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02
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TheAdultInTheRoom wrote:
I'm all for forced savings. Social security is just absolutely the worst possible way to do it.
How would you go about it?
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Will be interesting to see if Flagpole opts to collect social security. He has famously beaten the market 32 out of 33 years so he obviously won't need it but I betcha he takes it!
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Fat hurts wrote:
TheAdultInTheRoom wrote:
There's a need for a social media app which isn't blatantly leftist. Trying to fill a market need and failing isn't a "con"...
Elon Musk just became the largest shareholder in Twitter for this exact reason.
It's a con when you tell people that you are building a legitimate business, but you don't really try to do that. It's been clear to me from the beginning that they were just trying to cash in on the SPAC.
I have no interest in the app and didn't know it existed until you started talking about it. It looks like a real app that isn't fully polished yet.
Was Twitter fully functional with no bugs on day 1?
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Real Obvi wrote:
TheAdultInTheRoom wrote:
I'm all for forced savings. Social security is just absolutely the worst possible way to do it.
How would you go about it?
I would put a hell of a lot more thought into it than FDR did in the 30's for starters.
The stock market goes up 8% a year historically. Instead of paying into OASDI your taxes would be put into an index fund like an IRA. Just like OASDI your employer could match the deduction. That alone would produce infinitely better results.
20 -
Ida May Fuller received the first ever Social Security check in 1940.
She paid $24.75 into the system in her 3 years working from 1937 and 1939.
She received $22,888.92 from Social Security by the time she died.
It has always been a Ponzi scheme.
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TheAdultInTheRoom wrote:
Fat hurts wrote:
I think they were at least hoping to get the app to the point where the SPAC merger could go through. That may be in danger now. Trump might not be able to cash out.
Margorie Taylor Green's disclosure shows that she invested between $15,000 and $50,000 in Truth Social. She got conned too. I wonder if she has to disclose when she sells.
There's a need for a social media app which isn't blatantly leftist. Trying to fill a market need and failing isn't a "con"...
Elon Musk just became the largest shareholder in Twitter for this exact reason.
20 -
TheAdultInTheRoom wrote:
I believe Americans don't save for retirement because they're idiots who think Social Security is a retirement plan.
Social Security CAUSED the lack of savings.
If we invested our OASDI money in index funds rather than giving it to the government we'd be FAR better off.
Let me get straight.
You think Americans are idiots because they think Social Security is a retirement plan.
But you think they will make smart decisions if they are allowed to manage their own retirement savings?
04 -
Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:
TheAdultInTheRoom wrote:
I believe Americans don't save for retirement because they're idiots who think Social Security is a retirement plan.
Social Security CAUSED the lack of savings.
If we invested our OASDI money in index funds rather than giving it to the government we'd be FAR better off.
Let me get straight.
You think Americans are idiots because they think Social Security is a retirement plan.
But you think they will make smart decisions if they are allowed to manage their own retirement savings?
The government can still manage the savings.
It would be nice if people could be trusted with their own money. The sad reality is the bulk of the population is actually stupid. If you give a 25 year old the option to save for the future or use the money now the overwhelming majority of them will take the money now.
Federal employees have a 401k plan already. Rather than taking and wasting OASDI taxes the government could enroll anyone paying taxes into this sort of 401k where the money belongs solely to the person contributing.
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Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:
That works in the other direction as well...
20 -
agip wrote:
couple of notes on the biden boom:
1) there are now more americans working full time than ever before
2) the labor force participation rate for the key 18-64 demographic is now back to where it was before the pandemic. The overall number is lower because of the steady aging of the nation.
whenever you read about labor statistics, beware the effect of the aging of americ. until the population stops aging like this, there is a permanent headwind to jobs/labor. We are dropping out millions of workers because of aging and not replacing them at the young end.
So when you hear 'biden economy labor problems' just translate it to 'aging of america is skewing the statistics'
Wrong! It’s a disaster. Even Nate silver, democrat fairy, agrees.
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Fat hurts wrote:
TheAdultInTheRoom wrote:
There's a need for a social media app which isn't blatantly leftist. Trying to fill a market need and failing isn't a "con"...
Elon Musk just became the largest shareholder in Twitter for this exact reason.
It's a con when you tell people that you are building a legitimate business, but you don't really try to do that. It's been clear to me from the beginning that they were just trying to cash in on the SPAC.
Oh, and the SEC was already investigating this from the get-go. It appears they may have broken the SPAC rules early on. So the SEC might not let the SPAC go through because of illegal collusion and fraudulent filing documents.
It was always a con.
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It’s a disaster!
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TheAdultInTheRoom wrote:
I'm all for forced savings.
How very Libertarian of you!
01 -
Banned in America wrote:
TheAdultInTheRoom wrote:
I'm all for forced savings.
How very Libertarian of you!
I'm a libertarian because I don't agree completely with either party. Libertarians don't all think the same. I'm willing to admit that government is needed to protect stupid people from themselves. Particularly when the alternative is the government stealing from me to bail them out later anyway.
The government isn't going away. The least we can do is make it suck as little as possible. Social Security is hot garbage.
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Real Obvi wrote:
TheAdultInTheRoom wrote:
I believe Americans don't save for retirement because they're idiots who think Social Security is a retirement plan.
Social Security CAUSED the lack of savings.
If we invested our OASDI money in index funds rather than giving it to the government we'd be FAR better off.
So, in other words, you think Americans are idiots.
No, not in other words. In your own words, you think Americans are idiots.
He inadvertently came very close to getting his first thing right, ever....for the wrong reason.
Trump got 47% of the vote. Just 3.01% more, and saying that, in general, Americans are idiots is pretty damn defensible.
In fact, in this case - and considering everything else in this fine, fine country - I'm VERY comfortable with rounding-up to "Americans are idiots."
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TheAdultInTheRoom wrote:
agip wrote:
um....most americans depend on and cherish SS. You are calling most americans idiots for liking a plan that keeps a roof over their heads and food on the table in their old age. Lord knows what you would want to happen to the 80 year olds who didn't invest in the stock market and are broke under your system. A forced savings system with no risk is absolutely needed in this country of non-savers.
Jeff Bezos is going to get social security.
Mark Zuckerberg is going to get social security.
The average social security check at age 67 is around $1,500. Somewhere between 12 and 40% of Americans rely solely on Social Security in retirement. You argue that the kid washing lettuce at Wendy's should make at least $2,600 a month but you think $1,500 is a great deal for retirees?
If the "forced savings" was done intelligently that $1,500 check would be much much larger.
OASDI is 7.65% If you make $50,000 you pay $3,825 a year in Social Security tax. Over a 40 year career that is $153,000. If you put that same $3,825 into an index fund after 40 years you'd have over $1.1 million.
If the government didn't suck at everything it did there would be no poverty in retirement
forcing people to invest in the stock market is a complete mess. What happens if the US is like Japan and the market is lower than a peak for 30 years? or like Europe, where stocks have gone nowhere for 15 years? That might happen here when we go to population shrinkage as we are starting to. And of course we've had long long periods in the US where stocks do nothing or go down. People would be destitute.
And do you give people the right to sell early? they'd panic sell all the time. What about the poor people who retire into a bear market and lose half their money?
libertarians are just simpletons. they love theory and think people will choose correctly if given the option. You'd think they'd see enough really bad decision making by the time they are adults to make them leave libertarianism but sometimes the theory is just too pretty.
Anyway, SS is not perfect but it guarantees to keep elderly out of hunger and poverty. A risk free inflation-adjusted annuity is a good thing that benefits us all. A two-income family has a risk free annuity worth between 1-2 million dollars. Pretty good.
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Real Obvi wrote:
Real Obvi wrote:
So, in other words, you think Americans are idiots.
No, not in other words. In your own words, you think Americans are idiots.
Also, here's a hint for you. Americans NEVER saved enough for retirement, even before there was any such thing as Social Security.
When I was a child (well, under 30, anyway) I thought exactly like you do on this topic. Forget Social Security! Just give me the money - I'll invest it as I choose and be much, MUCH better off. And that would have been true. I would have invested it well and been much better off.
The problem is that most Americans wouldn't. And then we'd be back to letting millions of seniors starve because they were not wise enough to save earlier in life . . . or bailing them out using taxpayer funds.
Here's another hint for you. Look up what happened to the poverty rate of senior citizens prior to the advent of Social Security and after Social Security came into effect.
Here's a polite hint for you and agip and others: You would fail to persuade "adult" and a few others on this thread that the sky is blue if their tribe said that it was red. Do you REALLY think that you're going to persuade them about something AT ALL more complicated than that?
Trolliminator (sp???) is mostly correct. They deserve nothing but derision. And probably not even that.
04 -
nonequals wrote:
Real Obvi wrote:
Also, here's a hint for you. Americans NEVER saved enough for retirement, even before there was any such thing as Social Security.
When I was a child (well, under 30, anyway) I thought exactly like you do on this topic. Forget Social Security! Just give me the money - I'll invest it as I choose and be much, MUCH better off. And that would have been true. I would have invested it well and been much better off.
The problem is that most Americans wouldn't. And then we'd be back to letting millions of seniors starve because they were not wise enough to save earlier in life . . . or bailing them out using taxpayer funds.
Here's another hint for you. Look up what happened to the poverty rate of senior citizens prior to the advent of Social Security and after Social Security came into effect.
Here's a polite hint for you and agip and others: You would fail to persuade "adult" and a few others on this thread that the sky is blue if their tribe said that it was red. Do you REALLY think that you're going to persuade them about something AT ALL more complicated than that?
Trolliminator (sp???) is mostly correct. They deserve nothing but derision. And probably not even that.
eh its fun playing with libertarians. watching them struggle to maintain their perfect libertarian theory as the evidence for it collapses all around them is fun,
it's like watching people who were 'hard left' in their college years get a job and a mortgage and see how some people just don't want to work and then they lefty people become less lefty.
03
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