They have an easier solution...
You get your every one of your red cents. They just buy almost nothing.
Posted on 12/08/2012 4:42:06 AM PST by IbJensen
Have you noticed, your Social Security check is now referred to as a "Federal Benefit Payment"?
The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a “Federal Benefit Payment.”This isn’t a benefit – its earned income!
Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too.
It totaled 15% of our income before taxes. If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that's close to $180,000 invested in Social Security.
If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security ($375/month, including both your and your employer’s contributions) at a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you'd have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved! This is your personal investment.
Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month.
That’s almost three times more than today’s average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration (Google it - it’s a fact).
And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you're 98 if you retire at age 65)! I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.
Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madoff ever did. They took our money and used it elsewhere. They “forgot” that it was OUR money they were taking. They didn’t have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them.
And they didn’t pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently, they’ve told us that the money won’t support us for very much longer. But is it our fault they misused our investments?
And now, to add insult to injury, they’re calling it a “benefit,” as if we never worked to earn every penny of it. Just because they “borrowed” the money, doesn't mean that our investments were a charity! Let’s take a stand.
We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government –
Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going, for the sake of that 92% of our population who need it.
Then call it what it is: Our Earned Retirement Income.
The payroll taxes collected no longer covers the spending. I guess SS feels they can rename it since a portion of the spending has to come from general revenues.
Social Security (SS) has released its estimates for the December data for benefits paid and taxes received.
With this info, estimates of the 2012 results become available ahead of the formal report. It was a ho-hummer of a year for SS, it tread water vigorously, and ended up with a cash deficit of $46.7B, just a tad more red ink that 2011’s $45.6B.
The $46.7B annual cash deficit is the third in a row. The 2012 shortfall confirms it; SS will never see a cash flow surplus again. Selling additional debt to the public is the only way to cover the cash shortfall.
I hope this is clear. I’ll repeat it. Social Security is adding to the debt held by the public. It is forcing the country to borrow more to fund current operations. When Senate Democrats, like Dick Durbin and Harry Reid say, “SS does not add a penny to our debt.” – they are lying.
I would like to ask someone why they don’t collect on some of the $2 Trillion plus worth of I.O.U.s that represent what the government calls the Social Security Fund. Whom can I ask?
I'm certain a resolution will be made before benefits are dropped a red cent.
“It will be based on the government’s ability to pay the benefits as outlined in the law that set up SS. It is a pay as you go system and the benefits are tied to revenue collected. “
I think you are assuming that the law matters in Washington DC. It does not. The law is whatever they choose to do. Executive orders circumvent legislation. Emergency powers render existing laws powerless. If the government wants money doled out for food stamps, transfer payments, FEMA meals, social security payments, it will all happen, regardless of law. If they decide that anyone earning more than 25k in a pension isn’t qualified, they won’t get SS.
In an emergency, ALL bets are now off. The Federal Reserve has and will create trillions in computer money to distribute. Or the government can and will decide it’s own priorities. The computer money can go to pay the IOUs at reduced purchasing power.
It is a Ponzi Scheme that no longer requires new dupes to pay off.
The specific law your refer to exists. That in itself is very close to meaningless in this day.
Enjoy your envelope counting, and I hope you and your unionized Federal employee brethren are out of work soon.
They have an easier solution...
You get your every one of your red cents. They just buy almost nothing.
We are suffering the boiling frog effect.
I din;t see a SS check. It is direct deposit.
Yesterday I got a letter notifying me of a 1.7% increase.
It is referred to as “your Social Security Benefit.”
How long would it take you to adjust if the SS program was just terminated effective immediately?
This would have been true if we were on the gold standard. In theory, if you’re on the gold standard you can’t print more money than can be backed up with gold at the legally set price. However, LBJ wanted to carry on the Viet Nam war and engage in the largest social program ever attempted. (Actually, it was a wealth redistribution scheme, but that’s a whole article.) To do this without raising taxes LBJ printed more money than the US had gold to back it at the then legally set price. Charles de Gaulle, then the head of France, realized LBJ had done this and he started buying dollars and converting them into gold. President Nixon took us off the gold standard to prevent de Gaulle from draining the national treasury. After that, with money no longer limited by the amount of gold you had the money supply growth became exponential. In 2008 Obama doubled the money supply and in 2009 he doubled it again. The government is currently creating 87 billion dollars per week.
One might ask, if the government can create money without taxation, why does Obama want to raise taxes? The answer is to remove wealth from private hands and put it exclusively in government hands and the hands of specially selected cronies.
Thanks for this post. I hadn't known why Nixon took us off the gold standard or how LBJ was financing the Viet Nam war.
Would it be possible for the U.S. to be put on the gold standard again? (I know it would be difficult because of the nature of the global economy.) If so, how could that happen?
Lol
Why, what secret info do you have?
They need to pick an age, say 55 and tell everyone younger to do their own.
Perhaps give a little tax rebate over 5 years to let them get their contribution back and kick start their own program.
My wife and I are retired peace officers. SS is 10% of my income.
I know people who just live on SS, so it would be an extreme hardship for many seniors.
Isn't the number of senior voters growing daily?
Isn't that why both parties are afraid to propose reductions to federal entitlement programs?
Virginia is, in fact, a right to work state!
Virginia is, in fact, a right to work state!
Congress exists to change laws ~ that may or may not happen with respect to Social Security. Bet you they change the law before it’s all over, or they’ll faced the world’s largest armed and dangerous geezer militia!
Should pay income and/or property tax to vote.
Can’t have democracy and welfare state.
Can’t have porous borders and welfare state
“Would it be possible for the U.S. to be put on the gold standard again? (I know it would be difficult because of the nature of the global economy.) If so, how could that happen?”
We use a system called fiat currency. Fiat means the dollar has value because you and I agree that it has value. In essence, a dollar represents some unit of something physical, gold, work, a car, etc. Being on the gold standard only acts as a deterrent to producing more dollars than you have gold. Anything would work, provided you couldn’t produce a lot of it. Remember, the gold has no real value either. You can’t eat it; you can only wear it or look at it.
If you want to produce growth, you could produce more money and “invest” in things. But the things you MUST invest in are self-reducing debt. For example, create money and build a power plant. You sell the power and pay off the debt. At some point the plant is making a profit. (The Obama administration “invested” in things that absorbed the newly created money but did not produce a profit; Solyandra, for example.)
Each time you create money you devalue all the money that is already in existence. But, if you were wise in your use of the money the society as a whole is better off.
Liberals tend to think of money like we exist in a feudal economy. The kingdom has produced 10,000 gold sovereigns. But the king owns 9,000 of them, which he keeps under the bed. All the transactions in the feudal economy must then take place with only 1,000 sovereigns. Obviously if there are 30,000,000 residents a lot of people must barter instead of pay with sovereigns. Presumably, the king uses the sovereigns to maintain the army, build a navy, etc. If he wants more money he must tax; which removes more money from the existing economy. Feudal economies can’t grow.
Today the creation of wealth is totally different than the feudal economy. Take Microsoft. They paid for the development of Window’s 8 only once, but they sell it for a premium on a medium that is essentially free. From an investment of X they have added an incredible amount to the economy as a whole. So, money and wealth are entirely different today. The disaster of Greece and Spain is only because they gave up the power to print their own money.
We could go to a different type of economy. Call it the Petro-dollar. Each dollar is worth a fraction of a barrel of crude oil, or x amount of electricity, or y amount of gasoline. Why don’t we? Well, if we keep the economy we have then liberals can remove wealth from the public’s hands by inflation. Any dollar you made before 2008 is now worth about 30% of its 2008 buying power. We haven’t seen the true impact of inflation yet because people are panicked into not buying; husbanding their wealth for an uncertain future.
No, gold won’t work as liberals will accept no limitation on what they spend.
Originally it was supposed to have the premiums(taxes) paid into the system for a few years to get a pool of money to draw from to pay the claims.
It was set up to insure that if you outlived your expected life span, you would have a benefit even though you might not be healthy enough to work. If you expired early, your dependent children would get a benefit to help them.
Like any insurance, if you don't meet the qualifications for benefit payment, the money just remains in the pool.
The conditions of the country under FDR were so dire, they decided to accelerate the benefits and began paying them sooner than originally planned. The current workers pay into and support the beneficiaries.
Had this been provided by a private Insurance Company, the actuaries would have been adjusting the premiums and benefits to reflect the longer life expectancy. Government hasn't kept up, but there was an adjustment during the Reagan Administration.
At that time, the boomers were required to support not only the current recipients, but also to pay extra into the system to help support themselves, (even though the age for retirement was raised a little)because so many would outlive the age when benefits could begin to be received.
The insurance companies of FDR's time greatly desired to get rid of this particular book of business, because they wanted to get rid of the small accounts and concentrate on the larger ones which made a better net profit. Hence they worked with government to set this up for the people doncha know?
As time went on, more and more industries were required to have their workers pay in to the system. As a substitute for a retirement system, it sucks, but it was not originally intended to be that - it was intended to be Insurance with all the drawbacks that entails.
Myself, I always consider that I am entitled to social security benefits since I paid into the system for more than 45 years, but I realized early on that other retirement options were necessary as benefits down the road would likely be curtailed one way or another.
The Democrats claim to stand up for Social Security, but in reality, the policies of this Administration with the excessive printing of money is cutting into the benefits more than the most ardent fiscal conservative would ever dare propose.
All during the time I paid into Social Security, once the threshold wage was reached, I had to pay those taxes on my entire salary. I see no reason why this should not be the same for everyone. Remove the wage cap - Maybe it should even be graduated like the income tax.
One thing is for sure. The original recipients got the most benefits. The current recipients and future recipients will get the shaft one way or the other. Purchasing power has already been reduced and will continue.
If Congress does nothing, there will about a 25% reduction in benefits when the balance in the Trust Fund runs out, and if the dollar looses it's status as the world's currency and/or financial collapse occurs before then, no one is likely to get any benefits.
Either way. Anyone entitled to a Social Security benefit is just a bug on the windshield as the car goes over the cliff.
The important thing, in my opinion, is to email individual members of Congress so they know that you know how the funds have been stolen. Let them know that you aren't fooled by their lies and that they need to face up to their criminal activity and pay back the money.
“No, you issue currency that’s backed by the value of the assets.”
So just it’s just like I said, you are turning over all of our remaining assets to SS recipients and federal retirees “just because”
“As long as they collect for SS under the payroll tax, benefits will be paid. They will just be reduced to fall within the revenues collected. “
Possibly. But the government doesn’t have a good track record in this regard, does it? That’s why we are in this situation in the first place.
When they jack taxes up so high, there will be less employment and less payroll tax collected. At some point we become like Italians and stop reporting any overt income at all.
No entitlement dollar is safe in a distressed fiscal environment.
At least you have your expectations properly calibrated.
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