The great Social Security Scam, circa 1935

[amicus]

The Social Security Scam of the Century


That ‘darling’ of the democrats, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, usually voted at or near the top of the list of ‘great’ Presidents, perhaps does not deserve that accolade.

The Social Security Act of 1935, taxed a large portion of the entire working population for, ‘old age insurance’. If you note that the life expectancy for men in 1930, was 55.5 years.

In other words, the Roosevelt administration submitted and Congress approved a form of mandatory taxation to support retirement benefits for men who would be dead nearly 10 years before they became eligible.

What a rip off! How did they get away with it?

Add to that, that the Great Depression only ended after US involvement in War was precipitated by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Add also that many of the sweeping social programs instituted under Roosevelt were abolished as ‘unconstitutional’…without legal ground in our basic documents.

One might reconsider the place in history occupied by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Source: National Vital Statistics System.
http://www.efmoody.com/estate/lifeexpectancy.html
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 1997
LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH
TOTAL 49.2 51.5 56.4 59.2 63.6 68.1 69.9 70.8 73.9 75.4 76.5
MEN 47.9 49.9 55.5 57.7 61.6 65.5 66.8 67.0 70.1 71.8 73.6
WOMEN 50.7 53.2 57.4 60.9 65.9 71.0 73.2 74.6 77.6 78.8 79.4


LIFE EXPECTANCY: (1999) In 1900, the life expectancy was 47 years of age. Only one person in 25 had then survived to age 60. Women lived shorter lives due to childbirth.

LIVING LONGER- (1999) In ancient Greece, for example, life expectancy at birth was 20. When the Declaration of Independence was signed, life expectancy was still just 23; the median age was 16. Even as recently as 1900, most Americans died by age 47. In 1870, only 2.5% of all Americans made it to age 65. By 1990, that percentage had increased five-fold to 12.7%. Today, 31 million people are over 65 -- and the figures continue to grow, bolstered by advances in medicine and public health.

(In 1990 only 12.7% reach age 65) Even as late as 1990, only 12.7 percent lived long enough to collect benefits from taxes paid for forty or more years of work.


The Social Security Act (Act of August 14, 1935) [H. R. 7260]
http://www.ssa.gov/history/35act.html
An act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment compensation laws; to establish a Social Security Board; to raise revenue; and for other purposes.

(7) provide that, if the State or any of its political subdivisions collects from the estate of any recipient of old-age assistance any amount with respect to old-age assistance furnished him under the plan, one- half of the net amount so collected shall be promptly paid to the United States.

(1) An age requirement of more than sixty-five years, except that the plan may impose, effective until January 1, 1940, an age requirement of as much as seventy years


Bear witness to the most obscene tax scam in the history of the US Government.

Amicus…(’The testicular Troll or uncontrolled arrogant anonymous orifice’) say that out loud a couple times, really has a nice ring to it….

 

[Clare Quilty]

Your masters have done an admirable job in brain-washing you to subordinate your interests and those of the vast majority of working Americans to those of a coterie of Super rich-- a group which, despite what Rush and Carlton Sheets may tell you, you will never belong to.

Repost this specious crap when you are 65 years old and faced with $300 a month worth of prescription medication.

Welcome to my ignore list. Enjoy your stay.

 

[amicus]

I am 65 my lil rugmuffin and doing quite well thank you.

I never tire of seeing the expected personal attacks, it acts to confirm my opinion that most democrats are born that way and like skin color..can do little about it...so sad..alack alas, woe is me.

amicus

 

[RavenSpirit2k4]

Actually, this thread serves as a good reminder for those of us who might write fiction set in ancient times to keep our characters young to maintain realism.

 

[hiddenself]

You are clueless on this (as in many other things).

The point is not life expectancy at birth. This was low in the early 20th century because of high infant mortality. And infants who died in their first or second year certainly paid no contributions.

The crucial issue is how long people live once they reach productive age and start contributing (say, at 30). For those born in the early 1900s and were still alive in 1930 (30 years old), life expectancy was 66 and increasing.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/pdf/nvsr51_03t11.pdf

That's the AVERAGE life expectancy. Any good demographer will tell you that means that more than half (approximately two thirds) of those who lived to see 30 would be expected to live beyond 66.

Stick to your usual crap. Facts do not agree with you.

 

[amicus]

clueless

You are issued at Social Security Card at birth, to work any where it is mandatory you provide that card and number. Kids at 15 and 16 begins paying those taxes...that is closer to 50 years than it is 30, my friend.

And yes..I am playing fast and loose with statistics and facts and was hoping someone would call me out on it.

Fact and statistics can be used to prove just about anything, as a few select posters on this forum well know; which is why I do not often use the results of research to make a point.

Regardless of the scam, which no one wants to see, I do not grant Government the right to tax me or anyone else, to provide for a 'general' old age security or insurance plan.

According to our Constitution, both the Income Tax and the Social Security and Medicare taxes are illegal and out of place in a free society.

The free market system would easily deal with the needs of retirement and pension investments and if we can get the government the hell out of medicine, the free market will also provide quality care at reasonable and affordable cost.

Those who desire 'big brother' to manage their lives, surely have a right to think that way, but I would rather you do it in Sweden or someother backwater of civilization.


This blurb was taken from the US Dept of Vital Statistics:

(In 1990 only 12.7% reach age 65) Even as late as 1990, only 12.7 percent lived long enough to collect benefits from taxes paid for forty or more years of work.)

Argue with that why don't you?

87.3% of those paying social security taxes will not live long enough to collect. Does that really make sense to you?

Amicus (thank you, I can now add, 'clueless' to my repertoire.)

 

[thenry]

(In 1990 only 12.7% reach age 65) Even as late as 1990, only 12.7 percent lived long enough to collect benefits from taxes paid for forty or more years of work.)

Argue with that why don't you?

87.3% of those paying social security taxes will not live long enough to collect. Does that really make sense to you?

I don't know where you are getting your statistics from, or rather your interpretation, because in 1990 12.7% of the population was sixty-five or older. Which is not at all the same thing.

The free market system would easily deal with the needs of retirement and pension investments and if we can get the government the hell out of medicine, the free market will also provide quality care at reasonable and affordable cost.

I would love to hear an explanation for how the free market "provides" things for people who produce nothing. Perhaps I need reference recent developments in IBM penshioners' funds?

Or maybe you have people paying into the private retirement fund of their choice. And they did this their entire lives by choice because they were smart or something? Maybe they saved up all their funds on their own because the free market "bears" a much higher average wage than the goverment inforced minimum of $5.25. Businesses just love to be reminded that people "need" more money than they would actually work for.

And then we have all of the lovely widows, orphans, and blind people the bulk of social security actually originally paid for. I understand on the free market raising children only nets money if you can sell them.

And you cannot tell me there isn't negative market pressure in the healthcare market even if only in the form of rising insurance premiums. People still want the best and bitch when it ain't gonna happen. Oh, wait, maybe it's because everyone knows they always have the emergency rooms to fall back on. Well, if I didn't have any money I sure would love to trade a kidney for repair of my auto accident injuries. Let's just hope that car crash didn't damage the other one.

 

[gauchecritic]

I'm not sure about the point of the arguement here. I think thenry covered most of what I was going to say but; (leaving out the 'fact' of personal abuse about rabid capitalist running dogs) where is the difference in paying to a private pension fund and paying into a government fund.

I know that you know the only difference is in the administration. Whichever fund you pay into if you die before you retire you don't collect.

Add to that, that the tax you pay for pension (National Insurance over this side) is not invested in any stocks and bonds, get rich quick, die a pauper when the market crashes scheme, but is used to pay for current pensions.

Oh my word. Is it this that bothers you so much? You're not getting back money that you invested with the government (which is probably actually worth about half of what your pension is at the moment) but that you actually have to depend on people you don't know, some of them work shy, shiftless, trailer park living communists to pay their dues.

I'll bet you spend all day wondering where you're going and why you're sat in that handbasket.

Gauche

 

[amicus]

Ahhh..such an outpouring of love and respect from the last two posts...I am underwhelmed...

Where is it written in your silly assed book of life that anyone outside your fictitious God has any right to any portion of my life or any one elses?

All your grand utopian schemes of a perfect world, free housing, free health care, free education, jobs for all, rest on a simple, glaring and most obscene assumption: namely that you have the right to use 'force' to 'make' people do as you wish.

The real reason wars continue is that you, with a modicum of intelligence, think you are so superior to the common man, that you 'think' you have the right to manage his life and resources for his own 'good' as you truly believe the common man is not capable of managing his own affairs..

Bullshit!

You Cafe' socialists have not changed since the 30's, the mere idea of 'freedom' shakes your very foundations...that anyone would challenge your intellectual superiority and assert that the 'common man' has rights...topples your tawdry temple of Utopianism.

People care for people, we look after our own. It is only when you, with your grand schemes of 'brotherly love' and 'equality for all' drains our resources to support your non producing rhetorical visions of a perfect socialist world that our ability to take care of ourselves and support you parasites is strained.

Free people all over the world had hopes that when the Socialist experiment in Russia died a long overdue and painful death, that eyes would be opened.

But, oh, no, not to be. I begin to think it is endemic in European society that the word, 'freedom' has no definition.

That is why we left your nasty asses over there in the first place. Perhaps the 'Isolationists' in American were right, we should have left you to your own devices.

There was a book in the 60's or 70's..."East minus West Equal Zero" To translate...Europe, minus America, remains in the middle ages...where you truly belong.

May you get what you want.

Amicus Veritas

 

[wishfulthinking]

May you get what you want. Amicus Veritas

You certainly did!

Hi Amicus. I see you're trying to inflame people and lapping it up when they meet your expectations, thereby reinforcing your own views. Naughty boy

 

[amicus]

The 'inflamatory' remarks are only an off chance of 'goading' those advocates of the left to defend their positions. It should be obvious to all who read, that they will not..thus can not...justify enslaving mankind.

case made

amicus

 

[gauchecritic]

The 'inflamatory' remarks are only an off chance of 'goading' those advocates of the left to defend their positions. It should be obvious to all who read, that they will not..thus can not...justify enslaving mankind.

case made

amicus

Nice (original sense) logic.

Politics and logic. Who needs 'em?

We'll just stick with enslaving inferior races then. Or better still enslaving ordinary people to a wage.

Better yet, enslaving any individual with the upkeep of their own useless, unproductive forebears instead of leaving them out on the ice.

Slavery and logic. Does that work? Or are we only allowed to deal with one type of semantic slavery at a time?

Oops. Spoiled the logic there. Tcha. Excluding necessary data. What am I like?

Gauche

 

[amicus]

Geez, you awkward man, left handed at that...why must you be so damned predictable?

The best defense is a good offense, or so I have heard, and you surely use that tactic.

C'mon Gauche/Left tell us how you justify sacrificing the 'individual' for the greater good. We are waiting with bated breath!

amicus

 

[Pure]

Amicus' re-hash of Ayn Rand:

Where is it written in your silly assed book of life that anyone outside your fictitious God has any right to any portion of my life or any one elses?

Silly question: Where is it 'written in your silly assed book' that one gets to keep 100% of the products of his/her labor?

In any groups, be it tribe or US, there is 'contribution' to the common good; not exactly voluntary. Why, because without the group, the individual wouldn't be able to labor and get (and retain) any 'products' of it.

If 'he', for instance, made a jacket of skins, anyone of superior strength could take it away. Hence the group has sanctions against theft, and in modern society, that involves cops, and they have salaries. etc. So Amicus you rest in your home, typing BS on your keyboard, without invasions and burglaries because 'a portion of your life'--idiotic as it is-- is taken from you in taxes.

All your grand utopian schemes of a perfect world, free housing, free health care, free education, jobs for all, rest on a simple, glaring and most obscene assumption: namely that you have the right to use 'force' to 'make' people do as you wish.


The 'state' or even governing council of a tribe, is always given a right to use force, and, generally a monopoly of it. The police legitimately use force, not to make people do as "I" wish, but as the society wishes. Now, the police drive cars, Amicus. Someone has to pay for them. Hence a part of your labor is 'seized' (you would say) as taxes; if you dont pay, 'force' is used, say, to sell our house from under you, grab your bank acct etc. So 'force' and _making people do stuff they might not otherwise do_ (hand over money) is built into the system from the get go. And you benefit from it, despite your fuzzy resentful 'thinking', if I may use the term loosely.

 

[gauchecritic]

Geez, you awkward man, left handed at that...why must you be so damned predictable?

The best defense is a good offense, or so I have heard, and you surely use that tactic.

C'mon Gauche/Left tell us how you justify sacrificing the 'individual' for the greater good. We are waiting with bated breath!

amicus

Look ami (not see, note the difference) if you want to argue communism versus capitalism then fine. I'm up for that. If you want to argue your choice of the emotive phrase 'slavery' (which was my first pick in essence, albeit hidden behind humour and sarcasm) then that's fine too.

If you promise to reply to any carefully worded critique (gauche or droit) then I am perfectly willing to provide one, on the opposite of any subject you cite.

But why argue if you won't be consistant?

Predictable, another nice (original sense) word to use in both arguement and/or debate. Give me something to argue against will you? If not I shall simply return to the old method of taking the piss and laughing whilst I do it.

FYI I use the term gauche as in the modern sense, without sensibility, cack-handed.

Gauche

 

[Xelebes]

Anywho... about the 65 year limit when 55 was the life expectancy. It was more affordable for the government to place this on the people. Right now, it poses a huge threat to the economy if we can possibly support such thing.

 

[amicus]

Dear Pure...perhaps a rehash of Ayn Rand and JS Mill and Bentham and Thomas Paine and dozens of others you probably know...

In college..in the 60's a friend of mine majored in Economics and began arguing the damnedest Keynesian line of BS I had ever heard...we tallked....I surveyed his course load backwards and forwards and not a single course in his schedule referred to Classical Economics...as anything other than 'obsolete'...I went to the Dean of the school and managed to get some changes.

So it does not surprise me that the 90 percent of 'one way' professors have left out a part of the education of many.

There was until about 1896...a very clear interpretation of the Constitution in terms of who could be tax and how much. They had to amend the Constitution to make income tax legal.

A little earlier than that, some states took it upon themselves to tax 'property' to fune 'Universal education' another huge mistake that has left the United States in 30th position in terms of quality education.

It is obscene to go to the grocery store and pay 7 to 10% sales tax on the food one buys...especially people on a limited budget.

Low taxation or 'minimum' taxation permits the individual to keep the fruits of his labor and decide how to use those resources.

High taxation results in oppression and tyranny and a stifled economy as resources are not wisely used...

But then...you know all of this...

You still justify the use of 'force' to confiscate the wealth of others to suit your own ends...I guess we should feel lucky you leave us about half of what we earn. Gee...thanks...maybe if I am quiet you won't take more?

amicus

 

[The_old_man]

I think I'll put in my two cents.

The social security law, as proposed and passed, was,and still is, a classic PONSI SCAM.

Total cumulative taxation in the U.S.A. approaches 90%. Start at the most basic beginning of any product, add all the taxes paid by each entity, (individual and corporate) at each level of production. After each level the tax bite is passed on to the next as a cost, the labor at this next level is taxed as is the company. This compounding eventually makes the end product cost the consumer all those cumulated, compounded, taxes.

Still the best country to live in.

 

[amicus]

Hey oldman...appreciate your comments...thank you..and yes,

'the only country to live in.' let them eat cake.


amicus

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Amicus, maybe I'm missing the point of your experiment on the left as you call it. You put up a statement, admit that it uses bad statistics to prove its point. The left points out the bad statistics, creates a few logical points about them. You pretend you didn't hear it and dance around saying attack from the left. Why do they hurts us so? Why do they rant so? Don't they know anything not by Ayn Rand is lies?

I am going to propose an analogy for all the Pratchett readers on this thread. i doubt you'll get it and that's probably a shame. There is a character in "Night Watch" called Carcer who is villified not so much because he commits murders in cold blood, but because he will deny it even when caught in the act. Every time he does a tap dance about how he's the victim and when he's winding up Vimes he makes a lot of cracks about why Vimes would want to kill an unarmed citizen like himself. This is immediately after trying to kill Vimes with multiple daggers. Amicus, you sometimes act like Carcer. You deliberately flame and attack and use skewed interpretations and then cry crocadile tears when they're used against you. That is a character flaw.

As for the point of your argument, what will we ever agree on. You believe in the power of the masses, the belief held by all the great communistic thinkers. If you read Marx, you'd find yourself agreeing more times than you'd like. I however am strongly for the individual, the free-thinker, the inventor, the rebel, the non-conformist. I hold the Ken Kesey belief that resistance against conformity makes us stronger and those that are "insane" are the people we should see more of in the world. Where would we be without the non-conformist "madness" of Wells, Einstein, Copernicus, Socrates, Poe, Rand.

Thus because of this rift in our core values, we are forever condemned to disagree on most issues. Though we both share a similar love of science, reading, and the power of thought, we will always disagree it seems. A shame, perhaps, but what isn't?

So fight your leftist windmalls Don Amicus. Strike down the taint of communism on your mighty steed of free-market economics. It will be a spectacle worthy enough to be written down and copied for generations.

-The Devil, advocateless

 

[smutpen]

If humans were socially evolved enough for Libertarianism to work, we would already have it.

Indeed, it would be indistinguishable from Communism, because nobody would be interested in amassing huge fortunes and living in outrageous luxury while children starved a mile away.

Likewise, nobody would be satisfied and complacent with handouts, but would strive to their utmost to create, to produce, to contribute.

Unfortunately, that time doesn't look to be coming soon.

One of the most fascinating digressions in Jared Diamond's Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel explains why Libertarianism is a fantasy.

In early human societies, social groups were small, and kinship bonds kept a measure of peace. As soon as they grew too big for that, a situation always arose in which disputes elevated to murder. The kinship bonds still existing led to waves of murder and counter-murder. Society degenerated into armed camps, knocking each other off as convenient.

Not a nice way to live, and it makes you easy pickings for the more unified tribe in the next valley over.

(Libertarians have some vague sense of this, which is why most of them are so into guns. They like to think they could maintain some little fortress of comfort and freedom in such a world, but in fact they would be rolled over in short order by the first warlord to come along with an appealing ideology.)

The only solution to this situation is centralized control of force, and the only question remaining is how to exert some restraint on whoever wields that force.

Diamond doesn't say government is a good thing; he calls all forms of government kleptocracies. They are a necessary evil.

The framers of the Constitution understood this implicitly, and I doubt that you or I could come up with anything that would work better.

 

[amicus]

Thoughtful post...

Not familiar with Jared Diamond and the book you referenced...

It is a task to comprehend the transition between 'kinship' groups and a wider society.

If the 'proof of the pudding' is in the eating...then that transition has been successful all over the world in many varied societies.

The vast difference between the wealthy and the poor is also not easy to fathom. Every possible form of utopian political structure has been attempted to 'redistribute' wealth more evenly. I think none have worked.

My conclusion is simplistic...acknowledge that humans have innate rights...act to protect those rights. From that basis the rest of the system falls in place. It needs 'tweaked' from time to time, but I have seen no other system in all the history of man that has accomplished nearly what we have.

amicus

 

[Xelebes]

Thoughtful post...

Not familiar with Jared Diamond and the book you referenced...

It is a task to comprehend the transition between 'kinship' groups and a wider society.

If the 'proof of the pudding' is in the eating...then that transition has been successful all over the world in many varied societies.

The vast difference between the wealthy and the poor is also not easy to fathom. Every possible form of utopian political structure has been attempted to 'redistribute' wealth more evenly. I think none have worked.

My conclusion is simplistic...acknowledge that humans have innate rights...act to protect those rights. From that basis the rest of the system falls in place. It needs 'tweaked' from time to time, but I have seen no other system in all the history of man that has accomplished nearly what we have.

amicus

You do realise that rights vary differently from people. Some people will give up your freedoms to be fed and loved and like it that way. Just walk into the BDSM forums and see for yourself.

And it would be foolish to say that that redistributions have never worked. They have always worked - just never in a large scale. One could surmise that a corporation is very much like a communist state itself - those who go against it get dismissed but those who follow and help it will further the survival of the corporation.

 

[amicus]

xelebes....

Can not argue either of your points....but the underlying thought seems to be that there are no basic values mutual to all. And, I think that is not true.

We may not exercise those rights to 'choose' for many reasons, nonetheless we do possess those innate rights of life and liberty.

And yes...many of us are driven by out pasts, preferring to become part of something larger than ourselves, to follow and be guided by it.

Corporations, Unions, 'isms' of all sorts can and do restrict and oppress..it remains a matter of choice to oppose them.

amicus

 

[Pure]

Amicus said,

"Where is it written in your silly assed book of life that anyone outside your fictitious God has any right to any portion of my life or any one elses?"

Amicus later said,

Low taxation or 'minimum' taxation permits the individual to keep the fruits of his labor and decide how to use those resources.

This is what makes it impossible to debate you. Constant shifting of position. First you talk of "ANY" right to "ANY" portion; now your talking about the gov taking more than a minimum (defined by you.)

Do you concede a right of an elected or representative goverment (i.e, one which acts concordantly with the wishes of the vast majority) to collect a 'minimum' of taxes?