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Kasz216 on 14 August 2011
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fordy said:
Kasz216 said:
fordy said:
Kasz216 said:

Saying social security has a surplus is like saying that I spend 100 dollars of my retirement fund write myself an IOU for 1 million dollars promise myself half a million, then claim i have a half a million surplus.


It's more along the lines of giving money to someone to hold, yet they cannot help but spend it on themselves. Since 1983, social security has been getting prepared for when the boomers go into retirement. So where'd it go? Used to find wars for oil or tax cuts for the wealthy perhaps? Either way, it's summed up by one word: Stealing.

Except that's not "Since 1983.'

It's been happening since the start of Social Security.

When social security was "raided" it was just some of those worthless bonds being used to pay for other things.

Nothing more then a "clever" book keeping move.

There never was any cash "prepared" for when the boomers go into retirement.  It was all the afore mentioned IOUs.

 

So in otherwords, it's like prepairng to pay your rent next month, by writing more IOUS for money that equals your rent for next month.... but then giving those IOUS to your friends to cover them buying you a TV.


First you say social security NEVER generated a surplus, now you say "Oh, only before 1983". Can you make up your mind here?

And the uniqueness about pre-1983 social security was that there was a much higher ratio of worers paying into social security than retirees taking out, which was when the boomer generation was working. This is why the measures for surplus were taken in 1983 to generate a surplus because they foresaw the decrease in worker to retiree ratio. Now, social security had enough to pay it's way until 2037, that is until government robbed that piggy bank to buy votes.

you've got it mixed up. The ones writing IOUs are the Income tax, taking the money that is rightfully the American workers in social security and replacing it with IOUs. Now that they find themselves having to pay it back...suprise suprise, now one side wants to scrap it completely. Talk about being untrustworthy with paying back what you owe....


I never said there was a surplus... because there never was.  You misread.

The Social Security trust fund is... and always has been filled with by government bonds... when there was more money being paid in then there was paid out... this money was ALWAYS spent by the government that year on something else.

There isn't any money in the social security trust fund It's IOUS in the form of "special" government bonds.

There is nothing there but a vague gurantee by polticians that they will pay out those IOUs in there.

You are just... wrong.  At 1983, all that happened was that government started to use those worthless government bonds to pay for other stuff as a fun accounting trick to raise the deficit without raising the deficit.