Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (233785)	10/7/2013 4:04:44 PM
From: Metacomet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542243

We ought to be able to admit that this IS a system that takes from the young and gives to the old, Well, yeah That is the design model It has always been an intergenerational transfer It simply addressed the historic problem of dealing with an aging population that was no longer able to provide for themselves There were millions of elders, without family to rely on that were simply cast adrift until they died Social Security addressed this by the simple expedient of putting in place a system whereby your contributions were distributed to the current qualifiers and you were then guaranteed a seat on the bus when you eventually qualified Effectively a form of forced saving It has worked amazingly well by any objective standard, but there will always be those, usually folks sufficiently positioned so they don't need it, who will complain about someone else getting something for free ..and those folks will always find a dangling thread to pull on in hopes of unravelling the system ...

To: epicure who wrote (233785)	10/7/2013 4:16:14 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542243

Looks to me as if we've had our say. And gotten back to our basic disagreement, e. For me, the immediate issue is not an intergenerational one but an income/wealth inequality issue. And the last thirty something years have been deadly on that score. And it's also about how we keep what remains of the safety net in place, funded at reasonably acceptable levels. Unfortunately, those levels are much lower than in the past. As the piece I posted noted. So I gather our differences go like this. You think the ss gets fixed by further taxing the benefits themselves and I think it gets fixed by taxing income above the current levels. I'm not certain how you think health care costs get addressed. I think it should be by single payer systems in which the taxes are genuinely progressive. And the insurance system moves out of the work place. I gather you think the fix is to tax the medicare benefits in some fashion. I'm just not certain. But, most of all, I just simply think we frame it differently, have tried to reach some agreement on the nature of the framing difference, and have done so.