Posted on 06/06/2009 11:48:52 AM PDT by moneyrunner
In 1962 GM had 464,000 workers and was paying benefits to 40,000 retired workers. There was one retiree for every 11.6 employees. The average age at death was 67. GM currently has 62,000 hourly workers and 29,000 salaried workers in the USA. Today GM also has 493,000 retired workers drawing benefits and the average age at death is 77. That is 5.4 retirees for every single active GM worker. Over 75% of the retirees were hourly workers. The average retiree receives $37,800 in payments annually plus medical benefits.
There is no possible way that a single employee can support 5.4 retirees in the manner they have become accustomed. This is why the UAW has already begun cutting benefits to current retirees as a result of the bailout deal. GM has transferred its liabilities to a trust and as part of the bailout the UAW gets a 17.5% ownership position in GM plus some other payments. When GM comes out of the bankruptcy they will no longer have this monster cash drain. Unfortunately retirees will be forced to live on drastically reduced income levels.
(Excerpt) Read more at moneyrunner.blogspot.com ...
YOU HAVE A READING COMPREHENSION PROBLEM.
There is great incentive for people to try and earn MORE than the cap today, since that gives them a bit of a booster rocket increase in take home pay.
LOL. With that kind of reasoning, I can understand why you hold the views you do.
YOUR OWN LINKS SUPPORT WHAT I SAID!
You have a logic problem. You do not grasp these concepts at all.
Nothing is going to happen this year or next [mid-terms] on SS. Obama is going to appoint some phony commission that will study the issue and make recommendations. This has been done many times being with Monyihan. But the status quo is not an option. Something has to be done by 2016. My guess is that Congress will kick the can down the road to make SS solvent a few more years rather than make substantive, long term reforms, just like they did in 1983.
40 posted on Saturday, June 06, 2009 10:44:04 PM by kabar
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You do not comprehend your OWN writing, so I understand completely that I am talking way above your head!
“Removing the cap on taxable wages also would result in a massive 10.6 percentage point hike in the top marginal tax rate for millions of workers—bringing the top rate to almost 52.5 percent, the highest rate since the 1970s. 24 Should Social Security's tax cap be removed, many workers would immediately find that federal taxes consume over 52 cents of every additional dollar they earn from employment.
An increase in the marginal tax rate on labor income would damage the economy by reducing the incentive to work. The fact that the Social Security tax increase would fall on wage, salary, and self-employment income would lead many workers (especially the self-employed and small-business owners) to find ways to avoid this tax, perhaps by taking employment income in the form of non-taxable “profits” or fringe benefits.”
Then, you tell me that I have some kind of reasoning problem or you laugh at the way I think, when I tell you that removing or raising the cap would reduce incentives to work, and that there is great incentive, in the current system, to try and rise ABOVE the cap, since you can keep more of what you earn.
NOW, I show you that your very link supports what I said!
Game
Set
MATCH
Thanks for playing!
LOL. You DO have a reading comprehension problem.
What is so difficult to understand? I am not in support of any tax increase. I want the Ponzi scheme gone and replaced by a privatized system.
I provided you the link to puncture your assertion that the cap will be eliminated altogether, something you have repeatedly predicted. Obama and the Dems don't favor lifting the cap completely. Removing the cap would cause huge economic damage per the Heritage article. Yet, you make the idiotic predicition in post #33 and earlier:
I stand by my earlier predictions: 1.) The cap on W-2 and Self Employment earnings that can be taxed, by Social Security, WILL BE REMOVED.
Your prediction is nonsense.
Your unequivocal prediction that the cap will be removed entirely is absurd and nonsensical.
The earnings cap might well be removed, entirely, by a Congress and a President which seek to “spread the wealth around” and by a President who says that the Supreme Court has not been used effectively, yet, as a “redistributionist” tool.
Most of the money, in this country, is held by those over 65.
The LEFT wants to “soak the rich” so of course taxing the SS benefit is a route to take, in that regard.
Furthermore, liberals do NOT believe much, in the incentive power of tax law.
Obama, HIMSELF, when confronted with the fact that the Reagan tax rate cuts INCREASED Federal Revenue, basically admitted that he did not care. He did not think it fair for the “rich” to keep their earnings, even if punishing the “rich” hurt the entire country.
Therefore, You and I and the Heritage Foundation might well agree that removing earnings cap, at which earnings are no longer subject to SS taxation, is a bad idea -— but that is not relevant at all, is it?
We have a President who DOES NOT CARE about the capitalist incentives built into the current system.
We have a President who wants to PUNISH achievement and PUNISH the “rich” -—
Therefore, removing the cap on W-2 earnings, as well as making 100% of the SS benefits taxable, as well as increasing the “means testing” of Medicare (Which actually serves to reduce SS payments” ALL are in the mix, big time!
We WILL move in the directions that I have predicted, even if we do not get there, all at once.
You are in denial, and I can not help you get out of your delusions, it seems.
There is not a snowballs chance in hell that these systems will move towards “privatization” and “fixing” these programs is not really the FULL agenda of Obama ANYWAY!
Obama and Rahm go by the credo, “Never let a crises go to waste” -—
They used the financial melt down as an excuse to take over the banking industry, the investment industry and the auto industry.
DO NOT BE SURPRISED if Obama uses the SS and Medicare crises to “SPREAD THE WEALTH AROUND” and INCREASE TAXES!
It is NOT Obama’s objective to fix anything.
It is Obama’s objective to break the back of capitalism!
And pigs may fly if they have wings. No one is calling for a complete removal of the earnings cap--not even Obama and the Dems. What exactly are you basing you predicition beyond emotion and feelings?
The LEFT wants to soak the rich so of course taxing the SS benefit is a route to take, in that regard.
As I demonstrated, there are not enough "rich" to make it worthwhile. Only one-third of the retirees pay taxes on their benefits now. And the future retirees over the next 25 years will fit the same profile.
DO NOT BE SURPRISED if Obama uses the SS and Medicare crises to SPREAD THE WEALTH AROUND and INCREASE TAXES!
Duh, Captain Obvious. Of course he is going to raise taxes and not just on the rich. That is the only way they can close the deficit gap, which is unsustainable.
The fact that raising the amount of SS benefits subject to taxation would not, in and of itself, “SOLVE” the problem, is also off point.
It will take SEVERAL different measures to “fix” this problem.
But, as stated before, “fixing” the problem is NOT the POINT of the Obama Administration.
They wish to soak the rich.
They wish to “spread the wealth around”
They do not WANT to “solve” anything.
The ONLY objective of this crowd is to increase the size and power of government.
Obama will justify tax increase on EVERYONE by making the masses feel that the “rich” are getting soaked even worse!
Obama will BRAG that he is “sticking it to the rich”
Obama will BRAG that he is increasing the SS “earnings cap” and increasing the amount of payroll taxes paid by “the rich”!
Obama will also BRAG about the “sacrifice” he is asking, of those who already GET Social Security and Medicare, by claiming that those who “make less” than X $s will not have to pay anything more into the system.
Sound familiar?
TELL YOU WHAT -—
I think you are so wrong on this as to be silly and contradictory and way off topic.
However, I will book mark this thread, and when entitlement “reform” of some type actually HAPPENS, I will then say, “I told you so” -—
Until then, I think you are living in a fantasy world, and I can not prove the validity of my predictions, to YOU, without actually seeing them come true.
Of course, much like you have done on this thread, you will claim you never said what you clearly and plainly DID say, so even then, when I say, “I told you so” it will be for my own score card, as you can not admit it when you are wrong.
Besides, I do NOT want all of these things to happen, I just understand politics better than you, and I understand that the path of least resistance is the path that our politicians will always take! By the way, the libs are now talking about TAXING employer benefits, lol. If they do that, how can the government justify giving any benefits away, tax free?
Only in your mind are we moving towards abolishing the cap. The votes aren't there and no one of any significance is proposing it. You are living in a fantasy world.
Care to lay a wager on your prediction that the cap will be removed?
Why get so animited, so hostile, so insistent that Obama and the Marxists in Congress will not do something stupid, economically speaking?
Everything that they have done has been stupid, thus far, don't you agree?
You say “NO ONE” is advocating the abolition of the cap?
Please visit a few liberal Blogs and Websites.
YOU ARE WRONG on that point, as well.
Wager?
Well, frankly, that would be unfair to you on TWO counts:
I say that it WILL happen, down the road.
You would have to pay up, when it happens, when would I pay up?
I say that, in 5 years, it will happen. Or at the very least it will go so high as to be meaningless.
That sophistry might work with your liberal friends, but I am a conservative. The cap goes up every year now.
You say NO ONE is advocating the abolition of the cap? Please visit a few liberal Blogs and Websites. YOU ARE WRONG on that point, as well.
Why do you persist in taking my words out of context and omiting others? I wrote in post #74, "no one of any significance is proposing it."
I say that it WILL happen, down the road. You would have to pay up, when it happens, when would I pay up? I say that, in 5 years, it will happen. Or at the very least it will go so high as to be meaningless.
Lots of qualifications, far different from your original predicition. Lets wager 5K each in cash to be deposited with a neutral party by July 2009. The proposition is that the SS cap will be removed entirely within the next two or if you like, three years. You say yes, I say no.
They’ll try to inflate their way out of it by printing money. By the time all the old folks realize they can’t cover their ever increasing expenses it will be too late.
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