don't forget that your employer matches your 'contributions', meaning that they get to cough up the same 6.2% that you pay...money that could otherwise be spent in raising your wage. and of course the ridiculous (in my opinion) cap on the tax for income over $87,900. if as a society we're going to be providing for the elderly/disabled that don't have their own resources (through a program that in theory should be separate and untouchable for other gov't expenditures), why should higher incomes be off limits?

this system needs to be ended as soon as possible. but good luck removing another federal gov't tax that's been in place for so long

 

I agree with both of you.

And I DON'T see that 6.2% increase in pay because I’m a self-employed mortgage broker that still pays SS on my quarterly taxes.

I'd rather have that extra money and gain some equity off it in Real Estate. Although SS has good intentions it's widely abused like most government systems. The only way I could support SS and it ever work properly is if it was regulated like a Swiss time piece... I mean down to the "T' on every bit of paper and giving the benefits to the proper individuals.

My Grandfather is a disabled & retired Veteran/Postal Worker getting short changed on the SS scale while some idiot is busy eating himself to diabetes and getting a higher cut after hurting himself doing something stupid at the lake!? No thank you!

The money my Grandparents receive after 2 retirement pensions (VA/USPS), SS and VA disability is barely enough to put food on the table after paying a small mortgage. My family has taken care of them for over 20years. We've bought their current 2800sq ft. home here in Elk Grove next to their Great Grandchildren, over 6 new luxury cars and world cruises. Why? Because we take care of our own "3ft of space" if you will.

Indian, Vietnamese, Mormon’s and so forth, have been taking care of their own for years! I do loans for them ALL THE TIME! You'll have a family of 6 that goes in on a community titled property. They either designated it as a investment property -or- have someone on title live in said home for 2years. They combine their worth on a 10-15year loan and put as much as they possibly can into it for 2 years. Then they rent the property out and do it again, and again, and again.

One of my best Clients (let's call him Mr. Sigh) has over 50 properties to his name in Sacto county. He has the occupants pay for the property as a rental and pulls out all the equity in the land in a rate and term refinance or an equity line of credit. With the steadily rising land values in Sacramento I believe this man could pull out $4million this month and $6million in another 2 years.

How’s that for Social Security?!

 

I guess all your (grand)parents are doing fine and could get along just as well if they didn't have social security- but theres a whole lot of retirees out there who lost from half their life savings to everything in the stock market with outfits like World Com, Enron, and other supposedly solid investments in the last 4 years, who are very grateful that no one has "privatized" social security yet.

The disabled and orphaned are primarily getting the shaft by the slow but steady de-funding of social services, while military expenditures and outright fraud and grand larceny are going on with so-called military contracts.

Senior's got the shaft big time with the prescription drug plan the republicans pushed through for the pharmacutical industry, giving social security to the money managers would only screw them all over -even worse.


There are only 2 scenarios under which I can imagine I wouldn't be able to draw on SS when I retire;

1) the economy completely collapses, with the government in collapse as well.

2) it get's "privatized" and squandered by the "investment industry".

Any signs that it "failing" now only point to the abuses wraught at the congressional level where some of it is being diverted into other programs.

Salty- your example of Mr Sign and for that matter all the families and cultures that "look after their own" is a perfect example of how it should be for everyone, but its not, think about it- for every one of those properties that they buy and rent out there is a family that is paying that rent- who looks after them?

In a lot of cases they will eventually move up and on to ownership as well, but in a market driven by this type of speculative investment, large scale interests will come to dominate and there by squeeze out the possability for first time buyers.

A lot of those renters will pay most of their life times earnings into the pockets of their landlords children.

 

Does everything have to be Republican VS. Democrat with you, psoper?! It's kinda petty...

If SS was controled like clock work then I might support it. Unfortunately it isn't and there are those that are taking major hits thanks to those that abuse the system.

It's not a well managed or completely thought out system. If the Democrats developed a better system with proper checks and balances then I'm all ears!

 

no, the democrats suck too, but at least some of them occasionally make token bleatings in objection to the outright criminal acts of the so-called republicans these days.

 

It's a ponzi scheme.
Demolish it and create a need-based welfare program for seniors.

 

You make it seem like Republicans sit in a dark cell and plot on how to put senior citizens and disabled indivduals on the street.

We have older loved ones too and want the greater good for our disabled and such.

Your comments are ignorant at best.

 

Actually, there are some of them that do- although they do it in conference rooms at the Waldorf Astoria and Carlyle Hotels,swanky places like that rather than in dark cells, but I really can't understand how anyone not in the top 0.1% of income can have any tolerance for what's been done in the name of "republicanism" in the last decade.

Between the dismissal of good science in ecology and economics in favor of non-science from corporate interests and the powerful influence of so-called christian fundamentalists, to the lies and deception taking us to war in Iraq, I'd be seriously ashamed to call myself a republican these days.

now, let's not go ad-hominum there Salty....

 

Here's to the "efficient system"...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...i_ge/greenspan

 

psoper... I like the points that you bring up in one of your above posts

It frustrates me when these red herrings are trailed across the real issues that are sinking our country:

- an education system fraught with inefficiency and inequality
- a military spiraling out of control
- pharmacueticals restricting fair market values for drugs
- lobbyists who rebel against enviro-friendly policies (i.e. Ford and hybrid/carpool lanes)

I have a good friend who lost over half a million in savings after working for WorldCom for 20 some odd years. You know how much she ended up getting? $6,000. That is her life savings.

Still, I have listened to some versed economists whose proposals for privatizing SS lean more on bonds and the like (govt securities) than they do on the stock market where sheeple can get screwed by white-collar criminals

 

The system is broken atleast for my future. What Salty doesn't seem to understand, atleast this is what im seeing correct me if im wrong, is that not everyone has the same opportunitys he or others might have. Not everyone can do what he and others have done. Those are the people that need help. I really think everyone should be taxed for SS not just the people bellow $87,900 a year. I honestly don't know what to do to fix it but changing that law would be a step in the right direction. (By the way this law would affect my family.) No one ever knows if they will have a string of bad luck and they have no retirement what then? Just doesn't seem right.

dub, i agree our education system sucks. Its so far behind most of the other world that its appaling to me. Im seriously concidering when/if I have kids to send them off to europe to get their first 12 years taken care of then come back to US to study in a major university. When I lived in germany we would go hang out at the german school with kids our own age group. I was fluent in german so I got to stay one day and follow around a class. Their math skills are WAY better than ours at that age. They also start school earlier than us and so does spain. Thats not even mentioning asia, and their schools.

Our military, is a system that needs to be refined. My mother just went back in to help out a general so I'll let you guys know how that goes. And what her experiences are.

Drug industry, is the highest inflated prices i have ever seen. If you buy generic brands outside of the us they are usually 3 or 5 times cheaper or even cheaper. Thats so disturbing to me, that we, the leading country in the world have the most bs prices on the drugs that we need.


Im running late so sorry for any grammar errors or spelling.

 

I don't expect any SS benefits, and I've been planning on that since my mid 20's. My grandparents would be fine without it, because they did the same. It's just another taxation without representation, imho.