Jack Conway on Social Security

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) is sponsoring 200 progressives willing to defend Social Security, one of which is Jack Conway, the Democrat running for Senate in Kentucky.

10/20/2010
bobknight33says...

It is a Ponzi scheme.

A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors.

Why do Ponzi schemes collapse?
With little or no legitimate earnings, the schemes require a consistent flow of money from new investors to continue.

The government is taking your money and handing it out to those currently on social security. The scheme continues only if there is more money going to the system than going out.


Unfortunately The baby boomers are starting to hit retirement and there will not be enough suckers (you the young) to keep it going and it will collapse unless the elected bet some balls and fix it.


Netrunner don't even bother posting your "there shit loads of money in the SS fund. The sky is blue and all is ok"


The fund is empty everyone knows it. Everyone under 50 pretty much know that they will get the shaft.

The bottom line is that both parties have have been more interested in themselves than the people. They would rather see they system derail than truly look at fixing it.

NetRunnersays...

There's shit loads of money in the SS fund, SS is still running a surplus, and the issue with baby boomers is temporary, and mostly covered by existing SS law.

The only real threat to SS is conservative idiots trying to sabotage or dismantle it.

blankfistsays...

The myth is SS is solvent for the next 50 years. The truth is its solvent only because government can tax to be so. And that's where SS apologists claim it's not a Ponzi scheme, because there's no promise of a return on investment (as in, you pay us but we have zero obligation to pay you.).

What gives the government the ability to tax you now to pay others yet gives them zero obligation to give you a return on your investment? Nothing except that it's welfare. It should be an investment into your retirement, but it's not. Why specifically?

Because the government has no obligations to its people, which has been proven in US Supreme Court cases. So, technically is it a Ponzi scheme? Not if you're not guaranteed a return on your investment. That just makes it theft at the barrel of the gun, doesn't it?

NetRunnersays...

@blankfist you have a unique talent for packing a huge number of factual errors and logical fallacies into so few words.

SS is solvent for 50 years according to every study done by organizations without a particular political axe to grind.

The commitment of SS is still on the books, and I fully intend to make sure that people like yourself don't try to force the government to break it.

People who put their money in 401k or IRA's and retired in the last few years lost their shirts, while their social security checks kept coming on time.

As for a Ponzi scheme, that's when you offer an investment that gives an impossibly high return (15% or something higher), and you pay the dividends with the money from new people coming into the system. It's completely unsustainable, because you've committed to a permanent, compounding return, and there's always going to be a finite number of new customers you can attract.

In social security, you're giving a fixed benefit to people until they die, while every new entrant to the workforce is automatically going to pay into the system. It does need some tweaking of the benefit/tax balance from time to time if you have population growth spikes (or crashes), but you have 65 years to deal with the problem before it becomes a crisis.

You'd only need major changes if something drastic happened, like someone inventing a longevity treatment that suddenly raised life expectancy from 75 to 375, or if a virus rendered 75% of the population infertile. Even so, the system could be rebalanced to deal even with extreme scenarios like those.

The only real threat to its stability is a political movement that seeks to break the system, either directly by phasing it out, or indirectly by refusing any attempt to raise taxes to maintain the commitment.

blankfistsays...

@NetRunner, you have a unique talent for not being able to correctly identify factual errors or logical fallacies.

SS checks keep coming because of exactly what I wrote above. It's a tax levied against the working. We get it. No miscommunication so far. I also accept your definition of a Ponzi scheme minus the 'impossibly high return'. That's an arbitrary statement so let's stick to the facts.

The SS doesn't promise a return on your investment, so you're not actually investing in your future or retirement. I wish it wasn't politically positioned to people that way. It is different from a Ponzi scheme in this way and this way only from what I understand.

I'm not particularly fond of 401Ks or IRAs, but at least they're not funded by coercion and theft like SS. That makes them infinitely better and moral.

blankfistsays...

>> ^NetRunner:
The only real threat to SS is conservative idiots trying to sabotage or dismantle it.


By the way do most conservatives really want to dismantle SS? And by conservative I just assume you mean the Republican base, right?

I always thought the party's base was already mostly on SS. Actually I thought most of them wanted to privatize social security over completely abolishing it. Is that not accurate?

Personally I'd like to NOT see it privatized and just be done away with altogether, because if the money will continue to be stolen from us I don't see much moral improvement in distributing our stolen money to the corporate scumbags.

NetRunnersays...

>> ^blankfist:

I also accept your definition of a Ponzi scheme minus the 'impossibly high return'. That's an arbitrary statement so let's stick to the facts.


Okay, glad to know you're never going to call SS a ponzi scheme again, then.

>> ^blankfist:
The SS doesn't promise a return on your investment, so you're not actually investing in your future or retirement. I wish it wasn't politically positioned to people that way. It is different from a Ponzi scheme in this way and this way only from what I understand.


Bzzt, factual error, and it conflicts with the prior statement.

Here, read this. I'm happy to answer any criticism or questions you have in response to it.

NetRunnersays...

>> ^blankfist:

By the way do most conservatives really want to dismantle SS? And by conservative I just assume you mean the Republican base, right?


In this case I suspect it's more of the money behind the Republicans, plus libertarians. The actual Republican voter base probably is happy to have it both ways and grouse about how every budgetary issue with Social Security is proof that government can't do anything right, while raising holy hell if anyone ever talks about cutting benefits or raising taxes.

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