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

To: RMF who wrote (375467)	3/30/2008 12:43:36 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577162

If I were making the budget, I'd FIRST say that Social Security is STILL in the black and the ONLY reason it's in trouble is that we use the funds in it to pay for everything else. This is not an unusual view, and it is absolutely, totally wrong. And, in fairness, I've seen congressmen make the same mistake, time and again. The problem with SS is an actuarial matter, not merely a misuse of plan assets. If we apply the same accounting standard to SS as we do to private pension plans, SS would be technically insolvent today -- not due to the debt it holds, but because no provision has been made for future retirees. The upshot is that SS is what pension professionals call a "defined benefit" plan -- a plan under which benefits are pre-established and the contributors are SUPPOSED to contribute enough to support the required benefit. In the case of SS, the contributions made over the last 70 years simply haven't been enough to sustain the benefit payments that are committed for future recipients. The problem, of course, is that someone didn't use their head when they dreamed this SS nightmare up. People are living longer, the Baby Boom generation is starting to retire, and mandated benefit payments are too high for the funds that are available. And there is, literally, nothing to be done about it other than increasing taxes or cutting benefits.