If you only read one article about Soc. Security - make it this one:

[truedelphi]

The article has the words "Brain Damaged" in the header. Currently it is the top article, but if not, you'll need to scroll down.

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/003566.html#more


<snipping out two important paragraphs>

Specifically regarding Social Security, we're currently transferring about 4.2% of U.S. gross domestic product from current workers to retirees. To pay promised benefits, this will have to increase to 6.2% in 2035 and then decline to 6.0% in 2050 and remain there. (See the 2011 Trustees Report for details.) Those are the only numbers that matter, not what the trust fund was "invested" in.

And this is simply not a problem for a rich society like the U.S. The economy continually grows more productive—95.8% (100-4.2) of today's economy is a lot smaller than 93.8% (100-6.2) of the economy of 2035. So people working in 2035 can produce enough for all the promised Social Security benefits and still be much richer than workers today.

####

My two cents - I threw this link into a small file and added it to my Hard Drive.

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/index.html

[madfloridian]

1. Recced and kicked. Tired of these attacks on the safety nets..

especially by our own party.

[snot]

2. Wow; THIS is being unrecc'd? Really?

[chill_wind]

5. Too bizarre.

Here's a K & R.

[PoliticAverse]

3. It's not a question of can it be paid it's a question of will it be paid. n/t

[truedelphi]

9. That is a most astute way of stating it. Nice to read it.

With the fox in charge of the chickens' eggs, it might not work out all that well for us chickens.

[DirkGently]

4. SS is the one thing that ISN'T broken. Which is why it must go, of course.

[Scuba]

6. But I thought Social Security was broke. They've been telling me that for 30 years! ...

... although they never seem to mention that the Army must be broke too. Same for those tax rebates to GE and Exxon.

[truedelphi]

7. One commentator over at the tinyrevolution site said

This:
(from bobs)
Social Security IS merely an INCOME TAX. Its just that YOU recieve a refund when 65 yrs old. The Social Security Act DEMANDS that ANY funds recieved each day that are NOT spent on clients and daily opperation MUST be lent to the Treasury on a daily basis, midnight to midnight DC time.(example: if SS collects $100.00 TODAY and sends out or spends $25.00 then $75.00 is loaned to the Treasury in the form of buying T-bills,TODAY, which garner interest so its called investing)

The Social Security Administration IS SEPARATE from the Treasury Dept.

##############################

My commnet:

What is important is whether or not the wonderful people in charge of everything are playing fairly. And they aren't. So it may be that the whole reason so many of the elite, from most of those that Obama has appointed on the Cat Food Commission, to so many Republican "leaders" who insist that the fund is going broke is because it already has.

It should have a surplus of 2.1 trillions ofdf dolars plus. But the thieves have done their work, and what we "recipients" will find waiting for us is a big box of IOU's.

[slipslidingaway]

8. kick for later, thanks. n/t