Social Security

[headoverheels 291]

11 hours ago, JerryBaumchen said:

As a self-employed person, he elected to not pay into SS. 

Jerry Baumchen

I don't see how he did that. SS is not optional for self employed.  In fact, you have to pay both the "employee" part and the "employer" part.

[JerryBaumchen 1,048]

6 hours ago, headoverheels said:

I don't see how he did that. SS is not optional for self employed.  In fact, you have to pay both the "employee" part and the "employer" part.

Hi heels,

I have asked him that more than once.  He has said it was the rules at the time.  Other than that, I do not know.

Jerry Baumchen

[johnhking1 70]

I am guessing that Social Security seemed like a good idea when it was founded in 1935.  When the baby booms started working, what a boost to the system.  Now that they are retiring, it is putting a strain on the system.  Social Security is starting to look like a giant pyramid scheme.

[normiss 622]

Well, when leadership intentionally misdirects funding to a program, it would appear to behave like a pyramid scheme.

No need to look behind the curtain I suppose.

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

12 hours ago, headoverheels said:

I don't see how he did that. SS is not optional for self employed.  In fact, you have to pay both the "employee" part and the "employer" part.

There are ways.

The simplest is to not pay yourself anything. 
If you have no (or very little) income, you pay no (or very little) taxes. Both income taxes and FICA (SS & Medicare). 

 

By not paying into SS, you aren't eligible for it. 

 

I have to laugh a bit at the whole premise of this thread.

SS isn't going to collapse. It won't fail. It won't 'go away.' 

 

I've been hearing that "SS will be gone in 15 years" since the early 90s (almost 30 years ago).

 

Benefits may change (go down).
Age to collect may change (go up).

Taxes may change (go up or the max income subject to tax go up).

 

But some sort of old age pension will be there. No way the congress-critters are going to let old people freeze or starve.

[normiss 622]

20 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:

There are ways.

The simplest is to not pay yourself anything. 
If you have no (or very little) income, you pay no (or very little) taxes. Both income taxes and FICA (SS & Medicare). 

 

By not paying into SS, you aren't eligible for it. 

 

I have to laugh a bit at the whole premise of this thread.

SS isn't going to collapse. It won't fail. It won't 'go away.' 

 

I've been hearing that "SS will be gone in 15 years" since the early 90s (almost 30 years ago).

 

Benefits may change (go down).
Age to collect may change (go up).

Taxes may change (go up or the max income subject to tax go up).

 

But some sort of old age pension will be there. No way the congress-critters are going to let old people freeze or starve.

To the people that have contributed their entire working life, that's theft.

[billvon 2,400]

1 minute ago, normiss said:

To the people that have contributed their entire working life, that's theft.

If you contribute to medical insurance your whole life, but use less than you paid into it, is that theft?

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

3 minutes ago, normiss said:

To the people that have contributed their entire working life, that's theft.

No, that's simply misunderstanding.

SS isn't a "you pay in and build up an account and receive that money when you get old" deal.

The money you (and me and everyone else) pays in goes to pay the current recipients.

The money future recipients will get (you, me & everyone else) will come from the people working and paying in then. 

 

How about the people who have paid in their entire lives, retire at 65 and die a few months later? Their survivors (with certain exceptions) don't get 'their' money.
How about the people who pay in their entire lives, but die before age 65 and get nothing?

[turtlespeed 212]

1 hour ago, wolfriverjoe said:

I've been hearing that "SS will be gone in 15 years" since the early 90s (almost 30 years ago).

Does that make you a denier?

[turtlespeed 212]

55 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:

No, that's simply misunderstanding.

SS isn't a "you pay in and build up an account and receive that money when you get old" deal.

The money you (and me and everyone else) pays in goes to pay the current recipients.

The money future recipients will get (you, me & everyone else) will come from the people working and paying in then. 

 

How about the people who have paid in their entire lives, retire at 65 and die a few months later? Their survivors (with certain exceptions) don't get 'their' money.
How about the people who pay in their entire lives, but die before age 65 and get nothing?

That is exactly why I advocate for personal retirement accounts, instead of theft.

Edited April 24, 2019 by turtlespeed
Hit the save button to quickly.

[yobnoc 142]

1 hour ago, turtlespeed said:

That is exactly why I advocate for personal retirement accounts, instead of theft.

Whoa, careful...you'll get crucified on here for suggesting that!

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

Just now, yobnoc said:

Whoa, careful...you'll get crucified on here for suggesting that!

No. 

Lots of us have IRAs, 401ks and personal savings (of a variety of sorts). 
I don't think SS will be enough to support the retirement I want to have. But I'm in a pretty good position to save up for it.

Not everyone is. For a LOT of people (more today than ever), SS is the only 'retirement plan' they have. No savings, no nothing else. 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/14/heres-how-many-americans-are-not-saving-any-money-for-emergencies-or-retirement-at-all.html

What you are getting criticized for (not crucified) is the idea that you want to 'opt out' of SS. 

Because it takes everyone contributing to support it. 
And it's not unrealistic to make the prediction that someone's retirement savings won't survive a serious economic crash. So its entirely possible that someone who did plan properly for retirement could find themselves dependent on SS. Maybe not entirely, but it could go from 'nice to have' to 'need to survive'. 

[brenthutch 383]

23 minutes ago, yobnoc said:

Whoa, careful...you'll get crucified on here for suggesting that!

Just a quick heads up, if you have not figured it out already, you are arguing with a bunch of well intentioned, left wing, aging, baby boomers.  They cannot be moved. They feel that their cause is a righteous one and no amount of facts, logic or reason can influence them.  

Edited April 25, 2019 by brenthutch

[billvon 2,400]

33 minutes ago, yobnoc said:

Whoa, careful...you'll get crucified on here for suggesting that!

Why?  I don't think you will find anyone here against retirement savings.

[yobnoc 142]

34 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Just a quick heads up, if you have not figured it out already, you are arguing with a bunch of well intentioned, left wing, aging, baby boomers.  They cannot be moved. They feel that their cause is a righteous one and no amount of facts, logic or reason can influence them.  

I'm a well intentioned, left-libertarian-leaning, young-ish man.  I generally find myself agreeing with those folks you mentioned, but I was surprised at how nasty some of the arguments can get on the occasion when I find myself in their crosshairs for a libertarian position.

[brenthutch 383]

As a well intentioned right-libertarian-leaning old-ish man, I feel your pain.  Their hearts are in the right place, however sometimes their collectivist tendencies get the best of them.  We all want to arrive at the same destination, we just argue about the best route.

[yobnoc 142]

27 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

As a well intentioned right-libertarian-leaning old-ish man, I feel your pain.  Their hearts are in the right place, however sometimes their collectivist tendencies get the best of them.  We all want to arrive at the same destination, we just argue about the best route.

I think the main reason I can't get on board with the right anymore is because they've co-opted Christian evangelicalism as a political platform.  That, and all the conspiracy theories aiming to assuage their unrealistic denialism of climate change.  So, until they become the party of fiscal conservatism again, which I don't believe will happen before the party dies completely, I'm voting blue all the way downticky.

[kallend 1,623]

On 4/24/2019 at 5:45 PM, wolfriverjoe said:

 

How about the people who have paid in their entire lives, retire at 65 and die a few months later? Their survivors (with certain exceptions) don't get 'their' money.
How about the people who pay in their entire lives, but die before age 65 and get nothing?

There are survivor benefits for spouses and dependent children.

[jakee 1,254]

10 hours ago, yobnoc said:

I'm a well intentioned, left-libertarian-leaning, young-ish man.  I generally find myself agreeing with those folks you mentioned, but I was surprised at how nasty some of the arguments can get on the occasion when I find myself in their crosshairs for a libertarian position.

No, the nastiness, or rather expressed frustration, comes from the fact that you are not responding to anyone’s criticism of the effects of your position. You’ve put forward an idea, people have found flaws with your idea, and you’re simply restating the original idea as nauseum as if it is on its own a rebuttal to the criticism. 

 

If you gave any indication whatsoever that you were considering the merits of anything that was being said to you, the tone of the conversation would probably be quite different.

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

5 hours ago, kallend said:

There are survivor benefits for spouses and dependent children.

Yes. Those are the 'certain exceptions' I meant.

 

But, for example, If I die next week, my 401k money will go to my nieces & nephew (no kids, no spouse). 

Nobody would get the SS benefits. Those would just 'go away.'

[yobnoc 142]

3 hours ago, jakee said:

No, the nastiness, or rather expressed frustration, comes from the fact that you are not responding to anyone’s criticism of the effects of your position. You’ve put forward an idea, people have found flaws with your idea, and you’re simply restating the original idea as nauseum as if it is on its own a rebuttal to the criticism. 

 

If you gave any indication whatsoever that you were considering the merits of anything that was being said to you, the tone of the conversation would probably be quite different.

The only acceptable response for you would be for me to say “gee, I guess you’re right.” Which is the crux of this whole thing. If I were given the choice to vote for a politician who was for an opt-in system, I’d vote for him/her. 

If, which is more likely, but still pretty unlikely in my estimation, some pol came up with a permanent fix that gained traction in the do-nothing-House, I’d support that too. But right now it’s a system that subsidizes welfare off the backs of the middle class, and it’s broken. 

So yeah...we’re not going to agree completely, but the mockery was pretty uncalled for. We can disagree on stuff like this without it dripping with contempt. I don’t begrudge y’all for holding the position you do, I just have a different position.

[yoink 321]

15 hours ago, brenthutch said:

Just a quick heads up, if you have not figured it out already, you are arguing with a bunch of well intentioned, left wing, aging, baby boomers.  They cannot be moved. They feel that their cause is a righteous one and no amount of facts, logic or reason can influence them.  

The irony of you talking about intransigence on a position is laughable. And that you feel the need to come into a thread solely to start calling people names is pathetic. Don't you have anything better to offer?

 

As people have said, the concept that the original poster has is nice in theory but it simply can't work in practice because of human nature. It'd be fine  for a minority of cases but would cause wholesale meltdown for tens of thousands of others, the pieces of which we (as a responsible society) WOULD have to end up picking up... 

That's the bit yobnoc is failing to address, but at least he's got a position. You've just got your snide comments.

[yoink 321]

52 minutes ago, yobnoc said:

The only acceptable response for you would be for me to say “gee, I guess you’re right.” Which is the crux of this whole thing. If I were given the choice to vote for a politician who was for an opt-in system, I’d vote for him/her. 

And that's the frustration - you'd vote for them because you think it would benefit you personally. But there are so many second and third order consequences that people have advanced that you're seemingly unwilling to even consider that the only possible response can be 'look, you're wrong'.

[SethInMI 145]

1 hour ago, yobnoc said:

The only acceptable response for you would be for me to say “gee, I guess you’re right."

As soon as I found out you were a libertarian, I kinda checked out of the conversation. I have a brother who is a card-carrying libertarian, and it is too difficult arguing with him. Personal freedom is paramount, even at the cost of a happier healthier society. You also seem to be willing to make that trade, society as a whole may suffer so you can feel better about your wide array of choices.

Thankfully we are just shooting the shit on a forum, so no need to work toward something that could become law.

[SethInMI 145]

7 hours ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Nobody would get the SS benefits. Those would just 'go away.'

Apart from arguing with yobnoc, which I think has mostly run its course, this question of Social Security as an annuity vs. a savings account is an interesting idea.

As you point out, the current system is an annuity based one, it "depends" on some people dying "early" to provide a decent lifetime benefit. One problem with a savings account is you can outlive your money. Only the grouped nature of an annuity can prevent that, but the trade-off is you don't get a say in what happens to your saved money once you die, it just goes back into the pool.

I bring this up because I just saw a news story about a proposal to require / allow people to solve the "outlive your money" problem by giving the SS system a portion of their 401k, which would be used to fund an additional annuity with a lifetime benefit and no death benefit.

The article I read focused on the require / allow question, with one economist saying it would only work if it was required, otherwise adverse selection would push down the benefit amount (the only people who would sign up are healthy and genetically pre-disposed to long lives). The advantage would be the annuity amount would be more generous than if a private insurance company offered it as there would not be a profit motive.

It was an idea that piqued my interest, as I'm in the adverse selection group (my grandparents lived into their 90's), and have no desire to outlive my 401k. I can help myself by not taking SS until 70, but an additional way to shield very old me from destitution would be good.