Really? Most seniors with private investments just lost most of their retiremnet money. People with Social Security did not.

I paid into SS for 50 years. Now you want to take it away from me. What a good Republican you are! Regardless of what plan you choose, the Republican law makers and the rich will steal it from you. Save this, seal it in an envelope, and open it in 40 or 50 years. Good luck Dumb, Dumb.

brendan-4 Awesome, then give me the chance to opt out so I don't have to pay for seniors that expected the government to take care of them. I know i can manage my money better than the government can, thats for damn sure.

brendan, those seniors paid into social security their entire working carreer.

They have the right to expect their SS checks so they can take care of them selves.

AGREED!!!! I want an opt out option with SS AND Medicare. I can take care of myself thank you

How many times do we need to explain that SS is not "I put money in a little black box, and I want to take it out in 50 years."

SS is I put money in a box that will be used to pay my parent's generation. You pay for your parent's generation. Your kids pay for your generation.

So yeah, in a way this is a Ponzi scheme. You borrow from one generation to pay for the next. And each generation requires more money because populations get bigger and cost of living increases. So the debt gets bigger and bigger, not unlike a Ponzi scheme.

I am not arguing against Social Security. I am simply describing what it is.

energizer.bunny.1237, you're correct but the problem is that when current retiress were working there were 16 workers supporting each retiree. Today it is 3 on its way to 2. That means, for the same benefit, we pay 5-8x as much!?

Remember it was the Democrats lead by Lyndon Johnson (1968-69) who first raided the trust fund to pay for the Democratic initiated Vietnamese War and the Democrat Great Society programs. While the raid did require the Treasury to buy Treasury notes, those notes are paid for out of the general fund, meaning we are paying for it twice, once as a SS withholding and second from income taxes from the budget/deficit. Right now the original principal and interest payments on the notes comes to $5.7 TRILLION dollars. What a scheme. Thank You Democrats!

1. Anyone who says republicans want to throw people off SS is a liar, republicans want people to keep their own money so it won't be stolen by politicians

2. Saying the current population pays for previous generations is not accurate. We paid in all our lives and with compounded interest we are paying our own way. What current generations are paying for are the IOU's the politicians stuck us with. You are not paying for us, you are paying for what the politicians stole from us. Big difference.

3. Saying we all lost half our retirement in the market is a lie. Unless you are supremely incompetent you've long since recovered your portfolio.

Bush tried to allow you the chance to OPTIONALLY invest some of SS in your own accounts but was severely demonized because democrats want access to ALL your money. Don't let them demonize that again. If you are young, demand the option to opt out. My 401K is paying far more than my SS and has over twice the rate of return.

Part of Obamacare is a 4%/yr tax on 401K's, (2013), thanks a lot democrats. Who is trying to steal your retirement?

Yes, you paid into it for a number of years. That does not entitle you to steal from my current paycheck. If anything go after the politicians that raided your money over the last 30 years.

Once again, just because you were stolen from does not give you the right to steal from me.

Let me opt out and have you worry about your own retirement instead of stealing from the youngest generation. And i say steal because there will be little to no benefit for me once i get to retirement age ( likely 80+ by the time i retire).

"give me the chance to opt out so...."

Don't expect that to happen, even if Social Security is done away with or restricted beyond all use you can be sure the tax won't just vanish. It'll be rolled into income or some other taxes and end up in the same place SS has been going for years, the Federal governments pork projects fund.

The issue is that they are trying to pay out more that has been paid in. And they have already spent the money.

The endgame date is moving up fast.

A friend of mine sent this to me this morning:

Remember, not only did you contribute to Social Security but your employer did too. It totaled 15% of your income before taxes. If you averaged only $30K over your working life, that's close to $220,500.

If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer's contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the govt. pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working you'd have $892,919.98.

If you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years (until you're 95 if you retire at age 65) and that's with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit! If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you'd have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.

The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madoff ever had.

Entitlement my ass, I paid cash for my social security insurance!!!! Just because they borrowed the money, doesn't make my benefits some kind of charity or handout!!

Congressional benefits ---- free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days, now that's welfare, and they have the nerve to call my social security retirement entitlements?

We're "broke" and can't help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless

In the last months we have provided aid to Haiti, Chile, and Turkey. And now Pakistan ......home of bin Laden. Literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS!!!

Our retired seniors living on a 'fixed income' receive no aid nor do they get any breaks while our government and religious organizations pour Hundreds of Billions of $$$$$$'s and Tons of Food to Foreign Countries!

They call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives and now when it’s time for us to collect, the government is running out of money. Why did the government borrow from it in the first place? Imagine if the *GOVERNMENT* gave 'US' the same support they give to other countries.

Sad isn't it?

Here is my reply to her:

I was aware of this.

What is even worse is:

Some people do not retire early or on time and continue to work, (and pay into these accounts, there is going to be a lot of this going on since so many baby boomers blew their retirement plans up, and their housing costs went to hell when this last banking boondoggle bubble burst, and they took a huge second out on their paid off home to spend a month at the North Pole);

Some people do not retire at all due to death before retirement age, (probably from suicide due to losing their retirement plans in the item above, or hitting the lottery better yet!);

Some people do not collect very long, (average age expectation in this country is 78, so 13 years of benefits instead of the 30 in your example);

Some people don't collect at all such as illegals that pay in anyway, (a surprisingly large number of these, thanks guys!); indigents or mentally incapable who don't know to apply or how to apply, (not many of mental unfit, not if they have any relatives who have a basement to imprison them in and bleed their benefits as long as possilbe, did you see that story the other day?);

Then of course there are some really rich people who paid a bunch in, but prefer to just not collect because they have a bunch o' money and this is their way of paying forward, (not a lot of these.....cheap bastards!).

Criminals in jail don't get their benefits;

Criminals not in jail sometimes don't apply, not really big on paling around with the government anyway;

People who live off the financial grid, (of course they probably have little in these accounts, but some may have paid some in;

People who have a separate government retirement, so they can not take their benefit, but may have paid in some before hitting the governmental pig trough.

So where does that money go?

brendan-4

Yes, you paid into it for a number of years. That does not entitle you to steal from my current paycheck.

Yes Brendan, it does entitle me to part of your paycheck. Next time you get a paycheck take a look at social security deduction, thanks Brendan.

Social programs have become a football because foolish people don't realize that without them, the vast majority will have nothing when they retire. Plan, you say. Well, with the average person making $38K, exactly where is that coming from? Plutocrats often make that in a day and don't pay for their share. Not their problem, you rejoinder; well, what's this about speculators running up commodity prices by 20%. Take that away from them to fund the rest of us. Oddly enough, it works!

Vote for Ron Paul if you want to have a chance to opt out.

Ron Paul for President 2012.

This is hilarious because 50% of millennials think they even have a chance of getting Social Security!

Brendon, you selfish butthead. I don't have kids and yet I have been paying taxes that support the schools but I am not whining or saying they should just let the schools crumble. Hell, people like me probably support the school you attended. And I don't drive a car yet my taxes support the upkeep of the roads.... And furthermore if you are so worried about social security being there for you, then DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT except complain and expect people like me who have paid into the system for 50 years to be screwed!!!!!!! Vent your frustration on the government who stole the money not on people who worked hard and watched their money go into FICA with the full expectation that just as we paid for the WWII generation, we would also get back the money that has been paid into the system.

Brendan - Several things to think about...

1. Just to place this in perspective, I'm 56 years old.

2. I did not design the social security program and I have no more choice than you do about contributing toward it. So I am not stealing from your paycheck, the government is.

3. That same government created a social contract with the people of the United States in which one generation supports the retirement of the previous generation. That means that I'm probably paying for the retirement of your grandparents. Let's cut their social security payments. I'm sure you won't mind having them move in with you so you can care for them.

4. My wife and I will not depend on social security for our entire retirement income, but, based on the promises of our government, we did include that income in our retirement planning. Now you suggest that those payments should just go away. As I said, I'm 56, that gives me another 10-11 years to replace the SS payments you would take from me with some other source of retirement income. That's pretty hard to do. I take it from your comments that you're somewhere between 12 and 30. That gives you a little more time. If I suspected at age 21 that SS would go away I would certainly have done something different. I suggest you get busy.

5. We can certainly take SS away or reduce payments to current beneficiaries or those retiring in the near future. Doing so however will make those people who have had little or no time to prepare more vulnerable and more reliant on other forms of government assistance. I guarantee that ending SS payments now will only mean that we will pay to support our senior citizens in other ways.

I'd opt out in a second. Why should I continue paying into a retirement scam that won't be there when I retire? To support those that didn't save? That's their own damn fault...not mine.

50% of millenials think that they won't collect social security, the other 50% need a math class.

JoeMike404 - You have it right. Brendan is just a selfish idiot who thinks the rules should apply to other people but not to him. When he sees a "Yield" sign on the roads, he probably also thinks it always means "the other guy". He kind of reminds you of Congress, doesn't he? They think the rules should never apply to them, either.

@BinNH

Im selfish? Selfish is the generations before me that constantly voted people into office to pander to thier needs and increase distributions and raid s/s monies for pet projects.

Im trying to look out for my own future, i could give a damn about yours. Thats not selfish, thats called self reliance, not sucking the proverbial government tit.

So because you paid S/s taxes i SHOULD BE MANDATED TO? Hell no. I want to fund my own private plan that I can earn a far better return on MY money than the government can.

@ Kathy

Not worth responding to, if you own a car and have it unregistered you don't pay taxes. If you own a car and have it registered and don't drive, you must enjoy paying taxes.

Then do it stop talking about it and do it but you WILL continue to pay taxes S/S or anything else the Government tells you too so suck it up big boy. No one cares what you do ................NEXT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@Just ME Really

Kind of tough to do as 1 person considering there are AARP ad's on tv's publicly threatening people in our government if we touch the programs LOL

AARP is part of the demise of the USA

they don't serve seniors, they serve insurance companies

To all you old 50 somethings trying to teach us young whippersnappers a lesson...let me remind you that it's your generation that plunged our country into the gutter in general, not us. All the politicians, they're your generation, not mine. All the wall street fat-cats, all the home owners, all the CEOs, they are YOUR generation and not mine. We should not be paying for your poor decisions, and we are furious that you left us in this situation.

Next point, some of you fogeys on here argue "well i'm paying for your grandparents so you have to pay for me." HELL NO I should be able to opt out TODAY. My grand parents are dead so NO you are not supporting them. My parents retired early and are not drawing SS, they are fine on their own savings (hmmmm if they can do it, why didn't you??), so why the heck should I be forced to pay for you when you are not helping me nor helped anyone else in my family?

Hey Brendan: Remember that scene out of the 1984 movie Repo Man, when the repo boss tells Otto, "Keep making me money kid"???

Frankly, there has already been a cut in Social Security benefits, as grocery, utility, and fuel prices are up 25% or more from 3 years ago, but the SS inflation raise is only 3.5% over the same 3-year period!!!

The problem with your 5% annual return theory is that inflation and our long and colorful history of stagnating wages and growing income inequality will eat-up all of that level of return and then some!!!

Right now, with 7 years yet to go until I'm 62, Social Security is promising me a whole $1200/month to retire on at age 62, $1700/month if I wait until age 66, and $2000/month if I wait until age 70, and my retirement age has already been raised from age 65 to age 66 too.

If we carry the rise in grocery, utility, and fuel costs through another 7 years at the current unreported rate, those items will cost at least double by then, and if we carry forward the rise in Social Security benefits based on the "official" inflation rate, which excludes food, fuel, and utility cost increases, we will all be lucky to see an 8% rise in benefits by then too.

Today my monthly food, fuel, and utility costs are running $800/month, so by 2018 at the current rate of cost increase, together those items should cost $1600/month, and by 2027, the year that I turn 70, those same costs will nearly double again, while the increase in Social Security benefits paid out might increase by another 9% by then too.

17% of $2000 is $340, which means in 2027, when I am age 70, just food, fuel, and utility costs will exceed the average Social security check by between $1200 and $1500 per month, not including the costs of Medicare, drug copays, and housing, let alone replacing your car every now and then too!!!

Figure that same rate of cost increase for another 15 years, and you had better hope that you don't live that long, because by then just food, fuel, and utility costs will be in the range of $6000 per month, while your Social Security check won't even be half of that!!!

Add to the $6000 monthly estimate at age 85 your costs for Medicare and drug copays, insurance on your house and car, property taxes, any auto and home maintenance, the cost of licensing your car or paying someone else to go shopping for you, the costs of home nursing care and a housekeeper, and you are going to have to be bringing-in $8000 or more per month in 2042 just to make ends meet.

Today the average cost of residential senior assisted living is running close to $4000 per month, and over the past 10 years those costs have been rising at an average annual rate of about 7-10% too. Take your age now and subtract it from 85 or 90, then use a little simple algebra to figure-out how much the average assisted-living place will cost by the time that you are too old to care for yourself. Will you have that kind of income by then???

Luckily my mortgage payment will still be the same for the next 14 years, and then my house will be paid for!!!

Just since I graduated from high school in 1974 there have been 5 major national recessions plus several more regional recessions, where the savings of many millions of people have been wiped-out, in fact, some of those people have been wiped-out repeatedly. The 1979-1983 recession was almost as bad as our current recession. So, I wouldn't count on being able to maintain any kind of savings rate over 40 or 50 years either.

You younger folks had better save as much money as you can possibly save, and you had better hope and pray that Social Security and Medicare are still around when you get up in age, because over the last 30 years the average income of the bottom 70% of us has fallen by 40% in buying power, and there is no reason to suspect that there will be any change for the better in that rate of decline by the time that you retire either.

Imagine how hard it will be to add to your retirement savings at age 60 when your income then only has half the buying power that your income at age 25 did???

@ Old timer

Whos to blame for the inflation that the government says does not exist? Tax and spend democrats.

When they order via stimulus and QE1 QE2 and most likely QE3 the printing of money, this puts more money in circulation keeping interest rates at lows and allows the banks to benefit from cheap interchange rates. Keynesian economics is a big joke. Devalue the currency so rampant inflation ( actually near 30% in real economic terms, not the 2% that the false government figures report that have been changed over the past 30 years countless times) takes over effectively taxing the poor by reducing the purchasing power of YOUR dollar.

Why are you not enraged by this? is this that hard to comprehend? Considering democrats consistently tax the poor by printing money, why do you vote them into power?

I agree with much of what you said, but the fact is that if you rely on just social security for your retirement, that is your fault. It is suposed to assist in retirement, not be the sole source of income. why not get a part time job as a parts driver for a auto shop instead of sitting around expecting the "govt" to take care of you?

Self reliance is how i was raised, don't expect anyone to help you with anything, and so far that lesson has brought me very far in life.

Anybody who doesn't support Social Security gets to write me a check for what I already paid into it. If my money that I paid into it isn't there when I retire, I am coming to take it.

Brendan,

It takes a new level of childishness to make a statement like "I'm trying to look out for my own future, I could give a damn about yours.", and not think that's selfish. It sounds as though you have no sense of humanity, no sense of community, no sense of belonging. Truly self-reliant people have some sort of empathy for the needs of others and it sounds as though you are completly self-centered. Trust me, when you're old enough for it to matter, you will be very lonely.

Hey brendan-4, it's not my fault your parents gave birth to you and raised you to be such an insensitive, narrow-minded person.

That goes for MmmMmmBeer too!

My parents raised me to be fiscally responsible, and their parents before them. Clearly yours did NOT.

I'm insensitive because you all wrecked our collective futures. Way to go, just leave it to your kids to fix your mistakes.

LOL!!!

Might as well laugh! The thought that any of us born after the baby boomer generation will actually see a single penny of SS is a joke!

Better have another beer. Mmm Mmm!

Sounds to me like Brendan-4's parents did a great job raising him. He doesn't expect the government to take care of him. I wish more people were self reliant. I hate welfare mongers who milk the system out of every penny they can. I hate even more the single women who keep popping out babies they can't afford just to get more money from social services. I hate the people who expect the government to pay their heating bills in the winter or their A/C bills in the summer.

Personally I'm not for getting rid of social security for those who are on it or are close to being on it. I'm all for opting out and making my own choices. I want every penny that I have put in to the system over the last 20 years to be put into my own account that can make money for me.

@ Give it a rest.

I never thought i would see the day that taking care of myself first is considered selfish and childish and immoral. Amazing what decades of liberalized schools will do to ones mind.

Thanks for the positive comments.

@JoeMike

Ill worry about other peoples retirements once i have mine fully funded to the point where i feel comfortable. Is that selfish? How?

Jock an easy way to fix that is to NOT invest your money. Find a fair non-big bank that has a fair savings interest growth and stick your money in there or just take a % out of your pay and stash it somewhere.

We should not be gambling people's retirement funds on the market or within the Government. It is actually a win/win. People keep their money, the big banks that use that money to invest in stocks get a spanking, the Government can no longer use SS as a slush fund, and Wall Street gets a kick in the pants.

We need to pull all non-investor money, 401k's for example, out of the market, it is too unpredictable and whoever though of doing things this way was a class A moron.

Brendan, I'm a boomer about to retire but I'm with you. Some of us tried to fix SS. At least it is now widely recognized as a scam, so that's progress. You, and others like you, need to get off your knees and do the right thing. There is a fifth column amongst the boomers.... and it has at least one person in it. Do something! Regards....

Brendan, you're entitled to your opinion, just like I'm entitled to get something back for all the money I paid in. I'm done here. Me thinks you doth protest too much. If you don't get that, ask Shakespeare.

Kind of amazing that personal responsibility is not only not applauded but routinely discouraged among the boomer ilk. Social security is a communist program devised to transfer wealth from poor black men to rich white women and people who claim to be liberals and for "social justice" are its main proponents? Since they have no principals one has to conclude their support is solely because they want power over people.

Brendan - Its not so much the taking care of your own retirement that's the problem. That's not selfish, that's reasonable and as you say, self-reliant. Its the "I don't give a damn about you" that's the selfish part. Sad you can't see that. All you appear to have is anger, like so many people on this blog. If the people that comment here are indeed indicative of the general population, we seem to have completely lost all sense of community and compassion. Self-reliance is not the same thing as acting as though you are the only person on earth that matters.

As long as we have campaigns we will have lying politicians. No one ever got elected telling the truth.

Skup. This is 100% right 99.5% of the time.

Skup that is the sad truth of our politics today. People could give a crap about the truth we just want our national participatory Survivor TV show where people bag on each other for our own entertainment.

Here is a article for all you people that want to know the truth about Social Security.

There was a long and mostly confused conversation about Social Security during Wednesday night’s GOP debate. But rather than get sidetracked over whether the pension program is a “monstrous lie” (Perry), “a Ponzi scheme” (Perry again), “tyranny” (yep, Perry), “broken” (Cain), or a great system that Americans are being “defrauded out of” (Romney), let’s just go to the numbers.

Over the next 75 years, Social Security’s shortfall is equal to about 0.7 percent of GDP (pdf). If we increase its revenues by that amount -- which could be accomplished by lifting the cap on payroll taxes -- or reduce its benefits by that amount or do some combination of the two, Social Security is back in the black. Here are 30 policy tweaks that could get us there.

Why does Social Security show a shortfall? As Stephen C. Goss, the system’s chief actuary, has written, Social Security projects an imbalance “because birth rates dropped from three to two children per woman.” That means there are relatively fewer young people paying for the old people. “Importantly,” Goss continues, “this shortfall is basically stable after 2035.” In other words, we only have to fix Social Security once. After we reform it to take account of modern demographics, the system is set for the foreseeable future.

And that’s...it. That’s what’s needed to fix Social Security. All this talk about it being a “monstrous lie” or “a Ponzi scheme” or “broken” is meant to create a crisis to clear the way for radical changes in Social Security. But if folks want to make radical changes to Social Security, they should just make the argument for their proposed fixes. And good luck to them. But in reality, what’s going to happen is that sometime in the next decade or so, Republicans and Democrats are going to compromise on a package that adjusts Social Security by about 0.7 percent of GDP over the next 75 years.

ted patrick, you don't know what you're talking about. The actuarials predicted 2017 to be the first year SS would pay out more than it took in. That actually happened in 2009. They were projecting less than 20 years in the future and they missed it by 50%. How accurate do you think their 40 and 75 year predictions are?

You're "analysis" only happens if we magically fined trillions extra in the general fund to give to SS all at a time with 0 economic growth and we're borrowing 40% of every dollar from china. You're a fool if you think that grandma is going to get paid before the chinese who have nuclear weapons pointing at us!

Even IF they could some how salvage the finances the program sucks. People don't want it. It is crappy rate of return and you're forever at the mercy of politicians adjusting colas and changing benefit ages and threatening means testing. No thanks, I can get along better on my own!

I totally agree. Instead we've gone in the opposite direction, dumbing down our students instead of preparing them.

Because history has shown that when left to their own devices people handle their retirement better? I am assuming you are aware of exactly why SSA was created?

There's no way EITHER party lets Social Security disappear: it's too easy too use the funds to borrow from for other purposes.

@ Voters-In-LA

History has certainly shown that the federal government is a unbelievale failure at managing anything it puts its hands on. Wether it be money, healthcare, our schools, nothing is better in the hands of big brother.

Why shouldn't retirement be an individual concern? Why should the majority of the population suffer for the irresponsibility of a few?

There is an alternative, mandatory retirement funding. You must put 10% away and companies can match, but you decide how it is invested, basically a mandatory 401K. That was Bush's idea, divert 2% of your SS withholding to a private account, that percentage could be increased over time until everyone was transitioned.

Even considering the crash in 08, the market still earns double what SS does, your SS payments could be double what you are getting! Countries that have privatized have proved this as well.

SS will not disappear but will become more and more useless over time. Since it doesn't keep up with real inflation, seniors will be bled dry year after year.

Yes, but what if the market crashes just as you retire? What then? I have a 401K and an annuity to I have saved for my retirement. And guess what the majority of Americans are not good at saving. So when they can no longer work and have no money I guess you just let them die in the street. I also paid in to SS for over 40 years so yes I believe I should get something back. As for the funds being stolen both parties have done that so quite blaming whichever party you do not like. In reality the SS fund has 2.5 trillion dollars in US Treasuries. Now if you want to say those are worthless then you better tell all US citizens and companies who own the same securities they are worthless.

Oh, so you'd rather have the chickens guarded by the wolves on Wall Street? SS has worked for 70 years, has never had scandal attached to it and nobody ever went to jail. Wall St...check TODAY's paper for one guy who got 30 years, a bank forced to pay a quarter BILLION dollar fine to the SEC...and the list goes on. And, I'm not done reading the financial pages yet.

Oh, so you'd rather have the chickens guarded by the wolves on Wall Street?

Any day of the week and twice on Friday.

Bob From LI, it isn't working that's the point! People don't want it. It has a terrible rate of return and you're forever at the mercy of politicians.

If a private company had set up a pension fund the way SS is structured they WOULD be in jail.

I'm 28, ~40 years away from social security and fully employed (thus paying into the system). It is highly unfair of you to say my opinion on SS doesn't matter.

It doesn't take a genius to see that the weight of the baby boomer generation will bring SS down and my generation will be left holding the bag.

storyofthewolf, but there are more of you then there are babyboomers and population continues to grow. Hence the reason the Ponzi scheme called SSA works. The problem is too many unemployed, too few contributing and already collecting BEFORE having worked a full lifetime, too much abuse, etc.

SS will not be there if the mills vote for people that are sworn to eliminate SS and Medicare, and have made that fact very public. Everything the republicants do are targeted to give as much as our money to wall street and reduce or eliminate taxes on the wealthy.

storyofthewolf;

Can you honestly tell me you are not the exception? If you know about the political and economic problems at your age then you are probably more engaged and intelligent than your peers.

"Everything the republicants do are targeted to give as much as our money to wall street and reduce or eliminate taxes on the wealthy."

That's a lie. Republicans want you to keep your money so politicians can't steal it all and stick you with IOU's like they did to us. Note it's democrats that are fighting this because they want access to all your money to fund their socialist utopia for somebody else.

I invest my own money and wall street doesn't make a dime off me and that holds true of everyone I know. WS is involved in the big funds, union pensions, etc., yet another reason not to be in a union.

Yipes! p111, you've got it backwards! You really believe that 'keeping your money' is the right thing? Prior to SS, we had old people living in poverty. Investors lost 'everything' in 1929. Banks folded because there was no Federal insurance.

Bankers want your money now so they can fund the republicant party's slime machine. Dems say put your money in honest government controlled and guaranteed pensions. The entire rest of the industrialized world has already decided this and it works. We did do, until teabag trolls decided that keeping your money under the mattress was a good idea. Exactly where do you put your money and how is it protected?

storyofthewolf

I'm 28, ~40 years away from social security and fully employed (thus paying into the system). It is highly unfair of you to say my opinion on SS doesn't matter.

It doesn't take a genius to see that the weight of the baby boomer generation will bring SS down and my generation will be left holding the bag.

You crack me up you make it sound as if you are the only generation EVER to have to deal with adversity NOT!!!! get over it missy everyone before you had jack-squat handed to them and you will too aww poor baby boo hoo ....NEXT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Doc Strange, that's been the slogan of both parties for years. It goes right along with "Whoever yells the loudest is right."

Both parties have a tendency to make things up and use fear-mongering to achieve goals and attempt to damage the other party's stances and positions. Don't you remember a few months ago when Obama was threatening that SS checks wouldn't be sent out because of the budget lockout? That was fear-mongering at its worst.

The reality of SS is that it will be there, but they'll keep upping the age limit for benefits. I figure, I'm 29 now, by the time I decide to retire, SS benefits will be for those 75 years or older to start collecting. Good thing for me, while I pay my SS and Medicare, I'm also saving 12% post-tax gross into a Roth 401(k), and have plans to always try to max out my Roth accounts.

That's a lie and thankfully most people know it. It is democrats that lied about Obamacare and fiscal responsibility and paid dearly for it Nov 2.

Lighten up Frances!

Great job point out what's wrong. If you have a better idea for an alternative we're listening.

How about everyone takes responsibility for their own retirement instead of expecting the government and other tax payers to do it?

Or SS withdrawn from a check should go into an account just for that person so when they retire they get it back.

ProBusiness, you are however missing a crucial fact. Population is growing. Until maybe 20-25 years ago, salaries were growing also at a healthy pace. Lately not so much. If salaries being earned by younger people were more in line with what they could reasonably expect, this whole topic wouldn't be an issue. But instead we've created a lopsided corporate structure where CEO's now earn over 260 times what the average worker does (it was a mere 24 times in the 60's). Combine that with caps on taxable income for SSA purposes, and you have a problem. How my generation expects a bunch of youngsters earning a fraction of their salary to be able to contribute enough to support their SSA is beyond comprehension. Youngsters have a right to be angry.

We do keep expecting things will go as predicted. Something major could change in the future. Expecting a major plague soon ? Could easily happen.

Jimbo-1004296,

If I think a restaurant is no good, I don't open a new restaurant - I just go to another one. I don't know anything about running a restaurant so there is no need for me to try and come up with a fix for a bad restaurant.

Social Security is no good, but unlike a restaurant that is bad I don't have the option to vote with my earnings on it. It's not up to me to fix something I didn't ask for and have no experience in fixing, but in this case I'll keep paying for it because the government forces me to. Meanwhile the money I'm not forced to pay into a broken system I put elsewhere.

Pro, you are not taking into account death rates. Not everyone who pays into SS receives any funds.

The basic problem is SS was designed from the start so you would die before you collected very much. We live a lot longer but we only had one minor retirement age correction. It is retirement age and people taking from the system that never put in that is sinking the system.

Also the rate of return on their investments is less than half the stock market average return so compounded interest doesn't cover nearly as much as it should. Allow people to opt out and invest their own money.

Lovely - And you aren't counting the people who never pay a dime & DO collect.

If you do not have 40 quarters of coverage, i.e. ten years of work that pays into Social Security, YOU CANNOT RECEiVE SS BENEFITS.

No one gets benefits unless they have worked, or they are a spouse or minor child of a deceased beneficiary.

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Several of you try to defend Social Security without success. Like Voter-in-LA who mentions population growth and then goes to "CEO salaries"?? One has nothing to do with the other. What CEO's make is irrelevant to Social Security so let's try to stay focused. Regarding population growing you are correct but it is growing at about 1% a year. We would need 10% a year for the Ponzi Scheme of Social Security to work. That we have not had thus the reason as of last year only 1.75 workers for every person on Social Security. Unless you know of a money tree somewhere Social Security is unsustainable and we are seeing the inevitable collapse of Social Security as we speak.

Then Lovely states I am not taking into consideration account death rates. Unfortunately I have but you do not follow the logic. It is a function of "averages". What "average" means is just as like "below" as "above". If the average life span is 80 years old that can be accomplished with 5 individuals whose age at death are 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100. First person does not get SS benefits (think of it as negative 5). Second gets 5 years. Third, fourth, and fifth get 15, 25, and 35 years respectively. That means a total of 75 years of SS paid out between 5 individuals or ON AVERAGE 15 years of SS for each. Since the average death age is 80, and assume a person retires at 65, then the average length of time on SS is 15 years - that is unsustainable.

BTW, you brought up a good point so let me add one more point. Do you know what the age was to be eligible for SS in 1937? It was 65 years old. Do you know what the average age of death was in 1937? IT WAS 64!! In other words SS was NOT created as a "retirement" plan. It was set up so in the "unlikely" event that you lived beyond the average life we wanted to make sure you did not live your last year or two in the streets ((and THAT is certainly a good reason). However, now we have people on SS for an average of 15 YEARS!!. I personally know someone who just turned 95 years old (bless her heart and is wonderfully sweet) but she has been on SS for 30 YEARS!! She has been on SS longer than MANY people posting on this thread have been alive!! THAT is unsustainable. We CANNOT have people contributing for as little as 10 years then collecting benefits that could extend to 25 or 30 years.

Regardless, the outcome has already been predetermined. This program was set up poorly from the beginning and its Ponzi Scheme format made its collapse inevitable. The program SHOULD have been set up a privatized plans. I don't like the government FORCING us to contribute to a program but if you are going to MANDATE I put money into a "retirement" plan it would have been more sustainable if each person's plan was theirs in full.

Moonflower - there are people who get disability payments who never worked.

Or let me opt out so I don't have to fund your retirement that you did not plan accordingly for.

The news is saying that if we didn't have s/s we would have tons of poor people? Do you always believe w hat you read or see?

Get me out of this ponzi scheme, they have stolen enough of my payroll money.

Grampop - It was your generation that opened up the social security fund to be used to balance the budget. LBJ needed those funds and decided it would be a good idea to tap into all that money just sitting there. That was the beginning of the decline of s/s.

skelmcb, actually FDR borrowed first in 1937.

Johnson institutionalized it so every president after him used it.

brendan-4 Or let me opt out so I don't have to fund your retirement that you did not plan accordingly for.

You still whining Brendan, I planned my retirement, and still collect SS, thanks Brendan, it sure comes in handy.

Just because the paystub indicates the government is taking money out doesn't mean the program is fully funded.

Nick, the program was fully and properly funded including taking into consideration the boomer generation.

In 1983, actuarials saw that boomers would create a bulge in SS. And so the
amount that boomers contributed into SS was doubled. First time in history
that a generation would pay not only for their parents but also put in enough
for themselves.

The problems with SS are not that enough money was not collected. The problem
is that politicians stole money out of the SS insurance pool to pay for things
like multiple wars. And when politicians put back the money that they stole
out of SS plus interest then SS has no problems whatsoever including the boomer bulge which was already planned for all the way back in 1983.

Maybe you should go back to Clinton who took the S.S. surplus and quote "balanced the Budget". He stole the money knowing he would never pay it back. the balanced budget lasted to the following Fiscal year and we were running a deficit once again. Please tell me how I am to spend an IOU from the government to pay my bills when I retire.

The SS Trust Fund is alive and well, about $2.4 trillion. It is invested in special-issue Treasuries so that the funds are drawing interest. The funds are available as needed to pay benefits for the next 25 years or so, as long as U.S Treasuries can be sold. If U.S. Treasuries can no longer be sold, smaller SS benefits will be the least of our financial problems.

You have GOT to be kidding. You have drank the coolaid.

You just cant fix stupid.

Peter17, the government can't pay its bills now. Its borrowing 40 cents of every dollar. When the SS system comes knocking to cash those treasuries who do you suppose is likely to get paid first: the chinese or grandma?

Even if they decide to honor them where would the money come from? Borrowing is at max. Taxing is at max. There's no magic bean stalk, the money has to come out of people's pockets and the people HAVE NO MONEY!

US1776, it's not just the GOP who stole/borrowed. The process has been going on for as long as SSA has existed. FDR borrowed from it in 1937, yes the year it was created. It has just been something people have become more aware of in the past 30 years. The issue too many people are ignoring is the fact there are TWO trust funds. One for disability benefits and one for retirement. The retirement one is far larger than the disability one and actually had a surplus in 2007. However because of lax standards, the disability fund is being depleted and to a large extent supported by the retirement fund.

Peter14 is right. By law, all Social Security funds must be invested. The SS trustees invested all SS funds in special Treasury Bonds to the tune of about 2.6 trillion dollars. Those bonds draw about 4.6% interest. Thats about 120 billion in interest paid into the SS fund each year. The payroll deductions and the interest on those bonds covers all SS obligations. Last year for the first time ever, the interest on bonds and the SS payroll deductions did not cover all SS obligations.

lilDi, and where does the money come from when SS cashes those bonds?

jblo, Thats the problem. Changes may need to be made to make SS solvent for futurer generations. Some experts predict that after the huge Baby Boomers pass on, the SS system will correct itself and become solvent on its own without the need for changes. Time will tell! Since all of the 2.6 trillion dollars that bought the bonds went into the General Fund, that money has been spent a long time ago. The government has been borrowing cash for just as long to cover SS obligations.

Yes, and the changes involve moving retirement age to 10 minutes after you die and/or means testing the idiots who bother to save on their own out of the program entirely. So the system may exist but few of us will actually get any benefit.

The original projection was 2017 for SS to pay out more than it took in. Turns out that happened in 2009. So how reliable do you think the other projections are?

Since you didn't answer the questions: the bonds can only be honored by increased taxing or borrowing. So you take a @!$%#ty system that sucks up 12.4 cents of every dollar you earn and then say in addition you're going to pay a bunch of new income taxes to cover these IOUS. By what math is that anything less than a fleecing of your children and grandchildren?

"The ONLY reason that there is any issue at all with Social Security is b/c the GOP stole $2.7 Trillion out of the funds to pay for their wars-for-profit and left behind IOU's."

Can liberals open their mouths without lying? Doesn't seem so lately. It was Johnson that officiall opened the lock box to fund his illegal Viet Nam war. All presidents after him used the money, including Obama.

It has been researched and established by several different researchers that the LIONS SHARE that was stolen out of the SS trust funds was taken by the GOP for wars.

Yes, the process started with LBJ. And yes Clinton balanced a budget with a small amount taken from SS. But by and large the lions share ended up going for GOP wars-for-profit over the past 30 years. And it began with Reagan who was the first to steal a massive $1 Trillion out of SS to fund his Cold War SDI program. Then with BushSr. for the Gulf War and then with BushJr for Iraq War and Afghanistan War.

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p111 - Yep, Johnson did open the lockbox to fund the Viet Nam war. I do take issue with your last statement though. About 2 seconds after the lockbox was opened, all the money got spent. Spent a long time ago. No president since then has raided any SS funds. It was ALL gone the minute the lockbox was opened.

lilDi, your statement makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

SS funds continuously are collected from payroll deductions.

Please check your paystub under FICA.

All the funds cannot be stolen by LBJ.

Most of the missing funds were not even collected yet.

@ US1776

Sorry you are wrong. Read the offical SS admin docs on the issue. The original 40 or so years took 10 trillion out of the system more than they put in. That was the start of the sinkhole. Next is the demographic changes of increasing life span with much smaller than equivalent changes in retirement ages. When the program began the average male (most of the workforce at the time) would be expected to collect -1 years of benefits (the first 40 took more out because they started after very small levels of contributions relative to payments). Now the average worker will get betwen 10-15 years of payments. Add in the fact that its indexing payments to inflation without offsetting interest income from investment of the principal (vs the basic Ponzi scheme of just shuffling money around) and you get a trifeccta guaranteed to collapse. Add on demographic changes that always impact Ponzi schemes (you need more people to prop it up and we are getting fewer now) and its doomed.

Solution, basically dont raise rates (I am already getting a negative return on my "investment", call it what it is (a tax), and raise the requirements for actually collecting. Make it old age welfare and call it a day. Anyone under 40 who counts on SS to finance the majority of their retirement is an idiot. Stop buying plasma TVs and IPhones and start saving, you will need it.

When LBJ opened the lockbox, he did so by changing the SS rules. He passed a law requiring all SS funds to be invested, so at that point all SS funds where put into the General Fund and replaced with bonds. Those bonds draw interest as you know. Up until 2009, the interest on bonds plus the payroll deductions more than covered all SS obligations. Any money left over was used to purchase more bonds and the surplus cash went into the General Fund. At no time since LBJ has there been any cash in the trust fund. Its all in bonds as required by law.

Let me opt out and you can keep what you extorted from me for this government mandated ponzi scheme already over the past 20 years, keep what you've stolen from my productive capability and I'll not take a dime of it back.

I still have many good working years ahead of me and I can take care of myself, much better in fact if you stop siphoning off the fruit of my labor into this giant ditch from which I will never get anything in return.

No one has a right to anything back from this program as the government has no contractual obligation to pay you anything that's been taken from you as settled by Supreme Court precedent. The most you have is a weak, non-binding "promise" from politicians who clearly can't control themselves enough not to raid the program for the general fund replacing it with defunct IOUs, to somehow someway pay you back after everything's already been spent. But you can't ignore the demographics, this hunk of junk is collapsing and no one has the stones to do anything about it.

Free the people who want to be free from this monstrosity and let anyone else who wants to take a gamble on the government stay on. Give us the liberty to manage our own future apart from this tyrannic fiscal disaster instead of facing armed men with guns if we opt not to pay the extortion.

JPM77, relax. The Social Security requires very little adjustment to make it fully secure. Small adjustments in retirement age as life expectancy changes coupled with lifting the cap on earnings. Those alone make SS fully secure.

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UnitedStates1776, so are you going to raise the cap on benefits too? That means SS will be paying retired baseball players $150K a month if the plan is to give them a benefit anywhere near their contribution. If you don't then its just like any other welfare program.

Well its a crappy return on investment at current benefit levels so why would I want to lose even more of my money to keep it around? Probably 80% of participants would be better off on their own now. The number is on its way to 95%. So why don't we just give welfare to the 5% of stay at home white women and disabled for which the program actually proves a good deal?

But I don't want it, didn't ask for it, and don't want to pay for it?

wfhummel.cnchost.com/socialsecurity.html

Peter17, you're just not a very smart person and could use some remedial math training yourself! SS is already paying out more than it takes in. The federal government is borrowing from china to keep the checks going. Obama is about to make it a lot worse with his payroll tax cut. So they're already having to sell off the country just to cover the yearly funding underrun of SS and you think they're going to come up with $2.4 trillion to cover ious in the "trust fund".

Schills like you and harry reid for this bankrupt system should know that people are going to remember that when millions of people wanted to do something to fix SS while we still had some time, YOU stood in the way.

If the day ever comes that we cannot sell a U.S. Teasury on the open market, Social Security benefit payments will not be the problem, our entire financial system would collapse. That $2.4 trillion will be needed over the next 25 years and will be gradually used up by selling regular U.S Treasuries to replace the special U.S. Treasuries. $2.4 trillion over 25 years is an average of about $100 billion per year. We are currently having no problem selling over $1 trillion per year to finance our debt, and the fact that we have all these special-issue Treasuries is news to nobody in the fianancial world - those currently buying our debt.

I advocate a "fix" for SS that involves some modest changes now, similar to those done in the early 1980s. The most imporant component is increasing the full retirement age by one year around 2040 and another year by 2075. There are several other components that are well known. We just need the political will to make them happen and get SS off the table as we try to address our more substantial financial problems, like Medicare, that will involve far more painful solutions.

From the 2010 Trustees' Report:

Under the intermediate assumptions, OASDI cost generally increases more rapidly than tax income through 2035 because the retirement of the babyboom generation increases the number of beneficiaries much faster than subsequent relatively low-birth-rate generations increase the labor force. From 2035 to 2050, the cost rate declines somewhat due principally to the aging of the already retired baby-boom generation. Thereafter, increases in life expectancy generally cause OASDI cost to again increase relative to tax income, but more slowly than prior to 2035. Annual cost is projected to exceed tax income in 2010 and 2011, to be less than tax income in 2012 through 2014, then to exceed tax income in 2015 and remain higher throughout the remain3 Highlights der of the long-range period. Interest earnings on trust fund assets alone will be sufficient to cover the annual difference between cost and tax revenue until 2025. The dollar level of the Trust Funds is projected to be drawn down beginning in 2025 until assets are exhausted in 2037. Individually, the DI fund is projected to be exhausted in 2018 and the OASI fund in 2040. For the 75-year projection period, the actuarial deficit is 1.92 percent of taxable payroll, 0.08 percentage point smaller than in last year’s report. The open group unfunded obligation for OASDI over the 75-year period is $5.4 trillion in present value and is $0.1 trillion more than the measured level of a year ago. If the assumptions, methods, starting values, and the law had all remained unchanged, the unfunded obligation would have risen to about $5.7 trillion due to the change in the valuation date.

Peter - You're overly optimistic. Major changes are needed that should include eliminating the upper limit for the payroll tax and a serious means test for benefits.

A means test for benefits is highly unlikely. SS is a pension system not an entitlement program. We need to keep it that way or it will lose public support. Are you suggesting that people pay a payroll tax for a benefit they won't get?? What could happen is a modification that adjusts the progressivity of the benefits formula for SS benefits as the cap is gradually raised. I believe they want to get the cap up to around $160,000 but don't know over what timeframe.

Some kind of means test is far more likely with Medicare, which is an entitlement program that is not fully funded by those making payroll contributions. That makes more sense to me since it is using general government revenue.

Peter17, why do you need a "fix" at all if according to you nothings broken?

Again, where does the money come from to cash the bonds?

We just had our credit rating downgraded. what's the odds that we'll be able to borrow $1 trillion a year much longer and if we can what interest rate do you imagine?

BTW, lets say SS survives. What kind of return can a millenial expect on his contributions?

Peter - Did you read the excerpt? The Trust will be exhausted in 25 years. That means a smaller work force will be trying to directly support a larger aged force. Policial expediency will not have the final say. The program is not sustainable as currently structured..

It's not sustainable WITH the "trust fund". We can't pay our legitimate bills let alone reparations for money stole decades ago.

The problem is the IOU's. They do, as Peter said, have to sell treasuries to cash in the IOU's and that's fine now with the world in turmoil, we can sell them cheap.

But that won't go on forever, when the world recovers and we haven't fixed our debt, selling treasuries will become increasingly expensive. That's why politicians are talking about cutting benefits, it's our crushing debt.

If we were allowed to invest our own money, we would be decoupled from the idiocy in Washington. Except democrats added a 4% tax in our 401K's to pay for Obamacare so we have to repeal that as well.

jblo - You misunderstand my point. What's done is done, can't be undone. The trust is simply a buffer for discrepancies between earners and recipients that allowed earners to generally pay the same amount. With the trust gone, earners will either need to pay increased rates or recipients will have decreased benefits.

SS is a pension system not an entitlement program.

That doesn't stop all the republican zealots from calling it an entitlement, does it now? It seems what you're saying is they are giving is Faux facts, same as Faux News.

SOCIAL SECURITY IS AN ENTITLEMENT - IF YOU HAVE THE AGE AND PAID THE MINIMUM YOU ARE ENTITLED TO IT. Even though you most certainly will receive more than you gave.

I recall reading an article awhile back about the ROR of SS. Boomers, on average will receive a small (~1%) rate of return (ROR). Woo hoo! Gen X (my generation) will get close to 0% ROR. Not easy to predict ROR much beyond that because there is way too much uncertainty about whether the program will exist 30-60 years from now, or what the rules will be. One thing is certain, if SS will continue to pay checks to seniors under a system similar to what exists now, then general taxes will have so subsidize the SS program as all the IOUs are redeeemed and to make up for any shortfalls. That could be accomplished through higher income taxes or higher SS payroll taxes in the future. For most people SS is a ripoff. If I invested 12% of my gross earnigns over my (estimated) 45 year working career, at a conservative 4% average ROR I would be a millionaire (and I have never made 6 figures). That being said, those that paid in deserve to get back what was promised (in one form or another). People that saved and invested should not be penalized by means-testing! Cutting the payroll tax to buy votes is the exact opposite of what SS needs right now, and will only serve to move "doomsday" that much closer!

I have worked my sweet American ass off for decades paying into SSI, fully expecting to get a small portion back. Only a young dumb @!$%# would think I shouldn't get it when I retire. And why not? I paid my dues.

I guess you guy will have to make lots of money so you can take care of your parents if SSI ceases to exist.

OMG and these are the next generation. Thank you God that I won't be here long enough to see it....

joy-1883026, we're approaching two workers per retiree so what's the difference if I just take care of my own parents or pay SS? Either way it costs my wife and I $1200 a month (more than more my mortgage!) and there's zero chance we ever get any back.

SOCIAL SECURITY IS AN ENTITLEMENT - IF YOU HAVE THE AGE AND PAID THE MINIMUM YOU ARE ENTITLED TO IT.

Wrong Einstein, if you haven't paid into it you get nothing. Brainwashed sheeple abound.

Because they paid into that system for decades with the belief that they, in return, would get that same benefit. This is not a free ride they are getting. This is something they paid into. What is wrong with you??!! Are you even human?!! How do you ever get through the day?!!