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Politics : The Citizens Manifesto -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (56)	6/13/2005 1:39:16 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 492

I vote for having an enforced savings mechanism at the current rates. However, all the income from a person is tagged to that person's social security number. This would just lead to distortions in the value of the savings. Take for example a few decades ago. Medical care was much more afordable. Once insurance reached a certain threshold the profession discovered it could charge the same amount as before plus the insurance. The proportion of national wealth devoted to medical went way up. A similar adjustment would happen with retirement services if there was an enforced pool of money to play with. The key is to remember what social security was put in place for. It was designed to keep the elderly from becoming a burdon on society in general and the younger families in particular. Some elderly are more likely to be a burdon than others. Systems of private accounts just change the goal, they don't fix it.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (56)	6/13/2005 2:52:27 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 492

I like the idea of private accounts in principle, but I see two problems. 1. I don't think that the people in the bottom 20% could build a nest egg that would provide a subsistence income. Especially those that are currently approaching middle age. 2. How do we pay for the "transition costs". It's not a pragmatic solution until we address those issues. John

To: RetiredNow who wrote (56)	6/16/2005 6:46:05 AM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 492

Excellent post. Precisely! Why not have people save money in their own accounts, as you suggest? It's unreasonable to expect Gen Ys to pay for the Boomer's retirement, just because statistically speaking, Boomers statistically are saving less money as a % of their income, per an article posted on the AMD thread. In a nutshell, Boomers should be forced to save money in their own accounts - or work longer if they decide not to save. It should be their money. So they do not dump their issues onto the next generation, but then, that's what happens when you have only one age demographic represented in Congress. Since Gen Ys and Gen Xs are not represented in Congress, Congress just dumps it onto the next generations, rather than doing something rational like creating forced savings accounts. You'll note how I'm a liberal Democrat, yet when it comes to Soc Sec, Ten and I pretty much see eye to eye. You'll find a huge generational gap between what the Congressional boomers think and what other generations think, not too surprisingly. Here's more evidence of Soc Sec generational discrimination by Congress, against younger generational trends: From USA Today: "The ANTI-working women" [policy]: A husband and wife who each earn $15k/yr will get a lifetime benefit of $177k. But a couple with one spouse earning $30k will get $273k. (That's 100k more just because Congress is sexist, statistically speaking.) The Congress Hates Divorced-People policy: Those who remarry adn rely on spousal benefits can come out behind if their new spouse has a lower lifetime earnings than their former spouse. "Social Security consistently violates notions of equal justice by taxing more or paying less to those who are equally situated," Steuerle says. "Everybody I talk to from left and right agrees this is not a reasonable thing." The current policy rules were created in 1939 by a "bunch of guys sitting around a table" that "had stay-at-home wives."