Here you are, an American guy nearing 50. You have 2 parents, 1 sister, and 2 children. The government insists that you take care of your parents, so they confiscate Social Security and Medicare taxes from you. This is pay as you go, so there is not savings account, no trust fund... its just a transfer payment from you to your parents. Got it?
I am going to go out on a limb here... and assume that every taxpayer has or had 2 parents, most of who lived long enough to collect. I am sure you see where this is going, so I will get there quick. The government removed all incentive for most folks to save for their old age opting instead to seize money from the children to give to their parents. We NEED a government to do this? People would not take their parents in, or parents not take their children in? Parents would not have saved for their old age? Of course not, to the first question. Of course, to the next 2.
You and your sister will have to work for about 8 years of your 40 year work life in order to fund your OWN parents Social Security and Medicare consumption. Is there any wonder you cannot save any money? BTW, your parents are going to have a BALL, traveling the world on cruises, dancing the night away... baby sitting the grandkids? No way. Providing day care to the grandkids so that you and sis can work? Fat chance. Your parents put in their time, and now they are entitled to 30 years of leisure and consumption. Get your own damn day care! See you at Christmas dinner! BTW, can you cook? Grampa and I are leaving on the 26th for a cruise...
But wait! There's more! The government has set up a massive, bloated and overpaid bureaucracy to confiscate your money and transfer it to your parents, so for every $ you paid in these taxes, the government took 25 cents to pay those helpful folks at the IRS and the other agencies involved. And, say... if your parents are well to do, after they confiscate your assets and give it to the folks the government will take 55% off the top when the folks go to the big-transfer-payment-in-the-sky.
Agh... but if you call in the next 5 minutes we'll throw in an added bonus! A genuine accumulated deficit that will need to be paid back one way or another because we wanted to further over benefit in order to secure their votes but knew we had bled you dry with taxes already!
The government dismantled the extended family AND the nuclear family with its asinine transfer payment programs and Welfare programs and then completely f&**ed up the healthcare system with Medicare... but if you ask a "progressive" (a progressive is a person that studied humanities in college, completely skipping economics and mathematics, who then goes on to work on anything other than making a profit, meeting payroll, and employing people), all the problems in the modern world can be traced to Ronald Reagan.
The road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions.
13 comments:
The state wasn't "asinine" by destroying the family, it knows exactly what it is doing. By promoting radical individualism, all its subjects are too isolated from one another to resist.
It is a much more sophisticated method of control than having children inform on their parents, as totalitarian regimes do, although the end result is the same.
The benefits provided by Social Security are so small, no one would base their entire retirement on it if they had the choice. Because the average non-supervisory working person in the U.S. hasn't had a pay increase in 30 years except for inflation (thank you, China), we have less and less money to save for retirement even if we wanted to.
Social Security, Medicare and the other govt. programs (food stamps, unemployment comp) were created to serve as a floor so that people didn't have to die in their old age alone, hungry and in pain. The numbers just got a little out of whack the last 30 years (thank you, Boomers).
In some respects it goes well beyond that. A good number of Boomers decided not to have kids so I’m not just being asked to support my parents but also those that blithely aborted their children, and thus their future. Social Security requires an ever expanding base of payers but there are more Boomers than Xers.
It goes well beyond government transfer payments, though that was a big part of the incentive to have only unproductive sex, the ideal that uncle sugar will take care of you. Regardless, assume instead of transfer payments people chose to save money instead. Where would they reasonably invest it? Think about it, if the boomers had of been saving, instead of blowing it all and then some, the last couple of decades, what would that have done to growth? Where would their investments have gone? The young want to borrow to put a roof over their growing family, while the old need to lend to get a return. Whom would they have loaned the savings to? The Xers that aren’t there? Then assuming they had al made other arrangements in mass there would still be the population problem where each person working would be required to support more than one retiree. It doesn’t really matter wither its thru transfer payments, dividends, or interest- it doesn’t work.
On the other hand, Social security did keep people out of the poorhouse for the last seventy years. Perhaps the big problem is assuming because something has been dealt with it will always remain so. While there is a lot to be said for not fixing things that aren’t broke, everything wears out or outlives its usefulness.
As Voltaire noted: "The art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other."
All over Europe they are cutting child benefits rather than pensions (because babies cant vote), so there will be less and less people in the future to fund these liabilities even if things hold together that long post peak.
Think of it from the perspective of an 80 year old man or woman who has no money except social security. Thinking of the problem from the perspective of a 50 year old man whining because he can't live an as extravagant a lifestyle as he wouold without social security is not being realistic.
Dear Anon @ 5:10
Is that what you got out of this?
BTW... does it make you feel better to condescend so?
Actually, I was commiserating and sympathizing for you and others - I don't really work any more and have all that I need, but my contemporaries are STRUGGLING in the extreme.
Either you are not struggling because you are not providing for a family, inherited money, are too young to be in this boat.... if you were 50 with no savings despite a life of hard work and providing for others you might step back and think about what happened.
"Pension Plans"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/business/20pension.html
Add this to the already massive state budget gaps (47 states), guess the Fed can save the day by printing more money later this year...
-Meiyo
From the perspective of a man pushing 40, if it doesn’t benefit my family I will not work. I don’t need most of the things I currently use/consume and can get by on around $4K generating no taxable income. There are only 4 boomers I am willing to support, mine and my wife’s; and even then not necessarily in cash or at the level they would prefer. I can just as easily stay home and enjoy the leisure time.
Why should I work hard and neglect my family to support a system I neither created nor will benefit from?
Not only is the FedGov confiscating to pay for the old and the unwilling to work but they are not doing a very good job of paying to the old. and yes getting to 50+ and paying over 1/5 mil in SocSec and then not having a retirement because the FedGov messed up everything and can't be trusted ticks me off!
s4r
III
I have no faith in political arithmetic.
Adam Smith
Dear Anon At 5:10:
I have not heard back from you. This is the second time (your writing style identifies easily)you have commented and that I have asked you to use a nick name that you stick with or to register.
Also, please have something to add to the discussion besides pointing out that do not agree with me... I am more than willing to engage in a co-examination of the facts and a discussion of opinions.
Man Greg, you act like those things are disincentives.
C'mon baby, lets get back to our regularly scheduled Superbowl commercial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jplpjCaec
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