SS "Contributions" Net You Nothing But Diminishing Returns

[ConstitutionCowboy]

Do the math. The money you receive from SS nets less and less buying power each year. The COLA never equals the true rate of inflation and the "adjustment" is always a year in arrears.

What is needed is at least a yearly (better if done quarterly) inflation compensation payment over and above the annual COLA.

The overall best solution in my opinion is to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment and implement the Fair Tax.

As an added bonus, repeal the Seventeenth Amendment and Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment. It will restore power back to the several states by putting the selection of Senators back into the purview of the several state's legislatures, and restore the power of the people and states to challenge any debt incurred by the Federal Government.

Woody

[Nick1911]

Well... yea.  You present this as some sort of flaw.  It isn't - it's deliberate in my opinion.

SS COLA's are tied to the CPI - the methodology of which was changed in the 1980's and 1990's.  It reflects lower numbers than true inflation.

Social security is a pyramid scheme.  Always was.  The only way to keep it from collapsing in the end game is the continually devalue it one way or another.  Actually making the numbers smaller angers everyone.  It's psychologically unpalatable.  Much better to devalue by just make small increases that don't actually keep up with inflation.

[ConstitutionCowboy]

Well... yea.  You present this as some sort of flaw.  It isn't - it's deliberate in my opinion.

SS COLA's are tied to the CPI - the methodology of which was changed in the 1980's and 1990's.  It reflects lower numbers than true inflation.

Social security is a pyramid scheme.  Always was.  The only way to keep it from collapsing in the end game is the continually devalue it one way or another.  Actually making the numbers smaller angers everyone.  It's psychologically unpalatable.  Much better to devalue by just make small increases that don't actually keep up with inflation.

I agree that it is deliberate. There is no way it wasn't set up that way. That is the way it functions and those who set it up that way and those who do nothing about it are in cahoots.

These are the same people who passed themselves automatic pay raises - just before the 27th Amendment was ratified.

Woody

[HankB]

Several decades ago, Fortune magazine usually had a column called Keeping Up. One month the topic was Social Security, and at that time, it turned out that if a working person's contributions to SS (including the "employer share") were invested at only 3%, upon retirement the person would be able use those funds to buy a lifetime annuity that would pay 75% MORE than his Social Security benefit.

[dogmush]

Is it really a "contribution" if it's taken against my will using threat of force?

[230RN]

Well, they could put up TV ads requesting "only thirty-three  dollars a day," but who'd go for that?

Someone wrote something about the similarities between the business model of Organized Crime and the government which was amusing but scary as hell at the same time.

I read somewhere but don't understand the details, that if Congress had not "raided" the SS system coffers, it would have been solvent for at least ten percent of forever.

Terry, 230RN

[Pb]

Someone wrote something about the similarities between the business model of Organized Crime and the government which was amusing but scary as hell at the same time.

My father has a theory that all governments started as criminal organizations… essentially bandit chiefs demanding payment for "protection."

[Ben]

Is it really a "contribution" if it's taken against my will using threat of force?

Word.

It's infuriating to me thinking about how much retirement money I could have saved up if I had been allowed to invest the money myself.

[Fly320s]

Word.

It's infuriating to me thinking about how much retirement money I could have saved up if I had been allowed to invest the money myself.

Yes, but you are a responsible person.  You don't need SS to survive retirement. 

Social Security is designed to take money out of your pocket, since you don't need it, and give it to people who haven't saved for retirement.

[HankB]

. . . Social Security is designed to take money out of your pocket, since you don't need it, and give it to people who haven't saved for retirement.

QFT.

It is heavily loaded to benefiting people at the lower end of the economic scale via wealth transfer, since rising levels of "contributions" DO NOT translate into proportionate increases in retirement benefits.

And here's a question I would LOVE to see politicians asked at public forums: Why is it that there's talk of Social Security retirement payments that people WORKED for being cut in the future, whereas there is NO repeat NO talk of cutting UNEARNED WELFARE BENEFITS in the future?