Can someone tell me who has the right numbers concerning the health of social security? By this I mean, when will money coming in under run money going out? How are they basing the projections of money coming in? How can they guess, accurately, the state of the economy 10, 20, 30+ years when they can't accurately guess the state of the economy next year? In fact, the government routinely adjusts economic numbers for the recent past.
They can project the life expectancy of people years in advance. Life insurance companies do it as a matter of survival. But they are constantly adjusting the numbers. How can politicians, today, work off of tables that will be adjusted next year, the year after that, the year after that, and so on?
Those supporting social security reform, do so based on nonsense numbers. Those opposing social security reform, do so based on nonsense numbers.
GIGO is the rule.
Good night.
Good point, but why go the private route when ending the social security cap and modifying benefits would work?
In the end, the benefits are going to be modified anyway.
So, why this route?
BTW, I support the idea of allowing people to put their money in accounts that they control.
Posted by: EBrown at January 16, 2005 05:08 PMThe benefits are not going to be modified. By taking this as a fact when it hasn't happened yet, you've already lost the battle. Social security represents an intergenerational transfer of income. Allow people to invest money that technically is not theirs to invest and the very nature of social security--the best system of its kind in the WORLD--is compromised.
Posted by: Lester Spence at January 16, 2005 08:26 PMI don't think we should go private. SS has worked great until now. It's not really broke just needs some adjustment. I give my 2 pennies as what I think should be done here :
http://blackhacker.net/articles/2005/01/12/one-bloggers-plan-to-save-ss/
(shameless plug I know but I could use the trafic)
True that.
The ones responsble for this are the trustees of the SS trust fund. They have determined that the magic number is 2018. That is when taxes coming in won't be enough to pay benifits going out. After then they dip in to the trust fund. Which they say can hold them until 2042. But it is all invested in Tresures Bonds which the Federal Gov't would have to payback.
Can't tell you about the math they used to come up with these. But I figure since that is what they are on the planet for, those numbers good enough for me.
Posted by: blackhacker at January 15, 2005 12:16 AM