I’m just a simple man trying to make his way in the universe | If you would like to try Robinhood, feel free to use this: https://nitter.gq/t.co/dh0pu2IHbO
Joined November 2020
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Absolutely love when Daylight Savings discourse almost immediately devolves into petty, childish behavior.
Why are we not seeking compromises? Each side has almost zero theory of mind for the other.
A layup policy choice should involve states on the western edge of their existing time zones to shift into the next one over. Our time zones are just too wide for everyone to be happy
Let’s honestly think about this critically for one second.
How solvent would the social security system be today if each set of boomer parents had just one additional millennial child?
We can assume things conservatively. Like let’s just take total number of boomers. Divide it by a third to represent marriage pairings and a healthy amount for those unable to have kids. Add that number to the total number of millennials, and just see.
@grok how well would this have closed the funding gap in hindsight?
Boomers money that was confiscated via “payroll taxes” is gone. That was given to the previous generations to help them out through retirement
The boomers (in general) simply did not have enough children to keep the Ponzi scheme afloat. It’s not about the money they put in… it’s about how many new investors they failed to bring to the table.
Grok must be sleeping but just imagine for yourself a world with 20 MILLION additional taxpaying millennials. Would it close the gap? Probably not entirely, but it sure as shit would help.
Boomers (as a general group) did not hold up their end of the social contract, to give birth to enough contributing “investors” in their precious Ponzi scheme.
Kektimus Prime retweeted
The current social security issue can't be debated fairly without at least having the discussion that it was never designed to be a "retirement plan."
It has always been nothing more than a tax on future generations used to fund a defined-benefit plan for the current generation.
As with most government plans, it was never viable and was always destined to fail, just like any Ponzi Scheme.
We don't need to, nor can we, effectively 'reform' it.
It must be eliminated, which will most certainly cause significant pain for many in the short term. I don't like it, and I have no desire to inflict such pain on anyone. But the sad reality is that it will inevitably fail, and the pain from that failure will only get worse.
I don't have all the answers, but some way of phasing it out over time is probably the least painful. Ensuring that people who currently depend on it will be taken care of and future generations will not be unfairly burdened by similarly borken promises.
So let me get this straight. 35 years of employment total, which may or may not be your most recent 35 years of employment. Okay fine.
What do you have to say about the other private options that could result in double the returns or more over the long term?
What do you have to say about the legality of this tax, which you are entitled to exactly zero dollars of?
How many hundreds of thousands of dollars could you have possibly contributed to move the needle for your precious social security payouts, during your 35 years of highest contributions?
You want to claim the “hundreds of thousands” figure and I’m trying to point out that only 35 total years of employment matter.
Come at me. Let’s have a discussion. You won’t because you’ve blocked me, coward.
Kektimus Prime retweeted
@LargestMarjorie if you want to argue that we shouldn’t pay payroll taxes, or any taxes for that matter, that’s fine. That’s a discussion I’d like to have. I think all taxation is theft.
But if you consider money that you’ve “paid into” the social security system as yours, you’ve been misguided by politicians interested in your vote. It just doesn’t work that way. You cannot access this money, you cannot consider it as yours, and you certainly cannot sue to retain it. You legally are NOT entitled to the money that has been paid in on your behalf.
Burn the entire program to the ground.
Kektimus Prime retweeted
Who’s ready for some real talk on Social Security?
Here it is: you didn’t “pay in” to Social Security, there’s no deposit account with “your” money in it, and every single dime of Social Security taxes you’ve paid in your entire life went directly to someone else or was frittered away by Congress.
For many decades after the program was created, there was more money collected in Social Security taxes paid in than money spent on benefits. This was due to the demographics of the country at the time: in 1950 there were 16 workers paying Social Security taxes for every 1 recipient of benefits, whereas today there are fewer than 3 workers per beneficiary.
So obviously, all that extra money collected for decades when there were more taxes collected than benefits paid was set aside and invested, right? LOL. If only.
Instead of setting all that extra money aside and protecting it for future beneficiaries, Congress spent it. Every last penny. Every dollar that has been collected in Social Security taxes has been spent. What Congress did instead of saving money was create a massive IOU which it dishonestly called the Social Security Trust Fund. Except there’s no trust and there’s no fund. It’s just a gigantic IOU, like in Dumb and Dumber. There’s no numbered account with money in it waiting to be withdrawn.
Where does this leave us? Beginning around 2020, payroll taxes collected were no longer sufficient to pay for current Social Security benefits, so money had to printed or borrowed from elsewhere. As more and more money has to be borrowed to pay current benefits, the Social Security Trust Fund balance is reduced.
Once it reaches zero—and right now that is expected to happen within the next 10 years—the government is legally prohibited from paying out more in benefits than it collects in Social Security payroll taxes each year. And that will mean an instant cut in Social Security benefits of around 20 percent. By the year 2100, expected benefits will be just 65 percent of promised benefits.
As of today, a 75-year-old who worked for 50 years and earned the median salary will have paid close to $100,000 in Social Security payroll taxes over his life. Based on average life expectancy of another 12 years, he will collected more than $500,000 in Social Security benefits, and those payments will come not from a savings account somewhere, but from taxes paid by his children and grandchildren. But when it comes time for the people paying directly for his Social Security checks to receive their benefits, they won’t get nearly as much as he gets, because the Trust Fund will be bankrupt.
The people paying for the Social Security benefits of Baby Boomers today will pay significantly more into the system than the Boomers ever did, but will receive a fraction of the eventual payout.
Does that seem fair? In light of those facts, is it really accurate to say you “earned” that Social Security payment? Of course it isn’t. Social Security is welfare for American retirees. And it’s a welfare system that is not only a total waste of money designed to give Congress an even bigger budget to fritter away (if you invested your Social Security taxes, your lump sum at retirement would be 5x higher than your expected lifetime benefits from Social Security), it’s also deeply immoral.
Because of the current demographics in the country, Social Security takes money from workers today so it can give retirees 3-5x more than they ever paid in AND will pay out significantly less when it’s time for the people currently paying into the system to collect their own benefits.
Boomers receive 3-5x more than they paid in, while their grandchildren will receive 35 percent less than what they were promised. They originally called this the New Deal when it was created, but it’s a raw deal for everyone currently being forced to pay into it.
So let’s stop with the pretense that Social Security is anything other than a poorly designed welfare scheme for retirees.
Kektimus Prime retweeted
PSA: Any politician saying “you paid in”to Social Security is playing you for a fool.
Flemming v. Nestor (SCOTUS, 1960) ruled SS is legally JUST A TAX. Like any other. You have zero contractual right or guarantee to a payout. It’s not a retirement account; it never was nor will be.
Stop letting them use the “pay in” myth to dodge real reforms by being informed.
Simple civilizational suicide. We have to be better than this. We will come up with something.
I understand that the social security conversation is political poison. But I’m not running for office so I don’t care about that. Taking huge chunks out of the paychecks of young working Americans in order to pay for the retirements of older Americans who have a net worth several times higher, all to prop up a system that everyone knows likely won’t be there when those younger people are retirement age themselves, is morally abhorrent and economically insane. Everyone knows it, too, but we’re held hostage by elderly politicians who refuse to surrender power, and older voters who, as a group (with exceptions, obviously), simply don’t care all that much about the financial and cultural future their grandchildren will inherit.
Let’s try to discuss something that could work for everyone. (Medicare is a separate problem, so that is to be dealt with separately)
Right now, Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid (need based: important detail) are paid from general federal revenue and NOT from payroll taxes.
Social Security Disability Insurance is paid for from 1.8% of revenues from the 6.2%/6.2% payroll tax for social security.
If we get rid of social security, we can reduce the payroll tax to a modest 1%/1%. Because the nominal rate is lower, we can also more easily remove the cap on contributions, such that it’s a very simple 1% of all pay, no matter what, gets paid into the drastically reduced Social Security Trust Fund. This fund now pays SSDI and supplements SSI & Medicaid.
This means relative to today’s system, all incomes under $1M would see a decrease in taxes withheld, immediately giving everyone a 5.2% raise, and even more if their employers pass along some or all of the savings from their portion of payroll tax owed. This means $200 in extra *monthly* income for every $50,000 in annual salary
This new reduced program can pay for all seniors with no reduction of benefits on a NEED basis. No more age-based crap.
Is this too crazy an idea?
The NCAA needs to start working YESTERDAY to structure a better system that actually rewards the lower-tier schools for finding talent. I don’t expect things to improve overnight, but we are barreling towards total destruction of what makes college football so great.
I LOVE what’s happening with the new Trump dividends discourse. I absolutely love it. It makes me feel good about the direction the country is going.
The dividend itself: HORRIBLE IDEA. But look at what the mere utterance of an idea has done to all of X. You have all united under one cause, left and right, to oppose adding to the national debt.
Never in the last 30+ years of politics has the National Debt taken center stage. Many people have cared about it, sure. But the median voter has never cared. Nothing has EVER been done about it. Until now.
All people up for reelection this year will have to contextualize their platforms with the national debt. Neither party can just fly by with the status quo and promise free things. The voters will demand responsible use of public money, and all campaign promises will be placed under scrutiny. HOW WILL THIS AFFECT THE NATIONAL DEBT will be a key question about EVERY policy choice.
By making an absurd promise, President Trump has shown the country an extreme case of how democracy has already been functioning for the last 40+ years. And I hope it means voters will demand more accountability with public funds.
I don’t want property taxes either but splitting the problem into people who own their property free and clear and those who don’t is a horrible HORRIBLE idea
Again nobody is saying it’s fully melted before 7AM. You fucking dunce. @grok please tell this kind dumbass what role the sun has in melting snow and ice on salted roads. Thank you and have a great day
