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Pastimes : All Clowns Must Be Destroyed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles P. Hubbard who wrote (37828)	6/5/2000 10:56:00 AM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 42523

Maybe you and I have different definitions of "very young." To get social security disability payments, there is the requirement that the person worked at least 20 calendar quarters out of the last 40. So they would have had to be employed for at least five years. IMO, the real rip-off is SSI, supplemental social security, which is paid to poor people who are blind, disabled, or over 65, but there is no employment requirement. Looks like welfare to me, and should come out of the welfare coffer, not social security.

To: Charles P. Hubbard who wrote (37828)	6/5/2000 11:56:00 AM
From: IceShark	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42523

You don't seem to understand the way the SS system is set up and the basic flaws underlying it. The gov't hasn't been raiding your past contributions in the sense that they are co-mingling them with other general expenditures. It is a "Trust" fund and, at least from an accounting perspective, where your contributions (as well as the employer match, which is really yours, too) are in fact placed - in the fund. What has happened, and where you seem to be confused, is that the contributions are not sitting as cash in a bank vault. The funds are being invested in US Gov't paper. It is true that the Gov't has been spending the SS contributions on the massive deficits that have been funded through this paper borrowing, but they have been doing that to everyone in the world that has bought US Gov't paper. So you will only have a basis to say they spent your SS contributions on general expenditures or liberal projects if they default on the debt and leave SS holding the bag. There is some additional confusion on how the Gov't calculates whether it is really running a surplus or not by pulling all sorts of accounting scams, but that is another story. The undisputed fact is that the SS system was doomed from the start when the politicians started to expand the benefits and not fund on a current basis. Like all Ponzi schemes, the only question was when the thing would collapse. There is no way it will work fairly for everyone. It was set up as a quasi pay as you go deal but really it is a Ponzi system. The current contributions pay for the people that are now on the dole. When SS started the ratio was about 133 workers to 1 retiree. Now it is something on the order of 3 to 1. The demographics just aren't there and a bunch of people are going to get left holding the bag. The fact that you contributed a pile of money to fund the oldesters that kicked in nearly nothing (like my great grandfather that contributed $7, then proceeded to live to age 99) doesn't change the fact that the younger generations are going to be paying your freight because you paid the freight on others. What you in effect are saying is that "you" let the politicians get away with this Ponzi scheme and spend "your" money on the early participants and "you" don't want to be left holding any part of the bag for "your" collective bad decision. Rationalize all you want, but what it boils down to is you want to get yours and let future generations left holding the bag.