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Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

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Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#291

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It is not your money, it is a tax on income like any other. The Supreme Court established in 1960 (Flemming v Nestor) that contributions to Social Security are not your property and the government has no obligation to ever pay you benefits regardless of contribution. People have had this entitlement revoked in practice, though the targeting tends to be selective for out-groups and not a substantial fraction of the po…

Yes. I wish more people understood this. The other one nobody seems to want to talk about or understand is Medicaid. People think they are getting health insurance (or whatever they want to call it) when, in reality, they are accumulating debt with the government and a debt most states are required, by law, to collect. This is one of the huge problems (outside of costs and lies) I have with Obamacare. The claim is th…

I'm not sure why you're saying that using Medicaid is equivalent to accumulating debt with the Federal government. Medicaid is health insurance.

It's true that Medicaid will seek reimbursement for procedures that should not have been covered, but that's not different much different than what happens when a private insurance company refuses to pay a benefit. The hospital is free to pursue the person directly for the balance they owe.

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#292
post #218

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Being intolerant of bigots doesn't exactly make you as bad as them... Parent comment is wrong and overgeneralizing a bit (as others have pointed out, awful people exist everywhere and transcend the bounds of class and geography), but the line of thinking you are getting at that it is hateful to be agressive against perpetuators of evil is somehow equal to their hate is dangerous and incorrect. It isn't fascism when y…

Being eager to label (and therefore dismiss) half the country does make you as bad as them. In particular, it makes you a bigot. (Where "you" = thesimpsons1022, not legodt.) No, I am not an apologist for bigotry. That's why I'm against it when it's done by liberals, just the same as I'm against it when it's done by conservatives. The only difference is that liberals don't do it based on race. I'm not sure that makes…

> Being eager to label (and therefore dismiss) half the country does make you as bad as them.

They argue that Trump "Won the popular vote outside of NY and California". That's dismissing millions of voters.

They call people liberal elitists.

They love the "real americans" idea.

I do think calling people bigots based on voting for Trump is ridiculous though.

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#293
post #144
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is going to be paying the taxes needed to pay off those bonds?

Ideally the same people whose taxes Reagan lowered https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Historic...

It's often overlooked that the deal Reagan made to get the lower tax rates was to eliminate all kinds of investment tax shelters. I.e. few were actually paying those rates, the rates were more for show and are not comparable to the tax system today.

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#294
post #122

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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 your hipster javascript developer gets the same weight as a coal miner in rural Ohio

Except it doesn't do that. It gives the farmer in Wyoming more power than either.

And no, it wasn't designed to be this way. Not to this extent.

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#295
post #107

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Popular vote has never meant anything in America in all it's existence. But the point is a person with zero political experience, completely outside the political echo chamber/insiders club just won the most powerful office on earth. Whether you are for him or against him I believe it does show that people can absolutely start a change.

He's a billionaire and a TV star. Are you a billionaire and a TV star? No? Then you are not comparable to Trump. He's not an outsider. He's absolutely a member of the elite.

He's not a politician. The last one not a politician was Dwight Eisenhower, and the list is real sparse before him. [1]

But I never said I was compared to Trump, I was stating that common people absolutely made a significant impact to this election against the wishes of the incumbents

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_Unit...

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#296
post #53

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One problem with the Roth IRA is the income phase out limits. If you're single, if you AGI is >117K, you can only contribute some percentage of the $5000 allowed for the Roth. If you're >132K, you can't contribute anything. For a married couple, those limits are 184K/194K. Granted, you can reduce your AGI by contributing to a 401K first, which allows you to take $18K off the top. I know this doesn't affect many, but…

Those are still pretty high limits, well above the median tech salary even in the Bay Area. If you're in "income phase out" territory you're probably not worried about your retirement. The thing I don't like about Roth is that you're contributing with post-tax money during your prime working years--the time when your taxes are probably as high as they will ever be. Especially true as a tech worker where your salary p…

Just curious, what are the median Bay Area salaries? I'd think most married couples in bay area tech are above the contribution limit.

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can contribute more after a certain age as a way of catching up.

True. And you can also do other savings vehicles outside of your 401k to save even more money. I just wanted to illustrate that it's not like people put all of their money into their retirement account on one day and if a crash happens the next they are screwed.

True, I haven't been 401k eligible h(or even Roth), so I have a lot of savings in post tax cash. I just got my Chinese pension contributions refunded, at least, but I'm way behind even on my social security contributions.

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#298
post #244
post #184

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Social security is not a Ponzi scheme. http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/sep/24/car...

Wow, downvoters! Seriously, just google "is social security a pyramid scheme". You'll find a LOT of breathless articles from personal blogs and sites like World Net Daily calling it a pyramid scheme. You'll also find a lot of, for lack of a better way to put it, content of actual substance that describes how it's not a pyramid scheme, but a sustainable government program that's worked out just fine for decades (with…

Upvoted you to try to counter-act the downvotes, which I am really confused by. Social security is a pay-as-you-go pension plan, like pretty much almost every public pension plan in the Western world.

I understand the comparison to Ponzi schemes, but I consider these comparisons rather hyperbolic. The intent of a pay-as-you-go pension never is fraud. There are some definite problems with pay-as-you-go systems, especially now due to the fertility decline in the West, but the issues do not stem from pure malice.

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#299
post #116
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that Reagan increased the SS tax in order to pad the fund and prepare for Boomers retiring. That surplus of the last 30 years is invested in special government bonds gauranteed with the "full faith and credit" of the US government.

Who is going to be paying the taxes needed to pay off those bonds?

No one need pay taxes to pay off the bonds. The Fed can buy the bonds and hold them in perpetuity.

Re: Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s

#300
post #257
post #196

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So the alternative is tyranny of the minority? It doesn't reassure me that we give much more weight to a minority of voters just because they live in less densely populated areas. That's completely arbitrary.

It could be argued that 100 people living in 3 counties have a greater diversity of concerns and opinions than 100 people sharing an apartment complex.

Is "diversity of concerns" a primary goal of democracy? Obviously for issues that directly affect a local region, I do think those should be handled by a local government. The people in the apartment complex probably ought to have different rules than people in rural counties, each reflecting the concerns of the local population.

But there's only one President for the whole country, for better or for worse. It doesn't make sense to me to apply this idea here.

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