Killing Social Security?

[Brian Roth]

Obviously this is a partisan op-ed:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/01/opinions/social-security-payroll-trump-altman/index.html

But it is worrisome that it is a possibility.  My elderly Mom relies on it as part of her income.  I've paid in a jillion dollars over the decades and now rely on that monthly "check".  Many (most??) of the younger USA readers here on the list don't even think about it.

Kick us old-timers out to live on the street?

Bri

 

[living sounds]

Not exactly a leftwing outfit:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwasik/2020/09/01/how-social-security-payroll-tax-cut-will-hurt-your-retirement/#2d2e5e495481

 

[cyrano]

It's simple math...

As the population gets older, less young people have to pay for ever more older people. It doesn't take much to understand that this is a curve that will go wrong.

I'm sure you all know that.

Wether right or left are blowing this up or denying it, it is there.

Climate change is equally visible. Same problem.

Yet the world is making progress. Poverty is less severe every year. Polio is eradicated in Africa. Etc.

If only we could control birth rate. Not even the absolute power of the PRC's party succeeded in that.

 

[JohnRoberts]

It's simple math...

As the population gets older, less young people have to pay for ever more older people. It doesn't take much to understand that this is a curve that will go wrong.

I'm sure you all know that.

Wether right or left are blowing this up or denying it, it is there.

Climate change is equally visible. Same problem.

Yet the world is making progress. Poverty is less severe every year. Polio is eradicated in Africa. Etc.

If only we could control birth rate. Not even the absolute power of the PRC's party succeeded in that.

This is an extremely old topic (concern). There is never enough money to give everything they desire.

Thank you for acknowledging that world poverty is in decline. An unintended benefit of eradicating poverty is that poor families no longer need to have so many JIC kids, to compensate for high childhood mortality rates. Increasing third world wealth will solve multiple problems.

Note: restricting fossil fuels will increase energy costs for exactly those people whose QOL  benefits most from cheap energy. Sadly their new found wealth is leading to more obesity and cases of metabolic syndrome, but that is better than starving.

I remain optimistic that the human race is clever enough to manage, try not to be scared by partisan arm waving... in fact I expect even more of that as the election nears (two months to go).

JR

 

[cyrano]

Restricting fossil fuels only happens in commerce. Only the worst spinners from the oil industry can invent such an argument.

Poor people usually use natural resources. And a lot is being done to get the poorest to solar, fi. You can perfectly cook with solar heat, especially since the vast majority of the really poor reside around the equator.

It's probably something you haven't noticed, since the organisations that are occupied with such goals, do not advertise in the "media" you read. You can't buy their stock, either.

The poorest still need food and education first. Not cars, or AC.

The US had (has?) a ban on Arabic gum from Sudan. Very bad for local farmers, as it is their only agricultural export product worth mentioning. It's also a problem for their biggest customer, Coca Cola, as it is hard to get in sufficient quantities in the rest of the world. Sudanese gum made someone in France very rich. Price was low in Sudan. Relabelling in France seemed to be OK for US customs. It pays if you're cooperative to the CIA, apparently...

The wold is seeing less poverty, thanks to the UN and a few non-profit operations.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Restricting fossil fuels only happens in commerce. Only the worst spinners from the oil industry can invent such an argument.

restricting fossil fuels makes energy more expensive for everybody, not just wealthy westerners.

Poor people usually use natural resources. And a lot is being done to get the poorest to solar, fi. You can perfectly cook with solar heat, especially since the vast majority of the really poor reside around the equator.

That sounds easy...  :

It's probably something you haven't noticed, since the organisations that are occupied with such goals, do not advertise in the "media" you read. You can't buy their stock, either.

The poorest still need food and education first. Not cars, or AC.

huh?

The US had (has?) a ban on Arabic gum from Sudan. Very bad for local farmers, as it is their only agricultural export product worth mentioning. It's also a problem for their biggest customer, Coca Cola, as it is hard to get in sufficient quantities in the rest of the world. Sudanese gum made someone in France very rich. Price was low in Sudan. Relabelling in France seemed to be OK for US customs. It pays if you're cooperative to the CIA, apparently...

false... Gum arabic was the only exemption in the US terrorism related trade sanctions imposed in 1997. Sudan exported some $115M worth in 2017.

The wold is seeing less poverty, thanks to the UN and a few non-profit operations.

Um no, expanded free trade has raised more out of poverty. Wealth creation from commerce, not zero sum game wealth transfer.

======
Pompeo just visited Sudan, trying to normalize relations between them and Israel. They have walked back announcements about success in that direction in the Arab language press and even fired the spokesman. Sudan is desperate to get relief from sanctions imposed because of their support/tolerance of al'quada aligned terrorist groups. They were declared a state sponsor of terrorism in 1993 and since 2013 their government has worked with the US to squash terror activity (more or less).

There is a recent negotiation asking the new Sudanese government to put something like $300M in escrow against claims by victims of decades of terrorism to get released from state sponsor classification (this sounds a little mercenary for a poor country, maybe they can pay with gum arabic or peanuts?).

The new Sudanese government has IMO more significantly negotiated peace with 5 local rebel groups.

It sounds like Pompeo may have been over reaching trying to make this about Israel. Ending the fighting between rebel groups and the recognized government is the real news that could improve quality of life for the Sudanese people. This is made possible by the overthrow of al-Bashir (a very bad dictator) a year ago.


  JR

 

[cyrano]

There was a US trade embargo against Sudan, Ethiopia and a number of other countries before '97. I wrote about it in the early nineties.

Coca Cola didn't have to lobby much to get that exemption, I presume?

But anyhow. You 'll believe anyways. It's all fake news, right?

 

[emrr]

The #1 problem with Social Security regulation is allowing congress to redirect any surplus, rather than mandate it be held as the investment it is meant to be.  People pay in, surplus redirects, there’s no IOU. 

 

[living sounds]

It's simple math...

As the population gets older, less young people have to pay for ever more older people. It doesn't take much to understand that this is a curve that will go wrong.

Productivity gains and increasing automation can make up for it.

 

[cyrano]

Only if you believe in the ever expanding economy...

If you take availability of natural resources and waste production into account, it shows a much less optimistic picture.

 

[scott2000]

Tax the robots?

 

[shabtek]

tax the cream skimmers
but they determine the policy

 

[living sounds]

Only if you believe in the ever expanding economy...

If you take availability of natural resources and waste production into account, it shows a much less optimistic picture.

There is still a lot of expansion to happen - increasingly robots produce and distribute goods and provide services. This does make everything cheaper for everyone (as long as productivity gains are distributed equally, which they are not currently, of course).

Too many humans on the planet is a different issue.

 

[Tubetec]

Theres a number of worrying statistics which point to problems up ahead . Average age of marriage , buying a house and having kids have all gone way up in richer countries. Fair enough, productivity increases and automation might help in some respects ,Germany and the other big economies will stand to benefit more than little places like Ireland .What we've seen here is manufacturing leaving our shores and more and more IT call centers  draughted in to take up the slack, take advantage of big tax breaks and loose regulation of their nefarious data aggregation and marketing schemes .

In anticipation of whats going to happen  ,the government here in Ireland have already started minimising their future liabilities as far as social security is concerned. Emerging economies are fast ballooning  while the old West looks like its in a terminal nose dive ,
were under replacement by younger newer carbon units ,more hungry for work and used to more basic conditions .

Department of social welfare here now stands accused of racial profiling over its actions relating to the Pandemic unemployment payment (PuP) .Flights to certain like countries like Romania were targeted for checks on passengers who were claiming the payment , its all adding upto another huge data protection ,privacy and trust clusterf#*k for the department.
Its was an Irish law student who was legitamately trying bring his wife there to see her family in Romania flagged up what was going on .
The amalgamation of survailence capitolism ,law enforcement and welfare systems gives dealing with government departments  here a real 'secret police'  flavour ,
There was outrage sparked lately when the minister for health suggested laws giving police new powers to enter private property without warrant on public health grounds could be brought in , in the end even the association of police sargents said they didnt want the extra powers, of course civil liberties were up in arms with finally the Taoiseach being forced to concede it was never going to happen . In the end of the day they would have been relying on one neighbour snitching on another which in certain parts of town could get your sh!t burned down to the ground very easily . In some ways little has changed , the cops have tons of survailence and intel at their finger tips much of it not warranted or accounted for openly so they still require a donkey to pin the tail on for legal coverage. Recently a head of a major Dublin  crime family accused the police of complicity in the murder of members of his family and its very easy to believe thats true with how the tech is being used .

 

[Matador]

Theres a number of worrying statistics which point to problems up ahead . Average age of marriage , buying a house and having kids have all gone way up in richer countries.

I find it very interesting, in that one thing many seem to gloss over is the bar for what I deem "basic living" (e.g. a home, the ability to purchase food, etc) has risen far faster than the ability to realize that bar.

For example, in 1950, the average US home price was about $8k, and the median household income was about $3k, for a 'debt to income' ratio (at least for home ownership) of about 2.6.  In 2017, the median house price had risen to $335K, and the median household income rose to about $60K, or a ratio of 5.58.  So on this metric alone, a family looking for a starter family home is a little more than twice as bad off as a median family in 1950.  Food, insurance, and the sundry other obligations can be significantly worse.

It's why it's frustrating to hear people (especially Boomers who were born in that earlier timeframe) speak so often about bootstraps, and "I did it why can't you???" without acknowledging that todays bootstraps are half as long, and twice as likely to break when stressed.  You have to acknowledge that you trained to pole vault over a bar at 20m in the air, but today that same person needs to vault 50m to end up in the same place.

It's been a while since I lived in Germany, but at the time, in many ways, it was even worse, as many of my colleagues didn't even see paths to home ownership.

 

[Brian Roth]

Well, I set off a bunch of "veer" conversations!

A small "whew" from this article:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/03/success/employers-payroll-tax-deferral/index.html

Lest anyone believe I am pushing a partisan view, I am a registered Independent voter, in spite of my two links to CNN which clearly hates the current president (vs. Fox and ONN  which are loudly promoting him).

Over many years, I slowly have learned that Social Security in the USA is a Ponzi scheme.  Yet I've been forced to pay into the scheme for decades and (like my elderly Mom who lives alone in the house where I grew up) rely on it as we become old.  Mom and I are frugal, and we each have some small amounts of savings stashed, but have counted on SS to take up some slack.  We come from a working family mindset.

I don't want to be a Walmart door greeter (god bless them!) when I'm age 80 after decades of having  14% of my income/year extracted , with "UNDER PENALTY OF LAW" if I don't comply.    In bankruptcy, Uncle Sam gets first swipe at assets.

Sigh...I'm ranting.  I feel very sad for the younger USA generations who will receive nothing in later years in spite of their "contributions" . 

Am I selfish?  Perhaps.  I hope SS stays around  long enough and that our small savings will keep me (and Mom) surviving before we croak.  We paid into the Ponzi.......

Bri

 

[living sounds]

Fair enough, productivity increases and automation might help in some respects ,Germany and the other big economies will stand to benefit more than little places like Ireland .What we've seen here is manufacturing leaving our shores and more and more IT call centers  draughted in to take up the slack, take advantage of big tax breaks and loose regulation of their nefarious data aggregation and marketing schemes .

With fully automated manufacturing there is no benefit in offshoring. Call centers will be replaced by AIs. Autonomous vehicles will distribute the goods. Fully-automated machines will care for fields, fix roads, build buildings etc. Not next year, but eventually.

I'm not so bullish on the emerging economies. They mostly have a large reservoir of current work-age people. But they lack in the essential metrics for innovation like democracy, scientific freedom, freedom of expression, regard for intellectual property, a culture free of harmful traditions and restraints, upward mobility, widespread education etc.

The moment these countries are no longer needed as the worlds work-benches, with domestic automated manufacturing taking over, they will fall back.

It's a political question how the productivity gains are distributed and what we do with the work no longer needed. Even today many jobs already are "bullshit jobs", in that they provide no macroeconomic benefit. Another big chunk of the economy is already based on leisurely activities only.

And apart from the technical advancements to come, I think with the Coronavirus crisis and the looming depression and deleveraging phase we have an opportunity to re-organize our societies into something better.

 

[crazydoc]

SS is a type of insurance. Insurance (like car insurance) is where everybody pays in, and then it's distributed to those who need it. One problem is that SS  is distributed to everybody whether it's needed or not. So first, means testing could be instituted so that those who don't need it don't get it. But then there are cries of "unfair - I paid in and I deserve to get it out." Tough shit, that's not how insurance works.

Another change could be removal of the salary cap, so that all wages contribute to the pot, not just the bottom part. Allowances could be made for the employer and self employed contributions so they don't have such a burden (as they have now.)

But these changes will never be made. And whatever happens, the system will be gamed.

 

[emrr]

SS is a type of insurance. Insurance (like car insurance) is where everybody pays in, and then it's distributed to those who need it. One problem is that SS  is distributed to everybody whether it's needed or not.

The insurance concept doesn't meet the model, in that you are paid out based on what you pay in. 

 

[Matador]

The insurance concept doesn't meet the model, in that you are paid out based on what you pay in.

It seems more similar than dissimilar:  the cheapest policy pays out far less than an expensive one.  If you buy the most comprehensive policy (e.g. the most expense), and never determined to be at fault in any accidents, then one might argue that the entire payout of the policy over time was "wasted"...however, just like with SS, you'll never know that until after the fact.

But alas, crazydoc is correct:  the only remedy understood by the right is destroying the program, in the same way that the most cost effective and fastest healthcare is a bullet, and it cures every ailment equally.