The myth of Entitlements and Freeloaders

[NotNow]

You are on the margin of American society. The word society implies a social contract, but the type of "social contract" you suggest can only be found in third world countries.

usually colonized third world countries, as there has never been a successful example of the kind of social contract that he advocates, Faye.  From what he will admit to, his political ideology is the usual mixture of 'state's rights' nonsense, radical capitalism, enabled by state sponsored security forces that allows him to bemoan social security as a 'ponzi scheme' but deny that trillions of dollars of military spending is even quesitonable.

StephenDare!'s opinion of what I think.  Not the first time we have heard it, and it won't be the last. 

[NotNow]

Faye,

You have acquired StephenDare!'s habit of telling me what I think.  I ask again that you participate in discussion with me on a basis of mutual respect.  The idea is to exchange ideas, not to yell at each other.

whose habit?

What you are both really calling for is for our children and grandchildren to be the slaves of the government.  While you complain about "slavery to corporations" individuals can still avoid corporate life and (compared to most countries) live a free and prosperous life unfettered by exterior demands.  Yet you both call for a nanny state that would suck up the majority of EVERY citizens income and STATUTORILY REQUIRE every citizen to accept the crappy services that governments generally provide.  The government decides what you get based on ?(well, in the past we have seen age, income, race, sex, and any other currently PC reason). 

No thanks.  That is not my kind of "security". 

besides being one of the dopiest straw men arguments that ive ever heard that didnt come from Michelle Bachmann, this form of argumentation pretty much sums up your engagement style here doesnt it?

I think that our "styles" have been summed up pretty well in this thread.

[FayeforCure]

The notion of making Social Security the provenance of any particular state falls apart when you consider that todays society is extremely mobile, making accountability and record keeping problematic if not impossible. The centrality of the federal government at least keeps the books all in one place.

We already have individual retirement accounts. They are administered by Uncle Sam and the funds distributed according to an earnings formula. What is bothering some is that the money deposited in the SS bank is not invested as is the money controlled directly by the depositor or his/her financial planner. That is a good thing because all too many people are just not competent enough to control their own investments.

Thank you for this wonderful comment.

Not all individuals can handle their own investments and conversely not everyone has a member like NotNow in their family who is able to support an elderly member of his family.

Good thing he only has one elderly member to support.

If you don't have someone like NotNow in your family You are On Your Own in the YOYO society that NotNow advocates......... and will likely die in misery.

Again: let the weak perish  is the motto of those who proclaim a YOYO society.

Same thing happens in third world countries.

[avonjax]

If you want to know the state of affairs you need look no further than the debates tonight. I know it doesn't fit in this discussion, but Cain, the joke, and Bachman, the alien think it's ok to waterboard. It's ok to torture. God they make me sick. But just imagine, if they are willing to torture they wouldn't mind letting poor people and elderly starve. Starvation is just a form of slow torture anyway. The only person in the debate that had anything sensible to say was Huntsman. Romney just bashed O'Bama and never gave a direct answer and one of the genius panel actually stated that instead of wasting money on our infrastructure we should build more warships and beef up our Navy since O'Bama has single-handedly torn it down. More to the military industrial complex and less to those pesky entitlement programs.  And  I think it was moron Perry that said something like we have to stop China from taking all our jobs. How about major corporations that they want to deregulate and give ridiculous tax breaks to? If I recall we willingly sent our jobs and manufacturing to China. God knows we wouldn't want American companies to pay a decent wage and make quality products. So bottom line it's ok to put people out of work and in near poverty, but how dare they hope for a safety net.

[Ralph W]

The notion of making Social Security the provenance of any particular state falls apart when you consider that todays society is extremely mobile, making accountability and record keeping problematic if not impossible. The centrality of the federal government at least keeps the books all in one place.

We already have individual retirement accounts. They are administered by Uncle Sam and the funds distributed according to an earnings formula. What is bothering some is that the money deposited in the SS bank is not invested as is the money controlled directly by the depositor or his/her financial planner. That is a good thing because all too many people are just not competent enough to control their own investments.

Ralph,

Thanks for the thoughtful comments.  But are you aware of the international cooperation in social retirements?  The same cooperation is quite easy among states.  I think we might all be safer in the "books" weren't all kept in one place.

As for IRA's, they are not "administered" by the government but are regulated.  I think what is bothering most people is that the money deposited in the SS trust fund has been spent by the Federal government.  That money has been replaced with special Treasury paper.  So what the government has done is placed all of the SS Trust retirement fund in one pot.  Sound like good advice to you?  As for the "most people are too incompetent" argument, I...just.....disagree.  I have faith in most people.  And the government could provide advice or provide limited investment avenues in necessary or voluntarily.  And of course, statements would remind and show folks where they stand.

If you mean international cooperation such as this:
http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/0/482a0aced8049067c12563ed005acf9e?Opendocument

In so too many words the great thinkers get together and offer platitudes and advice to each other on what to do with an aging population.

Nothing seems to have changed since this pap was offered up in 1995. The old get older. The social safety nets are full of holes and cooperation is all on paper.

I was talking about the simple bookkeeping of seeing to each persons needs even when that person has moved about the US for a lifetime. It's a logistical nightmare and expense compounded if a pension check has to be issued from every state where every state would have to keep and update records forever just to keep track of where to send the social security check. So much simpler to have the feds keep track - they do know where to find you if you owe taxes - since everyone <G> pays into the system. Where ONE entity doles out the whole instead of a multitude of parts from all over.

The individual retirement accounts are not IRA's regulated but are every ones SS accounts. I'm not bothered that the SS trust fund has been absorbed into the general fund. It's all one big pot of money in the end and the formula determines how much of the pot goes to each contributor. This is one business that is really to big to fail, unlike the individual parts (States, counties, cities, towns, pension funds).

How many small time Bernie Madoffs or just plain bad luck in working the markets would it take to wipe out a raft of IRA's owned by all those individuals I believe to be incompetent to handle their own investments?

[finehoe]

Or imagine having your retirement funds in MF Global, a brokerage firm that took customer funds and assets at will, and used them for their own undisclosed speculation. JP Morgan and Bank of America are trying to subordinate the customers' claims to their stolen funds and keep them in a pool of money to be distributed to the creditors by the Trustee, without any representation for the customers.  Who knows when, or if, these people will have their stolen money returned.

[NotNow]

Ralph,

By international cooperation, I was talking abou the agreements that the US has entered into regarding SS and other countries "retirement" systems.

Rollovers and moving retirement systems happens all the time, and would not present any problem.  In fact, I would argue that a state system would be more efficient and cheaper to operate.

As for investment safety, your FICA taxes are spent as soon as they are debited by the Federal government.  The current SS "trust" fund is just a pile of IOU's from the same government that can't seem to do anything about their 15TRILLION dollar (and growing) debt.  In coming years, when the feds no longer receive any income from FICA, but instead find a bill for BILLIONS of dollars...let's see how "safe" that investment was.  The SS board is currently saying that they "should" be able to pay 77% of benefits when the government defaults on the trust fund.  But that is a typical government "rosy" prediction.  Most financial planners are telling pre retirees to plan on 60-65% of stated benefits. Of course you realize that your SS contributions are "taxes" and that you have no legal claim to the money.  The government can tell you how much, if any, you will get at any one time.   At least if my FICA "taxes" were saved I would have some idea of what I had coming in retirement.

[finehoe]

With all the insider trading, ponzi schemes, accounting frauds, and misapporpriation of customer assets, investors have to be asking themselves, 'what is the real value of things, what are the hidden risks, and what is really safe anymore?'

So the average person seems to be flocking to US Treasuries, often held for them by brokers. This rush to paper dollars may be the last bubble, the great killing field of personal wealth and value, as the oligarchs take your savings and wipe you out with a few strokes of the keyboard.

If you think they will protect and save you because you are 'one of them,' and vote their party line and watch their news channels and promote their interests and look down on your fellows you are wrong.

You are not one of the elite, the .1%, except in your own aspirations and delusions of grandeur. To the powers of darkness in high places you are prey, and your purpose is to be devoured.

The time to do something to protect yourself and your family, and restore equal protection and the rule of law, is now. You will not appease the madness by throwing victims to it and hoping it becomes satiated. Its hunger only grows and serves no other.

[NotNow]

With all the insider trading, ponzi schemes, accounting frauds, and misapporpriation of customer assets, investors have to be asking themselves, 'what is the real value of things, what are the hidden risks, and what is really safe anymore?'

So the average person seems to be flocking to US Treasuries, often held for them by brokers. This rush to paper dollars may be the last bubble, the great killing field of personal wealth and value, as the oligarchs take your savings and wipe you out with a few strokes of the keyboard.

If you think they will protect and save you because you are 'one of them,' and vote their party line and watch their news channels and promote their interests and look down on your fellows you are wrong.

You are not one of the elite, the .1%, except in your own aspirations and delusions of grandeur. To the powers of darkness in high places you are prey, and your purpose is to be devoured.

The time to do something to protect yourself and your family, and restore equal protection and the rule of law, is now. You will not appease the madness by throwing victims to it and hoping it becomes satiated. Its hunger only grows and serves no other.

I'm not really sure what you are trying to say here.  Are you, as are many others who represent themselves as part of the "Occupy" movement, calling for a revolution?  Who is "throwing victims" into anything?  Your terminology seems to invoke religion.  Is this really the tone you guys want to take?

[FayeforCure]

Maybe Bill Maher can explain it better to you:

http://www.youtube.com/v/MmusrhoEPyU