The Republicans are the Problem

[Dirty Penguin]

Question....

Why not let me manage my own money?

Why can't my job and govt instead of taking out money for pensions, 401k or SS simply just deposit my witholdings into a separate trust "bank" account that can't be touched until I retire or released to my spouse if I die.....or even be disbursed how I want it through my Will...?

[Copernicus]

Originally Posted by Dirty Penguin

Question....

Why not let me manage my own money?

Social Security and pension funds do not prevent you from doing that. Pensions are (or used to be) part of your compensation for agreeing to be employed by a company. Social Security and Medicare deductions are essentially a taxes that we, as a nation, have agreed to impose on wages in order to provide a common benefit. Like any other tax, you don't really control how all of it is spent, but you do control how you spend what you earn after taxes.

Why can't my job and govt instead of taking out money for pensions, 401k or SS simply just deposit my witholdings into a separate trust "bank" account that can't be touched until I retire or released to my spouse if I die.....or even be disbursed how I want it through my Will...?

You need to ask your employer and/or union why they think you would want a pension. Employers offer them because a union negotiated for that benefit or they want to attract employees with that perk. SS is a form of national insurance that Congress established decades ago. It works essentially like all insurance. A large pool of people pay into it. Some will pay in more than they take out. Some will break even. Others will take out more than they put in. Same deal if you buy private insurance.

SS is (or has been) largely solvent for a long time, except that Congress has invested a great deal of its money in US Treasury bonds that a flaky, mendacious Congress would now like to find some way of reneging on. It seems that they borrowed the money for stuff they wanted--wars, corporate subsidies and giveaways, tax reductions for the wealthy, earmarked "pork", whatever--and now they don't have the money to make good on their debt. Naturally, they would like to forget the loan, so one way to do that is declare SS "bankrupt" and look for ways to reduce benefits it had promised earlier.

[Dirty Penguin]

Originally Posted by Copernicus

SS is (or has been) largely solvent for a long time, except that Congress has invested a great deal of its money in US Treasury bonds that a flaky, mendacious Congress would now like to find some way of reneging on. It seems that they borrowed the money for stuff they wanted--wars, corporate subsidies and giveaways, tax reductions for the wealthy, earmarked "pork", whatever--and now they don't have the money to make good on their debt. Naturally, they would like to forget the loan, so one way to do that is declare SS "bankrupt" and look for ways to reduce benefits it had promised earlier.

Is it possible to stop the government from withholding SS and you take that money and save it yourself?

I thought there were other countries (Mexico I thought) that allowed employees to manage that money.

[1robin]

Originally Posted by Dirty Penguin

Is it possible to stop the government from withholding SS and you take that money and save it yourself?

I thought there were other countries (Mexico I thought) that allowed employees to manage that money.

I think there was a southwestern state or organization that got out of SS somehow and invested the money privately and saw a drastically higher return than they would have otherwise recieved. Since all my money and the people younger than me has been borrowed (stolen) by the government and will never be repaid. I think government SS is about the worst investment possible.

[1robin]

Originally Posted by Dirty Penguin

Question....

Why not let me manage my own money?

Because then they could not steal it and give it away on programs to buy votes.

Why can't my job and govt instead of taking out money for pensions, 401k or SS simply just deposit my witholdings into a separate trust "bank" account that can't be touched until I retire or released to my spouse if I die.....or even be disbursed how I want it through my Will...?

Ditto.

[Copernicus]

Originally Posted by Dirty Penguin

Is it possible to stop the government from withholding SS and you take that money and save it yourself?

No. The program is not a savings plan, but an annuity. It is an insurance program that is designed primarily to give us all at least a modest level of income after retirement. For what people pay in, it works out well for most. You only pay a relatively small portion of your income into it, and you are free to use all the rest of your income to build your wealth, if you think you are good enough at it. Chances are that you aren't. Nobody can foresee the future. It is actually quite a decent benefit for those who live beyond their mid to late 60s, which most of us do.

I thought there were other countries (Mexico I thought) that allowed employees to manage that money.

Maybe there are, and you may want to consider emigration. SS is too popular a program for you to expect that it will disappear soon and be replaced by a personal money management program. But it might be that Mexico is the type of country you would prefer to live in. If I were to emigrate, I would choose to move north or to Europe, rabid pro-Obama "socialist" that I am. I've seen how those countries work and heard what their citizens say about their welfare benefits. They do not envy us or seek to replace their system with something like ours. I think that they are just a bit more satisfied than Mexicans, but I could be wrong.

[T-Dawg]

Originally Posted by Shuddhasattva

His point is that social welfare programs supplant personal responsibility which should be taught and upheld.

(Seriously, how did you get THAT out of what I said?? What does welfare have to do with Social Security? "Welfare" implies something that you get a return from without paying into it.)

No, my point was that social security seems to simply take money I have now and spend it on old people, and then when I'm old, take money young people will have then and give it to me. It seems a bit purposeless from what I understand of it, unless it's being used to redistribute income instead of just shuffling it towards a person's retirement.

[Revoltingest]

Originally Posted by Dirty Penguin

Is it possible to stop the government from withholding SS and you take that money and save it yourself?

In the past (still true?), working for government or railroads exempted one from SS withholding.
Aerospace engineers I worked with at Northrop would accumulate hefty savings while in gov't, & then
clean up on top of that with SS. Double dipping rules!

[Copernicus]

Originally Posted by T-Dawg

No, my point was that social security seems to simply take money I have now and spend it on old people, and then when I'm old, take money young people will have then and give it to me. It seems a bit purposeless from what I understand of it, unless it's being used to redistribute income instead of just shuffling it towards a person's retirement.

T-Dawg, do you understand how insurance works? Insurance companies pool premiums and pay some of that money back against claims. Some people never recoup a cent of what they put into the insurance fund. Others get back far more than what they put in. Social Security and Medicare are a form of insurance that is administered by the government. It is predicated on the calculation that not everyone will get back what they put into it. The expectation is that some people will die before they extract as much as they contributed. It is not a bank account or 401K plan, where you get back the principal with interest. It is just a method of making sure that all citizens have a guarantee of some level of income, once they reach an age where they cannot earn enough money to meet their needs. Not everyone will make it to that age or live many years beyond it.

[tytlyf]

Originally Posted by 1robin

I think there was a southwestern state or organization that got out of SS somehow and invested the money privately and saw a drastically higher return than they would have otherwise recieved. Since all my money and the people younger than me has been borrowed (stolen) by the government and will never be repaid. I think government SS is about the worst investment possible.

See if you can dig up where you "heard" that. Thanks, I'd like to analyze it's validity