The RAW Deal: Social Security

[coachdb18]

Social Security has been a tax for years, not the 'safety net' it was advertised by Roosevelt to be.

Not only is it a tax, but it's always been a raidable slush fund for legislators to raid for pet project money. IOU's for the 'advances', which will never be repaid, are stored in file cabinets in Parkerburg, WVa... $2.5TRILLION worth. They are stored in a three-ring binder, locked in the bottom drawer of a white metal filing cabinet in the Parkersburg offices of the Bureau of Public Debt. The agency, which is part of the Treasury Department, opened offices in Parkersburg in the 1950s as part of a plan to locate important government functions away from Washington, D.C., in case of an attack during the Cold War.

As for retirement funds, individuals are getting screwed for their 'investment', such that a married couple retiring last year after both spouses earned average lifetime wages paid about $598,000 in Social Security taxes during their careers. They can expect to collect about $556,000 in benefits, if the man lives to 82 and the woman lives to 85, according to a 2011 study by the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank. An investment in an interest bearing account would have made them millionaires several times over with the same money ... their money.

 

[MNGuy]

Shortly after we bought our house over ten years ago, I was reorganizing my financial records into a new fire safe, and added up all my contributions to Social Security. Then I calculated my average return on investment over the same time period. Then I calculated what I could have made if I had been able to invest my contributions to Social Security into my investments. My Social Security contributions alone would be worth $2.4 million.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Social Security has been a tax for years, not the 'safety net' it was advertised by Roosevelt to be.

Not only is it a tax, but it's always been a raidable slush fund for legislators to raid for pet project money. IOU's for the 'advances', which will never be repaid, are stored in file cabinets in Parkerburg, WVa... $2.5TRILLION worth. They are stored in a three-ring binder, locked in the bottom drawer of a white metal filing cabinet in the Parkersburg offices of the Bureau of Public Debt. The agency, which is part of the Treasury Department, opened offices in Parkersburg in the 1950s as part of a plan to locate important government functions away from Washington, D.C., in case of an attack during the Cold War.

As for retirement funds, individuals are getting screwed for their 'investment', such that a married couple retiring last year after both spouses earned average lifetime wages paid about $598,000 in Social Security taxes during their careers. They can expect to collect about $556,000 in benefits, if the man lives to 82 and the woman lives to 85, according to a 2011 study by the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank. An investment in an interest bearing account would have made them millionaires several times over with the same money ... their money.

Actually you're dead wrong. Social security money doesn't go into a savings about, it gets paid out almost immediately to someone collecting. What you're talking about is the Social Security "excess" fund not SS itself.

I'm not saying raiding the fund is a good thing but it wouldn't matter much if it wasn't there because SS isn't something you pay into now and draw out YOUR money later, it's something you pay into now, some one else spends and at some point in the future some guy will be paying in and you'll be drawing out.

 

[coachdb18]

Shortly after we bought our house over ten years ago, I was reorganizing my financial records into a new fire safe, and added up all my contributions to Social Security. Then I calculated my average return on investment over the same time period. Then I calculated what I could have made if I had been able to invest my contributions to Social Security into my investments. My Social Security contributions alone would be worth $2.4 million.

Makes Bernie Madoff look like a chump for thinking on such a small scale. To be corrupt, you can call on Wall Street, but to really REALLY fuck over a country, you need a progressive government.

 

[eyer]

Social security was originally created to help widows and orphans in survival...

...that even so-called "conservatives" now expect some sort of pension guarantee from such a forcibly collective program just proves how entrenched the entitlement mentality has become in the USSA today.

One day in the House of Representatives, a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when [Colonel David] Crockett arose:

“Mr. Speaker–I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

"Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.”

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.

http://www.fee.org/library/not-yours-to-give-2/

 

[coachdb18]

Social security was originally created to help widows and orphans in survival...

...that even so-called "conservatives" now expect some sort of pension guarantee from such a forcibly collective program just proves how entrenched the entitlement mentality has become in the USSA today.



http://www.fee.org/library/not-yours-to-give-2/

We need to stay vigilant for our opportunities to take back our country. Entitlement spending is killing our country, but only because there are so many with their hand out expecting a free ride. The more we can kill of these programs, the better. Never give up, and always remember, progressive describes the way a disease works, not a country.

 

[Sean Renaud]

We need to stay vigilant for our opportunities to take back our country. Entitlement spending is killing our country, but only because there are so many with their hand out expecting a free ride. The more we can kill of these programs, the better. Never give up, and always remember, progressive describes the way a disease works, not a country.

You're never going to get your country back. It's never ever ever going to happen and you may as well give up, your only alternative is to die tired.

 

[RobDownSouth]

We need to stay vigilant for our opportunities to take back our country.

It's not "your" country.
It never has been.
It never will be.

 

[coachdb18]

Social security was originally created to help widows and orphans in survival...

...that even so-called "conservatives" now expect some sort of pension guarantee from such a forcibly collective program just proves how entrenched the entitlement mentality has become in the USSA today.



http://www.fee.org/library/not-yours-to-give-2/

The recent smackdown by Cruz in Texas is like an oncoming truck to the progressive agenda, which is crashing on the rocks like every previous liberal government experiment in history. There have been others, and there will be more. As the left wing media continues to bleat and forecast the demise of the Tea Party, the conservative rollback continues to gain steam. It's getting resistance from the elite on the right, who fear their role as 'compromisers' will be undercut, and the left are in open firefight. Winning our country back will take time and effort, it won't be overnight, but this election should be a wakeup call to all who doubt that it is a force, and it is unstoppable.

 

[NeverEndMe]

I hear that social security will cease to exist within the next 20 years or so in the US. Is that true?

 

[coachdb18]

I hear that social security will cease to exist within the next 20 years or so in the US. Is that true?

It was a scheme of 'theft by government means' when it started, and it is a scheme of 'theft by government means' now. The effort to make it seem 'legitimate' as an 'entitlement' fell apart a long time ago. The only way to win when involved with progressives is not to play the game.

 

[aqwertyuiop]

SS was in a lock-box until LB Johnson changed the law in the 60's to fund welfare as part of his Great Society - Relection scheme.

 

[Sean Renaud]

I hear that social security will cease to exist within the next 20 years or so in the US. Is that true?

Why won't the Jens stop multiplying?! Iggy bomb.