How the Oligarchs Took America

Of course they have, I never claimed otherwise. However, the trust fund is invested in US Treasuries, which are among the safest investments on the planet.

Federal budget numbers will always include SS numbers as SS is part of the federal budget. It couldn't possibly be any other way.

 

Thank you Republicans and Democrats. Thank you so much for ****ing us over and brainwashing our population.

 

mc mark and glynch,

please don't condone that

 

I sometimes condone McMar, but what are you talking about?

 

I don't know about that, but a lot of incredibly good things get done by the wealthy. I'd rather Warren Buffet decide what to do with (for example) 20 million dollars than Congress.

 

Not every gozobajillionaire is a Carnegie impersonator, and even that sort of motif implies a rather twisted perspective of the average citizen.

I guess in regards to the latter point, I sadly agree with you (and Carnegie, for that matter).

 

The budget should show those funds are held in trust and are not available for current expenditures. Instead it is just listed as part of budgeted revenue and is available for current expenditure. This results in our horrible budget deficit looking better than it is and obligates us to use general revenue to pay for social security, which, of course, means that in the near future payroll taxes will not be paying for the social security payments.

 

SS administrators purchase Treasuries with the payroll tax money and sell those Treasuries in order to make SS payments. If you look at the detailed budget, you can see this.

It isn't anything but Accounting 101, it is SOP for businesses across the globe and hasn't changed for two millennia.

 

Yes so you did. So let's summarize.

I say: the largest government outlay is largely paid for by the rich, to which they derive little or no benefit

You say: Dod is the largest income tax item


I don't know if you noticed, no matter how much we earmark or otherwise divide the money, there is no different pool of money. There's one and that's it. If you had any doubts, the fact that SS funds (supposedly separate right) is being diverted into general funds (incidentally, to other programs you benefit, and yes, defense as well) should have erased that doubt.

So what's your point here, really, to change the topic from government outlays into government outlays funded by whatever program?

Got a chuckle out of me. We say BY LAW (as in, a legal mandate), the employer has to contribute to your SS, meaning, so long as the employer plans to do business, it has no choice. Then when it was forced to pay to your SS, you claim it as part of your compensation package.

Well gee, ain't that grand.

Yes of course. The numbers align perfectly if you ignore the fact that you didn't pay for half of it. Heck, you don't have to contribute a penny. Just have the employer pay the entire 12.4% and the numbers would still work. Of course, that is assuming we ignore that it is being underfunded, as mentioned, due to diversion to the general funds to be used for other purposes.

So essentially you could pay nothing (if we mandated it that way) and still receive SS.

I have to admit I misread your post the first time. But I'm pretty clear on it now. Your response pretty much sums into "it is MY compensation." Am I right? Well, absent politics, it's pretty easy to test that theory isn't it. Remove the employer contribution legal requirement and see if it'll still be contributed.

Not that of course, I'm predicting an instantaneous mass exodus from contribution requirements. After all, who would want the bad PR of being the one to "kill SS?" But then, that would be getting into politics.

So let's summarize again. Pretty much your only argument here that, and I quote, "you paid for your SS/Med" is pretty much based on that it's your compensation, never mind the fact that somebody else paid for it and wouldn't if not legally required to do so.

Read that over for yourself several times. If you have any good sense, you'll quickly discover why I called you a moron.

However, as I suspect, it won't. It didn't several month ago. It certainly won't now.

That's a typical post Sammy. Idiotic and completely irrelevant. But that's beside the point. People have different motivations in life. As mentioned, I don't particularly care whether you think mine are dorky. Making good decisions for the kids? Many responsible parents do just that, though they may not tell you, because it's precisely non of your business.

And of course, I wouldn't expect you to understand their motivation. I doubt you have kids. Which dumb broad after your prescribed alcohol and recreational drug strung up to whatever pole facing whatever shotgun would ever shack up with you?

Keep livin' the good life buddy.

You got it exactly right. I took the time to highlight the KEY part of your post for you.

 

MFW you come out as a defensive immoral guy who is out for just for yourself or conceivably your immediate family.

Too bad. Hopefully you can eventually rise above the survival mode on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

 

But that is a lie. The largest government outlay (if you lump SS and Medicare in together) is paid for more by the people making under $100,000 since payroll tax is capped there.

Which it is.

If you look at what is actually happening, the government buys US Treasuries with the payroll tax money so that SS funds draw interest, in fact it works that way by law.

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/fundFAQ.html

So, once the government buys the Treasuries, that money is in the general funds and available to be spent. In effect, the government is borrowing from itself, as it has for decades, and is simply following the GAAP rules that have been around for centuries.

I'm not changing the topic at all, I am pointing out that your anti-entitlement rhetoric ignores facts. The income tax doesn't pay for Social Security at all, in fact it has been the other way around for the decades that SS has been running a surplus (to the tune of nearly $4 trillion). The payroll tax contributions, disproportionately paid for by the lower and middle classes, have been propping up the rest of the budget since Reagan began cutting taxes three decades ago.

It is part of my total compensation package, just like health insurance and vacation time. Technically, I am "forced" to contribute to SS just like my employer is, so by your logic, none of the payroll tax should count as my compensation, which isn't logical, just stupid.

SS has been running a surplus for nearly its entire existence. Payroll tax dollar "diversion to the general funds" is how the payroll tax works, by law.

So essentially you have no argument so you have to make up hypotheticals in order for your points to have any validity whatsoever. Straw man much?

By the same token, remove the employee contribution legal requirement and see if it'll still be contributed. Again, you have no logical argument so you throw out a stupid hypothetical.

That is the problem that existed which caused SS to be created. The elderly were a near permanent underclass, made up the largest demographic among the homeless, and were forced to stand in line at charity soup kitchens to eat. People didn't save for retirement (probably because like today it just cost too much to live) and as a result were forced to be beggars during what we today call the "golden years."

Here in this discussion, you specifically exclude the employer contribution to SS because it is a "legally required" component of a person's total compensation. That makes no sense whatsoever and is akin to saying that the legally required withholding of income tax shouldn't count as part of a person's total compensation. The employer is legally required to withhold that money, so by your "logic," it shouldn't count as part of the person's total compensation.

You called me a moron because you didn't have anything factual with which to counter my argument. When logic failed, you decided it was time to engage in childish name calling. Then, when shown wrong again, you just make up hypotheticals so that you can have a straw man to beat down.

I know exactly why you called me a moron. Just like a winger to bring insults to a fact fight.

 

Given the context of these posts, you're either dense or intentionally obtuse and - in either case - boring.

 

Damn, we got a real Sheen-Cryer interplay going here.

Maybe we can call CCTV-9 and pitch them a variant of "2 1/2 Men" meets odd couple. What do you think, Felix?

 

Aha, yes, it's the good ole moral argument. I've been wondering where this will show up. Usually does we we've reached the end of the bullsh1t. There are many fundamental flaws with your "moral" argument. Way too many to list here as a matter of fact, so I'll just give a few.

1) By definition subjective. Quite frankly, just about everyone has a different set of morals, which is actually one of the many reasons they are "morals" as supposed to law. Need an example? My morals are different than yours. To use a subjective yardstick in which no one agrees with then label me immoral as a result? Chuckles. See why I don't take it too seriously?

2) Your morals, as defined, is HYPOCRITICAL. Even if we were to allow the morals argument, one of the most widely accepted moral is not to steal. Fairness is also a moral. Yet you are pretty much arguing for the allowability of state sanctioned theft of wealth from one group to another, and not even being appreciative about it, hence, hypocritical and indefensible.

So invariably when you run into the old disconnect of conflicting morals, you have to change the subject.

Myself on the other hand, I don't waste my time arguing morals. I am looking after my self-interest. You are looking after your self-interest. The rich are looking after their self-interest. The poor are looking after their self-interest. Nothing wrong with any of that. But I sleep much better at the end of the day knowing I didn't get on my high horses and claim moral superiority while reaching into another man's pocket.

Chuckles. Let's do some simple math here. Let's take Bob the rich guy. Bob runs his business. He's self-employed. He contributes 12.4%. He is paying his full amount. Then he hires you, Sammy, glynch and rhad. By law, he is required to contribute 6.2% for each of you.

Now had Bob not been required by law to contribute that 6.2%, he'd be 6.2% richer. Woh look at that. I hope I'm not making the grounds shake here. Of course, that would make you four horsemen 6.2% poorer.

Know what that's called? It's called a transfer of wealth. Or more commonly known as taxation. Taxation is, BY DEFINITION, the transfer, redistribution and reallocation of of wealth. There is no other way about it.

By levying the taxation you are doing two things:
1) You are claiming to be better at allocating Bob's money than Bob is (which may or may not be true)
2) You are redistributing the wealth. In this case you are enriching yourself at Bob's expense.

PERIOD.

Would be great if income taxes is all that needs to be paid. But it's not, is it?

I said, defense ISN'T the largest government outlay. Which it isn't. I didn't bring up income tax at all. I didn't bring up state tax at all. I didn't bring up payroll tax at all. I didn't bring up sales tax at all. I didn't bring up value-added tax at all, etc etc etc.

I said here are the pool money being spent. Here are the primary beneficiaries. Here are who paid for the benefits, which are primarily NOT the beneficiaries.

The whole point is you couldn't claim that the primary beneficiaries of the largest government outlays are the contributors into those benefits, hence you segregated it into payroll tax and income tax.

That is once again, by definition, changing the subject.

Are you kidding me? You provided a service. You were paid for your services, hopefully at fair value (though you may ask for more and the company want to pay you less). There's no legal mandate required to pay you wage. But your labour provided material benefits to the company (somebody else) that they are willing to pay you for, at free market rates. You earned that compensation. No needs to be sorry about it.

Your SS/med on the other hand, is required by law. The company COULDN'T not pay you even if it doesn't want to. There's no fair market determination here. It's a matter of policy, not economics.

What's your point that "it's been running a surplus?" I could tax the living **** out of your and give you a "Cadillac" plan or I could not tax you at all and give you zero. Unlike other forms of taxation, SS math is really simple. As I've mentioned, it's impossible NOT to work, assuming a stable population, unless some real dumb **** is running the program.

The whole point, and of course, the whole point of this thread, is who pays paid for it, who pays for it and who will pay for it.

Chuckles. And, hypothetically, if we reduce your share of the contribution to 0, and raise the employer contribution higher, and give you higher benefits, you'd be even better off than now.

But in that example, the result is precisely what will happen. The only hypothetical there is whether the contribution change will happen.

Chuckles again. Stupid hypothetical? Who really doesn't benefit if the employee contribution legal requirement is removed? The rich? Assuming we keep benefits the same (which once again, benefits you), SS will run into budget shortfalls sooner or later, depending on how many employees have the good sense to contribute.

The rich will be fine. They don't rely on SS in the first place. In fact, if the population in general have the good sense to save money for their requirement, SS wouldn't be necessary in the first place. The whole point is that the general population DON'T have the good sense to save money.

So go ahead and remove the employee contribution requirement. You're not threatening anybody there.

Once again, who's fault is it that they didn't save for retirement?

The other thing is this idea of "costing too much to live today." While the real wage has reduced, you are worse off, but not nearly as significantly worse so than you suggest. Think about what the "middle class" looks like in the 40's and 50's. Don't remember do you? I don't either. But quite a while back I actually looked into what it's like.

People back then lived in much smaller houses (lower mortgage payment/rent), lived closer to work (lower gas bills), generally owned 1 car if at all and are more likely to commute (as supposed to 2, 3, 4 today). They ate out a lot less. They spent less money on clothing, took fewer and shorter (distance-wise) vacations. Flying was still fairly rare. They didn't have a TV (instead of 3, one for every room, today) and definitely no computer. And generally, they had the good sense to save money.

Then the 50's happened...

What does that mean? Let me translate it for you. It meant that life in the good ole days for the middle class wasn't all that peachy. In terms of material comforts, today we are WAY ABOVE what they enjoyed. As a result, on the aggregate, we ended up having less money, including for retirement.

Let me further translate it for you, it means that on the aggregate (there are responsible people out there, but not as a whole), the "middle class" today is essentially enjoying an upper class lifestyle based on the old standards; and they wonder why they have no money. Must be the filthy rich.

So do you see why I have little sympathy for people who run out of money in retirement?

OK, you're kidding right? There are two separate issues here. One involves taxation of your compensation (the withholding), the other involves legally required padding of your compensation. In the case of the former, the employer felt that your services are worth $50,000 (or whatever) but the government wants it cut because it assumes it can better allocate that money than you (which may or may not be the case). In the latter, the company feels your services are worth $50,000 but is required to pay an additional $3,100 in SS.

See above. Like I said, spade? Yeah it's a spade.

I read you perfectly clear. I don't care whether you are trying to be sarcastic. The statement was factual whether you were tongue-in-cheek or not.

Wouldn't that actually involve you living the dream and be attractive to women?

 

Btw:

http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/Wages+and+Benefits:+Real+Wages+(1964-2004)

 

Simple math with an ideological bias is what you show here. Let's try the same math without the right-colored glasses...

Bob the rich guy decides to hire me, presumably because he believes that I will add more than my compensation package to the bottom line of the company. When he is going through the calculations to figure out if my work will more than pay for itself, he includes salary, health insurance, and the payroll tax as he adds up my compensation package. He then uses the value of my compensation package (including the entire 12.4% payroll tax) to decide if the work I do will increase his gross profits.

Payroll tax is part of an employee's compensation package, no verbal gymnastics can get you around that central fact.

Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society. There is no other way about it.

1) The payroll tax is not allocating Bob's money at all, it is allocating Will the worker's money. Since Bob doesn't care enough about his employees to contribute to a 401k or some such (he wouldn't if it is truly Bob's money) and since Will probably has trouble making ends meet on his paycheck alone (as do many in the sub-average household income), the government assures that a percentage of Will's income (12.4%) is invested in a way that guarantees Will a modest income after retirement.

2) It is redistributing Will's wealth, the payroll tax comes out of Bob's pocket in exactly the same way that Will's salary and healthcare benefits do. It is simply the cost of doing business, it is just Will's compensation package.

This is in response to my comment that DoD is the largest outlay that comes out of income tax revenues. Apparently, you flunked out of your Accounting 101 class (or never took one and as such are talking out of your a$$) because that is one of two logical explanations for your inability to grasp the concept of taxes being levied to pay for certain programs. The payroll tax was enacted to pay for SS and later Medicare (they are separate line items in my check stub), which is why the surplus from those taxes buys US Treasuries that are special issue for the SS Trust Fund.

The other explanation is that you are hopelessly biased and as such unwilling to grasp the concept.

Defense is the largest government outlay funded out of the income tax. GAAP rules have been around for over 2000 years, maybe you should take an Accounting class. I can recommend some good instructors at many community colleges.

The beneficiaries of SS and Medicare pay for their benefits out of the payroll tax, pure and simple. Your inability to grasp this simple fact shows how mind numbingly biased you are.

No, it IS the subject. The people who work every day and have 12.4% of their paycheck withheld by the government are the ones who pay for SS and Medicare. The whole point is that you are so biased that you have to go through the mental gymnastics of claiming that the "employer contribution" isn't part of an employee's compensation package. You are so blinded by ideology that you are actually trying to claim that the income tax is what funds SS and Medicare when that is not the case.

Wow, more mental gymnastics. It is a matter of policy that payroll tax must be paid on an employee's salary, but it is also part of fair market determination because an employer takes this number into account when making the decision about whether to hire. The employer is fully aware of the 12% and calculates this as part of the total compensation package when offering a job.

At least you admit now that SS math is "really simple" and that it is impossible for that math to end up with a program that loses money.

Who pays for it: The employee. The 12.4% is based on the employee's salary, it is the employee who works to generate that money (if the employee didn't work, then no payroll tax is generated).

Who will pay for it: The employee will continue to pay for their own SS benefits for as long as there is a payroll tax.

Again, you run out of logic (actually, you ran out at least two posts ago) and make up a hypothetical. Nice story, but like the rest of your ranting, it is pure fiction.

No, of course it is the employee that would end up suffering if SS went away. The only reason to remove the payroll tax would be ending the SS program as the SS program is funded entirely out of payroll taxes.

Here, you clearly show how out of touch you are. It isn't that the general population doesn't have the sense to save money, it is that they don't have the ability to save money. When you are living paycheck to paycheck, there just isn't room in the budget to save and when there are savings, that money gets chewed up when the air conditioning or car break down, for example.

This is the reason that SS was created to start with. Huge numbers of the elderly were homeless beggars who relied on soup kitchens to keep them fed. SS was created so that a person who lives their life as a productive taxpayer will not be forced to beg for their supper every night after they are too old to work.

I wasn't "threatening" anything. You threw out the stupid hypothetical about removing the employer requirement and I proved how stupid that hypothetical was by mentioning that the exact same thing would happen if the employee contribution wasn't required. Again, this is the exact reason that the payroll tax was created, so that each person was forced to put back a specific portion of their salary (12.4% for anyone making under ~$100,000 a year) for retirement. It has been the single most successful social program ever and has allowed our elderly to live on money that they earned over their lifetimes rather than being beggars during their "golden years."

You are so out of touch with the lives of average Americans, it isn't even funny. You remind me of my mother, who once told me that all I had to do to be able to afford a Disney vacation every year was to put away $400 every month. Of course, at the time we were living paycheck to paycheck and I thought to myself "I already work two jobs just to eke out a living, where does she expect me to **** out $400 every month?"

Ultimately, it is the fault of the person who didn't save for retirement. That is why we have a SS program that requires 12.4% of the employee's salary be withheld for retirement. That is money that can't be withdrawn in the case of an emergency, can't be attached in a lawsuit (like savings and even 401k accounts can), and can't be used for any reason other than retirement or disability. Now, the people who need it most are forced to pay for their own retirement because, as we learned from experience, some people either can't or won't do it themselves.

So, your comment regarding declining middle class paychecks is that people should go back to the "old standards" of living. So, the middle and lower classes should reduce their standard of living so that the ultra-rich can enjoy even more opulence and luxury than they do now?

Sounds like class warfare to me. That sounds an awful lot like the rich saying "you should be happy with what we allow you to live on right now, suck it up."

Actually, the employer felt like my services are worth ~$75,000. That is what my total compensation package is worth (assuming a base salary of $50,000) once you account for health insurance, payroll taxes, and any other costs that the employer takes on in order to hire me. The payroll tax is built into the employment decision.

Again, you don't have facts on your side (as evidenced by your last three posts) so you resort to name calling. Too bad your name calling doesn't change the facts.

 

I have Tiger Blood and you meanwhile are a Tiger Mother - so yes the dream is being lived, vis a vis our comparative lifestyles. I probably rank a 6/10 on the sheen scale, with 10 being full-on sheen, and 1 being a joyless teetotalling dullard. I don't know where you rank, but it appears quite low.

As far as my relative attraction to the fairer sex, my picture has been posted on this BBS and I stand by my dark-haired good looks. Granted my previous competition was DaDakota so it wasn't a fair fight.

I challenge you to do the same, and we shall take a poll.

A virtual walk-off, if you will, minus only the Billy Zane to make it official (let me know if you need me to explain the reference).

 

This is my concern with how many people think about social security.

Social security is not a retirement plan; it is a social welfare plan. It is a social safety net to protect the old and poor during their last few years.

If a person wants to retire while they are still able to work, it is up to that person to live on less and save/invest for that day. It is not the government's job to provide a retirement income.

 

when social security was instituted, there was a major problem with elderly poverty. i'm not in favor of scrapping it, but you have to recognize that reality and most of those people weren't expected to live beyond five years on it