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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (173931)	8/15/2003 6:27:45 PM
From: steve harris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574199

David, I'd settle for what me and my employer paid in with no gains. Steve

To: i-node who wrote (173931)	8/15/2003 6:30:34 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574199

David, The program was NEVER actuarily sound I'm sure it was sound at one point. Kind of like a nationwide disability, life insurance, and pension program, with a portion of wealth-redistribution thrown in for the good of society. After reading more about SS, I'm holding back my judgement on whether it is doomed or not. It IS a Ponzi scheme, but that's because it was set up that way to begin with. The trust fund is a joke of accounting (government basically lending itself money), as well as the notion that government saves all of your SS taxes for your retirement. (The latter is one of the MOST successful lies in politics, BTW.) Major reforms will be needed sooner or later, but hey, if even a liberal like Clinton can reform welfare, I'm sure we'll be able to reform SS. We'll just need to get around the partisan politics, for you know the Dems won't let Bush even touch SS without scaring seniors. Tenchusatsu

To: i-node who wrote (173931)	8/15/2003 6:50:46 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574199

David, Kerry is proposing some SS reforms: boston.com Key points: - Kerry proposes cutting off SS benefits for the "wealthy" after they have recouped the money they paid into the federal retirement program during their working life. His was quoted talking about the "right" (yes, the article called it a "right") to recoup the taxes one pays into the system. - He also proposes raising the cap on income that gets taxed for SS from $86K to $100-120K. This is in order to build up the fund for retiring Baby Boomers, thereby perpetuating the Ponzi scheme even more. - He's against raising the retirement age or reducing SS benefits, of course. He's also against Bush's idea of investing part of the SS taxes in the market, because he thinks that's too risky. Personally, I'd rather take the risks of the stock market over the risks of trusting SS, but maybe that's just me. Tenchusatsu