Thoughts on 'Social Security Reform'

[Mr. Dipity]

I have a few in me, and cannot communicate as well as I would like----

Don't worry about it - you're par for the course.

[Mr PC]

I like alkeehol

[mjau]

I think that the notion of a privitized social security account will look genius 8 or 9 out of 10 years. Maybe even 48 out of 50 years. It's those 1 in 10, or 1 in 25 that scare me.
Moreso, I frankly don't trust a private market experiencing reducing levels of regulation to act as a social safety net.

I, also, like alcohol. Lately, Bombay and tonic with a hint of a squeezed lime.

[Fieryjack]

Me too, but I think that Mr. PC and Fiery Jackoff should get to actually word the legislation.

Sserendipity, I'd happily spend every last penny in your social security account and I'd go right to Capitol Hill just to piss you off

[electrofloss]

clinton is the man that gave us nafta and welfare reform. clinton was an ass. i'm not surprised he endorsed the privatization of social security. that doesn't mean it isn't a terrible idea. anybody who thinks clinton was "liberal" is out of their minds.

Accountability arises from stake holders being close to decision makers.

corporate accountability? in america? really?

do all corporations deceive their stockholders? of course not. is there indisputable proof in the past few years that many have? yes. we have a government that is, let's not say "controlled" let's say "heavily persuaded" by the corporations that fund it. our government and big business are already too close and neither side is behavng responsibly.

i don't want them any closer.

and I can't help but think that the money the government lost from bush's horseshit tax cut could have?

aw, nevermind.

[ottokbre]

Its a non-issue to me. I hope Bush does something with it useful, and I think so long as its simple and effective, people should be happy about it. I dont think, however, that the state should dismantle it at all. There is several saftey net compontents built in for disability. But being able to control a part of it to actually keep up with inflation would be nice. So, ya know, whatevers clever. Domestic issues is the devils carrot, so I almost can give two shits.

[eeldip]

[puls]

1) Bush's proposals aren't 'solving' the S.S. funding problems. In fact, they will bankrupt the system quicker. The S.S. admin states that the system won't start losing money until somewhere around 2040 (sorry, I don't have the figures in front of me), and even then it will be able to cover .75 cents out of every dollar it pays out. To put that in perspective, right now the general fund is only bringing in .68 cents for every dollar it puts out. Now that's losing money NOT BANKRUPT!
2) Why is Bush lieing about the numbers? (just like he lied about Iraq's WMD & Ossama connections.........). Bush seems to have trouble about getting his facts straight, but then he "doesn't care what the facts are", because "he knows the truth."
3) We already have private retirement accounts, they're called IRA accounts (duh). If the goal was to help private accounts, why not just change the existing IRA rules instead of creating another government run bureaucracy that will control the accounts. Furthermore, if the kind of accounts you?re allowed to invest in are controlled by the government, are they really ?private? accounts?
4) This idea that private business run for profit is more efficient & cheaper than government run programs for public interest is simply not true when it comes to essential services. Private business isn?t concerned w/ what?s good for the public, in fact in capitalist theory, they?re trying to deliver the cheapest services for the most money they can get for it. Doesn?t sound like better/cheaper to me. There?s also this nasty little thing called ?collusion?, where a bunch of companies in the same business get together & figure out how they can manipulate the markets to screw consumers & maximize profits. That stands the whole capitalism theory on its head. Also consider that a government run agency actually is answerable to the public & can be changed by public pressure (it can be a real hassle & take a lot of time), whereas a private agency is answerable only to itself or its stockholders, and when they have a government imposed monopoly, market forces & capitalist theory no longer applies. I?ve never understood why a private run bureaucracy is somehow ?better? than a government run bureaucracy. The private one isn?t answerable to the public, unlike a government run one. This is getting very rambly & off the point.

Just to make myself clear: the system does have problems that need to be addressed at some point, but Bush?s plan won?t solve it, it will actually make it worse. Unfortunately ?our? government tends to act mostly by crisis response, not by forward thinking, so this probably won?t get solved until it is in crisis.

my .02 cents

JWP

[kcrusher]

I think I'm for private accounts AS LONG AS we are able to decide if, when and where the money can be invested.

The boys are Wall St. are probably slavering over this - just think of all the money they will now have to play with!

The one thing that I don't like about 'private accounts' are the fees associated with trading or altering your investments. You have to do so much more work to make sure you're on top of things and those little fees add up over the years.

[eeldip]

The one thing that I don't like about 'private accounts' are the fees associated with trading or altering your investments. You have to do so much more work to make sure you're on top of things and those little fees add up over the years.

yeap. other countries have privitized a SS like system. fees ended up being 30% and higher after a decade or so, which effectively made the systems far worse off. england, chile, umm. some others.

unlike the strange backwards world that some people believe in, when you privitize you lose accountiblity, you gain all sorts of new inefficiencies, etc.

THEN what happens, is that the 30% or so of the population that inevitably loses money in the private market start starving etc, and the govt has to bail them out anyway.

privitization has been show in many examples to be a far more expensive system with less money to pay out.

see the chart above.

of course, if you want to lose your money.. support bush on this.

[MASSIVE Mastering]

of course, if you want to lose your money.. support bush on this.

(A) I can almost gurantee that I can invest my money better and more efficiently that SS can.

(B) Let's give credit where credit is due - support FDR, Clinton, Gore, Carter, Pelosi, Kennedy and Reed on this. Bush only agreed with them.

Of course, like usual, once he agreed, they all changed their minds...

[puls]

massive,
but you'll only be allowed to invest your 'private' social security account in accounts the government sets up for you, not whatever you want.

jwp

[eeldip]

of course, if you want to lose your money.. support bush on this.

(A) I can almost gurantee that I can invest my money better and more efficiently that SS can.

(B) Let's give credit where credit is due - support FDR, Clinton, Gore, Carter, Pelosi, Kennedy and Reed on this. Bush only agreed with them.

Of course, like usual, once he agreed, they all changed their minds...

but your problem here is your set of assumptions are wrong. everyone supports fixing the system. bush's proposals (very little info on these) and the proposals in congress are the things that the dems are opposing. not "fixing ss".

never has anyone proposed that you will be able to invest your SS on your own by the way. bush doesnt support that. he supports funnelling your money into approved annuitity accounts. basically forcing you to invest in the private interest of the govt choosing.

very strange proposal. very unRepublican really.

[kcrusher]

As a comparison - U.S. per capita spending on healthcare is over 30% more than ANY other country, even those with free public healthcare.

Yet we still have the largest number of people that have no health care of any sort.

Also - more than half of all bankruptcies were filed due to health care costs. The next one down the line was due to divorce.

The reason Clinton's plan didn't go thru was it didn't add up - and they knew it. I didn't support it then and I won't support it now - unless it's done properly. There's no way to even make an informed decision on proposed changes because the details are not there.

[eeldip]

one thing that is known, and on the public record, is that the people proposing the changes are closely connected to people and organizations that wish to dismantle SS altogether.