saying the economy should be growing at 4%( which in itself is low expectation of where it should be ) . But clearly to get to that level of growth ,more Americans need to be working ,and working longer hours . Instead of attacking him , Republican candidates should be harping on the reasons that Americans aren't working .(ie Obamacare gives incentives to employers to hire workers who work no more than 30 hr/week) .
#22. To: SOSO (#18)
It's totally true. You neglect the imputed interest rate that would be earned on what you and your employer "invests" into your SS account.
#23. To: SOSO (#18)
FYI we just had a super major medical event which to date has racked up over $300,000 of medical bills and Medicare hasn't paid one cent and will not pay anything in the future.
#24. To: TooConservative (#15)
(Edited)
You would expect he [Jeb] would offer something that sounds like serious policy. He is a lot smarter than Dumbya ever was.
#25. To: tomder55 (#20)
,more Americans need to be working ,and working longer hours
#26. To: Vicomte13 (#22)
I did neglect that imputed interest. (I also neglected the taxation of the interest in any real account.)
#27. To: Vicomte13, TooConservative (#22)
It all depends on how detailed you want the analysis.
#28. To: buckeroo (#0)
#29. To: Vicomte13 (#23)
Medicare may never pay a dime. But if your private insurer goes bankrupt and ceases to exist because of corporate events or internal corruption - things you can neither foresee nor avoid - then you'll be old, heading into the sickly years, without that health insurance.
#30. To: SOSO (#26)
#31. To: SOSO (#29)
Medicare may also go bankrupt or be changed by Congress or Potus. I'd say that is of equal or greater risk these days. "But once you've paid down your resources, you will still have Medicaid. You won't be allowed to die for want of money for your care." On what planet do you live?
#32. To: Vicomte13 (#30)
Those taxes on the SS Payments are deferred for 50 years, assuming an age 70 retirement. The taxes on the interest are due and payable at once, year by year.
#33. To: Vicomte13 (#31)
Just watch. Resist it all if you must, but you will not stop the tide. Nor will the world in fact come unraveled and fail because of it. Universal health care, pensions and education will be maintained, and socio-economic structures will be adapted to provide for those needs. It's just a matter of getting there.
#34. To: All (#0)
#35. To: SOSO (#32)
Are you going to assume that the maximum payment into SS is made by you and your employer in each of the 50 years?
#36. To: SOSO (#33)
And the quality of our lives will be the less for it.
#37. To: Vicomte13 (#35)
No, because that is not the life that I've lived or that most people live. I'm going to use the actual amount I earned and paid into Social Security during each of the years.
#38. To: Vicomte13 (#35)
One is the cost of disability insurance, because Social Security is not simply a retirement fund, it's also permanent disability insurance. My uncle had a massive heart attack in his late 40s, did not die, but could not work. He had two children. He got disability until retirement. Had he died - a distinct possibility - his wife and children would have gotten survival benefits, inflation adjusted.
#39. To: SOSO (#37)
Don't forget to add what employers paid into your account as well.
#40. To: SOSO (#38)
In case you haven't noticed in recent years the rapid run-up in disability claims is a scandal of massive fraud to which the Fed has turned a blind eye.
#41. To: Vicomte13, TooConserative (#35)
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#42. To: Vicomte13 (#40)
Fraud is not a scandal in your world? It's not a scandal, it's a public policy.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#43. To: Vicomte13 (#40)
We are talking about the rapid run-up in disability claims which have nothing to with the availability of jobs. Get with the program, V. Thanks to "free" trade, we have permanently destroyed a substantial portion of the available US jobs.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#44. To: Vicomte13 (#40)
Then it's an intentional fraud but fraud none-the-less. Part of the political game of the right is to pretend that this is all "fraud", as opposed to the deliberate policy of socializing the unemployed of free trade. But that's what it really is. It's not fraud, it's intentional.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#45. To: SOSO (#44)
A fraud perpetuated by the government agencies themselves, who wave people into the program without a second look, to get them off the unemployment rolls, as a matter of policy. "Fraud" with no reasonable chance of detection, and no effort by the authorities to detect it, and no desire to do so because of the underlying policy, is fraud in name only. It's policy.
#46. To: SOSO (#41)
Ok, I'm going to buckle down to do this analysis. It's going to take time, so I'm going to have to be radio silent on everything else until it's done. It's hard for me to resist hitting back at taunts, so if you want me to complete this task, don't taunt me! If you have further thoughts on the analysis, please DO post those, here, because I want it to be a full and comprehensive a study as I can do in a reasonably short period of time. I can see a couple of divergences in our views that I will have to address. The first we touched on already: you want me to include the employer portion in the analysis. I don't think that it should be. The employer contribution is a tax. If employers did not have this tax, they would not pay over this money as salary. They would keep most of it as profit. When employers illegally hire people "off the books", they don't pay them the difference of the payroll taxes. They pocket it. Also, we know the assumption that if people weren't paying Social Security, they'd invest the money for their retirement is wrong. They didn't before Social Security was instituted, and most recently, they didn't do that when the Social Security personal tax was cut during the first couple of years of the Obama Administration. The public at large did not take those percentage savings and put it into retirement accounts. They used it to pay bills. All experience has shown that people live close to the margin and, without forced savings, will not save enough for retirement. I would assert that this is because in an industrialized urban society, most people CAN'T save enough for their retirement needs, which is why we need Social Security. But regardless whether one agrees with me or not on that score, the fact is that when people did get their Social Security taxes substantially cut, they used the money to retire debt. They didn't use it to save for retirement. Another thing that I will factor in is that the employer contribution is not a 1:1 match, for the employer gets to deduct the amount s/he/it pays for Social Security payroll tax. With a corporate tax rate of 35%, this means that the real economic contribution of the employer is a little less less than 2/3rds of the employee contribution. Because we don't agree on whether or not the employer contribution should be included at all (as that money is not the employee's), I will prepare the analysis both ways, using the employer contribution, and not using it. As far as insurance goes, I cannot look at healthy insurance policy, because Social Security covers morbidly obese diabetics with cancer also, automatically. Also, Social Security survivor benefits pay in the event of suicide. Life insurance policies don't. The premia don't change for health conditions, and there is no pre- existing condition waiver. Social Security has to cover everybody. The alternative is more massive welfare. Social Security is social insurance whose price is a fixed aspect of income. Also, there is a feature of Social Security insurance that does not exist in private life insurance policies or annuity: inflation adjusted payouts. Life insurance and annuities are for fixed amounts, but Social Security adjusts upwards year by year for the Cost of Living. Now, it doesn't always adjust upwards to fully match the inflation rate, but it does adjust upwards in correlation with inflation. Private insurance and annuities do not. So, to simulate this effect, we have to periodically increase the amount of life insurance purchased, to match the cost of living adjustment in Social Security, and we have to take into account that life insurance and disability insurance premia rise with age and pre-existing conditions, and some people are not insurable, but Social Security is guaranteed insurance with no change in premia for existing conditions. Also, as mentioned above, there's no suicide exemption from this life insurance. As far as tax advantaged investment goes, I agree that the only fair way to calculate hypothetical performance is by looking at the amount of income that could be sheltered by an IRA during the periods of time in question. This will cover some of the principal and interest. The 401(k) should not be used for comparison, because many employers do not offer it. Personal IRAs are open to all. I agree that the tax-deferral on payments should be taken into consideration. IRA distributions are taxed upon withdrawal, so the taxes will be taken into accounts. Social Security payments are taxed or not taxed by states depending on state laws. As I will be using my own data, I will apply the tax laws of the state of my current residence: Connecticut. I have no real idea where I'll be living at 70. My wife would prefer New York City. I would prefer northern Michigan, Finland or Siberia. So there's a bit of a difference there. I expect that we'll settle on Paris as a compromise. How awful. As far as the investment goes, I will look at what you suggested. It must be a very safe investment, something insured. Or something that has never defaulted. Bank deposits are insured by FDIC, but muni bonds, which pay better, HAVE defaulted in some cases. US Treasuries have not. Nor have US Savings Bonds. Equities, common and preferred, are out of the question: a third of the companies on the Dow when I was born went bankrupt and ceased to exist. Social Security has never defaulted on payments, and the only thing comparable are other things that have never defaulted on payments since the 1930s. There are not many instruments like that, but that is the only true comparison. Of course that inevitably means a lower rate of return than can be obtained from riskier investments, but that's part of it too. In any pool of nesters, some people will lose money. But with Social Security, the social safety net, people who lose their retirement or disability money still have to eat, so they'll just pass onto the welfare rolls and continue to be a cost to government. That is why the only comparable securities are those that cannot take a loss - Social Security must have a 100% payout, by it's nature. No default on payment is really possible, because the government will then just have to pay the money out anyway, out of a different pocket. Even life insurance companies can go out of business, and do. Same with disability insurance companies. Once again, that is not permissible for Social Security, because the government ends up paying anyway, in the form of welfare, if the security fails and people are destitute. Therefore, the only insurance companies that are comparable are those of the top rated insurers. And they usually charge a little more in premium precisely because they offer a lower risk. Zero risk is a feature of Social Security that is hard to replace in the private sector, but we must get as close as we can. And that means higher rated, safer securities, which means lower returns. Zero risk with guaranteed insurability and no termination ability are features of Social Security that are invaluable to the young, terminally ill worker with a family who must nevertheless have disability and survivor benefits, who cannot be refused coverage, and who must be able to get the insurance at a fixed proportion of salary. It's not simply "retirement savings", it's social insurance, and quite comprehensive, and it cannot have any exclusions. You can't really find that in the private sector, because for-profit insurers cannot afford to cover people on whom they cannot possibly make a profit, but the need to manage social welfare needs means that the state has to. You either do it through Social Security, or you do it through outright welfare paid out of the general fund. Social Security taxes recoup some of the costs. By making the pool include everybody, the risks on each are lowered. Finally, once we get to the end of the period and to the time of payout, we have to start measuring outcomes. One can retire at 62, or at 70 for maximum benefits. How much one gets depends on how long one lives. Different scales can be used to show when Social Security has paid for itself in terms of retirement annuity. Obviously if you die the day after you retire, you lose. Obviously if you live to 122, you win big. So it's a matter of longevity, and that can be demonstrated. This is an analysis with a lot of moving parts. I don't have a particular stake in the outcome. In other words, I'm not going to jigger the numbers to prove what I believe to be the case. I am pretty sure that, all in, Social Security will prove superior, hands down, to every other private alternative. I've done a weaker form of this analysis before and came to that conclusion - I don't state opinions about this on emotion. Still, a more thorough and detailed analysis will be useful, not just for me, but for anybody who reads it. If I am right, the analysis should be so clear an forthright that anybody looking at it will see it and agree. If I am wrong, then i will change my own views on it. I don't love the idea of social insurance because I love the state. I don't like authoritarianism very much at all. I believe that social insurance is necessary to avoid starvation and shortened lives and premature deaths for old people, and miserable suffering by the children of the disabled. I have thought, more than once, that instead of the farce of Social Security accounting (It all really goes into the General Fund, there is no lockbox), that we should just frankly abolish Social Security and Medicare, call all of it Welfare, greatly simplify the tax code, and just pay the costs out directly, perhaps even abolish taxes and just print the money that the government needs to operate, instead of printing the money and "lending" it to banks to invest to expand the money supply. (I speak of "print" conceptually, not referring to ACTUAL printing.) But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let me consider the investment vehicles and then begin.
#47. To: SOSO (#41)
You suggest tax free A+ munis. I have to look at them to discern two things: (1) Has there ever been a default on an A+ bond since 1932, and (2) What is the size of the A+bond market. The instruments in which investments are done has to be a large enough market to handle all of the Social Security money. If it isn't, then the money pouring into the market from every retiree will drive up the price of the instruments being chased. I don't think the A+ muni bond market is big enough to hold the trillions in Social Security money. I think we're going to end up with Treasury bills or bank deposits, or the money market. Perhaps CDs (though I don't know if any of those have defaulted). The market has to be able to clear all of that money, and it has to be secure. The zero risk aspect of this is important, because every individual has to be guaranteed the payment and the insurance at retirement age. And the size of the market matters, because it has to be able to absorb all of that money without inflating to the moon a limited supply of money. Alas, one effect on investors that having all of that money pour into lending markets is that it will drive down the interest paid on the funds deposited. My bet is that we'll end up with federal bonds and bank deposits, but I'll look.
#48. To: SOSO (#43)
The total muni bond market in the US is currently a little shy of $4 trillion, up from $1 trillion in the 1980s. Of this, 9% is Aaa rated. That's $360 billion. Aaa rated munis have a 0% default rate over the past 10 years. Aa rated have a 0.3 per 10000 default rate. So, to be as secure as Social Security, we cannot use Aa, or A+ rated munis. We would have to use Aaa rated. There's only $360 bn to buy, and they'd need to be bought at par as new issues to really be tax free. That's not enough to cover Social Security's investment needs. I suppose we could build a composite, and start with munis as a piece of it. But I think we should note that the relentless pressure of Social Security on Muni issuers would push down the rates they'd have to pay, so historical performance data will outperform what would actually happen.
#49. To: SOSO (#48)
Social Security Trust fund is about $2.6 trillion. So, in our replacement composite, if Social Security Replacement investors bought up the whole Aaa muni market at par (on issue), that would account for $0.36 trillion, leaving us with $3.24 trillion to invest in other things. The $0.36 trillion would be the tax-free component of the fund (assuming that bonds were bought at par and held to maturity - if sold at a premium capital gain would be experienced and taxable). We're left with Savings Bonds, general Treasuries, and Bank and Credit Union deposits up to the FDIC and credit union equivalent insurance limits.
#50. To: Vicomte13 (#46)
Absoluitely wrong. First, the money in fact was mandated by the government just as the employee's was. Second the employer ultimately passes that tax unto its consumers. Third, if the employer was not mandated to pay SS then either the employee would have to pay twice as much which, would immediately result in increased wages from the employer to maintain the after tax income of employees, OR, the employee would also not be mandated to pay if pre-tax dollars (i.e. - in other words we would have a completed different system). "Another thing that I will factor in is that the employer contribution is not a 1:1 match, for the employer gets to deduct the amount s/he/it pays for Social Security payroll tax." It doesn't matter. It's what is actually paid into the individuals account that matters for this calculation. Further, if the employer wasn't mandated to pay this it would lower the prices of its goods by an equal amount. You do realize don't you that you are making a very solid argument that SS taxes across the board hurts consumers on a dollar for dollar basis? The first we touched on already: you want me to include the employer portion in the analysis. I don't think that it should be. The employer contribution is a tax. If employers did not have this tax, they would not pay over this money as salary
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#51. To: Vicomte13 (#48)
Aaa rated munis have a 0% default rate over the past 10 years. I'm OK with assuming the investment is made through as IRA for the first go around on this. You can chose to use the 30 year Fed Bond rate if you wish as the yeild for your IRA investment for the first go around, it is probably less than the AAA Muni but maybe not. To be accurate use the rate in effect at the time for each year a SS would otherwise have been made. For example, use the 30 year Govt Bond rate in effect in 1965 for the SS amount which would have been paid in 1965 and roll over the compounded amount at the maturiry date in 1995 at the say the 30 year rate in effect at that time. Do the same for 1966 and the 30 year roll over, etc., etc., etc. Of this, 9% is Aaa rated. That's $360 billion.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#52. To: Vicomte13 (#46)
Where do you think the SS Surplus Fund came from? But we can discuss this later. The fact is the Fed does not pay a rational interst rate on the so-called investment made on your behalf. It should. BTW, ignoring good dietary habits all your life and eating doughnuts every day is also a bad decision, not to mention raises healthcare costs. Should the Fed mandate that one eat a healthy diet as well and enforce the same punishments as for one that doesn't pay his required SS contributions? Or should the Fed simply mandate that the same amount of SS be withheld but be directed to a private investment fund of the individuals choice with no withdrawals allowed save for specified emergencies? Oh, is buying a house a better investment than renting? Let's not get into these what if scenarios otherwise we will get nowhere on this analysis. My contention is that almost everyone, and certainly those that just make it to their respective life expectancy, the SS systems collects more for the average individual paying into the system that it pays out, and by a significant margin. Also, we know the assumption that if people weren't paying Social Security, they'd invest the money for their retirement is wrong. They didn't before Social Security was instituted, and most recently, they didn't do that when the Social Security personal tax was cut during the first couple of years of the Obama Administration.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#53. To: SOSO, Vicomte13 (#50)
Clearly not always yes. Seriously, SOSO, you represent these outdated and proven wrong economic ideas the last financial crisis pretty much disproved. Oh, is buying a house a better investment than renting
#54. To: A Pole (#12)
#55. To: Pericles (#53)
Really? Exactly how so? What position did I express that has been disproved? Seriously, SOSO, you represent these outdated and proven wrong economic ideas the last financial crisis pretty much disproved.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#56. To: Vicomte13 (#46)
"Social Security Now Takes More Than it Gives Social Security has reached another critical threshold: For the first time, a typical husband and wife retiring today can expect to collect less in benefits than it paid in payroll tax over the course of their life. By Dan Kadlec @dankadlecAug. 07, 201213 Comments I am pretty sure that, all in, Social Security will prove superior, hands down, to every other private alternative.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#57. To: Vicomte13 (#46)
You should read this full report (the PDF) before you start your analysis. I suggest you stick to the closest representation of the "average" SS payer. Probably this would be: - a married two income white couple, - the male born in 1945 and spouse say in 1948, - the male entering the work force in 1965 (46 years of working and contributing to the SS system)), the spouse say in 1985 (i.e. - after the kids get old enough for her not to have to be a stay at home Mom), - each retire at age 66, - the male earning the median individual income in each year of employment, the spouse 50% of that when she works (i.e. - the spouse will be entitled the higher of 1/2 of the male SS payment or what she is eligible for based on her employment history, which likley would be 1/2 of her spouses payments), - no disability payments for the spouse or kids, - both live to their respective life expectancy, - a reasonable imputed interest earnings rate on the IRAs of both the employees and employers contributions to their respective SS account (i.e. - taxes on investment earnings deferred until retirement). From the foregoing you can calculate: - the total contributions made by the couple and their employers, - the number of years SS payments will be made to the couple and the surviving spouse, - the combined annual SS payments to the couple and to the surviving spouse, - total amount paid by SS to the couple and the surviving spouse. You then can compare the total amount paid by SS to the amount of the combined payments invested at the assumed interest rate. Then reduce the later by $60,000 ($1000/year for 60 years) for the cost of a $1 million term life insurance policy and disability insurance for the male. I am certain that you will find that the amount paid to the couple and the surviving spouse will be significantly less than the payments invested at the assumed interest rate less the cost of the insurance. I know this is true for my wife and I as we closely match this "average couple" except that I earned near or more than the capped SS taxable income for my working career and my wife never earned 50% of my annual income (about 25 years of full time employment after our daughter was sophomore in HS).
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#58. To: buckeroo (#0) (Edited)
What's that useless son of a bitch ever worked at in his lifetime except being a Bush? Work of any kind for him has been a matter of conjecture or fantasy. So has realistic economics. Bush: People Should Work More Hours To Grow Economy
#59. To: Pericles (#54)
This is not bad either: mother of three ... “You work three jobs,” he said to her. “Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean that is fantastic that you’re doing that. Get any sleep?”
#60. To: SOSO (#57)
I will use myself as the basis for the analysis, because I have the exact income figures and the exact taxes paid. I was the average earner for many years when I was in the military, a below-average earner when I was in law school, and an above-average earner as a lawyer. The normal pattern for people is to earn little when young, and gradually earn more over time. In my case, today I earn about ten times what I earned as a man right out of college. For most people, that number is more like five times. So, the point you are trying to make about Social Security will be better made, for you, by my case than by the average case. The average person doesn't hit his peak earnings until a few years before retirement, and so doesn't pay the peak into the fund until the end. He ends up getting the benefit of the high years without having paid into it for decades at the maximum level. In my case, from 1981 to 1998 I paid into it at lower levels, but from 1999 onward I've always had to pay the maximum amount. This will skew the numbers more towards your argument, but I believe it will still come out to have been a great investment. I will assume retirement at 62 (the earliest one can retire) and at 70 (when benefits hit their maximum), and give the numbers for both. As I have no idea when I will die, I'll simply give the numbers on a going-forward basis, year by year. Obviously the longer I live, the better Social Security will look. If I die in a car crash a month after I retire, it was a bad investment. But then, if I won the lottery and died the next day I'd be in exactly the same place: you can't take it with you. As far as the employer portion goes, we will have to agree to disagree on this. From my perspective, money the employer pays to the government in taxes, for which he gets a tax deduction, is not pay to me, and doesn't belong to me. If the tax were not there, he would not pay that money over to me. It is not an investment that I made, and I am looking at the situation from the perspective of the individual, not from the perspective of an account. What the individual pays is what makes it a good investment or not. I grant the truth of what you say: that if the employer didn't pay that portion of the account, the account total would be less. But that doesn't perforce mean the benefits would be less. Rather, taxes might overall be the same and the difference be paid over from the general fund. (In ultimate truth, dollars are fungible, "personal accounts" are an accounting fiction myth, and everything is really just paid out of the general fund, but politically people have not been willing to address things so directly, so we have all of the various fictions). In any case, although our philosophical views on the employer contributions are different, I will present the numbers both ways, with and without the employer contribution. As an individual, what I experience is what I have to pay into it, so that's the cost TO ME. The employer contribution is a cost that has been pressed out onto the general public as a tax. Employers do not pass along the entire cost of taxes onto their customers. When LLC owners cross a tax threshold, they don't suddenly jack up their prices to account for the higher marginal rate. Prices are driven by the market, and can only partially recapture tax costs. Taxes cut into profits. If they did not, business owners would not scream so much when they are raised, because they would simply hike prices by the added tax. In truth, they do not and cannot do that. When taxes go up, businesses are squeezed on profit margin precisely BECAUSE they cannot pass all of it along to customers. If the employer contribution were removed, the employer would not pay me that difference. The Social Security surplus, of which you spoke, is the product of the fact that the since Social Security was implemented, the work force has streakily grown due to population increase, immigration, and longer life spans, all of which have brought more people into the system than there have been people paid out of the system. The system has not profited on individual people, it has simply accumulated a surplus because more is going in than going out. This, ultimately, is the fatal aspect of contraception. The population would have decreased, and Social Security have become a net outflow, but for the immigration to fill the hole. But these are macro- issues that go well past tax policy. Contraception policy ultimately drives demographics, which drives everything else (for people are literally everything in a polity), but those vast forces and factors are not what you or I experience when money is taken from our paycheck for Social Security. We experience what we pay, and what we get paid. That is why I believe that the proper measure is only what the worker pays. But I'll present both sets of numbers, because there is obviously a direct nexus between the employers side of the contribution and the size of the benefit that the government has paid out. I content that the size of benefit is based roughly on needs of life, and that if the employer were not paying the payroll tax into the simulated "lockbox" - the "personal account" that only exists as a bookkeeping fiction - that the government would have to pay out at least the welfare and food stamp and public housing amount anyway, because those address direct needs that, if unaddressed, would result in starvation and mass homelessness of the elderly. Welfare money doesn't come out of the "Social Security" side of the fictional ledger, but welfare benefits would substitute for the portion that is called "Social Security" now, if the Social Security payments were less. Without the Social Security surplus, if we just abolished Social Security and paid all old people straight welfare, the cost would be a lot less…but the politics would be unbearable: old people are not willing to have worked their whole life to live in utterly penury, hand-to-mouth on welfare, in their old age. Want to abolish Social Security and have everything cheaper? Then build public housing for retirees, give each means-tested retiree an apartment in public housing at retirement, and give them food stamps and Medicaid and some spending money stipend. Welfare would be a lot cheaper than Social Security, and there would be no money trapped in a simulated trust fund. If I were king, that is probably how I would do it: no Social Security at all, and no Medicare. Just welfare. Most old people would be on welfare. That would be cheaper. But you'd have to be a king to pull that off, because retirees don't like to think of Social Security as welfare, and are not willing to live at bare-bones welfare and Medicaid levels. Social Security and Medicare are the "Gold Plan" versions of welfare. If we really want things cheaper, abolish all of it, use the trust fund to eliminate debt, and just have a "Tin Plan" welfare program for everybody who is poor. Allow people to go on welfare permanently at age 70. Means test them and deplete all of their savings first, then gradually raise their benefits as their own means run out. This would be far cheaper, and would be just as direct "socialism" as Social Security is. But it would never fly in a democracy. Social Security and Medicare is the grand political compromise to achieve a middle class standard of living for retired and disabled people, as opposed to just having all of the old and disabled be at lower-class welfare subsistence levels. Really, THAT is the choice that we're all on about: do we have Social Security and Medicare and seek to maintain retirees at a middle class standard of living, or do we just have Welfare and have retirees and the disabled at a lower class standard of living. Having no safety net at all means Calcutta, and that's not politically sustainable in a Christian country. Maybe it IS sustainable in a post-Christian country, to which we seem to be hurtling, but the examples of Europe, including the Soviet Union, show that people will not accept utter penury, and will instead demand at least a US-welfare standard. And that's what we'd be talking about, policy-wise, if we got rid of Social Security (assuming it were even politically possible to cram down a lower-class welfare standard on the Social Security middle class0. I'm going to get away from policy, though, and get to this analysis, so that at least we'll have it to compare to the costs of public housing, food stamps and Medicaid.
#61. To: Vicomte13 (#60)
You should really read the PDF from the link I provided in #57 before you start, at least for a method for approaching the analysis. However if you are discerning enough pages 22 and 23 give you the answer in very clear terms when the report tells you that anything above about 1.5-2.0% imputed interest used in your calcualtion will show thatone will not get out of SS what one paid in.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#62. To: redleghunter, TooConservative (#61)
I will try and save you some trouble and provide what this GAO report finds.. "Figure 2.1 illustrates inflation-adjusted average rates of return for all workers born in given years—that is, for “birth groups.” These estimates include all Social Security benefits and contributions except disability, and they assume that payroll tax rates will increase on a pay-as-you-go basis to keep the system actuarially balanced. Inflation-adjusted rate of return estimates were more than 25 percent per year for birth groups born in 1880 or earlier. However, these returns were on relatively small contributions, so the dollar value of the income transfer they received was relatively small. Rate of return estimates were more than 10 percent for birth groups born before 1905. They fell below 6 percent for those born in 1920, below 3 percent for those born in about 1940, and below 2 percent for those born in about 1960. They will reach 1 percent for those who will be born in about 2040."
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#63. To: SOSO (#61)
Starting with the disability piece, here are the attributes of Social Security disability insurance (in private insurance terms): (1) The disability is long-term, until age 66. (2) There is premium waiver: if you're disabled and collecting Social Security disability insurance, you don't have to pay Social Security tax (the premium) on the benefit received. (Waiver of premium has to be specifically included in a private policy). (3) There is a Cost of Living adjustment for as many years as it takes to get to age 66 (when disability is replaced by retirement benefits). Private COLA riders are only available for up to 5 years, usually at an average cost of a 20-40% premium. The potential 50-year COLA rider on Social Security disability insurance does not exist in private insurance. If a 5 year COLA rider hikes private policy costs by 30%, the cost of a 10-year, or 50-year, rider, would hike the cost astronomically. (4) Social Security disability is guaranteed insurability, without any medical screening, and with no increase in premium for physical condition, or age, or gender. That doesn't exist in private insurance either. (5) Social Security disability has a 5-month waiting period. Benefits start in the 6th month. So, those are the features a private policy would have to have: Guaranteed insurability for a flat rate with no consideration of sex, health or age, 50-year COLA rider, 5- month waiting period, long-term (to age 66) insurance, with premium waiver in the event of disability. No private product exists that can replace that, because it cannot be done and the insurance company make a profit. Industry figures say that standard disability insurance costs between 1% and 3% of income for males in good health. Increase that by 30% for females, 35% for smokers, 20-40% for 5-year COLA. There are preconditions for which there is no insurance possible. Muscular dystrophy, for example. Diabetics pay 50% premiums. So, let's take a middle class, middle-aged female with childhood onset Type I diabetes, who must take insulin. She'll pay 120% of the standard 1-3% of income, up to 6.6% of income, for disability insurance alone. Now make her a smoker and jack that up by another 35%, and we've already outstripped Social Security tax (6.2%), and that's for a policy that only has 5 years of COLA and no guaranteed insurability. The private sector does not provide a product that is close to Social Security disability insurance. This will also be the problem with the life insurance annuity for surviving children and surviving spouses. It, too, is a fixed rate, no pre-existing condition, with a premium waiver and an unlimited COLA adjustment rider. Jean Calmant lived 122 years. The private insurance market does not provide the features of Social Security insurance at any price. In particular, open enrollment at a fixed premium, with unlimited COLA adjustments, is not a product that the private market can sell. So, you can't get either disability or life insurance annuities to replace Social Security at ANY price. The replacement products do not exist. And the REASON they don't exist is that they are such valuable benefits that life and disability insurers cannot sell them at a profit. People would not pay what they would have to pay. So, when we talk about "comparable" disability insurance and life annuity, we have to frankly note that NOTHING in the private sector is comparable. ALL private policies offer less protection, less security, less permanent insurance. This adds an element to Social Security that is hard to quantity, but that we must try to quantify to make the comparison. For disability insurance, in particular, the longest COLA rider is 5 years. It adds 40% to the cost. We need one that goes out fifty years. How do we quantify that? A 400% increase in the cost (40% per 5 year period) seems reasonable. This is a hugely valuable benefit. Get disabled as a working teenager, and you have a long, long time to collect disability. The other hugely valuable and irreplaceable is guaranteed insurability with no medical pre-conditions or exclusions. This doesn't exist in the private market either. To simulate it, we can look at the cost of disability insurance for diabetic smoking females, and add 155% of the cost of the insurance on top of the 400% for the 50 year COLA rider. And that still would not cover the case of the person with a brain tumor and MS, who gets disability insurance at the same rate as you or I do from Social Security, but can't buy a policy from the private market to cover it. So, to really price Social Security disability insurance, to make something COMPARABLE in the private market, you would have to tack on something like 555% to the currently available premium. Universal disability insurance with no preconditions, guranateed insurability, unisex, premium waiver, and inflation adjustments for 50 years, would cost about $1175 per month, to cover everybody the way that Social Security does. $1175 per month is $14,100 per year. The maximum employer/employee SS contribution is 14,490 per year. Of course, if everybody were forced in the market (a la Obamacare), it would not cost that much, because the bigger the pool, the more the risk is spread. This is why pricing this stuff is hard. We're trying to price things that don't exist in the marketplace. Social Security, being mandatory, forces everybody into one huge pool, and that brings down the costs. With present costs of disability insurance, the maximum Social Security contribution would just barely pay for the universal disability insurance, leaving $390 per year for the death annuity and retirement benefit. If there were no disability insurance MANDATE, a la Obamacare, then people would not buy disability insurance, it would remain pricey…and the welfare rolls would explode when disabled people rapidly became destitute. And then we're back to the real bottom line. The TRUE cost of Social Security is the differential in cost, on a per capita basis, of everybody who receives (or will receive) Social Security benefits, versus the homologous welfare benefit. We pay a premium, as a society, for giving Social Security a stipend that exceeds welfare payments. In truth, Social Security and Medicare are middle class welfare.
#64. To: Vicomte13 (#63)
No, not middle class welfare, but low-middle class welfare. You seem to be conceding that I am correct in my claim that the average payer into the SS system will get less benefit payments than what he and his employer paid in with even at a risk free interest rate of just that for a 10 year U.S. Bond which averaged over 7% from 1965-2014. You must have read that GSA report. Congrats for coming into the light. In truth, Social Security and Medicare are middle class welfare.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#65. To: All (#64)
Too bad that you still do not reject the welfare nanny state and the destruction that doers to human dignty and liberty. Not quite as bad as communism but pretty close. You must have read that GSA report. Congrats for coming into the light.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#66. To: TooConservative, Vicomte13 (#14)
If that were true there never would have been a surplus. You do not get surpluses by paying out more than you take in or by just breaking even. Statistically, you will break even on SS........
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#67. To: Vicomte13, SOSO, A Pole (#60)
All advanced nations have a social security system pretty much like our own. I don't get why so called American conservatives act as if it is some new idea that does not work. Why do American so called conservatives want to adopt the way Somalia or Haiti or the Congo is? I mean there are not taxes and limited govt there and thus I assume they are paradise on earth. Meanwhile I assume the socialist Scandinavians are living in poverty and are starving. And that's what we'd be talking about, policy-wise, if we got rid of Social Security (assuming it were even politically possible to cram down a lower-class welfare standard on the Social Security middle class0.
#68. To: Pericles, Vicomte13, A Pole (#67)
Who on this thread claimed SS doesn't work? All advanced nations have a social security system pretty much like our own. I don't get why so called American conservatives act as if it is some new idea that does not work.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#69. To: SOSO (#68)
All SS is about: another tax collection scheme that has been abused by the US government to pay for other federal operations consistent with creating wars around the world. Ronald Reagan made borrowing from the SS "funds" an easy proposition, whereas before his approach for federal revenue generation, there was only begging, borrowing and cheating. Who on this thread claimed SS doesn't work?
#70. To: buckeroo (#69)
Who on this thread claimed SS doesn't work? All SS is about: another tax collection scheme that has been abused by the US government to pay for other federal operations consistent with creating wars around the world. Ronald Reagan made borrowing from the SS "funds" an easy proposition, whereas before his approach for federal revenue generation, there was only begging, borrowing and cheating. But it works.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#71. To: buckeroo, Pericles, Vicomte13, A Pole (#69)
It's more than that, it's an income redistribution mechanism. See the link in post #57 and open the PDF. All SS is about: another tax collection scheme........
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#72. To: SOSO (#71)
That was one of the intentions for the program. Now it is flat broke. It's more than that, it's an income redistribution mechanism.
#73. To: buckeroo (#72)
It's more than that, it's an income redistribution mechanism. That was one of the intentions for the program. Now it is flat broke. Not yet. The overwhelming probability is that it will get changed before it ever goes "broke".
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#74. To: SOSO (#73)
Briefly imagine yourself as a multi-millionaire; that you are cash rich and have ample funding to support any effort you deem viable. And a few of your frinds ask for a loan or two; and they ask again and again and again. And you give away all your cash to your friends. If you ask for payback, they may claim they can't immediately but may be able to perform over tyme. You are broke, pal. Not yet. The overwhelming probability is that it will get changed before it ever goes "broke".
#75. To: buckeroo (#74)
No, you are stupid. You are broke, pal.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#76. To: SOSO, buckeroo (#73)
I depends on how one figures it. The social security fund has notes payable only by the general fund. If the general fund runs dry, social security runs just as dry. In case of a government shutdown where the general fund cannot issue monthly funds to the social security fund, social security beneficiaries could not be paid. If they needed all their money now, the general fund could not pay it without getting the debt ceiling raised and then borrowing it. All of the money paid into social security has been spent. Not yet. The overwhelming probability is that it will get changed before it ever goes "broke".
#77. To: SOSO (#66)
The surplus (and projected surplus) was shrinking during the Reagan years as life expectancy crept upward. Hence Poppy Bush breaking his "no new taxes" pledge. However it was kept afloat until now, with the big Boomer retirement underway. And life expectancy is even higher now and we have a lot of people (immigrants) claiming benefits without paying in for a lifetime. If that were true there never would have been a surplus. You do not get surpluses by paying out more than you take in or by just breaking even.
#78. To: SOSO (#64)
I am not at all conceding that. Quite the opposite. I am going piece by piece through it. With my disability insurance analysis, I point out that even the upper class Americans cannot buy a disability insurance policy that replaces the features of Social Security. Guaranteed insurability, premium waiver, fixed premiums with no medical review or pre-existing condition exceptions, and fifty years of COLA adjustments: these are features of Social Security that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett could not purchase in an insurance policy. No insurance company writes such policies. Gates and Buffett self-insure against these issues by wads of cash. Even they cannot get insurance this good. Low-middle class welfare? In the sense of the amounts paid out, that's true. Even the maximum amounts paid out under Social Security disability permit only a spartan lifestyle. Social Security in all forms - disability, survivor annuity and retirement payment - do not pay huge amounts. They pay middle class to lower-middle class amounts. That's true. But the cost of the benefits is low for the comprehensive package that we get from it. I started with the Disability Benefit, and showed that we get a product from Social Security that is nonpareil, that does not exist in the private sector and cannot be replaced. I showed, based on extrapolation of the costs of what does exist, that the cost of just the disability benefit features of Social Security would be MASSIVE if done by the private sector. Cost-of-Living Increases for decades forward is a huge benefit. Guaranteed insurability is a huge benefit. So huge that they just don't exist in the private sector. You cannot replace that product, because insurance companies don't sell it. They don't sell it because they cannot make a profit on it. It's really a subsidy by the government. If the product were available in the private sector, the premium would devour most of what is paid for Social Security taxes. Now let's look at the survivor's annuity. We will see the same problems. You seem to be getting obstinate that Social Security is just a retirement program, and the only thing we need to look at is the return on retirement funds. I am getting obstinate too: you have to look at the Disability insurance and the Survivor Annuity also, and those must be replaced by private sector products. Because ALL THREE of those things are Social Security. The cost of $2500 per month of disability insurance, with a 50 year cost of living adjustment, no medical pre-conditions, and universal coverage is infinite: the product doesn't exist. By extrapolation from what does exist, the policy cost would be $14,000+ per year. Which means that the retirement and survivor annuity of Social Security are free, and the best investment of all. I can be obstinate too, see? Realistically, we have to look at all three benefits together to see the value, and cheapness of the package. This is not a retirement investment, it is all around income insurance from ANY cause: disability, and death, and old age. The private sector does not have products to replace all of these features.
#79. To: nolu chan, buckeroo, vicomte13 (#76)
All the money spent has been borrowed. The Trust Fund holds Fed IOUs which carry the full faith and credit of the U.S. - for what that is worth. All of the money paid into social security has been spent.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#80. To: SOSO, nolu chan, vicomte13 (#79)
We can thank the Chinese for infinite patience -- with a bit o' luck I did not speak too soon. The Trust Fund holds Fed IOUs which carry the full faith and credit of the U.S. - for what that is worth.
#81. To: SOSO (#79)
All corporate, federal, state and municipal bond debt is IOUs. It's all borrowed money. All of the money banks invest is borrowed - the bank borrows the depositors' deposits. I'm going to look at the survivor annuity here today. The same aspects of the disability insurance apply to this annuity: the guaranteed insurability with no medical check, the single rate premium regardless of health, the lack of exclusion for pre-existing conditions,. the lack of a suicide exclusion cause, and the need for a 50-year Cost of Living rider all weigh heavily on the price. Such a product is not available in life insurance either, just as it isn't available in disability insurance, except through Social Security. These universal, no-matter-what, inflation-adjustment features are unique to Social Security BECAUSE the government has the ability to shift funds to pay it, so it never has to operate at a profit (and in fact, won't). THAT is why Social Security provides a much more comprehensive and better product than anything available on the private market. With just the cost of the disability insurance premium ALONE we've used up most of the individual and employer contribution, and we'll about double that cost with the survivor annuity. And that's before we even get to the retirement benefit, which is only a third of what is covered. With just disability insurance I've shown that Social Security is a good deal. Now I'll do it again for survivors annuities. And then we'll get to the retirement benefit.
#82. To: buckeroo (#69)
SS is not about that. Social Security is about providing income security for workers and their dependents, for life, no matter what happens to them, and regardless of the particular circumstances of the individual. The most unlucky, star-crossed worker in America - the guy born with all sorts of congenital diseases that cannot be cured - or insured - is covered. The alcoholic, depressed, chain-smoking worker who reaches retirement age is covered. That's the point: cover EVERYBODY in the safety net. It's not a particularly generous safety net. SOSO is right that Social Security Disability, Survivor, and Retirement Benefits, all on their own, provide a lower-middle-class living wage, nothing more. This is higher than the lower-class, bare-bones subsistence provided by Welfare. Social Security disability recipients, and those on survivors benefits, or those living solely on the Social Security retirement check, take home more than those who are just on food stamps and living in shelters or government apartments. Social Security is not a tax collection scheme, it's a comprehensive salary insurance program. It's expensive, and taxes are assessed to pay for it. Because of political resistance to the idea of simply taking money out of the general fund to pay these costs (and raising general taxes to cover the costs), the FDR- Era politicians established a separate tax and a structure to make Social Security look and feel like an annuity. That was window-dressing to make it politically palatable. Social Security preceded welfare. Social Security does an exceptionally good job at what it was designed to do. That is why it remains such a popular program.
#83. To: Vicomte13 (#78)
Knock yourself out. Just remember that SS has had a suprlus for quite some time. You do not build a surplus by paying out more than you take in or even just to break even. You already have the answer from the GSA link that I sent you. You don't have to believe it and you probably never will. All you seem to be doing is trying to find a set of sorrowful circumstances that show SS is a good deal. That has never been the argument. For every good deal case you conjure I can conjure two bad deal scenarios. Most people in the work force have employer provided life insurance plus accidental death and disability insurance either for free or for a highly subsidized rate. I certainly have had that all my working life. The cost of additional private life, accidental death and disability insurance to closely match what is offered by SS for me and tens of millions other in the system (the clear majority of SS participants) is minimal especially when purchased early in one's career or when one first starts paying into the SS system. Further almost all the employer provided coverage and private policies provide for premimum waiver. It is plainly clear that if a middle income person works to his eligible retirement age and both he and his surviving spouse live to their respective life expectancy they will not receive from SS the amount that was contributed on their behalf into SS, even at a modest imputed interest investment rate of just 5 %. The disparity becomes ridiculously high if you use the 50 year average rate for the U.S. 10 year Tresury Bond of about 7%. FYI, I just completed the calcuation (agian) for myself based on my and my employers SS contribution history from the SSA website. Using just a modestly low interest rate of 5% and allowing for $50,000 cost for additional private life, accidental death and disability assurance over my working career ON TOP of what was provided by my employers, I would have to live to about 92 (about 14 years longer than the 78 year old life expectancy for a white male in my state) just to break even. At 6% I would have to live to about 150. As for my wife, she has earned enough SS credits on her own that her benefit payment exceeds the max allowed of 1/2 of mine so she would not get any benefit boost if I die before her. Is SS a good deal for some people? Of course it is. Is it a bad deal for most? Of course it is. Is there a better system? Probably but I do not believe that in the environment of the currently fractured, divided political system in the country we will see any such proposal. But time is on your side. In less than a genartion all of the U.S. population will have been properly brained washed to believe that a severe form of Big Brother socialistic control as the natural, right, true and just way of things. Hooray for secular progressivism!! I am not at all conceding that. Quite the opposite. I am going piece by piece through it.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#84. To: Vicomte13 (#81)
As is the SS Trust Fund. All corporate, federal, state and municipal bond debt is IOUs. It's all borrowed money. All of the money banks invest is borrowed - the bank borrows the depositors' deposits.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#85. To: Vicomte13, bukeroo, All (#82)
Exactly. And that is why some risks are not worth the cost of coverage. The government underwrites these total catastrophic risks for us and that is a good thing - I never disputed this. But the reality is that there are quite affordable alternatives in the private markets that will cover a wide majority of ALL of these unlucky poor soul events. At some point the incremental cost of insuring the incremetal risk by the individual is simply not worth it. Would you pay $100,000 per year for a $1 million lifetime life insurance policy starting at age 20? If you take the system as a whole and use a very modest historical risk free interest rate (10 year U.S. Tresury Bond) and add the cost of reasonably cost effective private life, accidental death and disabilty insurance, on average those that paid into the SS sytem will not get out of the system what was contributed into the system on their behalf. If that has not be true since the beginning of SS there never would have been the surplus that system has built throughout the decades. The most unlucky, star-crossed worker in America - the guy born with all sorts of congenital diseases that cannot be cured - or insured - is covered.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#86. To: TooConservative (#77)
However it was kept afloat until now, with the big Boomer retirement underway. And life expectancy is even higher now and we have a lot of people (immigrants) claiming benefits without paying in for a lifetime. Thank you for conceding my point. Yes, circumstances demographic have changed, even since Reagan's era. Undoubtedly the "rules" while be changed in the not too distant future. That dosen't cahnmge the fact that I and 10s of millions others will never get out of SS what was paid into the sytem for on our behalf. You don't have to take my word on this, do the calculation for your circumstances for yourself. If you are honest I guarantee that you will will come to the same conclusion. See post #83. The surplus (and projected surplus) was shrinking during the Reagan years as life expectancy crept upward. Hence Poppy Bush breaking his "no new taxes" pledge.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#87. To: Vicomte13 (#82)
Your post reminds me of people describing government as a great benefactor; as a deeply religious man, government is somewhat a patron saint in your book, correct?
#88. To: SOSO (#85)
SOSO, I've spent a few hours over the last two days shopping the Disability Insurance Market, and today, the Annuity Market (to get the survivor benefit that Social Security offers). You've said that these insurances provided by Social Security can be replaced by private market products. That is not true. The products flat out do not exist. They cannot be bought at any price. NO insurer provides Cost-of- Living adjustments for a lifetime. The best you can get on disability insurance is 5 years, and that costs a 40% premium. Social Security covers workers with disability insurance for 50 years, with COLA. To get the comparable return out of a private policy, the policy price would be on the order of 400% the cost - but it does not exist. You cannot buy that insurance if you want to. Social Security is the only place in the world where that insurance is available. It is of tremendous value. Likewise, a man with developing muscular dystrophy and cancer cannot but disability insurance. The underwriting is massive. But he automatically gets it, for 6.2% of his wage up to $117,000, through Social Security. Once again, Social Security provides a product that CANNOT BE REPLACED by private insurance. That's the REASON why it is superior to private insurance. Private insurers operate for profit. They can only sell policies to people for whom it would be, on average, profitable for them to do so. Women pay a generic 30% more than men on disability insurance, because women are far more likely to become disabled than men. That is priced into private insurance, and it plus medical exclusions for pre-existing conditions render disability insurance out of sight for anybody who is nearly certain to meet it. The point of Social Security is NOT to run a profit for the government. It's purpose is to provide income security NO MATTER WHAT, to EVERY SINGLE PERSON. THAT is why everybody pays the tax on all wages. Private companies cannot provide that coverage. If they could, they would, but there is no profit in it. They CAN'T, so the government does. The same is true with medical insurance for 85 year olds. At that age, everybody is developing illnesses of some sort, and maybe 10 people in the whole country have the direct income at that point to pay it. Insurance will CERTAINLY operate at a loss covering such people, so no insurance does. The government does. Everybody gets covered, because the people with the worst luck HAVE to be covered, or let die, and letting people die for want has not been our way, at least not when we were a Christian country (which we were when all of this was set up). This burden cannot simply be shifted to the private sector. The PROBLEM is that you'd end up with all of the worst cases, only, paid by the government, without the revenues coming in from the larger pool of everybody (the biggest pool of all) to cover it. When I looked at annuities today, I likewise found that the Social Security product: Cost-of-living adjusted, 50-year annuities with survivor benefits, do not exist. The best you can do is a 25-year annuity. And for me to buy such an annuity today, from an AAA rated insurance company, spending the full $14,000 of self+employer social security contributions, would buy a 25 year annuity of $55 dollars per month. My Social Security survivor benefit for my wife and minor child would be $3650 per month. To equal that would require 70 YEARS of $14.000 per year premiums. The premiums on Social Security Disability Insurance, and Social Security Survivor Benefit insurance, each alone, would be more expensive per year than the amount my employer and I pay into Social Security. We haven't looked at the retirement benefit at all yet, and already the price of these two insurances: disability and survivor annuity, outstrip the maximum contribution into Social Security (about $14,000 per year). Social Security is THE single best insurance program available, precisely because it covers all, without conditions, at a flat premium, and is adjusted for COLA. You cannot even come close to replacing that in any private insurance vehicle. The insurance aspect of Social Security ALONE is worth the cost. If you disagree, I challenge you to go out there and find a disability insurance product or a survivor annuity product that has the features of Social Security. Go try. You can't. It doesn't exist.
#89. To: Vicomte13 (#88)
I said there is reasonable insurance coverages available. The issue is not the coverage available to the worst of us but to what is actually consumed by most of us. Any rational individual would look at the cost-benefit relationship of private coverage and decide that covering ANY AND ALL POSSIBILITIES is simply not a rational decision. There is power and truth in actuarial data. I never stated that the private matkets can or should cover all 6 sigma risks. But through what emploers offer to employess and what is commercially available at a sensible cost cand and does cover 3+ sigma. For the 3+ sigma of participants, they will not get out of SS what was paid into the system on their behalf aven at a modestly low risk free interest rate of 5%. Also, for those unlucky, unfortunate souls that incur catastrophic eventys their still is a safety net of welfare, medicare, medicaid, etc. So its not SS or nothing. You are really bending over backwards to defend the indefensible by trying to conjure use a 6 sigma event to represent the bulk of the population. If that's what you insist on doing save your time. I already conceded tha SS is a very goos deal for some people. You've said that these insurances provided by Social Security can be replaced by private market products. That is not true.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#90. To: buckeroo (#87)
No, government is no patriot saint. Government is a force, a tool. It is like fire: useful, but deadly if it is not watched and bounded. Our government has been abusing people horrendously. The greatest abuse of everybody is the endless wars of empire. They are a bottomless pit of injury, death, expense…and defeat. We never win these things. And yet we persist, like drug addicts. This is government at its worse, claiming "national interests" that don't exist. As a religious man, I look at how my God set up the world: with limited resources. And I look at his moral code: limit your needs and wants to what is right, and I will provide enough, but part of the way I provide enough is by those to whom I have given more turning and giving much of what they have been given to those who have less. I never made any of that option, God says. His laws are: Do this or else. Kings were accountable to God for the well being of all of their people. They were not elevated to power by God in order to enjoy luxury and license, but to lead and to provide for the weak and poor in their realm, and to defend everybody. Our realm engages in reckless war, which is murder under God's law and must stop. Internally, the society engages in reckless license, which is sin and under God's law must stop. And then there are the poor, who are always there, part of the structure of the world that God provides to cause men to follow him. When we had a revolution, we decided we would have no king. We took the crown off the King's head and divided it among ourselves, as the vote. So collectively we, as a people, ARE the king, and we thereby inherit all of the moral duties of the king. The king could never escape the legal duty before God to use his power to redistribute the resources of his realm to make sure that all of the poor were provided for. In a democracy, we are the king, and the same social welfare - the need for which is caused by human sin, and the solution to which is ordained by God to lie in redistributing wealth, in tithes and alms and through kingly acts - the same social welfare is needed. The poor you have always with you, and they are with us as a test. As the King, we have to meet the test, and we have to use our piece of the crown to address the poverty. Of course, the men of great wealth have the personal liability before God to directly provide such help. As poor individuals who are not free, under God's law, because we don't have our plot of land free and clear, and don't have an excess as long as we are indebted and under service, our obligation is to get ourselves out of debt and treat others as we would be treated. But as The King, we each ALSO have the obligation to use the scepter and crown - powered by our vote - to make sure that the King, which is our sovereign rule over our state, does HIS duty. Welfare is a physical need, and a moral duty. The QUESTION, then, is to how best do it. Until the 1930s in America, we had no formal permanent social welfare system from the Crown. There was private charity, mostly through Churches, but there was not enough wealth in that, nor focus, to actually provide for everybody. The poor, and particularly the unemployed and elderly, were DESTITUTE and HOMELESS, living in tents and boxcars and eating whatever they could get from handouts. Old people were dependent on their children, and their children had children of their own to raise, and were themselves out of jobs because of the crisis. The American structure up to that point had failed, and the crown was not living up to its moral duty before God to do it. Now, were I King alone, I would not have addressed the problem through Social Security, and then later Medicare and Medicaid. But I am not King alone, I have only a one three-hundred-ten-millionth fractionated share of the crown. Just like you. The collective political will created Social Security and Unemployment Insurance, then Medicare and Welfare and Medicaid. Now ObamaCare. These are not the ideal way to go about it. However, they are SOMETHING, and they are in the direction of fulfilling God's command to the King to care for the poor, the orphan, the sick and the elderly. Heretics pretend that God only laid this burden on individuals, to give if they wanted to. That is a lie. God laid it on the State itself, in the Law, on the King, and Jesus said that the law would not pass away until the end of the world. So we are, in fact, bound by the commandments of God to provide for the needs of the poor individually, AND through the church, AND through the Crown, all three. We are bound and it is a sin to evade the duty, and it is always a sin to lie and to say that God did not command such a thing. It's also illiterate and ignorant: it's right there in the Torah for anybody who would read. It's also right there in the example of Jesus, the Apostles and the Church. However, charity was NEVER the province of Church and individual alone. It was also, by repeated commandment of God, the duty of the King - a primary duty - and it is a sin for the state to not provide that help, and also a sin to deny God's law on the matter. So, when I see men snarl at the notion that the state, too, is involved by ordinance of God in poverty relief, I see the snarling fangs of Satan speaking out of minds poisoned by the lust for the idol of money. Yes, the state behaves evilly. And so do all of the Churches. And so does every man. And no, that fact does NOT therefore exonerate any man from the duty of charity as an individual, OR as a member of the Church, and it lets no King off the hook either. In a democracy, born in revolution, we CHOSE to BE the King, and therefore we, and the state we collectively rule, is bound by the law of God to provide social welfare. It is lie and sin to deny it. It is defiance of God. The state is no saint. Our state is pretty crappy. Virtually all of them are. Men handle power poorly. So what? We're all sinners, that doesn't let us off the hook. We're not made as islands, we don't live alone. We have overlapping duties. As kings, collectively., we have a duty to charity. Social Security is the charitable response to the problem of aging and disability. It's not holy. It's a structure only. I've said and I'll repeat that it is not the BEST structure, by any means. But it is CERTAINLY better than the result of simply abolishing it and doing without, or pretending that the private market will cover the need. The private market never did, anywhere, before Social Security and Welfare, and the Churches did not fully fill the gap either. Social Security and Welfare remove the very worst effects. So any sort of principled, Christian opposition to Social Security - which I could make - has to start with the proposed alternative, and the alternative cannot be based on magic pixie dust. I have pointed to two facts above, regarding disability insurance and survivor annuities. These are FACTS of Social Security: it's not just a retirement savings program, it is ALSO insurance against catastrophe at any point in life, and insurance against the death of a spouse and parent. It provides the monthly money to go on for all people caught in such disasters. Before it did, the Churches and private charity did NOT cover the needs, or even come very close. If they had, we would never have gone to the system. But they did not, and they DO not, anywhere, in those places left in the world without Social Security systems. God made the ancient state of Israel such that the state government DID have a NECESSARY role, a fundamental one, in poverty relief. The state agents - the Levitical judges - collected the tithes (which were not voluntary but mandatory taxes) - and they distributed those to the poor. The Kings were held to account by God for not caring for the poor. Jesus called everybody to account for it. Rather than expending energy fighting against a duty that has been imposed on individual AND church AND state, by God, a Christian who dislikes Social Security and Welfare from the state must, if he is true to God, propose a workable alternative THROUGH THE STATE, as well as through individuals and Churches. God's law ALWAYS incorporated the state into HIS way of relieving poverty, and he made it clear that WAS a duty of the King. So, no proposal that refuses to acknowledge the GOVERNMENT'S rule, under God's commandment, for ALSO providing for poverty relief, is Christian. Poverty relief is an INDIVIDUAL duty, AND a Church duty, AND a State duty, a duty of the King. All three. It's all right in Scripture and it's not debatable. Now, I've stood up for Social Security against those who would gut it, because I see no true, honest, Christian, good and sincere proposal for a replacement through the State. It's only "Kill and it and let everybody keep his money", and that means starvation and privation, just like it did before, and that is evil and walking away from God. I already HAVE, in this thread, given the basis for what I think the state should do. I think that a proper welfare structure that is much more in keeping with God's direct example is in order, and that it would both provide MUCH better poverty relief AND cost less. But I haven't bothered to spell out my OWN belief in the proper structure of personal, Church and State charity, because really, who cares? You don't. SOSO doesn't. I'm just a man. Nobody cares what I personally think. We HAVE Social Security and Medicare, and Welfare and Medicaid, and universal public education. We HAVE those things already. We cannot abolish them or tear them apart without replacing them with something as good. And nobody will accept the changes, because conservatives (like you) are constantly attacking God's wisdom regarding charity through the STATE, specifically, and insist that it should only be through Church and individual,. which is in direct opposition to what God said and did in his law. So, I know that we're stuck with Social Security. I know it because "conservatives" are STILL not reconciled to the moral and Christian obligation for the EXISTENCE of the GOVERNMENT program that does that. So I know that the discussion, here and everywhere, is always over whether to ABOLISH Social Security and throw everything back to the private market. All I do, then, is show why the private market DOES NOT, IN FACT cover what Social Security covers. That you CANNOT replace the protections of Social Security AT ALL - nobody sells anything like that. It doesn't exist, and it WON'T exist, because there's no profit in the hard part of it, but it's PRECISELY the hardest party of social insurance that God commands us to cover: as you treat the LEAST of these poor people, so shall I treat with you. Jesus said that, and he is the final judge of every man and woman on the planet. If you are MOCKING me for demanding that everybody obey God, you are deluded, friend. If you love God,and love his commandments, you should stop arguing for the devil, and start understanding why Social Security has to be defended. Perhaps you might want to talk about what sort of state program should REPLACE it, but in the course of that discussion, the notion of destroying what already is and belongs does not belong. And no discussion of God's will should contain the lie that God commanded only private charity. He did not. He explicitly set up a STATE STRUCTURE that provided poverty relief through MANDATORY TAXATION, enforced by legal force, through the judicial agency of the state (who were also religious agents). And he said flatly that if his law were FULLY followed, there would be no poverty AT ALL in the state. All of those things are in Scripture. So when any man mocks me for insisting that individual, church AND STATE must work to eliminate poverty, that man is mocking God - for it is written, in God's law. And everybody who claims to be a Christian, especially a Bible-based Christian, OUGHT TO KNOW THAT ALREADY, because IT IS NOT SUBTLE. It's across pages and pages and pages. Whole books of the prophets are God SCREAMING at Kings of Israel that they are to be destroyed BECAUSE they do not keep the commandments, do not care for the poor, do not respect his laws. To overlook all of that and to claim to be a BIBLE-BASED Christian is to be a willfully blind liar, an agent of Satan, not a good person. Paradoxically, CATHOLICS, who generally DON'T read the Bible, COULD make the argument. But THEY don't, because THEIR Church has correctly taught the duty of Catholics as individuals, and as voting citizens, and as members of the Church, to provide for the poor at ALL levels of activity. And it's the Catholics who provide the poverty relief and education in those African shitholes where the states are totally corrupt and there's no Social Security or other welfare. Government is no patron saint. It's a force, an organization. And God gave laws commanding what it must do - when men as individuals and as religious actors AND as governors must do. And it's the SAME LAW for all three statuses. The pretense that, somehow, government is exempt from poverty relief is a lie from Satan, and ever man who preaches that is an agent of the Devil, repeating a poisonous lie. Scripture-based Christians have NO EXCUSE for that argument, because Scripture is FULL OF directives to rulers. When Christians nevertheless make those arguments, they are idol-worshippers, with the idol being an evil obsession with the idea of the power of personally accumulated money as the bulwark against loss. But what did Christ say about accumulating money as insurance? He said not to do that - to give away the excess to those who need it and trust in God. That is the LAW OF GOD. To fight it is to fight God and enable the Devil. if you think of yourself as a good man: STOP IT. And stop attacking ME for simply telling you what GOD SAID. If you didn't know God said that, go read the Torah again, and Jesus, and prophets: Amos, Joel, Malachi. Stop fighting with me. I am telling you the truth. Get your mind right. The problem of poverty is one of the challenges of a fallen world. We could do better. And proposals for that are welcome. But in the meantime, any proposal that would tear down the protections we already have, to replace it with…nothing. That's Satan talking, nothing more.
#91. To: SOSO (#89)
No. "What is consumed by most of us" is NOT ADEQUATE when you are speaking of the role of the King. The King is charged to look after ALL of the citizens. The last, smallest, least of the sheep must be provided for. The 6-sigma event happens to millions, and there is a cardinal difference between welfare, which is now TIME LIMITED, and Social Security, which is for life and a more generous benefit. Social Security, you have correctly noted, is lower-middle class living. Welfare is grinding poverty. One does not STARVE, but one lives precariously, and the government is always threatening to snatch it away. We could save a lot of money by abolishing welfare and Medicare, and telling the old that they have to save and invest for it, and that the only government benefits available to anybody are welfare and Medicaid, once they have completely exhausted all of their personal savings. That would certainly save money. And the electorate would overwhelmingly reject that. No, welfare subsistence is NOT ENOUGH for people who have worked hard for years. They demand more protection than that, against 6-sigma events. If I get a brain tumor and die mid-stream, that my children can go to the projects and live on food stamps for a few years, and then maybe lose their eligibility and be homeless, is not good enough, and it isn't Christian either. Social Security disability and survivor benefits are lower middle class, but they are orders of magnitude better than welfare. Welfare as currently structured is NOT an acceptable floor. Abolish Social Security and make the Social Security disability and survivor and old age levels the WELFARE level - THAT is an acceptable floor. But to rip away the Social Security safety net and rely on WELFARE, which leave our streets full of homeless we can all see, is NOT adequate. Social Security is the FLOOR of acceptable. How to do that is the question, and who to do that. If you want to have everybody buying private insurance, and then the government provide the Social Security level of benefits to everybody in the event of the uninsured six-sigma, that would work. But the 6-sigma event cannot be IGNORED. Social Security COVERS THAT, for everybody who works, and that is the POINT. So, any proposal MUST cover that, and it must cover it AT THE CURRENT LEVEL. Throwing six-sigma workers down into the destitution of WELFARE is not a solution. Private insurance for what it will cover, and government insurance of the catastrophe, and of the cost-of- living adjustments? Maybe. But then there is the simple question: within the EASY range of coverage, where insurers make a profit, per capita Social Security is pretty cheap because it's not for profit. So how is there an advantage in cost by taking all of the cheap insured for whom there would be little payout out of the not-for-profit Social Security system and putting a profit margin on those accounts? If it could be demonstrated that the costs would be lower overall to individuals, all in, to privately ensure against the short-term risks but have public insurance against the catastrophes, that would be fine. But I don't believe that the economics would ever bear that out. Insurance pool theory says the exact opposite. Bottom line: a million six-sigma events happen every year, and they must be covered. Only the state can cover them. Throwing them into the penury of welfare is unacceptable, unless you raise welfare benefits to match what Social Security pays. And you'll never accept that.
#92. To: Vicomte13 (#91)
You have communism and christianity confused. The Bible says if you don't work you don't eat. I'm not talking about the old. That is the role of the church not the government.
#93. To: Vicomte13 (#91)
Insurance like killing people who owned slaves is not Christian. If it could be demonstrated that the costs would be lower overall to individuals, all in, to privately ensure against the short-term risks but have public insurance against the catastrophes, that would be fine. But I don't believe that the economics would ever bear that out. Insurance pool theory says the exact opposite.
#94. To: Vicomte13 (#91)
You show that you do not understand what a 6 sigma event is. But even so, that doesn't change things one iota. You are blocked and it is unless to continue this dialogue. The simple plain factual truth is that SS is a good deal for a few million people as they will get out much, much more than they had paid into the system on their behalf BUT it is exactly the opposite for tens if not hundreds of millions of people who will have put more into their account than they will ever get out - INCLUDING YOU. That is exactly why there has been a surplus in the system for decades. You are entitled to your own political and social philosophy but you are not entitled to your own actuarial data and arithmatic. Over and out. Bottom line: a million six-sigma events happen every year,
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#95. To: SOSO, buckeroo, vicomte13 (#79)
All the money paid into social security has been "invested" in special non-marketable bonds, redeemable only from the general fund. If the general fund runs dry, the Fed IOU's cannot be redeemed. Social Security current needs are funded monthly from the general fund. The general fund can run dry during a squabble between the Prez and Congress over a spending authorization bill. The IOU's cannot be redeemed from the general fund if it would require exceeding the debt limit. All the money spent has been borrowed.
#96. To: nolu chan (#95)
All the money paid into social security has been "invested" in special non-marketable bonds, redeemable only from the general fund. WHat do you think a Bond is? It is debt. The SS Trust Fund consists of IOUs of the Federal government. The Fed has borrowed the money in the Trust Fund and spent it on other things. And as you noted, perhaps the Fed's IOU to the Fund isn't worth the paper it's written on. All the money spent has been borrowed.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
#97. To: A K A Stone (#92)
No it doesn't. Paul said to a specific church that had lots of hangers-on coming there specifically to mooch meals, but who would not assist in the operation of the Church, that they were not to be given the free meals then, because they refused to assist in the religious service. What God says about the poor is extensive, and it is a stream of commandments to give them what they need to live, that your property is not your own but God's, and that God commands you, as steward of his property, to use it to help the poor. The Bible says if you don't work you don't eat.
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