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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas M. who wrote (84784)	11/1/2000 6:37:56 PM
From: Don Lloyd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Tom - Question to all about the SS: Someone told me that Bush cited the SS as achieving a 2% return on its investments. Is this accurate(or is it true but misleading)? If so, is there any rational excuse? There are NO investments, so it can't be true in that sense. If you compare the benefits paid out to a given recipient to the payroll taxes he and his employer have paid, at some point in time a plus 2% result was undoubtedly correct. Earlier recipients would have had higher 'returns', and many future recipients will never break even. Regards, Don

To: Thomas M. who wrote (84784)	11/1/2000 9:08:38 PM
From: Skeeter Bug	Respond to of 132070

>>true but misleading<< is there any other answer? the return is drastically reduced but what goes into the system goes out awful fast and can't sit there all year to collect a return. i have issues w/ our "leaders" taking the money out of the fund and spending it for gen'l expenditures. i'm sure that practice reduces the return, too. both parties are guilty.

To: Thomas M. who wrote (84784)	11/2/2000 1:07:49 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

Aren't those the ledger entries (er, interest payments) for the non-marketable securities in the SS trust fund where the interest rate was set back in the 50's? The obligations are compounded using the CPI so those ledger entries are basically useless. Since they're assuming a 2 to 3 percent CPI as far as the they can see, how much of an average person's annual living cost will Social Security be able to cover in 25 years? At present, the average payout is $ 800 per month. 25 years at 3 percent is approximately $ 1600 per month by 2025.