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

To: Road Walker who wrote (213724)	12/21/2004 5:14:37 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1578544

Jeez. It's not the hard number, it's the percentage of the population. Right now 65 and over are about 13%. The projection is that this will rise to 20% by 2030, and then stabilize going forward. We need to fund that balance. It is NOT going to "stablize going forward". People are living longer, and will continue to do so. The population of the United States is growing, and will continue to do so. And the proportion of the population who are over 65 is growing and will continue to do so. The cost of living increases annually, and will continue to do so. You know nothing about finance or SS. The current benefit changes with wages adjustments. Those getting $2K today obviously will get more in "80 years", just as the income will go up from higher wages. I've got more knowledge about finance in my little finger than you ever thought of having. The point of the $2K was to put forth an obviously minimum figure. And $2K is your invented number, most SS recepients get far less, many less than $700 a month. Try living on that. Today, the average retiree benefit is around $955/mo, with the average couple receiving around $1,600/mo. 75 years from now, none will. Now that the notch is gone, few get less than $700/month. As to "trying living on that", SS was never conceived as providing a "living". These figures exclude the massive Medicare benefit. SS is running a surplus. If you define "surplus" as "cash in bank", you are correct. If you define "surplus" as "excess of assets over true liabilities, including unfunded amounts" (which is the proper criterion) then there is no surplus and there is, in fact, a $2 trillion deficit. This is a key point. And one you obviously can't comprehend, because I've explained it to you many times over the months. You exemplify the people who will tell any lie to further their political agenda. This has nothing to do with my political agenda. My position on SS reform is precisely as it was when George Bush 47 took office. The Greenspan patch was just a patch and did not solve the problem. BTW, there will probably be about 120 million over age 65 in 75-80 years, FWIW. I have no idea as I'm not an actuary, and even actuaries have a very difficult time factoring in the rate of medical process, under which the body of medical knowledge is thought to double every five years. I know that the census projections do not take these facts into account. It doesn't matter. It doesn't change the scope of the problem which is tens of trillions of dollars. I don't purport to be describing details; I'm simply saying there IS a major problem and a person has to be ignorant or blind to miss it.