The Social Security reform...and fuzzy mathFollow

President Bush is pushing hard to "reform" the SS system by allowing individuals to invest a portion of their contributions in personel accts, including the stock market.

this system WILL reduce the amount of money the federal government will need to pay out in the future, thus reducing the shortfall predicted by every one involved.

hurayyy, go bush, he saved the SS system, the government is not in the red as much......

thus the headlines, and thus over half of you will be singing the party line.....the ignorant half.....let me explain.

his plan is to allow you to take half of the money you would pay into the SS system, and KEEP IT to invest any way you want.

lets follow the dollars.

letting you keep half your contributions means the government is only collecting half as much. adn while the government only has to pay out half as much, their will be half as much to pay it with.

with me so far? the total debt for the SS system will be cut in half, but the percentage of shortfall will remain the same dollar collected vs dollar paid out. on paper, it looks like a long term boon, the news paper that is. to an accountant, it is a zero sum game with no advantage what so ever for fixing the system.

the impact:

everyone will pay half as much in ss taxes. every one will collect half as much in SS benifits as a result of it.

the wealthy:
they didnt need it any way. pretty much a raise for them. mroe tax relief.

the middle class:
some will invest it wisly, some will buy a more expensive car and hope they never need the benifits.

the working poor:
they are the big big loosers. most will buy food, or pay the rent with teh extra money. and when, not if, but when they need it.....they will be trying to pay rent with a check that would no longer even pay for food for a month.

they will be even MORE dependant on social programs as a result of this system when it is their time to stop working, if they ever can. EVER. the money for medical expenses will not be there. the money for even slum housing will not be their, and they will be TOTALLY DEPENDANT on government subsidized housing, food stamps, and medicaid.

you take a family making 20 to 30 grand a year, already buying insurance for one month aand dropping it just to get the card, adn give them another 50 to 60 bucks a week, investing for their retirment will come second to feeding their children and making sure they have a place to sleep.

the safety net of SS is not only for the working poor, and unfortunate, it is also there to protect the government from a social crisses on a massive scale nation wide.

Bush wants to scrap the safety net to give the wealthy and middle class a back door tax cut.

Bush doesnt give a crap what happens to the working poor, or to this country when they can no longer work. even half of the senators in his own party do not like it, and HOPEFULLY will think of this country and the people in it over voting the party line. not much chance, but there is hope.
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that said,

a i write this, i know when the press pastes up the headlines given to them by the whitehouse, over half of you will not look past the headlines, or even try to understand the mechanics of this system.

Bush will tell you he cut the future debt of the SS system, and you will belive him, because you WANT to believe him. just like this iraq mess, you will turn a blind eye to the facts, and the paper trail, and shout the party line at the top of your lungs to any and all nay sayers.

and it will directly affect over 80 percent of you, and this country, in a very very negative way when it is time YOU must depend on this stipend to survive.

stupid is as stupid does. and stupid gets as stupid deserves.

the snake tells you the apple is good for you, and you eat it.

I can't understand shadowrelm's reason for posting anything here. From time to time he pops up posts, rabid political tripe, answer flames in kind, poorly, for a few rounds then disappears only to reappear like a bad rash and start all over. I really don't have a problem with any of that, once in awhile it gives us something to argue about, what gets me is the complete and utter divergence between the way he 'talks' in his posts and they way he types. On the one hand he acts as if he is the absolute authority concerning what he writes and on the other he can't punctuate or spell to save his life. He's reminds me of a 12 year old retyping something he found in an angry writers blog and passing it off as his.

Edit: 'cus I ferget the difference between liberal and conservative.


Edited, Fri Dec 17 20:52:44 2004 by GitSlayer

Acctually now that I think about it his **** goes both ways. This time it's conservative.

Edited, Fri Dec 17 20:52:30 2004 by GitSlayer

SS is very much still needed so this won't work. I know my future SS is total sh[b][/b]it though.

that said,

a i write this, i know when the press pastes up the headlines given to them by the whitehouse, over half of you will not look past the headlines, or even try to understand the mechanics of this system.

Bush will tell you he cut the future debt of the SS system, and you will belive him, because you WANT to believe him. just like this iraq mess, you will turn a blind eye to the facts, and the paper trail, and shout the party line at the top of your lungs to any and all nay sayers.
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point made.

good luck people. i will not be one of the people who will ever need this system. 80 percent of YOU will, however. and if your fine with burning down the barn.....right before winter.....because the local pastor tells you it is evil, go ahead.

when we first went into Iraq, i posted on the casters relm site about the history of non-muslim forces invading muslim countries in the middle east, and pretty much got the same response.

it is your world. my children will never join the service, im not even going to "pretend" like bush and cheney did, that they "would have if they could...". and i will never be in need of this safety net either.

i am a registered democrat, i did vote for
bush sr however. i dont say this because i am biased, i say it because i am totaly astounded at the audacity of this addministraition in destroying this country, and the stupidity of the masses shouting "burn it down, burn it down"

what we are experiencing in Iraq is EXACTLY what EVERY non-muslim force has experienced in the middle east through out history. a high school student could have predicted this outcome, so why couldnt the white house?

this SS revemp is just another train wreck coming down the tracks. a back door tax break at the expense of a safety net for the working poor, and the financial stablility of this country in the distant future.

but scream the party line. it is YOUR problem, and your childrens problem, not mine.

as a social experiment, it is stunning to watch these events unfold. how masses of people can be lead with well placed words. in eveyr speach the white house gave concerning the war, by anyone giving it, they placed the words Terrorism, Iraq, and Al-Queda within the same sentence or the immediate following sentance EVERY TIME.

the result? every time you herd any one of the words anywhere, you mentally associated the other two words with it. and while no one in the addminiatraition every said Iraq had anything to do with 911, the placement of thosue words in their press releases had almost 70 percent of YOU believeing they did.

controlling the masses 101. good luck people. hell, i even went out and bought a Bush-Cheney bumber sticker.

Since you have no clue what the actual design of the SS revamp will be, that's a pretty amazing prediction to make. You're basically just showing your extreme partisanship. "I don't like the Bush administration, so I'll assume that anything they do will be a disaster even without bothering to look at it first". Nice...
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so true.

for instance, when this addministraition passed a law allowing the importation of endangered animals and their parts, and the sale of them, i automatically assumed it was bad

for instance, when invading the ONLY country in the middle east who did not openly support terrorism against OUR country, i automatically assumed it was a bad thing.

for instance, when unilaterly walking away from a nuclear arms treaty we made in good faith with Russia, and thus showing the entire world our word is only as good as the man who speaks it remains in office, and thus undermining any credability and trust in any furure treatys we might sign.....i automatically assumed it was bad.

for instance, when walking away from the kyoto treaty, while being the source of 1/3 of all pollutants being pummped into the atmosphere, and thuis sending a message to the rest of the world, IE, we dont giva a crap about YOUR problems, or companies making more money is more important that the air we breath....i automaticallt assumed it was a bad thing.

for instance, when locking up what are obviously prisoners of war, then renaming them so human rights treatys we signed in good faith do not apply to them, thus showing the world AGAIN our word means NOTHING, i automatically assumed it was a bad thing.

for instance, when passing a health care bill that did ABSOLUTLY NOTHING to make a SINGLE uninsured person, insured, yet costs us hundreds of millions of dollars MORE than the system we have now, i automatically assumed it was a bad thing.

for instance, when turning his dogs loose to shame the honor of the medals someone EARNED by actually NOT DODGING the draft, i automatically assumed it was a bad thing.

for instance, by reducing the mandatory efecianecy increases for fuel for american automobiles made here in the U.S. , i automatically assumed it was a bad thing.

for instance, getting rid of the "family leave act", which guarenteed a woman would not get fired for taking a couple months off to have a baby, i automatically assumed it was a bad thing.

for instance, for claiming he represents the "moral majority", and yet commited all the above, i automatically assumed....he IS the snake offering YOU the apple, and your gorging yourselves on them.

enjoy.

never before in my life have i been wittness to such blatent audacity. never before in my life have i wittnessed such a large number of people ABANDON their morality to support such audacity. not from the republican party, nor from the democratic party.

never before in my life have i ever been so ashamed to call myself an american.

the world is laughing AT US, not WITH US.

I like this thread.. Lots of paragraphs in the last part.

Mmm, paragraphs.

Actually Bush's SS plan is about the only thing I like that is coming from the current administration. The OP makes it sound as if the government will be sending a check to everyone for 50% of our SS tax and we can do what we want with it. Actually it will mostly likely be that half of our SS each week will go into some sort of a IRA or something similar.

This meaning that you wont just be able to take the money out at anytime to do what you want with it. Most have rules saying you cant take the money out before a certain age. However if you do you will be subject to tax and heavy fines. So if someone was to take the money out they would just be stupid.



See this is money they dont see now. If they choose to pull this money out and spend it(assuming they can), it will just be a bad idea on their part.

Now personally I fall in your Working Poor category. I pulled in around 32k this year as a machinist. Also I am not going to fall into your projected 80% who will need this SS, safety net. I work for a company that offers a 401k program with an employer match. At 24 years of age my 401k is already around 20k. By the time I reach the age of retirement, assuming I live that long, I should be set.

Sure. The second you actually post any credible information, I'll respond to it. Your entire post about SS was pure "guesswork" about what might happen.

We already had this dicussion about 2 months ago. In that thread I posted that most likely SS will still be managed in a large fund from which all will draw their benefits. The only difference that is needed is that some percentage of the fund is invested in some way. The result is that we do not reduce benefits one bit for those drawing on SS today, but will increase the amount of oney available down the line becuase SS funds will increase with inflation instead of staying stagnant. Even a super safe long term investment like IRAs, Tbills, and "market buys" will return enough over time to increase the relative amount of money in SS by as much as 4 times withough any significant risk. Oh. And we get more money in investment which is always good for economic growth. It's win win all the way around.

Um. But I can't say how they'll actually do it. I imagine it will be some variant of that, but I certainly can't be sure. No one can. But you seem perfectly happy to slam the plan before even hearing it. That's the part I have a problem with.



That's a wonderful argument if you measure the plan only in terms of total number of people insured. There's something about ensuring quality of care that matters, right? There's certainly value in making sure that those on medicare are able to buy the drugs they need. I could tell you about my friends grandfather who couldn't get his heart medication because medicare didn't cover it. Realize that this was medication he was prescribed. But because it was a newer and more expensive medication, and our government didn't subsidize those newer medicines, he couldn't get it. He had to buy it illegally from Canada. With Bush's plan, that heart medication is subsidized, so he can afford to buy it.

How's that for "spin"?



Certainly I can. But you present such incredibly ridiculous arguments that it's hard for me to take you seriously, let alone feel the need to rebut you. It's easier to just comment about your tin foil hat and total lack of any real understanding of the topic since that's abundantly clear from your posts already.


I'll tell you what. You go and actually learn something about the toipic at hand, and I'll take you seriously.

Sure. The second you actually post any credible information, I'll respond to it. Your entire post about SS was pure "guesswork" about what might happen.
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well, cats out of the bag .......pretty good "guess work", dont you think? still waiting for your "positive spinn", but guess attacking the poster (a favorite republican stratagy) is all you have, cause addressing the issue is...well.....unsuportable.

well, seems the popular bill is 2/3 of your contributions you can put into a private account instead of the 1/2 discussed before the election.

what it does:

lets you put 2/3 of your SS payroll taxes into a private account. meaning they take out 2/3 LESS for SS from your paycheck.

a tax break hidden in fuzzy math, basically.

what it doesnt do:

it does not address the forshadowing shortfall for the SS system. your benifits are proportionate to your contributions. you put in less, you get back less. while it does reduce the over all debt, which im sure you will hear about in every stunp speach to push this bill, it does ABSOLUTLY NOTHING to reduce the percentage of shortfall for money taken in vs money paid out, which im sure will be skipped right over during their stump speaches to sell this turkey to you ignorant sheep.

a dog and ponie show with alot of fuzzy math to push a tax break in the guise of "saving" the SS system.

the well off will pocket that 2/3 bonus in their pay check.

the poor will to, that extra 50 to 100 bucks a paycheck might even let them break even for the soring gas prices, or skyrocketing rent...for a short while.

the problem will come in about 30 years. when the 50 to 70 percent of americans who will become dependant on this stippend, but find they will only get 1/3 of the money because they put in 2/3 less all their lives.

we will end up with a whole generation of working poor who will not be able to quit working untill they die. adn those that cannot work? will be totally dependant on government handouts, because their safety net wont even but them food any more.

this is a tax break at the expense of the safety net for our elderly and disabeled of the future.

and they will show you big numbers of reduced debt, skip right over the fact it does NOTHING to lessen the gap from money coming in vs money going out, and you sheep will sell your future and your kids future safety net.......so people like me who will never need SS can have some extra pocket change NOW.

if you make less than 50,000 a year, this is YOUR safety net.

this bill will DO NOTHING to adress the SS problems. it is a tax break, at a time of record deficit spending, in the guise of "saving" the SS system.

more pillaging at the expense of YOUR future.

I don't even know why anyone even bothers with you anymore shadow. I think its pretty sad that your "enlightenment of the ignorant masses" takes place on an internet forum.

You are clearly above us all in mental capacities. Go find another soapbox, this audience is too dumb to see your brilliance.

Now go get your main and rate us down, we already know where this is going.

And stop wasting your time rating everyone else down...its a matter of time before Kao finds out who's ****** you really are. Rate-ups to those you touched.

Edited, Wed Jan 5 15:55:37 2005 by NephthysWanderer

Shadow. Before I reply to you, could you maybe at least provide a link or source for this "new information" that apparently confirms your worst fears? I can't find a single reference to Bush's SS plan that isn't 6 months to a year old.

Would help if we were at least looking at the same source information first, don't you think? It also makes you look pretty silly to claim "I was right!", when you don't provide any source saying you are right...

Nice try. He never cites anything which is fine by me.

Obviously the power that lies in shadows is just that....lies.