Also keep in mind that most people are inherently generous as well. If we didn't have to fork over 20-40% of our income, we would have more money left over to help "mom and dad" or others in our community. Churches and private organizations can run programs on a 5-7% average overhead. The government consistently runs at a 75-80% overhead, and that is if you believe their numbers.

Jan- I agree that the family unit was much stronger then, but I would propose that the government is at fault for much of that too. When the government started playing daddy, there was no longer as much of a benefit to keep the family unit together.

I hate when a politician talks about how people rely on Social Security and how they need it. Did they ever explain to people how much more they would have if the government quit taking their money? What if it was a real retirement plan? How much would they get? Social Security stinks.

Great synopsis. I will remember this test.

The same can be said of all these entitlement programs. If we simply took all the money we spend on entitlements today, and wrote a check to every American citizen, we would all be millionaires. The bureaucracy eats up .75$ on the dollar conservatively, and those of us not as close to retirement know we are simply paying for our parents retirement, and will never see a penny on the dollar we put in.
The age of collections when SS was started was exactly 1 year over the average life expectancy at the time. Now people collect for almost as long as they pay in, and the amount they collect has no resemblance to the amount they paid.

My grandfather, in 1939, I believe, said "let me get my share, this will never work".
Also, I believe Galveston was allowed to vote on wether they wanted to be in S.S. Or not.
Those persons who voted NO, are now are very wealthy!

I've broken my contract when I bought the farm. No paycheck now. I hide alot in my farm to lessen income tax.

A good point to be sure, CG. It's not something that could be fairly started arbitrarily saying 'Starting today you folks get nothing!" it would need to be phased in over say a generation and the day would arrive when someone entering the workforce on January 1, 20XX would pay nothing in SSI. It took many years to develop something THAT screwed up, and it will take many years to straighten it out. But there must be a will to do it in the first place, and it's as you say, not going to happen. Right before our very eyes, SSI has taken on the mantle of Sacred Cow.

"So what happens when the 80% of the people in the country who do not provide for retirement get too old for work? "
If there were no Soc Sec safety net, many more than 20% would rise to the occasion. Not all of them would, though. It would be good to privatize it with IRA-like accounts, but it's hard to do b/c the system needs today's workers' contributions to pay today's benefits.

To get off this scheme, people would have to save for their own retirement plus pay additional tax to pay for current benefits. It's like admitting aloud we have this de facto debt (promised future benefits) and starting to pay it off. I don't see this happening.

Ida May Fuller was the first SS recipient. She paid $25.54 into the system and when she died at age 100, she had collected $22,888.92 from the system. The definition of a Ponzi scheme.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/idapayroll.ht...

db -

You answer that what I said is not philosophically correct. I do not dispute that - and I made that comment myself.

The article that you linked to did not discuss the biggest difference that I see: that with SS, people will have 'something' for retirement; without SS, most people will save nothing - and they will therefor have nothing. This is the problem that I am grappling with: the same human rationalizations that cause people to put 'too many cattle on the common' will cause people to put 'too few bucks in the retirement account'. This is not because they are evil; this is not an implausible scenario (per experimental evidence); this seems to be because they are human.

Jan

Just going by your comments in the Gulch, you will get so much out of the books. I hope you get to read them soon. Then you can tell me which character you identify with most.
What is the theme of your book?

And I really like your dog.

Um... I sort of have an opinion on this I’ve got to run so maybe I’ll explain it another time.

He was playing chess.

Sorry, you feel that way. I will never stop demanding a a full repeal.

ewv, the option we are referring to is that if you didn’t go to work, you didn’t have to get a SSC number.

Not yet. Need to.
I may be retired but I have a lot of distractions.
Believe it or not, I'm trying to write my own novel.

Thanks Mama!

I'm pleased that you find my thoughts of interest!

Jan,

Chile and other countries experience would suggest that your concern about 80% of the people not having enough for retirement is completely unfounded. Social Security is a very bad deal. Take a look at this article on point https://ari.aynrand.org/blog/2014/07/14/....

No one has the right to force somebody to do something for their own good - and countries that do always end up putting the average person in a worse position.

The problem is that we're sending out $700 Billion a year in social security checks. We're still getting just a bit more than that from the workers payments so if we actually invest that money instead of writing checks we'll have to get the $700 billion somewhere else.

Of course the idea of us "borrowing it from China" isn't exactly true. We soaked up all the investable money and had to start printing money (quantitative easing) to keep spending -- at least 4.5 trillion worth.

I suppose we could just print money to give out as social security checks. The public can't even tell the difference between debt and deficit anymore.

It was my impression that the family was a more stable institution 70 years ago and that 'retirement' for many people meant 'moving in with the kids'. We do not have as many functional families now and a lot of elderly people would not have that resource.

I can understand your disagreeing with me; I would like to disagree with me. What I have written is where logic has lead me.

Jan

I was forced to pay into S.S. and have been receiving it for over 15 years. I will never live long enough to get my money back, let alone any kind of profit from the Roosevelt rip-off, but I'll do my best to squeeze every penny out of it that I can. I have always hated the "F" as in F.I.T. - F.I.C.A. - F.U.K.I.T.

I knew that you knew. :). But I can dream of things being how they should be! By defining what is right, I know what to work for.

The workers foot the bill currently. And under any government run program there always will be people paying for others benefits.

Mamaemma: If you mean 'this is not philosophically correct', I totally agree with you. But, as Wm is fond of saying, "If Bill Gates says one thing about how a computer works, and the computer does something else...the computer wins." It doesn't matter how brilliant Bill Gates is - reality is its own definition.

Ayn Rand was brilliant and her philosophy had a huge influence on me. (I read Anthem in grammar school and AS in HS.) But if some aspect of her philosophy does not 'work' in the real world, it does not work. There have been many experiments done on optimism in the human species and their results consistently show that people overestimate the probability that 'good times' are just around the corner and everything will come out well. The further in the future 'the corner' is, the more optimistic they are. (Psychopaths estimate the probabilities much more accurately, interestingly enough.) I actually think that +-2SD of the human population will not provide for retirement (so, somewhere around 80%).

So I have to say that in order for retirement system to 'work' it has to be able to 'get' (motivate/cause) that 80% to save for their future. A SS system that puts our involuntary donations into a privatized account is certainly better than the SS system we have right now. I can live with that until someone clever figures out how to motivate people to do it on their own.

Jan