Rooseveltian Ponzi Schemes Imploding?!?!?

[NOTTHOR]

The annual report on the big government transfer payment Ponzi schemes was released today and it turns out that, get this, Medicare's trust fund will allegedly be wiped out in 2019 and Social Security's trust fund will allegedly be wiped out in 2041, right as many posters on this board hit retirement age.

My sources tell me that the government already has a plan for the SS shortfall, in that they will declare that anyone who paid the maximum into SS in any one year will be deemed "rich" and therefore ineligible for benefits.

I sure am glad that W's idea of putting the SS surplus in private accounts where Americans could take some investment risk by going into the stock market was shot down. The money is better spent sitting in special issue Treasuries that yield a negative real rate of return. I'm surprised that such shrewd money management could ever possibly lead to the insolvency of the biggest Ponzi scheme ever built. We better open the borders pretty quickly to skilled workers pretty quickly or else we will end up without enough marks in the bottom of the scheme.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080325/ap_on_go_ot/social_security

[socal]

And it's a good thing the ponzi scheme is in effect - because without it, the GOP policies of Iraq, Department of Homeland Security, Medicare Prescription/BigPharma cash infusion, and corporate deregulation wouldn't have been possible...


www.thebudgetgraph.com/

[NOTTHOR]

Iraq and DHS would clearly be possible. Roosevelt didn't have a warchest of transfer payment monies to tap to fund WWII. Your "BigPharma" cash infusion is part of the Ponzi scheme. God forbid there is ever any deregulation. It's highly expensive for government. Let's get back to the days of $1,000 plane tickets between New York and Chicago. Don't worry though, if you think about it, in many cases, regulation limits competition and, as a result, is a pillar of the ideology of liberal fascism.

[GhostMod 5000]

[The Flying Spaghetti Monster]

What "trust fund" are you referencing?

All funds confiscated from your paycheck each month go into the same pool of money and are spent right away. There is no money sitting around earning interest, or negative interest, or whatever.

And if you would have invested in the S&P 500 when W took over, you would have a 0% return right now, including dividends. N-i-c-e.

[NOTTHOR]

This alleged trust fund that buys special issue treasury securities:

www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/fundFAQ.html

I understand that if you just bought very close to the top of one of the biggest stock market bubbles and didn't dollar cost average, you'd have about the same amount today that you had on the date that you bought. Most young people other than dirty lazy hippies have worked since 2001 and would have had additional securities purchased on their behalf when the S&P 500 dropped in the wake of the unwinding of the dot com bubble and the terrorist attacks.

[GhostMod 5000]

[barber]

Whoa there guys. I don't know why anyone would want deregulation. Look how it killed the old dial tone phones. I mean look, telephones were basically unchanged for about 60 years, and then it gets deregulated so now we have all of these confusing things like voice mail, caller ID and other innovations. Oh yes, and we have really cheap long distance charges. Personally, I liked it better when we had one phone to pick, no extra features and higher charges - all trademarks of government regulated industries.

Deregulation has never worked, so we should stick to the "one size fits all" government solutions to all of our problems. Maybe if you guys were all as smart as the government you would just understand.

[The Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Concur. All deregulation is good.

I was especially happy when the banking industry was essentially deregulated. That worked out well.

[Chuck Storm]

thejackass said:

Concur. All deregulation is good.

I was especially happy when the banking industry was essentially deregulated. That worked out well.

Banking is among the most regulated industries in this country. I don't know what deregulation you're referring to. Please expand.

[GhostMod 5000]

Voice mail and caller ID were the results of technological innovation, not phone company deregulation.

[The Flying Spaghetti Monster]

autolykos said:

thejackass said:

Concur. All deregulation is good.

I was especially happy when the banking industry was essentially deregulated. That worked out well.

Banking is among the most regulated industries in this country. I don't know what deregulation you're referring to. Please expand.

I agree that the banking portion, repeat, portion of the large banks is highly regulated. If banks were still required to act like banks, then we would all probably be better off.

Instead, they get to act like hedge funds and what-not due to deregulation. There would be no subprime mess if banks would have been required to hold onto a certain percentage of mortgages they issued, instead of selling them to other banks on the Street.

INS has issued over 100,000 mortgages online, repeat, online, in the past 8 years. They have kept all of them and not resold one. How many foreclosures do you suppose they have had?



8

[NOTTHOR]

I think we have one advocate for the abolishment of securitization. That'll jumpstart the economy.

[barber]

deadhead4life said:

Voice mail and caller ID were the results of technological innovation, not phone company deregulation.

Oh, so deregulating a market doesn't have anything to do with "technological innovation?" When a lot of companies are competing, they compete on lots of levels, including price, technology, etc. So deregulating an industry frees up the capitalists to start competing (all looking for those evil profits)

[hawkeyescott]

The simple solution is to lift the $90,000 cap on social security, sure you rich bastards won't agree, but you will get more when you retire, and your yearly income when you retire won't be what someone making $1,000,000 a year would be paying in over the cap.

[NOTTHOR]

The cap is at 102. Truly rich people wouldn't pay too much higher Social Security if the cap were removed. Any removal of the cap would fall squarely in the lap of the upper middle class. The likelihood of me "getting more when I retire" does not appeal to me at all. What that will lead to is big gov libs saying "oh, no one should get that much in SS, so we're going to cut it." I have a better way for me to get more when I retire. Let me keep my own money so that I don't have to rely on the nanny state to care for me in my old age.

SS is in place because the poors can't save any money. Fine. Don't turn SS into the de facto savings plan for everybody. That is a recipe for disaster.

[Chuck Storm]

bigtimeralph said:

The cap is at 102. Truly rich people wouldn't pay too much higher Social Security if the cap were removed. Any removal of the cap would fall squarely in the lap of the upper middle class. The likelihood of me "getting more when I retire" does not appeal to me at all. What that will lead to is big gov libs saying "oh, no one should get that much in SS, so we're going to cut it." I have a better way for me to get more when I retire. Let me keep my own money so that I don't have to rely on the nanny state to care for me in my old age.

SS is in place because the poors can't save any money. Fine. Don't turn SS into the de facto savings plan for everybody. That is a recipe for disaster.

Yeah, like you think you can earn more than 1.8% on your investments. Why don't you trust Sally Knuckledragger to invest your money in high-flying gubiment treasuries?

[NOTTHOR]

autolykos said:

bigtimeralph said:

The cap is at 102. Truly rich people wouldn't pay too much higher Social Security if the cap were removed. Any removal of the cap would fall squarely in the lap of the upper middle class. The likelihood of me "getting more when I retire" does not appeal to me at all. What that will lead to is big gov libs saying "oh, no one should get that much in SS, so we're going to cut it." I have a better way for me to get more when I retire. Let me keep my own money so that I don't have to rely on the nanny state to care for me in my old age.

SS is in place because the poors can't save any money. Fine. Don't turn SS into the de facto savings plan for everybody. That is a recipe for disaster.

Yeah, like you think you can earn more than 1.8% on your investments. Why don't you trust Sally Knuckledragger to invest your money in high-flying gubiment treasuries?

Social Security trust fund to Fannie Mae REMICs!!!!!! Mortgage crisis averted. Trust fund insolvency solved.

[Norm "racerhawk" Parker]

bigtimeralph said:

Iraq and DHS would clearly be possible. Roosevelt didn't have a warchest of transfer payment monies to tap to fund WWII. Your "BigPharma" cash infusion is part of the Ponzi scheme. God forbid there is ever any deregulation. It's highly expensive for government. Let's get back to the days of $1,000 plane tickets between New York and Chicago. Don't worry though, if you think about it, in many cases, regulation limits competition and, as a result, is a pillar of the ideology of liberal fascism.

Oh, yes, let's completely deregulate the pharmaceutical companies. They could never create anything that would harm people, while rushing a new multibillion dollar product to market.

And thank God that Enron took advantage of energy deregulation. All companies are to be trusted, and all government is bad. Are you turning into Dweeb buster?

When you say things like "liberal fascism" I start to wonder? Take your government regulated and safe meds, and take a nap.

Just to be sure, are you saying that all industries should be completely deregulated? And, by doing so, how will we determine safety and things of that nature? Death toll?

Personally, I want the government busting Southwest Airline's chops because they didn't inspect planes, BEFORE people die, not after, and the subsequent "market correction."

I'm not for over-regulation, but I want to understand that you're saying there should be no gov't regulation? Cough, the air does look pretty shitty today. Remember trees???

[Norm "racerhawk" Parker]

In other words, just to be clear, are you saying that Laissez Faire market forces are all we need, and that all deregulation is good?

Bear in mind that I think many industries are over regulated.

[The Bluzmn]

Deregulation of the airlines worked out, didn't it? I mean, the quality of air travel is sooo much better these days. It is a pleasure to fly now.

[GhostMod 5000]

I have been hearing the words Social security and Ponzi Scheme alot this week. Is that the right wing outrage du jour?

[NOTTHOR]

Hippiehawk - never said deregulate meds - just noted that the cash infusion to big pharma is part of the gov't ponzi scheme. SW has never crashed a plane, so they must know a thing or two about flying. Yeah, some dipshit fucked up somewhere and didn't go through the checklist or whatevs, but the liberal media's got to say something to scare sheeple like you. When't the last time the media made you feel good about something?

Bluzhippie - the American consumer has made it clear that they give a shit about one thing when it comes to flying - price. Deregulation has driven prices down significantly and opened up the skies to the unwashed masses. A guy like me who generally flies on someone else's dime would love to go back to the era of pricing poors out of flying, but the odds of that happening are slim to none. The shitty quality now is a direct result of competing on price and too many people using the air transport system. If you want quality, get a NetJet.

Ghosthippie - I've long ranted against the SS ponzi scheme. It's my outrage of every year until I hit socialist insecurity freedom day in May. Then, I kind of forget about it until the next year.

[socal]

(originally posted this in the wrong thread)

Over the past nine years, the S&P 500 is the worst-performing of nine different investment vehicles tracked by Morningstar, including commodities, real-estate investment trusts, gold and foreign stocks. Big U.S. stocks were outrun even by Treasury bonds, which historically perform much less well than stocks. Adjusted for inflation, Treasurys are up 4.7% a year over the past nine years, and up 5.8% a year bince the March 2000 stock peak. An index of commodities has shown about twice the annual gains of bonds, as have real-estate investment trusts.

The stock market is trading right where it was nine years ago. Stocks, long touted as the best investment for the long term, have been one of the worst investments over the nine-year period, trounced even by lowly Treasury bonds.

online.wsj.com/article/SB120649226977964203.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news



I sure am sad Bush didn't get his private SS accounts wish....




__________________________________

deadhead4life said:

I have been hearing the words Social security and Ponzi Scheme alot this week. Is that the right wing outrage du jour?

As I said in another whiny rant thread:

bigtimeralph said:

The absolutist free market crowd dismisses real world notions of transaction costs, informational imperfections and the once in a lifetime shitstorm out of the box. That is the weakness in their ideology. The liberals live on dogma and soundbites and think that any market failure can be cured with regulation, when in many cases, regulation or stupid government actions causes or contributes to the market failure in the first instance. That is the weakness in their ideology.

You are an oxymoron.

[NOTTHOR]

This just in, if you buy at the very top of a bubble, it might take you a decade or more to get your money back. If you change the period to 20 years or 6 years, you're up nicely. There is a reason my cash sat in a mortgage REIT and a savings account until a few weeks ago -- because I'm not a sucker who buys at the top.

SS would not direct its investment in the market all at once. It would be done incrementally. How would 1,000 invested during those two troughs around 6000 on your chart compare to Treasuries bought on the same day? I guess I just have a little more faith in private enterprise as a means to wealth creation instead of the government.