There is NO RISK in privatizing SS and investing in stock market!!!

[healthmyths]

A rate of return can easily be extrapolated using the contributions, the pay outs and the length of benefit

Yep, which certainly isn't the same as social security promising a rate of return. It isn't an investment, doesn't have an individual account balance, doesn't offer a rate of return on what you put it... it is a defined benefit plan.

Nevertheless, the drones who make excuses for the Ponzi scheme are always claiming a certain rate of return.

Really? lol

False premises, distortions and lies the ONLY thing conservatives EVER have

That's ironic because false premises, distortions and lies are what Social Security is built on.

Sure, much like Germany's that has been around for 125+ years, US's has only been here 75....

ONE policy conservatives have EVER been correct about??? lol

Germany also does NOT have a minimum wage as do these other countries...
There are nine countries with no minimum wage
(Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland.)
Five of the nine have a lower unemployment rate than Luxembourg, the best of the other group.
The median country is Iceland, with a 5.5% unemployment rate.
The biggest country in Europe is Germany. No minimum wage and 5.2% unemployment.

These Numbers Don t Convince On A 10 Minimum Wage Let Alone 15 - Forbes

So ? What does Germany's SS have to do then with USA SS?

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

What you have back peddled to is the concept that a person not be required to prepare for retirement at all. Let me keep my money in cash if I want. But even if that were the case, you would be forcing me to do something with my money that I may not want to do. I would have to prove to the government that I was putting my money somewhere as a set aside for my retirement. A mandate is a mandate. A portion of my money would be mandated to be set aside, even if in a foolish and stupid way as to not acquire a single digit of interest and to lose value over the years through inflation. I would invest my funds in cash and coins and after forty or so years open the box and the $100 bill I put in the box 40 years ago would still be worth $100.
You are attempting to say a mandate to invest for ones retirement is not a mandate. Social Security is a mandate. The country mandates that you prepare for retirement so that when you reach the age of retirement you will lessen or not become a burden on society. The country demands that each citizen make minimum preparations for an occurrence or situation that has a great probability of taking place.

So I have mentioned two topics in this thread and yet to have gotten a realistic response to either. How is privatization of Social Security not a government mandate on the same scale as the ACA and how does a private investment portfolio provide the disability and death insurance provided for in Social Security. What happens to the calculations when you include the additional cost required to replace those insurance benefits when the switch is made from SS to privatization? Someone tried to answer the question but the math was way off. They claimed most Americans had this kind of coverage through their work. When I checked I discovered that very few Americans actually have the kind of insurance provided by SS.

What you have back peddled to is the concept that a person not be required to prepare for retirement at all. Let me keep my money in cash if I want. But even if that were the case, you would be forcing me to do something with my money that I may not want to do. I would have to prove to the government that I was putting my money somewhere as a set aside for my retirement. A mandate is a mandate. A portion of my money would be mandated to be set aside, even if in a foolish and stupid way as to not acquire a single digit of interest and to lose value over the years through inflation. I would invest my funds in cash and coins and after forty or so years open the box and the $100 bill I put in the box 40 years ago would still be worth $100.
You are attempting to say a mandate to invest for ones retirement is not a mandate. Social Security is a mandate. The country mandates that you prepare for retirement so that when you reach the age of retirement you will lessen or not become a burden on society. The country demands that each citizen make minimum preparations for an occurrence or situation that has a great probability of taking place.

So I have mentioned two topics in this thread and yet to have gotten a realistic response to either. How is privatization of Social Security not a government mandate on the same scale as the ACA and how does a private investment portfolio provide the disability and death insurance provided for in Social Security. What happens to the calculations when you include the additional cost required to replace those insurance benefits when the switch is made from SS to privatization? Someone tried to answer the question but the math was way off. They claimed most Americans had this kind of coverage through their work. When I checked I discovered that very few Americans actually have the kind of insurance provided by SS.

How is privatization of Social Security not a government mandate on the same scale as the ACA and how does a private investment portfolio provide the disability and death insurance provided for in Social Security. What happens to the calculations when you include the additional cost required to replace those insurance benefits when the switch is made from SS to privatization?

Stupid people should still be allowed to enroll in the low return SS system.
But enough about you.
Even with an added insurance policy, a private investment account, invested in stocks and bonds, funded by 12.4% of lifetime income would outperform the expected returns of the current Social Security system by a wide margin.

 

[Camp]

But even stupid people like me know that you are mandating that they invest in a private investment account. That means you are mandating that citizens pay private business to invest their money or mandating that citizens support corporations. Is forced participation in a investment portfolio a mandate or not? Why is a mandate to have a health insurance plan different than a mandate to have a retirement plan? And how come you guys always say the insurance benefits in SS don't really count for much, but never provide links proving the actual numbers. You guys want us to believe a million dollar life insurance plan is no big deal. Everyone gets one of those whenever and wherever they work. Get unemployed, don't worry, your private policy covers you even when you stop paying the premiums and will be glad to send your kids thousands of dollars every month until they turn 18 or 19. Sure they will.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

But even stupid people like me know that you are mandating that they invest in a private investment account. That means you are mandating that citizens pay private business to invest their money or mandating that citizens support corporations. Is forced participation in a investment portfolio a mandate or not? Why is a mandate to have a health insurance plan different than a mandate to have a retirement plan? And how come you guys always say the insurance benefits in SS don't really count for much, but never provide links proving the actual numbers. You guys want us to believe a million dollar life insurance plan is no big deal. Everyone gets one of those whenever and wherever they work. Get unemployed, don't worry, your private policy covers you even when you stop paying the premiums and will be glad to send your kids thousands of dollars every month until they turn 18 or 19. Sure they will.

The mandate for retirement sailed 80 years ago.
I'd like to make it better. My Social Security returns are gonna suck compared to a smaller amount invested in the market for a shorter period.

Why is a mandate to have a health insurance plan different than a mandate to have a retirement plan?

As I said, we had the retirement mandate for almost 80 years now.

Is forced participation in a investment portfolio a mandate or not?

Yes.

And how come you guys always say the insurance benefits in SS don't really count for much

Which ones? The survivor benefits or the massively abused disability portion?

You guys want us to believe a million dollar life insurance plan is no big deal.

They're pretty cheap now.

 

[Listening]

But even stupid people like me know that you are mandating that they invest in a private investment account. That means you are mandating that citizens pay private business to invest their money or mandating that citizens support corporations. Is forced participation in a investment portfolio a mandate or not? Why is a mandate to have a health insurance plan different than a mandate to have a retirement plan? And how come you guys always say the insurance benefits in SS don't really count for much, but never provide links proving the actual numbers. You guys want us to believe a million dollar life insurance plan is no big deal. Everyone gets one of those whenever and wherever they work. Get unemployed, don't worry, your private policy covers you even when you stop paying the premiums and will be glad to send your kids thousands of dollars every month until they turn 18 or 19. Sure they will.

Why ?

Could you not just have an account that has your money that is administered like a bank....by the government. You could choose to keep it in cash or put it in T-bills (what is your protection now ?). You would not be required to put it with an investment firm.

 

[Camp]

But even stupid people like me know that you are mandating that they invest in a private investment account. That means you are mandating that citizens pay private business to invest their money or mandating that citizens support corporations. Is forced participation in a investment portfolio a mandate or not? Why is a mandate to have a health insurance plan different than a mandate to have a retirement plan? And how come you guys always say the insurance benefits in SS don't really count for much, but never provide links proving the actual numbers. You guys want us to believe a million dollar life insurance plan is no big deal. Everyone gets one of those whenever and wherever they work. Get unemployed, don't worry, your private policy covers you even when you stop paying the premiums and will be glad to send your kids thousands of dollars every month until they turn 18 or 19. Sure they will.

Why ?

Could you not just have an account that has your money that is administered like a bank....by the government. You could choose to keep it in cash or put it in T-bills (what is your protection now ?). You would not be required to put it with an investment firm.

Sure you could. I'm not arguing the right or wrong of the idea. Those who promote privatization use numbers and speak about rates of return to reinforce their ideas. What happens when you limit the investments to simple random savings accounts and T-bills. Those don't pay out a lot. They hardly ever even keep up with inflation, if ever. What investment adviser would advise a 25 or 30 year old person to invest that way?

You still end up with the insurance dilemma. Ya, you can get a 30 year million dollar term life policy for 50 to a 100 dollars a month, but if you started paying in at age 20 your policy is done by age 50 and you just kissed 20,000 to 40,000 dollars goodbye and are left with no life insurance at the age of 50. How much do you think it will cost to continue, or get a new policy? Want to invest another $40,000 into thin air? Maybe you will drop dead before you turn 80 and your 50 year old kids and 20 or 30 year old grand kids will get a windfall.
Forget about disability insurance. And while SSI may be different and controversial compared to regular survivors benefits, they are there and available and no matter how much some folks may bitch about them, you have to include them in the overall SS package when comparing SS to a privatization scheme. That is what privatization is, a scheme. A scheme promoted by wall street and private investment firms. Can't believe it is still being hustled.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Most people won't plan and save responsibly if you give them back their SS payroll tax. Then what? If they end up old and poor, you will pay for their keep out of your tax dollars.

Why do you think allowing people to own their own retirement accounts abolishes the mandatory contributions?

Because he is dishonest and/or really, really STUPID!

 

[Dad2three]

Germany also does NOT have a minimum wage as do these other countries...
There are nine countries with no minimum wage
(Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland.)
Five of the nine have a lower unemployment rate than Luxembourg, the best of the other group.
The median country is Iceland, with a 5.5% unemployment rate.
The biggest country in Europe is Germany. No minimum wage and 5.2% unemployment.

These Numbers Don t Convince On A 10 Minimum Wage Let Alone 15 - Forbes

So ? What does Germany's SS have to do then with USA SS?

You mean because Germany, and those other nations are highly unionized and min wages are agreed upon with labor/capital?

But YES, Germany just passed a min wage BECAUSE of falling union membership. It's about $12 an hour starting in 2015!

NOW WHY DID YOU BRING THIS UP? LOL

WEIRD YOU TWO WANT TO CONFLATE MIN WAGE WITH UNEMPLOYMENT?




ONCE MORE:

ONE policy conservatives have EVER been correct about??? lol

 

[Dad2three]

I explained the flaw in the argument perfectly clear but you simply don't understand it. You cannot make a direct comparison to other pension funds because it assumes that all risk/reward parameters are constant amongst the funds, which isn't the case.

I will give you an example. By your posting style, I assume you're a teenager. At some point, you will get a job and start saving money. If you decide to take finance when you get to college, you will learn that there is generally a trade-off between risk and return. The more risk you take, the more compensation you should receive and the higher expected return should be. If you don't need your money for a long time, then you should take on more risk because over time, your return will be higher and you can withstand volatility in the market. But if you need the money soon, you should take less risk because you might lose money in the near term and won't be able to make it back later. Thus, young people should take on more risk in their savings and old people should take on less risk. So when you have a job in 10 years or so, you should be earning a higher return on your savings than your grandmother. Your grandmother will earn less of a return than you, but there is no "cost" to your grandmother simply because she has a lower return than you will. That just reflects different risk profiles.

Pension plans are similar. Because populations in the Northeast are older than in the South, plans in the Northeast should have less risky investments than in the South. Thus, without adjusting for the risk of the plans, it is specious to compare plans solely based on returns. Thus, there is no "cost" simply because one plan underperforms another.

There are several other reasons why comparing pension plans to each other is not proper policy, and there are other ways to measure "cost," but that's probably enough for you today.

"You cannot make a direct comparison to other pension funds because it assumes that all risk/reward parameters are constant amongst the funds, which isn't the case."

Sure, YET the promised benifts NEVER naterialized for the first 3 years. Weird how conservatives, like you Bubba, NEVER are correct on policy, EVER, except to benefit the 1%ers

EVERYTHING you EVER posit is just right wing crap, based on myths and fairy tales and you NEVER accept reality like Banksters creating a world wide credit bubble. No it was 'gov't policy' that made them do it, lol

 

[Dad2three]

Take the 12.4% of lifetime income they currently pay to the government and put in into a cheap, diversified index type fund. As they get closer to retirement age, rotate the holdings into a more bond heavy fund.

Yes, wall street has shown over and over they'll look out for US right? lol

 

[Dad2three]

Why not, current "contributions" to Al Gore's lockbox are mandatory.

Sorry, Al's lock box was broken into by Dubya/GOP to give US 2 UNFUNDED tax cuts!

 

[Dad2three]

Who says you have to give your retirement to a banker?

If you want you can buy nothing but US Treasury bonds and guarantee yourself the same level of poverty you would have had under the current system.

The problem with you sheep is that you truly believe you are utterly incapable of taking care of yourselves

Why do you Klowns ALWAYS demand we bend over for the 1%ers?


ONCE MORE:

"First, how about giving ONE policy conservatives in the US have EVER supported that worked as promised? But yes, let's turn over our retirement fund to the Banksters who created a world wide credit bubble (ponzi scheme) to reward themselves *shaking head*"

 

[Dad2three]

Niether one have been around in their original form for the periods you mentioned. Social Security has seen numerous tax increases and benefit reductions. The German system was wiped out by the inflation of 1923, and also again by WW II. Both systems have already defaulted on their promises numerous times.

Gosh, you mean something as large as SS in Germany and the US has been altered, in US's case, dozens of times? I'm shocked. Next you'll tell me that tax cuts don't really bring in more revenues and ruin my whole week

 

[Dad2three]

You are not being forced to buy anything. You can leave your entire retirement savings in a cash position if you want to. The point is that you and you alone would control where the money goes. How is that worse than the government choosing for you?

But you do know that the so called Social Security Trust fund is filled with nothing but US treasury IOUs don't you?

You can't compare the forced purchase of private insurance to people owning their own retirement accounts.

One forces you to part with money you may not want to spend on coverage that you don't need like drug and alcohol counseling or for coverage for kids you will never have the other allows you to control money that you have earned.

No sense of history pre SS huh? You and your type believe in myths and fairy tales, when push comes to shove, YOUR ideology is bankrupt and ridiculous, that'
s why NO nation has EVER successfully used it!

 

[Dad2three]

Great explanation. Sadly, most on the internet want to pretend like they know as much as someone who, like here, is CLEARLY more educated on a topic than them.

You mean Toro (NOT a conservative) is a Bankster and can throw shit around with the best on wall street, but NOT accept reality or truth? Yes

 

[Londoner]

Privatizers want to replace guaranteed income with a system that feeds money to people who touted Housing Securities as conservative investments - which is why they were sold to so many pension funds and decimated a number of retirees. As for Treasuries: what could go wrong lending money to the US Government?

The main goal of the privatization movement is to dismantle Social Security. This is coming from someone who believes that it is impossible to retire without a diversified portfolio, one that is carefully managed over one's entire working life.

 

[bripat9643]

Niether one have been around in their original form for the periods you mentioned. Social Security has seen numerous tax increases and benefit reductions. The German system was wiped out by the inflation of 1923, and also again by WW II. Both systems have already defaulted on their promises numerous times.

Gosh, you mean something as large as SS in Germany and the US has been altered, in US's case, dozens of times? I'm shocked. Next you'll tell me that tax cuts don't really bring in more revenues and ruin my whole week

A business isn't allowed to alter the terms of any contracts it signs. When the German or U.S. government alters the terms of the deals they make, they are effectively reneging on their commitments. It's the equivalent of declaring bankruptcy, but you say these deals have existed for 75 year and 125 years.

No they haven't.

 

[bripat9643]

Who says you have to give your retirement to a banker?

If you want you can buy nothing but US Treasury bonds and guarantee yourself the same level of poverty you would have had under the current system.

The problem with you sheep is that you truly believe you are utterly incapable of taking care of yourselves

Why do you Klowns ALWAYS demand we bend over for the 1%ers?


ONCE MORE:

"First, how about giving ONE policy conservatives in the US have EVER supported that worked as promised? But yes, let's turn over our retirement fund to the Banksters who created a world wide credit bubble (ponzi scheme) to reward themselves *shaking head*"

The gold standard.

 

[bripat9643]

Take the 12.4% of lifetime income they currently pay to the government and put in into a cheap, diversified index type fund. As they get closer to retirement age, rotate the holdings into a more bond heavy fund.

Yes, wall street has shown over and over they'll look out for US right? lol

Even if that were true, it means the so-called "lock box" is only good until the next administration. Some "lock box."

 

[bripat9643]

I explained the flaw in the argument perfectly clear but you simply don't understand it. You cannot make a direct comparison to other pension funds because it assumes that all risk/reward parameters are constant amongst the funds, which isn't the case.

I will give you an example. By your posting style, I assume you're a teenager. At some point, you will get a job and start saving money. If you decide to take finance when you get to college, you will learn that there is generally a trade-off between risk and return. The more risk you take, the more compensation you should receive and the higher expected return should be. If you don't need your money for a long time, then you should take on more risk because over time, your return will be higher and you can withstand volatility in the market. But if you need the money soon, you should take less risk because you might lose money in the near term and won't be able to make it back later. Thus, young people should take on more risk in their savings and old people should take on less risk. So when you have a job in 10 years or so, you should be earning a higher return on your savings than your grandmother. Your grandmother will earn less of a return than you, but there is no "cost" to your grandmother simply because she has a lower return than you will. That just reflects different risk profiles.

Pension plans are similar. Because populations in the Northeast are older than in the South, plans in the Northeast should have less risky investments than in the South. Thus, without adjusting for the risk of the plans, it is specious to compare plans solely based on returns. Thus, there is no "cost" simply because one plan underperforms another.

There are several other reasons why comparing pension plans to each other is not proper policy, and there are other ways to measure "cost," but that's probably enough for you today.

"You cannot make a direct comparison to other pension funds because it assumes that all risk/reward parameters are constant amongst the funds, which isn't the case."

Sure, YET the promised benifts NEVER naterialized for the first 3 years. Weird how conservatives, like you Bubba, NEVER are correct on policy, EVER, except to benefit the 1%ers

EVERYTHING you EVER posit is just right wing crap, based on myths and fairy tales and you NEVER accept reality like Banksters creating a world wide credit bubble. No it was 'gov't policy' that made them do it, lol

Nyah! Nyah! Nyah!