Social Security - your thoughts?

#28
#28
Planning on not using it and continuing to pay into it is essentially giving up. I just want what's fair - show me the money!
 
#29
#29
Thunder Good-Oil said:
You can not let the public take a one time payment and opt out. Half are of less than average intelligence. Many will spend it all on lottery tickets or new pickup trucks. Then what happens after they spend it all? They’ll just end up on some sort of different government assistance program.
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Truth.
But this is a opportune time to talk about the philosophy of governance. We can't do X because people will squander and be back on the government teet. The answer is to not have people on the government teet. Once that principle was violated, it now becomes the default. Returning back to the original constitutional scope is impossible now. Once the program/benefit is started it never sunsets.
 
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#30
#30
Every time a person on SS/Medicare dies, some government bureaucrat get’s a huge smile knowing they won again.
 
#34
#34
BigOrangeMojo said:
I compared my estimated benefits and the rate return on mine and my employer's contributions

It was depressing comparing that to what I make when I invest my own $$$
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This 100%. My husband and I are both comfortably retired. We were able to do this by making saving and investing a major financial priority for decades. We did not take vacations we couldn't afford, buy a new car every other year, didn't carry a lot of credit card debt, etc. With a couple of rollover accounts we could self direct we spent weekends researching stocks and in a down market and made some good money on our own aside from our work 401K's., but it was A LOT of work. Like having another job kind of work. As many have mentioned in this thread we did not factor SS into our retirement so that money is gravy and we would have preferred to take what we paid in and handled and invested it ourselves. I don't pretend to know what the solution is but I do hate kicking this can down the road for younger generations to try to solve because the braintrust in Washington doesn't seem to be good at handling the nations finances.
 
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#37
#37
KB5252 said:
This has been talked about since I was a kid. The issue is we add more takers and have fewer givers. I thinks it's the main reason behind our open border policy.

As pj said, it's really just a government sponsored pyramid scheme and the wheels are going to come off eventually.
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UNITED STATES: Birth rates tumble to record low infographic

"Over a decade ago, the estimated fertility rate was 2.1 children per U.S. woman. Last year it fell to 1.6, which is below replacement levels, meaning more people now die every day in the United States than are being born."

With fewer people being born now, in about 18-20 years there will be a baby bust generation with fewer people working meaning fewer paychecks for Dems to steal from so they will have to let foreigners into the country to work to have enough paychecks to steal money from.
 
#38
#38
jmacvols1 said:
UNITED STATES: Birth rates tumble to record low infographic

"Over a decade ago, the estimated fertility rate was 2.1 children per U.S. woman. Last year it fell to 1.6, which is below replacement levels, meaning more people now die every day in the United States than are being born."

With fewer people being born now, in about 18-20 years there will be a baby bust generation with fewer people working meaning fewer paychecks for Dems to steal from so they will have to let foreigners into the country to work to have enough paychecks to steal money from.
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This trend dictates America MUST have immigrants. We aren't in a position to take an isolationist approach. The real key, of course, is creating intelligent immigration policy. And since DC controls the policy, there will never be any intelligent immigration policy.
 
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#39
#39
Thunder Good-Oil said:
You can not let the public take a one time payment and opt out. Half are of less than average intelligence. Many will spend it all on lottery tickets or new pickup trucks. Then what happens after they spend it all? They’ll just end up on some sort of different government assistance program.

Worst case scenario is that the surplus of the trust fund disappears and is not replenished. Then the current retiree/beneficiaries will simply have their benefits cut to however much is collected from payrolls every year. Maybe something like a 25% cut in payouts.

It won’t take much to reverse the shrinking surplus. The 6.2% (12.4% with employer match) can be slightly increased. The politicians voting for this will be kicked out of office in the next election cycle.

The other way to reverse the trend is to cut benefits. There are several ways to do that. Raise the ages before the same level of benefits are paid out. 62 is the minimum. Most people don’t understand that you begin receiving benefits anytime from age 62 through age 70 with an increasing formula for benefits the longer you wait. So that formula could be adjusted by adding a year or two for each level. 64 instead of 62. 72 instead of 70. Etc.

Another option is to cut the COLAs.

The least painful method is to make SLIGHT adjustments to each piece. But again, the legislators that support ANY payment reduction will lose their job in the ne t election cycle. They all keep deferring the belt tightening to future office holders.
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get rid of the max out and you could fix it.
 
#40
#40
Dad passed when I was young. Lost all of his retirement from the Teamsters(he was a truck driver for Mason Dixon) because he was laid off when he passed. My mother did not get one dime of it. Our little bit of social security that we got accompanied by her small paychecks is how we survived.

Not arguing for it or against, just sharing my only personal experience with it.
 
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#42
#42
ClearwaterVol said:
get rid of the max out and you could fix it.
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I have been paying the max into that system for years. And now there's talk of means testing my payout, raising the age for 'retirement' AND increasing what I pay into it??? Tell me again how this isn't flat out theft. Please. I'm all ears.

Just tell me the government is going to confiscate my money and give it to somebody else. I might be able to reconcile that somehow.
 
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#43
#43
McDad said:
This trend dictates America MUST have immigrants. We aren't in a position to take an isolationist approach. The real key, of course, is creating intelligent immigration policy. And since DC controls the policy, there will never be any intelligent immigration policy.
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So the real question is what immigrants do we allow in our country? Do we want people with no education that are lazy AF or do we want educated people that come here with something to offer?
 
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#44
#44
SpaceCoastVol said:
I have been paying the max into that system for years. And now there's talk of means testing my payout, raising the age for 'retirement' AND increasing what I pay into it??? Tell me again how this isn't flat out theft. Please. I'm all ears.

Just tell me the government is going to confiscate my money and give it to somebody else. I might be able to reconcile that somehow.
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Every dime you earn under $400k will not be taxed, Joe said so.
 
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#45
#45
BigOrangeMojo said:
I compared my estimated benefits and the rate return on mine and my employer's contributions

It was depressing comparing that to what I make when I invest my own $$$
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I haven't looked at mine in a while. Does the SS website still say you're only going to receive 75% of your benefit unless Congress makes changes?
 
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