Alarming New Commercial, And Perhaps It Will Effect Pm's....

I'm 41 years old, and I have no doubt whatsoever that I will never see a dime of Social Security when I retire.

I'm 43. My wife and I both should have Social Security coming plus I should have union benefits coming add 401k to that and we should do pretty well. What are the odds all 4 of those will still be there in 20+ years?

Here's the deal. Social Security is currently, by design, running a surplus. That's right - it's not broke, they way it's being portrayed, it's making more money than it needs to pay out current benefits. Back in the '80s, it was realized that the baby boom generation was going to create problems for the program when they all retire. So a deal was struck - payroll taxes were raised and the surplus would be placed in a trust fund so that boomers would be financing their own Social Security insurance.

The trust fund isn't cash stuffed in a giant mattress at the Social Security Administration. They buy treasury notes so that it would accumulate interest. And when boomers start retiring, they're going to sell those treasury notes to cover the gap, and draw down the trust fund. The money for that will be pulled from general revenues or sales of new debt to other parties. In simple terms, boomers currently own a piece of the US federal debt.

Here's the problem - economic conditions and various other events mean that the trust fund is not quite big enough, and it will run out sometime around 2040 (projections change every year). But Social Security will still be collecting revenue from current workers. That revenue will be enough to cover roughly 70-80% of benefits due at the time. So worst case scenario, if congress does nothing at all, then in 30 years or so, SS checks won't stop, they'll just be reduced some. That's not great, but it's not the end of the program. In fact, because it's over a long time frame, very small changes could put things back in balance. Lifting the cap on the payroll tax, for instance, would roughly close the gap.

Here's the scam though - the Social Security surplus was effectively used to conceal a big piece of the the deficit. So in the late 90s we were running a "surplus" in terms of the whole budget, and people of certain ideological groups thought that was bad. In a way, it is - if you're running too big a surplus, you're taking more money out of the economy than you need to. So they got rid of the surplus and went back to big deficits with a combination of lots of new spending and big tax cuts.

Now, it's easy to complain about studies on bear DNA or whatever, but that's penny-wise and pound-foolish. Even added up together, those are very small relative to the size of the federal budget. The big, long term changes in the budget over the last decade have been very expensive foreign wars (benefiting military contractors), Medicare part D, and huge tax cuts, primarily benefiting the well to do.

Remember too - the payroll tax which funds Social Security is a regressive tax. People making over $100k a year pay the tax at a lower rate. This is justified in that their benefits are proportionally less. But the payroll tax is mostly paid by middle class and working class folks; the folks that need Social Security down the road.

The trust fund has basically been raided to pay for things like wars and tax cuts for the wealthy. And now they're threatening to cut Social Security benefits and stuff like food stamps instead of going after the guys that ran off with the missing money. This is a direct transfer of wealth from the middle and working class to the wealthy.

There are 2 main reasons SS will run short in 2040(or whenever). The first is that increased life span combined with less children per family unit will cause the ratio between workers contributions & retirees withdrawals to become unsustainable. The second is that politicians have been robbing the trust fund for as long as there's been more in the fund than needed to meet current obligations

As far as the supposed budget surplus goes....there never was one. The "surplus" can best be illustrated like this.....I've got enough money to pay for all my needs this year. Unfortunately I don't have enough to pay for my wants or to fund my IRA. My solution is to stick an IOU in my IRA & use the money I should have put in there for my living expenses while loudly proclaiming I have a surplus that I can now use for my wants. Why anyone believed that I'll never know.




People making over $100k pay the exact same rate as anyone else.....they just don't pay it on that portion of their income over the cap. Benefits are based on how much you pay into the system. Someone that makes $100k gets a bigger monthly check when they retire than someone who makes $40k. People that make over the cap don't get a proportionally larger benefit check, so what possible justification is there for them to pay more into the system?

I am 43 and feel the same way.

That is right. Lets be penny wise and pound foolish. Its ok for the government to spend our dollars however they see fit. Shrimp on a treadmill? It is only a few hundred thousand (or whatever it cost), so let's do it! YAY! Pig DNA? Bear DNA? Hell, how about Bigfoot DNA!?! RUBBERSTAMPED!! SPEND! SPEND! SPEND!

How about a new war, without any congressional approval, in Libya! SPEND! SPEND! SPEND!

It isn't the government's money (hell, most of it isn't even money, just numbers in a computer system somewhere). Let's spend it!

You think social security is good to go? You don't think it is connected, at all, to the ENORMOUS, MIND BOGGLING-NUMBING-BLOWING debts and deficits we're running?!

Keep counting on that social security check. Whether or not it will come, it won't matter. We'll see if the dollar will even be around in 10 years, let alone social programs like SS.

It is a sinking ship folks. It has happened time and time again, and we are'nt immune to government overreach and implosion.

QE3? How about QE1100445657? It doesn't matter. They can't stop, 'cause if they do it will crash the 'system'. If they do it, we are in even more trouble.

I'd rather not count on the government, at all. I'd rather protect myself and family with Beans, Bullets and Bandaids.

ss is tied to productivity for there to be no more ss there wouold have to be no productivity. by the way its easy to save it all we have to do is do not cut it off at $105,000 example if you make $105,000 per year your ss and medicare tax is $6,300 but if you make $4,900,000,000. your ss and medicare tax is $6,300 see the problem here?

I am not a conspiracy theorist of any sort.
I am a realist
One thing I do know is that those who have rose to power
will use any and all means at their disposal no matter
how despicable to remain in power. No matter who
gets destroyed.
Bankers are on the verge of destroying an entire planets
economy to maintain the current Debt Based Monetary System.

That is the nature of of Power
once achieved it is not given up with out a fight