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View Full Version : Social Security...Some amazing facts!



HighRoller
10-21-2004, 02:45 PM
GW Bush's plan to "privatize" social insecurity has been under attack by John F Kerry as a "disaster". So I heard some numbers on the plan that I thought were interesting and I wanted to share.
A 20 yo employee making minimum wage is allowed to take 2% of the 15% total that makes up SSI money and invest it privately. This works out to about $500 a year. He gets a 12% return on the money for 45 years. (The market has averaged 11.98% over 70 years) He would have over $500,000 at age 65 and $980,000 at age 70 when mandatory withdrawal for non taxable retirements kicks in. If he only lived on 8% of this money he would never touch the principal even with inflation and still have $7000 a month retirement income. John Kerry thinks this is what constitutes a "disaster" for Americans even though SSI has a rate of return of .5% over the last 30 years. Could you imagine how much you could save if you got the entire 15%??? That leads me to ask a tough question.
If you could forfeit the entire amount you've contributed to SSI in return for being able to privately invest half of the money from now until retirement, would you do it? I would, in a heartbeat. I'd do it just to get the 2%!

1978 Rogers
10-21-2004, 02:57 PM
I love watching 60 min & nightline. One of them talked about SS for the Baby Boomers when they retire in 10 years or so. They showed the actual "Lock Box" as Gore called it. The file cabinet full of promise notes from the US government to Social Security. The money we pay for Social Security does not go into a special account or set aside for retirement. The government spends this money. It has been for years. The whole story was about "What are the Baby Boomers going to get out of Social Security when they all retire". The answer was not much and for me being 34 years old, I shouldn't expect anything. I wish I could have remembered more facts. It was a very interesting story.

HighRoller
10-21-2004, 03:24 PM
The Clinton "surplus" was all Social Security money borrowed from the trust fund to balance the yearly budget. They had to borrow 88 billion to have a surplus of 5 billion! Social Security will start deficit spending in 2017, when the payouts outnumber contributions. And the same guys who gave us this flawed pyramid scheme in the first place now promise to "fix it".

HighRoller
10-21-2004, 03:38 PM
Just did some more math. The maximum payout from SSI is about $1100-1200 a month contributing the full 15% from age 20-70. If you earned $50,000 a year from 20-70 and invested 2% instead of 15%, you'd have $31,000 a month. OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Gotta love Socialism!!!!!!!!!!

bigq
10-21-2004, 10:10 PM
I would be all over it! :D I have been wanting that for a long time SS is such a waste.
I hope Bush can do it if he gets re-elected. Otherwise it is more of the same. I just don't see how a rational person can look at the numbers and say they can save it, give me a break.

spectratoad
10-22-2004, 06:51 AM
But if we do the private thing then the dems wouldn't have control of the money and be able to say that they will do everything for us and we wouldn't have to suck the tit of the government when we get old and.......
I hope to God that GW privatizes SS. I would be all over that.

MagicMtnDan
10-22-2004, 08:00 AM
We should have a choice as to where our money goes. Giving it to the government in the HOPES that they give us a very small percentage of it back to us after the politicians get done using and abusing that HUGE pool of money is scandalous and wrong!
Privatizing SS is not only the best option, it's what's right and fair for our children and their children.
If George Bush was for breathing, John Kerry would be opposed to it. :eek:

spectratoad
10-22-2004, 09:10 AM
Along the lines with SS also is the rulings that a person is only allowed to put some much per year into 401's etc....
Why should the government limit how much I can save for the future? If I can put $77K a year away for the future why shouldn't I be able to without having to look for all the loopholes or buying real estate blah, blah, blah...

HighRoller
10-22-2004, 10:27 AM
The dirty little secret is that Social Security is not REALLY going to go bankrupt because it isn't collecting enough money. It takes in a lot more money every year than the payouts demandd, Unfortunately, the greedy bastards in Congress attached SSI to the general fund so that they could suck off the surplus every year and replace it with IOU's.

eliminatedsprinter
10-22-2004, 12:59 PM
The dirty little secret is that Social Security is not REALLY going to go bankrupt because it isn't collecting enough money. It takes in a lot more money every year than the payouts demandd, Unfortunately, the greedy bastards in Congress attached SSI to the general fund so that they could suck off the surplus every year and replace it with IOU's.
Quite the lockbox, huh... :rolleyes:
It's nothing more than a Gov run Ponzi scheme. It's also the worst invesment many of us will ever make (other than getting a boat ;)).