http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005 by the authors Tue, 8 Feb 2005 01:21:48 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116385 Roy: They also hate it because it provides a safety net to the less fortunate (disabled people, children, and lower income). That's right, Republicans are devils in human form who hate children and the poor and the handicapped. That's why they out donate Democrats to charity 2 to 1. That's why they want to help people get out of poverty and advance themselves instead of keeping them eternally dependent on a paternalistic state. Roy: Why aren't they honest and come right out and say they want to get rid of it? Because if we do then some lying Democrat zombie will come along and say we hate children and cripples. Sound familiar? Dave 116385@blogcritics.org Tue, 8 Feb 2005 01:21:48 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116384 Roy: $60-$70 trillion? Can you provide a reference of one person besides yourself that thinks that is a reasonable estimate? I didn't say it was a reasonable estimate, but it is a possible outcome. If nothing were done to deal with the problems of the system between now and 2080 and it kept paying full benefits for that entire time the amount by which outflow would exceed income at that point would be $60 trillion. The $37 trillion figure which some have said is outrageous is based on cutting benefits to 80%. The $11 trillion figure which is commonly accepted is based on a combination of cutting benefits AND increasing the payroll tax gradually over the next 75 years. the $3.7 billion figure that Democrats are using is pure, unadulterated fantasy. All of this is spelled out specifically in the SSA Trustees Report, so it's not just someone's opinion, it's the official position of the SSA. Most people don't have the patience to read the 200+ page monster apparently. Dave 116384@blogcritics.org Tue, 8 Feb 2005 01:18:42 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116379 $60-$70 trillion? Can you provide a reference of one person besides yourself that thinks that is a reasonable estimate? 116379@blogcritics.org Tue, 8 Feb 2005 01:12:14 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116377 Most Republicans seem to be ideologically opposed to the whole idea of Social Security. They hate it even more because it has been a policy success for the Democrats. They also hate it because it provides a safety net to the less fortunate (disabled people, children, and lower income). Why aren't they honest and come right out and say they want to get rid of it? Could it be because the system has actually worked for 75 years and has been extremely popular? Apparently it doesn't work politically for Republicans to call for the removal of Social Security. Yes, Social Security needs to be strengthened. But why would the Republicans want to strengthen it? In their hearts they want to destroy it. So, how better to destroy it than by presenting a privatization scheme (that will ultimately destroy it) that they can try to sell to the American people as a "solution" for the financial problems of the system. This removes both the "social" from the system by denying that we are all ultimately in this together and the "security" from the system by betting all our futures on the stock market. Lets see: "social security" minus "social" minus "security" equals ... zero. Social security needs to be strengthened, to be sure. But in my experience, it is not prudent to hire the fox to guard the henhouse. 116377@blogcritics.org Tue, 8 Feb 2005 01:07:18 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116375 Hal: My supposition is grounded on Bush's history of lying and his fiscal incompetence. You see, you lose all credibility here. The first part of your statement is just your opinion unsupported by evidence and the second is as yet unproven, and I'd suggest that so far the evidence supports the viability of Bush's basic ideas on the economy. What he's done with the economy may not be to your liking, but I think it's worked the way he wanted it to. Hal: If Bush does manage to push "privatization" of Social Security through, get back to me in a decade so I can say: "I told you so." Here's some good news for you, Hal. After doing even more research and thinking on this subject and crunching some of the numbers myself in massive excel spreadsheets I'm not convinced that Bush's plan is a good idea at all. The actual figure I see coming down the road is something like a whopping $60-70 trillion cost for the current system before the end of the century unless we have some sort of plague that just kills everyone over the age of 50, or massive cutbacks, or enormous SS tax increase. A half-measure like Bush's current proposal won't address the root problem. We need to scrap the current system alltogether for everyone under 50 and start them over again from scratch with a 100% private investment fund system. It's really the only solution. Dave 116375@blogcritics.org Tue, 8 Feb 2005 00:57:38 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116374 Dave says: Out of curiosity, where do you think my employer gets his 'matching' 6.2% from? He takes it out of my salary in advance. Make no mistake, the employee ends up paying all 12.4 percent no matter how it's presented. Wrong. The match does not come out of the employee's paycheck, it is an extra expense for the employer (kind of like health benefits, if your employer is kind enough to pay your health premiums). Some would argue that if the employer didn't have to pay the match, the employees would get paid more, but I think most employers would pay the employees the same and add the savings to their bottom line. For minimum wage workers, this is almost certainly the case. 116374@blogcritics.org Tue, 8 Feb 2005 00:56:18 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116357 My supposition is grounded on Bush's history of lying and his fiscal incompetence. If Bush does manage to push "privatization" of Social Security through, get back to me in a decade so I can say: "I told you so." 116357@blogcritics.org Mon, 7 Feb 2005 23:13:11 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116355 Sorry for the misdirection, Mike, but the comment was so off the mark it had to be Dave aned I didn't bother reading the name on it. Nobody is saying "do nothing." You might want to read the original post at the top of this page and any number of other sources. If you want to change the nature of how SS works - or eliminate it entirely - that's a different discussion. And I'm sure we'll have it when you're elected to higher office, which I'm certain you will be. In the meantime, we have to deal with what we've got. Using "privatization" as a cloak for destroying SS is not the way to go. 116355@blogcritics.org Mon, 7 Feb 2005 23:07:43 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116336 Hal, I realize you were confused when you thought you were responding to me. But I'm not surprised. I'll answer you a bit anyway. Hal: Wrong again, Dave (doesn't that get tiresome? Do you think it will stop when you finally get to high school?) Ah, to be in High School again. If only I could put all those advanced degrees and years of grad school away and enjoy my innocence once again. Then I might be able to read Hal's silly rantings and not feel compelled to debunk them. Hal: Bush wants to take 4% from the 6.2% taken from your paycheck - that's 64% of it. Out of curiosity, where do you think my employer gets his 'matching' 6.2% from? He takes it out of my salary in advance. Make no mistake, the employee ends up paying all 12.4 percent no matter how it's presented. Hal: While the other half of the deduction paid by employers is part of their payroll expense, we don't know what he's going to do there. I can make an educated guess, though - business will lobby because it's "unfair" to make them pay in when workers don't have to, and this 4% will, in some span of time, be done away with. Workers will continue to pay 4%, businesses won't. The bottom line is that nearly 2/3rds of Social Security funding will disappear. Absolute groundless supposition. They haven't tried to do away with it thus far, why would it change? It's still the same situation. They just take it out of the employee's salary up front. Hal: The Bush way of sneaking it through without revealing the whole picture is dishonest. So how can anyone trust Bush, regardless of their party affiliation? What ever happened to commonsense? Because right now he isn't lying to us, you are. And common sense makes it blatantly obvious that an investment system will provide a better return than a bogus government insurance scam. Dave 116336@blogcritics.org Mon, 7 Feb 2005 21:11:20 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116330 Hal- sling your arrow at me on this one, not Dave. (Besides, the high school jab wasn't very nice.) I did the math and saw that, yup, I was wrong. It is 6.2% that I surrender to Social Security. The 12.4% figure must have been used in stats I had seen because the employer contributes a matching amount. I will stick to my guns on the crisis nature of the future of Social Security if left alone, using the common sense you touted above. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. It would be outlawed if private business tried to do it. Ponzi schemes invariably collapse, because they count on ever more contributers entering the system, outstripping those cashing in. Unless there is a wave of immigration or the birth rate ramps up, you bet the federal government will be burdened mightily. Common sense. What differs in this case is that this Ponzi scheme does not stand alone. Let's assume that you got it spot on correct, and Bush succeeds in taking away 2/3 of the funding. So what? You are assuming that Social Security is funded by dollars in, dollars out. It isn't so, and the ongoing transfers of the surplusses and shifting those dollars to cover myriad other programs over the years is the proof. Tax dollars, no matter what they are ostensibly for, are thrown into the hopper and meted out here, there, and everywhere. If Social Security taxes don't cover the payouts, they will be covered by revenues captured by other means. I think it would be wonderful if Social Security was strictly its own account, with only the funds in there to back it. That would require a hell of a lot more careful thought and, gasp, planning on the part of its administrators. Those in disagreement with the Bush plan and genuinely interested in preserving the system have yet to offer much beyond the Democratic strategy of doing nothing to alter the system. So far, I'm not seeing any proposals, from Democrats or from you, Hal. Plenty o' bitching, though. 116330@blogcritics.org Mon, 7 Feb 2005 20:58:59 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116320 Wrong again, Dave (doesn't that get tiresome? Do you think it will stop when you finally get to high school?) Bush wants to take 4% from the 6.2% taken from your paycheck - that's 64% of it. While the other half of the deduction paid by employers is part of their payroll expense, we don't know what he's going to do there. I can make an educated guess, though - business will lobby because it's "unfair" to make them pay in when workers don't have to, and this 4% will, in some span of time, be done away with. Workers will continue to pay 4%, businesses won't. The bottom line is that nearly 2/3rds of Social Security funding will disappear. As will Social Security. Which will make many on the right very happy, but that's a debate that should be had. The Bush way of sneaking it through without revealing the whole picture is dishonest. So how can anyone trust Bush, regardless of their party affiliation? What ever happened to commonsense? Never mind - the education system is a different issue. But easily as badly mismanaged. 116320@blogcritics.org Mon, 7 Feb 2005 19:49:09 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116287 Hal- if saying that there is a crisis is hyperbole or bull, then saying that the new American Dream is no social security. The Bush plan calls for the ability to move a whopping 4% of the 12.4% taken from our incomes. A shift that small is hardly worth mentioning. I am not in favor of the Bush plan. I am opposed to using the force of government to extract 12.4% of my income into a program to be managed by anyone other than me, whether the manager be government of Wall Street. 116287@blogcritics.org Mon, 7 Feb 2005 18:10:03 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116216 Couldn't think of anything say, Dave? I have the report and its assumptions here. You're deluded. 116216@blogcritics.org Mon, 7 Feb 2005 15:25:09 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116211 Then you must be blissful, Hal. Go read the Trustees report. It's available in PDF format. Dave 116211@blogcritics.org Mon, 7 Feb 2005 15:03:25 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116155 The Social Security Trustees, even though most are Bush appointees, say the SS deficit will be $3.7 trillion in the normal 75-year life-span projection. Any actuary will tell you even that number has a huge amount of uncertainty, but it's at least a number that can be worked with. Any other projections are simply politcally-inspired pipe-dreams, considered meaningful only by the gullible. Ignorance is bliss, they say. 116155@blogcritics.org Mon, 7 Feb 2005 12:23:44 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116131 Hal, my source is the Social Security Administration Trustees. If they're on drugs that would come as a great surprise to me. Their calculations are also confirmed by studies done by independent groups like The Heritage Foundation and The Cato Institute. But I guess they all might be on drugs too - Cato does favor drug legalization after all. In fact, I bet anyone who doesn't have confidence in Social Security is on drugs. I bet I'm no drugs. Someone probably slipped them into my oatmeal. Dave 116131@blogcritics.org Mon, 7 Feb 2005 11:31:55 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116072 It seems that your source is on drugs and fantasizing the numbers. You might want to intervene. 116072@blogcritics.org Mon, 7 Feb 2005 09:34:12 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116037 Hal. I just go to the source and get the facts. My leader is Ron Paul and he's not even a still quiet voice inside my head. Maybe you should stop discussing this topic since you seem to be unable to accept the facts when presented with them. And it's not $11 Trillion in 78 years. Now that I've looked into it more it's closer to $27 Trillion over that period. Dave 116037@blogcritics.org Mon, 7 Feb 2005 03:29:30 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116015 Dave, you need to start thinking for yourself instead of just parroting what your Maximum Leaders spoon into your brain. They're misleading you. Like that $11 trillion shortfall that Bush and Cheney have been feeding you and the other gullibles, and you mentioned in the other thread as being the shortfall in 78 years. Commonsense should have told you that if the shortfall is going to be $3.7 trillion in 75 years, there is no way in hell or on god's good green earth that this could possibly jump to $11 trillion in 3 more years. Use your head, man. 116015@blogcritics.org Mon, 7 Feb 2005 01:50:08 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116006 Well, Bush's conception of the situation as a crisis is much closer to the truth than the dems 'don't worry, be happy' perspective. It's still a crisis if it's a few years off and every year we delay massively increases the ultimate cost. Have you been reading the other thread on this? Every year we delay increases that $2 Trillion cost to fix the system by about $600 billion. That makes it a crisis. It's pay a lot now and fix it or go with the democrats and pay a backbreakingly enormous amount a few years down the road. Dave 116006@blogcritics.org Mon, 7 Feb 2005 00:54:23 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-116003 "Why is it so difficult for you to admit that the dems are putting out a deliberate campaign of misrepresenting the SS situation for political reasons?" Yeah, Bush and the Republicans are in no way doing that, right Dave? ;) 116003@blogcritics.org Mon, 7 Feb 2005 00:47:11 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-112310 I'm not having any trouble understanding it at all. You just seem to be having trouble accepting it. But that's ok. I'm used to giving up on discussion with leftists who live in an ongoing state of denial. Dave 112310@blogcritics.org Thu, 27 Jan 2005 03:26:19 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-112304 Why is it so difficult for you to understand what the Democrats are saying? They are saying that Bush is misrepresenting the situation as a crisis when it is not. Is English your first language, or did you pick up some few bits of it later in life? 112304@blogcritics.org Thu, 27 Jan 2005 02:40:31 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-112208 You keep insisting that the quotes are taken out of context, but in almost all those examples the quotes are short, specific answers to specific questions. There is no larger context. This is what they've said. At other times they may have said different things on the subject, but their soundbyte answers are conveying a specific intentional message. Why is it so difficult for you to admit that the dems are putting out a deliberate campaign of misrepresenting the SS situation for political reasons? It's pretty obvious that this is what's going on. Dave 112208@blogcritics.org Wed, 26 Jan 2005 18:19:47 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/24/184231.php#comment-112146 Wrong again, Dave. Twice. The Hitlerian fantasy is yours, not mine. I mentioned Goebbels only because he is widely recognized as perhaps the best practitioner of propaganda in the last century, if not longer. As a communications specialist for several decades myself, my judgment is that Karl Rove is at least his equal, perhaps even better. As for your "myriad quotes," you misrepresent them. Check the source material again and you'll find that none of those speakers hold the position that "there is no problem with social security." Reading their statements then making the claims you do seems to me to be an abject failure to comprehend simple English, partisan blindness, or wilful mis-characterization. In any case, wrong. 112146@blogcritics.org Wed, 26 Jan 2005 15:23:32 EST