Jeb Bush: Next president should privatize Social Security

[FA_Q2]

Imagine everyone's surprise when they discover government spent all the freaking SS money.

There's nothing surprising about it at all, SS is paygo and has been since inception.

Is it possible to privatize $2 trillion dollars of IOU's from congress? I don't think so.

Congress sells its IOUs all the time. If I'm not mistaken, its every Tuesday. Holy Lord you can't seriously be this stupid.

You don't know what the hell you are talking about

Imagine everyone's surprise when they discover government spent all the freaking SS money. Is it possible to privatize $2 trillion dollars of IOU's from congress? I don't think so.

When you buy a savings bond for your kid, you get an IOU from the government. When you put cash in a money market account, in most cases you're getting an IOU from the government. When you invest in municipal bonds, you get IOU's from the government.

Okay, all you liberal bunch of dumb asses go ahead tell us how the government is going to pay back the $2 trillion dollars of OUR money they borrowed and spent from the SS trust fund?

Why would they have to pay it all back at once?

HELLO earth to idiots, they don't have the money now to pay the SS benefits and don't have the money to pay back the $2 trillion dollars so now they are trying to screw over the people who were forced to pay into this scheme. They are proposing reduced benefits and in some cases denying benefits, means testing, and increasing the retirement age to a ridiculous age hoping people will just die before they can collect a dime of the benefits they paid for.

No. The original retirement age for social security was 65. That was in 1935 when the average life expectancy was 61. Life expectancy is now 79 and the retirement age for people retiring now is 66. Retirement age went up 1 year and people are living an extra 18 years. How are they being screwed?

And the actual truth of what SS was supposed to be - a system you paid into for life and received NOTHING in return because you would likely be dead.

THAT is what SS was intended to be in the beginning.

How are they getting screwed? They are getting screwed because they have been FORCED into purchasing an annuity for all intents and purposes that guaranteed them a specific benefit. A benefit that the government is now telling them they are arbitrarily going to recant on.

It is like telling my neighbor that I will pay him 100 bucks a month after he retires if only he gives me 10 dollars a month now and then backing out on my obligation 20 years later after I collected all that money.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Lets say that dimwits like M-14 retires.....what would stop him from "privatizing" and investing part of his SS in whatever scam he wishes? NOTHING......and it sounds reall good when you're 25 years old....its later in life that older people need some protection from the scammers of Wall Street.

Wait, are you claiming that money invested in the market typically returns LESS than money given to SS - dolt4900?

Are you REALLY saying this?

 

[M14 Shooter]

Start by letting people opt out: Hand over their SS fund, plus interest and they can't draw anything else from the system

How do you do that while still paying the people who are getting soc sec benefits and are already retired. WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM?

I thought there was a "Trust Fund"?

The Trust Fund is no different than your bank account or your personal retirement fund. Pieces of paper saying someone owes you this or that amount of money.

It's not even that. What it is a bunch of federal debt the fed govt bought with our soc sec taxes, with the "promise" that when the debt is due they'll borrow the money from China or someplace to pay us benefits. Our children should kill us.

Yes, well, it should be clear by now that neither the GOP nor the Dems have any moral high ground when objecting to borrowing.

 

[M14 Shooter]

lmao.
Does anybody understand why the right wants to do this?

Yes.
So that you have more, and the government has less, control over your money.

Government control over "YOUR MONEY"????

Yes. My money.
Yes. The governmnent control how much of it I pay into SocSec and how much I get back.

Does NOT the EMPLOYER also contribute the same percentage of salaries toward FICA???

Yeasss.. so? He does so on my behalf. You have no point here.

Under your little plan, you'd be asking the employer to MATCH the funds you wish to gamble with.

He already matches it - what changes?

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

How do you fund the transition M-14?

Why am I the only one who seems to know anything about this?
Why do people who know nothing about this oppose it?
Bush s plan for Social Security - Mar. 4 2005

So the plan is to straight up borrow it and kick it down the road to our children.

That's BRILLIANT.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Your dumber than apile of feces.......
If your family wheels you in to a nursing home because of the onset of Alzheimer (which I think you may already have a touch of) the FIRST source of funding that nursing home will tap into is BOTH SS and Medicare.

That may be the case for you, but not for me.
Further, SocSec/Medicare doesn't pay for a nursing home - Medicaid does, but only after your money runs out, and it will take the huge majority of your SocSec benefit when doing so.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Start by letting people opt out: Hand over their SS fund, plus interest and they can't draw anything else from the system

How do you do that while still paying the people who are getting soc sec benefits and are already retired. WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM?

I thought there was a "Trust Fund"?

The Trust Fund is no different than your bank account or your personal retirement fund. Pieces of paper saying someone owes you this or that amount of money.

It's not even that. What it is a bunch of federal debt the fed govt bought with our soc sec taxes, with the "promise" that when the debt is due they'll borrow the money from China or someplace to pay us benefits. Our children should kill us.

Yes, well, it should be clear by now that neither the GOP nor the Dems hve any moral high ground when objecting to borrowing.

I thought part of the goal of social security was to REDUCE our debt. The link you provided says it will increase it.

 

[M14 Shooter]

How do you fund the transition M-14?

Why am I the only one who seems to know anything about this?
Why do people who know nothing about this oppose it?
Bush s plan for Social Security - Mar. 4 2005

So the plan is to straight up borrow it and kick it down the road to our children.
That's BRILLIANT.

It should be clear by now that neither the GOP nor the Dems have any moral high ground when objecting to borrowing -- and so your mock outrage is rightly ignored.

That said, its a good thing I've been giving you all this information, else you;d be happily aruying from abject ignorance.

 

[M14 Shooter]

How do you do that while still paying the people who are getting soc sec benefits and are already retired. WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM?

I thought there was a "Trust Fund"?

The Trust Fund is no different than your bank account or your personal retirement fund. Pieces of paper saying someone owes you this or that amount of money.

It's not even that. What it is a bunch of federal debt the fed govt bought with our soc sec taxes, with the "promise" that when the debt is due they'll borrow the money from China or someplace to pay us benefits. Our children should kill us.

Yes, well, it should be clear by now that neither the GOP nor the Dems hve any moral high ground when objecting to borrowing.

I thought part of the goal of social security was to REDUCE our debt.

Oh... now Soc Sec is for debt reduction?

First, you said it was to cover people for their poor choices...
Then you said it was insurance against old age...
Now its debt reduction?

Do you have any other claims as to the purpose of SocSec or are you just going to conveniently make them up as you go along?

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

At least give me the option.
I've done well "gambling"on the market.

"Gambling," Jefferson once said, "is a tax on the willing.."
Since games of chance REQUIRE many, many losers for the one "winner," the bit of money in retirement from SS is NOT the time or funds to go gambling.

Your first problem is a complete and utter ignorance on the stock market highlighted by the fact that you think it is 'gambling.'
One of the advantages in a privatized system is that people might actually get some exposure in the market and dispel that asinine idea that owning a piece of something is akin to gambling.

BUT omg HOW DARE someone suggest ss being privatized.

Let us know how we're going to pay for that.
Thanks.

That is why such a system needs to be phased in - they spent the money SS had brought in so there is nothing there to privatize but plenty of benefits owed.

It still has to be paid for if it is "phased in" . Please tell me where the money is coming from. None of you privatization junkies seem to be able to comprehend this. Privatizing social security means the current generation has to pay for retirement TWICE, unless you plan on increasing the deficit, which wouldn't surprise me, as the only two Presidents to reduce the deficit in the past 50 years were Democrats

Any privatization would be staged in where people under 50 can start weening themselves away from this immoral, corrupt system that takes your money and spends it, then tells you that it may not be able to pay it back. Period.

It doesn't matter if it's "staged" or not - eventually every diverted penny has to be paid for with more debt.

The system is bankrupt.

I don't think you even understand what the term "bankrupt" means - and your idea that adding trillions more to the national debt on top of what SS already cost would be a good thing is kind of warped.

 

[FA_Q2]

How do you do that while still paying the people who are getting soc sec benefits and are already retired. WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM?

I thought there was a "Trust Fund"?

The Trust Fund is no different than your bank account or your personal retirement fund. Pieces of paper saying someone owes you this or that amount of money.

It's not even that. What it is a bunch of federal debt the fed govt bought with our soc sec taxes, with the "promise" that when the debt is due they'll borrow the money from China or someplace to pay us benefits. Our children should kill us.

Yes, well, it should be clear by now that neither the GOP nor the Dems hve any moral high ground when objecting to borrowing.

I thought part of the goal of social security was to REDUCE our debt. The link you provided says it will increase it.

Fixing the program will cost money. That is a fact unless you go with the prevailing 'fix' that the government wants to go through which is to reduce your benefits.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

I thought there was a "Trust Fund"?

The Trust Fund is no different than your bank account or your personal retirement fund. Pieces of paper saying someone owes you this or that amount of money.

It's not even that. What it is a bunch of federal debt the fed govt bought with our soc sec taxes, with the "promise" that when the debt is due they'll borrow the money from China or someplace to pay us benefits. Our children should kill us.

Yes, well, it should be clear by now that neither the GOP nor the Dems hve any moral high ground when objecting to borrowing.

I thought part of the goal of social security was to REDUCE our debt. The link you provided says it will increase it.

Fixing the program will cost money. That is a fact unless you go with the prevailing 'fix' that the government wants to go through which is to reduce your benefits.

Any proposed reduction in benefits is lower than the 33.333% it will cost either me or my children in the form of more U.S. debt that has to be paid down.

Further, diverting 1/3 to private investment accounts isn't "fixing" social security at all. The remaining 2/3 will have the same problems as the system now, and the 1/3 diverted isn't a "fix" at all, as social security isn't an investment program to begin with.

 

[nat4900]

Social Security's average rate of return per year is around 1.5%. The stock market's average rate of return per year is around 11%.

....and the stock market broker does all this for FREE, why? well because you're such a nice person.....

.....and if the stock market takes a huge dip.....the stock broker will bring some groceries to your home every weekend, right?

 

[nat4900]

Wait, are you claiming that money invested in the market typically returns LESS than money given to SS - dolt4900?

Are you REALLY saying this?

Of course I'm stating PRECISLEY that......There would be NO need for me to have a savings account at my local bank IF I was "guaranteed" a much better return through the stock market.

Does the stock market guarantee my much better return?
YES....or NO ????

 

[nat4900]

If my local bank goes belly-up because some crooks and scammers defrauded.....my recourse is the FDIC.......

If the stock market takes a huge dip (as it has several times since its inception) ...exactly WHO will guarantee or mitigate my losses?

 

[nat4900]

Actually I DO believe that for some die-hard republicans the choice should be theirs to divert some of the tax burden for SS AND Medicare for whatever they want to invest that money in.....HOWEVER, they must also endorse an agreement that the federal government will NOT be liable for the foolish investments they've made if they go south.

 

[PratchettFan]

So really, no actual difference at all...other than (assuming what you said has anything to do with this plan) 1/3 of my benefits being unsecured. So, given that my SS benefits will only come to about $30,000 per year then losing that 1/3 gets me to $20,000. So no worries then. I'll be eligible for welfare. Great plan.

Now that you understand the issue, I'm glad to see you no longer have any worthwhile objections.

I'm happy I could make you glad.

We both know you still hate the idea.
We both know you know you have no sound reason for doing so.

Hate it? Too strong a word. The only thing I know about this plan is what you presented here. I don't even know who proposed it, let alone what is actually in it

How can you oppose something you admit you know nothing about?

Based upon your description of it. If I actually saw the plan it might make a difference. I am responding to what you are saying. What you are saying is an amazingly bad idea.

 

[PratchettFan]

Investment choices are usually only known to be poor after the fact.

You did not answer my question. Please give it a shot.

Because their "poor choices" are only know to be poor after the fact. That's the answer.

How does that answer follow with any degree of soundness from the question?
You make a bad decision -- how am I responsible for it?

Whoever said you were?

You.
You want the state to cover people when they make poor choices.
That makes me responsible.

Indeed it does. Living in a first world country isn't free.

 

[PratchettFan]

There's nothing surprising about it at all, SS is paygo and has been since inception.

Congress sells its IOUs all the time. If I'm not mistaken, its every Tuesday. Holy Lord you can't seriously be this stupid.

You don't know what the hell you are talking about

When you buy a savings bond for your kid, you get an IOU from the government. When you put cash in a money market account, in most cases you're getting an IOU from the government. When you invest in municipal bonds, you get IOU's from the government.

Okay, all you liberal bunch of dumb asses go ahead tell us how the government is going to pay back the $2 trillion dollars of OUR money they borrowed and spent from the SS trust fund?

Why would they have to pay it all back at once?

HELLO earth to idiots, they don't have the money now to pay the SS benefits and don't have the money to pay back the $2 trillion dollars so now they are trying to screw over the people who were forced to pay into this scheme. They are proposing reduced benefits and in some cases denying benefits, means testing, and increasing the retirement age to a ridiculous age hoping people will just die before they can collect a dime of the benefits they paid for.

No. The original retirement age for social security was 65. That was in 1935 when the average life expectancy was 61. Life expectancy is now 79 and the retirement age for people retiring now is 66. Retirement age went up 1 year and people are living an extra 18 years. How are they being screwed?

(face palm) you act like that's new information, hence the damn SS tax increase to cover this for fucks sake only congress spent the damn extra contributions we paid to cover this, they used it as a slush fund for spending on a bunch of crap completely unrelated to SS. Gaawwwddd getting through to some of you knuckleheads is painful.

It's not new information. It's just information which shows what you said is utter garbage. I'll leave you to your little fantasy world.

 

[PratchettFan]

You know, for all the idiots who think that government should be FULLY out of their miserable lives, they should also avoid voting.....After all, these folks are voting to perpetuate a government that should, in their moronic assertion, scarcely exist.

They should be REQUIRED to sign off that if their "privatization" flops, then they should NOT ask for either the FDIC (insurance) and should NOT ask for welfare if they become destitute after some market crash.

Let them become illegal aliens to Mexico.

It doesn't work that way. The consequences of people being kicked in the teeth by life, either by mistakes or plain bad luck, are unacceptable in a civilized society. We don't let people starve to teach them a lesson.