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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: 8979
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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#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.
This is not bad either:
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.
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
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
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.
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. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
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. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
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. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
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.
Who on this thread claimed SS doesn't work? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
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? 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
It's more than that, it's an income redistribution mechanism. See the link in post #57 and open the PDF. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
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. 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
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.
No, you are stupid. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
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.
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.
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.
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. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
We can thank the Chinese for infinite patience -- with a bit o' luck I did not speak too soon.
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.
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.
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!! потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
As is the SS Trust Fund. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
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. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
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. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
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?
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.
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. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
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.
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.
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.
Insurance like killing people who owned slaves is not Christian.
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. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
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 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. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
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.
Bush: People Should Work More Hours To Grow Economy
#59. To: Pericles (#54)
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)
#61. To: Vicomte13 (#60)
#62. To: redleghunter, TooConservative (#61)
#63. To: SOSO (#61)
#64. To: Vicomte13 (#63)
In truth, Social Security and Medicare are middle class welfare.
#65. To: All (#64)
You must have read that GSA report. Congrats for coming into the light.
#66. To: TooConservative, Vicomte13 (#14)
Statistically, you will break even on SS........
#67. To: Vicomte13, SOSO, A Pole (#60)
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)
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.
#69. To: SOSO (#68)
Who on this thread claimed SS doesn't work?
#70. To: buckeroo (#69)
#71. To: buckeroo, Pericles, Vicomte13, A Pole (#69)
All SS is about: another tax collection scheme........
#72. To: SOSO (#71)
It's more than that, it's an income redistribution mechanism.
#73. To: buckeroo (#72)
#74. To: SOSO (#73)
Not yet. The overwhelming probability is that it will get changed before it ever goes "broke".
#75. To: buckeroo (#74)
You are broke, pal.
#76. To: SOSO, buckeroo (#73)
Not yet. The overwhelming probability is that it will get changed before it ever goes "broke".
#77. To: SOSO (#66)
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)
#79. To: nolu chan, buckeroo, vicomte13 (#76)
All of the money paid into social security has been spent.
#80. To: SOSO, nolu chan, vicomte13 (#79)
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)
#82. To: buckeroo (#69)
#83. To: Vicomte13 (#78)
I am not at all conceding that. Quite the opposite. I am going piece by piece through it.
#84. To: Vicomte13 (#81)
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.
#85. To: Vicomte13, bukeroo, All (#82)
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.
#86. To: TooConservative (#77)
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.
#87. To: Vicomte13 (#82)
#88. To: SOSO (#85)
#89. To: Vicomte13 (#88)
You've said that these insurances provided by Social Security can be replaced by private market products. That is not true.
#90. To: buckeroo (#87)
#91. To: SOSO (#89)
#92. To: Vicomte13 (#91)
#93. To: Vicomte13 (#91)
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)
Bottom line: a million six-sigma events happen every year,
#95. To: SOSO, buckeroo, vicomte13 (#79)
All the money spent has been borrowed.
#96. To: nolu chan (#95)
All the money spent has been borrowed.
#97. To: A K A Stone (#92)
The Bible says if you don't work you don't eat.
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