Campaign contributors will get nearly a trillion dollars, and generations of Americans will be paying for it.
Bush says he wants to "move quickly" next year to privatize Social Security.
So you need to move quickly to tell your Senators and House Representative to head him off.
Because the first thing that will happen is that nearly $1 trillion will move into the vaults of big business campaign contributors:
"Creating individual accounts in the social security system would lead to a massive increase in payments of financial fees to private financial management companies ... the net present value of such payments would be $940 billion.
"Rather than using the money to close the social security gap, the plan would transfer this money to private financial managers and mutual fund companies.
"The fees would be the largest windfall gain in American financial history."
[PDF file: The Fees of Private Accounts and the Impact of Social Security Privatization on Financial Managers Austan Goolsbee/University of Chicago, G.S.B./September 2004] (Links open in new windows)
For a few hundred million in campaign contributions, they'll get nearly a trillion dollars - don't you wish you could get a tasty 200,000% return on your investments?
The next thing that will happen is that Social Security benefits will be reduced by 20-40%.
And an additional debt of $2 trillion will be generated to cover present participants in the system. This will have to be paid by wage-earners, perhaps "unto the seventh generation." I previously posted more details:
08/30/04: Scam alert: Watch out for "Ownership Society" and "Investor Class"
09/23/04: Bush's "ownership" scam: Part II
It's a rip-off to move even more wealth from the bottom and middle to the very top:
| Household net worth | % of assets owned | % of equity* | % of Housing** |
| Top 1% | 29.5% | 33.6% | 9.0% |
| Top 10% | 64.6% | 77.0% | 37.2% |
| Top 50% | 94.4% | 98.6% | 87.7% |
| Bottom 50% | 5.6% | 1.4% | 12.3% |
|
* Stocks, both owned directly and in mutual funds ** Estimate of market value |
|||
| How to read: "The top 50% of households based on net worth own 98.6% of all stocks, including direct ownership and mutual funds, and 94.4% of all stocks and housing in the U.S. The bottom 50% of U. S. households own only 5.6% of stocks and housing." | |||
And if you're not in the top 10%, your end of the stick is going to get even shorter.
.jpg?t=20120527181101)
Article comments
1 - RedTard
That one trillion dollar figure is a bullshit scare tactic. That's the NPV of 75 years worth of management at about 12-15 billion per year. Of course 12 billion per year over 75 years does not sound nearly as scary as $1 trillion dollars.
You have a great point about not being able to afford SS privatization I just don't understand why you have to resort to these type of misleading figures.
2 - Hal Pawluk
I'm not using scare tactics, 'tard, just convention. The Social Security trustees have historically used 75 year projections, and the U of Chicago study does the same.
Do you have any comment on the issues of the $2 trillion shortfall, and the reductions in benefits?
3 - RedTard
SS is the largest Ponzi scheme in history. It relies on ever larger numbers of suckers paying in to keep it afloat. For me personally, putting that part of my check that is supposed to go to my SS account into stocks or bonds seems like a better plan. Even if the overall benefits turn out to be less at least I know that the money is actually there and I'm not burdening the next generation.
The current Social Security system will fail eventually. The government will have to renege on it's promise by lowering benefits or raising premiums substantially. Either way the young people of today and in the future will end up getting less, and possibly nothing, for their money.
We're under a bad system now and stuck between a rock and a hard place. Transitioning to the new plan may be more than many people can bear but sticking with the old plan just delays and complicates the inevitable.
4 - Hal Pawluk
Okay, but I'm curious: why do you think the $2 trillion cost to wage-earners is a good thing?
5 - RedTard
I never said I thought the $2 trillion was a good thing. I'm just really not all that excited about either candidates plan. We can't afford to do anything but we also can't afford not to.
The good thing that comes from the dialogue is that most young people, at least the ones I know, are starting to realize that it is critical to have their own private retirement plan. because we really don't have much of a guarantee with SS.
If the 2 trillion is calculated over the 75 years it doesn't even seem that bad. That's about $125/per person per year to switch to a solvent, reasonable retirement plan.
I'd give back my tax cut for that.
6 - Hal Pawluk
Social Security is only in trouble because of the Bush tax cuts.
That was written last March and the fiscal situation has worsened, but the idea still holds: it's an artificial crisis created by Republicans.As explained in Business Week:
This is just more of their "Starve the Beast" concept, Reagan's idea that you spend like crazy until there's a huge fiscal problem so you have to start eliminating social programs.
Whether that's a good idea or not, the way Republicans are doing it is dishonest.
7 - John Searler
Fuck Bush
8 - Lumpy
Your comment is only less stupid than the original article because it uses fewer words and doesn't endorse flushing away the future of our citizens.