Social Security!

“Insult

Personal unverifiable experience

sweeping generalization

Out of context idea

quote from someone "worthy"

insult”

“true comments not in-line with self-concept of fool can be discounted.

first hand experience that cannot be verified by closed-mind fool can be discounted.

incomprension of ideas by fool can be discounted.

quote by eminent scholar who does not share beliefs of fool can be discounted.

truth is insult to fool, but fool has nothing better to say than doublespeak.”

“arclite, Social Security IS insurance. Read the legislation that created it if you don't believe it.

It insures that you have money if you are disabled. It insures your spouse/kids have money if you die and couldn't afford life insurance. It insures you have something when you retire even if you loose your 401K due to failed investments, the day before you retire - and even if you live until you are 98.

It is NOT a retirement plan, yet Bush keeps trying to convince people that it was/is/should be. It is insurance, period.

I work for Social Security, at headquarters. I have first-hand knowledge that can be verified. Text of the legislation can be found here: http://www.ssa.gov/history/history.html”

“arc - There is no such thing as a self made man. We all benefit from the society that has been created over many centuries.

You can rationalize selfishness any way you want, but that's all it is. Me – I’d have trouble supping on caviar while my elderly neighbor starves. I’m not blessed by a lack of conscience like you are.”

“Nice, violin. We’ve degenerated into, “I know you are but what am I.”

I quit. I agree with you. You have absolutely no thought about your own self-interest and care only for the well-being of others. Can I assume that your check to cure the “widespread suffering” in Chili is already in the mail?




You should already have read THIS, techntrek:

“Social Security is in no sense an insurance program in which individual payments purchase equivalent actuarial benefits. As even the strongest supporters admit, “The relationship between individual contributions (that is, payroll taxes) and benefits received is extremely tenuous.” Social Security is, rather, a combination of a particular tax and a particular program of transfer payments….

“Consider the following paragraph that appeared year after year until 1977 in millions of copies of an unsigned HEW booklet entitled Your Social Security: “The basic idea of social security is a simple one: During working years employees, their employers, and self-employed people pay social security contributions which are pooled into special trust funds. When earnings stop or are reduced because the worker retires, becomes disabled, or dies, monthly cash benefits are paid to replace part of the earnings the family has lost.”

This is Orwellian doublethink.

Payroll taxes are labeled “contributions” (or, as the Party might have put it in the book Nineteen Eighty-four, “Compulsory is Voluntary”)…

Payroll taxes are labeled “contributions” (or, as the Party might have put it in the book Nineteen Eighty-four, “Compulsory is Voluntary”).

The impression is given that a workers “benefits” are financed by his “contributions.” The fact is that taxes collected from persons at work were used to pay benefits to persons who had retired or to their dependents and survivors. No trust fund in any meaningful sense was being accumulated (“I am You”).

Workers paying taxes today can derive no assurance from trust funds that they will receive benefits when they retire. Any assurance derives solely from the willingness of future taxpayers to impose taxes on themselves to pay for benefits that present taxpayers are promising themselves. This one-sided “compact between the generations,” foisted on generations that cannot give their consent, is a very different thing from a “trust fund.” It is more like a chain letter.

The HEW booklets, including those currently being distributed, also say, “Nine out of ten working people in the United States are earning protection for themselves and their families under the social security program.”

More doublethink.

What nine out of ten working people are now doing is paying taxes to finance payments to persons who are not working. The individual worker is not “earning” protection for himself and his family in the sense in which a person who contributes to a private vested pension system can be said to be “earning” his own protection. He is only “earning” protection in the political sense of satisfying certain administrative requirements for qualifying for benefits. Persons who now receive payments get much more than the actuarial value of the taxes that they paid and that were paid on their behalf. Young persons who now pay Social Security taxes are being promised much less than the actuarial value of the taxes that they will pay and that will be paid on their behalf.”

Free to Choose
Milton & Rose Friedman
Harcourt Brace Janovich, Inc.
Copyright 1980, 1979””

“"Social Security is in no sense an insurance program in which individual payments purchase equivalent actuarial benefits. As even the strongest supporters admit, 'The relationship between individual contributions (that is, payroll taxes) and benefits received is extremely tenuous.'”

And your quote mentions "not earning protection" several times.

Your quote proves my point. Social Security is insurance, not a retirement plan. You earn your benefit with a retirement plan - the money I put into my 401k earns me more and more protection the more I put in (assuming the funds I'm in don't crash).

The money I pay for my life insurance policy guarantees that my family gets money if I die. But it doesn't earn me any cash value, it is insurance.

The money I pay for my health insurance guarantees that I only pay so much out-of-pocket per year if I get hit with a catastrophic health problem. Plus it gets me lower prices on drugs and doctors, but the biggest benefit is capping my yearly out-of-pocket expenses if I'm hit by a car. It insures that I don't have to sell my house to pay my medical bills. But it doesn't earn me any cash value, it is insurance.

Same goes for my long term care insurance, etc. The whole point of insurance is you pay for it hoping that you never actually need the benefit you are paying for. It isn't about building up a savings account. I might pay in $20,000 over the my life time to my long term care insurance policy, and as long as I don't need long term care, I won't get a dime back from all that money I paid.

Social Security operates the exact same way. You (and your employer) pay 15% of your salary hoping that you never are disabled, that you do have a good retirement plan that isn't bankrupted the day before you retire, hoping that you don't die when your kids are still 3 and 5 years old.

But if any of that stuff does happen, Social Security steps in.”

“The biggest problem I have with Social Security is that it can't be passed on if you die before you start receiving benefits. The government gets to keep all that you paid in. What is so bad about letting people invest 4 measly percent of that money their own way? That way if you die at any time, you can pass that money on to your family. It's only 4 percent.”

“ahem - it's not 4% of your SS contribution, it's 4% of earning or 2/3 of your share of the tax. If there isn't enough money in the system to pay current retirees a few years out, how will taking sich a big chunk out help? - (it won't.)”

“...and yes, if I die today (at 44) my wife and kids will get payments from Social Security.
last edited: 5/13/05 12:39:02 PM”

“Well that's good for your wife and kids, but not everyone has a wife, and not everyone has kids.”

“And I'm just curious Violin do you hike or are you just here for the discussions?”

“techntrek, you have been shown an explanation (in very clear language) regarding the fact that Social Security is NOT insurance. And you're still convinced that you know better? You even go to great lengths to show how Friedman is wrong in his conclusion. Exactly when did you receive your Nobel for economics?

You seem absolutely sure of your conclusion. Did you reach this conclusion through your thorough understanding of government legislation?

I won’t even question how you could be so arrogant.”

“Appeal to authority

blather blah blah

Insult”

“Phaedrus,

The fact that you exist is a miracle of mutant genetics.

The fact that you type is a miracle of the resiliency of the human body to recover from severe brain damage.

The fact that you comprehend the English language is a miracle of our public schools to accommodate the mentally handicapped.

The fact that you apparently are not institutionalized, while having absolutely no capacity for rational thought, is a miracle of our society being able tolerate the severely dysfunctional among us.

YOU ARE MIRACULOUS!”

“Insult

Surprize!”

“I thought insults were how you communicated with people.”

“squirrelbait - since it is insurance, no. It isn't supposed to be like a 401K or regular life insurance that can be willed to your relatives or favorite charity. Its there to keep you and your family out of hot water if everything else fails. If you want to leave someone something in your will, you need to buy life insurance.

arclite -
"You seem absolutely sure of your conclusion. Did you reach this conclusion through your thorough understanding of government legislation?" "I won’t even question how you could be so arrogant."

You don't need to question, I already stated why - I'm an SSA employee, unlike you. Oh, and I wasn't being arrogant, unlike you Mr. Insult. I didn't insult you once.”

“Well my preference would be to have the option to invest it. That's all it is, personal opinion. I would rather invest it in the market where the long term forecast is usually better than giving it to the government to invest.
last edited: 5/16/05 12:20:20 PM”

“Me, me, me, me, me, me.

I know Reagan didn't start it, but the 'me generation' that was born into a comfortable society has really lost sight of the common good.

There was a time in this country when there were idle factories, unused materials and widespread unemployment - when despite struggling as hard as they could, good honest Americans couldn't find a way to survive. Something like half of senior citizens lived in terrible poverty.

The New Deal changed all that. Poverty among seniors is now nearly eliminated. Very few Americans die of poverty. George Bush wants to get rid of that. He wants to give you the "ownership society". What that really means is he wants to put people back out on their own to sink or swim.

Me? I live a pretty comfortable existence. But I know that if everything else turns to #&%!$, I'll still have Social Security to fall back on.

Let's keep it that way.

For the common good.”

“When truth becomes an insult to me, it's because I'd better look at my behavior.

Tech, I hope you're kidding and that you really just need to go back and reread my posts.

I posted excerpts from Milton Friedman's book Free to Choose. Friedman is a Nobel Prize winning economist. He explains why SS is NOT insurance, I didn't come to that conclusion on my own. I had thought that was perfectly clear.

So then you give a dissertation about how a Nobel Prize winning economist is wrong when he explains (very clearly) how SS IS NOT insurance. And apparently, you don't even feel the need to think about what he's saying.

You don't find that arrogant?
last edited: 5/17/05 5:17:05 PM”

“Arclite, the idea that you speak opinion AS the truth is arrogant.”

“Phaedrus, the fact that you believe you're alway right without giving any thought to other opinions is arrogant.

But then, you are an offense to the human race.

By the way, how's your daddy doing? I hear they're real hard on child molesters in prison.”

“can you feel the love?”

“I can feel the love, brother!
last edited: 5/18/05 7:05:09 AM”

“When the subject matter at hand is my profession, that is not arrogance. It is first-hand knowledge.

First-hand knowledge is not something you, or your quotees, have. Oh, and it doesn't matter what prizes they may or may not have, Social Security is not their profession, and they are still wrong.

Various definitions of "insurance":
- promise of reimbursement in the case of loss; paid to people or companies so concerned about hazards that they have made prepayments to an insurance company
- protection against future loss
- insurance is a system to alleviate financial losses by transferring risk of loss from one entity to another
gambling.energyfrog.com/glossary.html
- a system of protection against loss in which a number of individuals agree to pay certain sums of money, called premiums, to create a pool of money which will guarantee that the individuals will be compensated for losses caused by events such as fire, accident, illness, or death.


Which is exactly what Social Security does, and goes one better by guaranteeing a return on your payments when you reach retirement age.”

“Tech, does the average Internal Revenue Department employee understand the tax code? That’s what you’re asking us to believe about your knowledge of SS.




“Persons receiving payments complain that the sums are inadequate to maintain the standard of life they had been led to expect. Persons paying Social Security taxes complain that they are a heavy burden. Employers complain that the wedge introduced by the taxes between the cost to the employer of adding a worker to his payroll and the net gain to the worker of taking a job creates unemployment. Taxpayers complain that the unfunded obligations of the Social Security system total many trillions of dollars, and that not even the present high taxes will keep it solvent for long. And all the complaints are justified!”

This IS NOT the way insurance works. Insurance companies would soon go out of business if they ran such a shoddy system because nobody would invest money in their company.




“Social Security was enacted in the 1930s and has been promoted ever since through misleading labeling and deceptive advertising. A private enterprise that engaged in such labeling and advertising would doubtless be severely castigated by the Federal Trade Commission.”

Tech, you have not only bought into the “deceptive advertising”, you are pushing it. What can we expect from someone who works for the program? You’re probably trying to find a way to feel good about what you do. And it is a well intentioned program.




“Consider the following paragraph that appeared year after year until 1977 in millions of copies of an unsigned HEW booklet entitled Your Social Security: “The basic idea of social security is a simple one: During working years employees, their employers, and self-employed people pay social security contributions which are pooled into special trust funds. When earnings stop or are reduced because the worker retires, becomes disabled, or dies, monthly cash benefits are paid to replace part of the earnings the family has lost.”
This is Orwellian doublethink.
Payroll taxes are labeled “contributions” (or, as the Party might have put it in the book Nineteen Eighty-four, “Compulsory is Voluntary”).”

This is how the SSA has packaged and marketed SS. This is how you continue to market it.




“Trust funds are conjured with as if they played an important role. In fact, they have long been extremely small ($32 billion for OASI as of June 1978, or less than half a year’s outlays at the current rate) and consist only of promises by one branch of government to pay another branch. The present value of the old-age pensions already promised to persons covered by Social Security (both those who have retired and those who have not) is in the trillions of dollars. That is the size of the trust fund that would be required to justify the words of the booklet (in Orwellian terms, “Little is Much”).”

This is the marketing strategy revealed, and this is the reality of SS.




“The impression is given that a workers “benefits” are financed by his “contributions.” The fact is that taxes collected from persons at work were used to pay benefits to persons who had retired or to their dependents and survivors. No trust fund in any meaningful sense was being accumulated (“I am You”).”

There is nothing voluntary about SS. This is one difference. In insurance, my payments go to a fund payments for myself, not someone else. This is another difference between SS and insurance.




“Workers paying taxes today can derive no assurance from trust funds that they will receive benefits when they retire. Any assurance derives solely from the willingness of future taxpayers to impose taxes on themselves to pay for benefits that present taxpayers are promising themselves. This one-sided “compact between the generations,” foisted on generations that cannot give their consent, is a very different thing from a “trust fund.” It is more like a chain letter.”

Insurance companies have assets to protect my voluntary contributions. SS is based on future “promises” not assets. This is another difference between SS and insurance. And SS offers no "guarentee", as you claim.




“Social Security is in no sense an insurance program in which individual payments purchase equivalent actuarial benefits. As even the strongest supporters admit, “The relationship between individual contributions (that is, payroll taxes) and benefits received is extremely tenuous.” Social Security is, rather, a combination of a particular tax and a particular program of transfer payments.”

The differences between SS and insurance are many and fundamental. If it makes you feel good to toe the “company line” by continuing to market SS as insurance, keep it up. You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time…”

“"Persons receiving payments complain that the sums are inadequate to maintain the standard of life they had been led to expect."

Reality: Amazing, but that is how SS is designed. It isn't designed to keep you happy, its designed to keep you alive when everything else fails. I live a very nice life. If everything fails (my wife and I get hurt and go on disability for life and didn't have insurance, for example) I surely expect to have to sell my nice house and nice cars. If you want to maintain your standard of living, buy commercial insurance. SSA makes sure you don't die from starvation if you don't have that nice commercial insurance policy.

"In insurance, my payments go to a fund payments for myself, not someone else. This is another difference between SS and insurance."

Reality: In all kinds of insurance - commercial or government - the money is pooled to pay out all claims. I can make my first life insurance payment, $30, and if I die the day after that my wife can collect the $1 million. Did that $1 million come from the $30 I paid in? Nope, it comes from the pool! If insurance only paid my wife the "payments for myself", there would be no need for insurance. I could put the money into my own money market fund and manage it myself. You obviously don't know how insurance works.

"Insurance companies have assets to protect my voluntary contributions. SS is based on future “promises” not assets."

Reality: The Federal Government has all of its assets to protect my voluntary contributions. I bet all of its physical assets in just one or two states amounts to more than the assets of all commercial insurance companies out there. Not to mention that all of the taxes collected every year (all taxes, not just FICA) would cover SS outlays many times over. Congress can divert the money if it comes down to it. Not even one commercial insurance company has that kind of reserve - one that is massive and not even part of its normal asset pool. So if all of SSA's trust funds dried up tomorrow, there are still very massive reserves that can be used to pay out. "SS is based on future “promises” not assets."??? Okee-dokey.”

“Okee-NOkee.... GoodNESS!






Tech’s original premise:
SS is insurance


The difference:
Insurance is voluntary. SS is involuntary confiscation. If I don’t buy private insurance I will neither go to jail nor have my property confiscated.


THAT IS A FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE!!! You understand logic (I may be getting myself into trouble here) I assume? The two are not equal. There are fundamental differences between SS and insurance. Therefore (according to said rules of logic), SS IS NOT insurance.




Tech’s premise:
“The Federal Government has all of its assets to protect my voluntary contributions. I bet all of its physical assets in just one or two states amounts to more than the assets of all commercial insurance companies out there.”


The difference:
And here I thought that we owned the Federal Government. As in We the People. I didn’t realize that government actually owned anything on its own. Is this more totalitarian socialist thinking creeping in? Do you believe that the U.S. government will sell our own assets to pay us? Are you telling me that the U.S. government is going to sell forestland to another country in order to pay my SS? Are they going to sell the Washington monument to India? Should they rent out the armed forces to China? These are things I own, which the government holds in trust for me, as a citizen of this country.


Insurance companies have assets. They own these assets because we still live in a capitalist society. Insurance companies, being private companies, are allowed to own private property. Insurance companies provide a service for which people voluntarily give them part of their wealth. This accumulates as assets. Although this is still no guarantee that I’ll get paid. There are no guarantees in life except death and (if you have you way) taxes.

As soon as the Federal Government owns assets we will live in a totalitarian state.


THAT IS A FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE!!!




Tech’s premise:
“You obviously don't know how insurance works.”


The difference:
“Social Security is in no sense an insurance program in which individual payments purchase equivalent actuarial benefits. As even the strongest supporters admit, “The relationship between individual contributions (that is, payroll taxes) and benefits received is extremely tenuous.” Social Security is, rather, a combination of a particular tax and a particular program of transfer payments.”

“Consider the benefit arrangement. Payments are determined neither by the amount paid by the beneficiary nor by his financial status. They constitute neither a fair return for prior payments nor an effective way of helping the indigent. There is a link between taxes paid and benefits received, but that is at best a fig leaf to give some semblance of credibility to calling the combination “insurance.” The amount of money a person gets depends on all sorts of adventitious circumstances. If he happened to work in a covered industry, he gets a benefit; if he happened to work in a noncovered industry, he does not. If he worked in a covered industry for only a few quarters, he gets nothing, no matter how indigent he may be. A woman who has never worked, but is the wife or widow of a man who qualifies for the maximum benefit, gets precisely the same amount as a similarly situated woman who, in addition, qualifies for benefits on the basis of her own earnings. A person over sixty-five who decides to work and who earns more than a modest amount a year not only gets no benefits but, to add insult to injury, must pay additional taxes – supposedly to finance the benefits that are not being paid. And this list could be extended indefinitely.”

“The long-run financial problems of Social Security stem from one simple fact: the number of people receiving payments from the system has increased and will continue to increase faster than the number of workers on whose wages taxes can be levied to finance those payments.”

Insurance companies don’t say, “We’ll disperse your payments as soon as our younger customers pay us.” But that is EXACTLY how SS works. If there were a tax revolt (similar to the one led by our founding fathers), the people now receiving benefits would be out of luck. There might be enough in the trust fund to pay benefits for a while, but that would soon run out without a fresh infusion of involuntary confiscation. The people now receiving benefits paid their money to those who retired years ago.

You said it yourself: (Regarding the signing of a private insurance policy contract)“and if I die the day after that my wife can collect the $1 million.” She does not collect payments from younger people’s involuntary payroll deductions, she collects a lump sum. Think SS would give you a lump sum?

My wife can go to work and still collect my full private insurance. My wife cannot earn more than a few thousand dollars without losing the better part of my SS benefit. With private insurance paying the full benefit, and if she is able to work, it will give her a much better standard of living and afford her better medical care to keep her more comfortable. The SS recipient? You said it yourself: “designed to keep you alive.” What a wonderful picture you portray.


THESE ARE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCES!!!




Tech’s premise:
(Regarding the signing of a private insurance policy contract) “and if I die the day after that my wife can collect the $1 million.”


The difference:
Under the SS program, if I go to work for the first time as a young man, and die the next day, my wife receives NOTHING. Because I have to satisfy “certain administrative requirements” to qualify for benefits. That means I have to pay into the system for years before I can be eligible for benefits.


THAT IS A FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE!!!




This is one of my favorite quotes from the chapter on SS:

“As we have gone through the literature on Social Security, we have been shocked at the arguments that have been used to defend the program. Individuals who would not lie to their children, their friends, or their colleagues, whom all of us would trust implicitly in the most important personal dealings, have propagated a false view of Social Security. Their intelligence and exposure to contrary views make it hard to believe they have done so unintentionally and innocently. Apparently they have regarded themselves as an elite group within society that knows what is good for other people better than those people do for themselves, an elite that has a duty and a responsibility to persuade the voters to pass laws that will be good for them, even if they have to fool the voters in order to get them to do so.”

Free to Choose
Milton & Rose Friedman
Harcourt Brace Janovich, Inc.
Copyright 1980, 1979”





How do you feel about your premise now, Tech? Some of the differences have been shown. The logic is indisputable: Social Security IS NOT insurance. Doesn’t logic matter to you at all?

You can argue all you want but once only ONE difference is shown the premise that Social Security is insurance becomes false.




Tech, you can discuss whether you believe that Social Security is a good and helpful program. That would be a better tack for you to take.
last edited: 5/19/05 6:13:02 PM”

“Sorry for the long post.
last edited: 5/19/05 6:07:06 PM”

“arclite, you can't post a short one..lol”

“"My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives... My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening thru a cosmic vapor of invention."

Just like Hedley Lamarr, I can’t seem to help myself.”

“Many states require you to buy insurance if you wish to drive. Does that make it confiscation?”

“Bush Sticking to Private Accounts Plan
Friday, May 20, 2005

WASHINGTON — President Bush remains committed to overhauling Social Security with private investment accounts funded with payroll taxes, a spokesman says, despite suggestions from an investment executive — an administration favorite — that the idea should be dropped.

Bob Pozen, whose concept of "progressive indexing" for future benefits has been cited by the White House, said in a statement Thursday, "Given the lack of bipartisan support for carve-out personal accounts, the president should not insist on carve-out accounts if the Democrats support an overall legislative package for Social Security reform that is otherwise satisfactory to him."

Pozen, a Democrat, said lawmakers should instead focus on so-called add-on accounts, which are funded with other revenues. The Boston investment chief has suggested increasing investment in Roth IRAs by lifting the existing caps on them.

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said the carve-out accounts are the best way to allow low-income workers to invest without affecting their take-home pay.

"They are really the only way for lower-income workers, who live paycheck-to-paycheck, to take advantage of long-term investment," Duffy said.

Pozen issued his statement after he made similar comments at a think tank in the capital.

Democrats have accused the president of trying to starve Social Security by siphoning off some of its funding, changing the program's nature from one providing a guaranteed government benefit to one managed by individuals and subject to the risk of the investment market.

Bush has proposed allowing workers under 55 to invest nearly two-thirds of their Social Security taxes in private accounts. He has also highlighted Pozen's plan for changing benefit calculations by keeping those for low-income workers linked to wages while shifting those for middle- and upper-income workers to an increasing reliance on a slower-growing price index.

A Republican congresswoman said her constituents appear opposed to the accounts idea.

"My mail's probably going 100-to-1 against privatization," Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., told Congressional Quarterly.

While the president stumped for his plan in Milwaukee, the House Ways and Means Committee held its third hearing in a week aimed at producing a bill. A spectrum of analysts both for and against the accounts largely agreed that in addition to focusing on securing Social Security, Congress should work on ways to encourage low-income workers to join middle- and upper-class workers in setting aside some of their own money for retirement.

"You don't need to be a mechanic to drive a car and you shouldn't need a Ph.D. in financial economics to navigate the pension system," said Peter Orszag, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and the director of the Retirement Security Project (search). He suggested allowing people to invest a portion of their income tax refund through a check-off box on their tax returns.

The testimony appeared to strike a chord with the panel's chairman, Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., who highlighted suggestions for requiring workers to opt out of — instead of opting into — corporate retirement accounts such as 401(k)s. He also spoke favorably of changes aimed at inspiring investment from less wealthy workers.

"If someone is going to save anyway and then shift the way they save because you've induced them to shift by virtue of a tax subsidy, you haven't increased savings, you've simply shifted assets," he said. "Our job is to figure out how to create a system which makes it easier for the first dollar to go into the savings, not the last dollar."

While Thomas previously said he hoped to produce a retirement security package — including Social Security reform — by early June, the chairman told reporters, "I'm willing to be wrong."”

“arclite, looks like you need to brush up on your business law, too. Businesses and governments - yes, even the US Government - are legal entities. They can buy, own and sell property. Humans run businesses and governments, but those humans don't own what the business/government owns. The reason why that is so (for businesses) is another discussion about protecting the owners from personal liability, but I won't get into that here. Bottom line, YES, the US Government owns its property and collected taxes, not all of us collectively. You do not own the property. A 101 Business Law course will teach you that.

As for "involuntary confiscation", yeah, sure. Brush up on your other law schooling, too. Government provides services that are necessary to keep society running. It isn't always done the most efficient way, but its still better than not having a government at all. Roads, police & fire & border protection, Social Security, etc. etc. are all necessary. To provide the services governments must collect taxes. The FICA taxes are one of them. NO, they are not voluntary. If they were, few would pay them and then our society would collapse because the government couldn't function anymore. The guy that wrote your "favorite quote" obviously would rather live in an anarchist state where nobody is running the show. You, apparently, too.
last edited: 5/20/05 10:47:10 AM”

“He's about to chime in with a euphoric rendition of the "pay for what you use" tune.”

“Probably so, Phaedrus. So I'll head this one off at the pass before he says that.

I'll have to explain how inefficient it would be to pay the toll booth when you run down the street to buy your groceries, or to get your morning cup of coffee. That would be for the pay-as-you-go roads.

Or how he'll have to pony up the $10,000 cost (in cash only, please) before the local fire department will even leave their station to put out the raging fire that has already consumed his house.

And when he doesn't voluntarily pay for SSA's services and ends up on the street corner, cup in hand, I won't put any money in it.”

“Oh, and since governments do own property, I guess we live in a "totalitarian state" now, according to arclite.

Of course, "totalitarian state" has nothing to do with a government's right to own property. It means the country is ruled by a single party or dictator. arclite must have meant "communist state", where only the government owns all property. Then again even that would be wrong since he was arguing that the government did not own any property at all.”

“Excuse me for implying that communism was a totalitarian system, tech. Gosh, I guess I need to revisit the dictionary, huh? Do ya think?

I love it when you explain things to me in ways I can almost comprehend. You’ve certainly proven to me that you are a man who knows his business. SSA employee, huh? Well... we all make choices in life.




Absolutely, violin. And it’s a typical example of private interests using government to increase their market share. Try to collect damages from someone with the minimum insurance requirement in Florida.

What if I have enough money to self-insure? Why should I be forced to pay an insurance premium? This is a loss of liberty.

Do you believe that government should force us to wear seat belts and motorcycle helmets? And did you buy the original argument that it would reduce insurance rates for us all?




Tech, you still haven’t answered my question about your premise being wrong. Nice evasion though.

Let me state this clearly for the hard of reading-

SOCIAL SECURITY IS NOT INSURANCE.



Thank you for pointing out my business ignorance, Tech. However, I never said that I owned government property. I said that the government held its property in trust. And about that I may be wrong. I am not well versed in business law much beyond how it effects my profession. Even there, I’m no expert.

Nice evasion again. Exactly what property will government sell to pay my social security, and to whom? Are you working up a plan for this down at the SSA?




“Government provides services that are necessary to keep society running. It isn't always done the most efficient way, but it’s still better than not having a government at all. Roads, police & fire & border protection, Social Security, etc. etc. are all necessary.”

techntrek


This premise is untrue. This is your personal opinion. It lacks logic. The fact is that you are wrong. My opinion (and many others including Milton Friedman) is that you are wrongheaded.

Do you understand the difference between need and want? It’s no wonder government is the fastest growing segment of our economy when socialist minded people like yourself keep clamoring for government to provide more “necessary” services. But beyond my opinion, the best that can be logically deduced from what you’ve stated is that your premise is obviously false.




What the heck does reducing government to the original size envisioned by our founding fathers (read Jefferson) have to do with anarchy? That isn’t logic. I won’t even bother to discuss what I know about that type of thinking.




We’ve solved the problem of stopping at tollbooths. That technology has been around for years, tech. Do you think government roads are free? Do you believe government builds them more cheaply than the private sector can build them? Do you believe government maintains them better than the private sector can maintain them?




And when he doesn't voluntarily pay for SSA's services and ends up on the street corner, cup in hand, I won't put any money in it.”

techntrek


The proper term here is, unfeeling hypocrite.

My retirement will be as good as I can provide. I have great healthcare insurance. I also have paid for a long-term healthcare insurance plan for years, in case of catastrophic illness. I have private investments that generate income. I have a private pension plan. I have planned throughout my life, to provide a comfortable standard of living for myself when I decide to retire. Many times I have made short-term sacrifices to achieve long-term gains. Isn't that what we’re supposed to do?

Social Security isn’t going to provide me with anything more than to assure that my dog has food.




Let me explain, once again for the hard of reading, I’m in favor of a plan to help those who, through no fault of their own, are in need of assistance to maintain a reasonable (now, that’s a term up for debate if I ever heard one) standard of living.

I am NOT in favor of paying some retired SSA employee who insists that his sex-change operation is “necessary.”

Why do leftist bigots insist that they have a monopoly on compassion? I think I’ve answered my own question. Because they’re bigots… duh!


I feel lots of compassion for you, tech. I would be in favor of any program that could solve your problems.

Phaedrus can bob for nickels at the public restroom.”

“This is the symbol og arclite's cult.



There is no reasoning with a cultist.”

“I jst went to the public restroom. No nickles. Damn. I guess I'll really need to get vociferous in my defense of social security now.”

“arlite, you have proven that you either didn't pay attention during - or even attend - basic high school and college courses that would reveal to you:
- how and why governments exist
- how and why insurance exists
- how insurance operates
- different types of governments

Without this basic foundation you have no grounds to argue what Social Security is, or is not.

When your "...healthcare insurance...long-term healthcare insurance...private investments...private pension plan..." all go bankrupt (and the companies that run those plans/investments DO go bankrupt), then you'll understand why Social Security exists, and why its the catch-all, extreme emergency insurance plan that you claim it isn't.”

“Oh joy! The personal attacks!

techntrek, Again, I don’t make the claim that SS isn’t insurance, Milton Friedman does. I suggest you take the discussion up with him. I do not have a problem admitting what I don't know, nor admitting when I have been proven wrong.

Someone who can't admit what they don't know is insecure. Someone who can't admit that they are wrong is insecure. Arrogant people are usually insecure. I have found insecure people make incredibly boooring conversationalists.

You should ponder why you won’t admit that you are wrong on a number of issues.

You should ponder why your opinion of yourself is so high that you think you know more about a number of economic issues than a Nobel Prize winning economist.

Since I am both highly educated and a prolific reader, and since you have not bothered to engage me personally on issues such as:

“- how and why governments exist
- how and why insurance exists
- how insurance operates
- different types of governments”

You should ponder your arrogant opinion that I understand very little, compared to yourself, about these subjects.




If I could presume to offer you any advice to you it would be:

When you engage in a discussion, try not to pretend as if you’ve got complex issues, such as those you list, figured out all by yourself. And come prepared to offer more than smarmy insults. Your insecurity is showing.”

“Nothing was a personal attack, its fact based on what you have posted in the last week. Other posters obviously agree with my assesment.

"I don’t make the claim that SS isn’t insurance, Milton Friedman does." Go back and read your posts, you do personally argue that, and even just by quoting others you are making the argument personally. Either way, you have made the claim. Incredible that you now claim you didn't.

I haven't been arrogant in my posts (I haven't thrown one insult at you, unlike you), and I'm certainly not insecure. One doesn't get to my level of employment (GS-13) by being arrogant, insecure, or without understanding of the topics we have been debating. Or without education, which you claim to have (but have been proven to not have). I didn't graduate summa cum laude because I didn't pay attention in my 101-level courses.

As for my list of things that you claim I "have not bothered to engage [you] personally". Hello? Are you awake? Those are the very things we have debated recently. That would qualify as "engaging" you in those issues.

Your lack of education in the things I've listed is showing.”

“You should ponder why your opinion of yourself is so high that you think you know more about a number of economic issues than a Nobel Prize winning economist.

Fallacy: Appeal to Authority


Also Known as: Fallacious Appeal to Authority, Misuse of Authority, Irrelevant Authority, Questionable Authority, Inappropriate Authority, Ad Verecundiam

Description of Appeal to Authority
An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:

Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
Person A makes claim C about subject S.
Therefore, C is true.

Despite Tech giving several reasons to define SS as insurance, Arclite, you have insisted on responding with your appeal to "Uncle Milt", rather than addressing the issues of definition Tech's brought up. BTW, Milt didn't win a Nobel prize with his work on Social Security, so it not out of the scope of reason to question his definitions and authority in this matter, rather than taking them as gospel.

Surely an educated, highly intelligent man such as yourself can do better?”

“Not to take away from the work of a fellow Rutgers grad, but the field of Economics has changed greatly since Friedman did his pioneering work in the 50s and 60s, arc. He is hardly an unimpeachable source for debates about public policy in 2005.

I know his faith in markets and distrust of government solutions makes him a hero to people in your little club, but there are plenty of real world examples of how markets can go terribly wrong.”

“Keynesian.

Socialist.

Pinko.”

“By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
1 hour, 7 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - With the acquiescence of their leaders, key House Republicans are drafting Social Security legislation stripped of President Bush's proposed personal accounts financed with payroll taxes and lacking provisions aimed at assuring long-term solvency.

Instead, according to officials familiar with the details, the measure showcases a promise, designed to reassure seniors, that Social Security surplus funds will be held inviolate, available only to create individual accounts that differ sharply from Bush's approach.

Under current law, any Social Security payroll tax money not used to finance monthly benefits is in effect lent by Social Security to the Treasury, which uses it to finance other government programs. Government actuaries say the surplus is expected to vanish in 2017 when benefit payments exceed payroll taxes collected.

In addition, the GOP bill "doesn't deal with solvency," according to another official, indicating it would avoid the difficult choices of curbs on benefits, higher taxes or changes in the retirement age needed to implement the president's call for long-term financial stability.

The officials who discussed the measure Tuesday did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were barred from disclosing details until a formal release Wednesday.

Four members of the House Ways and Means Committee arranged for an early afternoon news conference to discuss the measure. Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., chairman of the panel, was not scheduled to join the others, Reps. Jim McCrery of Louisiana, Sam Johnson of Texas, Clay Shaw or Florida and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

But Thomas was intimately involved in crafting the bill, and he and McCrery met privately on Tuesday with Speaker Dennis Hastert and other members of the leadership.

It was not clear in advance whether Thomas, Hastert or other leaders intended to formally endorse the bill, but one official said it was possible an outline would be presented before the news conference to the GOP rank and file.

Either way, the emerging legislation marked the latest blow to Bush, who has said repeatedly he intended to spend the political capital gained in last fall's re-election to win fundamental changes in Social Security. The president has traveled to more than two dozen states since last winter trying to build support. Polls have shown his recommendations generate insufficient popularity to galvanize Republican lawmakers to action.

Instead, with Democrats unified in opposition and threatening to use the issue in the 2006 elections, GOP leaders have been reluctant to act.

As recently as last week, Hastert told reporters there was no timetable for action on Social Security legislation. Other senior Republicans have said they hoped the Senate could act first.

But Senate Republicans are stymied as well. Efforts to forge a consensus among GOP members in the Senate Finance Committee have proven unsuccessful. Sen. Olympia Snowe (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine, who holds a pivotal vote, said Tuesday the issue was too important to be put on a partisan "fast track."

Bush got a firsthand glimpse of the difficulties confronting him during the day, when Sen. Robert Bennett (news, bio, voting record), R-Utah, informed him that he intended to introduce legislation omitting private investment accounts funded through Social Security payroll taxes.

Bennett favors the accounts, but has long been considering dropping them from legislation in hopes of prompting Democrats to join in bipartisan talks on steps to shore up solvency.

"He indicated that I should go forward and do that," Bennett said of Bush. "And I'm grateful to have him do that even though his own preference would be to have personal accounts included."

Bennett's bill also includes steps to place Social Security on a stronger financial footing. It would curtail promised benefits for middle- and upper-income wage earners of the future, while protecting benefits for those who made less money during their working lives.

Bush's spokesman, Trent Duffy, told reporters that despite Bennett's plan, the president is not retreating on his insistence for personal accounts.

Later, in remarks on CNN, Bennett said that while Bush had spoken favorably of steps to achieve greater solvency, he "didn't specifically say, 'And it's a good thing you're dropping private accounts.' Frankly, that didn't come up," said the senator, who supports individual accounts.

Apart from Bennett, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., is crafting legislation along the lines of the bill being prepared in the House.

In an interview, DeMint said the measure was designed to mark the first step on a longer road toward transforming Social Security, a recognition that Congress isn't ready to enact everything the president wants.

He, too, indicated the bill was designed to outflank Democrats.

"The party of 'no' will have a hard time saying 'no' to saving Social Security," he said.

Bush favors allowing younger workers to divert a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into personal accounts, enabling them to reap the reward of investment returns higher than Social Security provides. His approach also calls for a reduction in benefits promised to future retirees.”

“Solvency schmolvency. Let's get some of the SS money into the hands of our corporate angels where they will treat it with the respect and honesty it deserves.”

“LMAO @ Phaed.”

“I hope the Dems come forward and discuss this bill (or come up with their own) since it leaves out the private accounts. If they don't I believe it will hurt them.

I don't like the idea of raising the retirement age above what it is now.”