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ORIGINAL: Mercnbeth

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

you have to earn over 104k to be completely ineligible for SS... it is even higher to get your medical cut. Seriously, if someone is making that sort of money, owns their home, has other retirement monies and investments... I think being a US citizen must have paid off well for them, but that is just me and I could be wrong

No denying - just leaving prior having to pay taxes again on it or have it redistributed by the "good intent-ees" to those who didn't take advantage of the opportunities provided by the US or here criminally. 

But then again the issue is SS - I guess that money that's been saved for me and should be mine isn't mine after all is it? What was that you said again? Oh yeah; "People pay into Social Security.. it is NOT a charity.... " - guess that's not always correct huh?

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I have never understood people who did not want to put back into a system that enriched them... it just seems greedy to me.

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

SS is insurance. People pay into it, it is also an entitlement. It is not a charity. You can call it that all day and night, but it will not make it so.

Your research... please share it with me

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

When you cannot claim your retirement insurance because your earned income is too high, it really does not make this insurance a charity... insurance is pretty easy to understand, isn't it?

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ORIGINAL: rosanegra

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ORIGINAL: Mercnbeth

*snip*

Gold is approaching $1000/ounce. But applied to purchases it buys relatively the same hard goods valued in dollars as it did when at $300/ounce. Gold hasn't gained in value as much as the dollar has decreased. That is, and should be, concerning to Banks.

....I live in Alaska... Alaska has unmined gold.. in fact, they say 95% of the gold up here was never mined....

Hmmmm....

That's it, we're going panning as soon as the weather warms up!!!!!!
Looks like we aren't going to have to worry about the Social Security problem!


(looks for but cannot find emoticon with dollar signs for eyes)

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ORIGINAL: Mercnbeth

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

When you cannot claim your retirement insurance because your earned income is too high, it really does not make this insurance a charity... insurance is pretty easy to understand, isn't it?

Than its not insurance either. Health and life insurance companies don't have the same right to determine people have too much income and don't deserve the benefit they for which they paid. Or would you put that in place? Not a charity, but by the very policy you cite its not insurance its not insurance either - care to try again?

Maybe Ponzi scheme would be a proper label.

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

My grandfather used to say, "boy, if you take a piece of shit, an actual piece of shit, and you pour perfume on it and you wrap it in a pretty pink bow – it’s still a piece of shit. Ain’t it boy?"

The opinions expressed in the following rant are subject to change without notice.

Call it whatever you will a tax is a tax and a government handout is a government handout (in other words an insultingly piddling amount handed to you by an incompetently run, corruption oozing, bloated bureaucracy).

Kill the Federal Reserve.
Kill Social Security.
Kill Medicade.
Kill Medicare.
Kill all the pork barrel projects.
Kill all the corporate research projects masquerading as "scientific" studies.
Kill the Department of Education.
Kill the EEOC
Kill funding for the arts
Kill a whole bunch of government shit that I could spend fifteen pages listing.

Government exists to pave our roads, deliver the mail, throw the bad guys in prison, and defend the country.

Kill the IRS. Then pound a wooden stake in it’s heart just to be sure.

New Tax code: ten percent of all your income belongs to Uncle Sam (how much you pay to your state and local governments is between you an them). Got a paycheck for five hundred dollars? Fifty of it goes to Uncle Sam. Sold a stock for a profit of ten thousand dollars? Uncle Sam get a thousand. Sold your house for seventy thousand more than you paid for it? Uncle Sam gets seven thousand (okay, I’d probably allow indexing for inflation). Inherited twenty million dollars? Fork over two million to Uncle Sam. Found a five dollar bill on the street. Be sure to give Uncle Sam his fifty cents.

Not quite.

First we get to deduct expenses for food, clothing, housing (mortgage and rent), health care, and education plus ten percent to the charity of our choice. Whatever’s left over is for Uncle Sam. If it’s not enough for him he’ll have to tighten his belt and live within a budget like the rest of us. In fact, new law – except during a time of war (actual, declared by Congress war) or national catastrophe, it is illegal for the government to have a deficit. Not only that, the government will put one percent of it’s revenue into a savings account to be used whenever a natural disaster (i.e. flood, hurricane) leaves a bunch of people homeless and in need of quick helping hand back up.

Okay, "kill" may come across as a little radical sounding. I certainly wouldn’t advocate sudden elimination of the above (as if it would ever happen) – such a sudden shock to the system may well crash it and a great many people who have become dependent on the government would be left in a lurch. BUT, this is what we should be working towards. A free people who run their own lives, and help each other. A people for whom their government is their Subbie, not their Dom.

This concludes the rant.

It’s late, I really should be getting to bed.

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It is instructive that the only entitlements you do not want to put an end to are the ones that benefit you.

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Wait a second, my "success" indicates I had an edge? Tell me - when I got here 5 years ago with all my 'worldly possessions' in a 19 foot U-haul trailer, $200 in the bank, a flea ravaged cat, a futon bed/chair, and a 2 week job commitment did I have that same "edge" or did it grow on me? I'd had loved to have the ability to tell my employer not to take out SS income. I'd been able to afford a couple extra packages of Rahman noodles.

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ORIGINAL: Mercnbeth

Thompson,
Wait a second, my "success" indicates I had an edge? Tell me - when I got here 5 years ago with all my 'worldly possessions' in a 19 foot U-haul trailer, $200 in the bank, a flea ravaged cat, a futon bed/chair, and a 2 week job commitment did I have that same "edge" or did it grow on me? I'd had loved to have the ability to tell my employer not to take out SS income. I'd been able to afford a couple extra packages of Rahman noodles.

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The magnitude of that edge is calculable by the economic distance that separates you from those who have not done as well. 

I had an edge?  Help me with that will 'ya? What was it? Please provide the calculation that determined the "calculable distance".

We could start with your three digit IQ. Then there is your college education.  Lets not forget your upbringing that inspires you to excel.

SS is "voluntary"? Ever try and NOT pay it, either as an employer or employee? I think there is only one entity whose employees don't pay into SS - Congress? I'd love to learn differently, and I know quite a few others who would share the exit option if it were the case. I stand by to learn how not to 'opt out', per current law, of SS.

Social Security law itself states that it is voluntary.  No less an authoritative voice than the Supreme Court of the U.S. has ruled that you are not required to have a Social Security number.

I'll ask the question to you Thompson - Why shouldn't I get $20,000? I paid into it. Not just this past 5 years, but since I started to work over 30 years ago. I should have know I was going to be "successful" and not paid into SS back then?

That is exactly my point.  You knew from a very early age that you were going to be a successful person...it is part of your nature... for you to deny it is disingenuous.
 
 
I should have know that the government would evolve into an entity that rewarded FAILURE and penalized success? Actually it makes sense then that so many aspire and work so hard to FAIL - the more you fail the more the government pays you.

This sort of rhetoric is beneath you.  No one sets out to fail.  The government does not reward failure the government rewards those who bribe it to make laws in their favor.

I know the rules. My comments on this thread point to SS payments representing "my money", or representing that its "insurance". I pay plenty "under the rules". I don't consider those payments entitling me to anything. Pragmatically SS is a charity for me - so be it.

SS is a charity for you because you chose (perhaps through ignorance) to contribute to that charity.

I won't try to change the minds of those who refuse, can't, or don't have the ability to make their own decisions based upon 'investing' the same allocation of their income on their own. I WILL, and only represent, that people deserve the choice in doing so. Stipulating that at this point in time and with the current rules on the books it can't and won't happen. The Ponzi scheme will be bankrupt soon enough - then SS will have been a "charity" for everyone.

For those, who recognize that they will not be as financially successful as you, who contribute to SS it is an investment.  An investment that will pay off.  Perhaps not as well as other investments might.
Not everyone is as smart as you.  Not everyone has the ability to pick good investments.  Not everyone can manage their money as well as you.  In those cases SS may be a  good investment. 
You will get no argument from me that the federal government is stealing from the SS fund.  Those doing the stealing are of both parties.


My "private investments" are my decision. I live with the chance they'll be worth nothing, but it was my choice. With SS - I had no such choice and now get to have nothing.
 
Had you chosen to acquaint yourself with the rules of SS you could have prevented this loss.  Look on the bright side...The investments you did acquaint yourself with have paid off.

Perhaps I should have bought a myself a seat in Congress, but never made enough 'friends' in the Corporate world to pay for it. Besides, my truth usually pisses off too many people because they don't want to hear it.

I doubt that you would have been any good as a politician, your ethical values seem to be too deeply embedded.
thompson

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

Thompson, haven’t seen you around in a while. Good to see you back. I’ve been in a head butting mood lately. Too bad it’s Friday and I’m heading out ‘til Sunday.

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It is instructive that the only entitlements you do not want to put an end to are the ones that benefit you.

Which ones would those be? Incidently, killing funding for the arts would negatively impact me. The art center I work for is going non-profit (we decided to make it official ) and will soon be applying for grants (although I’m not actually part of that decision making process).

It is nice to know that you missed me. 

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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Wait a second, my "success" indicates I had an edge? Tell me - when I got here 5 years ago with all my 'worldly possessions' in a 19 foot U-haul trailer, $200 in the bank, a flea ravaged cat, a futon bed/chair, and a 2 week job commitment did I have that same "edge" or did it grow on me? I'd had loved to have the ability to tell my employer not to take out SS income. I'd been able to afford a couple extra packages of Rahman noodles.

You’ll have to forgive Thompson, Merc. He’s one of those far left loonies who brain is mis-wired rendering him incapable of comprehending that anyone who is successful in life might actually merit it through their own hard work.