“as for your “exploitation”: the day the waltons, the mellons, the rockefellers & kochs, & the political class as a whole get behind a movement to allow people to vote on every item in the federal budget, i’ll take you seriously. until then, i see no reason why SS should be a special case.” Ha, ha, then you concede that there is at least an element of exploitation in SS. We’re making progress here.

“Somehow, the only budget items their good citizenship extends to are social programs. They somehow never want to let people choose whether we want to fund wars & corporate welfare. Forcing people to pay for those programs is never described as “exploitative”.” This is a non sequitur (you might have to look that up)

“Their outrage, & yours, is selective”. This is another non sequitur. We were only talking about SS here. What makes you think I’m not outraged by these other things. Again, you continue to make erroneous assumptions.

If I felt obliged to prove something to you, which I don’t, I could easily look up how to compound interest & discount inflation if I didn’t know, which I do. It doesn’t matter if, ideally, if my investment quadruples every month if, in real life–it doesn’t.

as for your “exploitation”: the day the waltons, the mellons, the rockefellers & kochs, & the political class as a whole get behind a movement to allow people to vote on every item in the federal budget, i’ll take you seriously. until then, i see no reason why SS should be a special case.

Somehow, the only budget items their good citizenship extends to are social programs. They somehow never want to let people choose whether we want to fund wars & corporate welfare. Forcing people to pay for those programs is never described as “exploitative”.

Their outrage, & yours, is selective.

You state, “In fact, a strong majority of the population supports continuing SS in its present form, despite a 30-year disinformation campaign.” What if the minority doesn’t want to participate and are forced to . I call it tyranny of the majority. You have an Orwellian use of words.

You talk about private accounts as if they are the only alternative. You still haven’t answered this question: How would you describe people slaving away at miserable low paying jobs, trying to pay the rent, feed their kids, maybe saving to buy a house, etc. Rather then spending their hard earned money on these needs, they send part of it to SS and ultimately to people like me so we can have nice vacations. I know what I call it, EXPLOITATION. What motivates you to advocate the exploitation of poor working class people in this manner. Are you in fact a secret agent of folks like the Waltons of Walmart as part of a devious plot to exploit the poor working class?

I can do the math. But the idealized math is irrelevant. In real life, it doesn’t turn out that way.

http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=NC&pubid=1155

“In Chile, a large proportion of the workforce has entered and left employment repeatedly, accumulating little in private accounts. Coverage of private accounts has settled at about half of the workforce. In Britain, the government projects that the proportion of retirees on public assistance in 2050 will reach 70 percent. Without a continuing public safety net, half of retirees or more would face poverty in Chile and Britain.

Second, one of the principle reasons for the poor record of private accounts is that these accounts proved very costly to set up and manage. Just as critics had warned, small accounts of low earners lose a large part of any accumulation to management fees.

Third, the fact that the residual anti-poverty program in place today in Chile and Britain is means-tested creates a powerful incentive for low income workers not to save. After all, if private account balances simply reduce public assistance, why save for retirement? A universal system, in contrast, does not punish savers by reducing their basic pension.

So Britain and Chile are now studying how to reintroduce universal minimum retirement benefits combined with incentives to accumulate private saving.”

This was exactly our experience before SS. More than half of workers died in poverty, dependent on their families or the state.

In fact, a strong majority of the population supports continuing SS in its present form, despite a 30-year disinformation campaign.

Those doing the “coercing” are the folks funding the disinformation: folks like the Waltons of Walmart, our nation’s biggest employer: e.g. P. 27:

“http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2005-04-05-waltons-usat_x.htm”

If they could win an honest debate, they wouldn’t have to lie–or spend so much money buying propaganda & Congresspeople.

In fact, I discussed the fact that SS tax collections, since 1983, have been consistently in excess of current retirees’ needs, & that these excess collections have been dumped into the general fund, & that this new source of funds was used to justify tax cuts. Most of which went to the very wealthy.

The solution to this problem isn’t to keep collecting the excess taxes & put them into the stock market–it’s to stop collecting the excess taxes & return to the original program design: stop generating increasing surpluses that can be dumped into the general fund.

“These bonds are not tangible assets, they are simply promises to pay from money collected from future taxpayers.”

Yes. Like every other US government bond, historically considered the safest investment on the planet. Perhaps you’d better tell folks like Warren Buffet & Bill Gates bonds aren’t safe, since they’re the kind of folks who purchase the majority of government bonds. There’s no meaningful difference between a SS bond & and any other type of US government bond.

There’s only a difference in what class of people the money’s owed to.

” unlike private investments which create wealth such as apartment complexes, diagnostic medical equipment, etc. ”

The majority of “investments” in the stock market create no new wealth, they just transfer shares of existing wealth from one owner to another as people make bets on what shares will or won’t appreciate.

The alternatives to SS aren’t proposals to build apartment buildings, they’re proposals to put SS taxes into the stock market, so we can pump up price to earnings ratios even higher & keep the bubble going.

Nice deal for insiders, not so nice for ordinary folk. Lots of room for pump & dump there. Lots of juicy fees for Wall Street.

“let’s say I only contribute $1000 to SSI the first year I start working. 30 years in the future, let us hypothesize various payments to me for my retirement. … What is the rate of return for each of these scenarios. ”

Since no one knows how things are going to turn out when they start their working life, or even when they’re in the middle of it, the “rate of return” will vary wildly, depending on how long a person is able to work, how much money they make, whether they become disabled or die young, etc. But it’s sure that everyone who pays in gets something back.

And, as an earlier poster noted, SS is an insurance program, not an “investment” program. The object is to provide universal, guaranteed basic security in old age. SS has succeeded in doing this for nearly 1/3 of the history of the United States. No private investment program has touched its success.

“How do these rate of return compare to what one might reasonably expect if they put the money into Treasury bills or bank Cds.”

You want to put your money into T-bills? Government bonds! What guarantee do you have that the government will pay it back?

Bank CDs? Why, it’s the government who guarantees those, too. How can you trust that?

You can compare idealized rates of return all you want, but it’s not reality. If you get disabled & have to quit working, if you get sick & have to draw down your 401K, if you put your kids through school & they can’t make enough to pay you back, if the market dumps & takes half the value of your “investment” halfway through your working life–
you’re SOL.

There are a lot of “ifs” in life. Most people won’t get the idealized returns. Historical experience is that before SS, most people died poor & dependent. In Chile private accounts have been a disaster. In Sweden & England they’re already performing substantially below projections.

Privatizers can’t win the argument on the facts & the historical record. That’s why they have to lie.

I was trying to restrain myself from saying this, but alas I find myself succumbing to my brain stem reactions. You state, “I can only repeat: everyone pays into SS, everyone gets something back. The rich, the poor, the middle, the healthy, the disabled, black, white, Catholic, Jew, atheist.”

How about a little thought problem? For the sake of argument and simplicity, let’s say I only contribute $1000 to SSI the first year I start working. 30 years in the future, let us hypothesize various payments to me for my retirement. 1. I get $500 back. Is this good? Is it fair? You put something in, you get something back don‘t you? 2. What if I get $1000 back. Is this good? Is it fair? You put something in, you get something back don‘t you? 3. What if I get $2000 back. Is this good? Is it fair? You put something in, you get something back don‘t you? What is the rate of return for each of these scenarios. Do you even know how to figure it out? What is the rate of return expected for a 30 year old contributing to SS right now. How do these rate of return compare to what one might reasonably expect if they put the money into Treasury bills or bank Cds. What is the possible rate of return, if instead, one invested in their own education vs. putting it into SS.

I read the other paragraph of your comment to be saying that discussions of social security in this country no longer even pretend that it is insurance. However, I have to plead inattention to the entire issue of social security in Hanna B’s series of articles; I read it for the author’s take on The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.

If one dies before retirement, one’s spouse & dependent children get benefits, + a small burial benefit. Those are the only categories of people I’m aware of who get a benefit without paying in, but as their spouse/parent paid, they still get benefits. The spouse, for life; the child, until s/he becomes 18 (if memory serves).

You may be confusing SSD & SSI. Social Security Disability, SSD, is paid to workers who’ve paid into the system & become disabled.

Supplemental Security Income, SSI, is paid to people who’ve not paid into Social Security/didn’t work enough to vest and are blind, disabled, or old.

It’s a welfare program, NOT paid out of Social Security taxes, but out of the general budget. It’s administered by the SS administration, but has nothing to do with SS.

However, I thought I’d go back to the Nobel Prize question. The prize for Economics is actually the “Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”; and, it was won by a brilliant mathematician – John Nash, Jr (of “A Beautiful Mind” fame) won the prize (actually 1/3 of it) in 1994 for his work on the applications of game theory to economics.

If one dies before retirement, that person doesn’t get anything back. Additionally, there are many who don’t pay a dime into the program and receive benefits.

Mutual funds are required to state that past performance doesn’t predict future performance. SS should be treated the same way.

You dismiss Mr. Steurle out of hand because he supports private accounts. As a result, You obviously didn’t take much time looking at what he says. This demonstrates what a dilettante you are. I might be wrong, but since you didn’t dispute me regarding the treatment of the disabled in Japan, I assume you had no first hand knowledge of the subject, yet you responded as if you did. This doesn’t reflect well on your ability to make or pass judgements.

Of course ordinary people can make their own decisions. Does freedom only apply to opinions? You spport coercion to get what you think is right. Your recommendations aren’t in the interest of people like me, nor are they for the good of the nation. (I only make a modest income by the way and I don’t belong to the class of people you reference. You again make a simple minded assumption about people).

You state “The only case where they might have merit is where they’re an addition to basic retirement security–not the whole hog.” Actually if you had been paying attention, you might have relized that I (I belive Mr. Steurle also) agree with that statement, not in degree, but in kind.

I leave with this quote from C.S. Lewis: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

Speaking of the trilogy. What in the world does “Overhoved ikke forbløffende” translate to?

On the other hand, when I got my Purple Heart on the NYT’s political forums several years ago, and experienced exchanges with persons about as appreciative of debating niceties as The Chipmunk is of Fred Astair, my mind would turn to mush after about three hours; and for some reason I’ve been relentlessly posting to DV — off and on — for about the last three hours.

I can only repeat: everyone pays into SS, everyone gets something back. The rich, the poor, the middle, the healthy, the disabled, black, white, Catholic, Jew, atheist. To my mind it’s the most successful social program we have, & one that embodies the best of American values.

In fact, I did look up Mr. Steurle. He supports private accounts. Since there is no SS crisis, there is no need to change the system. If there were an SS crisis (which could only happen if there were a meltdown of the larger economy), private accounts would be no remedy.

There’s no case I’ve seen where private accounts would provide the universal safety net SS does. There is no case where they’ve been instituted that there haven’t been grave problems. The only case where they might have merit is where they’re an addition to basic retirement security–not the whole hog.

Personally, I don’t care how well-educated Steurle is or how long he’s studied the issue, & I see no reason why ordinary people can’t form their own opinions by looking at the data themselves, instead of taking their opinions wholesale from pundits & think-tanks. If you look at the historical record & the assumptions the SS administration projection are based on, it’s almost impossible to come away believing in the “crisis”.

Steurle’s recommendations aren’t made in the interest of people like me or for the good of the nation; they’re made in the interests of the class of folks who pay for his nice office.

Dear Hannah,
You say that you see that comments here have devolved into personal insults. You wish folks wouldn’t do that. Why then did you insult me initially by assuming I had evil motives to pit one group against another? Could I not have different motives? I questioned this in a previous post, but there was no answer. There are plenty of intelligent well meaning people with far more credibilty than anyone posting here, who have adressed this issue with far more detail and thought and disagree with you. Are their motives bad? My I again suggest reading the work of Eugene Steurle Senior Fellow of the Urban Institute, for a more reasoned treatment of the Social Security issue. He is no ideologue. I’d like to see you address his points. I think that would be be honest and direct.