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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (21663)	7/25/2002 4:18:21 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Yiwu, it's all in the definition of 'need'. <As a matter of fact, the social security fund will not be able to meet the baby boomer's need* a couple of year before 2020.*> Need might not include a new SUV, a trip overseas, a television set, wine, fuel or much of anything. Then again, it might include a better standard of living than the old of any society have ever enjoyed, especially if measured not in money but in quality of life. They'll have CDMA phones and cyberspace for a start. No old people before them have enjoyed wireless communications, gpsOne, such medical technology, security and much else that is now very cheap and available. But many baby boomers will learn some age-old verities about work, thrift and so on. Come to think of it, there have been a few age-old verities learned in the past couple of years. Meanwhile, the British Commonwealth Games are underway in Manchester, with drums, brass bands and the Grenadier Guards, a giant skiffle band, dancing and ancient tribal ritual. Oh, here's the Queen in green. There go the Red Arrows [air force aerobatic aircraft]. God Save the Queen. Cheers from the crowd. Now the music and show starts...[with quite an American influence] And life goes on. Mqurice

To: RealMuLan who wrote (21663)	7/25/2002 4:51:09 PM
From: AC Flyer	Respond to of 74559

>>First, I think most of educated people already know there is NO real money in the social security fund, just a bunch of IOUs.<< The fact that you think that there is a trust fund at all, regardless of whether it contains IOUs, greenbacks or gold bullion, means that you do not understand the issue. Social Security payments are funded from current year tax receipts or government borrowings. Always have been, always will be, barring some sort of privatization such as Don Lloyd suggested. >>As a matter of fact, the social security fund will not be able to meet the baby boomer's need a couple of year before 2020<< This all depends on whose assumptions you use. Most people can not tell you what will be happening tomorrow, never mind 20 years in the future. And perhaps I could remind you that this conclusion is based on pro forma projections. The so-called social security crisis boils down to this - with the current level of social security taxes and the current structure of the social security program, and using "somebody's" politically motivated assumptions about the inflation rate, to which social security payments are linked, and using "somebody's" politically motivated assumptions about the economic growth rate, from which gross tax receipts are estimated, in twenty or so years the social security program will begin paying out slightly more each year than the funding it receives from social security taxes, that year. No, come on, is that a "crisis?"