The Observation Deck

ryan costa wrote:it is okay. Social Security is running a 2.6 trillion dollar surplus.

What is your point?

Does that solve our debt problem? Um...no. Social Security is supposed to be self sustaining.

We still have a deficit in lots of other places.

Thealexa Becker wrote:

ryan costa wrote:it is okay. Social Security is running a 2.6 trillion dollar surplus.

What is your point?

Does that solve our debt problem? Um...no. Social Security is supposed to be self sustaining.

We still have a deficit in lots of other places.

1. I'd love to know where Ryan pulls some of his information...current Social Security liabilities are over $15 trillion.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/

2. Self-Sustaining???

The first reported Social Security payment was to Ernest Ackerman, who retired only one day after Social Security began. Five cents were withheld from his pay during that period, and he received a lump-sum payout of seventeen cents from Social Security.

The first monthly payment was issued on January 31, 1940 to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont. In 1937, 1938 and 1939 she paid a total of $24.75 into the Social Security System. Her first check was for $22.54. After her second check, Fuller already had received more than she contributed over the three-year period. She lived to be 100 and collected a total of $22,888.92.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States)

It actually was supposed to form a basis for a savings program so that destitution wouldn't follow unemployment by reason of death, disability or old age. But the temptation during election years to some politicians was too great. In 1943, the actuarial experts of Social Security estimated that by 1957, the total outgo in benefit payments would be $1,200,000,000. But by 1957, the total outgo was over $7,000,000,000. In 1959, we started paying out more than we're taking in. Today, the people drawing Social Security benefits will collect $65,000,000,000 more than they paid in. And those of us who are participating in the program and paying into it now are unfunded to an amount between 300 and 600 billion dollars. This program has been presented to us as an insurance program and indeed that term is used over and over again and we are told and led to believe that we and our employers are contributing to a fund and that some day we will call upon that fund on our own money to tide us over our non-earning years. But this isn't the tone of the testimony uttered by the experts of Social Security recently in a lawsuit before the United States Supreme Court. In that lawsuit, the experts of Social Security said it is not an insurance program. It does not have to be based on actuarial principles because it has at its beck and call the tax mechanism of the country. It then went on to say that Social Security dues are a tax for the general use of the government and the payment of this tax does not automatically entitle any citizen to the payment of Social Security benefits. It then goes on to say that these benefits are a welfare program at the behest of Congress and that Congress can curtail or cancel these benefit payments any time it sees fit.

The financing of Social Security is not as simple as even the experts try to make it seem. My belief is that they can, in one sense, be viewed as solvent, because they now have more money than they are now paying. In fact, that money is "invested" in special treasury notes, the same vehicle that constitutes the national debt. So if default comes to be, Social Security will be one of the debtholders that we will stiff.

Because the size of the population varies, many of us are about to try to start drawing Social Security, and there will be fewer workers paying in (even if the economy recovers), so I think it is fair to say that in the long term view, they are insolvent. That is why they recently raised the retirement age, but I think their problems are so serious that such little tweaks will do nothing but put off the collapse a little. I told my kids not to count on Social Security in their life planning. Politicians don't worry about long term solutions for a number of reasons. They are exempt from personal liability. They are glib enough to convince many voters that it is not a real problem. They won't be around when the problem hits.

And they can use things like Social Security increases to buy votes. Over the years they consistently raised Social Security payments more than warranted, and have now tied them to a measure of inflation that does not really reflect the increased costs of the elderly. They have also skewed payments toward low earners, paying them more than what their contributions would warrant, and paying the middle and upper class less. I have had many jobs, some under Social Security, some not. I worked enough quarters to be eligible for Social Security; every third year or so, they would send me a letter summarizing my record and listing my potential retirement benefit, which kept increasing even though I was not making further contributions. Just before I retired, it was about $800 a month. But when I applied and they discovered that I had a pension from non-covered work, they awarded me only $300 a month. So its pretty clear that when they thought I was a low wage earner, I would get $500 a month more than when they realized is was a middle class wage earner. Now, that would seem fair in a welfare program; but no insurance program would run a scheme like that.

Social Security tax revenue has generated a 2.6 trillion dollar surplus. or 2.7. I don't remember precisely. In the hysteria over the national debt it broke the national debt down by what countries and institutions hold most of it. The Social Security Surpluses have financed 2.7 trillion of it.

the more reaganomics and its ilk you have the faster the annual deficits will grow. the more sprawl you have the faster the deficits will grow. the more globalism you have, the faster the deficits will grow. it has been pretty consistent over the last 40 to 30 years, respectively.

Try to be less like Spaceballs, America.

Roy Pitchford wrote:

Thealexa Becker wrote:

ryan costa wrote:it is okay. Social Security is running a 2.6 trillion dollar surplus.

What is your point?

Does that solve our debt problem? Um...no. Social Security is supposed to be self sustaining.

We still have a deficit in lots of other places.

1. I'd love to know where Ryan pulls some of his information...current Social Security liabilities are over $15 trillion.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/

2. Self-Sustaining???

The first reported Social Security payment was to Ernest Ackerman, who retired only one day after Social Security began. Five cents were withheld from his pay during that period, and he received a lump-sum payout of seventeen cents from Social Security.

The first monthly payment was issued on January 31, 1940 to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont. In 1937, 1938 and 1939 she paid a total of $24.75 into the Social Security System. Her first check was for $22.54. After her second check, Fuller already had received more than she contributed over the three-year period. She lived to be 100 and collected a total of $22,888.92.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States)

It actually was supposed to form a basis for a savings program so that destitution wouldn't follow unemployment by reason of death, disability or old age. But the temptation during election years to some politicians was too great. In 1943, the actuarial experts of Social Security estimated that by 1957, the total outgo in benefit payments would be $1,200,000,000. But by 1957, the total outgo was over $7,000,000,000. In 1959, we started paying out more than we're taking in. Today, the people drawing Social Security benefits will collect $65,000,000,000 more than they paid in. And those of us who are participating in the program and paying into it now are unfunded to an amount between 300 and 600 billion dollars. This program has been presented to us as an insurance program and indeed that term is used over and over again and we are told and led to believe that we and our employers are contributing to a fund and that some day we will call upon that fund on our own money to tide us over our non-earning years. But this isn't the tone of the testimony uttered by the experts of Social Security recently in a lawsuit before the United States Supreme Court. In that lawsuit, the experts of Social Security said it is not an insurance program. It does not have to be based on actuarial principles because it has at its beck and call the tax mechanism of the country. It then went on to say that Social Security dues are a tax for the general use of the government and the payment of this tax does not automatically entitle any citizen to the payment of Social Security benefits. It then goes on to say that these benefits are a welfare program at the behest of Congress and that Congress can curtail or cancel these benefit payments any time it sees fit.

Standard and Poors (S&P) has just cut the US credit rating a notch, from AAA to AA+.

Click here

Of course anyone in their right mind already knows that the ability of the U.S. to repay its debts is completely based on the counterfeiting operation of the Fed to ceate the money with which to do so. As there is no other way,

Actually, we defaulted a couple years go when the Fed began creating massive amounts of money.

This has been discounted for a very long time and won't much matter, even though they waited until a late Friday night to make the announcement.

Night night all. I hope you feel good about the linen with the funny green ink now residing in your walled/purse.

I think the downgrade is just a symbolic move that congress deserved for this nonsense.

It's also laughable since s&p rated highly what are now known as the subprime mortgage toxic assets. So, whatever. The carnival goes on.

So...government sold bonds and notes are now rated AAa?...

about thirty years ago...the interest rates/yields were near 20 percent.

If it can vary so widely under just AAA status...the rating has no real bearing on interest rates.

whether this will hold true under Aaa status or aaa status...is up to your imagination.

gold is basically the same as lead. diamonds are basically as valuable as glass or beanie babies.
only collective superstition maintains their value.

in American history(maybe conservatives stole it?), america had severe recessions when it buffed up its nominal gold standard. Under President Jackson. and under the crime of 1873.


in the 80s and 90s the atm machines proliferated. then the debit cards. so folks kept more of their funds in their banks. this enabled the mechanisms by which private sector banks "increase" the Money Supply to flourish. Even under Federal laws of minimum reserve ratios of 'legal tender'.

Their ain't enough gold in the world to run to world a hundred years ago, negroes. Let alone anything close to the modern version of it. How many gold coins did you pay for your car?