Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That we should ignore the votes of two of the largest states because they don't agree with you? Ahh, yeah. That's the point. So America isn't CaliforNewYork. The electoral college isn't a scam, it exists to bring balance, so your hipster javascript developer gets the same weight as a coal miner in rural Ohio.
Why should the coal miner get more of a voice than the guy who lives in a city? They're both citizens, right? They both get to vote on their state, city, and county stuff. Why should the guy who lives in the middle of nowhere get to say "my vote's worth 50x what yours is, sucker!!"?
Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s
181–190 of 479 posts
Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't this similar to investments or savings where you put in money expecting to receive something in the future? That money isn't static, it's actively being used in other ways. For example, money I deposit in my bank account today is going out into loans the bank is issuing today. I'm not taking a position on Social Security, just wondering if the analogy does much useful work.
No; investments go toward productive work to create economic value. Social Security doesn't have any element that would actually create wealth. It works exactly like a Ponzi scheme.
This is almost too ridiculously misinformed a statement to even justify replying to, but since it's easy enough, the SS trust funds earn interest through investment as necessitated by law. They've also been used as an intergovernmental loan vehicle, acting to keep gov't debt lower than it would otherwise have been. It's not a Ponzi scheme.
Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
nothing changed. instead of a racist white old billionaire buying a candidate, they just decided to run themselves.
Im not making this a political argument, just stating the fact that people absolutely had a hand in this election.
is that really true? this election more than ever most voters believed they had to choose the lesser of two evils and didn't like their choices. both candidates had record disapproval ratings. i understand trump
isn't a typical politician but it didn't quite seem like people got what they want... more that they voted against hillary and for a republican supreme court.
Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's why we need immigration policies that let us keep enough working age people in the country
Or don't use a massive government sponsored Ponzi scheme for a national retirement plan.
Social security is not a Ponzi scheme.
http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/sep/24/car...
Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read this a lot. Why do you expect this to be the case? Social Security may become unable to pay the benefits that you're expecting at some point because the input from workers will not be enough to pay those benefits. But that doesn't mean it will pay nothing. It will just pay less. You'll still get some payments.
Agree wholeheartedly with this. The "Social Security is Failing" headlines are all ginned up to support political ends, they don't have much to do with the reality of the program. Large adjustments were already made to accommodate the baby boomer generation. That's why we have a $2.8 trillion-dollar trust fund. With current demographics, we should be able to pay 100% of promised benefits until the late 2030's. Afterw…
There are simple fixes that could dramatically extend the reserve depletion date to sometime in the 2050s. Not doing so is purely a political question.
Increasing the marginal rate of income tax for anyone making more than $120,000 by 12%+ may be a "simple" fix or just a matter of politics, but it's some pretty hard politics! (And also might lead to some unfortunate economic outcomes.)
Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or don't use a massive government sponsored Ponzi scheme for a national retirement plan.
Social security is not a Ponzi scheme. http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/sep/24/car...
> "A Ponzi scheme is unsustainable because the number of potential investors is eventually exhausted."
Which is exactly what is happening now with the lopsided ratio of retirees and new incoming workers.
They seem to have marked the assertion as "False" based off of really semantic technicalities
Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if you take out a couple states, Clinton won the electoral college. What's your point? That we should ignore the votes of two of the largest states because they don't agree with you?
> That we should ignore the votes of two of the largest states because they don't agree with you? Ahh, yeah. That's the point. So America isn't CaliforNewYork. The electoral college isn't a scam, it exists to bring balance, so your hipster javascript developer gets the same weight as a coal miner in rural Ohio.
So then, America now is TexasOklahoma? If those two states went blue, Hillary would have won. This argument is extremely weak.
Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
I truly believe that whatever people think about social security not being around when they retire, that it will be around at some level. We will almost certainly reduce benefits and/or increase retirement age. What is the alternative? There are far too many people who really can't save for retirement due to low wages for a significant part of the population. We aren't going to let these people live in abject poverty…
> There are far too many people who really can't save for retirement due to low wages for a significant part of the population. We aren't going to let these people live in abject poverty, and they aren't going to have any money to cough up to support themselves. The history of the US in the past several decades suggests that yes, we absolutely are going to let these people live in abject poverty. Unfortunately.
The downstream effects on consumer spending would absolutely result in this being fixed. The alternative is large numbers of people going bankrupt and that's going to hit several sacred cows in this country, particularly housing. There's lots of reasons that I'm damn near convinced that SS will still be around, principally that the gap is actually not that bad if it's dealt with in advance so that the trust funds can take advantage of compounding interest. But even absent that, the fact that corporate america is going to be Victim #2 almost guarantees a fix.
Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Empire collapse (has happened with every single empire in history - what makes the U.S. exempt?) The US isn't anything like traditional historical empires for one. It hasn't built its prosperity on invading other nations to annex them and plunder their national wealth, which is traditionally how empires temporarily sustain themselves. The US built its immense wealth today (just under half of all private wealth on e…
The US has always been built on the plunder of its nonwhite inhabitants. One can wax poetic about the free market or educated work force but that is the truth. The roman republic didn't fall because of issues with resource extraction or plunder. It fell when a powerful enough demagogue named Ceasar took power and undermined it on a wave of populism. A Nero like dictator (trump) is all we really need to crash and burn…
The U.S. economy exploded after the end of slavery, precisely because a capitalistic economy where everyone participates generates a lot more money than a Southern slavery economy. The South was significantly poorer than the North, partly because it had a really backwards economy that didn't incentivize innovation or technology.
Slavery made a lot of individuals quite wealthy without doing any real work, but it's a poor system to build a capitalistic economy on. A consumptive economy like ours needs as many people as possible to have money and to spend it.
Slavery is one of the defining stories of the founding of America, but ending slavery and increasing equality has allowed the U.S. economy to go much further. Additional actions to further increase equality and get more diverse economic participation will only help the U.S. economy.
The U.S. also has a reprehensible history with American Indians and did not properly compensate them for land. And the U.S. doesn't always have the best past with immigrants to this country. But, again, getting more people involved in our economy has only helped the U.S.
It's one thing to say that the founding of America was built on the plunder of nonwhites; it's quite another to say that it's current wealth is based on that. Engaging more people in the economic system is precisely what allowed the U.S. economy to get so big.
Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Social security is not a Ponzi scheme. http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/sep/24/car...
> "A Ponzi scheme is unsustainable because the number of potential investors is eventually exhausted." Which is exactly what is happening now with the lopsided ratio of retirees and new incoming workers. They seem to have marked the assertion as "False" based off of really semantic technicalities
The supply of workers will never be exhausted. The program will be tweaked, as it has been all along, to ensure it remains fully functions.
Read up on it, it's a lot more interesting than the "it's going broke!!" stuff makes it out to be.