361–370 of 479 posts
I'm counting on basic income being a thing when I retire.
Basic income will come with a corresponding increase in prices for consumer goods across the board. As demand for everything beyond the most essential staples goes up, prices will be adjusted upward until supply is able to satisfy new demand. Even if you're right, you will still want to have saved some money.
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I didn't mention gold. I asked about two cash-flow generating assets that would be considered investments by most people (but of course you can have your own definition of investment).
I'm more debating the definition of "value creation" rather than "investment". But admittedly I did conflate the two terms in an earlier response. I'd offer: not all investments, even the ones that provide monetary returns, do so by creating value.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
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.
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I grew up in California. Bay Area. There's plenty of intolerance there too. Anyone who thinks it's a utopia is deluding themselves.
>There's plenty of intolerance there too. I agree. If I were to wear a Trump hat there, I'd probably be mugged or punched in the face at the very least.
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How are MS-13, Bloods, Crips and other various street gangs enabled by Trump's election? I am confused.
You actually think street gangs are worse than neo-Nazis ?
Not that neo-Nazis aren't awful, obviously.
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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.)
> 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.) Two things come to mind; The politics shouldn't be that hard in the current populist environment since only ~6% of taxpayers earn above the max.[1] Secondly, employees would 'only'…
I think voters (especially the high income voters who would be affected) aren't likely to be fooled by the employer/employee split, even putting aside those who are self-employed. And raising taxes on a whole bunch of "moderately" high earners in deep blue, high cost-of-living cities isn't particularly popular even with Democrats: They worked hard in the last go-round to push President Obama to only end the Bush rate cuts for the "truly" wealthy households at $400K+.
I also think you're slightly over-estimating the money available over the cap: There are presumably many more households with two earners closer to $85,000 each than households with one earner at $170k, and SS taxes are collected per-earner.
A little calculation from here...
https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/chartbooks/fast_facts/2016/f...
...suggests that the total taxed income base of Social Security is around $6.4T. Total AGI is somewhere around $9T, so 1% of the difference is $26B (and of course that AGI includes capital gains, so that's all you can get in total with both tweaks). Maybe another $10B or so since the taxes could come off gross income rather than adjusted gross.
Anyway, it's certainly not impossible to make the numbers work, especially if the economy doesn't go into a Trump-induced tailspin.
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In fact, I will argue that the commenter's attitude is MORE harmful. He or she is placing the responsibility on the individual, when this clearly is something where the individual has no authority. The notion that if you just vote REALLY HARD the people in power will treat you well, and that if you're not treated well you must not have voted hard enough, only helps maintain the status quo.
Haven't you ever heard that "the squeaky wheel gets the grease"? There's a reason the Christian right has a political voice far out of proportion to their actual numbers: they're active and loud. No, of course the answer isn't to "vote really hard", but that phrasing is simply rhetoric built to disparage the poster you're responding to. Everyone has only one vote. But the people who make noise, the people who are pol…
So now our livelihood has resorted to a shouting match? Thanks but no thanks.
Voting is like praying, where if you pray with all your passion then god might listen. But there's also the saying pray for what you want, work for what you need.
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>The Fed can buy the bonds and hold them in perpetuity. And what cash will they give to the SSA in exchange for those bonds? Where will that come from?
> Where will that come from? The same place cash comes from now when the Fed buys t-bonds in order to manipulate the interest rate: nowhere. The Federal Reserve has the authority to create money to redeem any US government security.
We're all aware. Whether the money is taken from the next generation or from the federal reserve is irrelevant. The point is that it's not yours until the government takes it from them and gives it to you.
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> The fact is you pay ~16% of your paycheck into social security and medicare, it is designed to be like a pension. It is not an entitlement, it's your money. Except the facts don't match up with this. It is not designed to be like a pension. It is the workers of today paying for the retirees of today, on the assumption that when you retire there will be workers to pay for you. There is no guarantee, and there is no…
> It is the workers of today paying for the retirees of today, on the assumption that when you retire there will be workers to pay for you. Isn't that how pensions have traditionally worked too?
Defined benefit pensions are usually used for government roles and some large unions, where the unions can get large increases in total employee benefits without having the true cost show up on the organization's books. The union and employer generally agree to use unrealistic numbers for returns on investment (>=8%/yr).
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Ideally the same people whose taxes Reagan lowered https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Historic...
A little off topic but if you were well into that top marginal bracket at the time I bet that drop from 90% to 70% felt really good.