"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
Surely there's more to it than that? What about the idea that the US is on the bubble, and that if things don't change our credit rating could drop. Could you imagine if US bonds became junk? That could be just one among many of the other economic disasters facing the US. Every world leader on Earth, should somehow find a way to forgive all debts, and reset the economy across the globe. Everyone seems to be in trouble.
Ok, basically, the US economy represents our potential available funs, our tax rate is how much of that we put to stuff in general, and then our budget is how much of that we put to specific things. We can make it solvent by adjusting either stuff within the budget or by raising taxes- and raising taxes to a level we've prospered under for decades in the past, not a heavy burden at that, And in order for debt to be valuable, we only need to be able to cover the interest, which is not hard to do, and an increase in Social Security payments due to Baby Boomers is not going to come within a thousand miles of threatening that.
The only way our rating is going to drop is if either A, we decide not to pay our debts- this is why the Tea Party is moronic by the way- or B, if our economy is already collapsed due to some entirely unrelated matter, and by 'collapsed' I mean 'worse than great depression bad.'
There is not a lot of ways for B to happen. Just about the only thing I can think of would be, well, A, declaring we're going to stop paying debts (again, completely moronic, there is no reason to ever do this, but hey, we have tea party people who want to try it).
Baring that, US debt is one of the most stable investments on Earth. Sure, economic disasters can and do happen, but even disasters don't affect our ability to cover the interest rate, and then all investors have to ask themselves is 'is the US eventually going to recover?'. If the answer is 'yes,' even if it takes a decade or more, then the debt's good, and considering the type of economic situation things would have to be for *that* to be a concern, probably safer than a lot of other things in the situation.
A thing to remember is the US is big. Very big. Incredibly huge. Some problems are 'big,' but in comparison to how much we currently put into them, not compared to our absolute capacity, or even our capacity-if-we-just-decide-to-try-a-bit-harder. Problems that are big compared to the US as a whole are very rare indeed, and this is not one of them.
"Whereas in 2005 they projected that spending on Medicare would increase to 13% of gross domestic product by 2080, now, as a result of a number of factors including Obamacare, the projections are down to 6% of GDP in 2090. "
Now, purely practically speaking we could've afforded 13%, but it's better if it's cheaper for the same or better service, I think everyone will agree (and even that's only with the still-flawed version- I do hope by 2090 we've improved it still further!). And now due to people doing stuff, the projections changed significantly.
Similar thing.
Social Security is in trouble if we refuse to do things we can without a doubt do.
But, I would like to invest in my own retirement that would pay much much better than Social Security.
I'm okay with forcing Americans to HAVE to invest in a retirement. Make it mandatory. But give them the option to invest in what they want instead of a government controlled and abused fund.
Again, my idea of an excellent government is a regulatory one, not an all-powerful one.
Social security is for people who may not have the means to create a proper retirement plan. If all the people with the actual money were allowed to opt out of paying, that would leave only the poor, less economically educated to pay into the system, which would make things even worse.
__________________
“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."
-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.
No, that's not correct. Social Security is a retirement plan for people who had the means to retire (for the most part) and paid into the retirement plan by authority of FICA.
I think a large part of the problem with Social Security is it is not very well-understood by Americans (and some theorize that it is unnecessarily complicated on purpose).
And here is a nice breakdown of how Social Security works (very simplistic):
That is definitely how it was originally designed, yes, (Actually, that is not how it was originally designed. It made accomodations for those that were near retirement when the legislation went into effect, yes, but it wasn't designed to just pay out to anyone who was old, even in the beginning) but that is not how it works. Now you get out so much money when you pay into it. You do not get Social Security benefits for just being alive: you have to have paid into it in order to collect a benefit at retirement.
If you did not pay into it, you can't collect anything no matter how poor you are. That's the type of person you talked about, right?
By the way, if those people you described (less educated and poor) were forced to invest in a legitimate retirement plan, they'd get more retirement benefits than if they paid into Social Security.
KMC Community Forums
Jul 25th, 2015 06:15 PM
