Replies to post #79733 on Apple Inc (AAPL)

[Jim is Jim]

OT: SS would have been in fine shape if the gov't. hadn't started raiding the funds it collected to make ends meet decades ago... now it only has Tsy. IOUs in its account.

Jim

[pdq]

Lango...where do I begin?


"Amazing how few people realize Social Security is actually just a giant Ponzi scheme."

It's a pay as you go program. Has been since the inception, and noone has ever claimed otherwise. It's also been one of the most successful programs in reducing poverty ever. Quite the "Ponzi scheme".

"Today it's 3:1 and falling"

...and still running a big surplus. Imagine that - the American worker produces many times more today than he/she did in the 30's.

"Which is why Social Security "borrows" from general revenue to make ends meet."

You've got that ass backwards.

"Granted, Medicare is nearly 8 times more dramatically upside down, but combined they ain't gonna last at the rate they're going now."

Except that those two aren't "combined", save for in the minds of people that wish they could get rid of social security. Medicare, and medical expenses in general, are unsustainable in this country, yes. Social Security, however, is in pretty good shape, as long as we can stop spending every cent of its surplus and more.

"There's never been a bigger lie in American politics than the "lock box"."

Well, before we give up on it, we should actually try it some day . One of the candidates in 2000 said that instead of a big tax break for people who didn't need it, we could, y'know, save the money for Social Security...like Ronald Reagan said we should during his first term (but then forgot about, I guess.)

"This is the disaster that ensues when government intertwines welfare programs"

Except that Social Security is not a welfare program, at least in the way that people of your view usually mean "welfare". You pay in taxes, and your return at retirement is based on the amount you paid in.

"This is the exact same phenomenon that doomed Fannie and Freddie. The liberals tried to use it as a welfare and subsidy program..."

Yes, awful awful liberals like George Bush and the rest of his administration and his lockstep Republican congress. You do know they have been running this country during most-to-all of the time F+F got in trouble, right?

And sounding the warning bells, and crying out for reform the whole time?

Not.

"And it will be the exact same ultimate ending for Social Security."

Not if we can keep the hands of people like you off of it.

BTW, to the board at large: I know this isn't the place for this kind of crap. But I'm not the one who keeps posting new rightwing claptrap.

[DewDiligence]

>This is the disaster that ensues when government intertwines welfare programs with general services programs. Social Security is neither pure welfare for poor elderly who didn't save enough or never had enough to care for themselves in later years, and neither is it a mandatory retirement savings program.

This is the exact same phenomenon that doomed Fannie and Freddie. The liberals tried to use it as a welfare and subsidy program, while pretending it was a market functionary. It was a completely predictable ending.<

In some countries, these seemingly contradictory functions are intertwined even more closely than in the instances cited above. Brazil’s Petrobras is a case in point.

>And it will be the exact same ultimate ending for Social Security.<

As you mentioned elsewhere, Medicare is by far the bigger and more urgent problem. If Medicare can somehow be fixed, SS ought to be a piece of cake by comparison.