The perfect alternative to the public option...

[Minor Axis]

Minor you act like SS can be sustained. There is absolutely nothing but blind faith to support that. If that was not a public govt program it would be shut down and those in charge jailed.

In contrast to your blind prejudice that government can do nothing right. I asked this when I was 22. You want to knock down the system?- fine. Just refund my contributions with interest. And besides, you've all ready made up your mind, I'm not talking to you.

 

[Alien Allen]

In contrast to your blind prejudice that government can do nothing right. I asked this when I was 22. You want to knock down the system?- fine. Just refund my contributions with interest. And besides, you've all ready made up your mind, I'm not talking to you.

Go ahead and ignore me.

I have had worse happen.

Yes I do believe that govt does not get much right. Take a look at the city of Detroit and its finances. Since govt is your savior then tell me how the hell Detroit gets itself into this deep of a hole. And what type of leaders set in down that path. You put faith in the govt providing all the solutions. So did the morons that vote in Detroit.

As to SS you never answered the question. :nod:

 

[retro]

Using the term "ponzi scheme" is just a way to falsely undermine it. You can take a Savings and Loan and if the officers are stealing from the saver accounts, it's most likely going to fail. It does not mean that Savings and Loans are ponzi schemes or are doomed to failure. As to the second part, did average people have nest eggs prior to SS? My understanding is that SS came about because business-men took the country down during the Great Depression, kind of like they did recently! That the New Deal was created to give the working class a chance. Why would they need a chance? Because Capitalism when left to its own devices, becomes completely unbalanced enriching the few, and abusing the many. When overall society if considered, raw unregulated Capitalism is inequitable.

My impression is that average people did not make that much prior, so what part of American culture was destroyed? And gee, the New Deal promoted labor unions. Why on earth would they do that? The work of a bunch of commie-socialists?

Compare Social Security with a Ponzi Scheme, and you're not going to find much of a difference... except that a Ponzi Scheme is voluntary, and the government forces people to be a part of Social Security. Like I've said countless number of times, and you've chosen to ignore it... Social Security is insolvent, the only way it can exist is if you have the same amount of people coming into the workforce, contributing the same amount of money as those coming out are going to spend.

 

[Alien Allen]

Compare Social Security with a Ponzi Scheme, and you're not going to find much of a difference... except that a Ponzi Scheme is voluntary, and the government forces people to be a part of Social Security. Like I've said countless number of times, and you've chosen to ignore it... Social Security is insolvent, the only way it can exist is if you have the same amount of people coming into the workforce, contributing the same amount of money as those coming out are going to spend.

You never will get a liberal to admit that SS is insolvent. It is their holy grail concocted by their messiah FDR and they think they can just will it to survive.

 

[nova]

You never will get a liberal to admit that SS is insolvent. It is their holy grail concocted by their messiah FDR and they think they can just will it to survive.

Whats worse is trying to get them to to respond to how absolutely awful it is to have people pay in for 40+ years @ rate X, only to then get a payout of X/2 or less for maybe 10 years and oh by the way, the only thing left when you finally croak is a final $500 payment to your spouse if you have.

Then if you really wanna make their head explode, point out that even with a worst case drop like we had last year, if paid into at the same rate + match as SS, a 401k could provide even someone who had made minimum wage their entire life nearly double the retirement benefits from age 65 to age 100 as SS and oh BTW, everything thats left over would be inheritable, allowing people to actually build wealth instead of being dependent upon the gov't.

The only response I've ever gotten is "Well, well, there are some things that you shouldn't make a profit on, and bare minimum retirement is one."

Yes, that makes perfect sense to me. Lets deny people better options and better lives because god forbid, somebody might make a profit on it...

 

[Accountable]

In contrast to your blind prejudice that government can do nothing right. I asked this when I was 22. You want to knock down the system?- fine. Just refund my contributions with interest. And besides, you've all ready made up your mind, I'm not talking to you.

That's the point. Your contributions no longer exist. They were paid out to earlier contributors ... a la Ponzi.