Posted on 01/29/2024 6:28:45 AM PST by reaganator
Watch this magic trick carefully:
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/specialissues.html
“The trust funds now hold only special issues”
So what are these “special issues”?
Follow the pea while I move my hands quickly:
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10564
“Section 201 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. §401)
requires the managing trustee of the Social Security trust
funds (the Secretary of the Treasury) to invest Social
Security tax revenues in special “nonmarketable” federal
public-debt obligations called special issues”
In other words—Ponzi scheme.
“”I am led to believe that currently the Social Security contributions coming in to the system are greater than the cost going out in benefit checks and administrative costs.””
I wonder....I don’t know how that could be refuted..
Administrative costs could always rise - thanks to whoever is in charge - thus, those costs could eat up any surplus. If what you say is true, how long will it be before THEY figure that out? “Gee, the cost of administering those funds just overwhelms us.”
Are we jaded - skeptical? You bet and why wouldn’t we be? Our government has proven to be untrustworthy!!!! It’s not the way some or perhaps MOST of us at FR started out in life. We listened - now we are finding out that we’ve always been lied to - but probably not to the extent as we are now....
Thank you for that. You’re apparently more in tune with the nitty gritty of the investment of SS funds than I am...I DO know that it could be changed if Congress would do their jobs for the American people and change it. Letting us use our own contributions for investment makes more sense than anything the government comes up with. I guess THEY are looking out for us as we’re not smart enough to take care of ourselves - besides we might spend too much money buying lottery tickets - can’t have that!
Your SSA gov link says "The trust funds now hold only special issues, but they have held public issues in the past.". Any idea when the change happened?
“Any idea when the change happened?”
Good question—at least partially since 1985—this is mentioned in passing in this article:
https://rollcall.com/2023/03/02/obscure-law-contains-debt-limit-escape-hatch-for-social-security/
These scam artists are very sneaky.
Together with their open border plan is nothing more than another aspect of the Cloward-Piven strategy to overload our welfare and social security systems and use the resulting chaos to usher in and implement Marxism by public demand.
Also, don't make too much about my statement of China being the largest foreign owner of U.S. treasuries. Every now and then China sells some and Japan buys some making Japan the largest foreign debt holder, then they swap places back. It's probably best to think of China and Japan always tying for first place as our largest foreign debt holders.
But for the most part, it's American institutions that own US debt. For most of my life it was the SS fund that had the most. Then with our decade and a half of Quantitative Easing by the Federal Reserve and them increasing their balance sheet, the Fed Reserve became the largest US debt holder. With the recent Quantitative Tapering (reducing the Fed's balance sheet), I wouldn't be surprised if the SS fund is now back to being #1.
And then there's all the state-run pension plans. If you add them all together they are a sizable chunk of US debt holders. Particularly with the PBGC pension insurance regulations (think FDIC for banks, only for pensions) saying only a portion of a pension's investments can be in equities. Given that the PBGC's regulations say that the "safe" portion of pension investments can be in bonds, and since treasury bonds have a better return that savings accounts but are safer than corporate bonds, the federal government is basically saying through the PBGC regulations that state pensions have to have a significant portion of investments in US debt. IMHO, that's the federal government forcing the states to invest in the federal government, which drives up the price of treasuries (lowering treasury rates).
Teresa Ghilarducci
Thanks.
L
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