GM about to go belly up and take the dollar with it!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ray Moore\";p=\"76340)</div>

Thank you Ray for your well written post.

Even if we don't "take the money back" from those that have already gotten checks, in order to collect that money to give to you so you can play it on the market, massive borrowing or taxing would need to take place to get that money.

The predictions that SS is going bust are by the way based upon a 1.6% average growth rate. Apparently, since WWII, the average growth rate has been 2.1%. If the 2.1% figure is used, SS won't have any problems until about 2060. And if the "cap" is raised slightly, there will never be a day of reckoning. But these minor tweaks will not help Wall Street and Wall Street bought this presidency so they own it. It's only fair.

When SS was created, it was a "guarantee" to the elderly that they would never be in poverty. "Privatizing" it certainly sounds attractive, but then the "guarantee" would be gone. This would be a fundamental change in what SS is. If this is what American's want then so be it, but let's not pretend it's a "tweak". Privatizing it would be a fundamental abandonment of what SS was created to do. If that's what people want, then let's do it with our eyes open. Somehow I suspect that that is not what the people want.

We keep hearing about how 16 people supported one retiree when SS started but now we only have 3 to support each retiree. Does anyone know how many people it took to build a car back then? Does anyone know how many people it took to make a loaf of bread? In every single field the productivity of American's have skyrocketed such that it now takes MANY fewer people to do the same job as in the 1940s. The same phenomenon applies to SS. So whenever you hear the 16 to 3 nonsense, you need to change the channel. You are hearing spin, or more likely, outright lies.

 

Spot on.

 

Re: Social Security no one seems to mention what to me is the obvious...people over a certain income should only be able to get their investment back, not over and above like most reciepients. I talk to many wealthy retired people in my line of work, and this is an idea I have heard from them. They don't need the money, it's a pittance compared to their retirement income, and if they were cut off they wouldn't miss it. Make an income ceiling above which you don't receive SS until and if you drop below that ceiling.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ray Moore\";p=\"76295)</div>

Ray:

Same here. Well, now that I have a car that gets such great fuel economy, maybe I should plan a road trip this summer. Of course, if for some God Awful reason you find yourself in Winnipeg, give a shout.

Jay

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Frank Hudon\";p=\"76302)</div>

Frank:

Geez here too. Very annoying too.

 

Re: fixing social insecurity

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wolfman\";p=\"76305)</div>

Wolfy:

Sorry but that money is long gone, they p***** it away as fast as it came in.

Come to think of it, the tax money was p***** away FASTER than they took it in eg deficit.

Hitting the wall is now inevitable, it's just a question of time. Unless they somehow dream up a means of wiping out all debt without causing a complete collapse of the currency and the economy.

I think that is probably impossible.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Robert Taylor\";p=\"76323)</div>

Robert:

Oops I should have read further down, you already covered that fact. My bad.

Right, the money is long gone.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(prius04\";p=\"76346)</div>

Mark:

The "free rider" problem in Economics.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(prius04\";p=\"76346)</div>

And their kids and *their* kids and so on and so forth. It's a bottomless hole.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(prius04\";p=\"76346)</div>

I think both sides have omitted some very important facts wrt how quickly SS goes t*** up:

1. Since WWII we're living longer. This is due to safer public water systems, union contracts that covered doctors, and much advanced medical technology, leading us to:

2. Advanced medical technology. We can not only keep people alive, but functioning more-or-less normally, when the same condition 50-80 years ago would have meant certain death. Unfortunately, that sort of care is exotically expensive.

3. Fewer high paying manufacturing jobs. Depending on which numbers you chose to believe (Good luck most of the stats are bulls***), real job growth is either slightly positive or flat. The folks making minimum-wage part time will not be able to float this boat.

I think once you examine the entire issue of folks living longer thanks to medical intervention, the outlook gets a bit scary. Obviously, I'm not advocating death squads or mandatory euthanasia, but we'll eventually pay that piper.

A lot of this can be avoided by taking responsibility for our actions: the way we spend money, how we look after our health, our attitude to each other and the environment, etc.

Oh, wait a minute, we're also experiencing an "obesity epidemic" and are all turning into a bunch of fat bastards apparently too lazy to even walk 200 ft. I suppose that means a rash of Type II diabetes and heart problems. Cripes, it never ends!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarinJohn\";p=\"76359)</div>

MarinJohn,

During the 1992 debates, Ross Perot said, "What do I need SS for, I'm a billionaire." (OR something to that effect.) He was making this very same point.

The rich and powerful have been trying to get rid of SS since FDR. And with GW they thought they could finally succeed. It now seems they miscalculated though I'm still not convinced of that.

Putting "caps" on SS will strengthen SS, and that is NOT the agenda of those that bought GW the White House.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jayman\";p=\"76366)</div>

Everything you say sounds completely logical. However, "logic" is not always accurate. According to the actuarial analysis done by the Bush administration we are in good shape until 2041 using an annual growth rate of 1.6%. Personally, I don't trust their figures but even their figures are not that bad. When you use the growth rate that has existed since WWII, (2.1%) the date that we get into trouble is closer to 2065.

So although logic says that SS is it terrible shape given all the reasons you say, the truth based upon scientific analysis indicates that it is in MUCH better shape than that.

SS only needs some minor tweaking and we will be fine. Providing of course that any of us are still here and the US economy doesn't collapse for other reasons. But SS will not be the reason for that collapse.

 

in Canada the "Old Age Security" CPP is clawed back as your retirement income rises, if you make over a certain amount you loose an ever increasing amount of your pension as your retirement income rise. If you paid into the CPP all your life and wisely invested and make say $56,000 a year in investment income you get nothing for a lifetime of CPP payments. So much for fiscal responsibility on your part. (CPP= Canada Pension Plan) I do belive the $56,000 is the current cap.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ray Moore\";p=\"76340)</div>

No, I'm talking about the money that the individual has paid into the system. Since you are self employed, I don't know if you get them or not, but I get those SSI statements from the government every couple of years, detailing what I've "paid" into the system since I've started working. I'm talking about that money.

The CURRENT system is a ponzi scheme, and it WILL collapse when the baby boomers start seriously drawing off of the system. What I propose, is a system where your SSI tax becomes a retirement savings account for YOU, and YOU alone. The moffia cannot touch it, borrow from it, divert it, or tax it.

With our government approaching $3 TRILLION dollars in spending, there is no excuse for any red ink. There is far too much money being wasted on pork, dead assistance programs, failed assistance programs, and just plain ol' bad management. Our government has gotten so bloated and obese, that it cannot get out of its own pile of excrement. The budget CAN be balanced without tax increases. However it's going to take a wholesale replacement of all of the current sold out chronies in office.

Unfortunately, so long as over 2/3 of the public cannot be bothered to vote, and people give in to the bipartisan propaganda of throwing away votes on third parties, this is what we will have to tolerate.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wolfman\";p=\"76381)</div>

That money is the money that is gone. It has been paid out to current beneficiaries. That money HAS not been put into some bank somewhere. It's either been paid out, or the government has spent it on cruise missiles.

Your paper statement is just that, a paper statement.

So the only way the Feds can come up with the money that you and everyone else put into SS all these years is to raise taxes or borrow like crazy.

This is the point that Ray Moore was trying to make. That money IS GONE!!!!

 

deleted by author

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(prius04\";p=\"76346)</div>

Thank you Ray for your well written post.

Even if we don't "take the money back" from those that have already gotten checks, in order to collect that money to give to you so you can play it on the market, massive borrowing or taxing would need to take place to get that money.

The predictions that SS is going bust are by the way based upon a 1.6% average growth rate. Apparently, since WWII, the average growth rate has been 2.1%. If the 2.1% figure is used, SS won't have any problems until about 2060. And if the "cap" is raised slightly, there will never be a day of reckoning. But these minor tweaks will not help Wall Street and Wall Street bought this presidency so they own it. It's only fair.

When SS was created, it was a "guarantee" to the elderly that they would never be in poverty. "Privatizing" it certainly sounds attractive, but then the "guarantee" would be gone. This would be a fundamental change in what SS is. If this is what American's want then so be it, but let's not pretend it's a "tweak". Privatizing it would be a fundamental abandonment of what SS was created to do. If that's what people want, then let's do it with our eyes open. Somehow I suspect that that is not what the people want.

We keep hearing about how 16 people supported one retiree when SS started but now we only have 3 to support each retiree. Does anyone know how many people it took to build a car back then? Does anyone know how many people it took to make a loaf of bread? In every single field the productivity of American's have skyrocketed such that it now takes MANY fewer people to do the same job as in the 1940s. The same phenomenon applies to SS. So whenever you hear the 16 to 3 nonsense, you need to change the channel. You are hearing spin, or more likely, outright lies.
[/b][/quote]

Demographics.

Fact: the birthrate of Europe is well below replacement level. Spain has the lowest birthrate, 1.12 live births per woman. 2.2 is replacement rate.

Fact: two of the western European nations have federal debt to GNP ratios of two to one, twice the debt of GNP. This runup of debt to continue the government charity to old people (so called social security) is unsustainable. Look for some terrible consequences to occur there before we have that same day of reckoning.

Japan is having terrible economic growth numbers, since its birthrate collapsed below replacement level some years ago. Without young workers, the productivity does not rise.

I expect that many Americans will have their private pension schemes bankrupted by their employers such as GM, 3M, etc. as they do not have the money to pay these promised benefits. Then the taxpayer will be asked to pony up for more and more of these pensioners. We already have over three thousand of these bust pensions under taxpayer bailouts.

The federal government bust the first currency it created, the continental.

The dollar may fall in a vain attempt to pay all the promises. The sooner we break them all, the better off we will be. Federal retirees will have to have some serious cuts in pensions, although this is not under discussion now.

Few remember this anymore, but the civil servants not laid off in the great depression had to endure significant pay cuts to keep their jobs.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(prius04\";p=\"76369)</div>

Everything you say sounds completely logical. However, "logic" is not always accurate. According to the actuarial analysis done by the Bush administration we are in good shape until 2041 using an annual growth rate of 1.6%. Personally, I don't trust their figures but even their figures are not that bad. When you use the growth rate that has existed since WWII, (2.1%) the date that we get into trouble is closer to 2065.

So although logic says that SS is it terrible shape given all the reasons you say, the truth based upon scientific analysis indicates that it is in MUCH better shape than that.

SS only needs some minor tweaking and we will be fine. Providing of course that any of us are still here and the US economy doesn't collapse for other reasons. But SS will not be the reason for that collapse.
[/b][/quote]

Oh yes it will, social security will be the cause of our collapsing economy. All social program schemes end in failure over the long run. Free bread and circus came to an end in Rome too.

First of all, these phony assumptions put out by the government are all based upon the same set of lies, some BS about tapping into a "trust fund" for a 25/30 year time frame. There is nothing of value there! The money is long gone, and in its place we have some "certificates" held in a filing cabinet on the top floor of an adminsitrative building that the social security administration has in Parkersburg West Virginia. Its a modest two story building, and these so called certificates have no market value, which is why they are not under heavy guard (unlike the gold vaults at Fort Knox)

Now, the Treasury has an equal and offsetting liability for these so called certificates. The net of the two entries is ZERO. Nada. Zip. Nothing.

You could print up some of these certificates, create a double entry set of books for yourself and take these certificates to the bank for a loan. The astute bank officer would say "but you show an equal liability completely offsetting the asset of the certificate, so there is actually no collateral to back up a loan with".

and there is nothing there to back up those promises with either.

Gore's lockbox? That we would run only surplus budgets, pay down some of the debt and be able to borrow more later to pay the promises with. Getting attacked on 9/11 helped change all of those assumptions.

The government has lied for decades about the Social Security Trust Fund, and its all lies. The money is gone.

But people are expecting the promise to be made good. There is a ton of suffering to come.

 

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_..._53/ai_53893712

Hey, this is the Kiplingers article about the so called trust fund certificates.

 

Mark:

The problem with any analysis performed by the gov is that you really don't have a means to examine the raw data - to perform remedial diagnostics - to determine the validity of any conclusions reached.

For example: ANOVA, F & T, Weibull, DFFITS, etc.

Since the raw data is studentized (Sorted, manipulated, and carefully massaged to present a simple answer to a complex input) without any explanation of *how* it's studentized (Outlier treatment, math used to fit, how slopes are handled, etc) I have no choice but to cast doubt on whatever conclusion is reached.

There are many examples in the field of applied research (Biomedical, materials science, production, etc) where research scientists have carefully manipulated data - sometimes in an overbearing way - to land more research funding. As detailed statistical diagnostics are time and money intensive, not every report gets subject to that sort of auditing.

If recent history is any indication, this whole thing about GM will either play out as an Enron style collapse or as a drawn-out implosion. I couldn't even begin to guess the stats as the numbers are too vague and I strongly suspect "forceful" studentization.

As a WAG, the odds of GM pulling an Enron are around 60%, their slow implosion around 40%. Your mileage may vary.

Jay

 

Frank:

Glad you brought up the "claw back" with CPP. Both my parents experience it, and an Aunt of mine here in Winnipeg does too.

Now on the surface, it sounds logical, right? Since you practiced fiscal restraint and austerity, made wise investments for your retirement, you can probably get by comfortably on your savings alone.

The thing is, the more you make - at least here in Canada - the more your deductions for CPP. So you end up paying for something you can never fully use.

The "claw back" in Canada is having the opposite effect they intended it to. Rather than encourage saving and austerity, many oldsters are really mad that they have to pay for people who won't even get off their fat a**. Do you blame them?

So the Savings rates have plummeted. Why bother if you get penalized for it? Much like folks who made maximum contributions to RRSP's: when they turned 65 they had to roll it over into a RIF and *then* you got nailed. Just another Ponzi Scheme.

Now the pension income is also taxed. Both my parents, and my Aunt, have to make hefty quarterly Installment payments to CCRA (Canada Customs and Revenue Agency) or they're in deep doo-doo.

Even more ironic, since both my parents lived and worked in the United States for around 25 years, is that they have to pay Canadian tax on American Social Security income! They thought they were being "honest" by declaring the Social Security on their Canadian return, as they were assured they wouldn't get taxed on it.

HA! So much for being honest!

 

Robert:

Much like how here in Canada, the Liberal Government has this mysterious "surplus" that is made up of EI (Employment Insurance) "over contributions."

Even the Auditor General Of Canada can't make sense of it. Of course, EI doesn't fall under ATIA (Access To Information Act) disclosure and reporting.