SS As Your Savings Account

[BeFree]

Think of SS as your bank account and that your partner in that account is the US Government.

Each month you deposit money into that account.

Unbeknowest to you, your partner, the US, has been borrowing against that money in the account.

Now when you go down to make a withdrawal, the sweet little teller tells you there is no cash available.

Sure, once a month, after you meet all the guidelines, and you live that long, you get a bit of that money, but for the most part your partner has already spent the money.

In order for your partner to put that money back in the account, your partner is gonna tax you more, or go borrow more, or something. Or get you to forget about it.

At this point, it is up to you what your partner will do.

Added on edit:

And let us be clear: that money your partner spent was not spent on benefits to you. It was spent to cover up deficit spending elsewhere in your partner's business.

[dkf]

1. Except it's not a bank account...it's a pass through vehicle funding someone else's welfare.

It's never been your savings account. It's a faith based retirement fund where you rely on the goodwill of the next generation of workers to pay what will be a third of their salary to you.

[laughingliberal]

2. 1/3 of their salary? Employees pay 6.2% on gross. We're self employed & pay 15.3% on 92.35% of

...net. I can't find where anyone pays 33.3% to FICA.

[BeFree]

3. It is what it is

And your partner, who is also the banker and administrator of the fund, has effectively spent almost all the money that ever accumulated in that fund. And let us be clear: that money was not spent on benefits to you. It was spent to cover up spending elsewhere in your partner's business.

Had the admin not spent it, there would be something like 2 trillion dollars just sitting there.
And the admin would not be telling you that you are gonna have to take less money each month.
Had it not been spent, you would be getting more money each month.

[Warpy]

4. Uh, it's INSURANCE

and works the same way as auto or health insurance is supposed to work, funding the needs of people who deserve to be compensated. It's not an investment in any way, shape or form. Neither is it a retirement fund, as such. It is purely insurance.

Yes, Boomers were robbed to the tune of up to 50% of their overpayments for 30 years. That money is gone, all shoveled to the richest in the form of tax cuts we could never afford. Oh, there are t-bills it supposedly bought, but the giveaway to the solvency of those is the fact that there have been no COLAs for 2 years even with high inflation in food and now the Cat Food Commission exists to find a way to sell reduced benefits to the poor. That money is gone, folks, and we're not getting it back as such.

Like any insurance plan that runs short when it pays out benefits, it needs to raise the premiums. Social Security is different because raising the premiums should mean raising the earnings cap. They'd better do it fast, because that next Congress sure as hell won't.

[Vincardog]

7. If you have any worthless T bills I will gladly take them off your hands

[Warpy]

8. They're selectively worthless

Boomers hold the lion's share of the national debt. Then come foreign investors and then come institutional and private investors. The Boomers will be stiffed so that everybody else gets paid.

[Vincardog]

12. Fuck that. Tell the Chinese to bend over and take it for a change. If the FED's bills are good they

are good for EVERYONE.

[Vincardog]

5. That is until RayGun fixed it and had us OVERPAY it for OUR retirements. Remember the 2 TRILLION $

SURPLUS?

[laughingliberal]

9. Exactly. We paid far more than was needed to support retirees. The surplus we created was supposed

...to be for when we started retiring.

[TheKentuckian]

11. Please elaborate on this 1/3 income nonsense

If we do nothing, it pays out at 78% or so as far as can be projected after 2030ish when it would fall to that level.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

22. Working class people being preventing from starving makes Nordic Baby Jesus cry.

That's all you need to know.

[dkf]

23. We are expecting demographics such that there will be 3 workers per each retiree.

They will be charged with providing retirees a minimal livable income and their medical insurance which will only go up.

[laughingliberal]

26. We do have a surplus right now and SS can pay 100% of benefits until 2037 without changing anything

After that, 78% of the benefit can be paid into infinity without doing ANYTHING. All that's needed is to raise the cap.

All the rest is propaganda from those who have had their sights set on stealing our money for years.

[dkf]

35. Except we spent the surplus so we will use regular tax receipts to pay back the

Surplus. That still comes out of the workers pocket.

[laughingliberal]

36. Time to raise taxes on the rich. That's where the money went. I'm damned if I'll starve cause...

...St. Ronnie and his followers decided to worship the wealthy.

If they screw us on this, our government is heretofore known as the worst deadbeats ever. The moral hazard is incalculable.

[Hannah Bell]

31. the number of workers per retiree is irrelevant. that has already been factored into the equation.

[laughingliberal]

37. Yep. But the disinformation is strong in some. nt

[dkf]

46. There are only future tax receipt ious in the SS fund.

It's not like there are any producing assets in there.

[TheKentuckian]

49. That's temporary unless the boomers are immortal. It should balance again shortly

We also can't forget that boomers have double paid. The surplus theft is not acceptable. Hell, I've paid in for almost 25 years myself at the screw rate as well.

They can get our money back from those who it was redistributed to, the wealthy and/or military contractors. Anything else is a bunch of old bullshit that I'm not going to hear and will go against any other schemes and shenanigans to allow the wealthy to run off with out money.

[ljm2002]

24. What a load of hooey...

..."faith based retirement fund."

You sound just like the right wing scaremongers who want to convince people that SS will not be there for them. That makes it easier to do away with the program altogether, which is their long term goal.

Shame on you for making that argument here.

[laughingliberal]

27. Oh, it gets worse:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9527539&mesg_id=9528631

[Bluebear]

41. 'You sound just like the right wing scaremongers' - I like the bit about "welfare" in there too.

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Wrong in every way.

[laughingliberal]

10. K & R nt

[Zenlitened]

13. K&R. Good post.

You've oversimplified, of course, to make your point. But it's a point that needs to be made, and made clearly: "Entitlement reform" is shaping up to be robbery, a move to legitimize out and out theft of YOUR money, folks!

:thumbsup:

[suston96]

14. Sorry, you are wrong. Go to the link below and learn how it works......

....before you condemn anything. Your "partner" analogy has no merit.

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/fundFAQ.html#n4

The US Treasury uses one check book to make payments on all debts incurred by the government. These debts or obligations include payouts for Social Security and Medicare.

These programs contribute the cash the US Treasury needs to cover these payments. If the collections from Social Security and Medicare are not sufficient because of a poor economy - this has happened once or twice - the Trust Funds have securities they can redeem to raise the cash. No Social Security payment has ever been stopped because of "insufficient funds".

All of us who have contributed to the system have a bookkeeping account in the Social Security system that keeps track of what we paid in and from which what we will collect each month is determined.

Nothing "has been spent" because that is not how the system works. The full faith and credit of the United States - which validates that 20 dollar bill in your pocket - guarantees these payments will be made when the time comes for you and presently for all of us who are collecting and have been for years.

Again, 52 million recipients presently and many more millions in the past, have never missed a payment.

[BeFree]

15. So

Why are they now telling you that your benefits (payouts) have to be reduced?

[The Wielding Truth]

18. If you have a couple minutes read this report. It explains the problem.

There may be other solutions. Reducing benefits as of now is just one of many ideas.

[Hannah Bell]

32. because they want the money. duh.

[laughingliberal]

38. ROFL!! It is rather a no brainer, isn't it? nt

[The Wielding Truth]

16. It's more like a huge communal insurance policy or trust .

You pay until you need some of it in increments when you are of age. In the mean time others who need it are being given allowances from funds that they and all of us have been contributing.The profits on any interests are added to the funds and no money is spent on advertisement and about 6% spent on administration and oversight.

http://money.howstuffworks.com/question385.htm
You might have heard that the Social Security system currently takes in more money than it pays out in order to try to handle the baby boomer problem. What happens with the excess money the system collects? The Social Security system buys U.S. Treasury bonds with the surplus. Essentially, the government (in the form of the Social Security Administration) loans the surplus to itself.
In future decades, when it comes time to start drawing on the collected surplus, the government will pay itself back through tax revenue (or additional borrowing). The Social Security system will start cashing in the bonds, and the government will have to make good on them with tax revenue. That sounds weird because it is weird -- Whether or not it will work is a source of significant debate right now. The effect it will have is that it will shift the payment of Social Security benefits over to the government as a whole. The government as a whole, rather than the Social Security system, will have to repay the treasury bonds that the Social Security system will be cashing in. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens!

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/index.html

The outlook for Medicare has improved substantially because of program changes made in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (the "Affordable Care Act" or ACA). Despite lower near-term revenues resulting from the economic recession, the Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is now expected to remain solvent until 2029, 12 years longer than was projected last year, and the 75-year HI financial shortfall has been reduced to 0.66 percent of taxable payroll from 3.88 percent in last year’s report. Nearly all of this improvement in HI finances is due to the ACA. The ACA is also expected to substantially reduce costs for the Medicare Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) program; projected program costs as a share of GDP over the next 75 years are down 23 percent relative to the costs projected for the 2009 report.

[BeFree]

19. You got it!!!

You write:

That sounds weird because it is weird -- Whether or not it will work is a source of significant debate right now. The effect it will have is that it will shift the payment of Social Security benefits over to the government as a whole. The government as a whole, rather than the Social Security system, will have to repay the treasury bonds that the Social Security system will be cashing in. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens!

Thank you.... am getting a headache responding to those that don't get it. Maybe they will read your words and not knee-jerk into calling you a winger like they've done me?

[The Wielding Truth]

20. I was sharing that from the article. You should read the whole thing.

[BeFree]

21. What?

You don't get it? I got it. It is weird and who knows what will happen.
But somehow, someway, the debt will either be paid, or it won't.

What else is there to know?

[The Wielding Truth]

25. I just want to give credit . I get that we get it.

[BeFree]

50. Thanks

Sorry 'bout that. I knee-jerked a bit. I think I got an infection from hanging around some jerkers.
That's my excuse. <grin>

[Hannah Bell]

33. it will not "shift the payment". the supposedly underfunded portion is about 2% over

the fiduciary window.

and the assumptions used to generate that prediction are extremely conservative; in the past 10 years, the trustees' assumptions about even the short-term have been wrong 8/10ths of the time -- too pessimistic. this is why the date of social security's supposed "bankruptcy" has kept moving into the future.

if they can't get the short-term right, what makes anyone think their long-term predictions are better?

[laughingliberal]

40. +1000 nt

[suston96]

17. Why are they now telling you that your benefits (payouts) have to be reduced?

Because they - the Administrations present and past and that criminal commission - - are abdicating their duty to fix the economy and promote or even create jobs.

The easy way out? Cut what people who can complain the least receive instead of concentrating on growing or replacing the economic factors that create jobs.

[Imperialism Inc.]

28. Like any retirement fund or trust the SS trust purchased bonds.

They were treasury bonds. No one came and borrowed against anything.

[AnArmyVeteran]

29. Recced

[Hannah Bell]

30. ss wasn't designed as a "savings account". it was reagan/greenspan who turned

it into a savings account, & that was the beginning of the problem.

[sarcasmo]

34. I want to opt out, is there a form to opt out?

[JoePhilly]

39. Call Dick Armey ... that's his plan.

[laughingliberal]

42. I've noticed he has a few fans around here. nt

[JoePhilly]

43. It is interesting ...

Dick Armey, and his Dick Army, think that the way to make sure poor old people don't starve is to allow wealthy young people to get tax breaks on money that neither they, nor their great grand children will every need to spend.

And apparently, a woman who was a "stay at home mom" ... whose rich husband traded her in for a newer model at 50, well ... that old woman didn't put any money in, but her husband "opted" her OUT. She has no job skills. Too bad for her, bad decision, marrying that jerk and raising his kids for all those years. She can eat cat-food and like it.

The GOP is promoting a return to feudal society. Wealth families control all business and politics. You have a warrior class that can be deployed when needed to take from others. And then you have the peasants and serfs. They are allowed to have small businesses, but nothing that cuts into the profits of the Nobel class. The idiot (inbred) sons and daughters of the ruling class are GIVEN power (Bush II as a simple example).

Workers can die in accidents, and that's ok because high unemployment makes the competition for any job greater. In that way, the free market decides how "dangerous" any job might be. Look, if you want to EAT, crawl into the coal mine and hope it doesn't cave in, and while you crawl, thank us for giving you a job at all!!

I want the Tea Party hacks to OPT OUT across the board ... they should STOP using roads paid for by taxes and build their own. Bridges too.

These clowns are clueless.

[laughingliberal]

44. Well said. Thank you. nt

[sarcasmo]

45. self delete.

[Yupster]

48. Get a job as a teacher

in Texas, California or many other states.

Most public school teachers in those states are not in social security. Why? I have no idea.

The rest of us have no choice.

[sarcasmo]

51. Interesting that teachers in certain states are exempt.

[slackmaster]

47. K&R for doing a good job of describing why I don't think of it as a bank account

My gun collection is a bank account, as are my cameras, telescopes, coin collection, etc.

I like cool stuff.