Posted on 12/07/2004 5:37:32 AM PST by beaureguard
It is a cause of dismay, if not outright sadness. Young people, by and large, just can't seem to get worked up about matters political. That's too bad, because they might be interested in knowing that one of America's largest and most effective lobbying organizations has just declared war on them. The AARP has now decided that it's going to fight any effort by President Bush to privatize, even partially, that debacle known as Social Security. If younger Americans had any idea what was happening to them here they would demanding change. If young Americans truly had a handle on the future, and on the fact that they will one day reach that magic age when they stop working and live on their retirement income, they would be marching on DC and occupying congressional offices until change was made. Sadly, these young Americans who are getting so royally screwed by Social Security and the AARP are far more concerned with sports, pop culture and who they're going to 'hook up" with this weekend.
The time will come, though, when these people who today are preoccupied with the grossly unimportant will suddenly realize that they've been robbed blind. For their entire working lives they had 14% of their earnings ripped off as a Social Security "contribution." In time they will find out that if they are actually lucky enough to get any of this money back when they reach the age of about 70 or so, they will have realized a return of less than 2% on their "investment.'
Social Security is running out of money. Depending on who you listen to, in about 15 to 18 years Social Security taxes will not be sufficient to pay the Social Security benefits to the people then receiving them. At this point the government will have only a few options. Here are the choices:
1. Extend the retirement age in hopes that many more Americans will actually do the government the favor of dying before they can collect any or all of their benefits.
2. Deny Social Security benefits to those who worked hard and made good financial decisions in their lives, thereby insuring themselves a sufficient retirement income outside of Social Security. No ... their "contributions" will not be refunded.
3.Extend the wage base for taxes so that achievement-oriented Americans can poor even more money into this financial sewer; more money that they will never, ever get back.
You do know, don't you, that there is absolutely no legal guarantee that you will receive one single penny of the money that is taken from you. No guarantee at all. The congress can vote tomorrow to end the system and keep every dollar that has been paid in Social Security taxes. There would be nothing you could do about it. Nothing except, that is, to vote against the jerk who stole your money. All your local politician would have to do is come up with a little pork for the district or state and everything would be forgiven.
And just which group of Americans is hurt the most by Social Security? Black males. If you're a black male this is the ultimate "disrespect." You're being ripped off big time.
Explanation: Divide the people who have been paying Social Security taxes for the past 40 years into four basic groups. White Males, black males, white females, black females. Statistics will show that of these four demographic groups white females have the longest life expectancy; black males the shortest. In 2002 the life expectancy for a newborn white female was 79.9 years. The life expectancy of a newborn black male was 68.8 years. If you were born after 1960 your Social Security full retirement age is 67. This means that a black male can expect to get Social Security benefits for about two years, while a white female can expect to receive those benefits for almost 13 years. You do the math. even if you went to a government school you can figure out that the average white female will receive Social Security benefits 11 years longer than the average black male. It has been estimated that during his lifetime the average black male will lose about $10,000 in income that will be forcibly transferred to a white woman.
The solution? Privatization! If you own your own account it can't be taken from you or your family and given to some stranger living in a retirement community in Palm Desert, California. If you have the misfortune to die before the law allows you to start withdrawing retirement benefits from your account the money goes to your family. Isn't that the way you would want it? Wouldn't you want that money to be spent to make your spouse or children rather than someone you didn't know and who might not have even given you the time of day if you had known them during life?
This is absurd, folks. We're supposed to be living in free country that recognizes property rights. You own you, not the government. You work for you, not for some stranger. In a free country your government should not seize your money by force and put it into a phony "retirement" fund that earns you a sub-par rate of return and to which you have no legal right beyond what politicians are willing to grant. When you die the money you earned during life shouldn't be seized by government to be transferred to another individual you don't know while your family scrambles about looking for a way to keep their home and pay for your funeral, but that's exactly what the AARP is fighting for.
You do know what happened in Chile, don't you? Chile, for God's sake! They got it right!
Chile used to have a Social Security system that was a virtual copy of ours. Chile, however, didn't have an AARP. What Chile did have was politicians who realized that their system was doomed to collapse, and who did something about it. Chile privatized every individual's retirement benefits. The former Chilean secretary of labor says that Chile first "ended the illusion that both the employer and the worker contribute to retirement." That's a huge step. The dumb masses in America still actually believe that their employers actually "contribute" a matching amount to their Social Security "account." It's those government schools again.
Americans even believe that there's actually a Social Security trust fund. Yesterday's USA Today story about the AARP's opposition to privatization contained this line: "Excess payroll taxes are held in a trust fund for future benefit payments." That's just flat-out wrong. USA Today reporter Jim Drinkard either knows it's wrong, and lied intentionally, or he's not bright enough to be writing for a national newspaper. There is no Social Security money being held anywhere. It's all spent. Every single penny. What the politicians don't have to spend on current Social Security benefits they seize and spend on their various spend-and-elect schemes.
Today in Chile workers pay 10% of their pretax earnings into their own retirement plans. They can elect to pay an additional 10% in pretax earnings if they wish. The companies who manage these funds are prohibited by law from engaging in any other type of business. The sole business purpose of these companies is to take these privately owned retirement accounts and grow them. If they die before the retirement age the money goes to their families. If Chileans live to retirement age they have three options:
1.Purchase a family annuity from a life insurance company. 2. Leave their funds in a personal account and make monthly withdrawals adjusted to match their life expectancy. 3. Any combination of 1 and 2.
The government steps in to guarantee a "minimum pension" for people who have worked at least 20 years and who's benefits don't meet the minimum monthly amount required by the Chilean law.
In Chile 95% of workers participate in the private plan. In America 100% of workers don't have that option, and the AARP is doing everything it can to make sure they never do.
Thanks, AARP. If younger Americans ever figure out what an enemy to their financial future you truly are things may change and you may lose that grip you have on government.
You chose the field of work to earn your way. Now you want to defend a socialist program on a conservative board. In America, we should be responsible for our own lives, that means we live with the choices we make.......
Shut up, go to work and pay your taxes peasant! Millions receiving governemnt entitlements are depending on you!
BTW...don't feel too bad...I figure around the time I retire...the retiring age will be 75 or 80; so I got 45-50 more years of working...if we're all not in Chinese prison camps by then, or euthanized on behalf of the common good.
Life is good!
So you spent a career helping bring US reading and math scores to all time low rankings and contributing your dues to a union that is, in my opinion, criminally complicit with the democrats in the continued under-education of Black America...how altruistic.
And that was your choice...cry me a river. If you wanted better...you should have got into a better paying field...typical liberal victimhood here. I'm not buying it. Lucky for you...millions have been duped by liberal educators like you who numb childrens minds on the concepts of personal responsibility, truth and consequence, communication, mathematics, history (the real, unwatered down version of it) just so we can all feel good, do what we want, and have what we want with no strings attached. I guess that's a win for your side...feel proud of it.
Oh...and don't respond to me with some diatribe about charity and compassion either. Charity is voluntary...and begins at home. Someone in my family starts on rough times...I'll help them out if I can...thats why they're family. Government entitlements are not charity...they are a form of stealing...of redistributing wealth...under the barrel of a gun (try to get away with not paying your taxes and see what happens). Take your liberalspeak back to DU....or educate yourself on what freedom is and what a constitutional republic is.
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We're out here, we just don't have our own rag.
I keep telling my parents that, but, they just mumble about the discounts and ignore me. That really irritates me because my dad claims to be staunch, small government, conservative. Can't put his money where his mouth is, I guess.
I've been getting AARP stuff in the mail for some years already. They start sending it when you reach a certain age, it was a bit startling to realize I'd gotten old!
I've never joined. A lot of people have sacrificed a lot more than I have for our country. I've never served in the military for example. So NOT joining AARP is just a very, very small way of helping protect the next generations.
If you're Dad served, I'd sure cut him some slack on this, He's given far more than many of us, and he deserves our thanks.
Excuse me for being ignorant, but what happens to the money that people have already "invested" to the government in Social Security? I like this idea of private investments but I can't get my head round what you are going to do about the people that have already retired. Do they get refunded all of the money that they payed over the years?
thanks.
hope you're not saying that the people that make higher wages are somehow better than the rest of us, because I would place the importance of my work next to anyone's on the planet...
its not my fault that our culture would rather pay more to plumbers and New York City garbage men, let alone the loading dock folk....
Bonds?
Why should I care?
Which means it's not going to be fixed.
My only answer so far: work outside the U.S. as much as you can and don't pay in, if you can help it.
But this is the current rate of decline opf Social Security. What is not mentioned and is probably not factored in is the astronomical increase in Medicare expenditure. This implosion will make the social security implosion look very weak. Now when you combine the two...well you get the picture.
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