DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: The_Professor on January 30, 2008, 11:23:30 PM
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CNN's view of where they stand on the issues...Pretty detailed.
see http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/issues/
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Let's see:
Abortion: Huckabee is the only one with any real stand. I agree with him there.
Housing: Gravel may have the best comment by stating "N/A". There is no quick fix and though there are some predator lenders the truth is that many people knew the housing market in many Northern and Western states was terribly inflated. Believe it or not, most lenders do not want to foreclose, so they are often willing to work with the individuals to come up with a plan of payment. Foreclosure can often end up costing the lender money.
Economic Stimulus: It is all neo-liberal garbage. Probably the most useful, and I'll deny ever typing it, is McCain's plan for a corporate tax cut and depreciation changes. For short-term growth that would help and 35% is a bit high compared to other nations.
Immigration: None of them (is there a difference?). Open the border and allow free movement of workers.
Education: Surprisingly, I think Huckabee is far ahead of the others on this issue.
Iran: Gravel.
Healthcare: Corporatist crap. None of them to be honest with you.
Taxes: *sigh* More neo-liberal crap. Why are the Democrats proposing cuts to capital gains and dividend taxes? None of them.
Homeland Security: Gravel, though Paul isn't too bad either.
Social Security: Obama. The $97,500 cap is a stupid roadblock to solvency.
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I saw some numbers the other day that showed that the SS fund would be solvent if you eliminated the cap. Nothing fancy, just do that. Probably won't happen because the power brokers would not want their $500K salary to be taxed for SS, only the first $97K of it.
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I saw some numbers the other day that sohwed that the SS fund would be solvent if you eliminated the cap. Nothing fancy, just do that. Probably won't happen because the power brokers would not want their $500K salary to be taxed for SS, only the first $97K of it.
If you think about what that means - it means that their dollars, every one of them earned after $97K is worth more than the dollar earned by most working Americans.
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I saw some numbers the other day that sohwed that the SS fund would be solvent if you eliminated the cap. Nothing fancy, just do that. Probably won't happen because the power brokers would not want their $500K salary to be taxed for SS, only the first $97K of it.
If you think about what that means - it means that their dollars, every one of them earned after $97K is worth more than the dollar earned by most working Americans.
And?
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I saw some numbers the other day that showed that the SS fund would be solvent if you eliminated the cap. Nothing fancy, just do that. Probably won't happen because the power brokers would not want their $500K salary to be taxed for SS, only the first $97K of it.
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I doubt that they want even the first $97K taxed. But tough.
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I saw some numbers the other day that showed that the SS fund would be solvent if you eliminated the cap. Nothing fancy, just do that. Probably won't happen because the power brokers would not want their $500K salary to be taxed for SS, only the first $97K of it.
If you think about what that means - it means that their dollars, every one of them earned after $97K is worth more than the dollar earned by most working Americans.
Yes!
And what keeps us from improving all of the dollars earned by the working poor to the same level as the above 97k set?
The early elimination of Social Security tax would thereby benefit the working poor first and most.
Pensioners would have to be paid from the general fund else break the promise of the SS .
Pensioners are liable to have to be paid out of the general fund anyhow, there is already too little income from SS withholding.
Taxing the earnings above 97k produces nothing good for the new contributor at all it is iniquitous. It would extend solvency for the Social Security system as earlier expantions of SS taxation have extended solvency for the SS system, temporarily.
The growth in the system would not change its basic nature , that of a Ponzi scheme , so the more it harvests the more it owes , the bigger it grows the greater will be its inevitable crash.
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So then, Plane, what is YOUR solution to this problem?
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Social Security is not in any way, shape, nor form a "Ponzi Scheme."
Do y'all read? Do you know what a Ponzi Scheme is?
Here is an example of a hypothetical Ponzi Scheme from wikipedia (which seems to be the major source around here):
An advertisement is placed promising extraordinary returns on an investment ? for example 20% for a 30 day contract. The precise mechanism for this incredible return can be attributed to anything that sounds good but is not specific: "global currency arbitrage", "hedge futures trading", "High Yield Investment Programs", "Offshore investment" or something similar.
With no proven track record for the investors, only a few investors are tempted, usually for smaller sums. Sure enough, 30 days later the investor receives the original capital plus the 20% return. At this point, the investor will have more incentive to put in additional money and, as word begins to spread, other investors grab the "opportunity" to participate. More and more people invest, and see their investments return the promised large returns.
The reality of the scheme is that the "return" to the initial investors is being paid out of the new, incoming investment money, not out of profits. No "global currency arbitrage", "hedge futures trading" or "high yield investment program" is actually taking place. Instead, when investor D puts in money, that money becomes available to pay out "profits" to investors A, B, and C. When investors X, Y, and Z put in money, that money is available to pay "profits" to investors A through W.
One reason that the scheme initially works so well is that early investors ? those who actually got paid the large returns ? quite commonly reinvest (keep) their money in the scheme (it does, after all, pay out much better than any alternative investment). Thus those running the scheme do not actually have to pay out very much (net) ? they simply have to send statements to investors that show how much the investors have earned by keeping the money in what looks like a great place to get a high return. They also try to minimize withdrawals by offering new plans to investors, often where money is frozen for a longer period of time, for example 50% return per month for one year. They then get new cash flows as investors are told they could not transfer money from the first plan to the second.
The catch is that at some point one of three things will happen:
- the promoters will vanish, taking all the investment money (less payouts) with them;
- the scheme will collapse of its own weight, as investment slows and the promoters start having problems paying out the promised returns (and when they start having problems, the word spreads and more people start asking for their money, similar to a bank run);
- the scheme is exposed, because when legal authorities begin examining accounting records of the so-called enterprise they find that many of the "assets" that should exist, do not.
Pure capitalism! Nice.
On down the page it provides the reasons why Social Security is not a Ponzi Scheme. Some should be glaringly obvious considering that no one expects a quick and extraordinary ROI from Social Security! Here is another from the Social Securtiy Administration:
There is a superficial analogy between pyramid or Ponzi schemes and pay-as-you-go insurance programs in that in both money from later participants goes to pay the benefits of earlier participants. But that is where the similarity ends. A pay-as-you-go system can be visualized as a simple pipeline, with money from current contributors coming in the front end and money to current beneficiaries paid out the back end. So we could [imagine] that at any given time there might be, say, 40 million people receiving benefits at the back end of the pipeline; and as long as we had 40 million people paying taxes in the front end of the pipe, the program could be sustained forever. It does not require a doubling of participants every time a payment is made to a current beneficiary. (There does not have to be precisely the same number of workers and beneficiaries at a given time--there just needs to be a stable relationship between the two.) As long as the amount of money coming in the front end of the pipe maintains a rough balance with the money paid out, the system can continue forever. There is no unsustainable progression driving the mechanism of a pay-as-you-go pension system and so it is not a pyramid or Ponzi scheme.
If the demographics of the population were stable, then a pay-as-you-go system would not have demographically-driven financing ups and downs and no thoughtful person would be tempted to compare it to a Ponzi arrangement. However, since population demographics tend to rise and fall, the balance in pay-as-you-go systems tends to rise and fall as well. During periods when more new participants are entering the system than are receiving benefits there tends to be a surplus in funding (as in the early years of Social Security). During periods when beneficiaries are growing faster than new entrants (as will happen when the baby boomers retire), there tends to be a deficit. This vulnerability to demographic ups and downs is one of the problems with pay-as-you-go financing. But this problem has nothing to do with Ponzi schemes, or any other fraudulent form of financing, it is simply the nature of pay-as-you-go systems.
And here is the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme
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So then, Plane, what is YOUR solution to this problem?
I wish I had one .
President Bush didn't have a solution , his proposals were a bandaid on a bullet wound or perhaps a quilt on the rocks to pad a thousand foot fall.
I think I can solve this for myself by saving up and investing in things that hold value well, mostly land. Also I may retire very very late in life.
So might we all. The Mexicans may stop comeing here for work when gramps is cutting grass for money.
If I were empowered to make change , first thing I would do is get the truth told and get the panic over with at the soonest possible moment, like telling the passengers on an express train to brace themselves , the engineer has just seen the bridge is out and there is no potential for changeing speed or course enough to prevent the crash.
Perhaps the solution is to go for the ultimate in enlargement of the Social Security fund? Perhaps we could include the world in a Broadnobignan Economic Advancement and Security Trust?
If I could persuede Congress to make change I might try to get them to start over , start the Social Security system over in a means simular to the origional plan of FDR , but this time isolate the pention plan from the general fund and erect a high barrier against Congress spending the principal or intrest.
Perhaps the solution is to go for the ultimate in enlargement of the Social Security fund? Perhaps we could include the world in a Broadnobignan Economic Advancement and Security Trust?
The basic idea is a good one , but how good does an idea have to be to overcome an embezzeler at the top of the system?
Then to get it going with some chance of success it would have to be implemented on everyone that could possibly contribute , with no exclusion for any kind of income and no top level .nIt may even be necessacery to include more than one country in the scheme just to get it to the critical mass required to be self supporting Mexicans , and Canadians ,Poland and Albania even Chad and France should be persueded to contribute , third world contributors would be especially valuable because they are so rich in the young and working age.
As a side benefit, this would give the first world a direct intrest in eradicating malaria and supporting industry and trade in the third world , enableing them to contribute more.
The management of this giant fund would be more powerfull than many of the worlds governments , part of the management would have to be a meritocracy and part of it elected , otherwise the management could be corrupted or incompetant with no hope of correction.
The giant fund would weild clout and would lend for intrest , makeing the world bank redundant.
This would solve the problem for several generations , right up to the point that we elect the Anti -Christ to be the head administrator of the Broadnobignan Economic Advancement and Security Trust
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.....and as long as we had 40 million people paying taxes in the front end of the pipe, the program could be sustained forever. It does not require a doubling of participants every time a payment is made to a current beneficiary. (There does not have to be precisely the same number of workers and beneficiaries at a given time--there just needs to be a stable relationship between the two.) As long as the amount of money coming in the front end of the pipe maintains a rough balance with the money paid out, the system can continue forever. There is no unsustainable progression driving the mechanism of a pay-as-you-go pension system and so it is not a pyramid or Ponzi scheme.
If the demographics of the population were stable, then a pay-as-you-go system would not have demographically-driven financing ups and downs and no thoughtful person would be tempted to compare it to a Ponzi arrangement. However, since population demographics tend to rise and fall, the balance in pay-as-you-go systems tends to rise and fall as well. During periods when more new participants are entering the system than are receiving benefits there tends to be a surplus in funding (as in the early years of Social Security). During periods when beneficiaries are growing faster than new entrants (as will happen when the baby boomers retire), there tends to be a deficit. .
Excellent !
Note that "number of workers and beneficiaries at a given time--there just needs to be a stable relationship between the two." is a missing feature in the Social Security system , and this is key because "periods when beneficiaries are growing faster than new entrants (as will happen when the baby boomers retire), there tends to be a deficit." Will be a period long enough to entirely wreck the whole idea.
Can you imagine that the Social Security system will run up a deficiet untill there is another baby boom? The Baby boom retirement period will continue for the next thirty years or more , and there is no prospect of another baby boom anytime soon.
What do you imagine to be the next period , the one in which the deficiet will be caught up and replaced with a surplus?
The Social Security system has had crisis before , and it has solved the crisis before by increaseing the tax , decreaseing the payout or by increaseing the number of contributors , these are simularitys to a Ponzi ,not diffrences.
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- the scheme is exposed, because when legal authorities begin examining accounting records of the so-called enterprise they find that many of the "assets" that should exist, do not.
Pure capitalism! Nice.
How is it capitolism at all?
This line is the cheif simularity between the Social Security sceme and a tipical Ponzi.
The Congress has absconded with the funds.
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.....and as long as we had 40 million people paying taxes in the front end of the pipe, the program could be sustained forever. It does not require a doubling of participants every time a payment is made to a current beneficiary. (There does not have to be precisely the same number of workers and beneficiaries at a given time--there just needs to be a stable relationship between the two.) As long as the amount of money coming in the front end of the pipe maintains a rough balance with the money paid out, the system can continue forever. There is no unsustainable progression driving the mechanism of a pay-as-you-go pension system and so it is not a pyramid or Ponzi scheme.
If the demographics of the population were stable, then a pay-as-you-go system would not have demographically-driven financing ups and downs and no thoughtful person would be tempted to compare it to a Ponzi arrangement. However, since population demographics tend to rise and fall, the balance in pay-as-you-go systems tends to rise and fall as well. During periods when more new participants are entering the system than are receiving benefits there tends to be a surplus in funding (as in the early years of Social Security). During periods when beneficiaries are growing faster than new entrants (as will happen when the baby boomers retire), there tends to be a deficit. .
Excellent !
Note that "number of workers and beneficiaries at a given time--there just needs to be a stable relationship between the two." is a missing feature in the Social Security system , and this is key because "periods when beneficiaries are growing faster than new entrants (as will happen when the baby boomers retire), there tends to be a deficit." Will be a period long enough to entirely wreck the whole idea.
Can you imagine that the Social Security system will run up a deficiet untill there is another baby boom? The Baby boom retirement period will continue for the next thirty years or more , and there is no prospect of another baby boom anytime soon.
What do you imagine to be the next period , the one in which the deficiet will be caught up and replaced with a surplus?
The Social Security system has had crisis before , and it has solved the crisis before by increaseing the tax , decreaseing the payout or by increaseing the number of contributors , these are simularitys to a Ponzi ,not diffrences.
I would more readily accept paying higher premiums than receiving less benefits.
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If the Social Security System was a Ponzi scheme, which it is not, it would have gone bust decades ago, which it did not. You keep saying this, over and over, ad nauseum.
But it is not true, it is not even close to true. There is currently a lot more coming into SS than is going out. The trust fund, which receives the overages, is larger and larger with every passing year. When there is more need for funds, the government has an obligation to repay the Trust Fund, and pay retirees from that. When this is not enough, it has a further obligation to pay out of the general revenue.
Juniorbush's plan was to destroy Social Security, and make retirees subject to the whims of the stock market. This scheme was deduced by the people and it was rejected by the AARP and pretty much every organization concerned with the issue. The GOP has been trying to get rid of SS since it was first designed. Only Eisenhower and Nixon have not tried to screw it up in some way or another, but all have failed. And that is as it should be.
When trying to explain reality to you, one is reminded of the old saying. "Never try to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time, and annoys the pig."
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I would more readily accept paying higher premiums than receiving less benefits.
I would more readily accept receiving less benefits than paying higher premiums .
Matter of fact I would give up my benefits entirely if I could give up paying entirely , you can have the 40 years of contributions I have put in . OOps , no you can't they have been spent , every cent.
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If the Social Security System was a Ponzi scheme, which it is not, it would have gone bust decades ago, which it did not. You keep saying this, over and over, ad nauseum.
But it is not true, it is not even close to true. There is currently a lot more coming into SS than is going out. The trust fund, which receives the overages, is larger and larger with every passing year. When there is more need for funds, the government has an obligation to repay the Trust Fund, and pay retirees from that. When this is not enough, it has a further obligation to pay out of the general revenue.
Juniorbush's plan was to destroy Social Security, and make retirees subject to the whims of the stock market. This scheme was deduced by the people and it was rejected by the AARP and pretty much every organization concerned with the issue. The GOP has been trying to get rid of SS since it was first designed. Only Eisenhower and Nixon have not tried to screw it up in some way or another, but all have failed. And that is as it should be.
When trying to explain reality to you, one is reminded of the old saying. "Never try to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time, and annoys the pig."
You will learn to sing eventually.
I am about to create a trust fund.
Watch me.
I have here my check book , ..
I am writeing myself a check for eighteen trillian dollars, and fourty five cents.
As soon as I deposit this check I will have a trust fund bigger then the Social Security Administration , and just as secure.
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I would more readily accept receiving less benefits than paying higher premiums .
Matter of fact I would give up my benefits entirely if I could give up paying entirely , you can have the 40 years of contributions I have put in . OOps , no you can't they have been spent , every cent.
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You make over $97,000?
If you would give up your benefits for 40 years in return for paying a miserable 13% of your salary for the next five or ten years or so, one can only conclude that you are approaching dementia praecox.
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That may be fine for you but I want higher benefits and I willingly pay more now in premiums when I have good wages. After all, I do not make over $97K like XO.
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If you want better benefits, open a Roth IRA. You can invest $5000 per year this year, $6000 if you are over 50.
I have never received a salary of anything close to $97K.
If you do not take advantage of the Roth IRA, I suggest you have no real business kvetching about SS. With a good investment newsletter and a discount brokerage account, you can easily outperform the stock market by buying and trading mutual funds wisely.
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If the Social Security System was a Ponzi scheme, which it is not, it would have gone bust decades ago, which it did not. You keep saying this, over and over, ad nauseum.
But it is not true, it is not even close to true. There is currently a lot more coming into SS than is going out. The trust fund, which receives the overages, is larger and larger with every passing year. When there is more need for funds, the government has an obligation to repay the Trust Fund, and pay retirees from that. When this is not enough, it has a further obligation to pay out of the general revenue.
Juniorbush's plan was to destroy Social Security, and make retirees subject to the whims of the stock market. This scheme was deduced by the people and it was rejected by the AARP and pretty much every organization concerned with the issue. The GOP has been trying to get rid of SS since it was first designed. Only Eisenhower and Nixon have not tried to screw it up in some way or another, but all have failed. And that is as it should be.
When trying to explain reality to you, one is reminded of the old saying. "Never try to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time, and annoys the pig."
XO;
But what about the rumor that the SS system is not going to be alive and well by the time baby boomers retire full throttle, based on the idea that fewer folks will be working per retiree....and thus not putting the $$ into the system?
.....I am concerned that if we rely on the government alone to pay out all us BABIES a boomin', the SS system will be milked dry and quite frankly not even there eventually. DUe to the ratio of workers/ per reitrees.
Isn't it a good idea to take what we've earned and invest it in order to make a better future for ourselves?
Playing devil's advocate here....but just curious.