Posted on 01/08/2015 8:42:01 AM PST by drypowder
Before reading the information below, I'd like to share an incident that happened to me a couple months ago at a Walgreens. My husband had a new prescription that cost over $200. I have the Balance Rewards card from Walgreens, which honors prescriptions as well as other purchases. So, I asked for the Balance Rewards for this prescription to be added to my Rewards account.
The pharmacist said she couldn't because I was paying for it with an entitlement. I explained that we have never been on any kind of entitlement program. She stated that Social Security and Medicare are entitlements. I tried not to come unglued, but told her nicely that my husband and I had earned our Social Security and Medicare with money paid into these accounts each and every payday. She said she understood, but it was now called an entitlement, and I couldn't get the Rewards points. I could care less about the Rewards points, but was livid that the government now called Social Security (that we paid into all our lives) an entitlement!
To be fair to Walgreens, the pharmacist said that this was a federal law -- that no one on entitlement can benefit from those payments in any way...getting reward points. Wow! The government has their hands in everything! Anyway, now please read the item below...
If you get any Social Security at all in any manner, you might want to read. Did you know this?
Unfortunately most did not, and I am one of those whose Social Security funds are direct deposited to my bank, thus, I never see the checks. Once again, our beloved congressmen are playing fast and loose with vernacular. What motive did they have for changing the name of our Social Security? Iâ?Tm sure they have a plan, and it won't be to our betterment.
Here we go. JUST REALIZED THAT WITH REQUIRED AUTO DEPOSIT, I NEVER GET TO SEE THE CHECK ALERT EVERYONE YOU KNOW. THIS AFFECTS ALL OF US.*
*Subject:* SOCIAL SECURITY becomes FEDERAL BENEFIT CHECK. Have you noticed, the Social Security check is now referred to as a "Federal Benefit Payment"? I'll be part of the one percent to forward this. I am forwarding it because it touches a nerve in me, and I hope it will in you. Please keep passing it on until everyone in our country has read it...
The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a Federal Benefit Payment. This isn't a benefit. It is 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 employers 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 - itâ?Ts 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 (Knew) 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 theydidn'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'recalling 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.*
9% of people won't forward this. Will you? *You can bet I WILL!* I THINK WE SHOULD DEMAND THAT THEIR SALARIES AND RETIREMENTS BE CALLED FEDERAL BENEFIT PAYMENTS. THIS WOULD BE MORE HONEST THAN WHAT THEY HAVE DONE TO OUR SOCIAL SECURITY.
I seem to remember that EVERY PAYCHECK I EVER GOT IN MY LIFETIME, had a portion of it deducted and sent to the Federal Government....now it is treated like a Welfare payment! We are made second class citizens by our own government! What a slap in the kisser!
Remember, Social security is being looted by the government by taking the money and issuing IOU’s. By law social security can only invest in Government bonds. If we ever changed that law greater profits may be available. Of course, Government would get greedy and screw that one up too?
All I find are videos, and I’d rather not watch them. Perhaps you can explain in a few words?
This is not about “biblical prophesy”. This is about the seven year cycles (Shemitah). Find a short video in that list. It will be a nice synopsis.
Oh yeah, one other thing. My childhood friend just passed away at age 61. Like me, he started his working career at age 18.
I think his Wife got $250 from SS to bury him and she will get a Survivor Benefit that replaces the SS she already receives from her own working Career. She will probably see an increase in her SS Check of about $300 a Month.
Yes, he did Marry an Older Woman and was a happy Man because of it. LOL
If you aren’t preparing to feed and protect yourself without the rest of the system functioning, then you are doing it wrong.
And the nearest major two lane highway is two miles away as the crow flies.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Exactly what value bearing asset do you think Social Security was EVER invested in?
Everyone’s FICA contributions have ALWAYS been directed to either:
A. Someone who is already retired, OR
B. A Government Debt certificate, which then permitted the government to spend that money like any other tax received.
It’s even less complicated now, because there is no FICA money collected which does not go directly to a retiree.
There is not, nor has there ever been, any value based asset that was purchased with FICA contributions. FICA is a tax, as determined by the US Supreme Court, and no one has any claim on one dime of it. The payouts to retirees are whatever Congress votes them to be. PERIOD.
A divorce after 20 years of marriage wiped me out. My savings now is all in our property, embellishments, tools and SS. Fortunately, SS for me will be substantial because of my lifelong income. It is even more substantial when you take into account the cost of living where I now live (rural Kentucky). It’s almost like retiring in Thailand. Almost...
It is more than an artificial distinction. The full faith and credit of the USG is behind the T-bills just like it is with the debt held by the Chinese or Japanese or any other holder of T-bills. The USG would have to default so as not to redeem them. If that were the case, it wouldn't really matter any more because the country would be so far gone, the economy would be in a state of collapse.
If that were the case, it wouldn’t really matter any more because the country would be so far gone, the economy would be in a state of collapse.
Looks beautiful. Probably cooler and wetter than where i'm at. This place generally has nothing but dried out grass by the time summer gets here.
We get about the same rain as Seattle (where I used to live) but it comes in deluges. It’s not nearly as rainy. And we don’t have to water our lawns here, while they do in Seattle. It gets cold for about a month. But for about a month in the summer it gets so hot and humid that if it were not for air conditioning I probably would not have moved here.
“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.”
SS is finally being labelled accurately and this author is upset. SS is a welfare scheme. It always was and nothing has changed. It as designed to subjegate an entire class of people to the tender mercies of the Democratic Party and it has worked brilliantly.
Tell the author that It was not an agreement, sacred promise, or trust fund, and it is not earned, deserved, or required, and it is not there for you because you need it. It is there to take from one, by force, and give to another. The fact that people it their faith and hope in the glib words of politicians does not transmute SS into a sacred intergenerational pension plan. It just makes it another well sold Ponzi scheme.
I wasn't implying a default. The point was that the money is being held in a trust fund, not paid to general revenue. But that is an artificial distinction because the money has just been loaned out and the loan must be paid back with general revenue. Yes there's a fund, but it's a bookkeeping entry. Excess SS collections have all been used to fund the government, and future draws on those funds have to be paid out of general revenue, fund or no fund.
The government can change the benefits and eligibility requirements any time it wants to. You lose all claim to any contributions you have made. Calculating your contributions over a lifetime and trying to figure out how much you would have gotten in a private pension fund is just an exercise in futility and fantasy. If pigs had wings, they could fly.
SS is Ponzi scheme and for those of us at the top of the pyramid, it has worked out very well. For those entering the workforce today, it will not. Sorry to hear about your physical aliment. Good luck and hope that medical advancements will change the prognosis. We need every conservative we have in this fight against tyranny.
That is the point. 1% annual interest compounded monthly is a whole lot different than 12% annual interest compounded monthly. What the author states as 1% is not in fact, 1% annual interest.
And like you said, 12% annual is better than the average return of the market and requires the risk of loss of principle.
Just one month? Wow. We go from freezing cold winter to blistering hot summer in about two weeks. Depending on the year, it can start as early as may, and not cool down till October.
Yeah, Air conditioning is an absolute necessity.
*Then call it what it is: Our Earned Retirement Income.* It is only an earned income for those who have paid into it. There are classes of people who have not paid into it for whom an entitlement has been created by Congress. So SS is to some an earned income and to others an entitlement. When the democrats under Johnson took ALL revenues coming into the federal coffers and called it 'the general fund' with IOUs left in place of SS taxes collected, the Ponzi scheme became our future. Borrowing is how the federal government operates. You could not run your household, legally, the way the criminal enterprise government runs America.
Sorry to disappoint you .. but it was AL GORE’S FATHER who lead the charge to move the funds.
Evidently, you’re a liberal who is worried that this truth might get out .. and then the public will be REALLY .. REALLY MAD WHEN THE FUNDS RUN OUT.
So what did they do with all the I.O.U.’s .. as far as I know .. when GW Bush was president, they were all still there - in a drawer where all the records should have been; AND THE ACTUAL TRUST FUND DOES NOT EXIST.
Somebody’s lying .. and it isn’t me.
THE “TRUST FUND” DOESN’T EXIST .. PROVING YOU ARE A PLANT TO DISCREDIT MY COMMENTS - AND TRY TO GET PEOPLE TO BELIEVE THE TRUST FUND STILL EXISTS. IT DOESN’T ..!!!!!
Yes, the SS and Medicare trust funds along with the other trust funds like the federal employees benefit trust funds represent unfunded liabilities and are part of the national debt. The question is what would you do with the trillions of dollars held by these trust funds? Who would decide how and where to invest the holdings? They would certainly distort the economy and be vulnerable to politicization. At least by investing them in T-bills, we don't have to borrow the money publicly. In any event since these trust funds are running in the red and continue to do so without reform, the T-bills will be running out and there will be a reduction in the benefits paid.
What most people don't realize is that these programs are not actuarial sound. We have to raise taxes or decrease benefits or some combination thereof to make them solvent. Our aging population is growing every day with 10,000 baby boomers retiring every day for the next 20 years. We will double our population over 65. Even if none of the revenue were invested in T-bills, there isn't enough money to pay benefits. That is the real problem, not government "looting." The T-bills for SS run out in 2034 and for Medicare in 2024. Then, by law, the benefits paid out must be reduced to revenue received.
In 1950 there were 16 workers to every retiree; today it is about 3, and by 2030 it will be 2. Since these programs are pay as you go with today's workers paying for today's retirees, we will have to tax future generations much more to get the needed revenue. Not a very pleasant outlook for our children and grandchildren.
An even larger problem is that two thirds of the expenditures of the federal budget come from entitlement programs and debt servicing costs. 40% of Medicare expenses already come from the General Fund by law. These costs are increasing as the population ages. These costs are far more than debt servicing costs. The welfare state chickens are coming home to roost.
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