Posted on 03/16/2005 4:36:47 AM PST by Libloather
Social Security problems start sooner than you think
Alan Greenspan puts the date to really start worrying at 2008. That's because he's looking at real cash flow, not fancy government accounting that puts the problems with Social Security decades away.
By Scott Burns
In two days of grilling about Social Security, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan put an important new date on our calendars: 2008.
That's when he believes problems may begin with Social Security.
**SNIP**
The high-cost estimate has a smaller cash surplus. It also disappears much faster. The high-cost estimate has Social Security and Medicare down to a mere $28 billion surplus in 2008 and $14 billion in 2009.
Pocket change.
It becomes $7 billion of red ink in 2010. If you are reading about this in a daily newspaper in 2005, you can be sure global bond markets will start to take notice before 2010. Try 2008.
**SNIP**
What happens to that cash?
It has been a slush fund for politicians of both parties since 1983. It allows them to spend more because they don't have to borrow it from the public. Had this been done by a corporation, it would be the largest fraud in history, now at $1.6 trillion and counting.
**SNIP**
President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, bragged that his administration had produced a "surplus" in 1998, 1999 and 2000. It also left a "surplus" for incoming President George W. Bush in 2001. During that same period, total government debt rose by $291.7 billion.
Then President George W. Bush, a Republican, used the same fictional surplus to justify tax cuts.
In fact, this is a shell game that both parties play.
(Excerpt) Read more at moneycentral.msn.com ...
Soshhhh Security problems start when they are deducted from my pay check.
But it's not a crisis.
I am coming to this..I hope they do nothing and the dam thing goes down the tubes. Good riddance!
Exactly as I've always predicted...the cow will go dry in about 5 years. Why? Because wages are stagnant or falling all over the country and this greatly affects the amount remitted to SS every month. The time is really past for fixing SS. What the pols will be doing now is trying to find creative ways to fool us into believing they have "fixed Social Security for the next 75 years" (remember all those "fixes"?), while actually raising taxes on everyone, including the retirees on SS, as Clinton did. We will never be rid of FDR's socialist albatross unless we let it go broke.
I cheerfully parted ways with the working world after 30 years of those "voluntary" payroll deductions. I'll be 62 in 2008 so I'll be waiting on pins and needles to find out if Greenspan's predictions come true.
In the meantime, I'll be spending my weekends collecting aluminum cans and adding the money to my portfolio.
If true, then the problem is not fixable. You've got to prepare for these things decades in advance. You can't wait until just 3 years before the calamity to plan.
"Then President George W. Bush, a Republican, used the same fictional surplus to justify tax cuts."
Author of this is using a little truth with a little of is HUGE BIAS.
The media and the liberals are desperate to turn anything George Bush tries to do, into a TOTAL FAILURE.
So far they are batting ZERO.
But the Democrats keep telling me everything is fine. You mean I cant believe the Democrats?
You can if you are a Democrat. In fact you MUST. Democrats must have a state of continuing crisis in order to herd the sheeple.
Raise the retirement age now.
Donald Luskin's been saying this for months.
"In the meantime, I'll be spending my weekends collecting aluminum cans and adding the money to my portfolio."
I'm just getting by myself while taking care of my Mom, who can't work. She isn't quite old enough to get full benefits. We're riding it out. But we would be doing just fine right now and would have a great savings already if the FICA man hadn't been leeching us all these years.
Even worse, our employers have been matching what we pay into it. Good grief.
But as to your personal plight, employ your imagination. I came close to having my own business more than once. You can too. Imagine. Ponder. Consider your strengths, your talents. Look at things in different ways. I'll pray for you. My mom, too. No investment plan can yield higher returns than an unleashed imagination.
Here's an example: I have a trash can full of aluminum cans. I just never make the time to take care of them. How many people are like me? Especially out in the country [farming area]. Is there a way you could make monthly routes to people like me? The cities might not yield much as these backroad farming areas, though.
On the other hand, other ideas would yield more money.
Of course, I can't speak with authority yet, because I haven't 'made it' yet. FReegards....
"Raise the retirement age now."
Let the rats come up with that. Or, would you also like to raise prices after people already buy things? A car for example, "The price just went up on your car. You owe us another thousand dollars."
"But the Democrats keep telling me everything is fine. You mean I cant believe the Democrats?"
Yea, NOW they are saying everything is fine. Why, just a few years ago (the 'Toon years) the sky was falling, Social Security was in crisis and had to be fixed! How did the democRATS fix SS in just a few short years???
HHHHHMMMMM?????? Must have been a miracle!!
Here are the Bureau of the Public Debt's figures confirming this.
Find a year in the past 35 when the national debt decreased.
Bet ya can't.
"Author of this is using a little truth with a little of is HUGE BIAS."
"Scott Burns is a personal finance columnist for The Dallas Morning News and he has been nationally syndicated since late 1980. He graduated from MIT in 1962, and studied writing with Archibald MacLeish at Harvard."
By all accounts he's very highly regarded and in my opinion most unbiased.
LBJ and the Democrats lumped the SS funds into the general funds in the 60's to hide the cost of the Nam war. Both parties have used that money to cover their butts for excessive spending. That's a fact.
Tax cuts raise revnue and a completely new tax system that does away with the Income Tax will help save Social Security.
Best way to save Social Security is end the INCOME TAX and switch to NRST or APT TAX.
I prefer the APT TAX.
Ping.
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