If You Thought Social Security Was Sustainable . . .

Bad news. Of course, the trends have been obvious for a while now and SS as currently implemented is going to self-destruct if changes aren't made. Discuss.

Population growth in the 20th century wasn't sustainable. We went from 1.6 billion people to 6 billion, and if current trends continue will hit 10 billion by the 2050s. It's good this is changing, even if society will have to reconsider it's priorities for endless growth and have to start taking better care of its people.

This has little to do with social security being sustainable, about which we have been fed lies for quite a long time now.

Some reduction in population growth is good. To listen to some people talk about it, you'd think we faced extinction.

This is pretty simple math. More people drawing benefits than people paying in = oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.

It's quite a bit more complicated than that, and your record on comprehending financial/economic issues is not good. Do you still maintain that the United States is insolvent or about to become insolvent?

We made the whole thing up. (The economy, that is.)

I have no idea why we can't just reinvent the whole damn thing. Hell, you'd think 18 months of this frickin' pandemic would have opened people's eyes to the fact that western countries' economies are bullshit anyway.

Or the US could put some of that fuckhueg military budget into sustaining SS. Or TAX THE RICH PROPERLY.

Or any of the other things a sensible fucking society would do.

Many seniors have no clue how SS works. They think it’s a savings account they have been building up their whole life. Very little understanding that current benefits are being paid by current employees.

And not much awareness of Congress using SS funds as if they were general funds and leaving IOUs in there. Yeah.

When have I said that? My thought is that because the dollar is the world's reserve currency, the US gets away with fiscal shenanigans that other countries can't. If it should happen that the dollar loses its status, the US turns into Greece pretty quickly. Y'all like to complain about how much the US spends on its military but debt service is another VERY large chunk of expenditures that takes money away from your treasured social engineering whatnot.

Many seniors also think the world steals their underwear, and believe faux news.

We probably should not be relying on them.

Not for nothing, a few points on the top tax rate solves all of this. SS is a problem of our own making and quite frankly, 1 particular political party's making.

This phenomenon makes me wonder about a different but ultimately related problem... Ever since we've recorded it, our economy has been measured next to a growing population. What happens if that population enters a perpetual state of decline? What if for every good and service you offer, there are fewer people tomorrow that need/want it today? Think Japan in the 90's to early 00's.

Alpha Jr. is approaching his 30th birthday in just a few years. I can't believe I've been posting here since he was a small child... but my point is that by the time I was his age, I had a family that included 2 kids with a third on the way and moved halfway across the country to give him and his siblings a better opportunity to achieve their goals. And he's done well. A degree in Finance and what looks like a promising career with one of this world's largest banks... Yet he doesn't feel comfortable enough to start a family of his own at this point... and I agree with his assessment at this time.


The one thing our society doesn't seem to believe in anymore is a growing and thriving middle class. So guess what? A lot of middle class people don't feel secure enough to start families and it's being reflected in the fertility rates. You want to help the middle class? PAY THEM A LIVING WAGE! STOP TAKING SO MUCH OFF THE TOP!!

You have of course benefited from this, being a federal worker (or at least having a contract for which you exchange your labor for federal funds). If you are saying we should spend less on the military so we can save more for Social Security, I'm all for it. That's very noble of you being willing to risk your job so that old people aren't someday faced with the dilemma of eating cat food for dinner so their heat isn't cut off.

Holy shit!! I just logged in the trekbbs.com and in August, it'll be 21 years I've been fucking around on these message boards!!

I just checked and I first registered there in March of 2001.

IIRC it was the first message board I joined that wasn't work-related.

March 6th, 2001 for me. Met my wife online there, we'll be married 18 years next month. Still find it amazing.

I'm 100% in favor of reducing the military budget. However, before that can happen we MUST have a roles-and-missions debate: what do we want our military capabilities to be? In other words, you fund the capability, you don't build the capability around the funding.

Not being a suck up and I still think you're a complete dick, but you're 100% right.

Lonaf in Feb 2002 iirc

I better have a damn interesting job if I ever went on a work related message board!

Compared to media types soldiers don't have shit when it comes to gossip.

Future problems with programs like social security are just a symptom of an entire economic system which relies on growth.

Population maxing out or declining is absolutely a good thing for humanity and the Earth. The problem is reorganizing our economies from Ponzi schemes to ones where wealth is shared equitably. SS will be just fine if rich people are made to pay into it.

Social Security should be structured like a mandatory IRA, not a pooled savings account. No cap on contributions, either, so if you wanna put 72% of your pay into it, you can.

Great, yet another way to make sure the rich get more and the poor get less.

And how exactly does a mandatory retirement savings account give the rich "more"? If there's a minimum but no maximum, everyone puts in at least the minimum. The rich are very likely to do just that, not wanting to see any more of their money taken in taxes.
Probably most people would do the minimum, in fact, because people are short-sighted idiots.

If you're just barely getting by, how far is a savings account created by putting in the minimum going to last you?

It's not like Social Security is great for low-income people right now, but at least they don't have to pray that they'll die before their money runs out.

WhY wOuLd I gIvE mY mOnEy To ThE gOvErNmEnT?

We do something similar to that here under a superannuation scheme that has been in place since the early 90's.

Your employer has to pay the equivalent of 9.5% of your income into a nominated superannuation account. That isn't counted as part of your pay, so when comparing Australian incomes to the US you have to add a few percent to the Australian income.

We can also choose to salary sacrifice up to 25k a year into superannuation, where it's taken out of pay before tax is calculated.

There are upsides and downsides.

One of the upsides is that the ability to choose your superannuation fund has led to the emergence of ethical super funds, where they will and won't invest in certain types of schemes, and people moving their funds in support of causes they care about. For example some funds refuse to invest in fossil fuel.

The downside is it presents more opportunities for the well off to shuffle their funds around in a way that reduces their tax contributions.

As the number of people relying on the pension has dropped it has also made it easier for the government to avoid increasing pension rates. There are also concerns about further entrenching situations like the gender wage gap into retirement.