Reply to What Would You Be Willing to Do to Save SS?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
 
What the hell are you ranting about?  I've only made two posts in this thread and you quoted both of them. Nice job ranting at me for things I didn't post.

1. Population aging is a filunction of low population growth. The poster I was responding to was clearly suggesting that population growth in absolute terms created the SS mess, not that lack of population growth created the mess.

2. Let me get this straight: That SS will continue to pay out 75% of benefits is a positive? The program will cost five (perhaps six) times what it was originally projected to cost and will deliver only 75% of its benefits. Only a leftist would hold this out as a success or positive. That's a hell of a consolation prize.

3. You claim that SS is free of investment risk and will remain an inflation adjusted source of income. First, those are some pretty incredible claims to make in the same post in which you acknowledge that SS will soon only be capable of paying out 75% of its obligations. You're really arguing that a quasi-retirement program that needs ever escalating amounts of money confiscated through state power and that continuously faces near term shortfalls is free of investment risk?  Second, SS is only free of investment risk and a good guard against inflation if you assume the federal government is incapable of default and if you believe that the dollar will remain a reserve currency forever. I wouldn't bet a mortgage payment on either of those assumptions, let alone 5-6% of the national GDP.  Your claims are borderline irrational at this point.

4.  The real problem is that the political left simply doesn't have the will to accurately price entitlements (e.g., Obamacare, nationalization of student loan program). As a result, entitlement programs virtually always cost more than originally projected and deliver fewer benefits than were originally promised. While myRAs are a decent concept in the abstract, what do you think is going to happen to short term economic growth when employees have fewer discretionary dollars to spend?  Do you really believe hat state and federal governmwnts are going to be able to restrain themselves from trying to funnel myRAs toward government debt (increasing systemic risk in the process). Sure, in 30-40 years things should balance out if governments don't default in heir debts, but there will be short term pain.

5.  SS will be significantly restructured at some point in time and some cohort of beneficiaries will feel significant financial pain from it. The only relevant questions are when will it happen and how bad will it hurt.

6.  Your solution is to simply do the same thing that has been done for 75 years: throw more money at the problem through higher taxes and additionally reduce discretionary income through myRA plans. This time things will be different, right?[/quote]

Oh FFS. Grow up and act like an adult, and argue like one.

Your uninformed ranting doesn't deserve a lengthy response. 
1. If you can't understand the dependency ratio, I can't help you. However, you've basically admitted that I'm right about population aging, even if you tried to twist my argument around.
2. Social Security continues to keep 1/3 of older Americans out of poverty, and yes, that's a huge success. If you're one of those conservatives who thinks the elderly need to go back to living off cat food, again, I can't help you. 
3. You're confusing investment risk with political risk--I was very careful to choose my terms but you obviously can't see the distinction. Again, I can't help you become smarter.
4. You're confusing Obama's myRAs with state autoIRA proposals, but these are two very different things. Also, you seem unaware that auto-IRA proposals would rely on private investment managers, so the state or federal governments involved would not handle the funds. Even if the government did handle the auto-IRA funds (which it won't), you also missed the post above about how government bonds as investments are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government and would take Congressional action to change--reading comprehension really doesn't seem to be your strong suit.

For the rest, yes I agree there will be restructuring. But even Trump doesn't think SS should go away completely. Trump has actually said that he wants to preserve Social Security in its present form, all of it. You're out of step with most of your conservative buddies. There's much more likelihood than you want to think that there will be a compromise that preserves a solid first tier benefit, and one that will help the poor in particular.

(And huh? You say I quoted both of your two posts, and so you're mad that I'm talking to you? Huh?)[/quote]

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