Social Security/Personal Retirement Accounts

GlueGuy · Mar 1, 2002

That would fix "my" problem, but it would screw everyone that is currently retired and those retiring between now and when I retire. As I said, it's "pay as you go". The money we're paying today is going straight to those that are retired now.

MikePA · Mar 1, 2002

Imagine if the roughly 14% of my salary that's currently going into SS would instead go to a private IRA?

When I worked for the gummint (federal) we did not pay into the Social Security system. 7% went into a retirement fund. When I left the gummint, since I had not been employed there long enough, only 2.5 years, I got all of it back in a lump sum. I found it odd that we were exempt from FICA.

The older I get the more Libertarian I get. Why? Because no matter how well-intentioned the original program is, over time it bloats to Jabba the Hut proportions. Just look at Medicare. Now they want to add prescription drug coverage. The other problem is that programs almost never go away, they just continue bloating. This is also why we should go back to part time legislators. If they're only there for 6 months, they can do less damage.

TerryinMD · Mar 1, 2002

14% - maybe.....

My guess is that it would be only YOUR portion - still around 7%. Not to shabby if you ask me. That along with your normal 401k contribution (assuming you have one, of course) would add up pretty fast into a nice retirement fund.

Okay - time to play devils advocate. What if you were allowed to put your FICA taxes into a private fund and your company's portion went into the SS fund? Wouldn't that lessen the burden on the Government to cover all of the entitlements and give the us the break we deserve?

Terry

MikePA · Mar 1, 2002

14% - maybe.....My guess is that it would be only YOUR portion - still around 7%.
Correct. 7% was my portion, which is what I got back. Any you're correct, not too shabby. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

That along with your normal 401k contribution (assuming you have one, of course) would add up pretty fast into a nice retirement fund.
This was before 401Ks, but I agree. Whis would have added up fast.

What if you were allowed to put your FICA taxes into a private fund and your company's portion went into the SS fund? Wouldn't that lessen the burden on the Government to cover all of the entitlements and give the us the break we deserve?
I would do this in a hearbeat! But when half the government wants to be a nanny to everyone and assumes that people are not smart enough to invest their own money, I don't see this happening. Even if it did, 10 years after it was implemented, we'd see hearings in Congress of some morons that lost their retirement savings because they invested all their money in FlyByNight Corp stock and lost it all when the stock price dropped to 10 cents. Kind of like what's going on with the Enron hearings. While I have sympathy for those who lost their retirement savings, no one forced them to keep all their 401K in Enron stock. I wouldn't have cared what the CEO or CFO recommended, anyone who kept all their savings in Enron stock got what they deserved, not to mention, some of these people looked pretty close to retirement, so why did they have any money in stocks? I've always heard that the closer you get to retirement, the more you should swing your dollars over to less volatile investments. It's almost as if people want to play the market when stocks are soaring, then have the gummint save them when stocks sink.

TerryinMD · Mar 1, 2002

Your last statement is interesting.

This could be avoided if a diverse set of funds were provided. I have made some good choices in my mutual funds and some bad choices. In the last year, most mutuals have suffered due to the stock market "correction". So, if the personal retirement account is setup and managed like a 401k, people could pick a choose their funds. Not chosen by the Government. Those silly "fatherless children" would probably make us by Government Bonds!! Not all mutual funds are stock market based, so you could have many funds to chose from. But, people is people, and sure enough, the Government would catch the blame and let the hearings begin... /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

Now, what about the 7% that our employers have to contribute. That is still an open question.

Any other takers....

Terry

duanet · Mar 1, 2002

Terry,

I debated jumping in here for a couple of reasons. First, my mother told me to avoid arguing (I know you are not arguing) politics or religion. Secondly, I have been paying in the maximum to FICA since 1954, which now makes me old enough to be on Social Security, which I am. Enough said!

There's an organization, The Cato Institute, that is working on the very thing being discussed in this post. It's <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.socialsecurity.org/>http://www.socialsecurity.org/</A>, and I just this evening went to it for the first time. I've only read the headlines, but it could be of real interest to you younger guys. I'm going back to it when I finish with TBN.

Duane

ewoss3 · Mar 2, 2002

Terry just remembeThose silly "fatherless children" would probably make us by Government Bonds!! are the same ones that have their own personal retirment instead of social security

TerryinMD · Mar 2, 2002

Guys,

I have three pet pieves:

1) Government - Congress /w3tcompact/icons/eyes.gif

2) Government - Useless departments and agencies /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif/w3tcompact/icons/mad.gif

3) Government - The bureaucrats working for the useless departments and agencies and those bureaucrats who forget who they work for.... /w3tcompact/icons/mad.gif

I had the opportunity to commute with a people who worked for the various Departments and Agencies in Washington. The ride into DC took about an hour and a bunch of us would sit in a parlour car to chat during the commute. Some of the stories I heard are truely amazing. Both houses are the darned best run clubhouses in the world. You've heard about some of the shenanigans in the news, but that is the tip of the iceberg.

Terry

ewoss3 · Mar 3, 2002

Terry, I was stationed at PAX River for 3 years doing testing of new Aircraft systems and we regularly commuted to D.C. for meetings and equipment symposiums. It always amazed me just how corrupt things were run and how someone with an inferior products were given multiple tries to make them work. I guess it was in my nature that I expected a product to be complete when given to someone for evaluation. This seems to be following over to the civillian sector as well since I regularly get software products and new systems to test that are no where near completion, but hey we'll work with it since the product was developed in-house and some dip-wad already gave them 7 million to deploy the system

Bayrat · Mar 3, 2002

I'm sick of supporting no good *&^%wipes with my money. couldn't have said it better myself. Here is an updated fable that you're all sure to enjoy:

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER ------ CLASSIC VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his
house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the
summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or
shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER ------ MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his
house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the
summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and
demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others
less fortunate are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC and ABC show up to provide a video of the shivering grasshopper
next to pictures of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with
food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a
country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit, the Frog, appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody
cries when they sing "It's Not Easy Being Green."

Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house, where
the news stations film the group singing "We shall overcome." Jesse then has
the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

Al Gore exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has
gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for an immediate
tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share".

Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act",
retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs
and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated
by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a
defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal
judges that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent welfare
recipients.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of
the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be
the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house,
now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once
peaceful neighborhood.